I laughed and said, “It’s a bit early to think about something like that, but OK. Well, kobolds don’t move in to a place quickly and they don’t leave easily. These may have been underground for a hundred years. Maybe much longer. Long before the village appeared, possibly. One thing that I don’t think we’ll find is a stash of really nice cutlery.”
Val laughed and said, “Not unless what we found already is for everyday use and they save the good stuff for when royalty comes for supper. But, the rats had five hundred pounds of loot. What will these have?”
I said, “They’ll have something. They like gems as much as anything, and gold. Shiny objects of any kind. That includes coins. But kobolds often live in the buried ruins of even older civilizations. It may be that the cavern is just that. It might be that the hills are covering a city that was lost long ago. If that’s the case, we could find entire store rooms. And we could find that the kobolds are not the worst monster living there.”
She said, “What else could be there?”
I said, “I don’t know. Maybe cave trolls. Goblins. More rats. Most likely there will be more rats. Giant spiders. It depends on how old the place is and what has been growing there and for how long. The food chain is probably rats at the front, kobolds after them, and then trolls or goblins. Or both. Oh, and probably carnivorous molds and jellies. But the first thing for us to do is to make the farm safe so that we have food for everyone.”
Val said, “Oh, you’re no fun. I want tales of fabulous treasures and magical amulets and golden armor and gems the size of Harmony’s tiny head.”
I laughed and said, “She is tiny.”
Val asked, “Too tiny? I hope not.”
I said, “Too tiny for what? She’s deadly with her weapons.”
Val grinned and said, “Is she too tiny for your mighty weapon?”
I smile and said “Oh, that’s what you mean. No, she isn’t too tiny for making love. In fact, she’s quite nice. Um, we only had a few minutes, but we had a very nice time. And I hope that all of us can find time for love for all of us very soon.”
Val said, “Good. That’s more the kinds of things that we need to be talking about to take our minds away from our troubles. Ronin, was she shy?”
I said, “Shy? You mean when we made love? No. She wasn’t shy at all. Not at all. Apparently, Lucy had been teaching her for some time and Harmony was ready to put her training to the test right away.”
Val said, “I’m glad. I have always loved her. Delilah was different, but Harmony is so wonderful. Do you know what my one fear was when you came to the farm? It was that I would love you and find out that you wouldn’t take all of as mates together. I grew up in a house with just one mother, but I wanted to be with you, and you already had Dawn, so I didn’t know if you would have us all or not. I thought that you could be convinced eventually, and my father and mother were going to try, but I’m glad that you wanted us right away.”
I was carrying the last of the bodies to the spot near the tunnel now and we paused when we got there.
I said, “Can we see the cavern from the tunnel, or anywhere along from here to there? Val, I love you. When I got to the farm, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even think about having mates. But, as soon and your father put it in my head, and you acted like you would accept me, I was suddenly very interested. I had Dawn with me first, but you are the first woman who ever made love to me. Do you think that it’s safe to drag the bodies all the way to the hole without being seen?”
I looked back toward the hills, but I wasn’t sure that we couldn’t be spotted.
Val said, “I can’t be sure. Is it so important?”
I said, “I don’t want them to know that we have a tunnel and can come and go and get supplies. They probably know that this is where the rats came from, but they probably don’t know that it goes all the way to the other end of the fields. I wish that we could take time now and make love. Or at least hold each other. But I don’t think that we can.”
She asked, “Are you eager to have sex right now?”
I said, “Not eager. We would just enjoy it. But this isn’t the time, is it?”
Val smiled at me and said, “I’ll work something out for us a bit later. I know that we would all like some time together before much longer.”
We headed back toward our lookout post, being cautious as we went, in case any kobolds were waiting in the orchard. Harmony had assured us that none were there, but it was good for us to be careful. It was only a short walk and when we got there, we were surprised to see that Dawn was there, but Harmony was not.
When we got close enough, Dawn whispered, “They have been trying something new. Every minute or so another of them leaves the cavern and comes down here. They go to the camp and call back every few seconds to say that they are still alive. Harmony has gone to greet them. She hasn’t taken any action yet. But if she hears a signal from us, she will. She has come back twice to report. They are going to the camp first, and then sending some out to search for the bodies of the dead.”
I said, “They are said to be excellent trackers. If they take time to look carefully, they will see what we did with the bodies. We hid them from casual inspection, but if they decide to track us, they will find us and the bodies. Including the tunnel. How many are there in the orchard now?”
Dawn said, “Seven so far. The next one will come very soon.”
I said, “OK. If they are going to track us, let them. But we have to keep them from going back to the cavern to report what they find. And we can’t let them get to the tunnel. Dawn, you and I will shoot them as they get close to the pile of bodies. The closer, the better. I won’t have as far to carry them. Val, can you get to Harmony do you think?”
Val said, “I won’t have to. If I go that direction, she will come to me.”
I said, “True enough. Good. Tell Harmony that we want none of them to return to the cavern. The two of you make sure that none do. If you think that too many come at the same time, come and help Dawn and I. As long as they stay at the camp, let them gather as before. If they start to hunt for us, we will kill them as they come here. If they hunt you and Harmony, kill them out of sight of the others. But I think that they will try to find their dead before they look for the living. If any look like they would go back to the cavern, kill them.”
Val was sure that she would be fine, and started to move quietly toward the camp to let Harmony find her.
Dawn and I moved toward where the bodies were dumped. We arrived at almost the same moment that the first tracker did. He spotted the bodies and rushed to examine it, and dropped to the ground nearly on top of it with one of Dawn’s arrows in his brain. Two minutes later, the scene played out exactly the same way again. When the third one came, I put out my hand to cause Dawn to wait. The kobold bent over the two newly dead, and then moved to the larger pile. And then Dawn dropped him on top of it. Then they stopped coming. My hope was that they had sent three ahead to see what they could find and when those three didn’t return, they stopped trying.
Dawn and I approached the camp from the meadow side of the orchard, and in a few minutes, Harmony was with us.
I said, “What’s the report?”
Harmony said, “Two have tried to return. Neither made it. There are ten at the camp, and none of them know what has happened to either the ones who went this way, and I assume are dead, nor the ones who tried to go back to the hills.”
I said, “OK. Now, we let them go back and forth as they please. As long as they don’t know anything, we don’t care if they report it. And all they know right now is that those who go into the trees never come out and that those who stay in their camp seem safe. If they are still here at dark, they will get a taste of what kind of monsters now inhabit the orchards. Does Delilah have any knowledge of weapons? Or poisons? Will she recognize darts and things like that?’
Harmony said, “Delilah hardly knows her table knife from a long sword. And before you came, no one h
ad ever seen blowpipes or darts like we use.”
I said, “Did we use darts when she was with us? I don’t think that we did.”
Dawn said, “I don’t think so. Wait, we did use one. On her. She may not remember. But she might.”
I said, “I hope not.”
Chapter 5 - Another Night in the Orchards
The kobolds kept coming in a steady stream now. A few had gone and reported what they had found, and since then, the kobolds came in groups of two and three and four at a time. We kept our eye on them, and if any went to investigate toward the meadows, Harmony made them disappear and never return. As it started to get dark, and there were about sixty at the camp, if one wandered too close to the edge, Harmony, Val, or I would whisk away his life from the shadows. In this way, even though more appeared now and then, their numbers never went above sixty or so. We had to leave the bodies where they lay, because moving them would have made too much noise. Scouts returned to the cave now and then with what we assumed were reports that all was well, as long as they didn’t go out alone toward the north. And that seemed to bring fresh numbers every hour.
Eventually they stopped coming from the cave, and the ones that were alive started to settle in for the night. But they didn’t sleep well.
Just as they started to lie down, the girls and I surrounded the camp and started to fire the needle-like darts from our new pipes. The little darts apparently stung as they hit, and each time one did, the target slapped at it as if they had been stung by a wasp. As this continued, the camp broke out in what we could only imagine was Orcish cursing. We would fire from the darkness, hitting four or eight at a time at various points around there camp, and then stop for several minutes. We wanted them to think that they were being harassed by insects, not that they were under attack. And it seemed to be working. Several would curse, and then the attack would stop. We varied our shots so that not all four of us fired at the same time. And because we surrounded them, they didn’t know where the enemy was coming from. If one seemed to be looking for a threat from one direction, we hit him from the opposite. Some targets were hit more than once; we couldn’t know who we had hit and who we hadn’t. This went on for at least two and a half hours. At times we would shoot just one, and then wait. Sometimes we hit eight targets in quick succession. If there was no pattern to our attacks, then the kobolds had even less information about what was happening to them. The less information they had, the more false information they would make up to explain what they didn’t know.
In a way, I was feeling sorry for them. The others we had killed quickly and cleanly. These we pricked and tormented, and Val assured us that they would be quite ill by daybreak. This was war, but I didn’t especially like it. Now that we were committed to it, I regretted having done it. But my rationalization for our actions was that as far as we knew, there could be an overwhelming force of up to a thousand kobolds in the caverns, waiting for the command to come out and destroy both the village and the farm. If they all came at once, we would be doomed and the only ones who would escape would be the ones who ran faster than their neighbors. What I was doing seemed necessary, even if it was hideously unpleasant and distasteful. If there were another way, or even if I was the only one in danger, I wouldn’t have done it this way. No one from my clan would, except when absolute ruthlessness was the only way and mercy was a luxury that we could not afford.
Our survival depended on Delilah not sending out all of her troops at once. That’s why I had to contain her to the caves as quickly as we did. That’s why I had worked so hard to cause her minions to fear coming down; when they did, they disappeared. They were assassinated by silent and invisible spooks. Their bodies were never found. And yet, they knew, like Delilah did, that there were only four of us: a novice Adventurer Monk, a farm girl with healing skills, a newcomer who had been nearly dead a few days earlier, and worst of all, her sister, a tiny girl who wasted her days fighting a wooden log in the garden of the home that they had shared since their parents had died. It didn’t make any sense. Delilah sent companies of warriors that outnumbered us ten to one, and none of them ever came back. She had to assume that we were not the real threat. Delilah had no idea. Well, she might have several ideas, but I was sure that all of them were wrong. The truth would be devastating to us.
On the other hand, we didn’t know much more about her true situation. How many kobolds did she have? How strong was her control over them? How was her food supply? How long could they last within their caves without additional supplies? How committed was Delilah to her plan to slaughter the ‘peasants’ who had rejected her as their princess? Was there another way out of the caves that we should be concerned about? But mostly, everything else aside, how many of them were there?’
When we had done our task, and we thought that all of the kobolds had been hit, we waited a while and then gathered again out our outpost near the edge of the orchards. I left Dawn and Harmony there to watch, but before I left them, I asked Harmony to do one more thing. I wanted her to sneak up the hill and, if she could do it safely, kill the three guards that were usually at the cave mouth. She said that she could do it, but that she would be careful and give it up if she could not. I reminded them that we would let any kobolds go back and forth for the rest of the night without bothering them, but that if any moved outside the camp, into the orchards, that they should be dealt with. While she and Dawn stayed here, Val and I would go and I would haul away the bodies of the dead and deliver them to the tunnel entrance.
It only took a few minutes to reach the place where I had piled the dead kobolds earlier in the day, and each had to be moved just fifty feet. It took me a an hour, moving quietly in the darkness with Val keeping watch. When it was done, I went to see if there were messages or more supplies inside the tunnel. When I looked closely, I could see one of the men at the opening, motioning to me. He handed me more arrows, and some food, and asked if it was safe to take away the bodies. I told him that it was, and that Val and I would make sure of it while he and a few more worked beside him. Several men appeared and began dragging the dead into the tunnel where they could be taken away and disposed of. It took only ten minutes, and all of the bodies were gone. I thanked them for their bravery, and we left each other in the darkness.
Val and I found Dawn at the spot where we had left her. Harmony was on patrol, but she appeared beside us less than two minutes later. It was late, a bit after midnight, but we still needed to talk about our next plans. We sat on the ground, close to each other, and discussed what came next.
I said, “Girls, I don’t like doing it this way. But, I have given it a lot of thought and I can’t find an alternative that keeps both the village and the farm safe. I would rather kill quickly, and even painlessly if possible, but we are outnumbered hundreds to one, and we can’t fight them directly. What we are doing now is designed to cause confusion and fear among them. And to keep them fighting here, rather than against our friends and families. Val, what are the effects of the poisons we used tonight?”
She said, “They will want to sleep. They will not want to eat. They won’t want to move or fight. It is mostly a lethargy. Headache. At least for a human. A heaviness in the limbs. In some, it may cause nervousness, anxiety, and a short temper. Without an antidote, they won’t recover. It’s progressive. By morning, lethargy and irritability. By tomorrow night, extreme thirst and muscle ache. By the next morning, increasing symptoms as before. By the third day, depending on their constitution, coma and finally death.”
I said, “Not as bad as I was afraid of. Not pleasant, but not as bad as it could be. I still don’t like it.”
Dawn said, “But, it is far less than what would happen if they were able to get to the village and use our people for their food.”
I said, “True enough. It’s absolutely necessary, and I know it. It’s amazing that the four of us can do as much as we are. So, we let them go back and forth for a day and let them worry about what is happening to those who com
e here to the orchards. Harmony, what about the guards?”
She said, “I considered how to do it. I thought that you intended for them to die silently, with no indication of what killed them. But no matter what I did, there would have been blood and signs of how they died. In the end, I decided that since the manner of their death would be known, then we would make it a puzzle as much as we could and show them that they were not safe no matter what. I threw three of their own knives and all of them died as if they looked their assassin in the face. Did I do the right thing?”
I said, “Harmony, that was perfect. You know, that’s a good rule for all of us. If we can’t ask each other what we should do, we should pretend that we do. Ask what we think the other person would say if they were here. Say to yourself, ‘If Ronin were here and understood the situation, what would he want me to do?’ Harmony, if you do that, I can never complain about the decision that you make. If we do something that we knew the other wouldn’t want us to, then we might have a reason to discuss it. But if you say, ‘What would Ronin want us to do now, if he understood everything the way that I do?’, then I will always think that you did the right thing. Killing them, seemingly with their own weapons, was better than anything else I could have thought of in that circumstance.”
Harmony smiled at the complement and the confidence that I expressed in her.
I went on, “So, we let them go back and forth, but not outside their camp, into the orchards. Oh, the bodies are all gone already. The men were at the tunnel and took them away. All we have left are those in the area around the camp. We can let the kobolds find them if they want to. But, we shouldn’t let them carry any of them away. If any of them pick up a dead body, they should die by an arrow. Yes, let them see that taking away the bodies brings instant death to anyone who tries it.”
Dawn said, “Ronin, this is complex. But I see what you are doing. Everything we do adds to the confusion, fear, and discomfort of the kobolds. Let them see the dead, but kill them if they touch them. Let them see what happens if they cross our lines. Keep how the others died a mystery, but make it clear that touching those who are dead is deadly. And, keep it a secret what happens to the bodies afterward.”
The Edge of Harmony: The Guardian Maidens Book 2 Page 5
