The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (35 page)

“Bad news for the
Shepard on our recon efforts,”
Trebor kythed to Danner as they waited.

“The Imperial Army?”
Danner surmised.

“We confirmed their
presence, but that’s about all,”
Trebor replied, and Danner could hear the
chagrin in his mental voice.
“Gerard said
they would only be here if they were protecting someone in the imperial family,
but we couldn’t get close enough to kythe anyone who knew anything more than
that there’s a ‘special guest’ somewhere. No names, no specifics.”

“It’s still more than
we knew,”
Danner replied.
“Gerard
can’t fault you for that.”

Halfway through the extraction, Danner looked at the sky and
glanced at Trebor.

“Change to two-minute intervals,”
Trebor kythed,
reading Danner’s apprehension about the time.

When the rest of their platoons had gone, Danner and Trebor
moved out. Trebor was, by now, an accomplished sneak, though still nowhere near
as good as Flasch or Danner, and there were several other denarae in both their
platoons who were better than Trebor. Still, he was more than good enough for
their needs to get out. Danner could tell by the look in Trebor’s eyes he was
focusing on the path ahead of them, so he didn’t bother trying to communicate
with his friend.

Then Danner felt a sharp pain inside his head as Trebor
mentally shouted,
“Down!”
and Danner nearly pitched to the ground. He
could actually feel his mental defenses going up to protect him from Trebor’s
kythe as he dropped to the ground, his head ringing with the force of Trebor’s
cry. They rolled underneath a nearby buggy, and Danner watched cautiously as
two pairs of feet walked slowly past them.

He glanced over at Trebor and saw the denarae staring
meaningfully at him. Belatedly Danner remembered to force his mental blocking
back down.

“…hear me? Danner?”

“Yes, I can hear you,”
Danner replied, and even his
mental voice was groaning in pain.
“What the Hell was that?”

 
“What?”

“When you told me to
get down, you nearly split my head in half from the inside out,”
Danner
told him.
“Next time just stick an axe in
my ear.”

“Sorry,”
Trebor
apologized.
“That was a tightly focused
thought sent just to you so the others ahead wouldn’t mistake it for a warning.
It probably had more force than absolutely necessary, but I…”

“It’s okay, I
understand. Damn.”

Danner rubbed at his temples gently.

“It’s never had that
effect before.”

“Have you ever done
that to anyone other than a denarae before?”
Danner asked.

“No,”
Trebor
admitted.
“Though it could just be unique
to you.”

“Maybe.”

Trebor paused, then he smiled.

“Or maybe we just
found a new weapon for Shadow Company,”
Trebor kythed.

“We’ll test it out
later on Flasch. Are we clear to go now?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s do so.”

They reached the others without further incident, then
withdrew to the woods without a living soul in the Merishank camp being the
wiser of their presence.

- 5 -

The tension in Ran’s body eased as he felt the heavenly
presence fade into the distance. For several hours, he’d been on edge without
knowing why. Then suddenly a holy presence had sprung into being only a few
hundred yards away, shocking him so badly he nearly lost his altered shape.
Fortunately, he wore thick robes, so no one noticed the skin of the general’s
adviser suddenly turn bark-colored and smooth. Not that it would matter anyway.
The ranking officers were wholly under Ran’s control, and he could have told
them anything he wanted ─ including that it had never happened ─
and they would have believed it without question.

Humans were such weak-minded fools.

But whatever had been in his camp a few moments before was
not human. Ran couldn’t place it, but there was something familiar about the
sensation. Had it not been for the angelic taint, Ran would have said it was
the same creature who had killed his brother Min. But without the heavenly
stain, Ran never would have noticed the presence in the first place; besides
which, Min had been killed by a mortal.

Ran frowned. He turned his body so he was staring in the
direction of the presence where he’d first felt it. Ran motioned to an officer
standing nearby.

“We’ve had an intruder, colonel,” Ran said. “Take a company
and search the area four hundred yards in this direction. Search thoroughly,
and tell me if anything is amiss.”

“Yes, sir.”

The human was out of Ran’s mind in the same instant he
ceased speaking. Instead, Ran considered the mysterious warriors in the woods.

So far, all of the soldiers he’d sent into the woods on
reconnaissance patrols or to gather building materials had been obliterated. No
survivors had returned to tell of their fate or the strength of the unknown
unit. There could be a thousand soldiers there or twice that. The scouts who
had first seen the enemy had reported only a small unit, perhaps two platoons’
worth, but there was clearly a sizable force there. Only a few of the groups
he’d sent to gather lumber had returned unmolested, and many officers had
expressed concern to their leaders that they would lack the resources necessary
to construct their camp and siege engines.

If Ran actually concerned himself with the loss of his
soldiers or the whining of their leaders, he might have been angered by the
nagging presence of the mortals in the woods.
 
But his army had but one function to serve: reduce the number of
defenders in Nocka and deplete their resources. Even if Ran sat his army at the
front gate and did not attack, he would accomplish part of his objective
through siege. If the mortals could not reinforce their city, by the time the
army from Hell assaulted, the city would be in a sad state and would fall
easily.

Ran smiled. Mephistopheles would be pleased. Perhaps he
would let Ran have the mortals responsible for killing his brothers. How he
would savor their torment!

His mind so pleasantly occupied, Ran turned into his private
tent to await the colonel’s report. One thought marred his otherwise tranquil
state of mind: What was a heavenly presence doing in the mortal realm? Could
they possibly know what was at hand?

- 6 -

“No, damn it, Trebor, keep your shield up or
Ulith
will gut you,” Gerard shouted. “By God, I know you
weren’t asleep the day Bobby showed you how to defend against that attack, and
if I see you drop your guard again, I will personally break your arm and have
it set so you can’t move it out of position ever again.”

The denarae officer grimaced at the reprimand but didn’t
dare take his eyes off his sparring partner.
Ulith
was one of the best swordsmen in Garnet’s platoon and a formidable opponent.
Even now, secreted in the woods and hiding out from the Merishank army, Gerard
insisted on training them and improving their combat and survival skills.

“You can stop training when you die,” was the Shepard’s
guiding principle, apparently, and he was forcing them all to live up to it.

After another minute of frantic combat, Trebor succeeded in
disarming
Ulith
and narrowly avoided running him
through. There were no longer practice swords to be had, so they had to take
extra precautions to avoid seriously injuring themselves. With Trebor and the
paladins on hand to heal injuries, they weren’t as worried about fatalities as
they were losing men to a healing sleep at an inopportune moment.

The other denarae saluted Trebor and stepped back, then went
in search of refreshment.

Around him denarae practiced with their preferred weapons,
and quite a few were working with Michael to learn his style of unarmed combat.
The Yellow paladin was currently fending off five denarae at once, using throws
and stunning strikes to keep them at bay. He was constantly in motion and never
allowed them to box him in place, though he often drew an attack toward him to
disrupt their attempts at coordination. He used his entire body as a weapon and
even seemed to be using his opponents as weapons, turning the energy of their
attacks back against them and throwing one man into another to stave off one
attack while he dealt with another.

There really was no ending to their bout, since Michael
wasn’t trying to defeat his opponents as much as he was outlasting them to
demonstrate technique. Were he to use more aggressive tactics, the denarae
would have long since tapped out with broken limbs or worse.

The ring of steel behind him brought Trebor’s attention back
around to where Gerard and Garnet had resumed their own training session. The
two Red paladins practiced nearly every day when there was no action expected
against Merishank. Trebor had watched Garnet improve during their time in
Nocka, but since Gerard had been able to devote more of his attention to the
process, Garnet had progressed in leaps and bounds under his mentor.

“There, you missed it,” Gerard said.

“No I didn’t, you left me an opening on purpose,” Garnet
said, his attention focused on the other paladin. “You were ready to parry and
force me to overextend.”

The two men exchanged blows at dizzying speed, weapons
changing course in the blink of an eye as Garnet worked to emulate the
techniques Gerard had drilled into him. Finally Gerard’s sword skipped wide as
it was deflected away from Garnet, and the larger paladin stepped in to press
the attack. At the last second, Gerard twisted away and Trebor winced at the
sound of metal on metal as Garnet’s sword grated past Gerard’s breastplate.

“Good,” Gerard said, recovering in time to parry another
attack. “Now, make me work for it.”

“Then quit going easy on me,” Garnet replied. He turned
another attack and jabbed at Gerard’s face with a mailed fist. The older
paladin shifted to allow the blow to pass by, then spun so he was behind him.
Gerard’s sword battered against Garnet’s
backplate
and knocked him off balance, but Garnet rolled and came up ready to parry
Gerard’s next attack.

Instead of attacking, however, Gerard kept his distance and
studied the younger man.

“What do you mean
easy
?”
he asked. Both men were breathing heavily from their exertions, but neither
showed any sign of fatigue.

“You’re worried about me making a mistake and getting
injured,” Garnet said, warily lowering his sword. “I’m guessing you don’t want
to risk my being out of action, and it’s affecting your technique, sir. Have
more faith in your training and make
me
work for it.”

Gerard laughed and saluted Garnet.

“All right then, lad,” he said. “Once more, and I promise to
stop coddling you.”

The two paladins clashed again, steel ringing on steel.
Trebor gave up on trying to follow their attacks, knowing both men were far
beyond his skills. Across the camp, someone cried out in pain, and someone else
kythed for him to come help.

“This I can do,” Trebor murmured to himself and raced off to
heal the poor man who’d ended up with a foot of steel in his leg.

- 7 -

“Demar Lake,” Birch said, staring toward the water from the
balcony. Nuse and Perklet were preparing for bed, healing sore spots on their
bodies and assembling their armor while in their smallclothes before going to
sleep. Nuse shivered in the cold air, but didn’t ask Birch to shut the door.

In another room, Moreen was already asleep, too tired from
their journey to stay awake. She’d refused to go see the remains of her inn,
knowing there could be no positive result from seeing the charred remains. Even
if something had been done to clean up the wreckage, the sight could only
depress her, no matter how much time had passed since the attack. They’d had a long,
slow road reaching Demar, with delays at every turn as land and sea dealt with
the annual onslaught of winter. What would have been a two- or three-week
journey in the spring had stretched out to nearly twice that long, but at last
they were within a few days ride of their destination.

The elves under Siran were secreted in the woods around the
lake. Masters of wood lore and camouflage, no one would know they were there,
and they would leave in the morning without a trace.

The water of the lake was frozen, and during the day there
would be children playing on the thick ice. Each day, twice a day, adults
checked the ice for thin spots where the current of the
Tali
River or sunlight might have weakened the frozen surface. In the warm seasons
of years past, Birch had run a ferry service across the lake, carting
passengers in a small but sound boat he’d built with his own hands under the
guidance of a local carpenter. His income had been enough to support himself
and his brother when necessary; Hoil was in and out of jobs throughout the
boys’ youth. Even after he’d taken to a life of crime, Hoil returned
periodically to live with Birch when his enemies ─ or the
deron’dala
─ were searching for him.

The harsh work of rowing by himself had developed and
hardened Birch’s muscles, fulfilling and surpassing the potential that genetics
had built into his body. Hoil was almost as large as his brother, but his
workouts were less strenuous and he never developed the chiseled muscles that
served Birch so well as a warrior. In no small way had the patterns of their
youth set the two men for their adult lives.

Memories from his childhood and adolescence crowded Birch’s
mind as he watched the still surface of the frozen lake. Birch was exhausted,
but he didn’t feel like sleeping and was hoping the familiar sight of the lake
would calm him enough to rest. But the lake only conjured memories, which left
him even more awake than before. Finally he shut the doors to the balcony and
went downstairs in search of his brother.