Demontech: Onslaught (22 page)

It wasn’t until the dinner hour that anyone came out from under the trees: a merchant, three helpers, and five bound people.

One of the helpers ran ahead to the inn. He came back out in a moment with a short, bandy-legged man wearing a drab cloak with a cowl pulled over his head. The bandy-legged man moved with a grace and confidence that was a startling contrast to his common-looking clothing and his short stature; he moved as though he should be wearing regal finery. Instead of walking toward the approaching merchant, he and the helper angled toward the fortresslike outbuilding. The merchant with his other helpers and the five prisoners also went toward the outbuilding.

“New slaves being brought in,” Spinner said. He grabbed Haft’s arm to keep him from rushing off to rescue the new slaves.

“But we’ve got to do something about this,” Haft grumbled. “We have to free them.”

“We will. Tonight. I swear.” Spinner had studied the short man as well as he could, but the distance was too great for him to make out anything but his overall shape and the way he carried himself. He was sure he hadn’t seen the man in the common room last night; his form and his confident attitude were too distinctive to be missed. Still, he thought there was something familiar about him. It took a couple of moments for him to realize what it was. “He’s the slavemaster,” he said. “The Golden Girl told me the slavemaster is a Jokapcul swordmaster. That man has the size of a Jokapcul and the movement of a natural swordsman. He has the key to the anklets. We have to find out where his room is.”

“How are we going to do that?”

Spinner shook his head; he didn’t have any idea. He wondered if the two of them together could stand up to the man, but he didn’t look forward to finding out. He also wondered where the men-at-arms the Golden Girl had mentioned were—and how many there might be.

After a few minutes the merchant and his men emerged from the slaveholding building. The helpers rushed ahead, evidently looking forward to the comforts of the inn. The merchant followed more slowly; he was counting money. A few minutes more and the slavemaster came out. He made certain the stout door was firmly barred, then returned to the inn.

Soon, another merchant emerged from the south side of the forest, again with helpers and slaves. The slavemaster went into the outbuilding with them as well. That merchant was also counting money when he left the slave-holding building. The slavemaster stayed inside. A while later and two merchants with seven helpers and nearly two score slaves came from the forest and went into the outbuilding.

“I wonder how many slaves are in there,” Spinner said softly.

“We’ve seen half a hundred or more delivered,” Haft replied.

“And we didn’t see any leave. There were merchants at the inn last night, they must have brought in slaves yesterday. How many did they bring? They must still be in that building.”

Haft looked at the building and frowned. Several hundred people would make that building very crowded. He shuddered to think what it must be like inside. “We’ve been watching all day. Nobody has taken in food or brought out slops,” he said.

“Maybe they don’t feed them. Maybe they make the slaves stay in their own waste.”

Haft cringed, then grew more resolute. “I look forward to killing these fiends tonight.”

Spinner nodded but made no comment. He didn’t look forward to the raid, and wouldn’t until he knew how they were going to carry it out. And even then he might not look forward to it.

The dinner hour came and went. Spinner and Haft ate another cold meal. The road past the inn began to fill with men on foot and horse, locals and soldiers coming to the inn for the evening’s entertainment. Windows lighted up on the inn’s upper floors. Through one on the second floor they saw the slavemaster enter a room. Two men were with him and they wore what were obviously uniforms, though neither Haft nor Spinner recognized the army they represented. Not until the last man in closed the door did the slavemaster take off his cowled cloak. Now they could see his face, even though they still couldn’t make out details. By the color of his skin he was certainly Jokapcul. His garb was utilitarian, the kind of clothing a man would wear if he knew he was going to be outside, perhaps the kind of clothes a man would wear if he expected bloody action.

“Last night in the common room I saw several men in that uniform,” Spinner said. The uniforms were brown and green, indicating that their army moved in forests and probably hunted brigands. The only distinctive part of the uniforms was orange epaulettes. Spinner thought back, seeking details from his memory. “There were three at one table, two at another. I may have missed some, I don’t know. At least two of them noted our uniforms and saluted us with their flagons.”

The slavemaster appeared to give his men instructions, then the two bowed and left the room. The slavemaster moved to a part of the room that was out of their sight.

“Now we can make a plan,” Haft said. “We know where the slavemaster sleeps, we know where to find the key, and we know how to recognize his men-at-arms.”

Spinner nodded. “Now let’s go and see what there is behind the trees to the south.” He looked at the slave-holding outbuilding. “And after that, take a closer look at that place.”

South of the clearing they found a wagon park skillfully hidden under the trees. All of the underbrush was cleared from an area almost half the size of the inn’s glade. Many of the trees in the park had been felled as well, but they were felled selectively. The trees that were left standing were those whose tops formed the canopy. Anyone looking down on the valley from the ridge sides would see only a continual sea of treetops and never guess at the existence of this park. While the remaining foliage overhead blocked most of the direct sunlight, it was not as dark there as elsewhere under the trees.

Half a dozen wagons stood horseless side by side between the mouths of two roads that emptied into the park from the south. At least two more roads entered the park—one from the east, one from the west. There were no obvious openings into the park—not even a footpath—from its north side, the direction of the inn. Two corrals held thirty or so horses, another corral was empty. Near the corrals there was a wood-frame building far larger than needed by the one hostler they saw tending the horses; smoke rising from the building’s chimney flowed into an inverted tub, from which radiated an elaborate arrangement of tubes that led the smoke to far places, where it was diffused through the treetops. No pillar of smoke could rise to show a fire below.

Haft hefted his axe. “We can strike our first blow against the slavers here,” he said softly. They squatted behind bushes left standing at the edge of the clearing, and peered through its branches.

“No,” Spinner said.

“Why not? One man, he’d be easy to take.”

“For several reasons,” Spinner said slowly as he continued to examine the hidden park. “First, more slave traders may yet come before nightfall. They’ll raise an alarm if they don’t find him. They will surely raise an alarm if they find him dead. In either case, if an alarm is sounded too soon, we won’t be able to free the slaves. Second, there are probably more hostlers, maybe even guards, in the building. Third, there may be watch-sprites we haven’t spotted who would see and report us if we enter the clearing.” He paused deep in thought for a moment, and Haft started looking around for any sign of watch-sprites. “And last,” Spinner finally said, “do we really know that a man who is merely caring for horses deserves to die for the crimes of those who own the horses?”

Haft stopped looking for watch-sprites and looked at Spinner. “If he knows he’s helping slavers, doesn’t that make him guilty as well?”

“Possibly,” was as much as Spinner would commit himself. Though he thought Haft’s argument had merit, he didn’t feel like discussing the philosophical differences between slave trading and working for slave traders. And he was more interested in freeing the slaves and getting away safely than in killing the helpers. “Or he might be a slave himself and have no choice in the matter. But regardless of his possible guilt, there are too many risks involved in killing that hostler now. I’ve seen enough here.” He scuttled backward.

A corner of Haft’s mouth twitched at Spinner’s unwillingness to kill this helper of slavers, but he backed off as well. If the hostler was a slave, he shouldn’t be killed.

They had stayed well inside the forest while making their way from where they’d observed the inn, but while they were examining the hidden park the sun dipped below the western ridge leaving the valley in shadow, even though the sky above was still day blue. Going back, they skirted the edge of the clearing, just inside the trees. They stopped once when they saw a man in the robes of a magician’s apprentice come out of the woods on the west side of the glade.

The apprentice carried a metal container by a handle on its top. From the way the apprentice tilted to one side as he carried the container, it was obviously heavy. The apprentice went directly to the troll hut, where he put the container down and pulled a large ring of keys from a pocket of his robe. The apprentice unlocked and opened the door, picked up his container, and closed the door behind him when he entered the hut. After a few moments the troll stopped its rumbling and metallic noises came from inside the hut.

Haft poked Spinner. “Remember? When we were in the bath, you said you thought the troll stopped its rumbling for a short while?”

Spinner nodded; yes, he remembered very well.

“Do you think the apprentice is feeding the troll?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t think of what else he might be doing.”

Shortly, the metallic noises stopped, and a moment later the troll’s rumble began anew. The apprentice came back out and locked the door. His step was much lighter going back to the woods to the west of the glen than when he came in, and he swung the container lightly at his side.

“Now we know where the magician lives,” Spinner said when the apprentice was out of sight.

“What good does it do us to know where the magician lives?”

Spinner merely shook his head. He knew that commanders on military operations always had to know more things than they ever used, simply to make sure there wasn’t something they needed to know or do that they didn’t. Then he grinned and looked at Haft. “It tells us what way not to go when we leave here.”

Haft grunted. That didn’t sound to him like enough reason to bother with. And it didn’t tell them how far away the magician lived, which he thought might be a worthwhile thing to know; the farther away, the longer it would take the magician to arrive if he decided to investigate what happened later that night.

No one else was in sight moving about the glade, so Spinner and Haft continued circling close to it. When they reached the spot where the forest came closest to the slave barn, they stopped.

“We may as well see if we can find out how many are in there,” Haft said.

Spinner didn’t reply. He was thinking about how to free those slaves later on. He said, “While we’re doing that, we can check the door and find out how securely it’s barred.”

Haft crouched over, darted from the trees, and ran straight to the back of the slave barn. Spinner followed close behind.

They hunkered down against the back wall of the barn. Looking up, they made out narrow windows tucked up under the eaves. The stench that filled their nostrils came in the air carried down from those small windows—but it felt as though the fetid aroma oozed through the very walls.

“They do make them live in their slops!” Haft said. “It smells like the slops are never removed.” He was very angry, and his voice showed it.

“Maybe there’s a slops pit just on the other side of this wall,” Spinner said, but he didn’t believe it. He understood how Haft felt; he wanted to strike out at someone himself. He thought of the Golden Girl being held there when she was first brought to The Burnt Man.

From inside the building they heard the low keening of someone trying desperately not to cry. Several other voices failed in an attempt not to cry. Someone else moaned, yet another wailed.

Haft raised a fist to pound on the wall to get the attention of the imprisoned people inside; he wanted to tell them they would be free before morning. Spinner saw the motion, grabbed Haft’s wrist and held his hand back.

“Don’t,” he said. “There may be guards inside.”

“Then let’s go inside now and kill them,” Haft whispered harshly.

“We can’t do anything here until we’ve dealt with those inside the inn,” Spinner said.

Haft jerked his wrist from Spinner’s grip but made no further attempt to strike the wall.

“Now let’s examine the front,” Spinner said. The sky was almost as dark as night, and the moon was several hours from rising, so the darkness they crept through along the side of the building was almost complete. Ahead of them, glowing windows showed where the inn was. In the lead, Spinner saw someone, probably Master Yoel, peering intently out a window that looked like it was in the kitchen. The innkeeper turned to say something to someone out of sight, then peered out again; he seemed to be searching both the glade and the ridge to the west.

It was fortunate that he paused to look at the innkeeper for a cold light flooded the front of the slave barn then. Spinner instinctively stepped back into Haft before he froze in place. Haft froze as well when the front of the barn lit up—except for his eyes, which darted everywhere looking for danger, and his hand, which adjusted its grip on the axe. But where they were the side of the slave barn remained in darkness, so no one ran at them with weapons raised, no cry of alarm sounded.

“What is that awful light?” Haft asked with a tremor in his voice.

“Wait here,” Spinner replied. He lowered himself to his belly and slithered to the corner of the slave barn. He lay his head on its side in the dirt at the corner of the barn and inched far enough forward that he could see the front. Hanging on a wrought-iron arm above the barn door was a globe that hadn’t been visible from their hiding place on the ridge. The globe glared with an internal light so bright it illuminated the front of the barn almost like day.