Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  A horn caught their attention; Red and Blue Companies were returning. Starr tossed her rib aside. "No rest for me. I'm off to clear the other three walls."

  Both Rolf and Kroh began strapping on their armor. "Might as well go along," The Dwarf grumbled.

  Chapter Four

  An hour after full dark Dmitri called a council of war; attending were Captain Elkhart, Maximilian, and all the Badgers except Henri, who was asleep on Dmitri 's orders as the Wizard had expended his full store of magical energy and needed to rest and recover. Two-thirds of the defenders were likewise in their bedrolls as all that could be done had been accomplished, and the troops would need their strength for the next battle. The Direbreed's captured weapons had been either issued out or planted in the stake belts and the west ditch, and the kite shield barricades left on the field by the Direbreed had been gathered. The sapling trunks that had been fastened to the shields were cut into stakes and the shields themselves were planted upright on the west wall.

  Elonia, just back from an extended scouting of the outlying areas, briefed the group on what she had learned: the Direbreed were massing for another attack, on all sides this time.

  "No surprise there," Kroh muttered at the news, gesturing with the glowing tip of his cigar. "Main stroke will still come on the west. I'll kill at least..." He trailed off to a mumble at Starr's quieting pat.

  "Kroh's right, the main attack will come on the west," Dmitri nodded. "He and Rolf will stay there as anchors. Red Company will hold the west, Blue, less six men, will have the south, Green will have the north, six men from Gold will cover east, and Elonia and the six men from Blue will be in the center of camp as a reserve." He indicated the positions on a scale model of the fort that Kroh had made. "The brush in the west ditch is completely gone, although we've planted stakes and weapons throughout its length to compensate. North and south ditches still have most of their brush and some stakes; east's brush is intact, with thorns added. This is going to be the toughest attack because of the darkness, so keep everyone' spirits up and watch out for any breakthroughs. Everyone's helm and back will be coated in a flour paste for identification, so watch who you're hitting. Any questions?"

  "Why not hit 'em before they hit us?" Kroh rumbled, a murderous gleam in his eyes. "A little disruption would keep them from attacking before dawn."

  "You're right, but we can't risk the troops. I can't even spare you and Rolf."

  "Our main advantage," the Serjeant continued, "is the Direbreed's nature. They're newly Harvested and hard to control, and some of the Fists will be led by leaders who are only days old. By the time they climb the slopes and reach the ditches they'll be completely disorganized, just a mass of creatures."

  "Everyone needs to give the fight everything we've got, because if any one point goes we're in trouble. Elonia can plug only one hole at best, so a second break-through is sure defeat. I'm counting on you to set the example and hold the men in place." He paused to look at their faces. "That's all I've got. Get some rest."

  Carlex studied his preparations. A night attack with as inexperienced a force as his was extremely risky, but he felt he had no choice. His Darkhost had taken such a beating on the first attack that he had been forced to disband ten Fists to keep the others at decent strength, and to keep veterans in command of most of his Fists. Most, but not all, which was the reason for the night attack: wait much longer and some of the new leaders would take their Fists and leave.

  He was aware that the defenders had Threll scouts spying out his every move, but without skilled scouts of his own to screen his movements there was not much he could do about it, but just because they watched didn't mean they saw everything. He had created an ad hoc Arm by putting his best Fist-lord in charge of three Fists, each of the Fists having at least two other veterans to help them. This Arm was on the lower slopes now, set to hit the northeast corner once the attack was fully joined; a sharp blow at the right moment could open up the defense like a broken walnut. Let him get one organized Fist or twenty individual warriors inside that compound and it would all be over. And when he did take that compound, he vowed silently, any of the bastards captured in it would be a very long time dying. Very long, and very painfully.

  Nestled in a cool, grassy mound near the towers, Elonia nibbled a piece of cheese and waited for the attack. It was not the first attack she had ever waited for, nor her last, provided that her luck held. She had spent most of her adult life waiting for one thing or another, and was comfortable with it; this battle for the fort was just an annoying complication in her plans, a danger which must be ridden out to gain another square on the game board of her life.

  She caught sight of Dmitri moving amongst the sentries and smiled: he thought she was a woman with a past, but was wide of the mark. She was a Threll with a legacy and a purpose, a future of revenge and retribution.

  It had begun nearly two hundred years ago, in a minor encounter between the Direthrell and the Threll of the Light near the Larnax Forest in which a small group of Lanthrell were ambushed by a Direthrell raiding group. While the escorting warriors of the Lana Erin, or Forest Guard, battled the raiders, the noncombatants tried to flee back to the Forest. Two of those fleeing were Star Brightchild and her cousin (and best friend) Lonia Sunleaf. As the raiders closed in on them, Star hid Lonia and led the Dark Threll away from the place of concealment, ultimately being captured.

  Star was taken to Alantarn, a Direthrell fortress on the eastern edge of the Thunderpeaks, where she became a slave to her racial enemies. Alantarn's new Hold-Mistress, Clarevia, gave the slave to the Captain of her personal guard, Halradtic. Under Halradtic’s violent abuse Star became a mere shadow of herself, so much so that the guard Captain used her subsequent pregnancy as an excuse to cast her aside.

  But Star, teetering between hope and despair as she felt the life stirring within her, was not completely broken; the child within her gave her a cause to live for and, she hoped, a way for part of her to escape the Direthrell. Threll pregnancies are much longer than Human's; she put the time to good use, studying the organization of the massive slave apparatus within the fortress as the Dark Threll, handicapped by their low rate of birth, make extensive use of slaves and vassals.

  When she understood the system, she began to sing again, exercising the voice that had made her one of the most acclaimed song-weavers in the Forest. It did not take long for word of Star's abilities to reach the right ears, and she steadily moved up in the slave hierarchy. By the time her child, Elonia, was born, Star had accumulated a tidy store of influence. Elonia remained with her instead of being sent to a nursery for Nepas, or half-breeds, as soon as she was weaned; in fact, for the first twenty years of her life (although of mixed blood, Elonia was still a Threll, and did not reach adulthood for five decades) Elonia remained with her mother.

  When Elonia finally left her side Star saw to it that she was placed in an academy for gifted young Nepas and continued to see her child far more than was normal for slaves. During all their time together Star, besides loving her daughter, told the child of her beloved Forest, the heritage of the Lanthrell, how to hide her thoughts and feelings, the way power flowed through the Direthrell structure, and other information that would be vital in the future. Elonia did not always understand what she was told, but she memorized every word.

  Elonia had been slightly younger than Starr when her mother was executed along with a dozen other captive Lanthrell to atone for a Direthrell defeat. She was thirteen decades old now (equal to a Human woman in the prime of her life) and stilled burned for revenge. She had spent decades in Direthrell service, betraying them at every opportunity before slipping away; now she was on her way back to Alantarn to extract her mother's due.

  Moving surely despite the weak starlight she stripped the throwing knives from their sheaths and stowed them in her pack. In a large engagement they were of little value, and in poor light none at all. The two fighting nets, each folded precisely behind the scabbarded yataghans wo
rn angled for cross-drawing could remain. The oddly angled knives (actually close in length to short swords) also would remain, although she hoped not to be so desperate as to have to draw them. From her pack she took a pair of weapons, each consisting of a slender short sword blade with a pair of gently curving flanges flanking the blades, the whole cunningly fitted to studded bracers: manoples, the deadly dueling blades of Opatia, used by those hot-blooded idiots to resolve their endless feuds and excellent weapons in a wild, unstructured melee.

  Changing to a sleeveless tunic, she strapped the weapons on, smiling faintly as the bracers slid over old tattoos, now so faded as to be merely a hint of grime. Another of Star's deceptions, and perhaps the best: the tattoos, first applied not long after birth and carefully renewed until she was an adult, accurately imitated the skin-stains caused by Heller's Pox, a sexually-transmitted disease that could lie dormant in some victims. The Direthrell dreaded the Pox, and all dormant carriers were required to wear a green and scarlet scarf and were given a wide berth; Elonia had thus been spared the casual molestation that was the average child's lot in a Direthrell community.

  Maximilian gave a start as Kroh loomed out of the darkness, an animated boulder with the fiery stub of a cigar clenched in his teeth. "See any Minotaurs?" the scholar could see the flash of teeth as the Dwarf grinned.

  "Not yet, and hopefully not ever." He tried to grin and make it sound confident, but it came out closer to the stark truth. Behind the Waybrother he could see Rolf's shadowy form staring out at the brush line. "I couldn't sleep, so I relieved the guards."

  "Can't wait to have at 'em again, eh? I heard you bagged a harpy."

  "Well, yes, one," Maximilian was uncomfortable, knowing full and well that Kroh had cut down nearly a Fist's worth of Direbreed. "I finished off the Direbreed that injured Johann, too; he wounded it first, though."

  He expected a sneering comment, but the Dwarf only nodded. "Got to start somewhere. First fight and first kill are the worst." He slapped the sword at Maximilian's hip. "My Fuar forged that sword; my father was the master bladesmith about that time, like as not he had a hand in it." He hefted his axe thoughtfully. "A weapon like that, a weapon with a history, you got to live up to it, Human. Those what wielded it before you watch, you know."

  "I'll do my best," Maximilian promised to the Dwarf's back as he swaggered off without waiting for an answer. Rolf thumped his shoulder in a comradely fashion as he passed, following Kroh.

  The scholar returned to watching the brush line, absently fingering his sword hilt. "I will," he whispered to himself, thinking of Maximilian the First.

  The high-pitched notes of the Arturian hunting horn alerted the fort two hours before dawn as the sentries heard the unmistakable noise of the Fists moving into position. Men staggered, cursing, from their bedrolls, pulling on armor and grabbing weapons. The sentries had also tended the fires under the cook’s cauldrons so that each member of the little garrison got a few pints of hot soup after forming up in position. Leaders moved up and down the walls checking weapons, armor, and water flasks; Dmitri circulated as well, checking on the men and offered a confident word here and there. The defenders were blooded now, nerves taut as bowstrings but buoyed by the knowledge that they had survived an attack and that the Direbreed weren’t invincible.

  Silence, broken only by nervous coughs, brief, muttered conversations, and the soft noises of crossbows being cocked settled over the compound as the last men moved into position. On all sides the defenders could hear the sounds of the Direbreed moving forward, and it was apparent that the Fists climbing the slopes were degenerating into a mob of grumbling, bickering creatures. Incredibly violent, well-armed, and bloodthirsty creatures, it was true, but at least they would have no organization. The defenders dried sweating palms, muttered quick prayers, exchanged a last comment with a comrade, and nervously hefted a weapon, hoping for reassurance in the familiar weight. The battle, all were painfully aware, was mere seconds from being joined.

  The deep bellow of the Darkhost's battle horn was followed by a surging wave of howling that erupted out of the darkness to strike the defenders like a physical blow. Only half-heard over the din of Direbreed battle-cries was the sound of the beast-men crashing through the brush and the Arturian horn's clarion call ringing out in defiance.

  Henri raced along the west wall, pausing three times behind embedded kite shields to tap the center boss, muttering; each time a brilliant glow sprang from the shield, a light bright enough to reveal the Direbreed bursting into the cleared ground. Finished, he sprinted to his post as some of his men fired burning bolts into the carefully positioned oiled bundles outside the walls, each bundle having been dusted with flour to aid aiming; the rest opened fire on the Fists spilling towards the west wall.

  The lights gravely hampered the attackers as the Direbreed were fully illuminated but their foes were behind the lights and completely invisible. Battered by Gold company's archers, the biggest concentration of Direbreed belabored by another magical sandstorm that dissipated all control over three Fists, the attack on the west reached the ditch and surged to the lip of the rampart, only to stall and disintegrate into a dozen smaller fights.

  On the other three walls the pattern was similar: disorganized bunches of Direbreed spilled into the open and charged upslope into a hail of rocks and a few crossbow bolts, losing their momentum in the stake belts and brush-choked ditches. All four walls were engulfed in fighting, but nowhere did there seem to be too great a threat. Elonia sent three of her men to help the hard-pressed west wall, and Henri spent the last of his energy in brilliant beams of light, cutting down standard bearers to the north and south.

  Starr detected it first; she had been darting back and forth sending her arrows whipping into any group of Direbreed still trying to reach the rampart, and was proud that, despite a great deal of running back and forth Green Company was holding it's wall unaided. Then high-pitched bone whistles caught her sensitive ears above the din, drawing her attention to the threat: off to her left she saw a solid block of Direbreed burst into the cleared ground and make for the northeast corner at a steady trot. Instinctively she drew and released: a beast-man stumbled and fell out of the formation, which swept onward. As she drew another arrow from her half-empty quiver she saw the three standards above the mass and cursed; three Fists under good control, obviously reformed from the climb upslope while the others attacked. Releasing the shaft with her usual deadly aim, she carefully tossed bow and quiver into the compound. With two fingers in her mouth she whistled sharply three times and headed for the threatened corner, strapping her buckler in place. Her sword Snow Leopard leapt into her hand as she warned what members of Green Company were nearby.

  "At least Henri heard," she mumbled as bolts whistled overhead to meet the block of beast-men. As the first Fist entered the stake belt she rapped her knuckles on the inlaid silver filigree on the inside rim of her buckler, muttering an arcane word as she did so. Immediately the center boss of her shield glowed with an intensity that was painful to the eye; Starr had been very fortunate in the division of captured spoils over the last year, but she feared that much of her enchanted items would not survive the battle. "For Larnax and Clan!" she screamed as she closed.

  Sweeping her buckler to blind her foes, she struck again and again, using speed and full-arm thrusts to make up for her shortness of reach, trying to ignore the savage jolting her left hand took as each stroke struck home. Lungs heaving like bellows, she darted back and forth holding twenty feet with just one other warrior. Then Maximilian was beside her, roaring his family name and hewing for all he was worth, and the press eased for a few moments.

  Then the man on her left spun away clutching a shattered chest and a hulking Direbreed with an elk's face scrambled onto the rampart, a bloody axe in hand. The young Threll darted in, flashing with her shield and thrusting at the creature's legs; with the odd detachment born of battle she noted the weird pendant the creature wore and guessed it led a Fist. Wh
atever its position, if she did not force it back others would gain the wall behind it and the compound would fall.

  The beast-man must have seen her manipulating her shield however, and ducked away from the light, feinting with its axe and then striking with a mace she had not seen. Starr managed to parry the blow, but the impact numbed her right arm and caused the buckler's light to flicker and die. She swore: the Fist-lord's two weapons negated any advantage she gained from being left-handed. Shifting her stance, she lunged in, catching an axe blow on her already-damaged buckler and twisting so the mace's strike only raked her armor. Her thrust was short and only an inch or so of blade entered the Direbreed's side, but Snow Leopard lived up to its name: a wave of intense cold swept out from the wound, literally freezing the blood in the creature's heart; the Leopard’s Kiss was what she called this useful attribute.

  Starr head-butted the dying creature in the chest, knocking it back into those trying to scramble up behind it, and cut down another almost on the rampart. She wished her sword could deliver the Leopard's Kiss at every attack, but it would be most of a day before she could do it again. Shouting to her left caught her attention: at the very corner of the wall Direbreed were swarming over the now-undefended ramparts.

  Elonia had heard Starr's whistle; from her perch halfway up a tower (next to a dead harpy) where she had been sniping with her crossbow she saw the three Fists begin their charge and alerted Henri. Then she leapt down and gathered her three remaining men, leading them to a point a dozen yards from the corner. It would do no good, she felt, to add four to either wall's defenders; the force, a newly-formed Arm it appeared, were ably led and would simply slide up and down the wall until a weak spot could be found. Better to wait for the breakthrough and then counterattack, shattering the enemy’s hopes just as they were raised the highest.