Haft blinked his eyes and shook his head sharply when he reached the “kitchen.” Men and older boys were busy digging a long row of shallow pits and building fires in them, or setting up a row of trestle tables along each side of the line of fire pits. Beyond the tables and fires the trees were filled with wagons. Women and girls, a hundred or more, were bustling back and forth between the wagons and the tables on that side of the fires, lugging foodstuffs and cooking utensils.
This is a kitchen? he thought. There were more than enough people and material to prepare food for two battalions! He dropped his head and thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. Of course! They’d just freed more than two battalions worth of people, and they had their own soldiers to feed as well. They needed that many and that much to feed them.
He looked around to see who was in charge, who was there whom he knew, and a curious expression spread over his face. He didn’t recognize any of them, men or women!
He shook his head. We’ve gotten big. The realization struck him hard. He’d spent most of his time either with the caravan’s lead elements or with the small command group, rather than going from one end to the other of the growing caravan seeing people, meeting the new people who joined the caravan on its way around Dartmutt. He hadn’t realized until now just how many people were traveling with him and Spinner. And this was only a small part of the caravan!
So who was in charge of this kitchen? Would that person know who he was?
“Haft!”
He turned his head to the familiar voice and saw Doli scurrying toward him.
“Haft, where have you been?” she said before she reached him. “Where’s Spinner? We have so much to do here, so many people to feed—Alyline told me there are a thousand people out there who need feeding and then we have to feed our soldiers! I sent someone to find Zweepee because I know she’s with the people Spinner and you freed from the Jokapcul this morning. She’ll be able to tell me how many people there really are where’s Spinner? How are we supposed to feed all of these people—that’s going to take a lot of food—we need to send hunters out to find more meat are there any game animals in this forest, we need people foraging for fruits and vegetables and tubers does anybody know what is good to eat here where’s Spinner?” She paused to take a breath and Haft broke in.
“Are you in charge here?”
“What? Yes, I’m in charge of the kitchen—I have to get all these people fed—are they hungry—now where’s Spinner? I can arrange a serving line for the people to line up at the tables—”
“They’re too weak to line up.” Haft raised his voice to break through. “Doli, these people are very weak, they’ve been starved. Many of them are injured, some of them are sick. They aren’t going to line up, you’re going to have to serve them where they are.”
“Oh,” she said meekly.
“Do you have enough food for them? Is anyone getting water?”
“We have two wells right over there.” She waved a hand absently. “Where’s Spinner?”
“Is anybody out hunting? Is anybody gathering?”
“I—I don’t know. Where’s Spinner?”
Haft looked beyond her, into the trees, and saw people standing around among the wagons. “Put people to work gathering. Some of these people are Dartmutters, I’m sure some of them will know what to gather.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Now go and do it.” He gave her a little push.
“All right, I’ll do it,” she said as she started moving away. Over her shoulder she asked again, “Where’s Spinner?”
Haft swallowed a sigh. “The last time I saw him he was over there.” He pointed vaguely to the east. He hoped his voice didn’t sound as thick as it felt. If it did, Doli would know something was wrong.
Evidently it didn’t; she kept going.
It wasn’t much longer before the rest of the healers were finished with the soldiers wounded in the morning’s battle and moved west to aid the others in tending to the injuries of the former prisoners.
Most of the women, children, and oldsters had been able to bathe themselves in the surf. Alyline organized women from the caravan to gather fresh clothing for them from the wagons, and other women to sort the garments they’d stripped off to go into the water. Most of the garments they’d worn since they were captured were no longer good for any use but to be torn into rags, and many not even that. But some were still usable and were set aside to be washed. The people who were too weak or injured to take themselves into the water were carried to the water’s edge and caringly laved by women from the caravan. There weren’t many unable to bathe themselves; the Jokapcul had used anyone too weak or ill for weapons practice.
Alyline’s eyes had a haunted look when Haft found her.
“I thought my slavery was bad,” she said softly. “I thought the way the Jokapcul treated their prisoners in Eikby was worse. But this is the worst yet.” Her eyes grimly swept from the west to the south, the directions where she knew the Jokapcul were to be found. “I want them defeated, Haft. I want them dead.” She placed a hand on his chest and looked into his eyes. “Promise me,” she said through gritted teeth. “Promise me, Haft. Promise me you will kill them every chance you get. Promise me you will defeat them, you will destroy them.” Her voice grew harsher as she spoke.
Haft wanted to step back from the fury that radiated from her eyes, but he was the commander, he reminded himself, he couldn’t back away from anybody. Not even from a woman who had led naked women to battle with the Jokapcul. With a great effort of will, he stilled the trembling that washed over him and lifted a hand to softly touch her cheek.
“By all that is holy and sacred to me, Alyline, I will do that. I promise.”
“Thank you, Haft.” She turned her face to fleetingly touch his hand with her lips, then stepped away. “Now I have to see to the soldiers. Where’s Spinner?” She asked the last over her shoulder as she headed west.
“I’ll check on him,” Haft replied, but not loud enough for her to hear.
Yes, where was Spinner? Was he still with them, or had he gone on? Haft didn’t know. Lord Gunny had said, Marines don’t die. They go to hell and regroup. He didn’t want to have to wait until he got to hell to regroup with Spinner. He really didn’t.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Haft didn’t have to go to hell to regroup with Spinner.
“Nightbird said Lord Spinner suffered a concussion when he was thrown,” Lieutenant Haes told Haft. “She gave him a draught for it, he’s sleeping naturally now.” He snorted. “Even the healing mages agreed that sleep is the best thing for him right now. They weren’t too sure about the draught, but their demons could only do so much. The land trow couldn’t do much, but it seemed to ease him.”
“I don’t trust those things,” Haft mumbled as he knelt by Spinner’s side. Spinner lay under a light blanket. His chest rose and fell with regular breath and his eyelids flickered with the movement of his dreaming eyes.
“Did Nightbird say how long it will take before he’s well again?” he asked the Zobran.
“She said it could be tomorrow, or it could be a month before he’s fully recovered. He’ll sleep a lot for a day or two, she said.”
Haft flinched. He knew injuries inside the head could be worse than serious wounds to the body, but a day or a month? “Where is she now?”
“She went with the others to tend the new people.”
The new people. The Zobran officer assumed they were going to absorb the thousand former prisoners. Well, they had been taking in refugees all along. And he and Spinner had begun with just four freed slaves. So, yes, they would take these in as well.
“What did the healing mages say about how long it would be for Spinner to recover?”
“None of them were willing to speak to that.”
Haft wondered what good the healing mages were if they couldn’t heal Spinner. Then he took a deep breath and dismissed the thought. He laid a hand
on Spinner’s arm and leaned his head close to his ear.
“Get well fast, Spinner. I’ll take care of everything until you’re healed. But I need you. We all do. Oh, both Alyline and Doli asked about you. I think they both need you too. Get well, you need yourself too.” He gave Spinner’s arm a squeeze, then stood.
“How’s Captain Geatwe?” he asked. The Company B commander was no longer laying next to Spinner.
“He’s sleeping over there.” Haes pointed toward the pavilion that had been hastily erected for the wounded. “His wound looks almost healed, but the healing magicians say his shoulder will be very sore for the next week or two.”
Haft nodded. “And the other wounded?”
“They’re doing better than I’m used to so soon after a battle. The healing witches are very good at what they do, and the healing demons the magicians control are, well, amazing.”
“Good. I’m going to see how Captain Phard is doing with the freed soldiers now.” He looked off into nowhere. “Have you seen Sergeant Rammer?”
“No. Nor the giant.”
Haft found Sergeant Rammer with Phard and the freed soldiers. Rammer didn’t know where Silent was either.
That was because Silent and Wolf had silently slipped away well before dawn, just after the forces that attacked the Jokapcul camp left to take up their positions. The giant nomad was on the plateau, beyond the escarpment’s horizon, where he was welcomed as a guest in the Desert Men’s encampment. They welcomed him partly because they were impressed by the courage of a man who fearlessly came alone into their land. They also recognized him as being, like them, a nomad, which alone might have granted him entrée.
But mostly they received him in a friendly manner because of Wolf. The Desert Men held the wolf sacred; they believed wolves were the companions of gods. Any man who traveled with a wolf must be blessed by the gods. And a man traveling with a wolf as his sole companion might be more than a mere man, and Silent’s great size gave credence to that idea.
Communication was difficult. The closest most of them had to a common language was the Dartmutt dialect of Zobran, which Silent couldn’t understand at all. But one of them was familiar with Skraglandish, and another, oddly enough, spoke passable Ewsarkan—in both of which languages Silent was fluent, or close enough.
Silent had become wistful when he first stood on the plateau in full daylight—it reminded him of home. Not in details, of course. The Northern Steppes had huge vistas of rich grass that stood waist high to a full-size man, and the plateau had only patches of grass, and that wasn’t even calf-high to these stunted little people of the south. Combined, all of the tiny streams that laced the Low Desert didn’t match any one of the great rivers that drained the steppes. There was a range of low mountains on the southeast corner of the plateau, but the Northern Steppes were bounded on the south by a mountain range so high that a people on the move could travel toward it for a week or more and it wouldn’t seem to be any closer. There were no herds of wild horses here from which a boy could capture a mount to tame, and by taming prove himself worthy to become a man. And the Northern Steppes had lakes so big, a man could sit on his horse and not be able to see all the way across the water; here there were only occasional pools so small a man with good reach could jump across the biggest of them.
But the details aside, the lay of the land was familiar. There were vast areas of gently rolling land, others that were flat, and yet other vast areas that only appeared flat to those who couldn’t read the land’s lay.
After a few hours ride onto the plateau, Silent was in an area that only looked flat. But his vision, bred for and born into the steppes, saw the signs and read them, so he knew where the land fell and where it rose again. In no time he spotted the outriders who paced him, confident that he didn’t have any idea he was being flanked. They were far enough away that he grinned openly and even laughed out loud at their error. He knew that had he wanted to, he could ride this land without those outriders knowing he was there. If he wanted, he could even disappear from their sight and by the time they found his trail be so far away they’d never catch up with him until he was ready for them to do so.
He did disappear from their sight for a time, but only so he could slip unnoticed upon a small herd of grazing gazelle and take two with his bow. He didn’t kill them for himself, but because a guest should bring a present to his host. He resisted the temptation to wave to his escorts when he regained their sight.
Silent became momentarily wistful again when he first spied the Desert Man camp. He was sure they thought he hadn’t spotted it yet, even though as soon as he did he angled his horse toward it. It was skillfully camouflaged, with its green-speckled sand-colored tents, but the shapes of the tents caught the eye that knew what the land looked like, and the camouflage fell away. The low tents were unlike the yurts of the Tangonine people, his own tribe. His people didn’t try to hide their homes in their own land. The yurts stood tall and proud, each decorated with banners and hangings that proclaimed to the world who lived there and their accomplishments.
No matter how far away he was when he first saw them, Silent didn’t realize how low the tents actually were until the chief invited him into his own. The giant nomad had to get down on his belly to crawl through the entrance. Back on the steppes, he could stand fully erect inside a yurt; here he sat cross-legged on a rug woven in richly colored patterns near the middle of the tent and still had to duck his head to keep from pressing it into the tenting.
The chief had accepted the gazelles with ceremony, and ordered a feast prepared in Silent’s honor. Musicians played drums, flutes, and instruments with plucked strings. Singers—Silent quickly recognized that the torques around their necks marked them as slaves—set up a wailing that would have stung Silent’s ears had he not during his travels grown accustomed to the strange and discordant sounds that other people found musical. Desert Men got up and danced when the music or spirits moved them to do so. At length the feast was served, copper platters laid out on low tables before the seated men, and everyone dug in with the fingers of his right hand. There were no women in sight, and Silent knew enough not to ask about them.
Silent was voluble in three language in praise of the food when it was served. In Skraglandish and Ewsarkan he extolled its virtues. In his own language he mocked its lack of color, how it looked the color of sand, dotted only lightly with reds and greens, totally lacking in the panoply of colors that rioted in a stew of the steppes; he laughed about its incredible blandness, only occasionally spiked with a dart of spice. The two Desert Men translated his compliments, and the chief beamed in pride. The other Desert Men roared their pleasure.
After eating, the chief ordered slaves to distribute ceremonial drinking cups, large receptacles with handles on both sides—large for the Desert Men, who needed both hands to lift them to their mouths. Silent was able to wrap one hand around the cup given him. The slaves then brought in goatskin bottles filled with fermented comite milk and bustled about keeping all the cups filled as everyone got boisterously drunk.
Rather, the Desert Men got drunk. Thanks to his great size, Silent could absorb a good deal more alcohol than they before he got drunk. Besides, the fermented comite milk wasn’t anywhere near as potent as the fermented mare’s milk he’d grown up with. By the time the Desert Men started keeling over, Silent was experiencing only a mild buzz.
It was a jolly buzz, to be sure, so jolly he felt like dancing. He jumped up from the place of honor, next to the chief, took a drum from the hands of a surprised musician and began to dance.
While he danced, springing here and there, spinning about, and kicking in ways that were a marvel to his hosts, his free hand beat out a rhythm on the drum none of the Desert Men recognized. He raised his voice in a joyful cacophony that thoroughly entranced his audience. Or perhaps they were thoroughly mystified how anybody could imagine that noise to be singing. But they were soon clapping to his drumbeat and keening a counterpoint to his singing.
Some of the less drunk Desert Men leapt to their feet and joined in Silent’s dance, and they greatly enjoyed aping his movements—even though they fell when they attempted the squatting kicks he executed flawlessly. A couple of the Desert Men who fell decided they’d rather sleep than get back up. Other dancers tripped over their sprawled bodies and they also decided they’d rather sleep than get back up. Soon enough too many bodies littered the tent floor for any of those still able to dance to be able to continue. Eventually, even Silent had to admit he was too drunk to dance around them, and he fell, laughing, alongside the inebriated chief.
The chief was laughing uproariously, more than ever pleased he’d welcomed the stranger as a guest. The stranger’s odd dancing, drumming, and singing were even better than the gift of two gazelle that prompted the feast. Yes, this was a guest who would be allowed to move throughout his tribe’s lands without being molested. He would remember to tell his men not to harm the stranger when he was found again in the desert.
The translator who spoke Skraglandish was snoring, but the one with Ewsarkan was still conscious and more or less able to speak. So Silent and the chief talked, and the giant told the desert chief why he’d gone there alone. Silent couldn’t tell how well his words were conveyed by the drunk translator, but the gist of it must have reached through the alcoholic haze because the chief’s mien turned serious, if not sober.
Finally the chief declared, “We will talk later. Now is time for sleep.” He immediately fell over and started snoring.
Silent took the hint and got a blanket from his saddle. He curled up on the rug next to the chief. Before he fell asleep himself, he thought about the Desert Men’s slaves. He knew how strongly Spinner and Haft reacted to slavery and was afraid that if they knew about it, they’d want to return to the Low Desert to free the slaves. He also knew they’d get slaughtered if they did. He resolved not to tell them.
Demontech: Gulf Run Page 32