Get Her Back (Demontech) Read online

  Nagusi laughed at the translation and said something in return.

  “You aren’t supposed to see the musicians,” Itzuli translated.

  Haft gave a smile and nod of acknowledgment.

  Nagusi stood, looked around at the circle of close-packed people, raised his arms above his head, looked to the starry sky, and held the pose for a long moment. He brought his hands down and clapped them together loudly. There was a reverential buzz from the crowd, and young men and women, probably adolescent, came through narrow aisles on the side of the clearing opposite from where Haft and the Bloody Axes had entered. They wore light skins and carried huge trays laden with steaming bowls. The first man and woman came directly to Nagusi, and knelt to place the trays on low stands before him. The food was bowls containing chunks of meat mixed together with pieces of what looked to Haft to be tubers and greens, although he couldn’t identify them beyond that. A thick broth filled the bowls and smothered the foodstuffs.

  Nagusi said one word, and two of the warriors who stood behind him stepped forward. Each picked up a spoon from the trays and plunged it into a random bowl, one from each tray. Then they shoved the laden spoons into the mouths of the servers. The two sucked the stew off of the spoons and chewed. They opened their mouths wide to show that they had actually swallowed the food.

  Nagusi settled back to watch them for several minutes. When neither showed any sign of distress, he flipped his hands, dismissing the servers.

  During the poison test, the other servers had set their trays on the ground in front of the first row of people, and gone back twice for more trays. Nagusi shouted out one word, and the people in the front row began passing the bowls back. The Skraglanders needed to be prompted. In front of the chief’s hut, Itzuli did the honors. Soon everyone, including the guards behind Nagusi and the servers who had delivered the trays to the circle, were slurping and chomping—the sounds of eating were too loud to allow for easy conversation.

  “What meat is this?” Haft had to lean close to Itzuli and shout to be heard. The meat was very tender, and tasted like nothing so much as piglet. He hadn’t seen anything that resembled a pig since he’d mounted the High Desert.

  “It is comitelot,” Itzuli shouted back.

  Haft gave him a raised-eyebrow look, but didn’t pursue it. How, he wondered, could this be comitelot? It’s far too tender to be from a beast of burden or a riding animal. Unless it was severely beaten to tenderize it. He took another bite. The sauce is very savory and thick. Maybe it was cooked for a long time.

  After a few more minutes he leaned toward Itzuli again. “What are these?” he shouted, indicating the tuber and greens.

  Itzuli seemed to consider the question, then shouted back, “I don’t know any words for them in your languages. We call them—.” He growled a few syllables that were so unintelligible to Haft that he thought he’d never be able to repeat them.

  The nomads ate with such gusto that it wasn’t long before everybody but Haft and the Bloody Axes were through. At a loud clap from Nagusi, the servers rose from where they’d been eating and bustled about collecting bowls. They even took bowls from the Skraglanders who hadn’t finished eating yet. As soon as the remains of the meal were cleared away, the servers came back. In the center of the clearing, they ripped off their light skins, rendering themselves naked except for loincloths. The hidden drums and flutes started up again—joined this time by the unmistakable strains of a sothar.

  With the beginning of the music, the servers became dancers. They formed lines, young men in this, young women in that, which twined around, weaving in and out, line to line, reaching for each other yet never touching. The lines straightened and faced each other, and the dancers stamped their feet in time with the beating of the drums. Their arms waved, their hands tracing graceful lines in the air. The lines slowly approached each other, then passed again without touching. They broke apart, and men and women faced each other in pairs, twirled about, paraded side by side, faced away from each other and brushed their backs together before spinning to face one another once more. Back in sinuous lines, they wove patterns that didn’t touch, and finally ran off, men this way and women that. The music stopped.

  “Was that Alyline’s sothar player?” Balta whispered in Haft’s ear when the roars of approval died down.

  Haft shook his head. “I don’t know. Even if it wasn’t so long since I heard him, I don’t think I can tell one sothar player from another.”

  Nagusi rose to his feet and spread his arms with hands forward, demanding silence. He began talking, and Itzuli translated.

  “We have among us as our guest one of the greatest warriors of the outside world. Some who have visited us in the past have made the claim that those warriors are our superiors at fighting. We do not believe that such is possible. But we now have one of those warriors in our camp, and we will find out. I present to you, Haft of the Rampant Eagle Axemen!”

  Rough hands grabbed Haft from behind and jerked him to his feet. They propelled him into the center of the clearing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The instant they saw their leader being thrust into the center of the clearing, the Bloody Axes surged to their feet and went for their weapons. Just as fast as they moved, three nomad warriors readied weapons for each of the Skraglanders; one with a sword, one with a long spear, and one with a drawn bow.

  “Hold!” Haft shouted, holding up his right hand to arrest his men’s action. They froze, half of them looking at their commander, half eyeing the warriors who were daring them to make a move.

  Haft half turned to face Nagusi. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  “Your axe marks you as the best of the outside world,” Itzuli translated. “We will learn if you are truly as good a warrior as we are.”

  “Show your axe so that all may know!” Nagusi commanded.

  At first hesitantly, then defiantly, Haft drew his axe and held it up, turning it around so that everyone in the circle could see it. The axe had a two and a half foot long haft made of ironwood. Its halfmoon blade projected a foot beyond the end of the shaft, and an equal distance down its length. A thick spike opposite the blade tapered to a sharp point. A rampant eagle adorned the face of the blade.

  “I’ve always thought this damn thing would get me in trouble some day,” Haft muttered. “I should have left it at home.” The axe had belonged to his grandfather, and Haft had taken it when he left home to join the Frangerian Marines. He never knew his grandfather, and all his father ever told him about the axe was that his grandfather had used it when he went to war. Since he joined a ship’s compliment, he kept encountering people who thought the eagle meant something about him, but nobody ever told him what it was.

  This wasn’t the time for reminiscing, though. A low murmur swept through the crowd when they saw the axe. A loud, barking laugh jerked Haft’s head to the direction the food had come from earlier. A man stood in the narrow aisle the servers and dancers had used to enter and leave.

  A man? He was huge! Nearly as tall as Silent, the giant nomad from the Northern Steppes who had joined Spinner and Haft in Skragland. Haft wished Silent were at his side now; he’d make short work of this huge man.

  But Silent was off on a reconnaissance as he so often was.

  Haft gave Nagusi a quick glance. “Are you saying I have to fight this warrior?” he asked.

  “To the death,” Itzuli said without bothering to translate the question. “His name is Liskar. He has never lost a fight.”

  “Oh.” Haft shrugged to hide the fright he suddenly felt. “Neither have I,” he said loudly.

  The warrior wore boiled leather armor studded with metal disks that covered him from shoulders to mid-thigh. An iron helmet sat on his head, and leather gauntlets covered his hands and wrists. His arms were uncovered from mid-forearm to mid-biceps, and his legs from the bottom of his armored coat to mid-calf. He didn’t carry the spear, sword, or recurve bow of the other nomads, but a club. The club w
as four feet long and ended in a knob almost as big as Haft’s head. The club was made of wood, but something told Haft that his axe would likely not chop through it.

  Haft’s own armor... well, he was a Marine, a sea soldier. His primary fighting position was as a crossbow sharpshooter in a ship’s rigging. Secondarily, he was a raider, making amphibious landings on enemy shores, followed by lightning fast strikes. Armor wasn’t conducive to clambering about in a ship’s rigging, or running in lightning fast strikes. He didn’t even have a helmet, only his Marine issue felt hat. Not that armor or a helmet would do him much good if that huge warrior got in a blow with his club.

  Fortunately, most potential opponents were seriously intimidated at the very sight of his axe.

  Unfortunately, this huge nomad warrior didn’t seem to be like most potential opponents.

  Haft looked at his axe. Its full length was three and a half feet, including the portion of the blade that extended beyond the haft. He looked at the nomad’s club. It was longer by half a foot. And the nomad’s arms were that much or more longer than Haft’s. Which gave him an advantage in addition to his armor.

  On the face of it, the odds in this fight weighed heavily against Haft.

  Well, he thought, is it any worse than when Spinner and I had to escape from New Bally? Or when we fought all those Jokapcul in Skragland, before the refugees started attaching themselves to us? Or when we had to fight the nomads of the Low Desert, and the Jokapcul at the same time? Or...

  He stopped thinking about tough fights he’d been in since he and Spinner started their trek back to Frangeria. Because, yes, this time was worse. In all those other situations, Spinner was there to cover his back. This time, the only men who could cover his back would be killed before they could reach his side. And yes, he knew the difference between his back and his side.

  “There’s only one thing for me to do here,” he said out loud. “I’m a Marine. When in doubt, act decisively.”

  With a thunderous battle cry, he darted toward the club wielder and raised his axe to bring it down in a swing that would take off the warrior’s arm and shoulder.

  Startled by the suddenness of Haft’s attack, the huge man hopped back and stumbled over one of the packed people at the edge of the narrow aisle he was in. But he recovered his balance and didn’t fall. He swung his club defensively, to parry Haft’s next swing, and clipped a woman, one of the people scrambling to get out of the way of the fight that had suddenly broken out in their midst. She screamed from the pain of a shattered arm and fell to her knees, cradling the broken limb. Others reached for her and pulled her to safety.

  The warrior took advantage of the brief confusion, thinking that it would distract Haft long enough for him to strike his own blow. He swung a roundhouse at Haft’s head. Haft felt the wind of the club’s passing as he ducked under the swing. He stepped forward as he ducked, and thrust his axe at Liskar, to drive the top point of the blade into a vital spot in Liskar’s lower belly. But he had faster reflexes than Haft expected in such a big man, and managed to pull himself out of the way. Haft hadn’t fully extended himself in the thrust, so he didn’t over-balance when his axe failed to meet the resistance of flesh. Which meant he was able to fall to the side and roll away when Liskar brought his club crashing down through the space Haft had just occupied. Haft rolled to his feet and slashed at Liskar’s thigh, but the big man jerked his leg out of the way of Haft’s wicked blade.

  Haft took a couple of quick steps back to consider the situation. A passage from Lord Gunny Says flashed through his mind. There’s no such thing as a fair fight, somebody always has the advantage. If that’s not you, it’s up to you to find the equalizer.

  Haft had to peddle backward, parrying a flurry of swings from Liskar. He finally ended Liskar’s flurry by stepping forward and ducking under a swing to get behind him. He slashed as he went, and was gratified to hear a grunt from the big man that accompanied the resistance his blade met—he’d finally hit Liskar.

  That was when Haft remembered something Sergeant Rammer had told him when he was the greenest boot on the Sea Horse, “If you’re ever in a fight with a man a lot bigger than you, get in close, inside his swing. That’ll make it harder for him to hit you with any force. And a sword won’t bite as deep.”

  And a club can’t hit as hard, either, Haft thought.

  He twisted about, using the swing of his axe as a counter balance to arrest his forward motion—and found Liskar already turned and facing him, swinging his club in an arc that would have pulverized Haft’s head if he’d continued moving forward. Instead of winning the fight with that blow, Liskar staggered off balance and almost toppled, bearing Haft to the ground underneath himself. But Haft sidestepped, and Liskar managed to stay vertical. He stepped back and swung his club at the same time. But Haft stepped forward, keeping his chest so close to Liskar’s belly it was almost in contact.

  Now Liskar had to swing his club in a tight downward arc to reach Haft, and the club didn’t have the same force as it would have had if Haft hadn’t been in so close. Haft reached his left hand up and grasped the collar of Liskar’s leather tunic, holding tightly enough to keep the big man from backing away from him.

  Liskar bellowed, and used his free hand to try to pry Haft off. But Haft held on too tightly to be budged, even though Liskar managed to slam his club into Haft’s back a couple of times—but it was the shaft of the club, not its head that hit, and it didn’t have the bone crushing force a full swing would have had.

  Haft shifted his grip on his axe, sliding his hand up the haft almost to the poll, where the metal of the head wrapped around the shaft of the axe. He thrust up with every bit of strength he could muster, into Liskar’s armpit where his armor was weakest. Liskar screamed and staggered back in attempt to get away, but Haft’s grip on his collar was too tight, and he went with the wounded man.

  Furious, and determined to get Haft off of him, Liskar dropped his club and grabbed Haft by both shoulders to wrench him away. He would have succeeded if the injury to his left shoulder hadn’t been so severe. Haft’s stab had severed a tendon to his biceps, cut a major blood vessel, and chipped two bones. It was remarkable that Liskar could use his left arm at all, much less reach with it to grab Haft’s shoulder.

  Recognizing that he was too weak to pull Haft off by main force, Liskar fell forward, trying to pin Haft under himself and crush him. Haft had other ideas. He turned his axe so the spike backing the half moon blade was pointing up, and swung it along Liskar’s back to slide under the flap of his helmet.

  It wasn’t a hard strike. Haft’s blow was constrained by closeness as much as Liskar’s were, but the sharp point of the spike met soft flesh alongside Liskar’s neck bones, and hit the thin bone at the bottom of his skull, breaking through and stabbing the big man’s brain.

  Liskar screamed again, and arched his back in a spasm of agony. Haft let go of his axe and put both hands on Liskar to shove him off. Liskar was big enough that Haft couldn’t get him completely off, but he got Liskar up far enough that he was able to push his way out from under and get to his feet. He ignored the blood that ran down his right side and was congealing on his right hand and wrist—the blood wasn’t his, and it would wash off easily enough.

  Haft retrieved his axe and stood over Liskar, watching the man staring in disbelief at the dirt alongside his head—the blood of the man who had never been beaten in a fight was gushing from under his left arm and the back of his neck. He had been beaten by a man half his size, and was dying.

  The crowd was hushed at the unexpected loss of their champion. It even took a moment for the Bloody Axes to raise a cheer.

  Chief Nagusi rose from his stool and strode to face Haft. Itzuli scampered after him. Nagusi glared at Haft for a long moment, then lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head.

  “The old stories are true,” he said through his translator, “the warriors of the rampant eagle are the greatest in all the world. Even better than the warrior
s of the Deitua Clan, who are the greatest of the High Desert.” He lifted his face to look at Haft. “What do you wish, great warrior? What reward? It shall be yours.”

  Haft looked down at Nagusi for a moment, knowing that the chief had fully expected him to be dead at the hands of Liskar, and that afterward he would probably have had his warriors kill the Bloody Axes, and the Royal Lancers as well. As for the Golden Girl, he didn’t know if Nagusi would have had her killed, or if he’d have kept her as a plaything.

  But none of that mattered now, he’d won. The champion of the High Desert Nomads lay dead at his feet.

  “I want the people who we came for,” he said coldly. “All of them. I want them unharmed. I want their mounts, their weapons, and everything else they were carrying when they arrived here. And the woman who was escorted: if she wants the sothar player, I want him. Then I want sufficient food and water for all of my people on our trip back to the coastal plain. And lastly, I want safe passage for my entire party back to the edge of the High Desert.

  Nagusi gave Haft a look of pure hatred. After a moment he said, “It is yours. Everything for which you asked.” He raised himself to his feet and shouted orders. People ran off to obey.

  In a few minutes, the Royal Lancers were led into the circle from one direction, their horses from another. Weapons and tabards came from all directions.

  “Where is the woman?” Haft asked.

  Nagusi pointed to where the Royal Lancers had come from. Alyline, the Golden Girl, stood just inside the inner ring of huts. Her garments were clean, although they were nothing Haft had ever seen her wear before: they were supple leather that moved on her like linen. A tiara graced her head, and bangles her wrists and ankles.

  “Lady Alyline,” Haft addressed her, “we have come to take you home. If you want the sothar player, the Great Chief Nagusi has agreed to let him come with us.”

  Alyline looked disgusted at the mention of the sothar player, but said, “Bring him then, I want him.” She walked to the center, to be with her Royal Lancers.