Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) (8 page)

Tree trunks, many thicker than the width of a man’s body, climbed heavenward, only the youngest had branches low enough for a tall man to reach without standing on his horse’s back. Branches flared out into terraces high above, forming multiple canopies that blocked direct sunlight from reaching the ground; little undergrowth managed to survive in the dimness of that part of the forest. Strangle vines looped about many trees, their aerial roots drooped heavily from high branches. Here and there where age, a storm, or strangle vines had felled a tree, sunlight broke through and inspired saplings to grow in manic competition with their siblings and rivals of other species. There also, small lizards basked on exposed rocks or on the fallen trees themselves. A few lookout trees shot high and pierced the canopy; nubbins of old, dead branches a man could use to climb spiraled their way up the mighty trunks from near their bases.

The forest’s multiple canopies were not so thick that they prevented rainfall from dribbling down in a constant drizzle; so the ground was soft and moist, but not so wet as to squish underfoot. All around, fallen leaves and twigs spotted the ground and quietly rotted away, returning their stored nutrients to the soil.

Even though the light was merely dim, and no treetop dwellers scattered slops at him, the forest reminded Haft uncomfortably of the short stretch he and Spinner had traversed leading to the border between Bostia and Skragland. There, as they reentered the light at the border, a giant cat of the forest had attacked them and nearly won.

Bare patches of dirt bore the tracks of deer and other grazers, occasionally there were signs of boar. Ground dwellers scampered through what undergrowth there was,
squee
-ed out their alarms and flashed white-tailed alerts. Haft went suddenly cold when he saw the pug of a hunting cat. He dropped to a knee to examine it. It was half the size of the paws of the gray tabur he and Spinner had fought and killed. He thought the cat more likely to flee a man than try to eat one. Still, when he stood and continued to move through the trees, he was more wary. He checked that his axe was loose in its belt loop; his fingers caressed the trigger of his crossbow. Man-eaters or not, cats were frightening, deadly, beasts and he had no desire to encounter another.

In places, the spacing of the trees allowed the scouts to see as far as a hundred yards though the dimness of the light made objects at that distance hard to make out. After a time, Haft dimly made out Wolf in the distance, where it was bolting down a meal. The beast looked directly at him as he approached and seemed to laugh. Then, finished, Wolf ran forward before Haft reached him.

Haft stopped to examine the scene. There were many paw marks of dogs around the half-eaten carcass of a yearling deer. Wolf had interrupted the pack in its meal and sent it to flight. With the bigger predator gone, the feral dogs were edging closer, to retake their stolen catch. Haft was suddenly aware of their growls. He casually walked away. Dogs might attack a man who displayed fear; they were less likely to attack one who displayed an air of confidence.

The ground rolled in gentle swells and troughs, it angled slowly, imperceptibly, downward toward the distant sea. Streams and rills cut every which way through the land; the mountains that formed the spine of the Princedon Peninsula and divided the flow of water north and south were some distance ahead. In flat places and broad hollows, water from heavy rains pooled in season.

Haft couldn’t see the position of the sun under the trees and had to guess at the passage of time. When he was sure enough time had passed for the sun to be halfway from zenith to dusk, he began to look for a suitable flood clearing, one with a stream of fast-running water and large enough to bivouac the entire company. When he found one he sent his three scouts to make sure the lack of human sign truly meant no one was near, and went to wait by the side of the road, where he was surprised when Fletcher joined him from the direction of the bivouac.

“Where’s everybody else?” Haft asked.

“Kocsokoz, Kovasch, and Meszaros are with your men scouting the area.” Fletcher grinned. “We followed you. Eight pairs of eyes are better than four.”

Haft looked away, muttering to himself.
He
thought four pairs of eyes were enough—and he was head scout; nobody should be scouting without him knowing about it. He turned back to Fletcher.

“And just what do you think would have happened if we realized we were being followed? How many of you would we have killed before we realized who you were?”

Fletcher shook his head. “None. You would have waited until we were close enough to recognize before you fired.”

Haft looked away, muttering again; Fletcher was right. Otherwise their arrows might miss. He’d rather get quick kills with arrows than go into the uncertainty of a close fight with men of whose fighting abilities he wasn’t fully confident. Still, he was upset that other scouts had trailed them without him knowing.

“That’s a good place for a camp,” Fletcher said. “I don’t think anybody in the company could have found a better one.”

Haft grunted in reply, but the compliment pleased him.

They didn’t have to wait long until the rest of the company came into view; already they heard the clop-clop of horses, and the creaking and rumbling of wagons following the horses.

Four horsemen came first: Spinner led, Alyline rode at his side. Silent and Xundoe were close behind. They reined up next to Haft and Fletcher.

“All’s quiet?” Spinner asked.

“Only birds and bears and lots of deer,” Haft said. He decided not to mention the pug of cat or the feral dog pack, they weren’t food and they didn’t present a danger to the company. He looked to the side. “There’s a glade right over there big enough for a bivouac. Complete with running water. The rest of the scouts,” he shot a glance at Fletcher, “are making sure we’re alone.”

“Where’s Wolf?”

Haft shrugged.

“Well, if there was danger nearby Wolf would have alerted you.” Spinner looked into the trees where Haft had looked. “Can our wagons get through there?”

“If they go slowly,” Fletcher said. “There’s enough room between the trees.”

“Then lead on.”

Fletcher turned and led the way into the trees. Haft stayed by the road to make sure everybody followed. First came a squad of Skraglander Guards on foot, looking very fierce and unmilitary in their homespun, furs, and horned helmets. Next came the rest of the Zobran Border Warders, mounted, in their forest-blending uniforms, followed closely by a squad each of Zobran Royal Lancers and Prince’s Swords in their differing blues, and a squad of Zobran Light Horse in yellow. The wagons carrying the small children and the company’s goods trailed the Zobrans. Pisau and another Kondive sea soldier, along with a quartet of sea soldiers from the Easterlies—all soft-footed men—provided guard on the wagons. Other soldiers, mostly Skragland Guards and Borderers, walked in the forest as flank security for them. After the wagons came a motley of armed men, again mostly competent Skraglanders, and a few Bostians who managed to flee their country before it was completely overrun. The group included men who in the past had served in a number of armies and men who had never served under arms, but had become willing to do so. Bringing up the rear, Sergeant Phard led the two squads of Skraglander Bloody Axes in fur cloaks that bore the distinctive maroon stripes of their unit.

Soon enough, the company was in the bivouac. The animals and birds that called the glade home vacated in the face of the human invasion. Salt-licking and bloodsucking insects stayed, as did a few buzzing bees. The horses were cooled and watered, curried, put on tether lines, and fed. The women and children set about hearthing cook fires and gathering what few edibles were available in the clearing and the forest fringe. When the scouts came in to report that they’d found no sign of anybody in the area they brought carcasses with them, three deer and a wild boar. Everyone cheered at sight of the game. That night they would eat better than they had in more than a week. Women happily abandoned the small hearths they’d made in favor of the larger hearth pits the men dug to roast the game.

Spinner and Haft set out watch posts and sent Fletcher with several men downstream from the camp to dig privy trenches under the trees. Most of the soldiers had at first objected to the nonsense, their word, of digging latrines downstream away from camp. They didn’t care what
Lord Gunny Says
, the legendary
Handbook for Sea Soldiers
of the Frangerian Marines, had to say about field sanitation. To the knowledge of most soldiers, books were written by people who hadn’t done any of the things claimed in them. As time passed though, they couldn’t deny that there was less illness in the company than among any similar number of soldiers with whom they’d ever traveled in the past. Some of them grudgingly admitted there might be something to what
Lord Gunny Says
had to say about making camp in the field.

The camp followers, mostly women and children, had grown to outnumber the men. Another peddler, too old and feeble to be of use as a soldier, had recently joined the company. He and the peddler who had been with the group guarded by the Royal Lancers were quite willing to trade some of the goods in their laden carts for food and protection—and the occasional copper or silver coin. Most of the people who joined them since the group guarded by the Royal Lancers were individual families: grandparents with their grandchildren, mothers with their many offspring and few husbands. Four unmarried women with their own brightly painted wagon had attached themselves to the company during the previous week. There were still more men without wives than women without husbands in the company, and the four women were glad to provide various wifely services to unwed soldiers in exchange for the protection the company provided. The wives were divided in their reaction to those four women—half were offended, half were glad their presence kept the unmarried soldiers from bothering them.

In short, the company was increasingly self-sufficient, at least for the time. Eventually, they’d need to find a village or town where they could replenish the few items that they couldn’t make or repair themselves. They weren’t at that point yet—not quite.

It wasn’t long before the scent of roasting meat wafted through the campsite, while edible leaves, florets, and mushrooms simmered in pots, and tubers wrapped in wet leaves roasted in coals. The sun was down by the time the feast was ready to eat.

Pairs of older children were dispatched to the listening posts, one child with a brand to light the way, the other with a trencher piled with hot food for the soldiers on duty. Wolf rejoined the company as they began to feast and made his way from one group of diners to another, gleefully gobbling the chunks of meat they tossed to him.

At length everyone’s hunger was sated; there was no rationing on this night. Fletcher and the Zobran Border Warders then set about jerking the remaining meat to carry with them on the morrow. Zweepee and Doli saw to the equitable division of the remaining food among all of the people. Then members of the company sat about the dying embers and told stories, or talked of what else they might find in the forest. When time came, Spinner and Haft sent soldiers to relieve those on watch. The fires burned down to little more than embers and the camp began to settle for the night, people drifting off to whatever bedding they had.

Spinner and Haft, and their original group of Alyline, Doli, Fletcher, Zweepee, Silent, and Xundoe—and Wolf—were the last still up, sitting at ease in the warm glow of a fire’s embers.

“We’ve come far,” Zweepee said from her comfortable place, tucked under her husband’s protective arm.

“We have farther to go,” Haft said.

“Maybe so, but now we’re not just a few frightened, fleeing refugees; now we’re with all these people.”

“People who slow us down,” Alyline said a bit sourly.

“People who we have responsibility for,” Spinner said gently.

“It’s nice to have all these people with us,” Doli said. “All those
men
.” Her eyes flashed at Spinner in hope that he would take the hint. He ignored her, she stuck her tongue out at him.

“They’re on their own once we find a port,” Haft said. He glanced at Doli from the corner of his eye. “Unless they want to board ship and go to Frangeria with us.” She ignored him, but he hadn’t expected any more positive response from her than she ever got from Spinner.

Zweepee shook her head and Fletcher gently squeezed her to warn her against saying anything. She smiled up at him and kept her peace.

Wolf tucked his face under his paws as though he didn’t understand why those four kept this farce going. It seemed simple enough: They were two and two, why couldn’t they simply sort it out and pair off?

“Do you think we’ll find a port?” Fletcher asked.

“Oh, we’ll find ports aplenty in the Princedons,” Spinner said. “The question is, will any of them still be open and free.”

“Certainly on the gulf side,” Haft said, not that he was having second thoughts about heading toward the ocean side of the Princedon Peninsula.

“Maybe. But deep-sea ships are more likely to be on the ocean side.”

Silent, for once, lived up to his name and said nothing. He had traveled farther on land than any of the others, and had even farther to travel before he finally returned to his home on the Northern Steppes. Especially if, as he thought he would, he boarded a great ship to cross the Inner Sea with Spinner and Haft. He’d heard the continent on the other side of the ocean was even larger than Nunimar, which was the only continent he’d seen. A bigger place was indeed a marvelous thing for a wandering nomad to see.

“It grows late, and we must be on the move in the morning,” Fletcher said, removing his arm from Zweepee. He stood and helped her to her feet. They said their good-nights and moved away.

A soft snore told them Xundoe was already asleep. Silent stood, stretched, made sure that Spinner and Haft knew where his bedroll was in case they needed to wake him during the night, and went off. The others sat quietly for a time. Spinner kept looking hopefully at Alyline, who ignored him, Doli made eyes at Spinner, but he ignored them. Haft wondered
what’s wrong with me?
Then Alyline rose and made to leave.