NOTE: As were the earlier papers by this author on the subject of the Jokapcul attempt at the conquest of Nunimar, this paper has been based on official dispatches, traveler’s tales, and the author’s three decades of study of matters Jokapculian. In addition to which sources are added confessions extracted from Jokapcul soldiers taken prisoner during military operations in western and southwestern Nunimar.
The author also wishes to note at this time that there was a distressing amount of negative comment about the nonscholarly tone of his earlier paper (Proceedings . . . Vol. 57, No. 6), despite the fact that it was clearly labeled a “speculation.” A speculation is exactly that. It was the author’s intent to inform his readers as to what might have transpired; it was not an attempt at a fully accurate and scholarly biography, which is impossible under the circumstances. It is the author’s hope that the more pedantic tone of this paper will quell such negative response to this paper, which in any event is based more on confirmable sources than was the previous paper. (MM)
V
NO OUTLET
CHAPTER
TWENTY
During the afternoon of the sixth day, the forest changed as the small party paralleled the north-south highway. The trees were the same mix of oaks, elms, hemlocks, and their denseness seemed the same. It was the presence—absence, really—of life that changed. When the sun was at its apex, they saw a tree-grazing deer, then didn’t glimpse another the rest of the day. They saw their last hare an hour or two later. Even the wolf disappeared from their ken. The farther they went, the less they heard the melodious twirring and chitting of songbirds, until the only birdcalls were the occasional caws of carrion eaters, which grew nearer as they continued south. Tension rose among them, and their pace slowed almost imperceptibly until they were advancing at little more than a creep.
Haft was the first to dismount. He armed his crossbow as he and Spinner communicated with looks and a few gestures. Spinner nodded, and Haft led the way on foot, his eyes probing every nearby shadow, his gaze peering as far into the distance as the trees allowed, crossbow aimed wherever his eyes looked. Spinner, riding the first in line behind Haft, also armed his crossbow as he too stared into the distance and probed the shadows, scanning the crossbow over the range of his vision. He made sure his quarterstaff was loose in its ties. Doli made to ride knee-to-knee with Spinner, and appeared offended when, without looking at her, he brusquely pushed her away and gestured one-handed for her to follow. She gnawed her lip in wide-eyed nervousness, then fell back with the other women. Zweepee hunched over her saddle to make herself even smaller and more inconspicuous than she was and rode tight with the other women. The Golden Girl rode erect, looking about alertly; the hand at the hilt of her knife flexed as though it wanted a sword. Fletcher, as alert as the two Marines, brought up the rear with an arrow nocked in his longbow; he looked backward as often as he looked to the sides, and seldom bothered to look to his front.
In late afternoon Haft froze at the edge of a large clearing then dropped to one knee behind a bush. Spinner instantly raised his hand for the others to stop. He dismounted and gave his reins to the nearest hands, which, as they most often were, happened to be Doli’s.
“Wait here,” he said quietly. He unlimbered his quarterstaff, held his crossbow ready, and cat-footed to where Haft knelt.
Neither man spoke. What made Haft stop was evident to Spinner even before he reached him. They remained quiet for a time, watching and listening carefully. The clearing was littered with corpses. Vultures hopped about, tearing chunks of flesh from the bodies with great hooked beaks then lifting their heads to the sky as they swallowed. Save for leaves ruffled by vagrant breezes, nothing else moved. The only other sound was the heavy buzz of flies. Spinner and Haft breathed through their mouths to reduce the smell of putrefaction. The faint breeze came from behind them, which explained why they hadn’t smelled the carnage earlier.
After a few moments of watching and listening, Spinner stood. “I’ll tell the others and send them around,” he said.
“Then we’ll go in?” Haft asked.
Spinner nodded reluctantly.
Suddenly, there was a flash of gray and both men went into a crouch, threw their crossbows to their shoulders and sighted into the clearing. Spinner recognized the wolf and didn’t fire; Haft’s quarrel just missed the wolf as it bowled through a knot of buzzards squabbling over the viscera of a corpse. Spinner watched in amazement as the growling wolf raced about the clearing, scattering the vultures and chasing them into ponderous flight. Haft rearmed his crossbow and took aim again at the wolf, but Spinner hit the side of the crossbow just as Haft’s finger closed on the trigger.
“Why’d you do that?” Haft shouted angrily, and began drawing the string back again.
Spinner clamped a hand on Haft’s wrist and said, “Look at what the wolf is doing.”
Growling, lunging, and snapping, the wolf pursued the vultures, chasing them away from the corpses. Two of the slower carrion eaters lay motionless on the ground, and another flopped in tight circles around a broken wing.
“So? He just wants the bodies for himself,” Haft snarled. “He’ll eat his fill, then leave the rest of the bodies for the vultures.”
“I don’t think so,” Spinner said. “Wait.”
A few seconds more and another vulture was down, its chest crushed by the wolf’s jaws. By then the rest had heaved their way into the treetops around the clearing, where they screamed down at the wolf. The wolf trotted one brisk lap around the bodies in the clearing, looking up at the vultures, then stopped briefly at the far side of the clearing, seemed to look directly to where Spinner and Haft were concealed behind the bush and nod at them. With a parting growl directed at the buzzards, it melted into the trees.
“He was chasing the vultures away for us,” Spinner said softly.
Haft gripped his crossbow fiercely, still angry because Spinner had prevented him from killing the predator. “Next you’re going to say he was showing respect for our dead.”
Spinner didn’t reply, but that was exactly what he was thinking. He rose to his feet. “I’ll tell the others and send them around.”
“What is it?” Doli asked.
“There was a fight in a clearing ahead of us,” Spinner said.
Fletcher was slowly looking around, scanning the surrounding forest. He spared Spinner a quick glance but otherwise remained vigilant. Zweepee looked numb.
“A lot of bodies ahead,” Spinner said. “The clearing’s less than fifty paces wide. Haft and I will search it and see what we can learn. Fletcher, lead the women around the clearing. Wait for us two hundred paces beyond.”
“I’ll go with you,” Alyline said before he could turn back toward the clearing. She dismounted and handed her reins to Zweepee. “There may be something I can use for fresh garments.” She made a face. “I’ve been wearing my costume for more than a week without opportunity to clean it.”
“Don’t,” Spinner said. “There was butchery. And vultures got to the bodies. I don’t think there’s any clothing left that anyone can wear. If there is, I’ll bring it to you. Get back on your horse and go with the others.”
“I’ll decide for myself if there’s anything I can use.” She brushed past him, striding to the clearing.
Spinner sighed and shook his head, but didn’t try again to dissuade her; that would just ensure that she’d do it.
Fletcher looked at her back and muttered, “Someday that woman will get herself into trouble.”
Doli sniffed and looked darts at Alyline’s back. “I suspect that’s how she became a slave in the first place.”
Zweepee, more practical and without the personal interest in Alyline’s actions that Doli seemed to have, said simply, “Let’s go.” She turned her horse to go around the clearing. Fletcher trotted ahead to lead the way.
Doli looked at Spinner. “Take care of yourself,” she said softly.
Without a sideways glance, Spinner said, “I will,�
�� and followed Alyline. He held his crossbow ready when he entered the clearing. The vultures greeted their appearance with loud caws but didn’t dare drop down to resume their meal; in addition to the men, the wolf was looking up at them from the shadow of a tree.
It looked to have been a small battle, as battles went, but to the men who fought it and remained in the clearing, it was the biggest, most meaningful battle they’d ever been in. If the corpses left to rot were indication, it had been a one-sided fight; judging by the uniforms, the bodies were all from the same army. Their mottled green tunics bore a rose emblem over the heart. Spinner and Haft had both ported in Zobra City more than once; they knew the emblem of the Principality of Zobra. The mottled green was the uniform of the prince’s warders, the soldiers who guarded the land’s borders.
“Nothing,” Haft muttered, kicking at a divot lifted during the battle. He examined one of the corpses. One arm was half chopped off, there were massive cuts in the chest, a wide hole all the way through its belly, a leg missing, and the face mutilated. The corpse he looked at was typical. “They did most of this after the fight was over,” he muttered. “They won, and then they did this to the men they had beaten.” He squatted to look more closely at another body and probed an arrow wound with a finger. “This one was already dead when they shot him again.” He spat in disgust. “Barbarians!”
Spinner walked quickly through the battlefield, scanning the ground for anything usable, trying to avoid looking at the bodies. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the aftermath of a battle where all the corpses were so abused and the armor so battered. The few peaked helmets scattered about were badly dented or chopped open. The chain mail still borne by some of the bodies was chopped and rent until it was useless. No weapons had been left about, not even arrows. “That tells you what kind of enemy we have,” he said, half in answer to Haft, half in explanation to himself. He uncocked his crossbow; there was no threat there, no one but the dead.
The Golden Girl grew more and more angry as she flitted about the clearing from one corpse to another, trying to find a usable garment. Sunlight sparkling on the gold coins of her costume, she looked like a houri come to take fallen warriors to paradise. She picked up a piece of cloth that lay on a corpse. “Look at this,” she snorted. “If I took enough scraps like these, I could sew them together and make clothing, but I’d never be able to wash out the blood. Pfagh.” She threw down the rag and stomped off.
The winners of the battle had taken everything that could be used. If they suffered any casualties, they had removed them as well.
“Who did this?” Alyline shouted angrily. Haft ignored her; only warriors belonged in a place like that—to mourn the dead, to foresee their own fate.
Spinner glanced at her. He didn’t answer, though he thought he knew. Then he saw something that proved it. “Look at this,” he said as he bent to pick up a rectangular piece of metal still attached to a scrap of red leather.
Haft joined him, took the piece of metal and turned it over in his hands, examining it from all sides, seeing the stain of dried blood on it. “Jokapcul,” he said. He looked around at the bodies, then back at the metal-and-leather scrap. “At least the poor buggers did some damage of their own.”
Spinner looked toward the trees to their south. “I wonder where they went after this fight?” he said, almost to himself. Then he shook himself and said briskly, “Let’s look around,” and strode to the trees. He turned to the right inside the trees and started walking around the clearing, examining the ground. Haft followed quickly for a few paces to catch up, then walked a few paces to Spinner’s left, also looking down.
“Here,” Haft said, and pointed to the ground when they’d made a quarter circuit. He went slowly deeper into the woods.
Spinner joined him and looked at what he saw; the ground was trampled by the hooves of many horses.
“See where they came from,” Spinner said. Haft grunted and moved farther from the clearing. Spinner went toward the clearing and circled it for a short distance before stopping to wait for Haft.
“They came from almost due west,” Haft said when he joined Spinner, who nodded and pointed at the ground. Not much grew there, under the trees; it was mostly bare earth. But here and there they saw a crushed flower, a broken twig, an indentation in the ground. It was where soldiers had lain in ambush.
“Two score,” Spinner said.
“That agrees with the horse tracks I saw,” Haft said.
They continued their circuit. Halfway around they found the trail the horsemen took when they left the clearing; they had headed east, toward the highway. They walked a little farther around and found the tracks of the soldiers who were killed. Spinner and Haft followed them a hundred paces into the forest before turning back and following them all the way into the open. The tracks told the beginning of the story. The rose-emblem Zobran warders, about twenty of them, marched more or less parallel to the highway, in a column of twos. They were all in the clearing before the ambushers made their move. That was the story the tracks told. The bodies told the rest of the tale. Arrows rained onto the exposed men, and many of them probably fell before they even knew they were being attacked. More fell from arrows while they were trying to deploy from a marching formation to a fighting one. Not many were still standing when the attackers forayed from the trees and overran them.
Alyline waited for them at the south edge of the clearing. She stood in shadows; no sunlight danced on her garments. With her shoulders slumped, she looked shrunken. Instead of a heavenly body come to escort fallen warriors to the next world, she seemed lost, an abandoned plaything. When they got close they saw her eyes were red and puffy from crying.
“What manner of man does this to the dead?” she demanded. “Why would anyone treat the dead like this?”
“The Jokapcul are a warrior race,” Spinner said. “They believe the rest of us are beneath contempt. That’s how they treat their enemies.” He put an arm around her and she sank into his embrace. He stroked her hair and made comforting noises at her for a moment, then said, “Let’s leave here. We’ll feel better once we’re away.”
“But what are we going to do about the bodies?”
“Nothing,” Haft snapped, anger in his voice. “We can’t do anything about them. There are too many bodies.” He stalked into the forest.
Spinner held onto the Golden Girl a moment longer, then she moved out of his arms and followed Haft. Spinner brought up the rear.
Fletcher and the other women were just where they should have been. Doli was visibly relieved to see them—or at least relieved to see Spinner. Zweepee was withdrawn and Fletcher somber. He pointed at the ground a few paces away—at the tracks of many horses coming from the northwest.
Haft walked over to examine them. “Jokapcul,” he said. “It’s the same shoeing pattern. But that was three days ago.” He dipped his head in the direction of the small clearing. “These are from yesterday, early enough in the day that we can find their campsite if we follow them back a short way.” The tracks continued to the southeast. “They must have heard the refugees on the highway and decided to follow it.”
“Do you think they want to go somewhere east of the highway?” Spinner asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe they want to go to the end of the highway.” He didn’t have to add that the port of Zobra City was at the end of the highway.
Spinner looked southeast, where the Jokapcul trail went. “That’s not the direction we’re going,” he said after thinking for a moment. “We’re going straight south; we won’t come upon them.” He mounted the stallion and led off to the south. The others knew as well as Spinner did that if two parties of Jokapcul had gone through there in three days, it was likely more bands were also around. Spinner didn’t lash his staff under his thigh for riding, he carried it across the pommel of his saddle, and his crossbow was in his hands. Haft and Fletcher held their weapons ready as well.
At midday they began to hear sounds far ahead of them. A
t first the sounds were muffled, so they weren’t sure if their source was directly ahead or off at some tangent; they couldn’t tell whether the occasional dimly heard clash of steel against steel, the occasional voice raised in shout, was in their path, where it might have an effect on them.
“No horses have been by here,” Spinner said when the tension had grown enough that he felt he had to say something to ease it.
“No footmen either,” Haft added. Of course they understood that just because they hadn’t crossed the path of soldiers didn’t mean nobody was ahead of them; they could be headed straight into an ambush or toward someone else’s battle.
Fletcher started riding with an arrow nocked. Alyline rode with her reins held in one hand. Zweepee rode behind her husband and held tightly to him. Doli rode almost touching Spinner. After a time they heard no more phantom noises in the distance, but no one’s vigilance relaxed. Near the end of the afternoon, an unnatural silence took up residence, one that was almost tangible. Haft guided his mare alongside Spinner. “There was a battle near here,” he said quietly, so the others couldn’t hear.
Spinner nodded. “It’s too quiet.” But there were no bodies about, no vultures. So where had the battle been? Perhaps they were passing close by. But if they were, why couldn’t they smell it? Or hear the moans of the wounded? Perhaps it was a bigger battle and they simply hadn’t reached it yet. Neither man wanted to think of a larger battle.
They rode on for a short while longer, then Spinner heard the bubbling of a brook ahead of them and reined in. “Better to reach the battlefield in the morning,” he said so only Haft could hear. Haft nodded. In a voice only loud enough to carry to his small group, Spinner said to the others, “There’s running water ahead of us. We’ll camp next to it.”
When they had the horses unsaddled, he said, “There may be soldiers not far off. We must be quiet. The fire goes out as soon as dinner is cooked. There will be no fire through the night; we don’t want to show ourselves to anyone.”
Demontech: Onslaught Page 27