Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2)

by David Sherman

  Chaos reigned, but only briefly before three of the bandits began bawling orders. One of them started organizing women and children into bucket brigades to douse the fires. He had one bucket line formed and another started before an arrow in the chest put an end to his organizing. Two other bandit leaders saw the direction the arrows came from. One led as many men as he could quickly gather to the temporary corral on the north side of the village. None of the archers could effectively reach that far. The third leader quickly assembled other bandits and led them in a scrambling, climbing charge up the steep side of the southwest hill. Some of them fell to the rain of arrows that came at them from the hilltop, but there were far more of them than there were archers, and the darkness on the hillside made them hard to see.

  Xundoe squatted nervously next to Spinner, his hands fretfully twined and retwined around themselves as he watched the charging bandits. “Now, I can reach them now,” he said with a squeak as he made out the shadow of a climbing bandit.

  Spinner laid a restraining hand on the mage’s arm as he coldly watched the emerging shadows. He let the leading bandits come closer, waited until the mass of them were where the leaders were when Xundoe said he could reach them, then said, “Stop them now, Xundoe.”

  The mage snatched up one of the three phoenix eggs he had laid out next to his ankles and twisted its top. He threw it with a straight-armed, overhand lob. The egg sailed out and down the side of the hill. It hit in the middle of the mass of bandits and burst open. The phoenix reared up with a shriek and unfurled its long, fiery wings. The bandit it landed in front of saw it and his eyes popped wide. He started to throw himself backward to roll down the hill, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the flaming bird—he was incinerated before he had time to scream. The phoenix’s flapping wings slapped bandits as they pumped to lift the bird. The bandits hit by the wings lit up like torches, screaming and shrieking as they tumbled down the hill.

  The other bandits paused in fearful awe as the phoenix lifted from the ground and spiraled into the sky, its flames sharply illuminated them and cast dancing shadows away from them. Spinner and the archers worked their bows and struck a dozen of bandits with arrows. When the survivors realized how many of their mates were already down they spun about and bolted down the steep slope—some tripped and tumbled to the bottom with sprained ligaments and broken bones. More arrows followed and several more bandits fell and skidded for a distance before they lay still. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as Xundoe worked his small demon spitter. More bandits fell to it.

  The other group of bandits now charged on horseback from the corral, herding unmounted horses ahead of them as a shield. They raced through the village, past burning houses and buildings, trampling women and children who couldn’t get out of their way heading toward the trail between the two hills on the south side. Stampeding the extra horses would have been a good idea if they had been attacking a position on a plain; the stampeding horses would have shielded them. But the positions they headed for were high above, and the archers could see down on them, their view unobstructed by the horses between—and the frightened horses impeded the bandits, slowing their charge. The archers on the hilltops shot many bandits, and as many more were thrown and trampled when their horses were hit before they reached the gentler slopes between the guardian hills.

  Xundoe ran downhill a short distance to get within throwing range of the foot of the hill and threw another phoenix egg at horsemen who were trying to force their mounts through the mass of frightened animals that crowded the narrow trail. The horsemen were packed tightly so many men and their mounts died or were horribly burned by the phoenix as it unfurled its wings and sought to gain air. The horses beyond the phoenix panicked and fled uncontrollably. Riderless horses scattered into the forest south of the hills, a few ran up them. Others, with riders, galloped madly back into the burning village, trampling panic-stricken people. Most of the horses shed their riders before escaping the burning village.

  Everybody on foot in the village was fleeing the rapidly spreading fires, all thoughts of organizing another counterattack or bucket brigade forgotten. It was nearly impossible for an archer to loose an arrow with any certainty it would hit a bandit, and not a woman, a child, or a horse. They shot anyway.

  “Pull out!” Spinner shouted. Xundoe and the men with him gathered their weapons and ran down the back side of the hill, angling toward the southbound trail. Spinner raced down the side of the hill and up the other to where the Haft and Silent were with the rest of the party, still shooting arrows into Rockhold.

  “Time to go,” he panted when he got there. They all jumped up and ran down the hill’s back side. With few clear targets remaining, they were ready to leave.

  They found the horse boys waiting with their mounts less than a hundred yards back.

  “Is anybody hurt?” Spinner asked as they assembled and mounted. A quick roll call showed the raiding party had suffered no injuries. Spinner and Haft told the boys what a good job they’d done and thanked them for it, the soldiers echoed and amplified their praise. The boys beamed all the way back to Eikby. They heard the roar of the burning village for a long time as they cantered away.

  The raiders returned to Eikby at midday. New but sturdy looking fences lined the fields in seeming innocence. Head-high posts had been pounded into the earth in angled pairs that crossed each other; longer posts ran from crossed pair to crossed pair and were securely lashed into place. Workers were busily stringing wires the length of the fences along the tops of the upright posts, others were hammering wires onto the posts below where they crossed. Tightly woven gates that blocked the roads entering the town from east, north, and south looked strong enough to withstand a bull.

  Captain Stonearm looked critically at the fences as the raiders entered the cleared land from the forest. The wires and horizontal posts weren’t so close that it would be difficult for a man on foot to get through them, but they would slow his passage. The fence height and width were great enough that only horses intensively trained to jump were likely to clear them. The layout of the fences was such that charging horsemen would be channeled into narrower and narrower spaces until they reached the easily defended palisades that were going up. The commander of the Eikby guard nodded approval. The town was getting closer to being defensible.

  In open ground, closer to the western fence than to the forest, Fletcher and half of the company’s men who hadn’t gone on the raid were drilling the guard. Already, the guardsmen looked sharper and more confident than they had the day before, but they looked sharper only compared to how they looked the day before. The rest of the able-bodied men of the company were working with the townsmen on the fences. The previous day’s campsite was abandoned, the women, children, and wounded were camped inside the fence.

  Halloos rose from the guardsmen when they saw the riders, and all training discipline broke as they ran to greet them. Fletcher shook his head, then signaled his trainers that they could join the welcoming party as well and walked behind the guardsmen to the gate on the west road. More shouting came from where the fences were and the people building them waved. In moments, women and children ran to the west gate, shouting and waving.

  Spinner stood in his stirrups, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t see the Golden Girl among the waving, shouting women who gathered to welcome them back. Haft noticed Spinner’s search; he also noted that Doli wasn’t among the welcoming women.

  When they neared the gate, women forced it open and ran out to greet them. Worry was in the eyes of those whose husbands, sons, or brothers were among the raiders; the worry turned to relief when they saw their men and boys were unharmed. The first guardsmen arrived and shouted questions: “How did it go?” “Did you find them?” “Was there a fight?” Many of the raiders stopped to answer the questions and take in the adulation of the guardsmen. Spinner, Haft, Silent, and Captain Stonearm continued on to the gate. The women and children still coming through danced aside t
o let them pass, called welcome and thank you, reached out to touch them as they went by. In the near distance, they spied a small cloud of dust approaching, raised by the wheels of the mayor’s carriage as it sped toward them. The quartet advanced a little farther and dismounted to await his arrival. Fletcher joined them, along with Plotkinov and Stupnikow. They briefly told each other about the raid and the progress on the town’s defenses.

  Before any of them could go into detail, the mayor’s carriage clattered to a stop a few yards away and he jumped out and came at them furiously. “How many of our innocents have you gotten killed?” he shrilled before he reached them. Not the greeting any of them expected.

  “Lord Mayor,” Stonearm said with a deep bow. “We have killed no innocents, only bandits. The raid was a success, many of the Rockhold Band bandits are dead or wounded, Rockhold itself is mostly burned to the ground—and we suffered no injuries of our own. It will be some fair time before the Rockhold Band is able to threaten anyone again.” He looked again at the fences and gates. “And anyone who sees this may simply decide to go away and leave us alone.”

  In his fury the mayor ignored Stonearm’s statement. “I have sent a message to the prince. He will send his soldiers to put down your coup. Your insurrection will not last!” Spittle sprayed the Guard Captain’s face.

  “Lord Mayor,” Stonearm said calmly, “I have made no coup, nor led an insurrection. I have done my job as Guard Captain and dealt with a threat to Eikby. You are yet Lord Mayor.”

  The mayor still ignored what he said. “If the guardsmen weren’t all traitors loyal to you, I’d have you in chains! You usurped my authority! You threaten the security of Eikby by leading a band of, of strangers into the forest to confront and anger the bandits. Now they will come and attack us! They will rob and rape and murder and destroy us! Captain Stonearm, your name will live forever in infamy for what you have done to Eikby!”

  Plotniko and Stupnikow had withdrawn to a discrete distance when the mayor began his harangue, the others had stood in embarrassed silence during it. Finally Haft stepped between Stonearm and the mayor, placed the flat of his hand on the mayor’s chest, and pushed. The mayor staggered back. He didn’t fall, but the shock of being shoved stopped his harangue. As much as his jaw continued to flap open and closed, no words came out.

  Haft stepped in close. “How about if you shut up for a minute and listen!” he bellowed into the mayor’s face from only two or three inches away in his best imitation of a drill instructor chewing out an inept recruit. “Look around; everyone who went on the raid is back and whole.” The mayor took another step back, Haft stepped forward, maintaining his closeness. “Listen to Captain Stonearm’s report. We didn’t suffer any injuries.” The mayor stepped back again, tripped on a discarded scrap of wood, and would have fallen if Haft hadn’t grabbed his arm to hold him up and close. “We killed or wounded too many bandits for us to count.” The mayor tried to step back again, but Haft held him close. “We burned down their whole base! The bandits don’t have anyplace to get organized now, and there aren’t as many of them left to attack us. We won! The bandits aren’t going to bother Eikby now. They can’t!”

  The mayor’s eyes fearfully darted from Haft to Stonearm, to Spinner, and back. He tried to wrest his arm out of Haft’s grip. Haft gave a painful squeeze, then let go. The mayor took a tentative step back, Haft let him. He worked his mouth, then spoke.

  “Come to the town hall and tell me all about it.” It didn’t sound like it was what he’d intended to say. He spun about and climbed into his carriage before they could reply.

  People and more people, townsfolk and the company’s camp followers together, guardsmen and soldiers of the company alike, followed in a parade. People tried to crowd into the mayor’s office to hear the report of the raid. Because he thought everyone deserved to hear his report, Captain Stonearm refused the mayor’s order to close the door and have his guardsmen keep everyone out. His frustration intermingled with a healthy dollop of fear, the mayor retired the meeting to the auditorium. In moments, the large room was packed to overflowing.

  “Quiet, quiet please!” the mayor shouted over the hubbub. He, the two Frangerian Marines, and Captain Stonearm were behind a table on a small stage at one end of the packed room. The other three sat—Spinner and Haft on one side of the mayor looked bemused, Stonearm to the other was expressionless—the mayor stood.

  “Quiet, quiet!” The mayor held one hand above his head, pounded a gavel on the table with the other. The excited people ignored him as they shouted greetings to friends on opposite sides of the large room, repeated to each other constantly growing stories of what had happened at the bandit base, laughed for joy at their imagined release from danger at the hands of the bandits.

  “Quiet please!” The mayor’s voice grew querulous, and he looked helplessly to his sides.

  Stonearm nodded and stood, looking out over the crowd. He filled his chest and roared out, “Quiet!” in the kind of carrying, penetrating voice that only sergeants ever develop.

  Silence filled the auditorium.

  The guard commander looked about with the expression drill sergeants reserve for recruits so impertinent as to think they’re good enough to be soldiers. Some of the real soldiers in the room hid smiles and chuckles behind their hands, most of the people without military experience sat down and leaned back timorously.

  Satisfied that he had everyone’s undivided attention, he turned to the mayor and bowed. “Lord Mayor, I believe you have something to say?” He sat and the mayor stood.

  “Hrmpf. Yes, I do. Thank you, Captain Stonearm.” He looked around the room, amazed that the guard commander had been able to accomplish so much with one word when his many words, hand signals, and poundings on the table had failed so abjectly.

  “Captain Stonearm and a number of our valorous guardsmen, along with several of these worthy travelers who came among us yesterday—” Spinner elbowed Haft, who had just enough Zobran to understand who the mayor was giving credit to and was about to object—“have just returned from an, ah, visit to the bandits of Rockhold. I, and I’m sure you as well, would like to hear from the good captain exactly what happened there.” He bowed to Stonearm. “Captain, if you would be so good as to enlighten us.”

  Stonearm looked past the mayor to Spinner and Haft. His eyes twinkled with amusement. Haft turned his glare on Stonearm, it was he and Spinner who had done most of the planning and led the raid, not Stonearm. Spinner clamped a restraining hand on Haft’s arm and nodded for Stonearm to go ahead. Spinner was more interested in the mayor’s unexpected change in attitude than he was in who got credit for what. Stonearm was well aware of who was responsible for the raid’s success, and he began with that.

  “Let us give credit where it is due,” Stonearm began. “If it hadn’t been for these two bold Frangerian Marines, Spinner and Haft, and their band of brave warriors from many countries, our, ah,” he glanced at the mayor, “visit to Rockhold never would have happened, much less met with the success that it did.

  “It began when these two Marines and four of the Skragland Blood Swords silently took out two bandit lookout posts. We then waited for the first stirring of dawn.” He went on to tell the rest of the action in detail, from the time the first fire arrow arched into the village until they withdrew, leaving all in chaos. “The entire action took about ten minutes.” He finished the narrative and chuckled. “Less time than it took to tell.

  “I estimate that we burned down three-quarters of Rockhold with destruction of an unknown quantity of their goods and weapons, and scattered their horses so far it will take days—even weeks—to recover all of them. There may have been two hundred bandits assembled when we began. When we finished, there were not too many more than one hundred still alive and uninjured.” He stopped and looked to the mayor to see if he had any questions or comments.

  Before the mayor could speak up a harsh voice rang from the audience, it was Alyline, the Golden Girl.

&n
bsp; “Did you kill any women?”

  Stonearm hesitated before answering. “Yes, I’m afraid we did. Some arrows meant for bandits went astray and struck women. Some others were trampled by the bandits’ stampeding horses. We did our best to avoid hurting women and children, our only interest was in killing the bandits. But anyone inside a battle is liable to be hurt or even killed, regardless of the intentions of the fighters. It is unfortunate that some women were hurt and possibly killed. I regret it. But those things happen.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” Haft whispered harshly to Spinner. “She’s seen battles before—she’s seen worse than battle. She knows what can happen when the fighting starts!”

  Spinner shook his head, he was as surprised as Haft.

  Stonearm made to sit but stopped when another angry voice cried out, “What about children?”

  Stonearm sighed. He looked at the questioner, but didn’t know her, though he’d seen her hovering near Spinner—it was Doli.

  “Again,” he answered her, “it was as with the women. Some children were injured, some of them may have killed. I, and everyone else in the raiding party, regret that some women and children were casualties. Sometimes that cannot be avoided.” He sat before anyone else had a chance to ask questions.

  A gloom briefly settled over the auditorium but it didn’t last long. If women and children had died in the raid, well, that was too bad, but they were among the bandits and the only way their deaths could have been avoided was to allow the bandits to ravage Eikby. The people knew the bandits didn’t hesitate to kill women and children on their raids.