Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) (31 page)

2. The Green Women guard approaches to Jokapcul installations. They appear at night—in the guise of beautiful maids—to men who think about women (and what fighting man doesn’t)? A Green Woman may work alone, or several may appear in the same place at the same time. They attempt to lure soldiers away from their fellows. A soldier who follows one off is never seen alive again though his bones might be found. They are no more than a pleasant diversion to a man smart enough not to get caught alone with one.

3. Gytrash are also used to guard Jokapcul installations, and are far more dangerous. They travel in packs and are much more offensive-minded than are the Green Women. When they come across anyone other than a Jokapcul in their patrol area, they attack with fang and claw and appear to be impervious to all weapons used by the soldiers of the nations of southern Nunimar.

The imp is another defensive weapon, but it’s used by many of Nunimar’s nations to guard sensitive borders and installations, so no description of it is needed here.

Of course this article also makes no attempt to describe the variety of sprites, dryads, elfs, banshees, and other watchers. None of them are used as weapons, they merely watch and give warning of intruders.

Many other demons are used for weapons by the Jokapcul, but the above are the major ones.

The Editor
Swords and Arrows Monthly

Dear Sir,

I am at a lexigraphical loss to describe to you the most powerfully conflicted emotions that beset me when I received by post the three copies of the issue of
Swords and Arrows Monthly
in which was published my paper, “An Overview of a Selection of the Manifold Types of Demonic Weapons Employed by the Jokapcul in Their Current Attempt at Conquest of the World.”

The absolute brilliance of the color lithographs used to illustrate my paper was exceeded only by the magnificence of their faithful detail. I stand in awe of the artful skill of your illustrators and printers in rendering these marvelous prints.

Equally, I was astonished to the point of bewilderment by the munificent size of the bank draft that was enclosed with the copies of the issue, it is far more than the honorarium rendered by
James Military Review Quarterly
when that journal published a paper of mine.

However, I must strenuously object to the changes that were made in my paper.

Firstly, whilst I understand that the titling convention in “popular” journals is different from that held proper in scholarly journals, I must take issue with the title with which you replaced mine. There is nothing “infernal” about the demonic weapons employed by the Jokapcul, and I made no inference anywhere in my paper to suggest that they are “infernal.”

Secondly, I am appalled by the changes made to the text of my paper. I readily see that the paper as published follows with a reasonable amount of felicity the content of the paper as I wrote it, but I could scarce find a complete sentence of my own construction! I am almost speechless that you omitted the reference to my earlier papers on the subject of Lord Lackland and his association with the Jokapcul, which papers appeared in
The Proceedings of the Association of Anthropological Scholars of Obscure Cultures
. Your readers will be hard pressed to find the necessary documentation to illustrate that association.

Thirdly, I was initially outraged by the egregious omission of my honorific and the misspelling of my patronymic. In final analysis, however, and in regard to the manner in which you or someone in your employ so thoroughly rewrote my paper in a manner which I find unacceptable, I am relieved that should anyone of my acquaintance or any of my scholarly peers come across this issue of
Swords and Arrows Monthly
, it is entirely possible that they might not recognize the “authorship” of this paper as attributable to me.

I cannot say this too strongly: I will
not
submit another paper for consideration for publication in your journal without assurances that it will not be so bowdlerized.

Respectfully yours,

Scholar Munch Mu’sk,

Professor

The ground climbed steadily north of Eikby, growing more and more rugged until it became, unmistakably, the flank of mountains. The going was difficult for people on foot and hazardous for horses—wagons couldn’t negotiate it at all. Both the slope and its ruggedness were hidden from view from the south by the forest tops, which made the land appear to rise smoothly and gently. It was impossible to distinguish where the mountain ridge that seemed from Eikby to climb so cleanly from the land actually began. The first members of the company to reach the place where the rise was clearly the flank of the mountains, three Zobran Border Warders, scouted for the defensible position that Captain Stonearm had told them about, a valley with space enough for all and a source of fresh water. They found some two hundred Eikby townspeople, nearly all women and children, already there when they arrived. They searched the valley from its narrow mouth to its narrower end and confirmed that it had no other entrances. More important, it was free of both bandits and Jokapcul. The Border Warders left to scout about for refugees trying to find their way there. The first of the company’s people they found were being herded by Wolf. They put the three women and four children in the new campsite and had the five men join in the search for others.

Haft and Silent reached the rally point before Spinner did. They reorganized the searchers, who had grown in number, and set out a line of pickets to guide people to the valley. They sent the Zobran Border Warders and Skraglander Borderers along with those of Eikby’s hunters who had arrived out to patrol in front of and beyond the ends of the picket line to search for groups and individuals. Wolf ranged farther and found several people who otherwise would have completely missed both the pickets and the patrols. The patrols were pulled in and the pickets relieved at sunset.

“They didn’t even stop to fight us,” Haft said in bewilderment. “They were just interested in burning the town. They didn’t seem to care about us.”

He and Spinner sat around a shielded fire with Fletcher, Silent, and Alyline discussing ways to find the rest of their people. Doli was just outside the circle, sitting close enough to Spinner’s back that her knee brushed him every time she moved—evidently she had forgiven him his recent indiscretion. Or perhaps she was afraid and wasn’t going to let what she saw as his infidelity force her out of his protective circle. Xundoe was among the many still missing.

Silent hawked and spat into the fire, his saliva sizzled into steam. “That’s the Jokaps for you,” he rumbled. “They probably had orders to destroy the town.”

“But why?” Spinner asked in a weak voice. “It makes no sense for soldiers to bypass fighting men in favor of cutting down civilians and putting the town to torch.”

Silent shrugged his massive shoulders. “Maybe someone reported armed men in the town and they were after them. Maybe they wanted to make an example, to terrify other outlying towns into surrendering. Maybe they thought if they attacked the town we’d lose discipline and would be easier to defeat.” He shook his head. “They don’t think like real people. They don’t even think like you people, and you people think mighty strange on your own account.”

“They did it because they like to kill and destroy,” Alyline said angrily. “They could kill more people if they attacked the town first, then attacked us.” She looked around the fire and said harshly, “You remember, they attacked our campsite next. We were mostly women and children in the camp. They must have thought we’d be easy to slaughter.” She stared into the fire for a moment, then said less harshly, “But we weren’t easy to slaughter.”

“They’re still out there, you know,” Silent said into the quiet after the Golden Girl spoke. “They’re looking for us and they’re going after our people who are trying to reach the rally point.”

Spinner looked up at the valley’s sides. “When I saw the mountains rising above the forest I thought their foot would be easy to find.”

“That’s because you don’t know mountains,” Haft said ruefully. “I should have thought of it myself at the time and come up with a better rally point for us.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t.”

“Don’t blame yourself, either of you,” Fletcher said. “We’d never had to use a rally point. Anyway, this is still the best one in sight from Eikby. Now, Silent’s right, they’re still out there looking for us. So what do we do?”

“Find them and kill them first,” Haft answered. He was always ready with a direct solution.

“There’re too many of them,” Spinner said. “First we have to find the rest of our people and lead them to this valley.”

“And what do we do when the Jokapcul find this valley and trap us in it?” Alyline asked scornfully.

“This valley’s easy to defend,” Silent said. “We’ve got water, and there aren’t enough of them to starve us out.”

“That would be true if we had food,” Fletcher said, “but food is in short supply.”

“Right before we withdrew we saw two more troops arrive,” Spinner said. “How many more have joined them since?”

“None.” Silent looked at him. “I wasn’t only looking for our people when I went south. I was also looking to see if more of them came. They didn’t.”

“We killed one full troop’s worth of them,” Haft said. “Maybe more. We can beat them.”

“How many of us did they kill or capture?” Alyline asked. No one answered. So far no more than fifty of their people had found their way to the valley. Fifty of their own people, plus they weren’t sure how many Eikbyers who had made their way to the hidden valley over the previous couple of days, or stumbled onto them during their flight from the Jokapcul.

“Nobody knows what happened to Captain Stonearm?” Spinner asked after a long moment’s silence.

Nobody replied at first, no one remembered seeing the guard captain since early in the battle with the mixed troop of Jokapcul.

“He must have been killed while we were too busy fighting to notice,” Fletcher finally offered. No one said anything.

Wolf slipped into the circle and squeezed between Spinner and Silent. He stretched out and lay with his jaw resting on his paws. He whined.

“Couldn’t find anybody else, boy?” Silent asked, ruffling the fur on Wolf’s shoulders.

Wolf whined again and rolled his head side to side, an obvious “no.”

“Is anyone still out there?”

Wolf bunched his shoulders, a shrug.

“We’ll look again in the morning.”

“Ulgh.”
Wolf closed his eyes, and soon his paws began twitching as he chased rabbits in his sleep.

Soon after, the others also drifted off.

It took a long time for sleep to overtake Spinner. Had he done the right thing when he ordered everybody to scatter and find their way to the rally point? Should he have ordered a better organized withdrawal, one where they would have come here together? Maybe not. Even Haft had been ready to run. Silent, who never showed fear of the Jokapcul, preferred to be on his own to get away.

How many of the people who depended on him and Haft for leadership and protection had been killed? How many were still out there, looking for sanctuary?
Was
this valley sanctuary? They had almost no food, and they’d had to leave nearly all of their other property and supplies in the camp. How long could they hold out when the Jokapcul found this valley? Could they find the rest of their people and head north before the Jokapcul found the valley? Did they have any chance of evading the Jokapcul when they pulled out?

He’d resolved none of his questions before exhaustion finally pulled him under.

Haft had no trouble falling asleep. He
knew
their only chance to survive was to go out and kill the Jokapcul before the Jokapcul found and killed them. He had no illusion that it would be
easy
, but neither did he doubt it could be done. Since the Jokapcul outnumbered them so badly the remains of the company would have to catch them in small groups. If the enemy was conducting a serious search for them, he would have to break into small groups to cover enough ground, so it would be possible to catch the Jokapcul in the necessary small groups. Tomorrow was soon enough to begin looking for them. Yes, Haft had no trouble falling asleep. There was nothing they could do before morning anyway, and they were safe enough that night.

The pickets were relieved in the morning and fresh patrols sent out. Silent and Wolf ranged independently in search of wandering survivors and Eikby refugees—and scouting for Jokapcul movement and reinforcements. Beginning in midmorning, more members of the scattered company dribbled in, along with a few more Eikby survivors.

Spinner went up the valley, which didn’t extend very far before its rising bottom narrowed to little more than a crack in walls twice the height of a man. He found a place where he could easily climb to the top of the wall. There he climbed a tree that allowed him to look over the forest into the distant Eikby clearing. He was too far away to make out anything more than a black smudge where the town had been, a few tendrils of smoke that still rose from it, and tiny, moving, specks that were probably Jokapcul. There must have been something he could have done differently to prevent the Jokapcul destruction of the town. But what? He had no idea, and
Lord Gunny Says
gave no clues.

Haft patrolled for a time, then found a lookout tree to climb. He was only half as far from Eikby as Spinner was and, even though he couldn’t make out details, was able to see more.

A troop of mounted Jokapcul paraded about in maneuvers while people tended the fields and flocks under the watchful eyes of mounted soldiers. He saw others lugging bodies to heap in a growing pile. Some people were building a wooden structure. He estimated that less than a full troop of Jokapcul was watching the laborers. He looked at the forest west of the town, and between the town and his lookout tree. If his guess was right, two full troops—probably more—of Jokapcul horsemen were in those trees searching for stragglers. But the canopy was too dense for him to see through.