Demontech: Onslaught

by David Sherman

  “Of course you can, of course you can. I meant no harm or insult, I was merely trying to be helpful.”

  “Well, a flagon of beer would be most helpful,” Haft said eagerly.

  “Beer, instantly.” The innkeeper shot a hand up and snapped his fingers. “Doli,” he shouted. A serving maid darted to his side. His voice sounded like the crunching of gravel when he spoke to her in Skragish. The maid curtsied and dashed off. “Will you be wanting a room for the night?” the innkeeper said, returning his attention to his guests and his tongue to Frangerian. “Did the stableman see to your horses? Do you want a bath?” His nose nearly crinkled when he said “bath.” “I recommend you be in this common room tonight for our evening’s entertainment. Nearly all of our guests find it to be grand. Even the farmers and woodsmen hereabouts find our evening’s entertainment to be grand. Soldiers come from garrisons four days ride distant—sometimes even farther—to see our entertainment.”

  “That sounds great,” Haft said. “What is your entertainment?”

  Master Yoel lay a finger alongside his nose. “You’ll have to wait until tonight to find out. But I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.”

  “We do want a room for the night,” Spinner said. “And we will want a bath. First, though, what we want is to sit here and quietly drink a flagon of beer, to rest from our day’s journey. In a while we will order dinner.” Then, knowing the sometimes suspicious nature of innkeepers, he opened his purse and put a small gold coin on the table. “This should more than cover our stay, should it not?”

  The innkeeper snatched up the coin and held it close to his eye to examine. One side held the visage of a fierce-looking, helmeted man, the other had a crossed sword and lance. Words in a strange language were inscribed on it. “Jokapcul?” he asked. When Spinner nodded, the innkeeper bit into the coin, then looked closely at the tooth marks he’d left in it. “Well, I guess this will be legal tender here soon enough. And if it isn’t, it’s still gold and can be melted down.” He peered at them from under lowered brows. “You don’t look like Jokapcul. Not that I’ve ever seen one, of course. All I know about them is what I’ve heard from travelers who have stopped at my humble inn. I hear they are a gnomish people with orange skin and hair blackened with dripping tar.” He looked pointedly at their weapons, then back at them, and asked, “Are you soldiers of some foreign army fighting them? Does your being here mean the Jokapcul are coming this way?”

  “We aren’t Jokapcul,” Spinner said. He ignored the other questions—and the implication that he and Haft might be deserters. “This coin was legal tender where we just came from.”

  The serving maid addressed as Doli returned with two flagons of beer and put them on the table.

  “If I may have your names, good sirs?” Master Yoel pocketed the coin. “I’ll keep a tally and give you your change on the morrow.”

  “They call me Haft. He’s known as Spinner.” Haft either didn’t notice or chose to ignore the glance Spinner gave him.

  “Anything you need, Master Spinner, Master Haft, Doli will attend to you.”

  Haft’s look was close to a leer. “Anything?”

  “Anything within the powers of this humble inn,” the innkeeper assured him.

  Doli smiled wanly, curtsied, and hastily retreated.

  Master Yoel made an almost perfunctory bow and left them alone. Spinner watched him walk away. Had the innkeeper really looked at his purse as though weighing it, or was that merely his imagination?

  Haft tilted his head far back and upended his flagon as he poured half the beer down his throat in one gulp. “Ah,” he sighed deeply, and thunked the flagon down. “I needed that.”

  Spinner drank his beer more slowly, almost as though drinking merely out of politeness. Trying not to be obvious about it, he examined their surroundings.

  Eight other men occupied four tables, drinking and eating quietly; one man sat alone, three were at another table, the others were paired. It seemed to Spinner that all eight were making a great show of ignoring everyone other than their own companions—except for the lone man, who seemed almost too obvious about ignoring everybody, while being constantly aware of everyone.

  In addition, a man and woman with a half-grown son and daughter, a young boy, and perhaps an older aunt, sat around a large table. This family of six didn’t seem as comfortable as the men did, and they sat hunched over their dinner dishes. The women and girl seemed closed in on themselves, the man and the older boy kept darting nervous glances at the other men.

  Spinner noticed that all six occupied tables, including the one at which he and Haft sat, were in the same area of the large common room, then he realized that was because several serving maids were engaged in cleaning the rest of the room. Two of the maids diligently cleaned the unoccupied tables, and two more swept and mopped the floor in the larger, unoccupied area. Another industriously cleaned flagons, mugs, bowls, and serving dishes at a counter that also held spigots for beer kegs. She kept glancing toward them, but the others seemed to keep an eye cocked at the other customers. Spinner thought the one watching them was Doli, the serving maid who had brought them their beer. The maids were all dressed alike, in pastel blouses, though each wore a different color, with very short, puffed sleeves and necklines so wide and deep that they couldn’t help but expose themselves when they bent over. They all wore floor-length, dark blue skirts that bellowed out because of the many petticoats worn under them, and a small bonnet topped each maid’s head. A workman carrying a hammer and a small box of tools rushed in, made a repair on a shelf, and hurried back out.

  As for the room itself, swinging double doors into the kitchen were next to the counter with the dishes and spigots. A stairway opposite the entrance probably led upstairs to the rented rooms. Trophies and weapons adorned the walls.

  Spinner could tell that most of the weapons were for hunting, though a few were for war. There were bows—long, short, and cross. There were short jabbing spears, javelins, and lances, on up to a halberd and a heavy cavalryman’s pike. A variety of knives and swords were arrayed around a two-handed sword that was mounted point down on the wall. The smallest blades were at the top and bottom, the largest in the middle, so the hilts formed an almost perfect circle.

  And there were trophies on the walls, most of game animals. A fearsome hog’s head with sharp tusks hung over the serving counter. The huge white pelt and head of a bear from the far north was splayed on the wall opposite the swords. A large dais or small stage was against the wall, under the bearskin on a wall. There were skins of cats, large, small, and in between, and the heads of mighty horned ibexes and mountain sheep, as well as common antelope and antlered deer. But the most striking trophy was a battle standard from an army or regiment Spinner didn’t recognize. It hung on a stand in a corner. Wires attached to the wall stretched out the banner so it almost seemed to be fluttering in a breeze. Two archaic suits of plate armor of an unknown style flanked it.

  What most interested Spinner, though, was the source of the light. More accurately, the sources. Milky-white panels he thought were vellum, more than a pace long and less than half that wide, were set in rows in the ceiling. The panels glowed with an inner light that didn’t flicker like the light from candles or oil lamps. The slightly bluish light seemed to diffuse through the room so that it cast no shadows—or at least no shadows with sharp edges; it was dark under the tables.

  Spinner nodded sharply and snapped his fingers in understanding. “That’s what that noise is,” he muttered.

  “What noise?” Haft asked.

  “The rumbling. I’ve heard of this but never seen it. I’ll wager there’s a troll hut out back where we couldn’t see it when we came to the inn.”

  “A what?”

  “A troll hut. A troll lives there. That’s what makes these lights. This is troll-light.”

  Haft looked at the ceiling as though noticing the light for the first time. “I’ve never seen lumination like this before,” he said. �
�Now explain to me, what is troll-light?”

  Spinner didn’t answer immediately. He was too busy wondering how even a country inn as grand as The Burnt Man could afford the services of a magician who was a trollmaster.

  “Yes, sirs?” an unexpected voice said from their side, interrupting Spinner’s thoughts of the troll hut and its magician, and distracting Haft from the question. It was Doli responding to Spinner’s finger-snap. Spinner noticed she didn’t lean forward when she curtsied, so the deep scoop of her pale blue blouse did not compromise her modesty. “Are you ready to order your dinner?” she asked.

  Haft quickly drained the rest of his beer and thrust the empty flagon at her. “Refill,” he said, smiling. He belched contentedly.

  At this mention of food, Spinner realized that, yes, he was getting hungry. But she had easily spoken to them in Frangerian. Too readily and easily, he thought. How did she know a language that could hardly be spoken by anyone local? “Do you always speak Frangerian?” he asked.

  “No sir,” Doli replied. “But we get many foreign visitors here, so each of the girls is required to speak at least two languages in addition to Skragish.” She looked around and seemed to make a calculation before saying, “The serving maids here now speak eleven foreign languages among us.”

  “That’s a lot of languages.” Another puzzle. From where did this place get so many foreign customers that its staff had to speak so many languages? Spinner wondered. The Burnt Man was hardly located in a center of international commerce, like, say, the inns of New Bally—and even the inns there didn’t have serving maids who spoke so many languages. “Do you speak Apianghian?” he asked in that language.

  “Oh, no sir. But we do have someone who speaks a language that sounds like that one.”

  “Is she here now?”

  “No sir.” Doli gave him a crooked smile. “But she will be this evening.”

  Spinner nodded, wondering about Doli’s odd smile.

  “How about Ewsarcan?” Haft asked in his native tongue.

  Doli seemed to think about that for a moment, to roll the sounds of Haft’s words about in her mind, then said, “I think Honni speaks that,” and turned to call to one of the other serving maids.

  “Never mind,” Haft said, switching back to Frangerian. “I was just curious. Maybe later I’ll want to talk to Honni.”

  Spinner looked at the posted menu. “What’s the house specialty?” he asked.

  “That’s Burnt Man pie, sir.”

  Spinner didn’t want to know what Burnt Man pie was. He ordered the venison stew.

  “I always like to try new things,” Haft said. “I’ll have the special.”

  “Yessir, Burnt Man pie is—”

  “Don’t tell me, let me be surprised,” Haft said, and did his best to look cosmopolitan.

  To Spinner, Doli said, “More beer for you, sir?”

  Spinner hefted his flagon; it felt half full. “I’m fine,” he said.

  Doli gave her straight-backed curtsy again, and hurried to the kitchen.

  “Burnt Man pie?” Spinner said.

  “Sure, why not? I’m in a foreign country. That’s one reason I went to Frangeria. I wanted to travel to strange countries. Meet exotic people. Eat new kinds of food.”

  “That’s three reasons.”

  Haft shrugged.

  In a moment Doli was back with another flagon for Haft. He took it from her hand and drank deeply, then settled back to relax. In a few minutes she returned with their dinners. The aromas wafting from the bowls set them both to salivating, and they attacked the food. Burnt Man pie turned out to be a pork pot pie.

  “It’s a bit salty for my taste,” Haft offered. “I don’t think I’ll get it again.”

  Later, when they were sated, the innkeeper showed them to their room, and guided them to the bath as soon as they dropped their belongings on the beds.

  The bathing room was lit by oil lamps that gave it a warm, cozy glow. They lay back in the tubs for a long time to let the steaming water leach the dirt from their pores and the road-ache from their bones. While soaking and almost half asleep, Spinner wondered briefly why he didn’t hear the low rumble from the troll hut. When they got out and dried themselves on fat towels, they were surprised to find that someone had laundered their clothes. He heard the troll’s rumbling again.

  “The troll here works hard,” he said when he saw their clothes were clean and dry, and warm to the touch.

  “You’ll have to tell me about this troll,” Haft said.

  Spinner wondered about that again. But he was tired. “Let’s sleep on it,” he said.

  “Great idea! We’ll be fresher for the evening’s entertainment,” Haft said gleefully.

  They slept for two hours and awoke refreshed. They dressed quickly. Except for their belt knives, they left their weapons in the room.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  The common room was filled almost to capacity with men. The only women immediately visible were serving maids, of whom there were a good many more than had been present earlier. It was a lively and raucous bunch. Everyone was drinking, and many were eating as well. The lights were dimmer than they had been earlier. Spinner looked at the ceiling and saw that only every third row of panels was aglow. The stage alone was brightly illuminated. The bearskin had been removed from the wall behind it and replaced by a curtain.

  Two brightly clad entertainers, a juggler and a tumbler, were on opposite sides of the small stage. The juggler twirled knives from hand to hand, while the tumbler flipped and rolled between the front of the stage and its back. Every few seconds the juggler threw a knife in the direction of the tumbler; the knife always seemed to just barely miss. They formed so straight a line on the wall behind the tumbler, they might have been positioned there with a carpenter’s level. As he threw the knives, the juggler replaced them from a stack on a small table at his side. The customers didn’t seem to pay much attention to the entertainers, so Spinner assumed they weren’t the entertainment of which Master Yoel had boasted.

  The serving maids wound their way through the crowd with trays heavy with flagons, carafes, bowls, and plates. They seldom flinched at or objected to the pinching fingers or groping hands they passed. Most of them seemed not to hear the bawdy remarks cast in their direction, though a few laughed and made remarks back. Like the serving maids on hand in the afternoon, they wore blouses with wide, deeply scooped bodices, but their skirts were shorter and not puffed out with multiple petticoats—the better to make their way through the mass of men and tables.

  Spinner didn’t see Doli. He wondered how long it would take before they were located by a serving maid who could understand one of the languages he and Haft spoke. Then he realized the lack of a common language would likely not prove any barrier to ordering beer, and wondered again why the inn required serving girls who were adept in a variety of languages.

  “Iyii-ee,” Haft said when he saw the crowd. “Let’s find a table and get some beer.”

  “Where’d they all come from?” Spinner mused, looking around at the mass of men in the room. He shook his head; he could find out later. He followed Haft.

  The common room was crowded, but they found a small, unoccupied table. Almost at once, a serving maid with an empty tray under her arm appeared at their side. She rattled off rapid-fire words in three or four languages, then looked at them expectantly. None of the languages was familiar to either of them. The girl had to bend over to hear and be heard, and Spinner couldn’t help but see even in the dim light that there was no undergarment beneath her blouse.

  Haft grinned and pointed at the flagons being raised by the men at an adjoining table. The girl nodded and left.

  Haft looked almost mortally offended; for all the reaction the girl made, he might as well not have had his hand caressing her haunch when he ordered the beer.

  Spinner looked about the room at the other men. More than half of them were dressed roughly and had the dusty look of men fresh off
the road. A few were soldiers, most in the Skragish army. But some wore uniforms of other armies, not all of which Spinner recognized. He wondered how men of so many armies came to be gathered in an out-of-the-way inn in a sparsely populated area of rural Skragland. Some of the uniformed men also noted the Marines’ uniforms; they nodded and tipped their flagons or mugs. Spinner saluted them back.

  A surprising number of the men in the room were merchants or other tradesmen. Judging by the richness of the gold and gems displayed on their fingers, hanging around their necks, or festooning their coats, some were very rich merchants. Spinner thought it odd that such men would crowd themselves into the common room of a country inn, no matter what the promised entertainment.

  He decided then that he’d like another look at the stable and corral. They must be filled. A short reconnaissance of the forest surrounding the valley glen would have to reveal many trails, perhaps even roads, that made no obvious entry into the large clearing around the inn.

  “Your beer, sirs,” a voice said in Frangerian. It was Doli. She bent at the knees and hips rather than at the waist to put down their flagons, exposing herself no more than she had at dinnertime. “Master Yoel has instructed me to put this on your account,” she added when Spinner pressed a copper coin into her hand. “You don’t have to pay now.”

  “That’s not for the beer,” Spinner said. “It’s for you. I thank you for your service.”

  “Oh, no sir, we don’t accept gratuities from the guests,” Doli said, and tried to press the coin back into his hand. “It’s against the rules.”

  “Do the rules say you are supposed to keep the guests happy?”

  She gave him a suspicious, almost wary, look. “Yessir.”

  “It pleases me to give gratuities for service well performed.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Doli stopped trying to return the coin and it disappeared into her clothing. Spinner couldn’t be certain in the low light, but he thought she blushed. After making sure their needs had been met, she went off to take care of other customers.