Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2)

by David Sherman

“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.

  “I made a shelter big enough for two,” Spinner said to her in quiet invitation. His lean-to, not far off, did look big enough for two—if they lay very close together.

  “Mine is sufficient,” she said tiredly and turned away. He stood watching sadly as she strode into the darkness toward the small lean-to she’d erected for herself.

  Doli, sidled up to Spinner and stood watching the Golden Girl crawl into her small shelter. She stood just close enough for the side of her breast to touch his arm. “I have a proper tent now,” she whispered. “You can lie in it with privacy.” Unlike Alyline, she was anxious to show her appreciation for her rescue. Her heartbeat speeded.

  Spinner grunted. “I had best sleep in the open so I can move fast if we are attacked in the night,” he said in a gruff voice. He turned away without even glancing at Doli and stomped into the darkness.

  Haft, as he often was at this hour, was very nearby. “Tent for two, my lean-to will hold two,” he said loud enough for Doli to hear. “It’s all the same to me.” He looked toward a sudden sound of twigs and branches breaking and being kicked and saw her demolishing Spinner’s lean-to. “Tent, lean-to, in the open, I don’t care. Do you need an extra blanket, Doli?”

  Doli shot him a piercing glance and sniffed. She flounced alone to her tent.

  Haft stood up alone and shook his head. “Women,” he said to himself. Doli wasn’t at all willing to express her gratitude to him the way she was with Spinner, and he couldn’t imagine why not. After all, he was equally responsible for her freedom. And, unlike Spinner, he expressed interest in accepting her gratitude. He looked to where Spinner had disappeared into the night and said softly, “I don’t understand women at all, and Spinner understands them even less than I do.” He shook his head again and headed alone to the smooth patch of ground that would serve for his sleeping place. Along the way he passed the tent Zweepee had erected for herself and Fletcher. She crouched just inside the open flap, watching silently.

  Fletcher’s voice floated to him from inside the tent, “Don’t try to understand it, boy, just go with the flow.”

  Haft shivered, wrapped his cloak more tightly about himself, and hurried on.

  Spinner stood at the edge of the glade, hands clenched at his side, his teeth grinding. What was wrong with that woman? She had changed so radically since that first night, her last night as a slave. That night, she had been so tender in his arms, so willing to accept him. He wouldn’t take her as a slave, instead he promised he would free her—and he did! But ever since, she’d acted as though he was another master—one who she wouldn’t serve. Anybody would think he’d stolen her from one durance vile to another. And that first night he hadn’t even taken her, seductive and desirous though she’d been. So pliant that first night. And so, so—hateful—ever since. Aaah! He couldn’t understand.

  A large pebble lay near his foot; he swung a foot back to kick it, then stopped himself. The pebble might hit something and make too much noise if he kicked it, the camp would rouse to defend against a danger that wasn’t there and he’d look the fool for having woken everyone. But he couldn’t sleep, not with the Golden Girl so near. So near and so unwilling. But he had to do something since he couldn’t sleep. He looked about and saw where he was. He took a few steps to a deer track that led from the glade and followed it into the forest, careful to make enough noise to alert the sentry he approached.

  “Can’t sleep?” asked the sentry, one of the veterans who’d joined the company, after they went through the recognition procedure.

  “No.” It was a strain, but Spinner said the word without grumbling. “You go get some sleep. I’ll take your watch.”

  The sentry looked at him but couldn’t make out Spinner’s expression in the dark under the trees. “All right,” he said, and told Spinner who his relief was.

  Once he was alone, Spinner sat leaning against a tree trunk. He was motionless for several minutes except for his eyes that roved, studying the shadows to his front, memorizing their shapes and locations so if any changed or if new shapes or shadows appeared he would know. The night sounds slowly returned to normal after the sentry left, and Spinner set himself to knowing them as well—the sounds might change at the approach of an intruder. He had looked and listened so intently that he scrambled to his feet, quarterstaff ready, when he had no warning by sight or sound before a warm body bumped against his hip.

  “Ulgh,” Wolf said softly. He lay stretched out next to where Spinner had sat.

  Spinner took a couple of deep breaths to calm his suddenly jangled nerves, then sat back down. He put his hand on Wolf’s coarsely furred side and rubbed briskly. Wolf made a happy noise deep in his chest.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Wolf. You gave me quite a start.”

  “Ulgh,” Wolf replied in a curiously apologetic note.

  Spinner shook his head; sometimes Wolf sounded entirely too much as though he were actually talking instead of making wolf noises.

  He settled back comfortably against the tree and let his mind wander—Wolf wouldn’t let anybody sneak up on them.

  What was wrong with that—

  No!

  He couldn’t allow himself to think about the Golden Girl anymore tonight. Thinking about her was why he couldn’t sleep. Thinking about her now would only madden him more. He wrenched his mind away from Alyline. Thoughts of the company leaped in to take her place.

  He and Haft were very junior Frangerian Marines, all they were doing was trying to find a way back to Frangeria. How on earth had they become the commanders of a company of refugees that included isolated soldiers of many armies? Why were they in command? To be sure, there were no officers among the refugees, but there were several sergeants and corporals among the soldiers and other refugees who were veterans of various armies—even sea soldiers from two other countries. For that matter, more than half of the junior men among the soldiers and vet
erans had more experience than he and Haft. Why were they in command? The sergeants and corporals, everyone, readily accepted them as being in charge. Why?

  The Frangerian Marines were reputed to have the best training of any military in the entire world. Still, everyone—their drill instructors in boot camp, their trainers in both infantry school and sea school, even Sergeant Rammer, their detachment commander on the Sea Horse—had drilled into them that all training did was prepare them for the real learning and knowledge that came only with experience. So why had so many more experienced soldiers accepted them, two very inexperienced Marines, as the commanders?

  How could they lead? They didn’t have the knowledge that only came with experience—their experience was too limited for them to automatically know what to do in too many situations. Too often they had to refer to Lord Gunny Says. Spinner was glad that he had thought to take his copy when he and Haft went back to the Sea Horse to salvage whatever equipment they could from under the noses of the conquering Jokapcul who held the ship.

  So far the company had been lucky. Lucky was the only word Spinner could use to characterize the fact that they hadn’t encountered any Jokapcul in more than a fortnight, that they hadn’t run into even a full company since that fateful day when he and Haft and the six companions they’d had then first fought the invaders somewhere in Zobra.

  But that luck couldn’t hold. Most of the fighting men of the company as it was now constituted knew they could defeat small Jokapcul units; they’d done it. What would happen when they ran into a whole troop of Jokapcul light cavalry? What would happen when they had to fight Jokapcul who had demon spitters or other magical weapons?

  The longer he thought about it the more his mind tied itself in knots, thinking about the why of command proved no more fruitful than thinking about the what happened of Alyline. He was more than glad when his relief came and broke his mental knot. Wolf stayed on post while Spinner returned to the campsite. He was so exhausted by then that he thought he would fall asleep instantly when he lay down.

  “You were gone long enough.” Alyline’s voice swept away his sleepiness. Straining to see her, he turned, picked her out deep in the shadows.

  “Alyline?” His voice cracked and he began to move toward her.

  “Sit right there,” she commanded, low but sharp.

  He sat, staring at the blacker hump that was her in the shadows.

  “We need to talk,” she said so low voiced he barely heard her.

  “Yes,” he managed to say, and stopped because he was certain his voice would crack loudly if he tried to say more.

  “You wonder what is wrong, why I won’t have you.”

  He nodded, silently cursed himself when he realized she probably couldn’t see the movement in the dark, croaked out, “Yes.”

  “I will tell you.” He held his breath during the long pause while she decided how to start. “Spinner, I am a Djerwohl dancer. You don’t understand what that means, do you? Pfagh! You lowlanders, you are so ignorant of your countrymen who live in the mountains.” She was quiet for a time again.

  “I will tell you what it means, Spinner. It means I dance. But it’s more than that. Dancing is my life. I am nothing, I am nobody, if I do not dance. I cannot dance now.”

  “Yesyoucan!” He ran his words together for fear he couldn’t say them otherwise.

  “No I can’t. You see, a Djerwohl dancer can only dance to one man’s music. She and her sothar player are bonded when they begin their training. Any other player, no matter how skilled or talented, never sounds right. There are always differences between the music of your own sothar player and another. You cannot dance properly to someone else’s music; it’s impossible. The rhythms are different, the timing is subtly off.

  “When you sent Mudjwohl away, you took my dancing.”

  “Who? Wha—?”

  “Mudjwohl. Remember? My musician at The Burnt Man Inn. You sent him to Oskul City with the other freed slaves. You kept me without him. Do you remember how angry I was then? How I said you were kidnapping me?”

  “I freed you from slavery!”

  “Yes, you did. I was captured into slavery. I was forced to dance for rude men, crude men, men who could not truly appreciate my art. And the slavemaster sold my body to anyone who could meet his price. A man who bought my body for a night could do anything he wanted to me so long as he broke no bones, left no marks.

  “It was a horrible life. But at least I could dance. When you sent Mudjwohl to Oskul with the others, you took my musician from me. I can no longer dance. You took my life from me. Do you wonder that I hate you?”

  “But—”

  “Spinner, I can never give myself to you. You freed me from slavery, for which I am grateful. But every time I see you, I remember how you took my dancing from me. How you took my life.”

  “Alyline, I never intended to cause you any harm. I would kill myself rather than harm you.”

  “You have a knife, you have a sword. Don’t let me stop you.” She rose and returned to her own shelter.

  In the morning Spinner set the glade as the rally point, the place the company would regroup if it got separated, or where people would go to be found if they got lost. The glade wasn’t a good rally point, as it wasn’t a landmark that was easily seen from a distance, but in that part of the forest there weren’t any landmarks that could be seen from a distance.

  The company broke camp with the quickness of long practice and set out in the same order as the day before. Haft again took Archer, Hunter, and Birdwhistle ahead as scouts. Fletcher trailed them with Kocsokoz, Kovasch, and Meszaros. Only this time, Haft and his trio knew they were being backed up.

  Wolf loped ahead. Nobody paid any attention to the bees that lazily looped through the air along with them.

  FIRST INTERLUDE

  THE PRINCEDONS

  A Brief Investigation of the Curious

  Political Structure of That Agglomeration of SemiAutonomous Principalities

  Known Collectively as “The Princedons”

  by Scholar Munch Mu’sk

  Professor of Far Western Studies

  University of the Great Rift

  (excerpted from The Proceedings of the Association of Anthropological Scholars of Obscure Cultures,

  Vol. 58, No. 5)

  Look for a moment at a map of Nunimar, the western continent. Rotate it so that north, rather than the more common east, is at the top. Now imagine, as many do on first seeing a map of Nunimar in this orientation, that it is a crude drawing of the head of a sperm whale. The long peninsula that runs west to east along its right bottom and resembles the slightly gaping jaw of that whale is the Princedon Peninsula.

  In all the centuries of known history, indeed in all the millennia for which records of any sort exist, the Princedons have never been united into one nation state. Instead, the Princedons have always been city states of varying strength and duration, some having great control over the surrounding lands, some having control of virtually nothing beyond their own walls; which walls often were—and are sometimes still—low and weak. From time to time, one such city state might have strength enough that it could bring one or more neighboring city states under its control for a time, albeit that time is always brief, never extending much beyond the lifetime of the “prince” who subjugated the neighbor.

  I put the title prince inside quotes in the previous sentence as, while that is the title most commonly used for the regents of the Princedon city states, various among their number have used the titles duke or earl, a few have declared themselves kings, and one (with ambitions generally thought of by scholars as extraordinarily grandiose) even called himself emperor.

  The city states of the Princedons are almost all coastal. Those on the southern coast are in frequent contact with the rest of the two continents via the trading and military, mostly Frangerian, ships that ply the oceans and make port in them. For their livelihood those on the northern shore rely more heavily on fishing in th
e Princedon Gulf and have slightly less contact with the larger world.

  Inland, matters are somewhat more problematic. The Princedon Mountains are a formidable range that forms the spine of the peninsula and, if we may indulge in understatement, restricts easy north-south movement. The multiplicity of towns and villages that fills the land between the coasts and the mountains claims allegiance, generally, to one or another of the city states, but such allegiance is normally quite fluid, and one town’s patron city this year might next year be its archenemy. The fluidity of city-town and town-city loyalty is abetted by the historic failure of the city states to establish military garrisons in the hinterlands of their holdings.

  That fluidity combined with the lack of military garrisons has, over the centuries, allowed the founding and growth of a number of fully independent settlements, some grand enough to be called towns. Although most such settlements rely on agriculture (farming, husbandry, or both) for their sustenance and even prosperity, some turn, by design or happenstance, to brigandry. Those brigand settlements send out heavily armed bands of men to prey upon travelers in the interior of the peninsula and even to attack and pillage other, more law-abiding towns and villages.

  Due to the fact of the brigandish depredations on the highways and byways, those who must travel from place to place in the Princedons’ interior most frequently do so in large, heavily armed troops. Hence, each settlement, be it village or town, has within its confines an inn far larger than one might reasonably expect in a village or town of its size.

  Owing to the lack of garrisoning by the coastal city states, even the most peaceful and law-abiding settlements of the interior find it necessary to maintain armed forces of a size inconsistent with their own sizes; that is to say, small armies independent of the city states. The richness of the land allows the profligate expense of maintaining these small armies. The land is fertile for the growth and harvest of bountiful crops and for the husbandry of domestic food animals. Similarly, the forests that grow large between the settlements abound in flowering, leafy, and tuberous foodstuffs. Additionally, game animals are frequently plentiful in various locations. In addition to which, those settlements closest to the mountains ofttimes have access to the mineral wealth provided by mining.