Get Her Back (Demontech) by David Sherman Read Free Book Online Page A

wind.
          Haft heeled his mare into a rocking-horse canter and quickly  covered the quarter mile to the point team.
          Corporal Kaplar, who had called to Haft, silently pointed at the ground.
          Although he wasn’t very good at reading sign on the trail, and the constant wind had finally erased some of the traces, Haft could see what had made the point team stop and call for him: Alyline and the Royal Lancers had, for unknown reasons, changed direction a mile and a half back. At this place they had stopped—and a large number of other riders on beasts that had three toes rather than hoofs surrounded, then closed on, them.
          “Do you see any blood?” Haft asked, peering closely at the ground. He’d wonder about the three-toed beasts later; finding out about casualties came first. He knew how to read blood on the ground to determine how many casualties there were, and even how a battle had progressed and ended.
          “No, Sir Haft,” Kaplar said. “My men haven’t seen any blood  either.” The other three in the point team also said they hadn’t seen any signs on the ground to indicate there’d been much of a fight.
          “I don’t think there was a fight, Sir Haft,” added Ember, another of the men on the point.
          Haft looked at Kaplar for confirmation. The leader of the point team nodded.
          Haft looked back at the ground. He saw the direction the hoof and toe prints went and looked after them into the distance.
          “How long?” he asked the corporal.
          Kaplar shook his head. “It’s too dry here to tell,” he said. “And the wind confuses everything. It could be hours, it could be three days. I can’t tell how long it’s been.” He paused, then added, “It’s too bad we don’t have a Borderer with us. A Borderer would certainly be able to tell.”
          The Borderers were scouts who watched over the borders of Skragland, and trailed trespassers and possible invaders. They were excellent trackers, and read sign possibly better than anyone else in the entire world.
          Haft made a face. He’d thought that with Jurnieks as their guide to the Desert Nomads’ camp they wouldn’t have any need for a tracker. But Jurnieks was worthless as a guide, and was no better as a tracker than one could expect of a sailor. He rose in his saddle and turned to face the rest of the column, which was approaching at a brisk walk—the fastest pace that Balta could stand.
          “Tabib!” he bellowed.” I want Tabib!”
          A faint reply came to him, “Tabib, yes, Sir Haft!” He could see the word being passed back to the Kondive Island mage, until he  finally saw the mage turn his donkey out of the line and trot forward.
          “Lord Haft,” Tabib said when he reached the point, touching  fingers to forehead, mouth, and chest, and bowing so deeply that Haft momentarily thought he was going to fall from his donkey. “I am honored that you have singled me out of the line to come to your side. Is there a way in which I might be of assistance?”
          Haft stared at the funny-looking little man for a brief moment, wishing that Spinner had sent Xundoe, the mage who’d joined the band in its early days when they were still in Skragland, to join his small force. Xundoe sometimes babbled, and often seemed to think more highly of himself than his rank warranted, but Haft had never—seldom, anyway—heard the sarcasm in his voice that he almost constantly heard in Tabib’s. He didn’t say anything about it, though. Instead, he waved a hand at the ground.
          “Can you divine what happened here?” he asked.
          Tabib slipped off his donkey and squatted flat-footed to examine the ground up close. He murmured softly as he brushed his fingers lightly above the prints, barely avoiding contact with them. After a couple of moments he straightened his back and looked up at