Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2)

by David Sherman

  Silent heard and saw and realized the plan of attack was already unraveled. It was time for Plan B, but they didn’t have a Plan B. He bellowed orders. The archers began shooting at the Jokapcul racing to the guard post, and the rest of the soldiers followed him in a mad race to join Spinner and the others before the reinforcing Jokapcul reached the guard post.

  North of Eikby, Haft heard the first faint shouts from the east and knew something had gone wrong—but what? He couldn’t tell at that distance. He strained to look into the Jokapcul camp. The sky above was already a brilliant dawn blue, but the long shadow of the forest kept the light on the ground dim. At first he saw nothing but the same spiky shadows he’d been watching since he’d moved his men into position a few hours earlier. Then he made out what appeared to be random movement, which quickly resolved in the growing light into forms moving rapidly to the east. Whatever had gone wrong, Spinner and his group were about to be attacked by what might be overwhelming numbers. He couldn’t wait for the signal for his part of the attack to begin.

  “Demon spitters!” he shouted. “Fire now!”

  The demon in Haft’s weapon popped its door open. “Wazzu whanns?” it demanded.

  “Do you see that group of men?”

  The demon looked along Haft’s pointing arm. “Dry mee,” it said confidently and snicked its door shut.

  Haft aimed the tube at a knot of a dozen men more than a hundred yards away. He pressed the signaling lever and the demon spat just as the Jokapcul began to run east. He had aimed at the middle of the group and might have killed or injured all of them, but they moved far enough by the time the demon’s ejects got there that only seven were knocked down by the blast. The others spun about, saw what happened to their companions, and ran for cover.

  To Haft’s sides, three other demons spat and downrange three more eruptions gouted dirt, flesh, and blood. All of the Jokapcul were awake now. Some, startled from sleep, groped for weapons and leaped to their feet. Others scrambled for cover. Unintelligible shouts and cries came from the direction of the camp.

  More light flooded the cleared land as the sun inched above the trees. Not as many men were running east as had been, which was good, but he didn’t see any coming his way, either, which wasn’t. He looked for another target, but no one was standing and he couldn’t tell which of the indistinguishable splotches on the ground were Jokapcul and which were debris. He stood to get a better angle. In the camp, someone saw him and let out a yell. Individual Jokapcul jumped to their feet and sped toward him. He looked for several running close to each other and sighted his demon spitter on a quartet. He signaled, the demon spat, and the four tumbled through the air and crashed to the ground. They didn’t rise again.

  Silent’s roar reverberated through the trees and it startled the Jokapcul who were fighting for their lives at the guard post. They looked around and the sight of the giant barreling at them terrified them. They broke and ran. Twenty yards away they passed the first of the Jokapcul racing to their aid. That soldier skidded to a stop and peered indecisively into the dimness under the trees. He turned his head to look at the fleeing sentries and never saw the arrow that took him in the heart. He grunted softly and fell onto his haunches where he teetered for a few seconds before toppling over.

  Another twenty yards out, the fleeing Jokapcul collided with others coming to their aid. They shouted at one another as they tried to sort themselves out. Even with no officers to tell them what to do, they were still willing to fight and managed to get themselves on a line to charge back at the men in the trees. Just as one of them shouted for the charge to begin, the first demon spitter struck in the camp behind them. Some ran to battle, others held and looked back to see what the threat behind them was.

  Spinner took advantage of the respite to get his troops set in two lines, archers behind swords, axes, and pikes. He ordered a volley of arrows shot at Jokapcul who milled about less than fifty yards away and watched as four of them fell with wounds. A second volley launched just as half of the Jokapcul began their charge and the sound of demon spitter eruptions came from the other side of the ruins. Two more Jokapcul fell to the arrows. The archers had time for one more volley, then Spinner ordered them to pick targets and fire independently.

  The first shrieking, sword-swinging Jokapcul reached the line of blades. Two swords and a pike took him down before his sword could connect. The next two were several yards apart when they reached the line, and were also cut down before they could cause an injury. Each of the first seven to arrive was summarily cut down by multiple blades—without officers to order them, the Jokapcul picked their own targets and lines of approach, they failed to attack in concert, and soldier after soldier died one by one, each bleeding from multiple wounds—and none of them lay a blade on the men they attacked.

  Until enough of them arrived at the same time. Then the battle was engaged in earnest.

  Spinner stood in the middle of the line. The Frangerian held his quarterstaff with both hands at its midpoint and began twirling it round and round. The spinning staff deflected a thrusting lance head and broke the lance’s staff. Spinner shifted his grip and an end of the quarterstaff shot out and slammed against the head of the lancer, knocking him to the ground with blood and gore oozing from his shattered skull.

  To Spinner’s left, Silent twisted side to side, thrusting and slicing with his mighty sword at the Jokapcul who swerved and dodged away from him, preferring to attack the lesser men on his flanks. One learned the lesser man on one side of the giant wasn’t lesser when the end of Spinner’s quarterstaff shot out and took him in the face, sending shattered bone into his brain.

  Some yards away a screaming Jokapcul twisted between two others who were heavily engaged with the two swordsmen in front of them. He lashed out to his right with his sword and his blade slashed through the neck of a Prince’s Sword—the first of his squad to die. He pivoted left to strike another Prince’s Sword, but arrows from two of the bowmen still behind the front line sunk into his chest and side, and he fell backward, tripping the Jokapcul swordsman who’s opponent he’d just slain. Another Jokapcul bounded through the hole in the defensive line and raced, screaming, at the bowmen. Three arrows took him down, but he was close enough when he fell that his outflung sword gutted the archer directly to his front.

  The archers tried to shoot over the heads of the men in front of them, tried to shoot between them at the Jokapcul struggling to cut down swordsmen, lancers, axemen and break through. But it was difficult to shoot without injuring their own men. Most of them lay down their bows and drew swords to join the front line.

  Xundoe stood close behind the line between Spinner and Silent. He pointed his small demon spitter at Jokapcul after Jokapcul. Each time, the demon in it spit with the sound of a bough cracking, and most times the demon spat an enemy soldier fell. Soon there was a gap in the Jokapcul line as they swerved away from the deadly center to attack the ends of the defensive line. The mage tucked his demon spitter in a recess of his cloak and withdrew a phoenix egg. He stepped forward between Spinner and Silent and looked to his sides. A thick mass of Jokapcul was beginning to push the line to his left backward. He twisted the top of the phoenix egg and threw it behind them. The egg cracked when it hit the ground and the fiery bird arose from it with screeches and unfolding of its flaming wings. Flaming Jokapcul, torched by the phoenix, slammed forward into the backs of others, burning them and knocking them to the ground. The defenders saw what was happening at the rear of the men attacking them and pushed forward. The Jokapcul broke and scattered, leaving behind more than half their number incinerated or broken and bleeding.

  A hundred yards away a demon spitter thundered and Jokapcul and defenders on the right of the line tumbled when the spit struck. Xundoe saw the Jokapcul with the demon spitter and drew his small spitter to fight back, even though he knew the range was too great. He shrieked out a terrified warning when he saw three more Jokapcul with demon spitters join the first.

&nb
sp; Individuals and small groups of Jokapcul grabbed their weapons and began sprinting toward the fowl ponds north of Eikby’s ruins. A few took up bows and shot arrows, but none hit targets—the archers didn’t know where their enemy was.

  “Archers!” Haft yelled. “Pick targets!” He knew volley fire would at best be marginally effective against the scattered Jokapcul rush. Arrows began flying from behind coops and trees. A few of them found their marks, but for every Jokapcul who fell, three more joined the rush. The Jokapcul archers knew where the enemy was now and shot at the places they saw arrows coming from. But the range was too great and their arrows that didn’t go wide fell short.

  “Demon spitters, fire at groups!” Haft obeyed his own command and sighted in on a half dozen sword-swinging Jokapcul. His demon spitter thundered, and five of the enemy solders he aimed at went down; the other staggered on with a hand clamped against his side.

  The other demon spitters thundered and three more groups of Jokapcul flew apart, streaming blood. A lone invader ran past a corner of the elaborate pyre and the thudding of his feet too near a dowel dislodged it to drop the phoenix egg it held propped up in its cone. The phoenix egg fell and cracked open, releasing its fiery charge. The Jokapcul flashed briefly bright, dead before he was aware he’d killed himself. In the flapping of its burning wings, the phoenix ignited that corner of the pyre. Other Jokapcul gave it wide enough berth to be safe from its growing flames. Running wide of the pyre made the Jokapcul bunch more then they had been and the next shots from the four demon spitters tore apart more of them than the first shots had. The Jokapcul archers were momentarily distracted by the sight of the rearing phoenix. When they resumed shooting, most sent their arrows toward the demon spitters, but again most arrows dropped short and the rest went wide.

  A charging Jokapcul suddenly fell forward as though something had grabbed his running foot and held it fast to the ground. He screamed and rolled onto his back, clutching his ankle, broken when his foot plunged into an unnoticed hole dug by Xundoe’s hodekin. Several more Jokapcul fell to the simple foot traps before the rest realized the danger and slowed their rush to watch for the small holes in the ground. Their slower speed made them easier targets for the archers and more of them fell with arrows protruding from their necks, shoulders, torsos, and thighs. They also clumped more as those farther back caught up with the leaders. The demon spitters found more targets and tore holes in the growing mass of Jokapcul.

  Haft hadn’t gone forward during the early hours to see exactly where Xundoe had the hodekin dig, but he knew where it was supposed to make its holes, and he’d heard some of the digging in the dark, so he was aware of about how close the Jokapcul were to the near end of the mined area as he continued to work the demon spitter.

  Without warning, one spit after a feeding, his demon popped its door open and clambered out. “Thass id,” it piped and crawled out. Its mouth worked as though it was dry. “Naw mo.”

  Haft was confused as he pulled another pellet from the food canister and offered it to the demon that climbed up his shoulder to lay on top of his head. “Food?” he asked it.

  “Naw vood,” the demon said. “Drie. Naw mo zpitz.”

  It took him a moment to understand the demon’s words, but when he did he remembered the demon that had stopped spitting during an early stage of the attack by the Jokapcul mixed troop. The demon that had climbed onto the head of the swordsman who used it and refused to reenter its tube. The demon had used all its saliva and couldn’t continue to spit!

  Haft saw no point in worrying about a weapon that no longer worked. He picked up his crossbow, made sure it had a bolt ready, and fired at a Jokapcul who was at the edge of the holed area.

  At the edge of the holed area! He looked quickly side to side as he reloaded and saw a few Jokapcul break onto unmined ground. He fired, then plucked the demon from the top of his head, careful of how he set it down next to the tube—he wanted it to still be with the weapon when he came back to it. He bounded to his feet gripping his axe.

  “Blades, charge!” he shouted. The Bloody Axes and few Eikby Guards broke from hiding, bellowing war cries, and charged to meet the Jokapcul. Designated bowmen lay down their bows in favor of swords and joined the race. They crashed into the leaderless Jokapcul. The Jokapcul archers couldn’t fire at them for fear of hitting their own men, Haft’s archers continued to pick off the Jokapcul feeling their way through the mined area.

  The first Jokapcul through were each met by two or three men and cut down, only one of them managed to gut an Eikby Guardsman before a Bloody Axe decapitated him. More came through—and died for their trouble. But they managed to take down two more Eikby Guards and a Bloody Axe. Behind them, a soldier concentrating too hard on where he put his right foot was careless about where his left foot went and stepped into a hole. He went far enough off balance that he fell heavily—close enough to the forward corner of the pyre to trip the phoenix egg perched there. He died quickly when the enormous bird popped out of its cracked egg and unfurled its flaming wings. Nearby Jokapcul saw and panicked, they spun around and began running away.

  “Into the trees!” Xundoe shouted.

  Spinner saw the demon spitters facing them and echoed the mage’s cry. Silent saw and bellowed it out. Almost all of the defenders broke and ran into the trees behind them. A half dozen were engaged with Jokapcul and died along with their opponents when the demon spitters thundered. Spinner and Xundoe ran together among the fighters, making sure all were behind trees thick enough to give them some protection from the Jokapculs’ demon weapons. One was behind a tree with hidden rot. That tree collapsed on him when a demon spitter shot hit it. Another picked the wrong moment to look around the side of his tree and was speared by three large splinters from a smaller tree that was struck and shattered by another shot; he bled to death before anyone could come to his aid.

  The thunder of the demon spitters stopped, and the edge of the forest became filled with the sounds of shrieking Jokapcul searching for the hiding fighters.

  “Vanish!” Xundoe rasped to Spinner, as he thrust his pack at him. He commanded his own Lalla Mkouma to turn him invisible.

  “Wazzoo way’um vo!” she said as she spread and spun her robe. The mage blinked out of sight.

  Spinner blinked at the place where Xundoe vanished, then realized how he could use the Lalla Mkouma. The pack jiggled in his hands.

  “Hunter!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Over here,” the Zobran Border Warder answered from behind a tree not far away.

  Spinner bolted to him and dropped to his knees behind the tree. “Here.” He opened the pack and stuck his hands inside. Two giggling Lalla Mkouma clambered up his arms to perch on his shoulders, hugging his neck, pecking tiny kisses on the points of his jaw.

  “Now, now,” Spinner chided. “Only one of you. This is Hunter. You know Hunter? He’s a good guy.”

  “Unnah gud’ghie!” one of the Lalla chimed. She took the hint and scampered from Spinner’s shoulder to Hunter’s.

  The Border Warder looked askance at the demon, but didn’t resist as she clambered onto him.

  “Let’s vanish and go hunting.”

  Hunter’s face lit up when he realized what Spinner wanted to do. “How do I get her to do it?” he asked.

  “Has anybody seen Silent?” Spinner shouted as he and Hunter vanished.

  Clashes of blade against blade rang throughout the small section of forest, cries of fury and blood lust, agony and death, reverberated among the trees.

  “Bows!” Haft shouted when the Jokapcul in the minefield began running. He dashed back to his demon spitter and huffed out a sigh of relief when he saw the demon was still there, curled up sleeping.

  “Are you ready to go again?” he asked hopefully as he gave the demon a gentle shake.

  “Naw. Doo Dry’ed.” the demon piped without opening its eyes. “Goam aay, lemmum zeeb.” It curled more tightly and rested its head on its folded hands in an unmistak
able manner.

  Haft sighed again, but wasted no time in picking up his crossbow. He loaded a bolt into it as he ran forward. The archers who had stayed behind when the Bloody Axes and guards ran to fight blade to blade followed in a wide line. Several of the Skraglanders dashed back to pick up bows, and returned to rain arrows on the backs of the retreating Jokapcul.

  Flames were spreading rapidly on the pyre, whipped through the ventilation channels built into it. Burning wood shifted on the southeast corner of the structure, dislodging the phoenix egg balanced there. The fiery bird cawed out of its shell and unfurled its wings, sparking new flames on the pyre, and incinerating the three Jokapcul in the van of a group assembling there to race around its far side and envelop their attackers from the side. The rest of the soldiers in that group screamed and fell back, their fighting spirit broken.

  Jokapcul swordsmen and lancers ran from the minefield, their only thought escape from the arrows raining onto them from behind. The Jokapcul archers now had clear targets to shoot at, and their arrows began to strike home. Four of his men were down before Haft called a withdrawal. They pulled back to cover and resumed shooting into the Jokapcul camp. The last of the phoenix eggs on the pyre was dislodged, releasing its bird. The fully engulfed pyre shot flames a hundred feet into the air.

  Invisible inside their Lalla Mkoumas’ whirlwinds, Spinner and Hunter ran among the attacking Jokapcul, cutting them down from behind, from the side, and from the front. Most of the soldiers they attacked saw no sign of the death blow being dealt them, those who did caught only a quick glimpse of the end of a quarterstaff or a sword blade before it struck its fatal blow—not having to parry or defend in any other way, Spinner and Hunter were able to make almost every strike count.