Demontech: Gulf Run - Softcover

Sherman, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345443764 ISBN 13: 9780345443762

Verlag: Del Rey, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Only a miracle can save them now. Luckily, they have one: the Marines.

Like an invincible tidal wave of evil, the Dark Prince’s conquering armies roar across the land, leaving death and destruction in their wake. So far Marines Haft and Spinner have managed to stay one step ahead of the invaders, picking up hundreds of refugees and soldiers as they struggle to reach their salvation at the edge of the sea. Against all odds, they’ve even managed to inflict some damage on the vastly superior forces.

Yet for every enemy soldier killed, ten more appear in his place, and the Dark Prince’s demon magic ensures their weapons are brutally effective. The outlook is not promising for the ragged band of rebels, pursued by bloodthirsty troops, hounded by bandits, and forced across a desert where death awaits all trespassers. As the noose tightens and the Dark Prince prepares the final coup de grace, it may look like Haft and Spinner and their embattled crew are finished. But these Marines have only just begun to fight.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Sherman is a former United States Marine and the author of eight previously published novels about Marines in Vietnam, where he served as an infantryman and as a member of a Combined Action Platoon. He is an alumnus of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and worked as a sculptor for many years before turning to writing. Along the way he has held a variety of jobs, mostly supervisory and managerial. Today he is a full-time writer and coauthor of the bestselling military science fiction series Starfist. He lives in Philadelphia.

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CHAPTER ONE

"This is a good place; we'll pull off there," Haft said softly. He used hand signals to show his men where to leave the road and where to go.

"Here" was where the winding road made a narrow cut through a spur of the Princedon Mountains, the range that formed the spine of the Princedon Peninsula. The ridge was heavily wooded on both sides of the cut, boulders barely visible among the trees on the right, upland, side of the cut. Haft's nine men, eight of them in the mottled green of the Zobran Border Warders, continued fifty yards beyond the cut to where Haft had indicated before carefully climbing the far side of the ridge and back to its top, leaving no sign that they'd left the road. The first man off the road clambered up a tree to watch their back trail. The other eight men filtered through the trees, seeking places where they would be hidden from the road and protected by stones or stout tree trunks while being able to observe where it climbed the ridge. They strung their bows and readied arrows, drew their swords or axes and lay them near to hand.

Haft moved from man to man, checking his position and view. The road ran straight for nearly a hundred yards from this vantage point before turning sharply left. Its farthest reaches were deeply shadowed. He moved two of his men to positions offering better fields of vision and fire.

"One," he said to the first man, clasping his shoulder. "Wait for me."

The former Border Warder nodded.

"Two," he said to the second, who grunted in reply. "Wait for me," he repeated.

"Three," to another.

And so he went along his thin line, assigning to each his target in the enemy's line of march. The eighth man-the one not in the Border Warders mottled green grab-was Jatke, a hunter from the town of Eikby. When all were in position, he took his own place in the middle of the line and lay his broadaxe and crossbow ready to hand. From there, through a break in the trees, he had a clear if shadowed view of the bend in the road.

Haft hadn't picked the best fighters for this squad-those were probably the Skraglander Bloody Axes who had sworn fealty to him. This was the rear point of the large band of refugees he and Spinner, his fellow Frangerian Marine, were trying to lead to a safe place away from the Jokapcul invaders overrunning the Princedon Peninsula. More important than the best fighting ability on the exposed rear point was the ability to move quietly and stealthily. The Border Warders were adept at stealthy movement and quicker than the Bloody Axes to spot followers. They also needed clear and quick communications; the Border Warders all spoke Zobran and the Eikby hunter spoke a dialect of it-he could understand the Border Warders well enough, and they him. Haft's own harbor Zobran, picked up during several port calls at Zobra City and sharpened by travel with the refugees over many weeks, was easily intelligible to these men, and he understood them as well-provided they didn't talk too fast or use words he didn't know. And not to be underestimated, they all carried the longbow, which shot its arrows with enough force to penetrate the metal-studded leather of Jokapcul armor.

He looked at the demon spitter he carried and cautiously tapped on the small door on the side of the tube. The door popped open, nearly catching his fingers, and the small, naked demon poked its head out.

"Wazzu whanns?" the tiny demon piped at him.

"See the road?" Haft whispered.

The demon looked down the length of the demon spitter tube. "Yss. Whatch abou id?"

"Look to the left. See the break in the trees? And the road through it?"

"Yss. Zo?"

"Can you spit through that break and hit horsemen on the road?"

The demon clambered all the way out to the top of the tube and peered intently for a moment, then said, "Nawzwetz."

"How should I aim?"

The gnarly little demon, hardly taller than Haft's hand was long, craned its head, side to side, up and down, for a few seconds, then pointed with a lumpy arm. "Aam lik ziz."

Haft shifted his head to look along the demon's arm and got smacked on the head-the demon hit surprisingly hard for so small a creature. He jerked back.

"Naw winnige," the demon sneered, "vazion!"

Wishing he could rub the sore spot on the side of his head, Haft drew back and looked at the angle of the demon's arm. The demon had told him not windage-the side-to-side aim of the weapon-but elevation, how high to aim.

"Like this?" he asked, pointing a finger at the same upward angle as the demon's arm.

"Thass righ," the demon said, then dove back into the tube, slamming the door behind it. Before Haft could settle the tube into its firing position on his shoulder, the door popped open again and the demon piteously piped, "Veedmee!"

Using his thumb and two fingers, Haft opened a pouch on his belt, withdrew a raisin-size pellet and held it out. The demon snatched the pellet and disappeared back into the tube. Crunching echoed hollowly from inside it.

A leaf rustled nearby and a dark form settled next to Haft, peering along the road they watched.

"Ulgh," the dark form said softly, and nodded.

Haft flinched, and looked askance at the wolf. "Wolf, you're supposed to be tracking them." Haft wasn't sure which bothered him more, the wolf who had attached himself to the original group months earlier, or the spitting demon that had taken a liking to him a week or so ago on the night he, Spinner, and a few others had conducted a raid on the Jokapcul encampment at the ruins of Eikby. Now the demon wouldn't spit for anyone else.

"Ulgh!" Wolf grunted, and hunkered lower behind the boulder-clearly, the trailing Jokapcul patrol was near, so he didn't need to track them anymore.

A bit of unsecured tack jangled somewhere out of sight.

Haft glanced at the wolf. He didn't trust the beast-men and wolves were natural enemies, and Wolf had no business traveling with people and aiding them. Still, "Watch my flank," he said.

Wolf looked up at him for a second, tongue lolling. Then, faster than the man could react, he stretched out his neck and lapped Haft's cheek.

Haft jerked away and swatted at him, but Wolf had already darted away to face the side. Before Haft could do anything else, he heard feet scrabbling on bark and the snap of a twig. He turned to see Birdwhistle, the man who'd climbed the tree, scooting toward him.

"They're less than two hundred yards away," Birdwhistle said quietly. "Still in one group, fifteen of them."

"Good," Haft replied. He pointed to his right, to the last open spot on the line. "You're four. Wait for me. Pass the word and bring it back." He then gave Tracker, the man to his left, the same order.

"Fourth man in line," Birdwhistle repeated, and went to the place Haft pointed to.

Haft told the next man in line where the Jokapcul were and readied his crossbow, arrows, and sword. Less than a minute later he turned to Haft and signaled-all nine men in the ambush had their assigned targets, leaving the last six men in the Jokapcul column unmarked. Those last six were the responsibility of Haft and the demon spitter. If the officer was still up, Haft knew he'd use the second spit to take him out-if he could see him from his position. They had to get the officer fast; the Jokapcul fell apart without an officer to give orders.

Haft checked the angle of the demon spitter's tube on his shoulder and sighted toward the section of transverse road visible through the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Del Rey
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0345443764
• ISBN 13: 9780345443762
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar