Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) (34 page)

“Dry id,”
it finally said, and popped back inside. The little door shut with a
snick
.

Haft shook his head.
Try it.
The demon didn’t know if it could reach that far. He thought about it for a moment, then stood and advanced another twenty yards before kneeling again. Laughing voices drifted to his ears from the Jokapcul camp. He balanced the tube on his shoulder and sighted along it. When Xundoe introduced him to the demon spitter he had been vague about how to aim it. Haft remembered the Jokapcul who had these demon spitters had elevated their muzzles when they fired. He tried to imagine how high he’d have to aim a longbow to reach the fire and held the tube about as high. He wrapped his hands firmly around the handgrips that protruded from the bottom of the tube and squeezed the lever that told the demon to spit.

Nothing happened for a second, then a loud
pthup
sounded from the tube and it bucked on his shoulder. Again, nothing happened for a second, then the fire he’d aimed at exploded, scattering embers and flaming brands in all directions. Shouts and screams came clear from the camp.

The demon flung its door open and popped its head back out, vigorously rubbing its mouth with the back of its wrist.
“Naw zo ’igh,”
it said.
“Awmoz mizzd.”
It disappeared back into the tube.

Encouraged, Haft aimed at a different fire—but didn’t elevate the front of the tube as high. This time, the demon spat almost as soon as he squeezed the signaling lever. He didn’t wait to see what happened, but aimed at another fire and squeezed again. Two more fires erupted, one after the other. A tent was ablaze, set afire by a brand from the first fire.

Pthup!
went the tube. The door popped open and the demon wiped the back of a gnarly hand across its mouth.
“Veedmee!”
it demanded.

Haft didn’t argue, he got the canister of demon food and pulled out a pellet for the demon.

The demon gobbled it down, wiped its mouth, burped more loudly than anything so small should be able to, grunted,
“Thass gud.”
It cocked an eye at Haft and added,
“Aimz betta, too,”
before it withdrew back into its tube.

By then more tents were burning and the entire Jokapcul camp was in an uproar. The shouts were louder and more guttural, voices of command rang out above them. He also heard a booming crack, like the sound made by Xundoe’s small demon spitter. By the lights from the burning tents and undisturbed fires, Haft saw bucket brigades forming to put out the tent fires. Elsewhere, soldiers were mounting horses and forming ranks.

He aimed, squeezed, and the demon spitter spat at one cavalry formation. Horses screamed and reared, throwing their riders. A couple of horses fell and didn’t rise again. Another small demon spitter
crack
ed in the Jokapcul camp. The magician must have been firing wildly, not sure of where he was. He aimed at a knot of milling Jokapcul and felt a jolt of the grimness that in combat passes for cheer as half of the horses in the knot were knocked off their hooves. The air next to his ear
crack
ed—either a magician had gotten off a lucky shot, or one had figured out where he was. He got off another spit into a fresh formation of horsemen that had started to move in his direction. He started to aim into their midst for another shot, but the demon opened its door and cried out,
“Veedmee!”
most piteously. As he fed it, the formation broke into a canter toward him before he could level the demon spitter and take aim.

Instead of aiming and spitting again, he sprinted back toward the fence gate. Behind him came the thundering hooves of the approaching light cavalry. They were gaining on him, and horsemen shouted back and forth. He risked a glance back and gasped in shock—the horsemen were closing rapidly, and their line was too wide for him to dodge to one side or the other. They lashed to their sides with swords as they came, as though they were seeking invisible targets to slash. He put on an extra burst of speed. Ahead and getting closer, he made out the fence in the moonlight, but the horsemen would be on him before he reached the gate.

The pounding of the horses’ hooves began to shake the road beneath his feet and he worried that the drumming of their hooves would dislodge the phoenix eggs. He glanced back again. A horse was bearing directly down on him, it would reach him in seconds. But neither the rider nor the horse saw him inside the Lalla Mkouma’s concealing vortex. He dove to the left and the horsemen thundered harmlessly by. But a second line of cavalry was right behind the first and he had to roll back to his right to avoid being run down. No more lines of horsemen followed. Haft stopped and watched the cavalry approach the fence.

Suddenly, a horse screamed and flipped forward, catapulting its rider over its head. In seconds, four more horses were tripped up by the pits. Then someone knocked a phoenix egg over and the fiery bird stretched its hellish wings. Horses screamed and leaped away, crashing into each other. Jokapcul riders tumbled from their terrified mounts and were trampled. Two
pthup
s, muffled by distance, sounded, followed by explosions in the midst of the Jokapcul. One of the eruptions cracked another phoenix egg and the newborn bird reared up, incinerating everything within the span of its wings before it spiraled skyward. A horseman fell with an arrow protruding from his throat. Sharp
crack
s sounded within the mass of Jokapcul.

More and more of the horses screamed in panic, they bucked and kicked to dislodge their struggling riders. Hodekin pits brought more horses down with broken legs. A third phoenix egg cracked and the phoenix added its hellfire to the mix. The distant
pthup
ing came again and again, and there were more eruptions within the ranks of the Jokapcul. Above it all, Haft heard the sharper
crack
ing of small demon spitters wielded by Jokapcul magicians. There was another, louder
crack
, followed by a line of green light that arced into the sky from near the gate. At the apex of its arch, the line of light burst into a ball of brilliant fire that illuminated and slowly floated toward the ground. A
crack
sounded from it a second after the line burst into the ball. There was a sudden rattle of
crack
s from the Jokapcul magicians, but Haft couldn’t see through the mass of milling men and horses to know if they could actually see who they were shooting at.

The Jokapcul officers were trying to funnel their men through the broken gate. There! Haft spotted a magician. He grinned harshly, balanced the demon spitter on his shoulder again, and aimed. The weapon spat into the mass of cavalry crowding the gate. More men and horses were thrown away by the violence of the explosion when the demon’s spit struck. He quickly fired twice more, then bolted to the side before the demon could pop its door open and demand to be fed again. He was just in time; two squads of horsemen descended on the place from where he fired. The distant demon spitters spat again for the first time since the fireball opened above them, and two eruptions near the gate tumbled wounded horses and men.

He fed the demon again, then aimed the weapon and it spat into the Jokapcul who were looking for him where he had just been. Before the survivors could recover, he was on the move again, away from the fence. Fifty yards farther from the fence, he turned and sprinted to the other side of the road. As he ran, another Phoenix egg burst open and there were more explosions from the demon spitters wielded by the men with Spinner.

Then the Jokapcul jostling to get through the fence bumped the gateposts, and a sudden, shrill sizzling announced the emergence of the imps from their houses. The night filled with the screams of more men and horses as the imps grasped them and began feeding. An officer barked out in a voice of command and the horsemen broke, galloping back toward their camp. The Jokapcul magicians answered with their own
crack
s, but not with the same concentration they had when the fireball burst above the edge of the forest. A half dozen of them fell to two large demon spitter
pthup
s, and one to Xundoe’s smaller one. Only one regained his feet and stumbled along the road after his troop. The retreating Jokapcul ran head-on into another troop heading toward the one-sided battle. The troops milled about in confusion for a moment, but Haft didn’t see the encounter—by the time they met he was already sprinting for the gate.

“We were afraid they’d found you,” Spinner said just inside the trees beyond the fence.

“Find me?” Haft grinned. “Never! Not when I’ve got one of these lovelies.” He stroked the thigh of the giggling Lalla Mkouma who preened on his shoulder.

“We beat them!” Xundoe said in hushed excitement.

“No, we didn’t beat them,” Spinner said.

Haft clapped the mage on the shoulder and added, “But we certainly hurt them. Much thanks to you.”

“We better go,” Silent said, looking toward the Jokapcul camp. “They’re coming again.”

The others looked. A thick, dark line was heading toward them along the road.

“They’re hurt, but they aren’t beaten,” Spinner said. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s give them a farewell present,” Haft said, and balanced his demon spitter on his shoulder again.

Spinner shook his head, but shouldered his demon spitter as well. So did Balta, the Bloody Axe who had the third.

“One at a time,” Spinner said. “Me first. On my command, Balta. Haft last.”

Haft and Balta told him they understood.

Spinner aimed his demon spitter along the road and waited until the dark line resolved itself into a column three horsemen wide. When the van of the Jokapcul column was less than fifty yards from the gate he squeezed the signaling lever. The demon spat and the first two ranks of Jokapcul were flung to the ground like they’d hit a wire stretched across the road.

“Balta!” Spinner barked, and the Skraglander’s weapon spat into the Jokapcul who were manically trying to avoid trampling on or tripping over their fallen companions. Five more crashed to the ground. Injured horses screamed, other horses screamed in fear.

“Haft!” Haft’s weapon spat and the eight men ran into the forest. Behind them more horses, forced off the road into the area Xundoe had prepared, screamed when their legs broke in hodekin holes. Another phoenix egg cracked open, men and horses screamed as the newborn bird unfurled its wings.

It took a few minutes for the officers to regroup their squads when they realized no more destruction was coming their way, but the Jokapcul finally poured through the gate and spread out to search for their attackers. Some squads went north or south to search the open, moonlit fields, but most went into the forest where they thrashed about in the dark, their only illumination the few shafts of moonlight that pierced the foliage.

A squad of seven threaded its way between a thicket and a wide boled tree. When the last man reached the tree, the end of a quarterstaff arrowed out of nowhere into the space between the neckflaps of his helmet, crushing his throat. He tumbled backward and was caught by a strong arm that lowered him quietly to the ground. The strong arm’s mate then thrust downward with a mighty sword and shattered his heart—the Jokapcul died before the drumming of his heels could attract attention. The horseman next up in line was silenced by the huge sword that nearly severed his head. A crossbow bolt slammed through the metal-plated leather armor of the next man forward and blew through his spine. He thudded to the ground. The sound spun the others around, weapons raised. No one opposed them and, search as they might, they couldn’t find anyone in the deep shadows they’d just passed—though someone in the shadows found them. In moments the entire squad was dead.

Fifty yards to the south, a horseman probing into the shadows with his lance was momentarily surprised when a half-moon axe blade swung out of thin air. The blade clove into his chest, ending his surprise and his life. Five yards to his left, another lancer probing shadows didn’t even see the sword that thrust into the thin armor under his arm. The six remaining members of that squad were unwittingly saved when they galloped toward the four briefly surviving members of the squad to their north who were yelling in their panicked search for unseen killers.

Throughout the forest, Jokapcul horsemen who’d lost their officers at the approach to the fence sped toward the yelling. Several were intercepted by axe or sword wielded by invisible men.

Elsewhere, the few remaining officers kept their men under control and continued the search. They never found their quarry, but sometimes the quarry found them. The invisible hunted found the hunters, and when they did one officer died for every three soldiers whose blood nurtured the earth. Finally, the invisible men broke off their attacks and withdrew. By then the Jokapcul, their panic growing, had begun to lash out at every shadow.

Farther to the north, under cover of the confusion caused by the unseen attackers, four men sped away: Xundoe—carrying two demon spitters—and three Bloody Axes, two of whom bore a caged hodekin between them.

By the time the few remaining officers withdrew and rallied their men in the open before the forest, eleven of the fifteen officers and forty of the 190 soldiers of the second force to approach the gate were dead or dying. Many others would recover from their wounds, though not all would be whole enough to fight again.

“I did it!”
Xundoe squealed. “I did something no other Zobra army magician ever did before!”

“You did it!” Haft said loudly then staggered the mage with a clap to his back.

“I had confidence in you, Xundoe,” Spinner said. He could hardly believe all eight of them had made it back to the valley.

“Spinner!” Doli shrieked, and raced to throw herself into his arms. She gripped the sides of his head and smothered his face with kisses. “You’re alive!”

“Yes, I’m alive.” His voice was muffled by her mouth and hair. He grasped her wrists and tried to pull her off, but she tangled her fingers in his hair and clung more tightly.