Free Demontech: Onslaught by David Sherman

a sausage. “You have not eaten in many hours and you have far to go tonight. You will need this,” he said. “Now follow me.” He said nothing about the coins on the table.
    In the narrow spaces that framed their route, they couldn’t see enough of the night sky to tell whether there was a moon out. Still, all three managed to move as silently as spirits through the night. Nearly blind as they were, not knowing where they were going, or even where they were, Spinner and Haft couldn’t tell how long the journey took. It felt like a long time before the old man finally stopped next to a drop.
    “Here is a tunnel,” he whispered. “It leads to a canal on the other side of the wall. A long time ago, when I was a boy, the canal brought fresh water from a forest stream into the city. Now we have sufficient wells inside the walls, so the canal is no longer needed and is dry. The grating is gone from both ends of the tunnel. You can get out here and follow the canal all the way to the forest. When you reach the forest, you will be in the Duchy of Bostia. From there you can find your own way back to your army.” Fumbling in the darkness, the old man found each of their hands and squeezed them. “Go in safety,” he said. “The people of New Bally will rise up and fight alongside you when you come back with your army.”
    “We thank you, old friend,” Spinner replied, and squeezed the old man’s hand as hard as he dared. “Remain in safety.”
    Haft hugged him. “We’ll be back. We’ll drive them out. We will see you again then, and you will dine richly on our treat.”
    The two Marines went down into the tunnel, and moments later were beyond the city walls. In another twenty minutes they were inside the forest and heading rapidly away from New Bally on the first leg of their journey back to Frangeria. They didn’t know how they were going to get there or what they would pass through in between, but they were safer than they had been. Haft wondered why he had promised the old man they’d return.
     
    The Jokapcul invaders didn’t pause following their conquest of New Bally. A state of war existed with the Duchy of Bostia as soon as they had captured the regiments guarding the landward approaches to the freeport. Before dusk of the first day, a large element of the Jokapcul force pressed inland. The kamazai who was the General Commanding of the Jokapcul forces left a lesser kamazai, one more adept at civil administration than at command of warriors, in charge in New Bally and went with his forces deep into the duchy.
    Lord Lackland, half bastard fourth son of Good King Honritu of Matilda, Defender of the Northern Marches and Guardian of the Western Coast, went with the invading forces, eager to see the booty that would put an end to the hated nickname “Lackland” and leave him once again the “Dark Prince.”

 

FIRST INTERLUDE

THE DARK PRINCE

 

The Early History of Lord Lackland:
A Speculation
    by Scholar Munch Mu’sk
Professor of Far Western Studies
University of the Great Rift
(excerpted from The Proceedings of the Association of Anthropological Scholars of Obscure Cultures , Vol. 57, No. 6)
    It was the custom in the Kingdom of Matilda for a king to have three sons. The first son became king in his turn. The second son was bequeathed the title Prince of Easterwood, and upon the death or abdication of his special uncle, the second son of his father’s father, was given the Easterwood lands and the title Earl of Easterwood, Defender of the North and the East. Easterwood was the northern and easternmost portion of Matilda, and guarded the mountainous kingdom from raids and wars with the giants of the High Steppes, and from the strange denizens of the Land of the Night Forest. The third son was trained from infancy in the art of arms, and became commander of the armies of Matilda upon the death or retirement of his special uncle, the third son of his father’s father.
    No king of Matilda ever sired a