Demontech: Onslaught (9 page)

Spinner and Haft walked steadily for nearly two weeks after they slipped out of New Bally in the dark of night. For the first few days they stayed off the roads and skirted the villages they passed, coming close only when hunger and lack of edible game compelled them to risk buying food. Their stealth was prompted by the frequent Jokapcul cavalry patrols they saw during the first days, which they suspected were advance scouting parties for the Jokapcul army. They were soon glad Spinner had brought his copy of
Lord Gunny Says
. They were ship’s complement, not field Marines, and had no experience and only limited training on how to live off the land. Lord Gunny had the foresight to have experienced woodsmen write chapters for his manual on field-expedient shelter, edible wild plants, and trapping small game. Each evening, Spinner carefully fed the salamander and used it to light the fire over which they cooked their dinner.

When they hadn’t encountered any patrols for a few days, they decided to walk the roads in the interest of greater speed, getting off the road whenever they heard or saw someone approaching. Fortunately, that didn’t happen often enough to make road travel slower than off-road, or what Lord Gunny, in the manual Spinner carried with him, called “breaking bush.”

For those two days, they still skirted villages. The evening of the eighth day, a day during which they only had to move off the road once to hide from someone approaching, found them nearing a village. That night they stayed in the inn. The main language of the freeport of New Bally was Bostian. Like all Frangerian Marines, Spinner and Haft had picked up enough Bostian to be able to follow a simple conversation in that language. So it was that they heard from other travelers, who more accurately should be called refugees, horrible stories of Jokapcul rapine headed their way. Many of the locals wanted to flee before the invaders arrived. Others in the village weren’t talking, they were simply packing to leave.

So it went for the next two days: few stops to hide from someone coming their way, and nights spent in inns listening to rumors to which they didn’t contribute. As the rumors became wilder, Spinner and Haft felt a bit more secure. They knew their true nature; the farther away the source, the wilder the rumors. All they had to do to be safe was find their way to the next kingdom, and thence a route to the sea and Frangeria.

And so they got directions to the Kingdom of Skragland, northeast of the Duchy of Bostia. Their rough plan was to cross the lower part of Skragland until they could turn south into the Principality of Zobra and make their way to the port of Zobra City, there to find and sign aboard a ship heading east.

Even though they hadn’t seen or heard anyone since entering the forest on their eleventh day, that part of their journey was the most daunting so far. For men as accustomed as they were to the horizon-spanning vistas and unhampered breezes of the ocean, the sluggish air and the closeness of the trees hemming the road in on both sides were oppressive. Tree branches crossed the roadway overhead, blotting out the sky and making the road more a tunnel than a canyon through the forest. They wanted to get out of the forest quickly.

The road was merely an ox cart track, just wide enough for four men to walk abreast if their shoulders touched. If two ox carts approached each other on the road, well . . . Bushes grew between the trees and bulged out over the edges of the road. Save for infrequent deer crossings, there was hardly a space anywhere for even a man to step off the road and into the forest without breaking bush. The grass that grew in the middle of the track between the ruts was evidence that foot, ox cart, or horse traffic along the road was infrequent.

The two talked quietly between themselves in the manner of men who had walked long enough to be bored with walking. But still they were as alert as soldiers in enemy territory. Which, for all they knew, was exactly where they were. One subject they didn’t discuss, though, was the men they’d left behind in New Bally. Even though they both knew well that there was nothing they could have done to free the prisoners, they both felt guilt, felt they had abandoned their shipmates.

Haft abruptly cocked his head and listened intently. “Do you hear something?” he asked.

“Other than the birds and insects?” Spinner responded.

“Why else would I ask? Sounds like maybe there are horses on the road behind us.”

Spinner shook his head with mock sadness. “You’ve been at sea too long, my friend. The creaking of tackle and snapping of sails has you losing your hearing. I first heard those horses a good five minutes ago.”

Haft glared at Spinner. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“They’re only trotting, we have a little more time before they come into sight. Besides, I haven’t seen anyplace where we can get off the road without leaving sign of it.”

Haft turned and walked back a few paces to see what or who was following them, but he could see less than fifty paces to the rear because of the winding of the forest road. The jangle of harnesses sounded closer. A muttered oath drifted to his ears. “Do you think they’re looking for us?” he asked.

Spinner shook his head. “Of course not. Not this far away from New Bally. But even if they aren’t looking for us, if they’re Jokapcul they’d probably be happy to find us. And we probably wouldn’t be happy about it if they did.”

A space not clogged by a bush appeared ahead. Tracks and a similar opening in the brush on the other side of the road indicated that this was an animal crossing.

“This is what I’ve been looking for since I first heard the horses,” Spinner said. “Let’s see who they are.” Haft beat him through the gap.

It was at first too dark to see anything. Just a few feet away from the road the canopy was so dense that almost no sunlight reached the ground. Between the tree trunks, which were larger and not as closely packed as along the road, the forest floor was nearly barren.

Haft turned to the side to go in the opposite direction from which they had been walking and immediately jumped back, swearing and rubbing his thigh.

“Thorn bushes,” he muttered. “Be careful.”

He probed gingerly with his axe until he found the end of the thorn bushes and went around them. By then his eyes were adjusting to the darkness and he was able to avoid other thorns. He unslung his crossbow from his shoulder and strung it as he went. Spinner also readied his crossbow. If the followers were enemy soldiers, which was likely, and decided to investigate the deer gap, which was possible, they might be discovered. In that case, the two Marines would shoot and quickly reduce the odds against them. If they had to fight, they would probably have enough time to get off two quarrels apiece, perhaps even three, before the enemy closed to sidearm range.

Twenty paces from the game trail, they found a place where they could observe the road without being seen. They also thought they were invisible from the deer crossing through which they’d entered the trees. They were hardly settled in before the riders came into sight.

The horsemen were short, slender men with saffron skin and almond eyes. Their helmets were cone-shaped, slightly flattened from front to back, and bowed out over their ears. A leather sheet hanging from the bottom of the helmets covered the backs of their necks and tops of their shoulders. The helmets had stiff flaps that extended around the front to protect their throats. The bright blue leather was reinforced with small rectangles of shiny metal. They wore blue leather jerkins with shields attached that flared out over their shoulders. Short aprons hung down in the front and back. The jerkins and their flaps and aprons were reinforced with metal rectangles the same way the helmet flaps were. Chain mail covered their arms and thighs. Studded gloves and boots completed their armor. Across their backs, in a scabbard, each man wore a sword more than half as long as he was high, the hilt jutting above his left shoulder. Each held a short lance upright, with the lance’s butt anchored in a small cup in the toe of the right stirrup. Jokapcul light cavalry.

The horsemen rode two abreast, and a single man rode alone ten horse lengths ahead of the others. That one held his sword ready in his hand, his lance tucked beneath his thigh. He looked constantly from side to side, examining the woods he passed through. He stopped at the deer crossing, turned his horse to face it, and leaned forward in the saddle to peer into the darkness under the trees.

The officer leading the squad stopped his column and waited for the scout to report. Even if he hadn’t given the order to halt, Spinner and Haft would have recognized him as the leader by the scarlet plume that flounced above his helmet and the emerald pennant hanging from his lance. And they knew, if he was a Jokapcul leader, he was an officer, not a sergeant. In the Jokapcul army, sergeants assisted officers, but they never themselves led except in garrison. Unlike the Frangerian Marines, who often had small units led by sergeants or corporals, in the Jokapcul army even the smallest unit had an officer in charge if it was to do anything more than post guards.

The scout barked something at the officer, and the officer advanced. The other men stayed behind. Their horses snorted and pawed the ground. One horse stepped to the side to nibble on a bush almost directly in front of Spinner and Haft. Haft shouldered his crossbow and aimed at the horseman’s face. But the horseman didn’t look into the bushes, didn’t see the death that stared at him; he watched his officer and the scout.

He carried something more than the standard weapons, something that made Spinner and Haft grow weak when they saw it. Slung from a cord around his neck and one shoulder, a tube hung down his side. It was a dull greenish-gray that sharply contrasted with the brilliant colors of his leather armor. Both ends of the tube were flanged. An awkward-looking hand grip protruded from it forward of the midpoint. The two had seen drawings of it; it was called a demon spitter. The weapon was said to be more accurate and longer-ranged than a longbow, and to strike with such violence it could knock a hole in a stone wall.

The two men began to shrink deeper into the shadows. They froze when a small door just behind the hand grip flipped open and a small head popped out. They couldn’t see the body the head was attached to, but it looked like nothing so much as that of a flat-faced bat.

“Veedmee!”
it said.

When the soldier carrying the tube ignored it, the creature climbed out through the door and onto the soldier’s shoulder.

“Veedmee!”

The soldier kept his attention on the scout and officer, who were still examining the animal crossing, and casually waved a hand at the demon, almost as if he was waving at an annoying fly.

“Veedmee!”
the demon shrilled angrily.

The soldier snapped something that sounded negative, then turned his head to look at the demon and poked a thumb toward the tube. The demon bit the thumb and the soldier yelped, more in surprise than pain.

The soldier began to slap at the demon, but before his hand reached it, his head snapped toward the officer, who’d barked a question. He shouted back and jabbed a finger toward the demon, careful to keep the finger out of biting range.

The officer said something incomprehensible, but it was clearly a command, and the soldier barked one syllable in reply, then turned his head and growled at the demon. He reached into a pouch on his belt. As soon as the demon saw him going for the pouch, it scuttled back to the tube and crawled inside, then turned around and poked its head back out. It piped joyful noises as the soldier held something the size of a grape before it. The demon snatched the thing from the soldier’s fingers and ducked back inside, pulling the door shut so fast it almost snapped shut on the soldier’s fingers.

The soldier muttered a few more growls at the demon in the tube, then returned his attention to the scout and the officer. A few of the other soldiers were looking at him, snickering. He glared at them and they looked forward again, some very slowly in what was almost a challenge.

After a few seconds the body of the horsemen started to drift forward, curious to see what had caught the eye of their scout. Soon they were all milling about, crowded together at the crossing. The officer barked a couple of times and growled a few more, but didn’t press the issue, and the horsemen briefly danced aside, then ignored his orders.

Haft put his mouth to Spinner’s ear and whispered, “We can do it, we can take them. First we get the one with the demon spitter. We can shoot at least half of them before they even realize they’re being attacked. Maybe we can get all of them before any of them can close to lance range. Even if they do, their lances are too long to use in the forest. Let’s do it.” He backed away and aimed his crossbow at the soldier with the demon spitter.

Spinner also thought they could take the nine horsemen without too much danger to themselves, but it felt like a bad idea. It took him a half second to realize what was wrong with Haft’s plan. He put his hand on the other’s crossbow and forced it down.

“They’re probably expected somewhere. When they don’t show up, there’ll be a search and we’ll be found,” he whispered.

“We’ll drag all the bodies well under the trees. It’ll take them a long time to find the bodies. We can be far from here by then,” Haft whispered back, and raised his crossbow again.

Spinner pushed it back down. “What about their horses? What if one of them gets away? He’ll lead them right back here with a large force to hunt us down. Or what if another picks up the demon spitter and uses it?”

Before Haft could object a second time, the scout dismounted and stepped into the gap. Both readied their crossbows; Haft aimed at the one with the demon spitter, Spinner at the officer.

The scout squinted at the darkness into which he’d stepped. He squinted at the ground near his feet. He barked at his officer, and the officer barked back at him.

The scout growled low to himself and peered blindly about. He took a step to the side, then jumped back with a yelp and smacked a hand against his thigh. Clearly, he’d discovered the thornbushes. The officer growled at him and barked a couple of times. The scout growled to himself, peered around again, barked at his officer. The officer growled back. The scout looked relieved as he turned around and went back out onto the trail. The officer barked at the squad and they got back into formation, with the scout again ten horse lengths ahead. Another bark and they trotted away.