Get Her Back (Demontech) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

      The long column compressed as it stopped for the night. With close to eight thousand people together on the move, fleeing before the invading Jokapcul army that had already conquered half the continent, it took time for the column to telescope closed. And for those who had them to erect tents. That meant the end of the marching day had to come correspondingly early. Spinner, one of the two Frangerian Marines in charge of the refugee train, fretted over the lost marching time. He knew that the enemy forces had to be getting ever closer behind them; those forces would be marching faster than the refugees were moving. He didn’t want the train caught before it reached the safety that was offered by the city of Handor’s Bay.

      Well, the early halt did give time for a commander’s call before dinner, which was a benefit.

      Spinner had spent the day as was his want, riding a horse up  and down the length of the column, seeing and being seen in his  familiar double-reversible, four-sided cloak, which he wore red-side-out for increased visibility as he moved along the column. Spinner didn’t simply
see
the people and be seen
by
them, he talked to them as well. “Do you have enough food?” he asked. “Do you have enough to drink?” “Do you have clothing other than what you are wearing?” “Is anybody in your group ill? Injured?” Everybody knew him by sight, not only from his red-side-out cloak, but from his slightly taller than average height and his dusky complexion.

      A time or two he had to settle a dispute, but not as often as he had when the column was much shorter. Now the people were too tired from the long trek to fight among themselves.

      When Spinner returned from his final circuit of the day, the tent he shared with Haft, with whom he shared leadership, the largest and richest-looking tent in the train, was already set up.

      Spinner, as always, shook his head when he saw the tent.  He thought it was far too grand for use in a refugee train. But the others in the command group thought that he and Haft, as the leaders, needed symbols to make it clear to everybody that they were in charge. The big tent was such a symbol.

      In recent weeks the command group had grown too large to meet inside the tent, so a circle of camp stools was set up in front of it. Fletcher, Zweepee, and Xundoe the mage were already there when Spinner reached the tent—they must have set out the stools. He saw the company commanders arriving. There was Captain Geatwe, who still wore the blue tabard of the Zobran Prince’s Swords; Captain Mearh in the yellow of the Zobran Light Horse; Captain Phard wore the bear fur-trimmed maroon-striped tabard of the Skraglander Bloody Axes; and Sergeant Rammer, the training commander, distinguished by his Frangerian Marine reversible, double-sided cloak, worn mottled-green-side-out, with its gilt rank chevrons on its shoulders.

      Alone among the company commanders, Rammer had refused to accept an officer’s rank. He had been the commander of the Marine contingent on the ship
Sea Horse
, and Spinner and Haft had been part of his unit. They were separated when the Jokapcul attacked the port of New Bally; while Rammer was captured, Spinner and Haft managed to escape. By the time they were reunited on the north side of the Princedon Gulf, Spinner and Haft were leading several thousand refugees, many of whom either were soldiers or were being trained. Everybody knew that under the circumstances, Sergeant Rammer had to be subordinate to the two men who had been under his command.

      Spinner knew it would be a few more minutes before Haft showed up; he had to come all the way from the rear guard where he spent most of his time on the march. And he knew that Silent, of the giant nomads of the Northern Steppes, was, as he usually was, ranging far afield on a reconnaissance.

      As soon as Spinner dismounted a hostler took the reins of his horse and led it off to be curried and fed. Spinner suppressed a grimace—he thought that a horseman should see to his own mount. But this was another instance where the rest of the command group thought that the leaders needed the symbolism of having someone else take care of mundane matters. He stifled a groan when he eased himself onto his camp stool, one of only three that had a back. The other two were currently empty. Haft would sit in one when he  arrived, and the other...

      “Where’s Alyline?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her all day. And where’s Doli? She’s usually one of the first here.”

      The others looked questioningly at each other. But none of them knew where the Golden Girl was, or could recall having seen her that day.

      “Here comes Doli,” Rammer said, nodding in the direction of the column’s end. “And it looks like she’s bringing someone with her.”

      Doli was indeed bringing someone, dragging him along by the scruff of his shirt collar like a disruptive student being hauled by his teacher to the headmaster’s office. The man may have once been a seaman, if the cut and colors of his ragged clothes were to be  believed.

      Doli marched with an unaccustomed firmness to the center of the circle and halted in front of Spinner. The man whose collar she clutched dropped to his knees and whipped off his sailor’s cap to twist between his hands.

      “Are you aware that Alyline is gone, that she has left the caravan?” Doli demanded of Spinner.

      “What?” Spinner shouted, leaping to his feet. “Where did she go? When did this happen?” He looked about for his gear, ready to take off after the Golden Girl. Doli slammed the flat of her palm into the middle of his chest and he plopped back into his chair with a startled expression on his face.

      “We were just talking about that,” Rammer said dryly, “wondering where she—and you—were.”

      “This one claims to know.” Doli sniffed, nudging the one-time sailor with her knee. “Tell him what you told me,” she ordered.

      “L-Lord—,” the man began, tugging his forelock and bobbing a bow at Rammer.

      “Don’t tell me,” Rammer interrupted, “tell him,” and jerked a thumb toward Spinner.

      The man was briefly confused, he’d sailed enough to have seen the uniforms of the Frangerian Marines. He didn’t understand why the older Frangerian with the sergeant’s rank insignia deferred to the younger one, whose only insignia was the trident-bearing merman riding on the waves that held his cloak closed at the neck. The lack of any other insignia indicated that he was very junior indeed. But he quickly recovered. It wasn’t up to him to wonder why the man who looked most like a commander deferred to someone who clearly looked to be his junior.

      “L-Lord,” he began again, this time addressing Spinner. “Last eve a woman most beauteous and golden accosted me. She had me repeat what she’d overheard me say about hearing a sothar being played. Then she demanded that I take her to that place.” He averted his eyes while speaking, and hung his head at the end.

      “But you didn’t take her?” Spinner growled.

      “N-No, Lord.” The man cringed, not sure admitting that he  hadn’t done the Golden Girl’s bidding wouldn’t get him into trouble.

      “Good,” Spinner said with a
whoosh
of relief, thinking that  Alyline must be somewhere nearby.

      “How do you know she went without you?” Fletcher asked.

      “L—, S-Sir,” he said hesitantly, unsure how to address this third person, “I hid last night so the lady c-couldn’t find me and make me g-go with her this morn. But I hid in a p-place wh-where I could see her leave.”

      “Now for the most important question,” Rammer said, looking directly at Spinner.

      “Where did she go?“ Spinner asked, needing to know, but  unsure that he wanted to. “And did she go alone?”

      “She went to the High Desert, Lord.” The man paused to moisten his suddenly dry mouth and throat. “Seeking the camp of the Desert Nomads.”

      Rammer grinned wickedly and leaned toward the man. “That’s why you hid, isn’t it,” he said. “You escaped from the Desert Nomads, didn’t you? And you’re afraid to go back to their camp. Now, tell us who was with the Golden Girl. Surely she didn’t leave by herself.”

      “N-No, Sir, she wasn’t alone. There was small troop of mounted men with her.” He hesitated, then added, “They wore blue surcoats.”

      All eyes turned to Captain Geatwe. There were blue-clad horsemen in his company.

      Geatwe dropped his head into his hands. He sighed, then looked up. “Was their blue the same as mine, or was it a light blue?” he asked.

      “It was much lighter than yours, Sir.” The seaman paused for a moment’s thought, then added, “They carried lances instead of great swords like the one you have.”

      Geatwe shook his head and mumbled, “When I didn’t see all of them this morning, I thought they had gone ahead to scout the way.”

      Rammer asked, “Are they in the habit of going ahead without letting you know?”

      “Sometimes,” Geatwe admitted.

      “We’ll have to do something about that,” Rammer murmured, “when we get them back.
If
we get them back.”

      Spinner seemed to look inward for a moment, then looked at the sailor and said, “You wouldn’t guide Alyline, and that’s good because now you can guide me to that nomad camp.”

      Ignoring the man’s wailing insistence that he didn’t think he could find the Desert Nomads’ camp again, Spinner stood up to make his preparations for going into the High Desert. Before he even got out of the circle, though, he had to stop because Haft arrived, and Spinner had to tell him what was happening.

CHAPTER THREE

      “For the last time, Spinner, you’re not going after Alyline.
I
am,” Haft said the next morning. It was now two hours past dawn, and they’d been going at it since before the sun rose.

      “But—”

      Haft shook his head. “No buts about it. You’re too emotionally involved in this. Everybody agrees. That’s why
I’m
going, and not
you
.”

      “It’s settled, Spinner,” Sergeant Rammer said from Haft’s left rear.

      “You aren’t going, Spinner,” Captain Fletcher said from Haft’s other side.

      “We’ve been arguing long enough, Spinner,” Zweepee said, stepping up to him and shaking a finger in his face. “Haft goes, you stay.”

      Doli moved in next to Zweepee and grasped Spinner’s hand, holding it against her chest between her breasts. “I ne—,
we
need you here, Spinner.”

      Spinner looked around for support, but everybody in the command group was obviously opposed to him going to find the Golden Girl and bring her back.

      “But...” he said weakly, knowing that he’d lost the argument, but unwilling yet to concede defeat. “You’re emotionally involved, too,” he said to Haft.

      Haft grinned. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “But with a big difference. I
like
Alyline.
You
are in
love
with her. Love can cause a man to make mistakes.”

      “I know,” Spinner said with a sigh. “You’ve told me that.
Everybody’s
told me that.”

      Fletcher stepped close and putting a hand on Spinner’s shoulder, he leaned in. “Spinner, we aren’t going to stop the caravan while someone goes after Alyline. The people are used to seeing you riding up and down the column every day. If they don’t see you, which they won’t if you’re haring off after Alyline, they’ll think something is very wrong. Think of what that will do to morale.” He shook his head. “Haft spends so much time either at rear point or up ahead that few people see him daily. Hardly anybody will notice if he’s not here. Nobody’s morale will suffer.”

      Haft snorted. “It must be nice to know I’m so universally loved.”

      Spinner was so wrapped up with his own thoughts that he  didn’t hear Haft. Fletcher ignored him.

      “So, now that everything else is ready,” Haft said, looking around when nobody replied, “where’s my guide?”

      “I found him trying to hide,” said Lieutenant Balta, commander of the platoon of Skraglander Bloody Axes. He had a firm grip on the arm of the seaman who had told Alyline about the sothar player he’d heard in the nomads’ camp. The “guide” looked distinctly  unhappy.

      Haft took his leave of Spinner with a mock bow, and strode to Balta and the guide.

      “I can’t just call you ‘hey you’,“ he said. “What’s your name?”

      “I-It’s Jurnieks, Lord.” To Jurnieks, Haft looked, as did Spinner,  to be far too young and junior to be in command, but the two obviously were running things—as near as Jurnieks could tell—as equals. They must be nobles of some sort, although he’d heard the fierce-looking soldiers with the bearskin trim on their maroon-striped cloaks call Haft “Sir.” And he’d never heard of the Frangerian Marines deferring to people because of their birth rank.

      “It’s time we were off,” Haft said. “Too much time has passed since the Golden Girl and her escort left. We need to move fast if we hope to catch them before they reach the nomads’ camp. Can you ride a horse?”

      “Y-Yes, Lord,” Jurnieks said, bobbing his head. But he didn’t sound very positive about it, which was fine with Haft as he’d rather walk himself.

      But time...
Yes
, Haft thought,
we can’t take the time to go on foot.
At least he wouldn’t be the only one uncomfortable on horseback.

      “Lieutenant Balta,” Haft said, “are your men ready?”

      “They’ve been ready for some time, Sir Haft.”

      Haft gave Spinner a cocked-eyebrow look as though saying, “See how you’ve made people wait?” Out loud he said to Balta, “Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

      An hour later Haft and a thirty-man platoon of Skraglander Bloody Axes, with Jurnieks as their reluctant guide, were atop the plateau of the High Desert, which rose some two hundred yards above the narrow strip of coastal plain that the refugee train was  following.

      Haft rose in his stirrups to look over the landscape. He squinted to protect his eyes from the wind, which was gusting from the west. The High Desert looked very different from the Low Desert into which everybody in his party, except for their guide who hadn’t been with them at the time, had made a foray.

      The High Desert didn’t undulate as gently as the Low, which had given the quick-glance impression of being table-flat. Instead it looked jagged, even though no single place appeared to be much higher than any other. The ground did seem, however, to rise slowly into the distance. Nor did this desert appear to have numerous rills and small streams wending their way through it, flowing into or out of ponds and small lakes. What little green met the eye looked sparse and malnourished, with none of it even ankle high. He looked down at the nearby vegetation, expecting to see it all bent to the east by the west wind that buffeted him. But it wasn’t. While the leaves pointed to the east, the twigs and branches went every which way, twisted by time and variable wind direction. A sharp blast unexpectedly struck him from the north, rocking him in his saddle. That was another reason for him to prefer being on his feet instead of on a horse; he’d be lower to the ground, and the wind wouldn’t hit him so hard.

      But he knew he had to be on horseback, and tried to banish thoughts of walking.

      As he settled back in the saddle, he adjusted the axe hanging on his belt. The axe had a two and a half foot handle, with a half moon blade projecting a foot beyond the handle’s end, and an equal length down its length. A thick spike opposite the blade tapered to a sharp point. The face of the blade bore a rampant eagle. He got his name because when he used the axe, it was as though he became its  handle, its haft. Man and weapon seemed to function as one.

      Looking over the landscape again, Haft realized that he would have to change his double-sided reversible cloak from mottled green to brown-side-out. Rising ripples in the air made the High Desert looked sere, which it probably was. At first he thought the ripples were caused by heat, then he realized with a shudder that they might be a form of demon he’d never heard of—the wind didn’t seem to affect the ripples, and there didn’t seem to be much heat in the High Desert.

      In no place was there any sign of habitation. Not a house, not a tent, not a tendril of smoke rising from a cook fire. There wasn’t even a road or a track that could lead to people or their places.

      “How can anyone live here?” Haft wondered out loud. He twisted to his left and shouted, “Jurnieks! Which way?”

      “You don’t need to shout, Lord,” Jurnieks said from just a few feet to Haft’s right rear, “I’m right here.”

      Haft jerked to his right and glowered at the guide. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he demanded.

      “You didn’t ask, Lord,” Jurnieks said in a fatalistic tone.

      Haft jutted his face toward Jurnieks and said, “Your place is to the
left
rear of your commander, not the right,” snarling to cover his embarrassment. He looked toward the horizon that, because of its gentle rise, looked a little bit too near, and said thoughtfully, “Actually, you’re the guide, you should be in front.

      “Yes, Lord. In front.” Jurnieks swallowed, then eased his horse forward, looking uncertainly at the ground and the too-close  horizon.

      “What are you waiting for,” Haft asked. “You’re the guide. So guide.”

      “But I—, I don’t recognize anything here.”

      Haft gave him a look that was more astonished than he actually felt—he could well understand someone not recognizing anything here. He didn’t think there was much to distinguish any part of the landscape from any other part.

      “But you came this way only two days ago,” he said.

      “Yes, Lord,” Jurnieks said, bobbing his head. “Two days ago. Two days caravan travel
that
way.” He pointed south. “I didn’t come across here.” He made a sweeping gesture at the landscape to his front.

      Haft groaned. Why hadn’t he, or anybody else, thought of that? This wasn’t even where Alyline and her Zobran Royal Lancers had climbed to the High Desert’s plateau!

      “Balta!” he shouted.

      “Yes, Sir Haft,” the Bloody Axes’ commander replied, also from very near by. He had a scarf wrapped around his face to keep wind-blown dust out of his nose and mouth.

      “We need to backtrack to where Alyline climbed the palisade.”

      “Certainly, Sir Haft,” Balta said with a knowing nod. He turned in his saddle and raised an arm to signal his platoon. The Bloody Axes set out in good order to the south.

      “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?” Haft muttered. “And you didn’t tell me!”

      “Sir Haft? I didn’t quite catch that,” Balta said, smiling.

      “Never mind, it was nothing.” Haft nonetheless made a sour moue.

      Before the entire platoon got moving south, there was a  commotion at the edge of the plateau where they had come up.

      “Sir Haft!” a Bloody Axe near the edge called. “Sir Haft!” someone closer to Haft repeated, and another yet closer and another, until a grinning Bloody Axe a mere fifteen yards from Haft called out, “Sir Haft!”

      At the second call, Haft had turned back to see who was calling him. Well before the closest called, he could see that the only way for him to know
why
he was being called was to go and see for himself why several of the Bloody Axes were clustered together at the edge of the plateau.

      “Wait here,” he told Jurnieks. “Stay with him, Balta.” He turned his mare and headed toward the end of the column.

      “Look what we found trying to follow us, Sir Haft,” one of the Bloody Axes, Farkas by name, said when Haft reached the small knot of riders.

      What Haft saw was a funny-looking little man. His face was deeply lined and his skin was a bronzed tan. A colorful scarf was wrapped around his head. He wore a colorfully-patterned cloth that wrapped around his waist and hung almost to his ankles. Rope sandals were on his feet. He rode sidesaddle on a donkey, and led a pack mule laden with chests and bolts of cloth. He looked indignant until he looked at Haft, at which point his expression became belligerent.

      “Lord Haft,” the man said, “do you not recognize me?”

      Haft looked from the odd man to his pack mule and what it carried and back to him. “I don’t know your name,” he said. “But it looks like you’re a mage from the Kondive Islands.”

      The man gave a shallow bow while tapping his forehead, his lips and his chest. “I have the honor of being Tabib, Mage Second Class—from the Kondive Islands, exactly as Lord Haft has said. When the Lord Spinner realized that you had left without a mage, he assigned to me the honor of accompanying you.”