Get Her Back (Demontech) (8 page)

      “Did you think the nomads would let us wander around without keeping a close watch on us?” Sergeant Korona asked.

      “I guess not.”

      “I’m not going to look. How many and where are they?”

      They were walking clockwise around the camp and had gone just far enough around the curve of the circular camp to be out of sight of their own small encampment area. Maros was a few yards to Korona’s rear and a bit to his left, his peripheral vision allowed him to see farther to the right rear of the small reconnaissance team than Korona could.

      “I can see four. They’re about twenty-five yards back.”

      “There could be more than four?”

      “There could, yes.”

      “Are they showing weapons?”

      “They’ve got those big spears in their hands. Carrying them like walking sticks.” Maros turned his head to look into the space  between two huts that they were just passing, which allowed his peripheral vision to see farther to his left rear. “There are five of them,” he reported. “The one on the outside, the one I couldn’t see before, has his bow in his hands and an arrow nocked. The bow’s not drawn,” he hastily added.

      “Let me know if anything changes,” Korona said. “Do you see  anything, Teto? Kocsi?” Neither of the other men had seen their  followers, or anything else of interest.

      So it went for another hundred yards before half a dozen nomad warriors stepped out from between two huts a few yards to their front. Half of them had their spears held ready to lunge, the others had drawn swords. Itzuli, the translator, was with them.

      “What are you doing here?” Itzuli demanded.

      Korona spread his hands, showing that he wasn’t holding a weapon, and said in mock surprise, “We’re just taking a walk, stretching our legs after the long horseback ride from the ocean to here.”

      “I know you,” Itzuli said to Korona in a fiercer tone than he had used when he was translating for Nagusi. “You are a leader among these outlanders. You are not just walking—you are spying!”

     
“Spying!
That’s not true, we aren’t spying. What could we hope to find by walking in the open during the day? Spies skulk about in the dark, and keep to shadows. Why, if anybody was saying something you don’t want us to hear, they’d see us coming and stop talking. Or hide away anything they didn’t want us to see.” He turned his head to the side and spat. “Spying! That’s nonsense.” He snorted. “Do you really think we can understand your tongue?”

      Itzuli stared at Korona for a long moment, breathing hard,  obviously thinking. Finally his arm shot out, pointing back the way the Bloody Axes had come from.

      “Go. Return to your place until you are summoned. Do not leave it before then under pain of death!”

      “If that’s the way you feel about it,” Korona said, in a tone that implied that the interrupted walk was of no importance. He gave a brief bow that was barely more than a nod, and turned about. To see the five nomad warriors Maros had reported a short time earlier. The five were grinning at him and his men. They caressed their weapons as though they were anxious to use them.

      Korona just looked at them without making a move toward his own axe.

      Itzuli barked something in the harsh language of the High Desert Nomads, and the five, still grinning, stepped aside to allow the four Skraglanders to pass.

      “I don’t know if it’s the Zobrans or the musician—or something else,” Korona reported when the recon team returned, “but they’re hiding something. And it’s probably closer to the left side than it is around to the right.”

      Haft looked into the camp, his eyes unfocused as though trying to see through the rings of huts that blocked his view.

      “Too bad we don’t have some Lalla Mkoumas with us,” he muttered.

      “Ah, but Lord Haft,” Tabib murmured, “we most certainly do! Do you really believe that a mage as wondrous as I am would be so careless that he would embark on a mission of such importance as this one without a demon so powerfully beneficial?” He whipped a cloth cover from a smallish chest, exposing holes drilled in its top, and opened the chest.

      A tiny voice from inside it piped,
“Veed mee!”

CHAPTER TEN

      Haft wanted to use the Lalla Mkouma right away to turn himself invisible so he could go on a solo scouting mission to find out just what it was that the nomads were hiding somewhere counter-clockwise from the Bloody Axes’ encampment.

      But Lieutenant Balta insisted that Haft couldn’t be the one to go. “The nomads,” Balta explained, “aren’t being overly obvious about it, but if you look, you can see the warriors they have dotted around our encampment, keeping an eye on us. And surely each of the watchers knows every member of the command group by sight, and at least one of them would notice if you are suddenly missing.  Besides, at least one of them is likely watching you at all times, and would see when the Lalla Mkouma did her magic to make you  invisible.”

      “I hate it when you’re right,” Haft grumbled. “But when you’re right, I have to accept it.” He looked Balta in the eye. “They’ve probably got a close eye on you, too, so you can’t be the one, either. The same goes for Korona and Tabib.” He shook his head. “I can’t even send Jurniaks—even if I could trust him to do the scouting instead of run away.”

      Balta nodded agreement. “I suggest we send Corporal Kaplar,” he said. “Not only is he a good NCO, but he’s an experienced scout. Plus, he’s used demon spitters, which means he’s familiar with how to deal with demons—and he knows to feed them immediately when they demand food.”

      “Won’t the nomads notice if Kaplar’s missing?”

      Balta shook his head. “Only if one of them is looking at him when he disappears. When he assisted Korona in setting up the camp, he was working alongside the junior men. He wouldn’t have stood out as a leader.”

      “That’s right, Sir Haft,” Korona said, backing up Balta.

      Haft didn’t look happy about it, but he had to agree. “All right, get Kaplar.”

      Balta looked at Korona and nodded. Korona nodded back and went to fetch Kaplar.

      “Corporal Kaplar, I have a mission for you, if you’ll accept it,” Haft said when the platoon’s junior NCO joined them.

      “‘If’, sir?” Kaplar said, surprised at the suggestion that he would turn down an assignment.

      “It’s a dangerous mission, Corporal.”

      “I’m a corporal in the Bloody Axes of Skragland, Sir Haft. I
expect
my missions to be dangerous.”

      Haft looked at him for a moment then, all business, and asked, “Are you familiar with Lalla Mkoumas?”

      “The little female demons who make a man disappear? Yes, Sir, I’m aware of them.”

      “Do you know what happened when Sergeant Korona tried to take a recon patrol around the nomad camp?”

      “Yes, Sir. They were turned back before they’d gotten very far.”

      “That makes me think that the nomads have something on the other side of their camp that they don’t want us to see. I need to know what it is, but we can’t go there. However, it so happens that Mage Tabib has a Lalla Mkouma with him. If any of us,” he gestured to indicate the members of the command group, “use the Lalla Mkouma to go to the opposite side of the camp, the nomads will notice he’s missing. So I’d like you to go.”

      Kaplar’s nostrils flared slightly. “Thank you, Sir! I’ll be most  honored to go.”

      “Good. Come in close and sit, to meet the Lalla Mkouma.”

      Kaplar sat cross-legged on the ground, in a tight circle with Haft, Balta, Guma, Korona, and Tabib. Tabib opened a chest and reached in to withdraw a foot-tall female demon, which he stood in the  center of the circle.

     The Lalla Mkouma had lustrous red hair that hung to halfway down her thighs. She was built in an exaggerated form of female pulchritude, one that would turn the head of even the most celibate aesthete. A fact that was abundantly visible through the diaphanous gown that was her sole garment. She looked around at the men surrounding her and giggled behind a tiny, but perfectly formed, hand.

      “Lalla Mkouma,” Tabib said to her as he placed a hand on Kaplar’s forearm, “this is Corporal Kaplar. He is going someplace...” His voice trailed off when he noticed that she wasn’t paying him any attention. Instead, she scrambled onto Haft’s crossed legs and climbed onto his shoulder, to snuggle against the side of his face.

      “Mee kinol oo!”
she piped in a voice that sounded like tinkling glass. “
Oo gud’ghie!”
She planted a wet kiss on the corner of Haft’s eye and rubbed her miniature but massively formed breasts against his cheek.

      Haft cleared his throat and said, “I know you, too. You helped me when I met a Black Dog and a Troll. You told them I was a friend, and they helped me with some Jokapcul.”

     
“Ess! Oo membah!”

      “Of course I remember.” He reached up and gently wrapped a hand around her waist to move her off his shoulder.

     
“Nah, nah!”
she squealed. “
Rubbum egg!”

      “No!” Haft laughed gently as he put the tiny female back on the ground. “I’m not going anywhere. You see him? That’s Corporal Kaplar. He’s a good guy. I need you to help him.”

      The Lalla Mkouma jammed her fists into her hips and leaned  toward Kaplar, with a pugnacious expression on her face. “
Oo zurr ee gud’ghie?”

      “I’m positive. He’s a really good guy. You’ll like him.”

     
“Hmmpf,”
she sniffed.”
Ee zee. Mebbe. Mebbe naw.”

      “That’s right, you’ll see. Now, I want you to go with Corporal Kaplar and make him invisible when he rubs your leg.” To Kaplar he added, “Give her some food, right now.”

      Kaplar accepted the container of demon food pellets that Haft handed over and fingered one out. The Lalla Mkouma’s eyes lit up when she saw the pellet and she pounced on it. The pellet was nearly as big as her head, but she had no trouble shoving it into her mouth and swallowing it whole.

     
“Oo gud’ghie!”
she chirped, and clambered onto Kaplar’s shoulder, where she rubbed her tummy and burped delicately.

      “Here’s what I want you to do.” Haft gave Kaplar his instructions.

      “I understand, Sir,” Kaplar said when the instructions were  finished.

      “All right then, everybody,” Haft said, “now’s do or die time.” He stood and so did everybody else in the small group—except Kaplar. Several nearby Bloody Axes joined them, and soon Kaplar was hidden from the view of any watchers.

      “Corporal, rub her thigh,” Haft ordered.

      Kaplar tentatively placed a hand on the Lalla Mkouma’s thigh and briskly rubbed it. The Lalla Mkouma began spinning her gown. It somehow lengthened and totally enveloped Kaplar. He vanished from the midst of the group.

      “Make a hole,” Haft ordered, and the men spread out, making a space for Kaplar to walk through.

      “I hope to be back in an hour.” Kaplar’s voice came from a few yards outside the circle he’d just left.

      “Don’t look for him!” Haft snapped when some of the Bloody Axes started and began jerkily looking about.

      Corporal Kaplar decided that since the original recon had gone around to the left, clockwise, that he’d go widdershins. After all, they’d already seen what there was to see to the left, but no one had seen what there was around the camp’s right side.

     Not much, as it turned out. There were the close-spaced domed huts on the outer ring, each with its two archer’s-loop  windows, and after each twenty huts a wider space to allow egress to the narrow road between the outer ring of huts and the next, offset, ring of closely-spaced huts. People—men, women, and children alike—walked about outside the outer ring, going from one place to another, or heading into the surrounding desert to gather, to gather . . .

      Kaplar had no idea what they were gathering.

      At each wide space there was a cluster of woven-grass cages with corpses in varying degrees of decomposition.

      There was nothing noteworthy until he got halfway around.

      There was a break in the routine of twenty domed huts-space-twenty domed huts. Instead, there was a kennel and a high walled run. A score of shaggy-haired hounds as tall as a man’s waist set up a ruckus when Kaplar neared, barking and baying furiously. The high walls around the run weren’t for show; the hounds repeatedly leapt at the walls, trying to get over them. They couldn’t. Other hounds dug at the foot of the wall, trying to find a way underneath it. The base of the fence was dug too deeply into the ground, and the dogs couldn’t burrow under it.

     Kaplar moved on, briskly but not at a run. Behind himself, he heard handlers enter the run to yell and beat the hounds into  silence. The barking and baying finally ended when Kaplar was about fifty yards away. He looked back at that point, and saw three or four warriors outside the run, looking around for an intruder. With the Lalla Mkouma on his shoulder, working her magic, the warriors couldn’t see him. But they were also looking at the ground for the prints of a passing man or beast. When he saw that, Kaplar looked at his own feet. He did leave some tracks, but he was  confident that they were lost in the tracks of other people who had traversed the outer bounds of the camp, so it was unlikely that his footprints would be noticed. Still, he kept up his pace, with  frequent rearward glances to assure himself that he wasn’t being pursued.

      A hundred yards farther on, something else caught Kaplar’s eye. Glancing through a wide space, he thought he saw huts jammed up against each other without the normal narrow space between them. He wasn’t sure, though. There were people traversing the wide space and the roadway beyond, so he couldn’t linger. It was so odd, though, that he had to investigate. He ducked into the closest narrow gap and looked through to the next row of huts. His view was constricted but there was another thing that looked different on the next hut row—he didn’t see archer’s loopholes of the hut that he could see. Not that that necessarily meant anything; his view might be so  constricted he couldn’t see the loopholes to either side of the  section of hut wall in his field of vision.

      Careful to not rub her leg, Kaplar reached a hand to touch the Lalla Mkouma’s foot.

     
“Ess?”

      “This space,” he asked speaking softly, “can we squeeze through it without snagging your gown? Is it wide enough for us to stay  invisible?”

     
“Mee zee,”
she tinkled at him. He heard her shifting on his  shoulder so she could get a good look at the space. After a moment she said,
“Naw zwetz. Lez goam.”

      Kaplar felt her tiny heels kick his shoulder. It felt exactly like what he imagined a horse felt when its rider heeled it to begin moving, or to go faster. He had to smile at the image, and would have shaken his head if he hadn’t been afraid that the movement might make the little demon lose her spell on him.

      It was tight, but he made it through the space to where it spilled into the roadway. He’d been right. There was a stretch of four or five huts that abutted each other with no spaces between. Those huts didn’t have archer’s loopholes. He thought it was possible that the Zobrans were being held in these huts—and maybe the Golden Girl as well.

     He studied the people passing by. None of them seemed  particularly alert or watchful; he guessed that the ruckus the hounds had made a short distance away was common enough that it wasn’t cause for alarm. There weren’t so many of them that  he would have to time himself carefully to get between them. He went at a diagonal to his left, to the nearest space between huts, about the distance of two huts beyond where he was. Inside the space, he put an ear to the wall and listened. He thought he heard voices, but they were too faint for him to be positive, much less tell what language they were speaking. Despite that, he didn’t think they were speaking the language of the High Desert  Nomads.