Demontech: Gulf Run (30 page)

“Men of the Earl’s Guards,” he finally said, ceasing his rocking, “you’ve done well. Nobody ever expected you to be fighting soldiers, but you stood ready to do your duty if the battle came to you. The fight didn’t come to you tonight. Perhaps it will this morning. Whether it comes again today or not, it
will
come. It doesn’t matter if you are here, farther to the east or to the north. It matters not if you are to the west of here. Or,” he looked at them hard, “if you are with the army that is growing around you or on your own elsewhere—the battle will come to you. When it does, I know you will stand your ground and acquit yourselves well. Because the alternative to standing is a most ignominious death, cut down from behind while attempting to run away like cowards.

“These people all around you,” he waved his arm to indicate the people in and under the wagons, “all depend on you, their very lives depend on you standing fast and fighting fiercely no matter who attacks. And you will stand fast and fight the enemy. Fight him and win, because you are brave men, though you are doing something you never expected to do.

“So, men of the Earl’s Guards, I thank you. And rest assured, Lords Spinner and Haft thank you as well. We all know we will be able to depend on you when the worst comes to pass.”

He stood erect and, even though he didn’t wear a uniform, raised his fist to his chest in salute. He held the salute until one, then another, and finally all of them thumped their fists to their chests. Only then did he cut his salute and face about.

“We’ll see if I did any good,” he murmured to Armana just before he marched away.

“I think maybe you did,” Armana murmured to his back. “They’re standing straighter and look a touch more grim than bunnylike.”

Fletcher looked around at the wagons, hoping he’d given some measure of heart and hope to the refugees who needed the Earl’s Guards to defend them, then turned into the middle of the great circle, where he heard a large number of people moving, to offer what comfort and guidance he could—or issue orders if necessary.

The Earl’s Guards were still standing straighter and looking a touch more grim than bunnylike, listening to the not-distant-enough sounds of battle punctuated by the explosions of demon spitters and flares of Phoenix Eggs, when they heard a woman’s scream.

Veduci was in the lead when he and his men reached the circle where he knew bel Yfir huddled against the night’s cold. He dimly saw the silhouettes of men standing in formation and stopped outside the circle.

“Wait,” he whispered, and signaled his men to lay down so they wouldn’t be seen. “You,” he whispered to the nearest. “Intercept Zlokinech, tell him to stay until I give the all clear.” The bandit scuttled away. Veduci looked carefully to be sure the three bandits carrying the small treasure chests lay with the rest, then crouched and darted to the corner of the nearest wagon in the circle. He peered cautiously around the corner and recognized the banty silhouette of Lieutenant Armana.

The Earl’s Guards, he thought, and mentally snorted. He knew they weren’t real fighting men. Even though they outnumbered his men by nearly two to one, his men were practiced killers, where the Earl’s Guards were mere brawlers, so he didn’t fear them. But if he and his men entered the circle, that Armana might challenge them and make the Earl’s Guards fight. The sound of the fight might then bring real soldiers. He didn’t delude himself, he knew his men wouldn’t stand their ground to fight real soldiers. It would be best if he could find bel Yfir and quietly spirit her away.

But exactly where was she? He knew she was in this part of the caravan, but he hadn’t managed to come by the evening before to see where she lay whatever bedroll she’d been allowed. He doubted that any of the refugees would have let her enter their wagons—unless she agreed to share the bedroll of an unmarried man, which he doubted she would agree to. So she must be under one of the wagons. But which one?

He began searching.

Bel Yfir listened to Fletcher speak to the Earl’s Guards and spat in a most unladylike manner. She knew they wouldn’t stand and fight, no matter what anybody said. Had they been men enough to fight, she and the other concubines wouldn’t have been stripped of their dignity and forced to walk like common
trollops
—and in naught but their
shifts
, for all those commoners to gleefully gape and laugh at!

She drew her blanket closer around herself and shifted position again, up from curling babelike on the ground to huddled half upright against a wheel. Not that changing her position did any good. When she lay down, the very ground leached warmth from her body. When she sat propped against a wagon wheel or tongue, more of her was exposed to the relentless, chilling wind and the grit it bore.

She didn’t
have
to be out here, exposed to the elements with nothing more than a blanket to shield her from the cold and wind. And the blanket was but
one
layer of wool, instead of two layers properly filled with goose down! She
could
have been inside that wagon over there, where the tanner’s family lay snug and warm. But only if she lay with the tanner’s beastly bachelor brother.

As if
she
, the favorite concubine of the
Earl
of Dartmutt, would lower herself to laying with a mere
commoner
—a smelly, uncouth
brute
of a
peasant
with a
wen
on his face!

Why, the tanner and his family should by all that was right have vacated their wagon and
given
it to her—and taken that brother with them!

Oooh, but she would exact vengeance on those impertinent Frangerians who did this to her. Them and that
insufferably
arrogant gilded lady!

She spat most unladylike again. Gilded
lady
, indeed. Painted
trollop
was more like it!

A touch! Stiffer than the wind, smoother than the blowing sand, the touch jolted a gasp from her and spun her about, flattening her shoulders to the ground, eyes staring startled beyond the circle.

“
Hush, lady!
Don’t be afraid,” whispered a half-familiar voice.

Bel Yfir’s eyes refocused from the mid-distance to less than two feet from her nose. She could make out no details of the deeply shadowed face before her, but the shape of the head and the hat joined with the voice to bring a name to her lips: “Veduci?”

“The very,” he whispered. “Quiet. The Desert Men will return, but come and I will rescue you.” He wrapped a hand around her arm and pulled as he duck-walked backward. She resisted, but went with him.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered.

“Away—to safety. Away before the Desert Men come back.”

In the distance she heard the clangor of battle. It sounded closer than it had a short time earlier. She began to straighten, but Veduci tugged down on her arm and she returned to a crouch.

“Keep low, lady. We dare not be seen.”

“Let go.” She tugged to free her arm. “I will go back and get the Earl’s Guards. They will obey me and kill that corporal. They will come to escort us, we will be safer with armed men.” Just that fast, she forgot her earlier thoughts of the Earl’s Guards’ worthlessness as soldiers.

Veduci easily held his grip on her arm. “I have armed men to escort you ladies, better fighters than the Earl’s Guards.” He couldn’t keep the contempt he held for the Earl’s Guards out of his voice.

“They are sworn to protect me and the other concubines. Do you already have them? We must all go. With our handmaids.”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “They’re all there. Everyone’s waiting. Let’s go.” He tugged hard enough to overtip her balance so she almost fell forward.

“I want my sworn guards.”

“Your sworn guards are worthless,” he snarled. Now that they were far enough away from the wagons, he turned about and rose almost to his full height, pulling hard enough on her arm that she fell forward and let out a shocked squeak.

“Quiet!” He turned back and lifted her bodily. “Come along or I’ll carry you.”

Stunned and bewildered, she scampered to keep up with his suddenly brisk pace. In moments they closed on a shadowy mass that resolved itself into a group of people recumbent or squatting. Two or three of them moved in small jerks. Looking closer, she saw they were women—bound and gagged!

Bel Yfir screamed.

“What?” Captain Phard exclaimed when he heard the clanging of steel on steel a couple of hundred yards to his northwest. He peered intently in the direction of the noise, but saw only shadows at that distance. Were the Desert Men attacking the caravan again? Had some Jokapcul slipped around and attacked? And which refugee troops were they fighting?

He looked back along the road and saw nothing he hadn’t seen every other time he’d looked—no one was coming that way.

“First platoon, on me!” he barked.

A dozen Bloody Axes broke from their defensive positions and formed up in two ranks in front of him. He swore, most of his Bloody Axes were in the fight out on the desert.

“Second platoon, up!” he barked. Two squads worth of Kingsmen trotted over and formed next to the Bloody Axes.

“Lieutenant Krysler!”

“Sir!” came the voice of a former corporal promoted to platoon commander.

“Take command here while I check out what’s happening up there.”

“Yessir!”

“First and second platoons, let’s go!” Phard began trotting toward the nearby battle. The Bloody Axes and Kingsmen matched pace with him, one group to either side.

The Earl’s Guards recognized the voice that screamed—bel Yfir, the earl’s favorite! The woman they’d most been charged to protect. Unthinking, they broke ranks and ran to her aid. Lieutenant Armana roared out in his best parade ground voice for them to hold, to stand fast, but they ignored him. They may have been little more than tavern brawlers as fighting men, but they had been drilled endlessly on coming to the aid of the concubines, so they didn’t hesitate in running to the rescue when they heard bel Yfir scream in distress.

Armana cursed and raced after them. Maybe they’d follow his orders when the fighting started and not all of them would get killed.

They didn’t have to go far. Veduci and his people were less than fifty yards away from the circle. They were on their feet and beginning to head west when the earl’s men fell on them.

“ATTACK!” Veduci bellowed. He dropped bel Yfir, whom he had bound, gagged, and thrown over his shoulder, and drew his sword. He put words to action and charged. The other bandits dropped their burdens, screamed battle cries and followed.

“Steady, lads!” Armana had shouted as he forced his way into the middle of the Earl’s Guards. “Ready,
arms
!”

Some of the Earl’s Guards paused in their headlong rush to flash their swords up to the ready and got on a proper line.

“At a walk,
advance
!” Armana bellowed. The Earl’s Guards who had obeyed his first command obeyed this one as well. An instant later the other Earl’s Guards were within striking distance of the bandits, and the bandits met them with furious steel. Several of the Earl’s Guards crumpled with gushing wounds, the rest stumbled back fearfully.

“CHARGE!” Armana roared. The Earl’s Guards with him ran forward and stabbed as Armana and Sergeant Rammer had drilled them. Four of the bandits were thrown back by their momentum; the swords that stung them were withdrawn, leaving gaping wounds in their wake. Armana swung his axe in a downward arc from right to left. The bandit he hit screeched to a shuddering halt, as though he’d run into a wall, then dropped like a stone, with blood spurting from the gap where his left shoulder used to meet his neck.

The Earl’s Guards who had run forward and been thrown, reeling back, reacted to Armana’s continuing shouted orders and fell in with the rest of their platoon. They began to use their swords the way they’d been taught in the earl’s fencing training, and four more bandits fell wounded. The few remaining jumped back to regroup.

“Steady, lads!” Armana shouted. “We’ve got them. On my mark, advance!” He stepped forward and the Earl’s Guards went with him, in a disciplined formation.

“You’ve got
nothing
!” Veduci shrilled back, unwilling to recognize that a rabble of tavern brawlers was fighting as a disciplined platoon and had already defeated his men.

“Now!” Armana bellowed, and his men struck again with disciplined stabs and chops, taking down more of the bandits as they tried to flee.

By the time Captain Phard and his pickup platoon of Bloody Axes and Kingsmen pounded up to the melee, all of the bandit men and five of their women lay on the ground, bleeding or dead—some of the women had picked up weapons and attacked when they saw their men down. The Dartmutt treasure chests lay where they’d been dropped, and the women the bandits had attempted to kidnap were huddled together. Someone had unbound bel Yfir and they had untied the others. The rest of the bandit women were ready to flee with their children, but had nowhere to go.

And there was no longer anything bunnylike about the blooded Earl’s Guards. It wasn’t a pitched battle they’d fought, nor was it against fierce warriors or skilled soldiers. But it was a deadlier battle than any of them had ever expected to be in, and they’d come through it victorious—and those who had obeyed Armana’s orders came through unscathed.

The Dartmutter Earl’s Guards were now more than merely street brawlers decked out as ceremonial troops.

When she saw that the wounded and dead no longer needed her attention, Alyline, with Doli and Maid Primrose in tow, inspected the circles of wagons on the southern side of the great circle, making sure the women, children, and other noncombatants were all right. Men, mostly farmers and tradesmen, nervously manned the makeshift barriers formed by the wagons. There were weapons about; a few swords, some bows with filled quivers, battle-axes. But these men weren’t trained in their use, and most felt more comfortable holding implements they were accustomed to: axes, cleavers, hammers, knives, a few scythes. Poor tools to use against trained soldiers, but, the Golden Girl thought, perhaps better to use than something unfamiliar.