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

Haft.
          “The three-toes, they are the prints of comitelots, cousins of the comites of the Low Desert. It is said the nomads of the High Desert use them as riding beasts.” He glanced about at the ground. “I do not imagine that a herd of wild beasts would so perfectly encircle a band of mounted and armed men, as did these.” He looked back at Haft and cocked his head questioningly.
          “Yes?” Haft gestured for Tabib to continue. When the mage didn’t, he asked, “So the High Desert Nomads surrounded Alyline and the Royal Lancers. Then what happened?”
          Tabib shrugged. “Then they went off in that direction,” he said, pointing due west.
          Haft threw his arms up. “I know that much!” he shouted,  exasperated. “What I want to know is what happened!”
          Tabib looked at the ground, looked to the west, looked back at Haft. “Sir Haft, I don’t know, but it looks like they parleyed and the nomads agreed to take the Golden Girl and her escort to their camp.”
          Haft looked at Tabib in disbelief, then realized that was exactly what had happened. There hadn’t been a fight, and they all rode off together. Was it possible that the nomads had somehow managed to take the whole party prisoner without any fighting? That sounded too improbable.
         Balta arrived just then, and Haft took a moment to tell him what the point men and Tabib had divined from the signs. The Bloody Axes commander didn’t dismount, but leaned forward to look at the ground. Shortly, with a grimace of pain, he straightened up.
          “I believe they’re right, Sir Haft,” he said. He looked in the  direction the party of nomads and lancers had gone. “We should follow them.”
          “My thinking exactly,” Haft said. “Lead on,” he added to Kaplar.
          “Aye aye, Sir Haft!” Kaplar said. The Bloody Axes were from a landlocked nation, so they didn’t have a nautical tradition. Still, Kaplar had adopted some of the terms used by Haft. Kaplar thrust an arm in the direction of the tracks and said to his men, “Let’s see how long it takes us to catch up with them.”
     
          “HOLD!” Lieutenant Guma had shouted the instant he saw the nomad chief gesture. “Do not fight, do not resist!” With the same peripheral vision that had allowed him to see the nomads getting close to his men, he had seen that they reached for the weapons of the Royal Lancers, not for their own.
          The nomad chief leaned forward in his saddle and grinned at Guma. “You are quick,” he said through his interpreter. “Few men would notice that you weren’t being attacked, and would have resisted.” His grin widened as he turned his gaze toward the Golden Girl, exposing snaggleteeth. “Your woman wants to go to our camp. So we shall take you there. But,” he looked back at Guma, his smile gone, “your weapons will be peace-bound.”
          Guma gave a surprised blink. “Why peace-bind our weapons  instead of disarming us?” he blurted.
          The nomad chief threw his head back and roared out in  laughter.
          The interpreter explained, “If we disarm you, then we have to carry your weapons. It’s easier on us if you carry them.”
          Guma shrugged. He thought there was a flaw in the nomad chief’s logic, but he wasn’t going to pursue it. Not if leaving it alone meant that he and his men were allowed to keep their weapons, even if peace-bound.
          It was a matter of mere moments for the nomads to use leather cords to bind knives to scabbards and lances to their carrying loops.
          Obviously , Guma thought, they’ve done this before. That was another thought he didn’t want to pursue with the nomad chief. But it gave him hope that his men and the Golden Girl would come through this meeting alive, and be allowed to return to the refugee train unharmed.
     
          It took Haft and the Bloody