Demontech: Onslaught (32 page)

They all walked for another mile, and then, on Spinner’s order, two of the women remounted. The Golden Girl instead insisted that one of the men take a turn riding. Spinner was just as adamant about her riding. Haft took Spinner’s side of the argument. He quickly realized he had made a mistake.

“You’ve been inside for too long,” Haft said. “Spinner and I are used to traveling long distances on foot. And Fletcher is used to hard work outside. We men can run better than you.”

The Golden Girl spun toward him, her face only inches away from his. “You think dancing isn’t physical work?” She stood in a small patch of sunlight that caused her clothing to glint sharply with every movement. She looked Haft up and down and snorted. “I could run farther than you any day. When you are gasping, and staggering to keep your feet, I could run around you in circles.” She spun from him and leaped onto the stallion’s back. “
Pfagh!
Men, they’re all the same!”

Spinner, hurt and confusion in his eyes, stepped to her side. She sidled her horse away from the placating hand he reached out to her and didn’t give him a chance to speak. When he dropped his hand, she smiled down at him sweetly and said, “If we have to fight anyone later on, I think I’ll use your staff. Since you’re too stupid to take a turn riding, you’ll be too tired to use it yourself.” She sharply heeled the stallion and had him gallop ahead a few hundred paces before she slowed him to a walk and let the others catch up. Then she galloped ahead once more. By the time she stopped for them to catch up again, they had gone far enough to walk the horses once more. She waited for the others to reach her. This time no one said anything to her about racing ahead. They rested quietly and then simply followed when she rose to lead the way. Except for Spinner. He hurried to walk by her side. Just before he reached her, she ducked under the stallion’s neck and walked with the horse between them. He tried to talk to her over the horse’s back, but she appeared not to hear anything and he soon gave up.

At the end of that mile of walking, the Golden Girl again offered to let one of the men ride. Again they refused. Again she galloped on ahead and waited for them when it was time to walk once more.

And so it went until late in the afternoon when, with the sun’s rays casting their shadows far ahead of them, they finally reached the highway that led to the Principality of Zobra.

The “highway” was no more than a gash in the woods twenty or thirty paces broad. They couldn’t tell for sure how wide it was because the river of humanity flooding along it obscured the far side. It was by and large an orderly flow. The people on the nearer side were flooding south. Those on the farther side were pouring north. Some bore packs on their backs. Others carried belongings in baskets bouncing from poles balanced across their shoulders. Some had ox carts with belongings piled higher than was prudent. Others carried children in their arms or ancients on their backs. Their faces bore haunted looks, hunted looks, looks of unfettered fear. For the most part they trudged voiceless, the only sounds the tromping of their feet, the creaking of their carts, the lowing of their oxen, the cries of distressed infants.

The only disorder in the river came from some few swimmers in the highway’s tide of humanity, richer and ruder than most, who rode on horses or in horse-drawn carriages, plowing their way through the foot-weary, forcing the ox carts almost into the trees. Shouts and cries, curses and threats, trailed those richer and ruder few, who cursed and threatened back. But whether afoot or in ox cart, whether by horse or by carriage, the people on the highway were all the same—they were refugees.

“I think not all those ahorse will reach where they are going,” Fletcher said after an aged woman with a bundle carried over her shoulder was knocked from her feet and nearly trampled by a dusty coxcomb when she didn’t scamper from his path quickly enough.

“I think you’re right,” Haft said, caressing the handle of his axe.

Spinner stood next to them while the dandy ran the woman down. He nodded. Sooner or later one of those with a horse would push the wrong person the wrong way at the wrong time. Then the anger would ripple up and down the river of people and everyone with a horse would be dragged down.

“Where are they going?” Doli asked. She sidled the mare next to Spinner so that her leg pressed against his arm.

Spinner shook his head. “The better question is why are they going anywhere?”

He stepped away from Doli and the mare, into the moving stream of people. Haft and Fletcher, realizing what he was doing, entered it at other points.

“Excuse me, good man,” Spinner said to the southbound farmer he fell in step next to. “Where are you going? Why do you go?”

The farmer turned a gaunt visage to him. “Haven’t you heard?” he said. “There’s been an invasion from the north. An invasion by the dwarves and the denizens of the Night Forest. Oskul has fallen. It is said that the king was sundered limb from limb by the invaders. I have heard that the dwarves and the dwellers of the Night Forest are now rampaging through the countryside. Everyone they find they shackle as prisoner or slave. If they don’t kill them first.”

Spinner thanked him then stepped out of the human river and back into the trees, where he made his way to the others.

“A townsman told me the Jokapcul invaded from Bostia,” Haft said when Spinner was through. “And that the king himself is leading the army against the invaders. But he doesn’t think the Skragish army can beat the Jokapcul.”

“A deserting soldier told me an army of magicians rained destruction on Oskul,” Fletcher said. “That soldier didn’t know if the king was dead or alive, but he heard he had been taken prisoner and refused to give his parole.” He and Spinner exchanged a look. Each was wondering about the fate of the freed slaves they had sent on their way to the Skragish capital. But neither man spoke of it; it was too late to do anything to help them.

“If Oskul has fallen, why are as many people going north?” the Golden Girl asked.

She dismounted and donned the silk cloak for the first time, wrapping it close around herself. Without a glance at her companions, she waded into the stream. They quickly lost sight of her.

Zweepee spoke and Doli translated. “Wise of her to put on that cloak. Half naked and wearing all that gold, she might not make it more than a few paces through those men.”

“I don’t know,” Spinner said. “The refugees are probably too interested in fleeing to bother her.” But his face didn’t reflect any confidence in his words.

Doli dismounted and stood close to him, the front of her arm against the back of his, her breast brushing the side of his arm. Spinner looked uncomfortable but didn’t move away.

“With that tongue of hers,” Haft said, “I don’t think anyone would survive bothering her.”

The Golden Girl was barely out of sight before Spinner started worrying about her. Doli clasped her hands around his upper arm and held him close when he made a move to follow onto the highway in search of her. Alyline was gone long enough even for Haft to start worrying.

Doli furrowed her brow at the men’s concern. She made a move and said, “You don’t know her as well as I do. Wait longer.” She left unspoken her obvious feelings: small loss if she’s gone.

It wasn’t much longer before Alyline returned. The dappled gray of her cloak kept her hidden from their sight so that she was almost among them before they saw her approach.

“I talked to several people,” she said. “They all said the same thing: Zobra has been invaded from Bostia. These refugees are fleeing into Skragland because they think its armies are closer than their own and can give them protection.”

“What about Zobra City?” Spinner asked. “Did anybody say anything about the port?”

She shook her head. “None of them are from that far away. But none of the rumors they told me say the port is threatened.”

Lost in thought, Spinner looked south. After a few moments he snapped out of it. “We have to chance going south,” he said in a firm voice. “We can’t travel on the road, though. We’ll have to continue cross-country. Let’s go back into the trees.” He offered no further explanation, waited for no questions or suggestions, simply led the way back into the forest. Only when the women were mounted again did he notice that Haft wasn’t with them.

“Where—” But before he could finish his question, Haft broke through the trees. He was riding one horse and leading two more.

“I think we’ll make better speed if we have more horses,” Haft said, grinning.

“What? Where?”

Haft shrugged eloquently. “A trio of those rich men pushed the wrong man the wrong way at the wrong time. When I left, people were stripping the valuables off them.”

Spinner looked at him speculatively. “Might that man afoot have been a Frangerian Marine?” he asked.

Haft shrugged. “Could have been. I wasn’t looking at him when it happened. My eyes were on the horsemen.”

Fletcher laughed. “Whoever he was, our thanks to the man afoot. Don’t you agree, Spinner?”

Spinner paused, looking hard at Haft for a few seconds before replying. Then he grinned broadly. “Yes, we owe that footman our thanks, no matter who he was.”

The women, Doli and Zweepee, at least, cheered Haft.

In seconds Fletcher was on the gelding with his wife behind him, and Spinner was on one of the extra horses Haft had brought. They cantered due south. Haft didn’t complain at all about being on a horse.

After an hour’s ride, Spinner judged them far enough from the highway that a small fire wouldn’t attract the attention of the refugees. Stars were visible in the eastern sky, and they had little time to find firewood before it became too dark to look for more. Fletcher saw to the horses while the others scoured the ground for kindling. It wasn’t until they had a small blaze burning that they made any other preparations for their campsite. Spinner parceled out their food, the meager supply of sausage, cheese, and bread. There would be enough left only for the morning meal. Quickly, water was boiling for tea. Their water was also running low.

“It bothers me,” Spinner said halfway through dinner, “what that farmer told me about the dwarves and the Night Forest dwellers. Do you know anything about them, Fletcher?”

Fletcher shook his head. “Very little. Both are secretive. The dwarves stay in their mountain valleys northeast of Skragland. I’ve never heard of them invading another country, though they could. What the farmer said about the denizens of the Night Forest must be wrong, though. The Night Forest doesn’t come near Skragland.” He lost himself in thought for a long moment, then continued, “They did invade the Easterlies about eight years ago. It took almost five years to force back the invaders.” He shuddered. “The strange beings who live in the Night Forest are fiercer than what I have heard and seen of the Jokapcul. And even more brutal. Some say they aren’t human.”

Spinner felt little reassured. From what he remembered of the maps he’d seen, he agreed that it was unlikely the denizens of the Night Forest had entered the war on the side of the Jokapcul—at least, he was sure, they hadn’t invaded Skragland. But he’d heard the dwarves were fearsome fighters who had a long-standing conflict with Skragland. It was possible they were in the war; if not actually on the side of the Jokapcul, at least opposed to some of those who were fighting the western islanders. Well, the direction they were traveling was taking them away from the dwarves.

Once the remnants of dinner were cleaned up, Fletcher took the shafts he’d cut that morning and set to work barking them and planing their surfaces smooth with his belt knife.

“In the morning I’ll find feathers,” he said. He looked at what little he could see of the ground around them. “Somewhere, I’ll find stones I can use to chip heads. Then I can get us fresh meat.”

“We can also hunt,” Haft said, pointing out his crossbow.

Fletcher nodded. “So long as there have been few hunters about. You have to get close to game to bring it down with a crossbow.” He paused in his carving and looked at the crossbow. “I’ve sometimes wondered, why do Frangerian Marines use crossbows instead of longbows?”

Haft looked at his crossbow intently; that was a question he’d never considered.

Spinner, however, knew the answer. “Because of ship-to-ship fighting. The longbow has the advantage of range and speed in firing, true. But range means little between ships. You see, when a bowman shoots, his ship is bobbing up and down in the water and so is his target. If you’re moving when you shoot at a moving target, it’s only by chance if your arrow even comes near your target. So you have to be close in order to shoot if you want to strike home. But still, even close, both you and your target are moving—even once the ships are grappled together for boarding. A quarrel doesn’t fly as far as an arrow, but it flies faster. That means there is less time between your shot and your hit, so you have a better chance of striking your point. And at its range, the crossbow is more accurate than the longbow. A crossbow throws its bolt with more force than a longbow throws its arrow.” He drew a quarrel from its pouch and held it up. “Look at the head of this bolt. It doesn’t have flanges like the head of an arrow, it’s no more than a pointed cap. This point can punch its way through thicker, harder armor than your arrowheads—even if you had iron heads instead of the stone ones you will be making.” He smiled somewhat ruefully. “Why do you think the armored knights of those armies that still have them are anxious to kill crossbowmen on sight? It’s because a man with a crossbow is more dangerous to an armored man than one armed with a longbow. He can be more dangerous to the knight than another knight. Certainly, a man with a crossbow can kill an armored knight before the knight can close to fighting range.

“We use crossbows because we can’t shoot until the ships are close to each other. Then we need accuracy. And sometimes we need to shoot an officer behind a shield. The crossbow can sometimes send a bolt through a shield when a longbow can’t.”

Fletcher nodded and returned to smoothing his shafts. “That’s all the explanation anyone could want,” he said as he sighted along a shaft. “But we are not at sea, and I believe the Jokapcul are not all that heavily armored. My longbow will do well against them, and take them down long before they get close enough to grapple.”