Demontech: Onslaught (38 page)

The magician hadn’t been of much use in the company’s fights; some palace bureaucrat had decided the patrols were strong enough that the magician only needed to communicate, so he carried only a few imbaluris and a handheld demon spitter. The last Jokapcul patrol had a magician with it, one foolish enough to expose himself to a bowman. The Zobran magician was examining the Jokapcul magician’s magic kit, a chest the size and rough dimensions of a coffin, when they were attacked by a full hundred-man company. Good soldiers all, the two whole men stood ready, as did the three walking wounded. One of the badly wounded men struggled to his feet and held his sword and shield at the ready. The magician grabbed the first item he recognized. “Phoenix egg!” he shouted as he threw.

There was a clap of thunder as the phoenix egg burst open in the midst of the Jokapcul formation and the freed bird snapped its wings wide, the fire of its feathers spreading and eating through the leather armor, weapons, and flesh alike. A dozen died in seconds. The injured who didn’t fall to the ground crying out in their death agonies dropped their weapons and ran away screaming from the intense pain of the hellfire from the phoenix. But more than eighty of the enemy survived to charge the Guards. The magician fired his demon spitter into their mass until the demon popped out of it and demanded to be fed. The magician ignored the demon’s demands and frantically searched in the kit for something else to use.

Haft didn’t hesitate when he saw the Jokapcul. He threw his crossbow to his shoulder and fired his first bolt before even dismounting—Doli screamed as the crossbow string shrieked next to her ear and the quarrel blurred past her eyes. By the time his first quarrel hit its target, Spinner’s first was in the air. They had taken fighting positions behind tree trunks by the time Spinner’s quarrel tumbled a second charging Jokapcul. Within seconds two more Jokapcul fell forward. Fletcher joined them and added shafts from his longbow in raining death into the Jokapcul. Soon there were three broad arrows in flight for every two quarrels. Holes were opening in the ranks of attacking Jokapcul, but the attacking soldiers were so intent on the small knot of men they were charging that they didn’t notice.

By the time the Jokapcul closed with the Zobra Guards, another squad was down from quarrels and arrows. The six Zobra defenders who could stand fought fiercely, but their swords were too short to penetrate past the pikes borne by many of the Jokapcul. Most of them fell with fresh injuries by the time the Jokapcul officer saw the man immediately in front of him fall, gurgling, pierced through the throat by an arrow that had barely missed the commander’s own neck. Not knowing how strong the force to his rear was, the commander barked out an order, and his subordinate officers screamed it at their men; then the sergeants bellowed out echoes of the officers’ orders. The Jokapcul broke off their attack and fled from the crossbowmen and the archer who were whittling them down. Missiles felled four more before the Jokapcul reached safety in the trees.

“Mount!” Spinner shouted when the Jokapcul presented no more targets, and he leaped onto the back of the stallion. “To the rose!” He heeled the horse into a gallop and raced to the aid of the Zobran soldiers.

The others scrambled onto their horses and flew after Spinner. The horses charged toward the stream, dodging and at times leaping over the thirty or more dead and dying Jokapcul who littered the ground in front of the Zobran Guards. Wolf paused twice to rip out the throats of wounded Jokapcul who looked ready to return to the fray.

Spinner leaped off his horse and began shouting orders even as he took in the number and condition of the Zobrans. All of them now bore wounds, three too badly injured to continue the fight, and two were dead. Spinner tried not to show his dismay when he realized how few there were. It was not the force he had hoped to join up with.

“Tend the wounded,” he said to the women. Doli and Zweepee immediately turned to the injured men, tearing garments from the dead to use as bandages. Spinner ignored Alyline as she drew her sword and prepared to fight instead of helping with the wounded. He tethered the horses as he continued giving orders to his small force. “Fletcher, ready your bow and watch for the Jokapcul to come again.” Fletcher nocked an arrow and ran forty paces toward where the Jokapcul had disappeared into the trees. Without thinking about whether he would be understood, Spinner said, “Wolf, scout them and give warning when they start to move.” Wolf barked and padded rapidly along the stream before moving away from it in the direction the Jokapcul had gone. “Haft, hold the left flank,” Spinner said, referring to the side closer to the Jokapcul. Haft moved twenty paces to the left and cocked a fresh quarrel into his crossbow. Using hand gestures, Spinner positioned the two Zobran soldiers still able to fight. He turned to the magician.

“The Frangerians are come?” the magician asked in broken Frangerian.

Spinner shook his head. “Only us.” Then, “Do you speak Apianghian? Ewsarcan? Bostian?” and a couple more.

The young magician shook his head at the name of each language, then named the three languages he spoke better than he did Frangerian. Spinner had only a smattering of Zobran and none of the other two—and he didn’t even recognize the name of one of those languages.

“What do you have that can help us?” Spinner asked in slow Frangerian. In answer, the magician held up both hands; one hand held another phoenix egg, the other an L-shaped object Spinner didn’t recognize.

“I fight near.” He raised the strange object in one hand and the phoenix egg with the other. He grinned. “We kill many Jokapcul.” As he talked he fed the demon in his handheld spitter.

Spinner nodded. As inexperienced as the magician’s robe indicated he was, the young fellow couldn’t possibly be as powerful as he seemed to be implying. But if he knew how to use the things he held, he might make the difference between life and death for all of them when the fighting started again. “Stay by me,” Spinner ordered. The magician stretched himself to his greatest height, which was no greater than Spinner’s, and looked down his nose at this stranger who dared give him orders. Before Spinner could demonstrate to the magician who was really in command, the call of a wolf sounded from upstream. Spinner looked toward it and saw Wolf racing toward them. A squad of Jokapcul infantry, blood lust up, ran close behind.

Almost as soon as Spinner saw the squad, one of them staggered and fell forward; the force of his fall jammed the quarrel that Haft shot him with all the way through his body so that its head stuck up several inches from his back. Spinner threw his crossbow to his shoulder and took aim at the closest Jokapcul, but a thunderclap next to him made him jerk violently and his quarrel flew wide of its mark. A Jokapcul soldier jerked to a stop, staggered a step forward, and fell on his side. No arrow or quarrel protruded from his bloody chest.

Spinner looked at the magician, who was holding the L-shaped object out at arm’s length. He held it with both hands on its short leg and pointed its long leg at the enemy. The magician muttered something under his breath, and the object bucked violently upward as it discharged another thunderclap. Another Jokapcul staggered and dropped as though poleaxed. Now Spinner knew that it was a small demon spitter; he hadn’t known they came in that small size. An arrow in his side, a fourth Jokapcul toppled—Fletcher had turned and fired a shaft.

Nearly at Haft’s position, Wolf spun around in mid-bound so he faced the charge when he landed. He took a step backward to kill his momentum, then sprung at the nearest Jokapcul. He eluded the man’s outthrust pike and clamped his jaws on his throat. The man collapsed, his feet briefly drumming the ground as his hands clutched at his throat. Wolf released him and dashed to another enemy, who held up his sword to block a leap at his throat. Wolf darted under the blade and his muzzle slashed under the apron of the man’s metal-studded jerkin. The man screamed and doubled over, clutching at the ragged wound where his manhood had been ripped away.

Haft rearmed his crossbow and took down another of the attackers.

Spinner was finally able to get off an aimed shot, and saw his target pitch forward.

The action was so fast, had taken so little time, that by the time the officer leading this squad saw the weight of his casualties and barked the command to retreat, eight of his ten men were down. He turned to flee, but a second shaft from Fletcher’s longbow killed him. A bolt from the demon spitter brought down another before the lone survivor reached safety out of sight of the defenders.

But the flanking attack was only a diversion.

“Here they come!” Fletcher bellowed as the body of the Jokapcul company, sixty or more men, rushed at them from the trees. Swinging swords above their plumed helmets, the junior officers led the charge as the company’s commander ran behind his men, urging them onward, exhorting the sergeants to keep the men running forward.

Fletcher loosed two arrows into the main force of Jokapcul who were charging toward him, killing one officer and a pike-wielding soldier before leaping to his feet and dashing back to the stream bank.

The magician’s demon spitter thundered four more times before the demon popped out and demanded,
“Veedmee!”
The magician rooted inside his robe for food, then continued the fight.

Fletcher had time to shoot three arrows into the oncoming mass of Jokapcul, Spinner one quarrel. Haft left Wolf to guard against another assault on their flank and got off two shots. Each arrow and quarrel found its mark, as did all of the magician’s shots; deliberately, more of the marks were officers than men. The magician threw the second phoenix egg, and another officer and more than a squad went down or fled when the bird erupted in fire among them.

Even so, nearly two score Jokapcul closed with five fighting men, one sword-swinging woman, two more women, a magician who wasn’t a fighter, and a wolf.

Spinner’s twirling and lashing quarterstaff kept the Jokapcul beyond sword’s reach and slammed several of them to the ground with cracked skulls, shattered arms, or broken ribs. Still, two or three pikes managed to reach inside his stroke to cut him.

Haft’s axe whirred as he lashed out with it, chopping through flesh and splintering thrusting pikes. Bodies piled around him, yet his flesh was gouged as well by seeking blades.

Fletcher fought like a berserker, flailing about with his sword, while Zweepee pressed her back against his, protecting him from attack from behind with an awkwardly wielded sword, but she wasn’t able to save him from being brought to his knees by a pike-thrust from the side.

The two Zobran Guards stood over their wounded companions and brought down five of their attackers, but the wounds they’d received earlier were severe enough to weaken them and limit their fighting ability. They went down under the press of too many blades slashing and jabbing at them.

The Golden Girl fought with a skill no man would have assumed of any woman, much less one so beautiful, and her beauty caused the Jokapcul to hold back momentarily. That misjudgment cost them three lives. In desperation, an officer ordered all but two to back away and go after the men. He left two men to keep her engaged and prevent her from attacking his other men from behind.

Wolf darted and dashed about, flying over thrusting blades, flashing under defensive ones, crushing throats through helmet flaps, tearing open what groins and lower bellies he could reach under armored aprons.

Even the magician picked up a sword and swung it about. He was untrained in its use, but his very clumsiness saved him for a time—no one facing him could anticipate what he would do next, and his blade bit several Jokapcul who tried to fight him as though he understood combat. Finally, the side of a blade slammed into his head and knocked him insensate to the ground.

Doli ducked and weaved among and under the frightened horses, striking out with her knife at any soldier who came too near. The Jokapcul laughed at her, and turned their attention to those fighting with more serious weapons; they assumed they could easily disarm and capture her when the battle was over.

And soon the battle was nearly over. A blow to the kidney brought Spinner down, and three swords were poised to chop him to bits. Pikemen formed a ring around Haft. Zweepee lay across Fletcher, protecting her downed husband with her own body. Six Jokapcul faced the Golden Girl, her back against a tree, while a seventh crept around the trunk to wrest her sword from her grasp. And two chuckling Jokapcul closed on Doli. Wolf lay on his side, bleeding, his open eyes unfocused and unaware.

Then a mighty war cry shook the trees, and the thud of hooves caused the earth to tremble as a behemoth of unbelievable size, mounted on a steed the size of an elephant and swinging a sword larger than a man, charged into the melee and crashed through Jokapcul, sending them spinning and tumbling like tenpins. In hardly more time than it takes to tell, the remnants of the Jokapcul company were in full rout. But the giant on the mammoth horse gave chase and rode them down. Those Jokapcul would fight no more.

“Kind of had a feeling I’d see you again,” Silent said when they were settled in a new spot along the stream.

The onslaught of the giant steppe nomad had destroyed the last remnant of the Jokapcul company of a hundred men that had assaulted the Guards. Only one man of them lived, and he was a prisoner.

Silent took charge immediately when the battle was over. He set the women to bandaging the wounded. The men were all bloodied in the fight, but not one of the three women was injured. As soon as each man was bandaged, Silent stationed him in a guard post to watch against the approach of another enemy force while the others were tended to. Even the Golden Girl snapped to when Silent gave orders, and she helped tend the wounded. Spinner wondered whether the fight had broken her spirit, or if she found Silent’s size intimidating. He noted with surprise that she ungrudgingly surrendered some of the garments and cloth she had collected to use as bandages. And she saw to Wolf’s wounds.