Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) (15 page)

Thirty yards beyond the bandits, Spinner shouted a command and the five pulled up to face about. Most of the scattered bandits were trying to organize to charge them, some were stringing short bows, but all were distracted by arrows flying at them from within the camp and by the soldiers under Fletcher’s command who harried their flank with swords and pikes.

“Your demon spitter!” Spinner shouted to Xundoe as he fed a quarrel into his crossbow.

The mage rummaged in his spell bag, pulled it out, but before he could aim and command the tiny demon that inhabited it to spit, the demon popped out of the handle.

“Veedmee!”
the demon commanded in a high-pitched voice that sounded far too big to come from something so small.

“What?” Xundoe squawked, he’d fed the demon just that morning, it shouldn’t need feeding again so soon! But he knew too well how temperamental demons could be and was rummaging in the spell bag for demon food even as he squawked.

“Veedmee!”
the demon repeated, and looked hungrily at the web of the hand Xundoe had wrapped around the demon spitter’s handle.

“It’s coming, it’s coming!” Xundoe fumbled the box of demon food open and popped out a pellet. “Here!” He shoved the pellet at the demon, who yanked it out of his fingers and popped back inside the handle of the demon spitter. The mage immediately raised the weapon and pointed it at a bandit who had an arrow nocked and was aiming at them. He tripped the signal, and the demon spat like the crack of a tree bough snapping. Blood spurted from the bowman’s chest and he crumpled to the ground with an expression of stunned disbelief on his face. Xundoe pointed the demon spitter at another bandit, another tree bough cracked, and that bandit fell dying.

Spinner and Haft were already firing their second bolts. Arrows flew from the camp into the bandits, and soldiers hacked at them from the side. A halloo sounded, and they looked to see Eikby’s mounted guardsmen charging. Those bandits who were able to break away screamed and ran to where a few of their mates held their horses just inside the edge of the forest.

“After them!” Spinner bellowed. He shot another bolt, then took a second to hang his crossbow onto the cantle hook before heeling the gelding forward. Haft and Silent were already halfway to the fleeing bandits. The Eikby mounted guardsmen paused to look back at the mayor, who was following in his carriage. They reined in at a signal from him.

Haft swore at his mare when she pulled to the side just shy of colliding with the bandit he wanted her to gallop over. Instead of being trampled under her flashing hooves, the bandit was sent tumbling by a kick from Haft as he sped past. Then horse and rider were in the midst of the fleeing bandits. Haft swung his axe into the back of one bandit and the man fell forward with his spine split. In another couple of strides, the mare was among the lead bandits. Far more comfortable fighting on his feet, Haft yanked viciously on the reins, leaped from the saddle, and spun about to attack the mass of bandits. Some parted in front of him, too afraid to stop and fight. One was so intent on reaching the forest he was slow to recognize the Frangerian Marine in front of them as a foe and was chopped down as soon as he was in reach of Haft’s axe. He died so suddenly that neither surprise nor pain had time to register on his face.

Silent had learned to fight mounted almost from the moment he could first keep his balance on horseback. His huge horse had also been trained to combat—it slammed into the bandits, kicked at them with its hooves, trampled fallen bodies. Silent roared battle cries as he swung his sword, each swing sent out gushes and sprays of blood from the bandits he struck.

The defenders, led by Fletcher, crashed into the bandits just as they reached their horses and were leaping into their saddles. Some bandit horses were knocked over, screaming in fear at the assault. The company’s defenders hacked at the bandits, sometimes hitting them, sometimes chopping into their horses, sometimes missing altogether.

“Hold!” Spinner shouted when the bandits who managed to mount sped into the forest. “Let them go.”

Silent twisted his great mount around and glared at Spinner.

“What do you mean, ‘hold’?” Haft demanded. “We can catch the rest of them.”

“You can’t,” Spinner said, and looked at Haft’s feet, which were firmly planted on the ground.

“Where’s my horse?” Haft shouted, turning around looking. The mare was some yards beyond the body and blood littered area, calmly chomping on grass.

“They aren’t coming back,” Spinner said loudly enough for all to hear. “And we will needlessly lose people if we go in the forest after them.”

He noticed the mounted guardsmen sitting their horses much closer to the campsite—he didn’t see any blood on their weapons.

Puffing heavily and stumbling a bit, the running files of swords- and pikemen arrived and formed a protective square around the mayor’s carriage.

It was time to assess the butcher’s bill.

More than thirty bodies lay on the ground. Groans and whimpers came from some of them. A badly wounded bandit, doing his best to crawl to the false security of the forest, trailed a lengthening rope of intestine.

“Leave him,” Haft growled at a dismounted Eikby cavalryman who stalked toward the crawling bandit. “He’ll die soon enough.” When the cavalryman looked like he was going to ignore the order, Haft stepped in front of him and swung his dangling axe in a way that was only superficially casual. “You weren’t in the fight, you don’t have the right.”

The cavalryman looked into Haft’s eyes and knew he was outmatched. He turned pale, swallowed, and bowed himself away, mumbling apologies.

The crawling bandit almost made it to the shade of the trees before he expired.

Now that the ground was no longer being tramped by fighting men and horses, Nightbird and Zweepee ran forward to see to the wounded. The mayor paled at sight of the dead, dying, and wounded, then got hold of himself and sent three horsemen racing back to summon the town’s healers to the battlefield. He bent over one of the bandits, went even paler. He swallowed and tugged at the collar of his cassock.

Spinner, Haft, and Xundoe walked together, examining the battle scene and looking for men still alive—people still alive. Several of the casualties were women and children, evidently cut down in the beginning of the attack. One woman obviously died where she crouched over her children in a vain attempt to save their lives from the combatants. Two little ones lay half-covered by her corpse, one stared skyward from sightless eyes parted by a sword-cleft, the other crushed by a falling bandit.

Xundoe dropped to his knees beside a stripling boy of ten years. The boy cried silently with one hand clamped as tightly as he could over the stump of the other. A bloody knife lay nearby where he’d dropped it when a sword took the hand that still gripped it. The mage quickly took a length of cord and tied off the stump.

“Do you hurt anywhere else?” he asked when the tourniquet was in place.

The boy made a sound the mage couldn’t understand, but his head shake was clear.

“Over here,” Xundoe called out.

A soldier ran over and gently picked up the boy to carry him to the place the still living were being gathered for what healing they could have. Alyline and Doli, along with other women, gave Nightbird and Zweepee what help they could. Most of them could apply bandages to wounds. Those who couldn’t, gathered cloth for bandages, hot water for cleaning injuries, needles and thread for closing cuts.

“How could this have happened?” Spinner asked, pained.

Haft glowered. “They must have caught the listening posts sleeping.”

“How many did you put out?”

“Three,” Fletcher answered.

Spinner looked into the forest. “Let’s look for them.”

“Right,” Haft growled. He strode toward the trees. Three bees followed.

Fletcher didn’t share the anger the other two held for the sentries.

Spinner signaled to Silent, who gathered six Bloody Axes and led them at a trot to catch up. The ten men trod quietly through the forest, alert for bandits who might be waiting in ambush. Birds barely paused in their songs, lizards alerted but didn’t abandon their basking. A hare bounded to ground at their approach, another grazing with it didn’t even notice them until they were past.

“I put the first one over here,” Fletcher said as they neared a low mound alongside the road, about seventy-five yards in from Eikby’s clearing.

They found the soldier, a Zobran deserter, lying behind the mound, seeming to look around its side. The soldier wasn’t watching for danger, though. With an arrow through one eye, he’d never look for anything again. His pierced eye was open, he hadn’t been asleep when the bandits came on him. Fifty yards north of him they found the second lookout, a woodsman from upper Zobra. Someone had slipped very quietly behind him and silenced him forever with a garotte. The third, a Skraglander hunter, was sixty yards farther from the road. He had evidently stood up to relieve himself when three arrows struck him simultaneously.

“Whoever these bandits are,” Silent murmured, “they move well.”

“Too well,” Spinner said softly. An arrow through the eye from an unseen attacker, a man who could slip so quietly through the forest to come unnoticed upon a woodsman, archers who could simultaneously hit a man as soon as he stood—these were not ordinary soldiers, much less the common run of forest bandits.

Haft looked deeper into the forest. “But not good enough,” he muttered. He was firmly convinced that no fighters in the world were as good as Frangerian Marines.

Silent looked a question at him, but Haft didn’t elaborate.

“Let’s go back,” Spinner said. He assigned Silent to take the six axemen and bring in the bodies of the dead lookouts. If the company was going to be here for any length of time—if they did anything but leave immediately—they needed to come up with a better defense than the hasty perimeter they set when they arrived.

While they were gone the rest of the soldiers, under command of Sergeant Phard of the Skragland Bloody Axes, gathered the dead. They reverently lay the band’s dead in a neat row near the copse where they’d been setting camp when the bandits attacked, and carelessly threw the dead bandits into a heap closer to the forest.

The first of the town’s healers arrived as the last of the bodies were being carried away. Nightbird spoke briefly with him, and set him to work on a woman with a deep wound in her back. Shortly, two more healers arrived—a magician with a spell chest, and a healing witch with a sack of herbs and poultices. The mayor conferred with them, then sent them to Nightbird.

The mayor approached Spinner and Haft. He looked them in the eye when he spoke, though his knees trembled.

“Young sirs,” he said with more strength than he felt, “I owe you an apology.” Xundoe translated his words. “I feared you were bandits come to raid Eikby. This,” he swung a hand to encompass the battlefield, “proves you are what you said.” He cast a worried look into the forest.

“Maybe next time strang—” Haft began sharply, but Spinner clamped a hand on his forearm and spoke over him.

“Lord Mayor, with bandits like these about, your fear was understandable. We hold no blame for you.”

“You are most kind, young sir,” the mayor said and bowed deeply after Xundoe’s translation. When he straightened he looked at the pile of bandit corpses. “These bandits have been marauding the countryside since long before the rumors of war first came to us. Travelers have not been safe on the roads unless they were in strongly armed parties. Even those, the bandits would attack and cause death and injury before fleeing. We have taken in refugees from villages the bandits have raided.” He shuddered. “The refugees have told us tales of murder, rapine, and destruction.” He turned plaintive eyes on Spinner. “They have stolen away women for their unspeakable purposes.”

Spinner and Haft glanced at each other when the mayor said the bandits had attacked heavily armed parties.

“As we told you before, we met some of them yesterday,” Spinner said.

“We killed many of them yesterday,” Haft added. He glared at the pile of corpses. “I guess we didn’t kill enough of them.”

The mayor nervously fingered the collar of his cassock. “Did they follow you here?”

“Maybe,” Spinner acknowledged. It was certainly possible that the bandits had spent a day gathering more of their mates and come after the company for revenge. He nodded. “It’s very possible they came to get vengeance on us after yesterday. I can’t think of another reason they would have attacked us when they could have waited and attacked the town after we left.” He nodded toward the pile of bodies. “It cost them more than a dozen dead. We can’t tell how many of them may have fled with wounds.”

“At the cost of how many losses of yours?”

Spinner shook his head, he didn’t know yet. He looked around for Fletcher and saw him coming toward them.

“What are our casualties?” he asked as soon as Fletcher was close enough.

Fletcher spat angrily. “Too many.” He sighed and spoke with less anger. “Thirteen dead, seven of them soldiers. And the bastards killed two women and four children.” He glared at the forest.

“How many wounded?”

“Too many.” He looked down and shook his head. “Two or three of the wounded may yet die.” He paused to heave a deep breath. “About twenty are down with wounds. Some are minor, some will be a long time healing.” His voice broke and they allowed him a moment to recompose himself. “Most of the wounded are women and children.”

“Zweepee?” Spinner asked, he hadn’t yet had time to look in the camp, to see who was whole, who was hurt—who was dead.

“Zweepee’s all right,” Fletcher said. “So is Doli.”

Spinner knew the Golden Girl was also uninjured. The anger and tension that had been slowly building in him eased; it was somehow important to him that the quartet of slaves he and Haft had freed was still whole and safe—or as safe as they could be, in a land subject to the ravages of bandits. He wondered once more how the other slaves had fared that he and Haft freed when they destroyed The Burnt Man. They had armed them and sent them toward Oskul, the Skragland capital. Rumors of Jokapcul advances made him fear they had not fared well.