Demontech: Rally Point - Softcover

Buch 2 von 3: Demontech

Sherman, David

 
9780345443755: Demontech: Rally Point
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345443756 ISBN 13: 9780345443755
Verlag: Del Rey, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Ruthless and seemingly indestructible, the dark army didn’t count on the few, the proud, the Marines.

The Dark Prince’s vast armies have destroyed nation after nation with the aid of powerful demon magic. Their total victory would be swift and certain except for two things: Haft and Spinner, a pair of soldiers trained in the art of warfare through the teachings of a magically transported Marine Gunnery Sergeant.

The Dark Prince’s orders are swift and simple: find them. Haft and Spinner, along with scores of soldiers and refugees, are determined to form an army and defeat the invaders. Outnumbered and outgunned, they must uncover and kill the enemy before the enemy kills them. Haft and Spinner have already accomplished great feats. But to achieve the impossible will require a few strokes of genius and a few good men. Fortunately, these Marines have both. . . .

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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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"Ruthless and seemingly indestructible,
the dark army didn't count on the few, the proud, the Marines.
The Dark Prince's vast armies have destroyed nation after nation with the aid of powerful demon magic. Their total victory would be swift and certain except for two things: Haft and Spinner, a pair of soldiers trained in the art of warfare through the teachings of a magically transported Marine Gunnery Sergeant.
The Dark Prince's orders are swift and simple: find them. Haft and Spinner, along with scores of soldiers and refugees, are determined to form an army and defeat the invaders. Outnumbered and outgunned, they must uncover and kill the enemy before the enemy kills them. Haft and Spinner have already accomplished great feats. But to achieve the impossible will require a few strokes of genius and a few good men. Fortunately, these Marines have both. . . .

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Winter was come to the land east of the Rieka Flod, the great river that drained the vast area south from the Dwarven Mountains to where it entered the sea at Zobra City. Farther to the east, the ground that slowly rose to the plateau of the High Desert was too deep with snow to permit travel; the ground between the river and the slopes was blanketed with snow kept shallow by the constant, scouring, wind. The goats that were herded there in the summer were long gone south or west, along with the other grazing animals that could survive on the coarse leaves and twigs and sour fruits of the trees that bowed before the wind. The predators that hunted the goats and grazers and, sometimes goatherds, were likewise taking sunnier climes. Even flocks of late-migrating birds avoided that land once the snows began.

Few people other than the seasonal goatherds lived there, and those were as coarse as their land—and as unyielding. Year-round residents hoarded food for the winter and hid well what sparse wealth they had. They hid themselves as well, for unwary travelers who failed to bring enough food to last their entire journey across the harsh land were sometimes driven mad by hunger and turned to eating their fellows to sustain themselves. Travelers often found eating a stranger somehow less reprehensible than eating their own. Winter life in “the Eastern Waste,” as it was called by the Skraglanders to the west, was almost impossible. The nomads who dwelled in the sere deserts farther to the east considered the land an inhospitable jungle.

A band of refugees fleeing northeastward before the advancing Jokapcul armies was discovering the harsh realities of the Eastern Waste as they huddled around small fires in the lee of the rude windbreaks they’d erected to shield themselves from blowing snow during the night. They’d planned to work their way to where the High Desert came up against the southeastern edge of the Dwarven Mountains, then thread a perilous route between the mountains and the desert as far as Elfwood Between the Rivers, and thence tiptoe between the top of the High Desert and the bottom of Elfwood Between the Rivers all the way to the Easterlies. Once in the Easterlies they should face an easy trek to Handor’s Bay and shipping across the Inner Ocean to the continent of Arpalonia, and its free kingdoms and principalities. Now they faced the need to abandon that plan; the fires were for warmth as the refugees had eaten the last of their food that morning and the game they’d hoped to catch during the trek north had evidently already migrated to more clement climes. Even the wolf hadn’t caught so much as a shrew since they’d entered the Eastern Waste. Had it not been for the snow they melted in pots in the fire, even water would have been in as short supply.

“We have to go west in the morning,” said the taller of the two men who led the refugees. He was called Spinner, for the way he used the quarterstaff he carried.

The shorter of the two leaders glumly nodded. He’d thought in the beginning they should try the southerly route, but had yielded to everyone else’s argument. Having agreed, he was committed, and he hated having to go back under any circumstances. Even though turning west wasn’t back the way they’d come, it was still the opposite direction from where they wanted to go. They called him Haft, for he seemed to become one with the mighty battle-axe that was his primary weapon.

“Not your fault,” rumbled the giant. Alone in the band he looked comfortable in the cold, with his cloak made from the hide of a huge, white bear. He had argued in favor of crossing the Eastern Waste during winter. On the Northern Steppes he called home, game could be found even in the deepest depths of winter, when the sun appeared over the southern horizon for only long enough each day to assure the True People it still existed. He’d been certain game would be relatively plentiful in the Eastern Waste, where the sun was up for so many hours each winter day, and the stunted trees grew in relative profusion. In all his years on the Northern Steppes and the time spent wandering the land south of them, he’d never seen a place so barren of animate life. The giant had adopted the name Silent, for the vow he’d taken to not speak about his land and people while wandering the south lands.

The woman with the golden hair and eyes of gold, peeked out through the gray silk cloak in which she was nearly invisible in the early night. She thought that if they went west they might reach Oskul, the capital of Skragland. In Oskul they might find Mudjwohl. But she said nothing. She was Alyline, also called “the Golden Girl” for the color of her skin, eyes, and hair. Her favored dress was also golden.

“How far do you think it is?” Spinner asked.

The lean man with the longbow said, “We won’t get there tomorrow, maybe the morning after.” His name was Fletcher, but he made bows as well as arrows, and was a veteran of the Bostian army.

At another fire a baby cried for breast. A small child at another fire whined for food nobody had.

Haft flinched. “Who’d have thought?” he said softly.

A Skraglander refugee muttered. After first arguing the opposite, he’d finally agreed with the steppe nomad that they could safely traverse the Eastern Waste in winter. He should have known better. He was Takacs, a Skragland army Borderer, the sole man of his company to survive battles against the Jokapcul.

“We could eat the horses,” someone said.

Haft brightened at the suggestion; he didn’t like horses. The giant, who was said to have been born on horseback, glowered at the one who’d spoken out.

“Only as a last resort,” said Spinner. “We can travel farther and faster on them than on foot.”

“As long as we can feed them,” someone else murmured. Fodder for the horses was nearly gone as well, and under the blanket of snow grazing was almost as nonexistent as game.

They were up before dawn and ready to move by the time the reluctant sun rose. They followed their shortening shadows westward.

A day and a half’s march into the wind brought the band of refugees to the valley of the Aramlas, a tributary of the Rieka Flod. The Aramlas Valley’s trees did not bow to the morn- ing sun, but rather stood straight and proud. Snow dusted the branches of the trees, but the ground beneath them was mostly bare and dry. As soon as they began their descent into the valley, the refugees saw deer, and hunters ran ahead. By the time the refugees had reached the valley floor, the hunters were ready for them, roasting haunches of venison over fires much bigger than those they’d had in the waste.

Somewhat to the south, or perhaps east of south, unseasonable bees were constructing a hive and packing its cells with nectar.

Hunger was sated. Women set about erecting shelters less rude than those they’d used on the Eastern Waste. Men jerked venison over slow fires. Children squealed in play. They were out of the wind and blowing snow. Spinner and Haft put out sentries, then sat to rest and plan.

“We’ve come far,” Spinner said as he looked over the rough camp and the people who depended on them.

“But we’re less than halfway there,” Haft said with a grimace. They were Marines from Frangeria, an archipelago nation off the south coast of the eastern continent, Arpalonia. All seagoing nations had sea soldiers, but only a Frangerian sea soldier went by the name “Marine.” Spinner and Haft had been in the freeport of New Bally, on the southwestern coast of Nunimar, the western continent,...

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Verlag
Del Rey
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345443756
ISBN 13 
9780345443755
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
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