Demontech: Rally Point: 2 (Demontech Book 2) by David Sherman Read Free Book Online

girl’s back was turned, he scooted forward and continued along the track. A few yards farther it branched. He followed the right branch. It passed near a wagon where a woman was nursing a babe and beneath which a few children were napping. Nothing he’d seen was threatening—just a woman, several children, and horses—but Birdwhistle had heard men talking. He reversed direction, found another game trail that roughly paralleled the one he’d followed before back to the front of the rise. How could he find out what, or who, was on the other side?
    He made his way back to the game trail where he’d begun his circuit of the rise and lay flat on it. From ground level, he saw the small tunnel under the lower branches of the bushes made by Birdwhistle and Wolf when they’d crawled up the slope. Before he was completely into the tunnel, his axe hung up on a bush. Swearing silently, he twisted so he could reach the buckles of his waist belt and the cross body belt and slipped them off. He felt naked without the axe when he resumed crawling. As he neared the top he heard rattling sounds from ahead.
    He caught his breath at the top of the rise. The brush was thin enough to let him see down to the bottom. An armed man sat cross-legged less than thirty feet away. His back was to Haft and a sheathed sword lay on the ground at his side. Six other armed men sat likewise in a close circle. All seven faced inward. Three of them wore the blue surcoats of the Zobran Royal Lancers. Were they refugees or deserters turned bandit?
    The rattling noise came again and one of the men flung his fist up and down, then threw the dice. He softly swore an oath that Haft understood quite well—it was an expression Zobran gamblers used when the dice went against them. The man to his left said something too softly for Haft to make out, which made the others laugh, and picked up the dice to roll in his turn. Haft watched and listened for a moment or two longer, wondering. At least seven armed men were quietly gathered close to a roadside, while their women, children, and horses were hidden away from the road—those were marks of bandits waiting for passing travelers to rob. Yet the armed men seemed to be paying no attention to the road, and he and the scouts hadn’t seen any sentries. It didn’t make sense.
    Haft slid backward until his feet told him he’d reached his axe. He wiggled his way past it, picked it up, and rose to a crouch.
    Spinner and Silent were with Archer and Birdwhistle when he got back to the tree. It only took a moment or two to relate what he’d seen—and hadn’t seen.
    “That’s very curious,” Spinner said. If they were bandits, where were their lookouts? If they weren’t bandits, why were the men gathered quietly by the road with their weapons ready? In either case, why weren’t they paying attention to the road?
    Throughout the telling, the scouts listened carefully and kept looking from Haft to the rise and back again. Silent was crouched in a squat. He didn’t look at Haft or the rise, but cocked his head as though he was listening to something only he could hear. Wolf sat next to the giant, tongue lolling from his open mouth, head cocked, ears perked, looking for all the world like he was aping Silent.
    When Haft was through, Silent stood, said, “Wait,” tapped Wolf on the shoulder, and moved toward the road. Wolf huffed a low ulgh! and followed.
    Spinner and Haft watched them disappear, then Spinner said to the scouts, “Stay here and keep alert.” He gestured to Haft and the two of them slipped through the woods back to the main body.
    “Did you put out security?” Haft asked partway back.
    Spinner shot him a glare. He never needed to be reminded about basic things such as putting out security; Haft sometimes did.
    Haft shrugged. “Never hurts to make sure,” he said dryly.
    The main body was a hundred and fifty yards back. Spinner and Haft quickly filled them in on what Haft had found. They left