Demontech: Gulf Run

by David Sherman

  Haft stood alone, backed against a large tree, fighting like a madman as he swung the half-moon blade of his battle-axe in broad arcs that wrapped all the way around to protect his sides from flank attack. He’d shattered every lance thrust at him. Twice he knocked arrows aside, and once ducked out of the way of a shaft. Another arrow had slit along his ribs, and a lance gouged his thigh before he could break it with his axe. He bled from numerous other nicks and cuts, but half a dozen Jokapcul bodies lay before him, and most others now kept their distance. To the lancers, it truly looked like he and his axe were one.

  A short distance away, Spinner danced like a dervish, twirling his quarterstaff so fast it was a blurred shield before him. Whenever a Jokapcul came within the quarterstaff’s reach, Spinner shot an end out to jab at a face or exposed throat, or to swing it to deflect a weapon or break an arm or leg or crack ribs. Dead and dying lancers sprawled on the ground beneath his dancing feet, injured Jokapcul shuffling away desiring nothing more than to escape with no more hurt.

  Nearby, Fletcher and Birdwhistle fought back-to-back, fending off five Jokapcul. Three more lay dead around them. They tried to move to where their attackers might trip over the bodies.

  All about, the refugee fighters gave good account of themselves, killing more of the lancers than they lost. Wolf dashed about, harrying the horses, ripping at their hamstrings with his teeth, and brought several down, tumbling their riders. Seldom did the shaggy beast pause to finish off a fallen man, being too busy dodging the swords and lances that stabbed his way.

  But there were too many Jokapcul and they were going to lose soon.

  Thunder suddenly cracked under the trees. And again and again. One, two, three Jokapcul were flung to the ground, bleeding from mortal wounds. Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! came more thunder bolts, and four more lancers were tossed aside.

  Fighting paused as all heads snapped to the source of the thunder. Spinner and Haft and their men recovered almost immediately and fell on their foes with renewed vigor and violence. Veduci and his remaining men stood frozen at the sight that met their eyes. The Jokapcul saw an apparition in flowing robes heavily decorated with cabalistic symbols, holding a small demon spitter in his leveled hands, a large demon spitter slung across his back. They screamed in panic and ran. That broke Veduci and his men from their freeze and they joined the others in cutting the Jokapcul down.

  “Yes, yes,” Xundoe the mage cooed soothingly to the tiny demon that popped out of the handle of his demon weapon and piteously squeaked, “Veedmee!” “I’ll feed you. Just a minute here.” He fumbled open a pouch that hung from his belt and fingered out a pellet smaller than his fingertip. Gingerly, he held it out to the tiny demon, who snatched it away. The demon’s mouth stretched open until it looked larger than its entire head and it shoved the pellet in. It closed its mouth, bulging huge around the pellet, and gulped. For an instant the demon’s neck was almost as wide as its shoulders, then all sign of the pellet was gone. The demon let out a loud, contented burp and popped back inside the hand piece, slamming the door on its bottom behind itself.

  Xundoe began to look up for more Jokapcul targets; his eyes jerked back to the demon weapon in his hands and his face blanched when he heard snoring come from inside it.

  “Demon? Demon?” Xundoe squeaked, gaping at the hand piece and tapping it. “Don’t go to sleep, we need to fight!”

  “Xundoe.” Alyline pulled on his arm. “It’s all right, they ran. The fight’s over.”

  “Eh?” Xundoe peeked up from under his brows, such as they were. “Oh!” he said brightly when he saw there was no more fighting going on. “Where’d they go?” he asked, looking cautiously around for more Jokapcul.

  “They ran away when you used the demon spitter.”

  “Oh! Well!” The young mage stood erect and preened.

  “Now get your healing demons out and get to work.” Alyline strode onto the battlefield and began directing the survivors who were checking bodies, telling them where to gather the wounded for bandaging and treatment. She ordered Fletcher to take her stallion and ride to stop the caravan—and bring back more soldiers and all the healers.

  Fletcher didn’t object that she was out of line giving him orders, he merely said, “Tell Spinner where I’ve gone.”

  “Oh,” Xundoe said softly when he saw how many wounded and dead littered the ground under the trees. He led his pack mule to the area where the wounded were being gathered and flung open the chest it carried, to rummage through it for the few healing demons it contained.

  Nightbird, the healing witch who had been with them since before the original band descended into the Princedons, arrived and began helping with her potions and poultices. The Eikby healers were arriving by the time the last of the wounded were gathered in their makeshift, open-air hospital. So were more soldiers—Haft set them in a defensive perimeter to the south and sent a squad farther to scout for more approaching Jokapcul. Fletcher’s wife, Zweepee, and several women who served with her as nurses arrived with the Eikby healers.

  Once the wounded—including the Jokapcul—were gathered, Spinner set the survivors to collecting the dead; the Jokapcul went into an unceremonious pile, the dead soldiers of the band were reverently laid in lines. They gathered all weapons and searched the corpses for anything usable.

  Spinner looked at the wounded and the dead and sighed deeply. They had beaten the Jokapcul and taken many more lives than they gave up themselves. They held the ground at the end of the fight, which was the classic definition of victory in battle. But the victory was pyrrhic. Even though far more than half the lancer troop lay dead, and nearly a score more were in the makeshift hospital waiting their turns to be tended, half of the Zobran Border Warders who were in the fight were dead or seriously wounded, and a third of Veduci’s men were down as well. Most of the remainder bore lesser wounds.

  The Jokapcul could absorb such losses and replace every lost soldier with more, many more. The refugees couldn’t replace any of their few fighting men without taking in more refugees, and most refugees were women, children, and oldsters; too many of the men had been killed defending their families and homes when the Jokapcul swept through their countries.

  “We beat them again,” Haft said, joining Spinner after seeing to the defense. His voice was weary.

  “At what price?”

  “Too great a price.”

  “I don’t think so.” Veduci limped up to them. His voice was hoarse, and blood seeped from a crude bandage on his leg and dripped slowly from his sword. “Had they,” he nodded at the pile of Jokapcul bodies, “caught my people, they would have killed all of us. Instead, more than half of my men are mostly whole and all of our women and children are safe.” He looked intently at them. “When word spreads that the Jokapcul can be beaten, they will begin to lose more often, and fewer people will die at their hands.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  They dug a common grave and reverently buried their dead. A shallow trench sufficed for the Jokapcul. Nobody cared if scavengers dug them up later, they just wanted to prevent stench for the time they’d be in camp under the trees just over the ridge from the battleground.

  Try as they might, it wasn’t yet possible for the refugees to be silent in setting up camp; still, they were quiet enough that they sounded like only a few hundred refugees rather than the more than two thousand they were. It wasn’t long before the men had a pavilion stretched over the wounded soldiers, tents pitched or lean-tos constructed for sleeping, and privy trenches dug away from the tents and water sources. That last was one of the innovations Lord Gunny had brought from wherever it was he’d come. Most people didn’t understand the need at first, but they quickly enough came to learn that they had less illness with the remote privy trenches than they would have without them, so they dug them willingly enough.

  Xundoe and the chief Eikby healing magician let loose their aralez, and the tiny, doglike healing demons scampered about, licking at the worst wo
unds, cleaning out what was bad and speeding healing. The healing magician was more careful in guiding his land trow; even though there were no young mothers or infants under the pavilion, there were a few nearby. While the land trow was a powerful healing demon, it was also a severe danger to nursing women and infants and had to be kept from them. It was waist high to the magician who controlled it and went about languidly on its business, never straining against its leash, from wounded man to wounded man. It stopped here and there when a wound interested it and probed deep inside with its long, slender fingers. Most of the time when it withdrew its fingers a greenish cloud came with them. The land trow examined each cloud curiously for a moment before dismissively flicking its fingers, dispersing the cloud into nothingness. Nightbird and the Eikby healing witches tended lesser wounds and bruises with unguents and poultices. At length, their wounded were all attended to and they turned to the wounded Jokapcul. The most severely wounded enemy soldiers were set aside and made comfortable during the short time they had left before they died. The lesser wounded were tended to and bound to prevent them from running away or causing mischief.

  Meanwhile, older children collected dry wood and women got the cookfires burning. Middle-size children ran gaily to a nearby rill with buckets, struggling back just as gaily with water for the wounded and cooking. Haft busied himself setting quartets of soldiers in a sentry line south of the battleground and other watchers in the tops of high trees. Spinner tried to look like he was putting order to the camp while staying out of the way of Fletcher and Zweepee, who were really doing that job.

  Soon water was boiling in pots into which chunks of meat, vegetables, and tubers were tossed, along with salt and what other spices were available. Cooking aromas began wafting under the trees.

  Silent, the giant nomad from the steppes, came in more than an hour before sunset—he’d expected to arrive at dusk but the caravan had stopped early. The six Skragland Borderers who, like Silent, had been on distant patrols looking for a Jokapcul army that might be following, returned about the same time. Wolf greeted Silent with a yip and a bound to his chest. The giant ruffled the fur on Wolf’s shoulders. Wolf then padded at the giant’s side, brushing against his leg, occasionally lifting his head to be petted by the giant’s dangling fingertips.

  Silent, for a wonder, lived up to his name as he examined the battleground and looked at the wounded from both sides, seeing the extent of the graves.

  Spinner, feeling mostly useless, finally stopped pretending to oversee the camp and joined him.

  “I was too far from the road,” Silent said quietly, “looking for bandits in the forest. I didn’t see the Jokap sign until I checked the road before coming back. Then I saw a troop had passed. I followed fast to catch them, then to come ahead and warn you. I found the place where the rear guard ambushed the patrol trailing us. The lancer troop spent a short time there, then continued at speed. I didn’t stop and try to question any of the wounded still alive, instead I got here as fast as I could. But the fight was already over.” He shook his shaggy head. “If I’d been near the road all along I could have given you warning.”

  “No you couldn’t,” Spinner replied. “They were at a canter, you couldn’t beat them, they would have reached us first no matter where you were.”

  Silent grunted. He thought he might have been able to reach the caravan in time if he’d seen the lancer troop. “How many did we lose?” He didn’t need an answer, he knew within one or two how many were lost just from the length of the common grave.

  “Three of ours dead, two seriously enough wounded they might not live. Seven of the others are dead and four more very badly wounded. I’m not sure how many wounded all told.”

  Silent looked toward the hospital pavilion. “They’re bandits, you know.”

  Spinner nodded slowly. “Yes. But they’re fleeing the Jokapcul, the same as us.”

  Silent’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Veduci’s wounded. “Can the snow leopard change its spots?”

  “They fought alongside us, many of them died in the fight.”

  “I saw no other bandits,” Silent said briskly, turning from the pavilion, but Spinner noticed the other. “There was a sign of bandits moving north, though. None of them coming to this road, it was like they wanted to keep to the deep forest. Like they think the Jokapcul can’t follow them into the forest.” He hawked into a bush that had been broken in the fight. “I think we’ll be safe from bandits for a while, anyway.” He glanced back at the pavilion. “At least until those are well enough. How many of them are left?”

  “Twelve men, nearly all wounded.”

  Silent grunted again. He sniffed the air. “Something smells good, and I’m hungry.” He turned and strode from the battlefield toward the encampment. Spinner had to scurry to keep up with the nomad’s long strides.

  Haft watched the middle-size children scamper off with the covered trenchers and waterskins for the pickets, amazed and delighted as always at their eagerness to fetch and carry and turn every chore into a game. The children seemed to think taking food and water to the sentries was a reward, a special treat, and performed that chore more eagerly than any other. Maybe it was: the soldiers and other men on sentry duty usually allowed the children to stay with them for a time and “help” watch. The children believed that by “helping watch” they were performing an important duty and being treated like grown-ups instead of children.

  “Haft!”

  He turned to the voice and smiled at Maid Marigold. She had been a serving girl at Eikby’s Middle of the Forest Inn—when there’d been an Eikby and a Middle of the Forest Inn.

  “It’s your turn,” she said, smiling at him and holding up a bowl.

  His smile broadened and he joined the group gathering around the cookfire with its boiling pot.

  Fletcher, Alyline, and Doli were already there, as was Maid Primrose, who had worked alongside Maid Marigold at the inn. Maid Marigold and Doli had worked with Maid Primrose to prepare dinner. Spinner and Silent joined the group right after Haft took his place on a log and accepted the steaming bowl of stew from his lover.

  “Where’s Zweepee?” Alyline asked.

  “She said she’d be here once she saw all the wounded were fed,” Fletcher replied.

  Alyline nodded, Zweepee took her responsibilities seriously. Spinner and Haft had instituted a policy Lord Gunny had brought with him from—from—from wherever he’d come from: the leaders didn’t eat until everybody else was served.

  A proper commander always feeds his people before he eats himself. That makes sure the commander has provided enough food for his people, Lord Gunny wrote in the Handbook for Sea Soldiers. Any commander who doesn’t take care of his people will lose his war.

  The caravan carried enough food to last the trip to Dartmutt at the head of Princedon Gulf, enough and more. But what if Dartmutt didn’t have enough food to feed the influx of refugees who must be congregating there? So caring for food and gathering more was necessary for the caravan. As they moved along the road, the women and older children who weren’t needed to move animals and wagons along or tend to babies and oldsters often roamed under the trees in search of mushrooms, tubers, or other edibles. The point and flanking patrols kept watch for game as well as Jokapcul and bandits, and brought in what they could catch without neglecting their primary duties. Pairs of hunters prowled the forest beyond the flanks and point in search of game. They didn’t find much; it seemed even the animals of the forest were fleeing the invaders.

  For a few moments there were only the slurping and chewing sounds of eating around the fire. An occasional voice was raised elsewhere, mostly the cries of children happy to be traveling on what they thought was a grand adventure. Horses snorted in a nearby tether line, or pawed at the ground. The thin smoke from the fire kept most of the buzzing insects at a respectful distance. Wolf quietly gnawed on a bone; he’d dined earlier on one of the Jokapcul horses killed in the battle. But it wasn’t polite to mention that—th
e people weren’t anywhere near ready to eat horse meat.

  Spinner kept looking to the south, though he couldn’t see very far through the trees. Looking into trees that blocked his view was easier than looking where he’d have to see Doli and Maid Primrose pointedly ignoring him.

  Once the edge was off his hunger, he asked Silent, “When do you think they’ll come again?”

  Silent swallowed loudly and belched before answering. “I saw or heard nothing but the Jokaps you dealt with on our back trail. Neither did the Borderers who scouted deep back.” He looked south as though he could see through the trees. “They won’t come at night, I think. If any more are following now, they’re camped for the night. If we move out soon after dawn, no one should reach us before midday. But if there was more than one troop, I think they would have come together. I also think I would have seen sign.”

  “Why did they come faster after they saw their trailing patrol had been killed?” Spinner hadn’t considered that earlier, he’d been too busy with other matters for it to occur to him. Now that he thought about it, it didn’t seem to make sense.

  Silent shrugged. “Who knows what a Jokap officer thinks? If they read the signs as well as I did, they knew their patrol was attacked by a small rear guard. Maybe they hoped to catch them and get revenge.”

  “That would have left them free to harry our rear,” Fletcher said. “They could have done us a great deal of injury before we could organize a counterattack.”

  Haft snorted. “My rear point still would have beaten them,” he growled.

  “No,” Spinner said. “You caught the first by surprise—and that lancer troop was much larger than the patrol you ambushed. If they didn’t beat you immediately, the commander could have split his force, kept half of it back to deal with you, and sent the rest ahead to attack the caravan.”