Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) (33 page)

Doli turned on Haft. “You’re going to get Spinner killed if you go out there!”

“I’m gratified that you’re so concerned for
my
survival, Doli,” Haft said dryly, then growled at the Golden Girl, “I may not be the most intelligent person ever, but I’m not stupid. And we aren’t going to commit suicide tonight—any Jokapcul foolish enough to fight us will be the ones committing suicide.

“You see, we don’t have to defeat them tonight. All we have to do is hurt them. And we are going to hurt them very severely.”

Alyline sagged, she knew she couldn’t get them to change their minds. She and Doli walked away. Doli’s shoulders shook with her sobs.

“The merely difficult we do immediately,” Spinner murmured. “The impossible may take a little longer. At least, that’s what Lord Gunny said.”

“If Lord Gunny said it, it must be true,” Haft replied with a grim smile.

The eight men left the valley after an early dinner and reached the edge of the forest west of Eikby’s clearing shortly after the sun set but before the moon rose. It wasn’t the best of nights for an attack on an enemy position, an even worse night for an attack on a position where the defenders so decisively outnumbered the attackers—when the moon rose it would be full. But the attackers counted on the two clear advantages they had over the defenders—total surprise and the Lalla Mkouma.

The first part of the attack was devoted to Xundoe’s preparations. The mage picked up a pack filled with various implements and demons, put a well-fed Lalla Mkouma on his shoulder, took a deep breath to steady himself, murmured something to the miniature woman figure on his shoulder, and vanished.

When Haft first made his proposal, Xundoe had readily agreed. Now, with the campfires of the Jokapcul army only a few hundred yards away and the guttural laughter of the soldiers drifting to his ears, he wasn’t so sure of the idea’s brilliance. He thought he was a fool for not instantly recognizing all the manifold problems with the plan. Somewhere closer than the fires and laughter, he heard the soft nicker of a horse and imagined Jokapcul light cavalry prowling about in search of him. He shivered and stood in place, listening carefully, but no other sound of search or pursuit came to him. He continued with trepidation.

When he stumbled on a divot he recognized the place where their first, brief campsite had been a few days earlier, the area where the final fight had taken place just before they scattered in flight from the massive cavalry charge. His breath speeded up, and the already dark night seemed to grow darker. He walked slower, more deliberately, with a hand extended before him, waving it slowly up and down. When his questing hand found a strand of wire, he stopped. He took a moment to bring his breath back under control, and tried to relax. After a couple of moments he looked to the eastern horizon and swallowed nervously; the moon was rising. Well, he should be safe with the Lalla Mkouma making him invisible. And he needed the light to be able to do his work. Now when he looked side to side he could see the crossed posts of the fence. There, twenty yards to his right front, was the gate. He headed toward it.

The gate had been ripped from its hinges and its pieces lay scattered about. He had to step carefully to avoid tangling his feet in coils of broken wire or trodding on barbs. He put the pack down at the corner of the open gate, careful that it didn’t touch the gatepost. Squatting, he opened it and began withdrawing items which he carefully laid out in a specific order.

When everything was ready, the first thing he did was the job he most feared: he took one of the imp houses and carried it thirty yards to his left where he affixed it to the crossing point of a pair of fence posts. Under the best of circumstances, imp-warding a fence was a delicate job, and these weren’t the best of circumstances. As bright as the full moon’s light was, it was far dimmer than the full daylight under which a magician would normally mount an imp house on a fence. The houses were designed to be mounted on a single, vertical fence post, not at the juncture of a pair of crossed posts. It was essential that the magician mounting the imp house avoid touching the strands of the fence while he attached the leads to them from the house—essential because the leads came through the house’s door and he had to unlock and open the door to get to the leads. But the worst circumstance was, this was the first time Xundoe had ever imp-warded a fence. He dried his sweaty hands on his robe and began. His concentration was so focused that his fingers were as steady as they could be.

Finished at last, he stepped back and heaved a great sigh of relief. His relief didn’t last long; he had to mount the second imp house on the fence on the other side of the gate. He managed that with just as little problem.

“The army really should have promoted me,” Xundoe breathed to himself. “I’m a much more accomplished magician than a mere mage.”

Then he was back at his pack contemplating his next job. Just then the next job scared him more than imp-warding the fence had. He knew the theory of imp-warding a fence but he’d never read about or been trained in what he was about to do. When Haft described it to him, it sounded very straightforward and simple. But now that it was time to actually
do
it, he was anything but certain it was in the least bit possible. If it wasn’t, he was about to commit suicide, which was something he absolutely did
not
want to do.

He gathered three of the six phoenix eggs he’d removed from the pack, a handful of three-foot-long dowels, and a trio of cones he’d constructed after dinner, and carried them into the field beyond the fence. Somehow, he had to rig the eggs so that anyone passing within a couple of yards of one would cause it to crack open and release its phoenix.

Before Haft’s proposal, he’d never heard any hint of a magician doing such a thing. He knew about deadfalls and spring-operated traps, but those were purely mechanical devices that didn’t use the magic of demons. The closest magical entrapment he knew of to—what was the term Haft used?—
booby-trap?
a phoenix egg was an imp house, and that was quite different. How do you set an egg to crack when someone passes nearby when you have to twist its top before it will crack?

Haft’s solution was so simple it was obvious. But if it was so obvious, why hadn’t anybody ever thought of it before? Surely if anyone had ever done it and it worked, he would have heard about it. If it worked it would have been taught in Elementary Fire Demons. Wouldn’t it?

He went through the gate at a sharp angle to the right and stopped about ten yards from the fence. On his hands and knees, he balanced the cone point-down on the ground. He then laid out a trio of dowels around it and attached one end of each to notches in the top of the cone. The cone was now held erect by the dowels. He reached for a phoenix egg and a shiver ran all the way to his fingertips when he twisted the top of the phoenix egg and he drew back to wipe away the sweat running down his face and compose himself. Trembling everywhere except for his fingers, he gingerly balanced the phoenix egg in the top of the cone. When he withdrew his hands, the egg and cone wobbled slightly, then settled into balance. Gently, not daring to breathe, he gathered the other cones, dowels, and phoenix eggs, and eased back until he was far enough away that if the egg fell he’d be out of range of the phoenix’s opening wings.

Now if a foot or hoof landed nearby hard enough to dislodge one of the dowels, the phoenix egg would fall and crack open on the ground. That was the theory, anyway.

Fifteen yards farther along the fence and a little farther out, he set another egg in place. The third went fifteen yards farther but a little closer to the fence. When it was in place, he went weak-kneed to the fence and followed it to the gate, where he gathered the remaining phoenix eggs and materials. He not only repeated the process to the left of the gate, he lived to tell the tale. Or at least report to Haft that he had done it; he felt so shaken he couldn’t swear he was still alive.

Xundoe had one more job, the most frightening thing he had to do that night. He needed help to begin it. He still had no idea why the Jokapcul brought a hodekin with them, but
he
had certainly found a use for a digging demon. He and Haft wore heavy leather gloves when they opened the hodekin’s cage and lifted it out. The Marine struggled to control the demon while the mage fitted a harness to it. When the harness was tightened around its chest and Haft set the demon on the ground the hodekin stopped biting and clawing at their hands and began to dig. Fortunately, Xundoe had attached a stout leash to the harness before Haft released the demon, and a sharp yank on the leash brought the hodekin to heel. As long as Xundoe kept moving, the hodekin walked calmly with its head next to his hip. The instant he stopped, it jumped one way or another before hunkering down to dig. What was most frightening about this job was he had no way to know in which direction the hodekin would jump when he stopped. They would be working near the phoenix eggs he planted. If the hodekin’s jumping or digging disturbed one of the dowels, a phoenix egg would fall and crack open, releasing the fiery bird. If it jumped in the other direction, it might hit the fence and summon the imps.

There was no help for it. Xundoe walked the demon through the gate and along the fence, keeping himself between the hodekin and the phoenix eggs. Every few yards he stopped. The instant he did the demon began digging. He only gave it a few seconds, the hodekin’s broad hands dug faster than a spade. If he didn’t stop it before it had dug a hole it could duck into, he wouldn’t be able to make it stop until
it
was ready to stop; instead, it could drag him along as it dug deeper and farther into the earth. Anyway, he didn’t want pits that could swallow a man, just little holes maybe a foot deep and as much in diameter—just big enough to trip a running horse—or man—and break its leg.

Well beyond the southernmost phoenix egg, Xundoe turned away from the fence. Again the hodekin dug small holes as he zigzagged in the direction of the Jokapcul campfires. At a safe distance beyond the phoenix eggs, he turned left and went in wide zigzags to well beyond the northernmost egg on the far side of the gate before turning back and digging holes closer to the fence.

The night was more than half gone by then and Xundoe was drenched with sweat. But the fence on both sides of the gate was imp-warded, a half dozen phoenix eggs lay in wait to be cracked open, and a forty-yard-wide swath of ground on the other side of the fence was pitted with holes big enough to trip a galloping horse and break its leg. Now all they had to do was goad the Jokapcul into attacking them.

“You’re sure the lane is clear along the road?” Spinner asked.

“The road is clear passage,” Xundoe replied. “That’s the only way to go safely between here and fifty or more yards beyond the fence.”

“Then I better go,” Haft said. The raid was his idea; he believed it was up to him to take the most dangerous part of it. Of course, Xundoe would have disagreed with him on that score. Xundoe believed
he
had the
most
dangerous part of the raid, Haft merely had the
second
most dangerous part.

Haft fed the demon in one of the demon spitters and gave a food pellet to a Lalla Mkouma who was simply
delighted
to climb on his shoulder and spin her diaphanous robe to turn him invisible.

Demon spitter in hand, Haft padded quietly along the road toward the Jokapcul campfires. He wasn’t concerned about being seen by sentries, still, he walked as quietly as he could.

Halfway from the fence to the nearest fires Haft stopped and lowered himself to one knee. He tapped on the door on the side of the demon spitter. It popped open and the demon poked out its head and peered at him suspiciously, as though making sure of who he was.

“Wazzu whanns, gud’ghie?”
the tiny demon demanded.

Haft remembered his first meeting with the demon and had to smile. The tiny demon had crawled over his head and shoulders, sniffing at his hair, behind his ears, up his nose, around his mouth. When it went to smell his armpit it froze, looking down at his axe.

“Zhow mee,”
it had said, pointing a gnarly arm and hand at the axe where it hung on his belt.

Haft looked questioningly at Xundoe, but the mage said he should do as the demon asked. He withdrew his axe from the loop that held it and lifted it to where the demon could examine it. The demon climbed down his arm and settled on his wrist inches from the axe. It reached out a lumpy hand and traced the rampant eagle engraved on the half-moon blade, then settled back on its haunches and stared at the eagle for a long moment. It gave a satisfied nod, clambered back up Haft’s arm, and settled on his shoulder.

“Oo gud’ghie,”
the demon said.
“Likuu. Ee fi’gt zhame-zhame.”

Haft blinked, startled. There it was again, his axe! What was it about his axe that caught the attention of so many men?—and demons, it seemed.

Xundoe had gaped at the demon. When he saw Haft’s perplexed look, he mouthed,
Later.
But “later” hadn’t come yet, Haft still didn’t know what that had been about. Now wasn’t the time to wonder about it, he and the demon had a job to do.

“Do you see the fire over there?” Haft asked low-voiced.

The demon, inside the Lalla Mkouma’s cloak of invisibility, could see Haft. It laid his head against his pointing arm and looked along it.
“Yss. Zho? Whatch abou’em?”

“Can you spit that far?” He hadn’t had the opportunity to fire the demon spitter when Xundoe admitted he didn’t know their range; Haft hoped the demon would tell him the truth.

“Zpitz var’n whanns.”

That didn’t answer Haft’s question. He tried a different approach. “Do you want to spit that far?”

The tiny demon studied the distance to the fire. It craned up and down, side to side, trying to gauge the range without all the visual cues it would have during the day.