Demontech: Gulf Run (11 page)

“If you don’t need your tongue, I’m sure we’ve got a dog that would like it,” he said in his best harbor Zobran.

Haft’s best harbor Zobran was good enough. The man started talking so fast his words had trouble getting out past each other.

“Slow down,” Plotniko said in the Dartmutter dialect, patting the air. “Take a deep breath and start again.”

It took a couple of tries, but the man breathed deeply and began speaking less rapidly. Haft turned to hide a smile and moved a few steps away. “He understood me well enough,” he said in an aside to Spinner.

Spinner nodded but didn’t take his attention from the man.

Plotniko and the Dartmutter exchanged words, more from Plotniko, reluctantly from the man, then Plotniko said, “He says his name is bal Stanga, that he’s a minor functionary in the castle.” He looked back at the man. “As richly as he’s dressed, I think he’s more than a ’minor’ functionary. He says he was just out for a ride, enjoying the fine day.” He shook his head. “But he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell me where his horse is.” He snorted. “Or explain why he’s not dressed for riding.” Indeed, the blue and red brocade robe the man wore hung like a dress and was far too stiff to allow him to straddle a horse.

“Ask him,” Jatke interjected, “if he was riding with the wagons and soldiers we saw parked along the road a quarter mile north of here.”

“Wagons?” Alyline exclaimed.

“Soldiers?” Haft yelped.

“What soldiers?” Spinner demanded.

“My apologies, Lord Spinner, Lord Haft.” Jatke bowed. “He was just inside the forest, watching the Jokapcul enter the city, when we found him. But before that we followed a track north from here to where it met another road. Six heavily laden wagons were pulled under the trees and the horses tethered on a picket line. Several tents were set up. A small guard of soldiers, maybe twenty of them, guarded the wagons and people—they weren’t very alert. We followed the road and found him alone at the edge of the trees.”

“What people?” Alyline interrupted. “Tell me about them.”

“I saw about a dozen, mostly women with a few children, but there may have been more in the tents. They wore travel cloaks and could have been any travelers, but flashes of fine garments under the hems of the robes made me think they are the families of wealthy merchants or, more likely, courtiers.”

“How long have they been there?” Spinner asked.

“Not long,” Jatke said. “Probably only a few hours. The ground wasn’t as much disturbed as it would be had they camped there for long.”

Spinner nodded and looked at Plotniko. “Ask him about them.”

Before Plotniko finished his question, bal Stanga raised his hands and face to the sky and wailed. He dropped to his knees and nearly fell when the stiff brocade didn’t fold as quickly as his knees did. He hid his face in his hands and burbled into them. Plotniko squatted, put a comforting hand on his shoulder and spoke in a reassuring tone. After a couple of moments bal Stanga lifted his tear-stained face from his hands and started talking.

Plotniko chuckled when the man finally stopped. “He asked if we were going to kill him. It took a bit to assure him, but then he started telling me about the travelers. He says they’re the earl’s family and a few retainers. The earl sent them out of the city this morning so they would have a chance to escape if the Jokapcul came.”

Haft snorted. “Where did he think they could go to the southwest? The Jokapcul have everything in that direction.”

Plotniko asked, then translated the answer. “They came this way so none of the refugees would think they were fleeing. Some miles to the west, that road intercepts a trade road between upper Zobra and the Low Desert. They are to follow it north. The earl has friends in the Low Desert who he believes will care for them.”

Haft snorted. “Typical aristocrats. Sneak around to save themselves and leave the common folk to be slaughtered.” Nobody replied; most agreed and didn’t think it needed to be said.

Spinner thought for a moment. “I think we need to talk to them,” he said abruptly. “Who is the highest ranking person in that party?”

Plotniko asked bal Stanga, then said, “He is.”

“He’s only a minor functionary, yet he’s higher ranking than anyone in the earl’s family?” Haft said in mock surprise.

The master carpenter gestured at the brocaded robe. “Chamberlain, majordomo. Someone important,” he said dryly.

Spinner looked around. Fletcher stood nearby watching, as did the two groups of soldiers who had gone with them to the east.

“Haft, get the Royal Lancers and Blood Swords. We’ll take them along with the Bloody Axes and Prince’s Swords to visit these Dartmutters. I’m sure their wagons have things we can use. Fletcher, stay here and see to the defense.”

“Turning bandit, are we?” Alyline asked acidly.

Spinner looked at her levelly. “The people are welcome to come with us. If they choose not to, they probably won’t need their goods for very long anyway. Would you rather the Jokapcul took their possessions along with their lives, possessions we could put to good use?”

She turned her back on him and angrily crossed her arms under her breasts.

“Plotniko, you come too—and bring bal Stanga.”

Haft quickly returned with the soldiers Spinner wanted and they moved out. Spinner knew better than to tell Alyline to stay behind.

Captain bal Ofursti of the Earl’s Guard paced twenty yards along the road, spun about, paced back twenty yards, spun and paced again. His red cloak flopped out behind him, exposing a cerulean-blue jerkin and trousers and the bits of armor that covered his chest and shins; a saber with a finely wrought basket hilt banged in its filigreed scabbard against his thigh as he paced. His eyes were fixed on the ground a man’s length before his feet, his hands clasped tightly behind his back under the cloak.

He muttered as he paced, cursing the fate that had him nursemaiding the earl’s whores and their get. There were hundreds, maybe
thousands
of soldiers from broken armies among the refugee masses camped outside Dartmutt’s walls. He and his men should be
there
, he thought, organizing those soldiers into a proper fighting force, able to take on the Jokapcul when they arrived—and they would arrive, no doubt of that. But
no
, the earl sent him away with his concubines and their sprats and maids-in-waiting and—and that
popinjay
, that court butler bal Stanga. That man was good for nothing but looking important and announcing the names of supplicants seeking audience with the earl. Why, he wasn’t even significant enough to announce important visitors! Take them to Wuzzlefump, or whatever his name was, that Low Desert bandit chief the earl was foolish enough to count as friend. Fuzzlewump will care for them until I can send for them, the earl insisted.

Bal Ofursti snorted. As if Muzzlekrump would treat them as anything other than hostages to be held for ransom! Why, he had half a mind to leave the royal trollops here and take his guards in search of an army that was still resisting the invaders.

Hmm. Or … Actually, the women were pretty good looking, every one of them. Maybe he should parcel them out among his men and take them along. That bel Hrofa-Upp was
really
good looking, and she smiled so sweetly everytime she caught him looking at her. Yes, claim her for himself,
then
parcel the others out.

He had just about convinced himself to do that when bal Stanga called his name. What was that fool doing coming out of the trees on the east side of the road? And who were those two men who flanked him? And those other half doz … twenty, thir … How many men
were
there? All those
armed
men?

All of them soldiers—and of different armies! He recognized some of the uniforms. There were Skraglander Bloody Axes. Zobran Royal Lancers. And the two flanking bal Stanga—Frangerian Marines?—looking like nothing so much as prison guards, and the earl’s butler their prisoner? He dismissed as a figment of his imagination the half-naked golden woman behind them.

He scanned quickly right to left—and saw no officer. Were these renegades, cut off from their own forces, fleeing the Jokapcul, turned to banditry? They must be! Where were his men? Were they in position to fight off these—gods, there were so many!—brigands? They had to protect the earl’s consorts and their handmaidens! But he didn’t have enough men to defend against this force. Could he bluff them?

Of course he could! He was an officer, and they had none.

Captain bal Ofursti drew himself to attention and boomed in his best parade ground voice, “What is the meaning of this?” Behind him he heard the rustle of hurried movement and the clanking of weapons as his men suddenly realized the threat and formed up to fight, and squeals and running feet as the women and children ran in search of hiding places.

A man he hadn’t noticed before, a townsman of some sort by his garb who stood behind bal Stanga, said something, and one of the Frangerians, the one with the wicked-looking axe, nudged the butler.

“Ah, Captain bal Ofursti,” bal Stanga said in a voice far less self-important than the one he used to announce supplicants in the earl’s court. He cleared his throat and resumed, though still not in his normal court voice. “I fear Dartmutt is taken. I saw with my own eyes the sea wall collapse under assault from demon weapons.”

The Frangerian with the staff said something to the townsman, who in turn spoke to bal Stanga.

“Ah, yes.” The butler cleared his throat again. “These—These soldiers are escorting a large refugee caravan. They, ah, they have need of our wagons.” He swallowed and hung his head sheepishly. “They say we are welcome to join them, as Dartmutt is almost taken and t’would be folly for us to return thence.”

Bal Ofursti’s eyes widened. Was this, after all, a part of the resisting army he’d hoped for?

“I wish to speak to their commander. Where is he?” A feminine bark of laughter jerked his eyes a few yards to the side of the townsman and he almost missed what the butler said next because his eyes hadn’t fooled him, there really
was
a beautiful, half-naked, golden woman standing there!

“Ah,” bal Stanga shook his head, “these gentlemen are the commanders.” He lifted his hands to indicate the Frangerians who flanked him like prison guards.

He forced his eyes away from the woman and, with an effort of will, pulled the dignity of his rank about himself. He leaned forward and peered at the two men flanking bal Stanga. Frangerian ships made port at Dartmutt infrequently, but often enough that he was vaguely familiar with their rank insignia. No, he had been right the first time, they weren’t officers.

“They can’t be the commanders,” he snorted. “Look at them, they’re junior enlisted men!”

Bal Stanga flinched as the townsman obviously translated the retort. The Frangerian with the axe looked across the butler to the one with the staff and said something in Frangerian. Bal Ofursti knew enough of that language to almost understand him. But, no, he couldn’t
really
have said, “That’s what you get when commissions are handed out according to
who
you know instead of
what
you know—really dumb officers.” Could he?

The one with the staff touched bal Stanga on the arm, and that knot of four, including the townsman, came forward and stopped two paces in front of bal Ofursti. He blinked as the woman joined them. She was truly beautiful, and totally golden, wearing ballooned pants and a vest that didn’t completely close between her breasts. The coins that dangled from her girdle looked like real gold.

“Captain,” the townsman translated for the Frangerian with the staff, “we are Spinner and Haft, we command here. Your majordomo told you our requirements and terms. We require your wagons and goods. You will give them to us. You are welcome to join us or free to leave as you choose.”

Bal Ofursti thought for a moment. Dartmutt had fallen, or was falling, if he could believe the butler—
majordomo
? If bal Stanga told them he was the majordomo, then everything he said was suspect. He looked to his left rear and almost stammered as he shouted out an order for two of the soldiers to run to the end of the road and report back what they saw—his soldiers were all gaping at the golden woman. Some of the soldiers opposite moved to stop them, but at sharply snapped orders in Frangerian and rough Zobran from—Spinner and Haft? What kind of names are those for commanders?—let them pass.

The scouts had barely disappeared beyond the first curve in the road when a half-dozen farmers came pelting along it. At sight of the soldiers they began screaming, “Jokapcul! The Jokapcul are here,” and ran to hide behind the Earl’s Guards and the Zobrans.

Bal Ofursti and all the soldiers turned to face the road, but neither Jokapcul nor the two scouts appeared. The Frangerian with the staff—Spinner?—gave an order in Zobran and two of the Royal Lancers ran to the bend in the road. They looked and reported the road was clear.

The scouts were back quickly, running at full speed.

“Sir,” they reported, saluting bal Ofursti though their eyes were on the woman, “it is as the butler said. The Jokapcul have taken the city. The encamped refugees are being hunted down and killed in the fields.”

Dartmutt had fallen! Now Captain bal Ofursti had a decision to make. Should he obey the earl’s orders and take the women and children to Rak Adier for safekeeping? He seriously doubted the earl would be joining them—if the Jokapcul were inside the city, he would soon be dead. Going to that bandit Rak Adier seemed even less desirable an option than it had before. They had to go somewhere else. But where?

Just before bal Stanga had come with these soldiers, he’d been thinking of finding an army that was still resisting. Well, these soldiers seemed still to be resisting. They were a start. He was an officer, they would obey him. He could claim bel Hrofa-Upp and parcel out the other women tonight when they stopped for the day. His eyes flicked to the golden woman and wondered which of these men she belonged to. Perhaps he should claim her instead. Or why not both bel Hrofa-Upp and this golden woman? Commander’s prerogative, of course, he could claim both.