Demontech: Onslaught

by David Sherman

  IV

  FLIGHT

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The horses startled when running people they couldn’t see were suddenly among them, and the stallion reared then kicked out, barely missing Haft.

  “Be seen!” Spinner shouted as he skidded to a halt. He wrapped an arm around the Golden Girl and jerked her to a stop.

  The horses were startled again as three people suddenly appeared among them, but they settled down quickly. The mare gave Haft a love nip when he got in range. Haft tried to avoid receiving any other expressions of affection from the mare as he moved to untether her.

  “You ride this one,” Spinner said, lifting the Golden Girl onto the gelding; the horses were already saddled.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the Golden Girl demanded. “You’ve sent everybody else off to freedom, and you’re keeping me as your own slave?”

  “What? No!” Spinner said, shocked and perplexed. It wasn’t the reaction he expected for freeing her; she sounded as if she didn’t want to be with him at all. “The others will probably be safe in Oskul, but who knows how long it will take them to get home from there, or even if they’ll be able to get to Oskul with the Jokapcul invading Skragland? Haft and I are going back to Frangeria. Apianghia is right across the bay from Frangeria. I can get you home from there.”

  Before either of them could say anything more, Haft softly called out, “Spinner!”

  Spinner turned. Haft had his axe raised, looking back the way they’d come. Spinner readied his staff as three figures broke from the trees into the tiny clearing. He was about to swing at the nearest figure when he recognized Doli. Then he saw that one of the others was Fletcher. The third person was also a woman.

  “What are you doing here?” Spinner demanded. “Fletcher, you’re supposed to be taking everybody to Oskul.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “The other men can guard them. I have no desire to go the capital of Skragland. Besides, I think it will be safer traveling in a small party than a big one.”

  “You treated me well at the inn,” Doli said. “You never treated me like property. And when you saw we were slaves, you both risked your lives to set us free. I’m going with you.”

  “This is my wife,” Fletcher said, pointing to the other woman. “Master Yoel kept us apart. You have brought us together again.” Fletcher put an arm around his wife. “Her name is Zweepee.”

  “But you can’t go with us,” Spinner insisted. “We’ll be traveling fast, and we only have three horses. You can’t keep up with the horses on foot, and they can’t go fast carrying six people.”

  “We must get away from here, now,” the Golden Girl said. “Let them come with us.”

  Doli pushed Spinner toward the stallion. “Get on!” she said. “I’ll ride with you.” Spinner mounted and pulled her up behind him.

  Fletcher jumped onto the mare and lifted his wife onto the front of the saddle, where he could cradle her in his arms.

  The Golden Girl gave Haft a glare that told him not to even think of doing anything, and reached a hand down to help him onto the gelding’s back. She kept her feet in the stirrups and her hands on the reins. “Watch where you put your hands,” she snarled as Haft adjusted himself behind her.

  Then the three horses were pounding up the ridge side as fast as they could, around trees and dodging low branches. By the time they stopped, sheets of lather dripped off the horses’ flanks.

  Spinner reined in the stallion. “Everybody off the horses before we kill them.” They weren’t near the road—or at least he didn’t think they were. “Let’s make camp and get some sleep. I don’t think anybody will come on us very soon.” His adrenaline rush was over and he was too tired to worry about how he was going to get rid of the extra people in his party.

  But, unexpectedly, he did have another worry. The Lalla Mkouma on his shoulder piped, “Veedmee!”

  “What?”

  “Veedmee!”

  The other Lalla Mkouma chimed in with the same demand.

  The Golden Girl chuckled as she returned her Lalla Mkouma to Spinner’s free shoulder. “They want to be fed,” she said.

  Perplexed, Spinner looked at her. “What do we feed them?”

  She shrugged innocently. “You’re the magicians with the demons. Why do you expect me to know how to control them?”

  “But—” Spinner and Haft both yelped as the Lalla Mkouma bit their ears.

  “Veedmee!” they piped.

  “But we don’t know what to feed you!”

  “Oo naw niz!” one of them said. Then all four clambered to the ground—Spinner’s pausing on her way down to bite his hand—and scampered off, but not before delivering surprisingly hard kicks to the Marines’ ankles.

  The Golden Girl laughed; the others maintained an embarrassed silence.

  Moments later they made their sleeping arrangements. Fletcher and Zweepee found a bush to crawl under for privacy. Haft looked from the Golden Girl to Doli. The former stood rigid and threatening, and the other looked longingly at Spinner. Haft made a disgusted grimace, then cleared a space at the foot of a tree and lay down alone.

  Oblivious to her defiant attitude, Spinner stepped up to the Golden Girl and held his cloak open wide. “It’s roomy enough for two, Alyline,” he said softly, and started to close the cloak around them both.

  The Golden Girl’s knee went to his groin. It wasn’t a kick, she simply put it there with more emphasis than a lover would use. “Aye. And if you wish to keep your manhood, you will give me that cloak to use by myself.”

  Spinner flinched at the touch of her knee. Again he was surprised by her attitude. Her reaction was so different from her seductive pose the previous night.

  “I . . . But—But I didn’t . . .” he stammered in a high-pitched voice.

  “That’s right,” she cut him off. “And you won’t. The cloak . . .” She held out a hand in an imperious manner and made a motion as though to knee him more sharply.

  Spinner hopped back another pace. “But—But—”

  “I sleep alone. Give me your cloak so I can cover myself.”

  He whipped the four-sided reversible cloak from his shoulders and held it out for her to take. She did and disappeared behind a tree.

  Mumbling and shaking his head, Spinner took a couple of steps and sat down heavily. He sat muttering and shaking his head for another moment or two before wrapping himself in the silk cloak he’d brought for the Golden Girl and reclining. He didn’t even bother to clear the ground of sticks and stones. He rolled onto his side.

  A moment later he felt pressure against his back. Doli whispered near his ear, “I will keep you warm.”

  He tried to shrug off her enveloping arms and drew the cloak closer around himself. “I want to sleep alone,” he said. “If someone comes upon us while we sleep, I can rise to meet them more quickly if I am alone.”

  His words stung. “You didn’t act that way with the—with Alyline,” Doli accused.

  Spinner curled himself into a ball and tugged the cloak closer.

  Haft watched from his spot. Even though he couldn’t hear what Spinner and Doli were saying, their movements told him as clearly as words what was going on. He shook his head at his friend’s dense-headedness. Well, there was no help for it. He stood and picked up the other silk cloak. He padded to where Doli rolled away from Spinner and bent over to touch her on the shoulder.

  “Here,” he said quietly, “you can use this for your bedding.” He draped it over her shoulder and backed off. It was just a friendly gesture, but he thought that if Spinner wasn’t interested in her, it didn’t mean Doli had to remain alone. He returned to his tree and slept in his cloak. He smiled in his dreams; he dreamt that Doli realized the futility of her desire for Spinner, and that she’d decided that he, Haft, was really quite a sterling chap.

  Angry voices snapped Spinner awake. He groped for his quarterstaff as he rolled from under his cloak. He experienced an instant’s disorientati
on, all it took for him to realize that he heard only one angry voice—and another voice protesting innocence. The protesting voice was Haft’s. The angry voice was the Golden Girl’s.

  “It’s mine, really,” said Haft. “I won it in battle.”

  “You did not!” the Golden Girl accused. “You stole it from Master Yoel, just as he stole it from me. It’s mine and I want it back.”

  “But—” The sharp report of a slap stopped Haft’s protest.

  Spinner put down his staff. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The sun was full up. Spinner looked toward the voices. The Golden Girl straddled Haft’s middle, leaning over him, grabbing at something he clutched to his chest. The sunlight that reached down through the treetops glinted off her garments. Sunlight also shined off whatever it was Haft held to himself. Pretending she wasn’t watching, Doli stood some distance to the side. Fletcher and Zweepee sat where they had slept.

  Spinner stood up and groaned. He was sore and stiff; the ground was hard. He arched and twisted his back to loosen it up, then slowly walked to where Alyline straddled Haft. She looked so beautiful that his heart ached at sight of her golden beauty. Even when she was angry, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. As he walked he looked only at her and forgot about the stiffness in his back, his neck, and his shoulders. When he reached them he squatted next to her and placed a protective arm around her shoulders.

  The Golden Girl twisted toward him and shoved with both hands, hard. He fell backward.

  “Keep your hands off me; I’m not a slave anymore.”

  Spinner sat back, propping himself up with his elbows. “But I meant no harm. I only meant to—”

  “I know what you meant. You men are all alike. You see me dance on the stage, you see my dress, you know the innkeeper sold me, and you think I’m a back-tavern whore. Well, that’s over. No man will touch me unless I desire it, and I do not desire you to touch me. At the moment all I desire is that this offal give me back my knife.”

  Haft tried to slither out from under the Golden Girl, but she twisted around and slapped a powerful hand on his chest, pinning him and driving the air from his lungs.

  “You think that hurts? You claim to have been in fearsome battles. Well, I tell you, little man, you have felt no pain, been in no fight so terrible, as what you will experience if you do not give me my dagger right now.” She grabbed the hair on his chest and yanked.

  Haft gasped and looked wide-eyed at the harridan. She seemed ready to kill him. “Well, if it means that much to you, here!” he said in an unsuccessful attempt at bravado.

  The Golden Girl deftly caught the spinning scabbard belt with her free hand. She kept Haft pinned with her hand as she moved both feet to the same side of his body. Then, erect, she clasped the belt low on her hips with the scabbard on the left side of the middle of her belly. The scabbard lay diagonally, the hilt ready to hand. She smiled down at Haft. “Thank you,” she purred.

  Haft rolled away as fast as he could and only raised himself to his feet when he thought he’d gone a safe distance. The Golden Girl slowly turned and smiled that same predatory smile at everyone else. “This dagger is mine,” she announced proudly. “It was given to me at birth. It is the sign of Djerwohl, my birth status.” She dropped the smile and gave Spinner a cold look. “Do you have any food, or are we to forage like the others you sent off on their own? If you do, we should eat before we move on.”

  “I have food,” Spinner said. He retrieved the bread, cheese, and sausage from his pack. There was little enough and it would not last long. They would definitely be foraging soon.

  They sat to eat their meal cold without even a small fire for tea. Throughout the meal, nobody had a chance to ask what “Djerwohl” was.

  “You made me leave Mudjwohl behind,” the Golden Girl said to Spinner. “I don’t think I will forgive you for that.”

  “Mudjwohl? I left you alone to dress. You could have taken anything you wanted. I didn’t tell you not to bring anything.”

  She looked like she wanted to spit—on him. Instead, she spat at him with words. “You fool. Mudjwohl is the sothar player. He is—” She took a deep breath. “—he was, my musician. He was in the group you sent to Oskul.”

  He wasn’t sure what the problem was, unless she and this Mudjwohl had a relationship more than that of dancer and accompanist. And he didn’t want to ask about that. If they did have a deeper relationship, he was glad the musician had been left behind. Nonetheless, he spoke in a conciliatory tone. “How was I to know? You told me you were the only entertainer who was a slave.”

  This time she did spit, and barely missed his foot. “You lowlanders are as ignorant as you are arrogant. Anytime a Djerwohl dancer says I in referring to her dancing, the reference includes her sothar player. She is not a dancer without the sothar.”

  “But—”

  The Golden Girl made to spit again, and Spinner dropped a piece of cheese in scooting away from her. Where had the seductress in the woman gone?

  “Those three”—she indicated the other freed slaves—“have no money. I don’t know how much money you have, but it’s probably not enough to see us all the way to Frangeria and me to Apianghia.” She fingered a few of the coins that adorned her costume. “I will not spend any of these, I assure you. If you’d had the sense to bring Mudjwohl when you abducted me, I could have danced at inns and castles along the way to make money for our travels. Now I may never dance again.” Her look impaled Spinner, made him feel like an insect displayed in a case.

  “But—”

  Again she cut him off. “But you left Mudjwohl with those going to Oskul.” She moved close enough to jab his chest with a sharp fingernail. “Because of your ignorance, I cannot earn money for us by dancing.” Each word she spoke was punctuated by a jab. “Do not think that when you run out of money that I will pay our passage by opening my legs.” She shot a glance at Doli. “Perhaps another of our number would do that, but I will leave you and travel alone first.” She pulled away from him and patted the hilt of her knife.

  Doli was outraged by the implication that she would whore to make money for their travels, and shifted as though to leap at the Golden Girl, but swallowed and sat back when the Golden Girl placed her hand on her knife.

  “Believe that I can take care of myself when I travel alone!” she finished.

  “Then how did you become a slave?” Doli murmured. Nobody heard her.

  The Golden Girl then turned to her food and had no more to say, which satisfied Spinner, who hunched over his own food. He didn’t understand the woman. Why was she treating him this way? No one else felt like talking after the Golden Girl had vented her anger.

  After a bit Spinner stopped pretending to eat and walked away.

  As soon as he was able to do so gracefully, Fletcher stood and went in search of trees with branches suitable for making arrows. He had enough to make a dozen shafts by the time Spinner called them all together to move on.

  “The horses won’t last long if we continue to ride double,” Spinner said. He looked at Fletcher and decided the man was fit enough. “The women will ride and the men will run alongside the horses for a way, then we will all walk until the men and horses are ready to run again.”

  “I can take my turn running,” Alyline said.

  Spinner was saved from having to argue the point by an approaching sound. It was a chuttering, banging noise that sounded like it was in the treetops, except that it was growing louder too fast to be an animal traveling the treetops.

  “Take cover,” Fletcher shouted. “Get behind the trunks of trees with the thickest branches and leaves. Don’t let it see you!” He fit his own action to his words, dragging his wife and the gelding with him. In a moment all six people and three horses were behind four trees. Haft and Doli were together behind one with the mare; Doli gave Haft a don’t-touch-me look, which Haft innocently ignored. The Golden Girl took the stallion and hid behind another tree. The glare she shot Spinner when
he tried to join her sent him off to a tree by himself.

  The chuttering, banging noise grew until it was like thunder in the trees. When it seemed to be directly overhead, Spinner risked a look upward. Drifting through the air was a huge red cross. At least it appeared huge to Spinner. He wasn’t able to judge its size because it was somewhere above the treetops. In only a few minutes the cross flew through the sky more rapidly than a horse could run and disappeared to the east, taking its noise with it.

  “What was that?” Haft asked in an awed voice.

  “A flying carpet,” Fletcher answered reverently.

  Haft blinked. “It didn’t look like a carpet to me,” he said.

  Fletcher shrugged. “That’s what they’re called.”

  “It was so fast,” Spinner said softly. “No horse can run that fast.”

  The Golden Girl snorted. “You think that was fast?” she sneered. “I’ve seen a flying carpet go so much faster it would make that one look like it was standing still, and it screamed like the damned.”

  Spinner looked at her uncertainly. He didn’t want to believe anything could move that fast. But then, he never believed any of the tales he’d heard about flying carpets. And now he’d seen one with his own eyes. There must be more things possible than he knew.

  “Do you think it is looking for us?” Zweepee asked her husband.

  Fletcher slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Whether it is or isn’t, we have to go,” the Golden Girl said. She bounded onto the stallion’s back. “Ready?”

  Haft looked nervously about, gnawing his lower lip and thinking about the flying carpet. It reminded him strongly that the land about held unknown dangers. “We should have flankers,” he said. “Lord Gunny says a column on the move needs flankers for security.”