“You wear the dagger I gave you?” The wizard nodded approval. “Good. The Guardsmen are more than capable, no question. But preparing for all eventualities is wise.”
“Just so, Good Wizard,” Nguyen said with stiff formality.
His wife flashed a smile, less formal but still a bit forced. “I’m more worried about him falling off his horse!” she claimed.
Her sudden, gently mocking remark broke the nervous tension all three felt.
“Chu Lanh-Sang,” Nguyen addressed his wife with a chuckle. “Have you noticed that your once-sweet tongue has acquired a tart edge since the good wizard here freed you from that Malay sorcerer’s influence?”
“Oh, yes?” Hands on hips, Lanh-Sang feigned indignation. “Tart-tongued, am I now?”
“At times.”
Nguyen bravely met Demon Fighter’s gaze and winked.
“Would you have me as before—a meek half-soul? A mere shadow of who I was meant to be?”
“Not for all the silver in the Great Monarch’s treasury, my love.”
“Very well then.” Lanh-Sang gave her husband’s elbow a squeeze. She offered the other man a very slight bow and moved off, allowing the men a few moments of privacy.
“She is most extraordinary,” the wizard remarked.
“She’s frightened for me,” Investigator Nguyen confided.
“Oh? Riding lessons went that badly?”
“I’m serious, Wizard. The lessons—in riding, reading and writing, in the law and my duties in service to the Lord Justice and through him to the Great Monarch Himself—I believe I’ve made good progress for someone who was a mere peasant farmer three months ago!”
“For anyone thrust into such a radically new position,” the Annamite tribesman corrected generously. Demon Fighter folded his left arm across his midsection and clasped his left wrist with his right hand. He followed a slow, deep breath with a philosophical sigh. “I would say that you and your wife are a good match in that regard—both rather extraordinary.”
“Thank you, Demon Fighter. I have pledged myself to make good on the unusual confidence you and the Lord Justice show us. But tracking down the infamous Visha? Quite a task to set an investigator about to lead his first full-scale expedition, is it not?”
“True. But that bandit must be dealt with. I would gladly accompany you, but—”
“Yes, I know. A whole family of farm-folk dead—drained of every drop of blood, they say!” Nguyen shivered at the thought. “That has to be the work of some demon, doesn’t it?”
“Not really.” The wizard sighed again. “Oh, people always assume demonic activity when something so dreadful occurs. And I am sure there’s a supernatural element to it—which demands my immediate attention. Yet I suspect this is the work of a mere mortal man or men.”
“A blood sacrifice?”
“Precisely. One designed to increase the magical power of those performing the foul deed. I will check all possibilities upon reaching the scene, of course. But while there are many types of demon-creatures, as individuals they are quite rare. As with the trouble that beset your most-worthy wife, magical afflictions and incidents are more typically the work of humankind. Sad but true, my young friend, out kind is capable of most any evil imaginable.”
Nguyen turned his head. “The Lord Justice is urging them to begin.”
“Yes. I should return to my place. But first, my good wishes to you, Nguyen Van Bao. May you first major assignment enjoy good luck.”
“Thank you, Good Wizard. And if it does not offend, I wish good luck for your mission as well.”
“Offend?” Demon Fighter scowled then frowned. “If the expression on Trong Duc’s face is a true omen, as I begin to suspect it might be, we’d all benefit from however much good luck that might obtain, and from any quarter, too!
3
Little more than an hour of moderately paced riding had Investigator Nguyen’s unaccustomed bottom feeling the effects, but he was determined to persevere. Guard Corporal Adri at his side and the three pairs of First Echelon Guardsmen following after, he crested another of the seemingly endless series of hills.
The small column pulled up short. They peered down at the wreckage strewn before them.
“Visha?” the youngest Guardsman gasped.
“He must feel really confident,” another inexperienced man muttered. “Attacking merchants so close the Provincial Capital!”
“That’s no bandit’s work,” Investigator Nguyen murmured. He gestured at the haphazard trail of spilled wood leading from the center of the road through trampled roadside weeds to end at the stand of wild bamboo the overturned wagon lodged against.
“He’s right,” a more seasoned Guardsman said with reluctance as several others simply scowled. “What bandit would bother a wagon loaded full with unsold cargo?”
“A most foolish one,” Corporal Adri agreed. “And that one’s anything but that.”
“A simple accident then?” yet another Guardsman speculated.
Investigator Nguyen shook his head—the stretch of road ahead was among the straightest and most level they’d encountered so far. But he understood how most of the elite soldiers viewed him and kept most of his opinions to himself.
“We’ll go down and find out,” Adri ordered and the little column descended the small hill at a brisk trot. He halted upon reaching the scene and deployed his men with a simple flick of the wrist.
Nguyen noted this display of well-drilled coordination. Whatever they thought of him, the former peasant farmer admired the Royal Guardsmen’s professionalism.
Then the investigator rose up in his stirrups. Beside him, Adri did the same.
“If I’m not mistaken,” the corporal said, “that’s eagle-wood.”
“You’re correct,” Nguyen said then waited out Adri’s sharp yet not unfriendly, honestly questioning glance. “My elder brother often goes to the mountains in season and cuts a wagon-load. It always gets a good price from the Woodcarvers’ Guild. I’ve accompanied him several times. I know good, raw-cut eagle-wood when I see it.”
“And this?”
“First quality,” Nguyen confirmed.
“Corporal!” the most senior guardsman aside from Adri called out from the other side of the wrecked wagon. “You ought to see this. The investigator too, I guess.”
Nguyen and Adri dismounted, stepped around the jutting point of a shattered axle to where the water buffalo was stretched out, dead yet still in harness. They both noticed how the animal’s hind legs were dug into the moist ground.
“Struck down even as he struggled to pull the wagon right through the bamboo,” Adri observed.
“That’s just it.” Guardsman Sahir gestured. “Aside from a few superficial gashes from crashing headlong into the bamboo, this animal hasn’t a fresh mark on him.”
Nguyen and Adri exchanged dark glances.
“And come around here,” Sahir continued. “Look at its face.”
Adri shook his head. “Ever seen a look of wide-eyed, mindless terror on such an animal, Investigator?”
Nguyen pursed his lips. “They’re generally quite docile, even-tempered creatures. Especially the domesticated ones,” he added with the quiet confidence of an experienced farmer. “This buffalo died of pure, unreasoning fright. An attacking tiger might well cause him to bolt, perhaps even run wild with panic. But to strike it dead without laying a claw on it, and then not even try to feed on it?”
“Maybe it had more interesting prey,” Adri thought aloud, his hand caressing the hilt of his sword. He looked around, frowning. “Where’s the wagon driver?”
Nguyen touched the animals’ side. “Not bloated, nor stiff. And still warm. Whatever it was, this happened not long ago. An hour, maybe less.”
“Over here!” another guardsman called from farther down the road. They hurried to his side and he pointed. More of the chest-high weeds were trampled, these showing three distinct paths leading off the road and cross-country.
&nb
sp; 4
Two of the paths converged not fifty arm-lengths into the highland wilderness. That’s where they found the body. Nguyen, Adri and Sahir sprang from their horses as the five remaining guardsmen waited, weapons drawn. The stalwart warhorses pricked their ears up, snorted and pawed the earth in barely restrained alarm.
The dead man’s clothing marked him as a native of the western mountains.
“No obvious wounds,” Sahir started to say.
Then Nguyen turned the body over.
“Well, except that one,” the guardsman revised following a bemused grunt.
The gash was deep and centered on the most important blood vessel in the man’s neck. He had bled pale and while traces of blood lingered around the precise wound, they were far less than one would reasonably expect.
“Another blood sacrifice?” Nguyen muttered. He’d mentioned Demon Fighter’s theory about the other killings to Adri, who started to shrug.
A none-too-distant, deeply horrified scream caused them both to spin around.
The scream cut-off abruptly, midway through.
Somehow, that made it worse.
5
The well-trained horses refused to budge, so they were left tied to nearby trees. The guardsmen and the investigator plunged forward on foot, seven swords and one dagger in hand.
All stopped in their tracks on the verge of a clearing and gaped in fearful shock.
A second woodsman dangled helplessly, his boots inches off the ground. Eyes rolled back in his head, his increasingly pale face was tilted to one side. The thin yet amazingly strong structure lodged in his carotid artery was hollow like a length of bamboo yet almost perfectly transparent—one could see the life-blood being siphoned from his body!
This rigid tube extended at least five arm-lengths from the blunt snout of a creature that stood on two hairy legs, half-again the height of the tallest man. Despite a faint resemblance to an impossibly large and vicious-looking, tailless wolf it was unlike any earthly beast that any of them had ever seen.
Yet the unique blood-drinking appendage made the creature’s identity clear enough.
“Incus,” Nguyen gasped.
“Come on,” Sahir grunted, raising his sword as he started forward.
“No,” Adri hissed, grabbed his comrade’s wrist. “See those claws, those fangs? Not for hunting or feeding, but close combat. And its reach far exceeds ours.”
“What then?” Sahir whispered back. “I know he’s only some Annamite tribesman. But we can’t just stand here and—”
“We aren’t going to,” Adri shifted his gaze to his best archers. “Manu, Arun—get your bows. They rest of you bring up all our lances. Quickly!”
“That thing’s a demon,” Nguyen whispered in the corporal’s ear as the others hurried to obey. “To kill it with any ordinary weapons—”
“I know.” Adri’s eyes stayed locked on the gruesome scene unfolding before them. “I’m just hoping to hurt it. Make it release that man. Maybe—maybe capture it?”
Nguyen nodded, glanced into the clearing again and winced.
6
“All those with lances will form a circle around the clearing. At my signal, Arun and Manu will put arrows in the thing’s back. Then the rest of us move in. Drive your lances home; pin it between us.”
“Will that many wounds kill?” the youngest guardsman asked with desperate hopefulness.
“I think that possible,” Adri lied. “But if we can trap it between us, safely out of reach of those claws, we’ll at least have time to find a way to finish it off. Just be sure to keep constant pressure on it from all sides—and be aware of how its head turns. They say it can retract that nose-antenna-thing then shoot it back out, fast and deadly accurate!”
“What about me?” Nguyen asked. “With two men shooting arrows, you’ve got extra spears”
“Lances,” Adri corrected automatically.
“Maybe you haven’t heard farmer,” Sahir sneered. “But a proper investigator doesn’t fight. That’s our job!”
“Yeah,” another added. “You just stay out of our way.”
Adri watched Nguyen bite back an angry response and had a thought. “The Incus should release its victim when we attack. You rush in then. Render what aid you can while we subdue the creature.”
Nguyen nodded and the men moved swiftly, silently into position.
Adri gestured and two arrows hit the demon squarely in the back.
The Incus screamed in surprise, pain and outrage. As hoped, it pulled its deadly antenna from the woodsman’s neck and spun around. It pulled the arrows from its back, black blood spurting briefly. But the wounds had already begun to heal as it stepped forward to challenge the bowmen, who froze in wide-eyed terror.
Then five lances lunged forward from as many directions. Five points dug into its torso, holding it motionless—at least for the moment.
It bellowed frustration; threw arms tipped with sets of nearly sword-length and fully sword-sharp claws around in frenzied confusion.
Simultaneous with the lancers, Nguyen sprinted to the injured woodsman’s side. He slapped a rag against the spurting wound and tied it in place as the Incus realized its situation and began to struggle more effectively.
“Steady men,” Adri encouraged. “Keep pressing. Dig those lances onto him! How’s the Annamite?” he asked, without looking from his task.
“Weak,” Nguyen replied. “Too much lost blood. I honestly don’t know—”
Guardsman Fan the youngest of the squad and the one standing nearest the investigator, turned his head for just a second.
“No!” Adri and two others cried out as the Incus saw its chance. It whipped its head around. Shot its nose-antenna out with supernaturally perfect aim. This time its intent was escape, not feeding. Even so, the young guardsman went down with a gurgling scream—blood spurting from his carotid.
His lance dropped and with it, the five-sided hold on the creature collapsed.
The Incus charged toward freedom.
The archers threw their useless bows aside. Arun drew his sword, but one swipe of a demon paw nearly took his head off. Another broke the spare lance that Manu had retrieved.
For good measure, the Incus paused for another blow. This one slashed through the guardsman’s hardened leather and bamboo travel armor. Manu went down with a gasp of pain, four bloody gashes running parallel across his chest.
But this minimal delay gave Nguyen time to dive forward, dagger in hand.
The investigator slashed the back of the creature’s right leg, where a human’s Achilles tendon would be.
The Incus toppled forward and the surviving guardsmen, including the wounded Manu, pinned the thing’s face and limbs in the dirt by lance-point.
This time, they made certain the Incus couldn’t raise or turn its head.
Fan and Arun were dead and the woodsman nearly so, but Manu accepted Nguyen’s crude but effective first aid with smiling gratitude.
“All its early wounds are almost healed,” Sahir noted, grinding his vengeful lance deeper into the back of the howling demon’s neck. “What’s it take to kill this damned thing?”
“Magic,” Nguyen said.
Adri nodded. “Investigator, get the wizard—”
“No,” Nguyen said with a flat authority he hadn’t shown earlier. “I can barely sit a horse properly. Send your best rider.”
“But—I doubt four of us can keep this thing pinned long enough. Even with five—”
Nguyen tightened the injured woodsman’s gore-soaked bandage further then sprang to his feet. “I’m no pampered-from-birth bureaucrat, Corporal. These are farmer’s hands,” he announced, brandishing them. “Used to long, hard toil. And this is a farmer’s good, strong back. I’m no trained soldier, it’s true. But I dare say I can hold a spear as long as any Kshatriya Caste warrior!”
Adri pursed his lip. “Take Sahir’s place.”
Nguyen did and was pleasantly surprised when the veteran guardsman wish
ed him good luck with evident sincerity.
“Ravi.” The corporal addressed Sahir by his given name. “Pick out our two fastest horses.”
“One for me and one for the wizard?”
“Exactly. You know where he was bound for?’
Sahir nodded. “I patrolled that district a year ago. On foot, he should be arriving there just about now.”
“Report our situation and get him back here, soon as possible!”
Sahir was sprinting from the clearing before Adri finished speaking.
The guard corporal turned toward the newly assertive investigator with the faintest of smiles. “And it is a horse lance, not a spear.”
“You must explain the difference to me someday.” Nguyen grinned.
The remaining guardsmen chuckled, almost warmly.
7
The five men were tiring, even Investigator Nguyen and his ‘good strong farmer’s back,’ by the time Sahir returned with the wizard.
They carried armloads of shackles from the horses’ saddlebags.
“Those were to hold mere human prisoners,” Adri warned.
“I’ve magically enhanced them,” Demon Fighter answered. “They should be adequate,” he added and went to work.
“There,” the wizard said directly. “You men best stay alert. But can stand away and relax.”
“The woodsman?” Nguyen pointed to the injured man.
“One of your countrymen,” Adri added.
“Oh.” Demon Fighter curled ragged lips. “Healing magic is not my strong suit. I’ll try, though. But first, Sahir—feel up for more hard riding?”
The guardsman nodded and received new instructions.
8
Lord Justice Ton slumped quietly in a corner of his office. He still felt an inexplicable unease. Yet it was pleasing to see the progress his new investigator’s wife was making.
He blinked into the abrupt shaft of sunlight as the young officer in overall command of his Guard Contingent burst through the door unannounced. Looking up, he vaguely recognized the dusty First Echelon warrior following hard on the Lieutenant’s heels.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 7 Page 8
