Wolf whined and shook his head sharply.
Spinner lowered his face to look at Wolf. “Was there another battle, are there more dead soldiers ahead of us?”
Wolf twisted his shoulders and whined again.
“No soldiers,” Spinner interpreted. “But there is danger?”
Wolf whined and shook his head once more. Then he lay down and, covering his face with a paw, tightly closed his eyes.
“There’s no danger now, but there was. We aren’t going to want to see whatever is up ahead. Is that right?”
Wolf yipped, but didn’t open his eyes or uncover his face.
Spinner stood. “All right. We’ll be careful. You and I will go on, and you show me what’s there.”
Wolf sprung to his feet and turned south, looking back over his shoulder at Spinner.
“Wolf found something,” Spinner told the others. “I’m going with him to see what it is. Wait for me.” Without waiting for a reply, he started down the road. He didn’t bother to string his crossbow—he was sure he wouldn’t need it.
A hundred paces farther along there was a modest clearing in the forest. At one time the clearing had held a farmhouse, a barn, other outbuildings, a stone-walled corral, and a kitchen garden. Now the stone wall of the corral was tumbled down, and wisps of smoke rose from the charred ruins of the farmhouse and other buildings. What looked like several bundles of discarded clothing dotted the garden, which was blackened from a recent fire.
“Yesterday.” A voice at Spinner’s side made him jump. It was Silent. “Late. Not long before dusk.”
“I told you—” Spinner started to say, but stopped when he saw Fletcher beyond the giant, and realized the entire group had come along, though he’d told them to wait.
“We don’t need you to protect us from all the evil in the world,” Haft said. “And you couldn’t even if we wanted you to.” He walked into the clearing; puffs of black smoke rose with each step he took. Halfway to the farmhouse he stopped and squatted next to the first of the bundles. He swore, but his voice was too low for the words to carry to those who stood at the edge of the clearing. Muttering, Haft stood and slowly walked through the burned garden to the next pile, which he only glanced at before turning back to the trees. Spinner was walking into the clearing. They didn’t speak as they passed. Haft merely shook his head; Spinner grimaced.
Spinner glanced at the first discarded bundle to confirm his fears. It was a middle-aged man, probably the farmer. From the horror frozen on his face and the blood that had flowed from only one wound in his chest, Spinner guessed he was the first to die and was surprised by an unexpected blow. The second was an old man, more severely butchered, probably the farmer’s father, or the farmer’s wife’s father, cut down as he tried to run to the farmhouse. A third, just outside the ruins of the house, was a youth. He’d tried to fight, using the hayfork that lay near his outflung arm. Inside what remained of the walls of the farmhouse were three badly charred clumps that had probably been playful children at the same hour the previous day. It was obvious that the Jokapcul had fired the house while the children were in it.
“Where are the women?” Alyline demanded.
Spinner started; he hadn’t heard her come up behind him. “What?”
“The women.” Alyline’s voice was bitter, as though it was Spinner’s fault there were no women. “There are no women’s bodies here, only those of men and children.”
Spinner turned from her without answering and went to the ruins of what must have been the barn. He found tools in the vicinity, a shovel, a hoe, and a pick. He gathered them and carried them to a patch of bare ground in front of the house to start digging. In moments Haft and Fletcher joined him. Together, they dug a grave. Silent gathered the bodies.
The women stood silently to the side during the burial of the six bodies in the one grave. The magician chanted prayers in Zobran. Wolf stood erect, looking alert, during the brief service, then scouted around the clearing while the humans stood quietly, reflectively, at the graveside for a long moment. Wolf paused briefly near a line of trees, then trotted into it without attracting the people’s attention.
“Let’s find another place to spend the night,” Spinner said when their brief burial service was done. They quickly returned to the horses. Wolf stayed between them and the line of trees.
The next morning they found another farm. That afternoon, a third. Both farms appeared the same as the first—burned out, the bodies of dead men and children scattered about, no bodies of women. They stopped at each place to bury the dead. The following morning yielded two more ravaged farms. They didn’t bury the dead men and children at the second farm, since they realized there’d be too many dead ahead to bury them all. They skirted the first farm of the afternoon. At the second, Alyline again demanded, “Where are the women?” Again her question seemed an accusation, directed at the men.
Haft shook his head and chewed his lip but said nothing. Silent and Fletcher looked grim and didn’t speak. The magician appeared not to have understood her question.
Spinner shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”
“Find them,” Alyline demanded. She directed the stallion toward a ravine a hundred paces from the burned farmhouse.
Wolf ran to block her way—his nose had told him what was in the ravine. He growled at the stallion, which bucked and kicked out at the wolf, then continued on its way. Wolf whined at Alyline, then turned his head and barked sharply at Spinner before running to reach the ravine before she did.
Spinner swore, urging the gelding into a canter. Reaching the lip of the ravine before Alyline, he stopped next to Wolf and turned his face from the sight that greeted his eyes.
Alyline reached the ravine and sat for a long moment looking into it. The rest of the group followed more slowly. When they all reached it, she said harshly, “Bury them,” and turned away. Doli and Zweepee followed her.
The men sat quietly for a moment, looking anywhere but at each other or what awaited them in the bottom of the ravine. Five bodies lay there, their limbs aclutter and torsos twisted. All were female. All were naked. Bruises showed that they had been used hard before they were mutilated and murdered. Scavengers had been at them.
“Let’s see if there are shovels,” Spinner said at length. He turned the gelding away and headed for the ruins of the farmhouse. Haft went with him. They found a pick head and the blades of two shovels; the handles had burned away. Back at the ravine, they quickly cut and trimmed new handles and fit them to the digging blades. The handles weren’t very good, but they only had to last long enough to dig the one hole. The men had no stomach for the job. They quickly dug a pit to dump the bodies into.
“Reverently,” Alyline snapped when Spinner and Fletcher picked up the first body.
They avoided farms after that.
At first and last light each day, Xundoe dispatched a messenger to find out what was happening elsewhere, but none of the flying demons returned, nor did messengers from elsewhere come to him.
Xundoe worried over the failure of his imbaluris to communicate, and his manner became more dejected every time a messenger did not return. He was sure the failure was neither the fault of the imbaluris nor of the instructions he gave them, but he feared the outlanders might think it was.
He did not discuss with them the possibility that no Zobran magicians remained free to control messenger demons; that the Jokapcul had captured them all.
On what turned out to be the second to last day of their journey south, the smoke they saw filling the sky caused them to advance more cautiously; the enemy had to be somewhere close to their front. It seemed the prisoner had been right about Zobra City being besieged.
The next day they crouched under the trees atop a high bluff overlooking Zobra City. The smoke had diminished; the fire that caused it was nearly burned out—it came from the harbor, where the ships that were in port and unable to escape through the blockade of Jokapcul coast-huggers were burned to the
waterline. They were too far away to see any details of the people they saw moving about the city, but the banners rising above it, and above the military encampments around the city, told them what they needed to know—Zobra City was in the hands of the enemy.
“We must go overland to the east coast,” Alyline said. She was no longer golden. That day her clothing was a dull, dark green. A sturdy leather girdle hugged her hips. Her hair was dirty.
The men looked to the east. Somewhere in that direction, they hoped, lay safety. But it looked like the Jokapcul were conquering new lands at a faster pace than they were fleeing.
“What will we do if we run into more of them along the way?” Doli asked from her usual position near Spinner.
“We fight,” Spinner said.
Haft gripped the haft of his axe and hammered its head on the ground.
Fletcher and Silent nodded agreement.
Xundoe again considered the array of demons he had found in the Jokapcul magician’s kit and wondered how long they would last if they had to fight along their way.
“We have no choice,” Zweepee said, moving close to her husband and hugging him.
Wolf raised his head and sniffed loudly, seeking the safest way to go.
“We’ve wasted enough time here,” Spinner said. He stood and followed Wolf. The others trailed behind.
“We need more horses,” Fletcher said. No one responded. The only way they would get more horses was by taking them from Jokapcul cavalry, and none of them was certain they would win the fight.
A week later they were a hundred miles east and to the north of Zobra City. They had the extra horses they needed. Xundoe had a new magic kit with more demons and demon food, including demons he didn’t know what to make of. And their party of nine had grown to two score. They had to make another decision—should they attempt to enter the Princedons in hope of finding a ship home? Or should they brave the Low Desert and head directly for the east coast of Nunimar?
Author’s Note
The named types of “demons” in this novel come from a variety of mythologies and folklores. While I tried to keep the core of their traditional characters, I changed them unmercifully to meet the needs of the story. The unnamed demon types, I simply made up.
By David Sherman
Fiction
The Night Fighters
KNIVES IN THE NIGHT
MAIN FORCE ASSAULT
OUT OF THE FIRE
A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
A NGHU NIGHT FALLS
CHARLIE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
THERE I WAS: THE WAR OF CORPORAL HENRY J. MORRIS, USMC
THE SQUAD
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by David Sherman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.delreydigital.com
ISBN 0-345-44374-8
v1.0
eBook Info
Title:Onslaught
Creator:David Sherman
Format:OEB
Identifier:sher_0345454987
Language:en
Demontech: Onslaught Page 32
