Mad Toffad's Keep

by Zack Finley

  The raider guessed it was going to happen today because the boss told everyone to get their kicks now. They were told to begin disbanding the camp to prepare for moving the slaves toward the river as soon as it got dark. The raider was getting a hard-on just imagining the orgy going on back at the camp.

  I was in my copilot spot monitoring Argon's reading and offered to take over.

  "As long as I get to kill him, I'll be okay," she messaged, digging deeper into the raider’s mental cesspool.

  She learned there were only four raider companies left in the Flom area. There had originally been six, but two were lost when their barge sank. Now there were two companies on the north side of the river and two on the south side surrounding Flom.

  All four companies wanted to help sack Flom. Each company was hoping the others would be late to the party. Leaving more loot for them. There had been the usual complaints about sharing the slaves and other loot when the boss told them all four companies would take part. The boss told them to shut up and get ready for the raid.

  This raider had been told one of the other companies had a nasty surprise for the king’s guard garrison. Once the garrison was gone, they believed it would be a cakewalk to ransack the town.

  We got a good read on where his camp was. He was a lot fuzzier on where the other camps were located. He was another one who had no use for maps.

  We told our mages to ‘port back to the garrison to report our findings to Sgt. Bomes. We’d issue new orders for them after we determined where the remaining camps were. The scouts were to return to the garrison as quickly as their basas could go.

  Argon and I would ride hard to the first camp and take them out.

  While I was relaying messages, Argon slipped through the trees masked by her magic and blew the raider's head off with a rock blast.

  We 'ported back to our basas and began riding hard toward the raider’s camp, trusting our monitoring application to alert us to anyone within miles.

  We called Olive on the Augun mage net and asked if she could have four king's guard standing by in the ballroom for the first two camps.

  I told her I was very reluctant to take manpower from Flom until we had a handle on the timing and scope of the planned attack. She promised to stage soldiers in the ballroom ready to move out within the hour even if she had to go directly to the king to arrange it.

  We would never make it in time if we traveled by basas from camp to camp. I asked Argon to pick the bargemen with the strongest mind magic and send them and a scout in the general direction of the remaining three enemy camps. I was confident we'd have more precise locations after we got to the first camp. Their mind magic might come upon either another raider scout or the whole camp.

  Because of our earlier sweep we knew where the other camp on our side of the river wasn't. If a scout team left right away with fresh basas, we could have a teleport location for the second camp by the time we finished with the first.

  Two scout teams were dispatched across the river and ordered to move inland. I told them we’d get them any better intel when it became available.

  I reminded the bargemen to take their scouts with them if they had to bug out.

  When we finally spotted camp one on our mind app, Argon and I slowed down to look for patrols. I was surprised the camp didn’t even have a perimeter guard.

  We sped back up using a simplified invisibility spell to mask our approach. Not that we needed it.

  We left our basas resting in a shady grove and climbed to a vantage point overlooking the camp. We used a simplified version of Argon's invisibility spell to mask our presence.

  The ongoing orgy collapsed all camp discipline. While there were a handful of armed guards, they weren't watching anything but the action in the slave pens. Unlike the camps near Asme, we had the entire raiding party here.

  Few of the raiders could be killed outright without risking their victims so this would be a stun- heavy raid.

  A check for mind blocks showed clear, although a few had depleted mind shields. We wanted to rescue the victims but needed information to save the next camps. We needed to know where all the camps were.

  We found the camp leader in a tent, with a crappy mind shield. I had no desire to take him prisoner. I pulled the last known locations of the three remaining camps from his sewer-like mind. I sent the locations to our scout teams. Each acknowledged the new intel and reported they were shifting to the new coordinates.

  We also learned there was no coordinated attack plan for Flom. Mostly it was every raider for themselves. The camp commander expected Rofcher, the southeastern camp leader, to attack the Flom garrison first with the “secret weapon” sometime after dusk.

  I was disappointed the man didn’t know what Rofcher’s weapon was. He just knew the mage who hired them provided it to Rofcher just before they all loaded into the barge for travel up river.

  The initial plan had been to take Flom first. This changed once the king's guard left town. The raiders decided to ransack the countryside first and leave Flom as dessert.

  When the king's guard returned unexpectedly the raiders were out of position to attack in strength.

  The raiders were finding less and less loot every day. The troops were getting impatient, wanting to take their loot and go home.

  The camp commander was relieved when Rofcher sent out messengers yesterday advising he intended to use the special weapon and take Flom tonight.

  The camp leader was pleased, expecting the sack of Flom to end the raids on a high note. He expected to load the loot and slaves onto a barge and to proceed downriver to Augun where a ship was waiting.

  This was good news, making it clear the raiders didn’t know the main attack on Augun had been blunted.

  Argon told our three scout mages to teleport back to the garrison as soon as they provided us with a safe teleport location near the target camps. She was concerned they could be needed to defend Flom.

  I told Olive we intended to kill all in this raid but expected to capture some from the next camps. While this raider leader was too inept to matter, I hoped to find someone a bit more competent in the other camps. I wanted to know more details about the long-term pirate base and the slave trade’s distribution network. I asked her to have someone available to restrain anyone we decided was worth intense questioning. We would drop them off when we picked up the king's guard standing by to help in the camps. I was confident if we left any prisoners in the camps the slaves would kill them. I couldn’t blame them.

  We prepared spells to kill the armed guards with rocks. After that, we imagined a mass area-of-effect stun spell. Since we were stunning victims along with rapists, we didn't want to crank the stun too high. The women slaves were concentrated in two areas, and the nearly 40 raiders were clustered there. To mitigate this new spell's effects, we targeted everything in this zone from 18 inches off the floor to 4 feet above it. We were prepared to spam stun, paralyze, or use other force spells as needed to take down any raider left conscious.

  Argon had never tried anything this complicated. The massive stun spell was new for us. Before now we had only stunned targeted attackers.

  We were both surprised at how well it worked. Only three raiders failed to drop in the initial attack. Three quick headshots later and the camp was secure.

  Now we had to kill the raiders before the stun wore off.

  I reluctantly left Argon behind while I went to pick up the four king's guard standing by.

  The soldiers were ready when we arrived. I was glad to see one was a woman. Count on Olive to know what was needed. I 'ported them back to the camp. I was relieved to see Argon hard at work releasing the former slaves from their shackles. Several were already separating the scum from the victims.

  Argon took two of the guard to help free the rest of the slaves. I had the other two to drag all the raiders to a central location near a wall. We lined the raiders up against the wall, and I executed each one with earth magic. We were taking no chan
ces they could overpower the king's guard. I had the king's guard gather all the weapons. Since they would be staying in the camp for an unknown time, I banished the area under the bodies and conjured dirt to fill for a mass grave.

  While I was cleaning house, Argon showed the other king's guards how to remove the slave chains. She told them to find the leaders amongst the slaves to help restore order and take care of the sick and wounded.

  One of the victims called out for help. She had a young girl in her arms bleeding from a violent rape. Argon healed that youngster and began moving among the other victims healing their physical wounds.

  I sent the female king's guard over to help Argon and told the squad leader to keep the rest of his men away unless they were asked to help. We told him to distribute any arms to whoever was willing to wield them. I gave him one of our mundane com cards.

  If he heard nothing from us and couldn't get us on the com card, he should send a rider to Flom to see what was wrong. The camp had plenty of basas and carts.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 6

  It was time to leave this group of slaves and attempt to free the next camp. We had received our teleport location for the new camp and asked the scout team at camp two to stay there.

  I told the squad leader at camp one where he could find our basas and warned him the basas would tell me if they were mistreated.

  We checked our magic levels. As usual, I was boiling over in all magic types. I was surprised my force and mind magic had recovered so quickly from the area-wide stun.

  Argon's health magic was down but not seriously. Her force and mind magic were down, but the area-of-effect stun blast had not been quite the power hog we feared. If we needed something like it in the future, I'd take point on stunning the large area.

  I put my hand in hers and triggered my teleport.

  Our mage buddy had picked a good spot. We told them to wait under cover until we signaled them.

  We didn't have to get close to locate and read the raider’s leader. He was sure Rofcher’s raider band would hit Flom without waiting for the rest to join in. He bribed his raiders to get them moving with promises of an orgy and booze. The slave tenders would be ready to take their captives toward the river after the raid.

  We hurried into a position overlooking the camp. It resembled the other camps we'd seen, some type of bowl with high ground around it. The leader was pacing in front of his tent as he watched his slow-moving raiders moving toward the string of basas.

  "Let's only take the leader alive," Argon messaged. "I don't sense any other intelligence amongst the guards in this camp."

  I prepped a massive earth slab to take down the cluster of raiders, a stun for the leader and headshots for those already mounted. Argon identified and targeted the nine men designated as slave drivers.

  We unleashed the spells and only had a few raiders left to put out of their misery. We double checked to ensure all of the raiders were dead, except the leader.

  Argon announced she was going to sit with the women and I needed to take our captive to Augun and bring back reinforcements. We assigned our scout and mage duo to begin freeing the slaves.

  I hated to be separated from Argon, but bit my tongue and hauled our captive to Augun. But I didn't dawdle on either end of the teleport. Olive had four king's guard standing by.

  I took them to our scout team and made sure they all knew they needed to free the ex-slaves, help them get organized, and arm whoever they could. I told the squad leader if no one contacted them by the next day, they should send a scout to Flom to check in.

  We gave the camp two squad leader a mundane com card and said we expected to be back in touch before they needed to leave.

  I was worried the camp two leader might be right and Rofcher’s raiders, now designated as camp four, were attacking early. I told our scout and mage duo to return to the garrison as soon as they felt satisfied things were in hand at the camp or by nightfall at the latest.

  Argon and I teleported back to the Flom garrison to use our more robust mind monitors to find out if someone was sneaking up on Flom.

  We told Sgt. Bomes and his men both raider groups on the Flom side of the river were dead. Bomes agreed with my insistence on bringing fresh troops from Augun to manage the slave camps. We both felt weakening the Flom garrison before the attack was irresponsible. While I hoped to catch the raiders by surprise, counting on that before we located them was chancy.

  The mundane scouts from the original expedition had all returned. If it hadn't been such a crappy day, I found some humor in the significant looks exchanged by the two original doubters.

  The two bargemen still at the garrison wanted to help locate where the two raider groups were planning to cross the river and attack Flom. Our bargemen mages also wanted to find out where the raiders stashed the barges to transport the slaves and loot on.

  I told them it was very possible the collapse of the plot meant there was no ship waiting in Augun and no barge waiting in Flom to transport the slaves and loot.

  That reminded me.

  "Olive?"

  "Yes, Steve?"

  "What is supposed to happen to all the loot stashed in the various raider camps? Should it go to the king, the ex-slaves, or what? I can make an argument for all of these. You can wait until tomorrow to figure it out, but one of the liberated slave camps isn't far from either Flom or the river."

  "Thanks, Steve," said Olive.

  "Hey, I would just give it to the slaves but after my discussion with your king this morning that might look self-serving."

  I decided to warn her about the intel we received, in case things went badly.

  "We've taken down two out of four camps, but one of those left has some kind of magical device that has me worried."

  "Keep me posted, Steve."

  The mage teams heading for the two remaining camps were making slow progress in the twilight. I was starting to believe we might spot the raiders approaching Flom before the teams located the slave camps.

  By now, my gut told me the raiders in camp four were already on their way to raid Flom. My gut was not quite as confident about camp three, but the later it got, the more likely that would be correct.

  My gut was also telling me holding onto a worthless garrison was less important than any of my men. Sacrificing lives to protect the innocent civilians in Flom was one thing, but I saw no need to have anyone die for a stone building. Heck, Tobron could build them a better one in a few hours if we had to.

  We needed those teleport locations near the slaves. It looked like the safest play was to kill the raiders as they came into Flom, then rescue the slaves.

  We changed the orders for our scout teams. Once they had the slave camps in sight, they needed to monitor them. If the camp started to move, they needed to shadow them. The chained slaves shuffled slowly. The nine guards controlling them would be busy and wouldn't have anyone to spare to send out on patrols.

  If the scouts spotted the main parties, they were to go to ground and wait until they were clear. We'd take care of the raiders, but the scouts were there to ensure the slaves survived.

  It took some convincing to get Sgt. Bomes to abandon his garrison, if only for an evening. The three young mages, Argon, and I came up with ways to make it still look occupied. I had the bargemen march up to the garrison, and go inside the building. They would go onto the roof, walk around, and teleport out over and over. Bargemen required strong force magic, so they had plenty of power to spare for such teleports.

  Argon flickered the lights and used air magic to rattle doors and window shutters intermittently. We had all moved to an abandoned building in town where we could see the garrison but wouldn't be in the line of fire.

  Argon built the archers a series of ports on the roof of our new building so they could shoot from behind cover.

  We guessed the two raiding parties would attack using a direct path to the river where they'd staged some kind of ferry or barge. This should be a cle
ar route created to accommodate travel by chained captives and wagons in the dark.

  Our scouts were slogging through rough terrain to get to the camps last known locations, and I was tempted to have them cut over to better terrain.

  I kept scrutinizing my amplified monitoring app. I’d agreed to remain in Flom while Argon teleported to the scout teams to help them locate the camps.

  Argon confirmed the slaves from camp four were on the move, in the direction we'd predicted. Argon verified the main body of raiders was no longer with them. She redirected the scouts to intercept the slave train. She estimated it would take the scouts about an hour to get to the new position for camp four.