Demontech: Onslaught (7 page)

The alley looked as empty as before, and they only heard the sounds of a few passersby on the lane beyond it. The faux balcony hanging by one end blocked their view of whatever might be directly below it, but that blind spot was barely large enough to hide one man—it certainly couldn’t conceal a Jokapcul squad waiting to capture them.

Haft eased himself over the sill and slid down until he hung by his fingertips, then let go. He dropped only a few feet and, even though he stumbled when he landed, managed to stay upright. He heard a grunt and a gasp so close together they were almost simultaneous. The grunt was from Spinner when he landed next to him. Haft pulled his axe and spun toward the hidden space below the hanging balcony, which was where the gasp came from.

“No, my lord,” said a thin, old man’s voice. “Don’t hurt me, I mean no harm. I’m merely an old man with weak water.” The old man looked as thin as his voice, and his body was bent and sagged with its many years. His garments were so old and patched they seemed to be more rags than clothes. He hurriedly closed the front of his pants. A small puddle glistened next to the wall near his feet. Then he saw how the two men who had so suddenly dropped in on him were dressed and drew himself erect. He rendered an old man’s clumsy salute.

“My lords, you are not
them
!” he said in a stronger voice—and they could hear the emphasis when he said “them.” “You have come to drive
them
away? I will help you. I will do anything I can to help you expel the invaders.” His body resumed its old man’s slump.

Spinner stepped back and peered deeper into the shadows of the alleyway, looking for others. He didn’t see anyone. “Who is with you?” he demanded.

“No one, my lord,” the old man answered. “As I said, I’m just an old man with weak water. I came in here alone to release the pressure so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of other people. But”—he now spoke in a firmer voice—“I know many people who want to fight
them
, to drive them from our fair city, which hasn’t known war in more years than the oldest person in the city can remember.” He cleared his throat. “Certainly not for as long as I can remember, and I may well be the oldest living citizen of New Bally. One of the oldest, at any rate.” Now that he was over his initial shock, the old man was becoming gregarious. “I don’t think anyone in the city wants
them
here. Unless they come as traders. Certainly no one wants them here as conquerors. New Bally is prosperous as a freeport, but if we are a vassal city, we will be poor, and no one wants that.”

Haft had to stop the old man’s rambling. “You say you will fight?” he asked haughtily.

The old man straightened again and looked at Haft levelly. “I may no longer be able to wield a sword in the manner of young, strong men such as yourself, my lord. I cannot lead a charge into the massed ranks of the enemy, nor will I be a member of our own massed ranks repelling and assaulting. Nonetheless, there are yet things even a bent old man such as myself can do to aid in a battle.”

Spinner thought of what the old man had said. He said he could help them. Maybe he could. He said to the old man, “Are there many in the resistance?”

“My lord, all of New Bally will arise when you make your attack. We citizens of this fair freeport ask only guidance to coordinate our fight with yours.”

“Good. We are a reconnaissance. We have seen much of value to our army’s attack. Now we must return and give our report to our general, but we don’t see a safe way out of the city. Can you help us?” He almost hated himself for giving the old man false hope, but if they got out of the city, they might actually run into a counterattacking army that would need what they knew about the Jokapcul in New Bally. He put a hand on Haft’s arm to keep him from giving away his ploy.

“Uh, that’s right,” Haft said. He hadn’t needed the warning to realize what Spinner was doing. “We’re a special reconnaissance force for the whole army.”

The old man’s eyes glowed and he grinned broadly, exposing snaggled teeth with gaps between them. “You can’t get out during the day,” he said. “You have to wait for night. But I can hide you until then and show you a hidden way to the forest.”

“Good. Where do we go?”

“Follow me.” The old man scuttled, bent over, deeper into the alley, his head swiveling furtively from side to side as he went. At first Spinner shook his head at the sight of the old man moving in a manner such as an old man might imagine soldiers move when they were on a secret patrol. Then he realized the old man looked as though at one time he might actually have known how to move unobserved. He wondered about that.

Haft was wondering the same thing. He said, “Do you think he’s leading us into a trap?”

Spinner shrugged. “It could be. But we can’t stay here. If he’s telling the truth, he’s our best hope of getting out.”

Still, they hesitated to follow him. Until they heard the tramp of marching feet approaching on the military lane.

“That sounds like your sergeant coming back with a squad to relieve you,” Spinner said.

“Yes it does,” Haft agreed.

They quickly followed the old man into the depths of the alley. They walked erect and swung their weapons casually, but were ready for action, just in case the old man was collaborating with the enemy—or in case the approaching soldiers entered the alley before they were out of sight. Just as they reached the end and ducked into a barely shoulder-wide passage the old man had disappeared into, they heard the squad come to a halt. A sergeant barked commands, and the sounds of running feet told Spinner he’d ordered them to secure the building.

They had to duck and weave and sidle as the old man led them through a warren of alleys that were often little more than narrow spaces between buildings and garden walls. They darted across streets and thoroughfares when no one was looking their way. As he clambered and hopped over obstructions in his path, the old man proved far more agile than his wizened appearance suggested. The deeper they went into the maze, the more certain Spinner and Haft were that the old man was exactly what he said—someone hoping to be rescued from the Jokapcul invaders—and they relaxed their vigilance. It wasn’t long, though they had become hopelessly lost, before the old man disappeared into a doorway they couldn’t see. They groped blindly for a few seconds, found the opening and ducked through it themselves. A door thunked shut behind them and light suddenly flared up.

The old man, his body still bent, his grin still wide, rubbed his hands in glee.

He cackled. “They’ll never find you here,” he said. “The only way to know this place exists is to come the way I led you, and no one can do that unless he knows the way, and there are few who do. No one will show them the way. You’ll be safe here until night, and then I’ll show you a way out of the city.” In the light of the room, he was able to see Haft’s axe clearly for the first time. He stared at it for a long moment, then drew himself fully erect, into a surprisingly proper military posture of attention. His grin disappeared and his hands stopped washing themselves.

“My lord,” the old man said in a firm voice, “I have not seen the rampant eagle in many years. I did not know anyone still wielded such a weapon. I know if the rampant eagle is nigh, the invaders will soon be driven from this fair city.” He gave Haft a courtly bow.

Haft looked at him, puzzled. He glanced at the eagle on the face of his axe, then looked at Spinner. Spinner was looking back, just as puzzled.

Haft cleared his throat. “Yes. It will happen soon. Perhaps sooner than the enemy thinks.” He didn’t think he sounded very convincing.

The old man looked deeply into his eyes, a touch of uncertainty in his own, but didn’t comment on Haft’s tone. Instead he asked, “Have you had food?”

Haft’s stomach growled—they hadn’t eaten since the previous night’s dinner.

“You wait here, I’ll bring food.” The old man opened the door a crack and flitted through, shutting it securely behind him.

“What was that about your axe?” Spinner asked. “The old man thinks the engraving on it means something special.”

Haft held it out and looked carefully at the eagle on the blade. He shook his head. “I don’t know. It hung over the mantel in my home my entire life. My father said his father carried it when he went off to war as a young man. That was all he ever said about it. I played with it when I was young and playing at soldier. When I ran away, I took it without asking my father.”

“Was your grandfather a hero in a war?”

Haft shook his head again. “My grandfather died in a hunting accident when I was an infant, so I never heard anything from him. My father never talked about the war his father was in. I don’t even know what war it was, or in what army he fought.”

“Maybe the old man will tell us more about it when he comes back.”

Haft made a face. “The way the old man reacted to it, I don’t think it would be a good idea to let him know we don’t know what the eagle means.” He stared at the rampant eagle on the blade of the axe and wondered what significance it held that he didn’t know about. He remembered the odd looks the axe occasionally got from other Marines, but none of them had ever said anything about it to him.

Spinner nodded and didn’t say anything more about the axe.

They looked at their surroundings. They were in a small room—Haft could almost touch both walls with his outstretched arms, and it wasn’t much deeper front to back. The light came from an oil lamp in a wall sconce. A rag-covered pile of pine boughs against the back wall served as a bed. A small table against a side wall held an ewer and bowl. A metal plate and cup hung from pegs on the wall above the table. A small chest tucked under the table looked like it was meant to be pulled out for use as a stool. The bare dirt floor was swept clean.

Haft pulled the chest out and flipped up its lid. It was filled with small belongings. There was a set of clothes, a bit newer and less often repaired than what the old man had been wearing. A hairbrush, a small box of antique jewelry—“Put it back,” Spinner said—a pocked and ragged-edge stone of unknown origin, a religious medallion, a calfskin-covered book, and a few other objects. The last two objects were of more interest than the rest. One was a miniature painting of a young man and woman lovingly looking at each other.

Spinner indicated the miniature and said, “If that’s him and his bride, he’s come down a long way.” Portraits, especially those as exquisitely executed as the miniature, were costly.

Haft nodded agreement. He was glad Spinner made him put back the jewelry. “How will he buy food for us?” he wondered.

“We’ll pay him,” Spinner said, and tapped the purse at his belt.

They stared at the other item for a long moment. It was a blue, gold, and red ribbon with a clasp in back, designed to be worn hanging around the neck. A medallion in the form of a five-pointed star with a goddess’s head embossed in its center dangled from a padded knot in the ribbon’s front. It was the Order of Honor—the highest Frangerian military decoration.

“He was a Marine?” Haft asked.

Spinner shook his head. “He would have been before Lord Gunny came. We were called ‘Frangerian Sea Soldiers’ then, not ‘Marines.’ ” He looked again at the medal. “If he was, he was a hero.”

Reverently, they repacked the chest. Spinner regretted the lie he’d told the old man about them being a reconnaissance, but knew no way to back away from it.

Spinner sat on the chest, and Haft settled a haunch onto the table. They held their weapons in their hands—just in case—and waited.

In moments the door opened again and the old man scurried in with a steaming tray. A wide-eyed urchin of about ten or eleven inched in behind him carrying a brimming pitcher. Her bare feet were filthy and her hair was matted, but she was otherwise as clean as a girl fresh from the bath, and her dress was of fine material and not anywhere threadbare or patched.

Haft moved out of the way so the old man could put the tray on the table. “My great-granddaughter,” the old man said as the girl put the pitcher next to the tray. Then he noticed the chest was pulled out and pain flickered across his face.

“It’s all there,” Spinner reassured him. “We disturbed nothing.” He stood and bowed. “You honor us with your aid.”

“My lord,” the old man said, returning the bow.

“What were you called?”

The old man looked at him for a long moment before replying in a soft voice, “They called me Tiger.”

“Tiger, they call me Spinner and him Haft.”

The old man snuffled and brushed the back of a hand across his eyes. Then he removed the cover from the tray.

Haft and Spinner salivated at the aroma of the stew that was exposed in two bowls. The loaf of bread between the bowls smelled freshly baked. The old man pulled a pair of spoons from somewhere within his garments and handed them over. The girl retrieved two cups from somewhere and carefully filled them from the pitcher. In a short while the food was gone to the last drop of sauce and last crumb of bread, and the pitcher was down to the dregs. Haft leaned back and belched contentedly.

“Thank you, Tiger. We needed that,” Spinner said politely.

The old man’s great-granddaughter looked at them more wide-eyed than before.

The old man bobbed his head several times. “I am glad to do whatever I can to help you rid my city of
them
. Now you can rest until nightfall.”

“What are they doing out there now?” Haft asked.

“There is a citywide manhunt,” the old man said, glee lighting his face. “Early this morning a large raiding party struck at several of the ships they occupy in the harbor and killed twenty of
them
, including a general or an admiral.”

“Really?” Haft asked innocently.

The old man bobbed his head vigorously. “That’s what people on the street are saying.” He looked at them conspiratorially and dropped his voice. “Personally, I think that’s an exaggeration. Had there been such a raid, surely we would have heard the sounds of the battle. Certainly there would have been spontaneous attacks on
them
as a result of the raid.”