Get Her Back (Demontech)

by David Sherman

  “Yes,” Tabib murmured, “my spell protects me from more than the wind and grit.”

  The Bogart, having dispatched the warrior she fought, glanced back to make sure Tabib was safe. She saw him finishing off his assailant, jumped into the gap where Nyten had stood and, snarling above the clangor of clashing weapons and bellowing combatants, held the Royal Lancer’s place until he regained his feet and resumed his position. Then she moved back and waited for the next nomad to break through.

  At the same time, the Bloody Axes stood slowly swinging their axes pendulum-like, left to right and back as they watched the nomad warriors charging at them. There was enough room from one Skraglander to the next for both of them to swing their axes in battle. They stood well balanced, with their feet apart, one slightly forward of the other, so they could instantly move in any direction.

  Vedelem grinned at the nomad warriors charging toward him. He didn’t look to the rear, so he didn’t know that these spearmen weren’t packed as close to each other as those who were attacking the Royal Lancers. All he knew was that he was going to break the spears coming to kill him—or die in the attempt.

  The first spear point barely wavered as it sped straight for Vedelem’s chest. But Vedelem pirouetted out of its way, and swung his mighty axe up, over, and down onto the spear’s shaft. The halfmoon blade clanked off of the shaft like it was tempered steel, and the axe vibrated in the Skraglander’s hands almost brutally enough to send it spinning out of his hands. But he held his grip, and twisted the axe so that its rebound went sideways instead of straight up, and the spike that backed the blade slammed through the boiled leather of the nomad’s cuirass. The warrior flipped backward, his legs extended straight out before him, and was dead from a ruptured heart before his body thudded to the ground.

  Vedelem roared out in pain as the point of a spear wielded by another nomad hit his side and gouged a deep furrow along his ribs. He barely had time to yank his axe out of the man he’d just killed before he was bowled off his feet by the nomad who speared him. He tumbled as he went down, and the sweep of his axe hit his antagonist in the ankle, nearly severing his foot. The nomad screamed and dropped his spear to clutch at his ankle. Vedelem swung his axe at the man’s neck and put him out of his agony, with his head bouncing across the ground, away from his body.

  Groaning from the pain of his wound, Vedelem got back to his feet and held his axe ready to deal with another foe.

  Haft and Balta weren’t on the line, they were behind it looking for breakthroughs to plug. And the Bloody Axes were far enough apart that some of the nomads were able to make it through their line without being sliced by the blade of a swinging axe. Which meant that Haft and Balta were constantly on the move, hewing down nomad warriors.

  “Ooz mee, ooz mee!” the demon in Haft’s demon spitter squealed. “Oo bounz’n mee doo mush! Goam brek’um mee owzz!”

  “I can’t stop,” Haft said, panting. “I can’t take the time to use you, there are too many of them getting through!” He punctuated that statement with a sidestep and chop at a spearman who’d come at him with murder in his eyes. The only murder the nomad met was his own death as Haft’s axe split his chest open.

  The demon abandoned its tube to clamber up to Haft’s shoulder, where it grasped his ear with one gnarly hand. “Zheer, zheer!” it piped, and pointed at a knot of spearmen massing for a charge at a section of line that was weakened with two Skraglanders down.

  “Back in your tube,” Haft ordered. He let his axe dangle by its wrist strap and raised the tube to his shoulder. As soon as he heard the demon’s door snick! closed, he aimed and pressed the lever. The demon spat with a crack of thunder. An instant later there was an eruption in the middle of the knot of spearmen. They went down, and only one or two staggered back to their feet to wander whimpering away, dazed and bleeding.

  Haft began turning in a circle, looking for more targets. A fearsome grin split his face.

  Alyline crouched behind the wall of Royal Lancers. The wall wasn’t as solid as it had been a few minutes earlier, and some of the soldiers were down. She hadn’t been able to get to any of their swords because the nomads who cut them down stood over them, fighting with the men to their sides. With a scream of frustration, she rushed at one of the spearmen standing over a lancer’s body and leaped on him, wrapping her left arm around his neck and clamping her legs around his middle. She slashed at his face with her dagger. The knife blade sliced through his left eye and cut off half of his nose. He bellowed in shock and pain and swung around, trying to dislodge his attacker.

  Alyline bit through his ear.

  He staggered and tripped over the lancer at his feet, falling on his face. Alyline jumped free of him and dropped to her knees to plunge her knife into his throat. He kicked and thrashed, grasping at his throat as he gurgled and his life gushed out. Satisfied that he was in his final throes, the Golden Girl reached across him to the sword belt of the lancer the warrior had been standing over and pulled out his sword. Before she could stand to use it, a nomad with a lance broken off in his chest collapsed on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

  Haft took advantage of a few seconds when there wasn’t somebody trying to kill or dismember him and looked around. Several Bloody Axes were down: dead, dying, or badly wounded, as were several Royal Lancers. He didn’t see the Golden Girl or the sothar player that she’d rescued, but that didn’t mean anything. Tabib looked unbloodied, but self-satisfied—Haft had heard the Phoenix eggs go off, so he knew the mage had been involved in the fighting. Not that he’d known Tabib had Phoenix eggs with him. The Bogart’s head, shoulders, and chest were smeared with blood, none of which looked to be hers.

  As many Skraglanders and Zobrans that were on the ground, there were far more of the Deitua warriors down. Haft heaved a deep sigh—it looked like maybe he and his would survive this battle after all.

  An instant later, he groaned. It looked like more nomads were charging them. Where, he wondered, had the reinforcements come from? Then he noticed that the cries from the reinforcements weren’t the battle cries of warriors, but the frightened cries of women and children.

  Haft saw a commotion at the rear of the running people, and heard higher pitched screams. The fighting slowed and died out as others began looking. The Deitua warriors started running toward the commotion shouting what sounded like, “Gobernari konde!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “What’s going on out there?” Haft demanded of nobody in particular. He let his axe hang from its wrist strap and slung his demon spitter over his left shoulder so he could curl his hands in front of his eyes and peer through the tubes his fingers made. Beyond the figures he saw running in his direction, he could barely make out three or four huge, mobile humps.

  “Can anybody see what those things are?” he shouted.

  Nobody answered except for the demon in Haft’s demon spitter.

  “Mee zee! Mee zee!” it piped, pounding on Haft’s shoulder with its tiny fists.

  “All right, all right,” Haft said. “Get back inside.” He raised the tube to his shoulder and aimed it into the distance when he heard the door snick shut.

  “Dunne, dunne!” the demon piped. “Oo amm doo eigh!”

  “Oh, right,” Haft said. “Sorry ‘bout that.” He had the tube angled upward, to help loft the demon’s explosive spit, but the tube needed to be level so the demon could look down its length into the distance. Haft leveled the tube.

  “Tha’ bezzer,” the demon said. After a moment it muttered, “Ib mee naw kinol bezzer, mee zayyum Gobernari Konde. Bud naw zush zing, Gobernari Konde!”

  As Haft watched, the warriors running toward the far people merged with those running toward him and his people, then passed through them. He made out one warrior raising his spear to plunge it into one of the indistinct humps, and flinched when the hump reared up to more than twice the height of a man and crash down on top of the warrior.

  “Haft! Haft!” Alyline shrilled, running t
o him and grabbing his arm. He was startled; he hadn’t seen her run to his side while he was watching the distant activity. “Those are women and children,” she shouted into his ear. “We have to help them!”

  Haft looked more intently and saw that not all of the women and children had reached relative safety behind the warriors who were now battling with the huge beasts. The monsters were attacking warriors and women and children indiscriminately. So far, the warriors didn’t seem to be having much effect on the four monsters.

  “Tabib,” Haft shouted, stalling for time, “do you know what those things are?”

  The mage darted to Haft’s side. The Bogart came with him, leaning hard against his thigh. She stank of fear.

  “I cannot tell at this distance, Lord Haft sir,” Tabib said nervously. “I must tell you that the only thing I’ve heard of which is of such a size as those beasts is the Gobernari Konde, which is widely considered to be mythological and legendary, but not generally thought to be real.”

  “What is the Goober-Goober, Goober Can’t-be, whatever you called it?” Haft asked. “I’ve never heard of such a beast.”

  “I am not surprised you haven’t heard of the Gobernari Konde, Lord Haft sir. They are not believed to be real, so nobody is taught about them.”

  “Myths or not,” Alyline shrilled, “those things, whatever they are, they’re real, and they’re killing women and children. What are you going to do about it, Lord Haft?”

  “Ah, since you put it that way...” Haft quickly looked around, assessing the situation, including the numbers of effective fighters available to him. He didn’t think there were enough. Still...

  “Bloody Axes, on me!” he bellowed. “Royal Lancers, form up!”

  “Lancers, on me!” Alyline called, adding emphasis to Haft’s orders.

  The able bodied scrambled to get into formation in front of Haft and Alyline. The walking wounded were slower in joining up.

  Haft looked at them and blew a breath out. “You see what’s going on out there.” He pointed at what was obviously becoming an uneven battle between men and monsters. “Those creatures, whatever they are, are defeating the nomads and killing women and children. We are going out there to turn the tide in favor of the humans.

  “Walking wounded, I want you to stay here and take care of the more seriously wounded. Guma, you’re in command here. No argument!” He snapped the last at voices raised in protest at being left behind. “We’re in a hurry, and the walking wounded can’t keep up. Let’s go!”

  Without another word, he began running toward the fight. Alyline ran alongside. Tabib lagged slightly behind, readying his demon weapons and wishing he had more than he did. The Bloody Axes ran in a line to Haft’s sides. The Royal Lancers formed in two lines, readying their chance to stand between Alyline and the monsters. To his rear, Haft could hear the slower footfalls of those of the walking wounded who refused to stay behind. The Bogart’s fear stank even more, but she ran alongside Tabib nonetheless.

  It only took a few minutes for them to get close enough to see the blood and hear the breaking of bones as the monsters smashed and chomped into the nomads. But it felt like far less time—too much less. They were close enough to see the Gobernari Konde clearly, if that’s what they were. They were man-shaped and had shaggy fur, the color of the gray earth, with splotches of umber, ocher, and something greenish. Claws extended more than six inches from the ends of the finger-like digits of their hand-like front paws. Their slavering mouths were filled with stabbing, slashing, and rending teeth. One of the monsters was down, still breathing but for now out of the fight.

  “Comp’ny, halt!” Haft commanded. The Bloody Axes and Royal Lancers stopped in good order; only Alyline tried to keep going. Sergeant Prafost grabbed her arm to stop her.

  “Wait, Lady,” Prafost said. “He has a plan.”

  “What plan?” Alyline snapped. She yanked her arm from the sergeant’s grasp, but held her position.

  Haft readied his demon spitter. “Can you kill it?” he asked the demon.

  “Zay whatch?” The demon piped. “Gill tha’? Oo grazzy, oo kinol tha’?” Then it added in a mutter, “Givvim dry.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Haft said, and raised the tube to his shoulder.

  The demon didn’t wait for Haft to signal it, but spat the instant its tube was lined up on the nearest Gobernari Konde. The explosion that could have rendered one man to small globules of flesh, bone, and blood, and torn several more badly enough to kill or cripple them, blew a chunk of flesh out of the monster’s shoulder. The huge beast jerked from the impact, and the decapitating swing it was taking at a nomad missed. While the injured Gobernari Konde looked for its newest assailant, the nomad it had just missed stepped in close and thrust upward with his spear, sticking the spear point deep into the upper part of the monster’s thigh. The monster roared loudly enough to shake the ground for yards around, and looked again for the nomad.

  “I wanted a head shot!” Haft yelped when the Gobernari Konde had first started looking for him.

  “Oobs. Zorry abou tha’. Dry aggn.”

  Haft aimed at the monster’s head when it turned its attention back to the spearman who’d just stabbed it. He fired, the demon spat. A great gout of fur and blood and flesh erupted from the creature’s brow, exposing yellow bone. A flap of furry flesh flopped over the eye beneath the head wound, blinding that eye.

  “That one,” Haft bellowed.” Get that one!”

  The Bloody Axes and Royal Lancers charged, screaming, at the wounded monster. The Skraglanders chopped at its ankles and its legs as high as its knees. The Zobrans held back, seeing that the monster was about to fall over. It thudded to the earth, shaking the ground and knocking men who weren’t ready for the violence of the tremor from their feet. The Zobrans dashed in and plunged their lances into the monster’s chest and neck. It flailed about with its arms and legs, dashing three Royal Lancers and two Bloody Axes to the ground.

  The Bogart, still smelling strongly of fear, dashed in with a growl and jumped on the Gobernari Konde’s chest. She ripped at its throat with her teeth, exacting revenge for how it and its mates had frightened her.

  The monster bucked, and arched its back. It spasmed, then fell still with its eyes glazing over.

  Haft spared a glance for the monster that was already down

  when he and his men arrived, then gave it more than just a glance—it was moving, rolling onto its side, struggling to rise.

  “Bloody Axes,” Haft roared, “that one!” He thrust his arm toward the struggling monster. “I want to take out its eye,” he said to his demon.

  “Gittum inna eye. Gottum,” the demon piped. “Amm mee righ.”

  Haft settled the tube on his shoulder and took careful aim. “Is this good enough?” he asked.

  “Zhood nah!”

  Haft pressed the lever and the demon spat. The monster bucked, and flopped backward with both of its hands clapped to its face, shrieking in agony.

  The Bloody Axes fell on it, swinging their axes in high arcs down onto the Brobdingnagian beast, hewing away fur and flesh, splattering blood and smashing bones.

  “Leave it!” Haft shouted when he saw the thing was badly enough injured it couldn’t rise on its own, and would probably bleed to death very soon. He looked around and screamed when he saw the Golden Girl leading the Royal Lancers at a monster that was batting at women and children, and snatching up smaller ones to pop into its huge mouth. Cut off screams and the crunching of the victims’ bones were clearly audible. Deitua warriors lay in heaps around the monster.

  “To the Golden Girl!” Haft roared. He took off at a full out sprint, to reach her before she got within the monster’s reach. The Bloody Axes who could still run raced with him. Fifty yards from the monstrous creature, Haft stopped and mounted his demon spitter on his shoulder.

  “I’m going for the back of his knee!” Haft shouted at his demon.

  “Nee, zhekk! Zay wen.”

  Haft pre
ssed the lever as soon as he thought he had a good bead on the monster’s knee. The demon spat, and the tube rocked back on Haft’s shoulder.

  The Gobernari Konde yelped—if a vocalization that loud can be called a yelp—and spun around, slapping at whatever had stung the back of its knee. Nothing was there for its hand to meet, and the momentum of its swing spun it farther than it had meant to go,

  throwing it off balance. It stepped to regain its balance, but its injured knee buckled and it crashed onto that knee, screaming in pain.

  “Head shot!” Haft yelled, and aimed again. The demon hit the beast behind an ear, ripping it completely off, and baring a big section of yellow skull.

  The Golden Girl struggled to get close enough to the wounded monster to drive her short sword into it, but the Royal Lancers who had never let her get clear of their protection kept a wall of fighters between her and the beast. They took advantage of the Gobernari Konde dropping to a knee to rush in and jab their lances into its chest and neck. It roared out in pain, and swung its arms about, striking several of the lancers and sending them tumbling away. Before it could do more damage to the Royal Lancers, the Bloody Axes reached it and began chopping away, flinging out great gouts of hair and flesh. Massive bones broke under their onslaught.