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

Fletcher and half of the fighters to protect the women and children, and took the other half forward as far as they thought was safe—they measured safety by how far the noises of the horses would carry. They left them there with orders to be prepared to move immediately.
    Silent and Wolf returned shortly after Spinner and Haft rejoined the scouts. They came from the opposite direction from where they’d left.
    “There are no sentries anywhere,” Silent reported in a low rumble. “Six more men are stationed fifty yards farther up the road. They aren’t paying any more attention than these are.” He shook his head. “Three of them are even asleep! We found a peddler’s wagon and more women and children. The women were at a stream doing laundry. I didn’t see the fires, but it smells like they’re starting to cook.”
    Wolf thumped his tail on the ground. Silent briskly rubbed his shoulders.
    “There are thirteen men in two groups,” Spinner said. “You saw no other men?”
    “That’s right.”
    “No sentries, the men you saw are armed but aren’t alert?”
    “Right again.”
    “Were any of the women armed?”
    Silent shook his head. “Only with knives.”
    Spinner and Haft turned away from the others and put their heads together to confer. After a moment they turned back.
    “Here’s what we are going to do.”
    Silent grinned, the scouts nodded grimly. Wolf wagged his tail.

 

CHAPTER
FOUR
    “Nobody move!” Spinner shouted.
    The seven men playing at dice jerked at the command and spun to face it, their hands reached for their weapons but stopped before touching them. Facing them at the top of the rise were a dozen men, half of whom held bows with arrows nocked and drawn, but not aimed. The others held swords. Two of the men glanced at their weapons, but the bowmen’s range was so short that their arrows would be in their targets before any of the seven could grab weapons and jump out of the way.
    “Who’s in charge here?” Spinner demanded in rough Zobran. He shifted his crossbow so it was pointed at the sky.
    Three of the men looked uncertainly at one another, the others stared at the bowmen covering them. No one spoke right away.
    At the same moment fifty yards farther along the road, Haft shouted, “Don’t move!” as he and a dozen horsemen abruptly appeared in a semicircle facing the six armed men at that end of the rough encampment.
    “Who’s your commander?” Haft asked in harshly spoken Zobran.
    He may as well not have asked for all the response he got.
    Screams of frightened women and children came from the trees away from the road. A loud, male voice called out, “Be calm, no one’s going to hurt you.” The screaming continued and the sound of running feet came to the two groups at the roadside.
    The thirteen men in the two groups jerked their heads toward the sounds, but none dared move. Outnumbered as they were and without their weapons in their hands, they couldn’t fight. But their women and children were being threatened, they had to do something. The tension was palpable.
    “Don’t do it,” Spinner said at his end as one man finally began to inch his hand closer to his bow.
    “Move and die,” Haft shouted at a man whose eyes flicked to his sword.
    Women and children burst upon the two groups and pulled up sharply at the sight of the armed men facing their men. The women and older children stood unsteadily, frightened and not knowing what to do. Small children bawled, then clung to their mothers and buried their faces in their skirts. A woman fell to her knees and cried with her face in her hands.
    A man in the first group, one of the three in the blue tunic of a Zobran Royal Lancer, swallowed and held his hands open and wide. He slowly rose to his feet.
    “What do you want?” he demanded. “We’re poor refugees, we have little more than the clothes on our backs and a little bit of food.”
    Spinner lowered his crossbow and looked at the man. “What’s your