Demontech: Gulf Run (20 page)

Once they were away from the forest’s edge, the canopy was thick enough that few bushes and treelings grew to impede their way; they covered the distance quickly but carefully. It took them a little over an hour to cover the three miles to where the road turned to the east. Kovasch, the Skragland Borderer, had slashed blazes into a tree to tell the column’s point squad they’d gone east and to wait here; they were as clear and easy to see as they remembered. Kovasch cut a sign over the “wait here” mark to indicate it no longer held. They unhobbled the horses to ride back east a hundred yards to where a narrower road ran into the main road from the north. Their horses’ tackle made little noise.

Haft dismounted and plucked the hobbles off the back of his saddle. The other three remained mounted.

“Lord Haft,” said Kovasch, the Skraglander, “we can cover more ground if we ride.” They spoke in Skraglandish, though it was the native tongue of only one of them. It was Haft’s weakest language but the only one they had in common.

“We’ll spot an ambush more easily on foot.” Haft bent over to wrap the hobbles around his mare’s fetlocks.

“Ambush? From whom?” Birdwhistle, one of the Zobrans, asked. “You said yourself the Jokapcul are headed east. And none of our flankers have reported any of them moving into the forest.”

Haft warily ducked under the mare’s neck to its other side. The mare snorted and stomped its hobbled hoof, almost yanking the other end from his hand. He hopped nervously back.

Hunter, the other Zobran, hid a laugh behind his hand. The Border Warders, like the Borderers, mainly went about on foot, but all of them were comfortable with horses. Haft shot them a glare.

“There could still be bandits,” he said.

“The only bandits we’ve seen since we left Eikby are the ones who joined us before we reached Dartmutt.” That was Hunter, when he got over his laugh.

“That doesn’t mean—”

Birdwhistle pointed. “What’s that slung on your saddle?”

Haft straightened up and looked. He saw nothing out of order. “What?”

“That big tube, that’s what.”

He looked curiously at Birdwhistle. “It’s a demon spitter, as you well know.”

“That’s right, a demon spitter. And the little demon who lives in it seems to like you. Do you really think a demon that likes you will let you walk into an ambush without a warning?”

Haft blinked, turned his head and studied the demon spitter for a long moment. It had never occurred to him that the demon in it might be able to give warnings. He’d ambushed Jokapcul with demon spitters a few times—even hid by a trail a few yards from a stopped Jokapcul horseman who carried a demon spitter—and he’d never seen a demon give any warning to the Jokapcul.

“No, they can’t do that,” he finally said.

“How do you know?” Hunter asked.

“Well, they’ve never warned the Jokapcul.”

“Maybe they don’t like the Jokapcul,” Kovasch said. “Ask him.”

Haft looked at his three men, all still on their horses. “You just want me to look stupid, that’s why you want me to ask the demon.”

Kovasch leaned forward in his saddle. “Trying to learn something new is never stupid.”

Haft studied the three and finally sighed. “All right, if it’ll get you off those horses so we can get on with the recon.”

He lifted the demon spitter tube from his saddle and cradled it in his arm so the small door on its side faced up and rapped lightly on it. The door popped open and the demon poked its head out.

"Wazzu whanns!"
the diminutive demon demanded.

“We’re going up that road,” Haft said, feeling foolish. “Can you give me a warning if there’s an ambush ahead?”

The demon put its gnarly hands on the sides of the door opening and levered itself up to where it could look at the smaller road.
"Naw ambutz. Goam’up."
It dropped back inside and slammed the door firmly behind itself.

“That sounded clear enough,” Birdwhistle said.

“It didn’t say it could give a warning!” Haft objected.

“It said there’s no ambush,” Hunter declared.

“It sure did,” Kovasch agreed. He kneed his horse close to a broad-boled tree next to the road and blazed a mark on it to show the point squad which way they’d gone, and another to tell them to wait there. After a few seconds thought, he added two more marks that meant there was danger to the east.

The three turned their horses and set onto the side road.

“Are you coming?” Birdwhistle called back over his shoulder.

Grumbling, Haft replaced the demon spitter and removed the hobble from his mare.
He
was the commander, it wasn’t right that his men should outmaneuver him that way in deciding what they were doing. Mounted again, he trotted to the head of the short column. A few minutes later, grumbling again, he was in second place in the column. He would have been in the lead but his mare didn’t like leading, she always wanted to follow another horse. He grumbled, but didn’t do anything about it. As uncomfortable as he was with horses, even after months of riding, his docile mare was the only horse he could abide riding for any length of time.

The forest to the north didn’t end abruptly, as it did to the east. Instead it petered out, as though it had become tired and slowly decided it didn’t want to go any farther. The first change, a mile or so north, was in the canopy, which thinned out enough to let sunlight reach the ground and allow undergrowth to flourish. Within another mile or so the canopy had thinned further, and undergrowth almost totally covered the ground. They noticed that the trees had thinner trunks, were shorter and more widely spaced. In a few more miles, they were so much smaller and more widely spread out that the landscape resembled parkland more than forest. The ground rose gently and, through the trees, they could see a horizon that looked too close. They rode toward it.

The ground leveled off at the too-close horizon and the road forked. One fork went straight north, and the landscape in that direction rapidly became barren and sere. The other fork wandered east just inside the parkland, but within view of the sere ground to the north. In the distance they could make out the beginning of an escarpment.

Haft took in a deep breath and forced it out. The landscape resembled another road forking, where one fork led to the arid Low Desert and the other into the lush forest at the root of the Princedon Peninsula. It wasn’t identical, though. Here, the lush forest was to the rear.

“We go that way,” Haft said, pointing east. “Let’s go back and get our people.” The quartet turned their horses and trotted back, once more at ambush depth from the road for as long as the undergrowth allowed.

Captain bal Ofursti bore a fury that wouldn’t allow him to head west. He was an
officer
! Not only an officer, but the third ranking officer of the Earl’s Guards! Those two Frangerians had no
right
to banish him from the caravan. How was he to eat out here alone? He was no commoner who could be expected to hunt and forage for himself, he was an
officer
to be
served
by commoners!
He
should be in command of the caravan. And the Dartmutter women—the earl’s concubines and their handmaids—rightfully belonged to
him
and whomever he gave them to, not to those insubordinate
enlisted
Frangerians!

He had no idea by what magic those two had drawn the others under the spell that made them commanders. Why, they even had
sergeants
obeying them! Why, even an officer of the Penston Conquestors obeyed them! That was intolerable. Absolutely intolerable! It
had
to be magic that gave them command. It was simply not
possible
for two such lowborns to have command over so many—including an
officer
, even if the officer was only a Penston lieutenant.

Bal Ofursti knew nothing of how to use magic, other than to place orders with magicians, and he’d never even done that. But he did know how to
defeat
magic. One defeated magic by killing those who used it. So the solution to his problem was obvious—he would kill those two insufferable Frangerians! And then assume his rightful place—in command of the refugee caravan. He would reclaim possession of the Dartmutter women, and bel Hrofa-Upp would be his, as she should be. And he’d take that golden woman for himself as well—and any other woman of the caravan he wished!

But how to kill the Frangerians? Spinner might be difficult, since he rarely left the caravan. A direct confrontation in the caravan wouldn’t meet with success; bal Ofursti knew Spinner’s magic would probably bring soldiers to his aid before he could get close enough to kill the enlisted scum. Haft, though, spent most of the day outside the caravan, leading the scouts in the van or tarrying with the screening force to the rear. It should be easy to get to him before his magic had time to work and bring soldiers to assist him—and no axe man could defeat a good swordsman unless he caught the swordsman by surprise. And then he, bal Ofursti, would take Haft’s crossbow and use it to ambush Spinner before word of Haft’s death got back to him.

Captain bal Ofursti had no doubt he could make short work of either Frangerian in single combat. He was the best swordsman in the Dartmutter army. And the Dartmutter sword master said he was the best student he’d ever trained.

Staying carefully out of sight, he followed Haft and waited for his chance.

Halfway back to the main road, Haft’s mare suddenly shied. Her unexpected movement, lifting her forelegs and twisting to the side, knocked him off balance and he threw his arms around her neck to keep from falling off. She screamed and bucked to the left when something
thunked
into the right side of her saddle, and this time Haft did fall, spilling over her left side. He rolled and skittered to get away from her scrabbling hooves and hopped to his feet, only to face a strange apparition—a madman charging at him with raised sword.

The man’s hair and beard were matted tangles, his eyes were darkened with heavy pouches, spittle flew from between his lips, and his clothing was dirty and festooned with bits of leafs and twigs. He looked crazed. Haft had no idea why the poor man attacked—he was probably driven mad by running from the Jokapcul—and wanted to disarm him without killing him.

Wait! His clothing! Under the dirt and debris, he wore a red cloak and cerulean-blue jerkin and trousers.

Haft spun away from the man’s overhead sword chop and took another look at him as he drew his axe.

“Bal Ofursti!” he exclaimed.

“Your death!” bal Ofursti shrilled, and ran at him again, swinging his sword in a roundhouse blow at his neck.

Haft half twisted out of the way and half ducked under the blade. He swung his axe up in a backhand arc to catch the sword, but barely tapped the fast-moving blade.

Bal Ofursti let his momentum carry him all the way around in a pirouette, spinning on his left foot. He stuck his right foot out and slammed it down when he faced front again and thrust, turning his angular momentum into a forward strike.

Haft twisted to the side and parried, barely avoiding the stab. Bal Ofursti danced to the side and jabbed again and again. Haft backpedaled to stay out of range, swinging his axe back and forth to slap the blade aside, but never making firm contact with it.

“Get out of the way, Lord Haft,” Kovasch shouted. “I’ll put an arrow in him!”

Haft sidestepped, but bal Ofursti went with him and bore in once more with a series of thrusts and slices.

“A touch!” bal Ofursti shrilled as one of his slices cut along Haft’s left shoulder, drawing blood.

Haft bounded backward, then brought his axe down in an overhead arc that caught the blade and drove its point into the ground. “By the gods, we should have hung you when we had the chance,” he snarled, then punched bal Ofursti’s straining shoulder with a knuckled fist and jerked his axe away from the trapped sword. He bent his arm back and thrust forward with the upper point of the head of his axe, but bal Ofursti fell backward when his sword was released and the strike went above him.

An arrow thunked into the dirt where the Dartmutter officer landed, but he’d already rolled away.

“He’s mine!” Haft roared, filled with realization that this was his man to kill, not some poor soul driven mad by the invasion.

Now it was bal Ofursti who had to go on the defensive as Haft swung his axe in diagonal arcs, each followed by a backhand with the spike that backed the half-moon blade.

Suddenly it was the captain who was backpedaling and attempting to parry blows—but Haft’s axe was heavier than his sword, and harder to parry even when he got good metal on it. Back and back and back, through the bushes and between trees, stepping high to avoid tripping over roots or trailing vines. And always Haft came on relentlessly. Until it happened. A parry went awry and the axehead slammed the edge of bal Ofursti’s blade into his own thigh. He screamed from the pain and instinctively bent forward to clutch at his injury, putting his head directly in the path of the following backhanded spike. The axe’s momentum yanked him completely off his feet.

Haft reached the end of his axe’s swing and pivoted his wrist. The dead man’s head slid off the spike and he crumpled to the ground, where Haft stared at him for a long moment before reaching down for the red cloak to wipe the blood off his axe. The three scouts with him gathered around, looking down at bal Ofursti’s husk.

“Now why do you suppose he did that?” Haft asked as he dropped the cloak on the corpse.

None of them had any idea why Captain bal Ofursti had attacked Haft. Neither did they understand how a man could get so dirty and tangled in such a short time in the forest.

It was dusk when they got back to where the road north split off from the other road and they found the caravan waiting for them.

During the day’s march, the caravan had grown by some 250 people, nearly half of whom were soldiers. They now had about eight hundred soldiers, former soldiers, and partly trained men under arms. An equal number of able-bodied men had neither military experience nor weapons training.

“I have a mixed squad of Borderers and Border Wardens watching along the edge of the forest,” Spinner told Haft after hearing what the reconnaissance patrol had found. “The rest of the soldiers and fighting men who came with us from Eikby are in a picket line east of us."