Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Six days after they had arrived Bridget led Arian, Janna, Roger, Elonia, Johann, and Henri off to investigate Beydar's Way. The little raiding group slipped out well before dawn through a sally port opened by an officer of the City Watch who had served with Dmitri years ago. They were clear of the city and its environs well before anyone noticed.

  Kustar Pravas copied the decoded message into the master message log and into the duplicate message log which would eventually be sent to her superiors. While the ink dried she burned the strip of rice paper from the pigeon's leg-case and the scrap of paper on which she had done the decoding. A notation went into the sending agent's status book to record a contact, and then the three books and the code scroll were carefully tucked into the heavy lock-box. Plucking a mouse from a wicker basket, she set it on the box's crusty lid and smoothly lopped its head off, activating the protective sigils that defended the lock-box from intrusion.

  Yawning, she stretched languidly and propped her booted feet up on her desk; leaning backwards, she caught the neck of a wine bottle from the cabinet behind her and filled a glass taken from a desk drawer. Her work place was a crude room in a cellar just big enough for her desk, two chairs, a large cabinet, mouse-cage, and the lock box, but it was from here that she controlled over twenty agents scattered along the Bloody Road.

  Besides keeping tabs on the traffic on the Imperial Highway her little station served as a relay point for packages and messages for stations further west and acted as a liaison with the Cave Goblins in the area who historically had allied themselves with her dark masters. Kustar was a Nepas, a half-breed (Direthrell-Human) in the service of the Direthrell, holding the rank of Chora, or petty-Captain, in the dreaded Pargaie, or spy corps, of the Direthrell nation of Arbmante. Arbmante held the southeast corner of Alhenland, its holdings due south of their deadly foes the Hand of Chaos, although Kustar’s superiors were based at Alantarn, Arbmante’s isolated stronghold in the eastern fringes of the Thunderpeaks where the mountain chain met the northwest corner Blasted Plans.

  She was young for her rank and position, all the more so for being a half-breed, roughly in what would be her early thirties for a full-blooded human, but her burning ambition, lack of moral inhibitions in accomplishing her goals, quick intelligence, and personal strength of will had marked her at an early age as a comer in her service. Years of efficient service, petty intrigue, covert assassination, and careful toadying had moved her further up the ladder of power within Arbmante’s intelligence branch than most of her contemporaries.

  She sipped her wine, absently running a comb through the wavy black hair that spilled in an inky halo about her pale, delicately-boned features. A little sun would have done her some good, she knew; living in a cellar was not her first choice for accommodations, but using the site was ordained by her masters. ‘Who would show any interest in the burned-out ruins of a religious retreat abandoned for nearly fifteen decades?’ was their way of thinking. A slight frown creased the ivory skin above her large, expressive dark eyes at the thought of an intelligence station that had been in one place for fifteen years, but one of the great failings of the Pargaie was the bureaucratic inflexibility it quickly settled into during the good times, which inevitably led to serious problems when trouble came.

  Finishing her wine, she glowered at the mass of routine paperwork that was stacked on her desk; although important, secrecy demanded that her station be staffed by a bare minimum, which these days meant four guards and her personal slave. She had been agitating since she was assigned here to be authorized a clerk, but to no avail. Kustar felt that it was ridiculous that the agents in the field had to operate under such conditions while every minor bureaucrat back at Alantarn had a platoon of clerks and a dozen loyal bodyguards at their beck and call. She was expected to keep tabs on everything and pull off every special assignment perfectly with nothing more than her wits and four surly half-Orc Thane guards who had been assigned here as punishment, and who were almost as much of a threat to her own safety as any follower of the Eight. Considering the treatment of those out at the cutting edge of things it often amazed her that the forces of the Light hadn't rolled up the Direthrell long ago.

  Sighing, she picked up her pen and worked diligently, if unenthusiastically, on the reports for the better part of an hour. They were deadly dull and for the most part useless. While the concept of keeping an eye on what was passing through major traffic points was a valid and essential one, it seemed to her that over the years that this watch had been maintained, the reason for it had been lost until just the act remained. She was allowed no discretion in what she reported of the traffic; her masters wanted to know everything that passed down that road, not just those items that could possibly be of interest. They said that such detail was so that secret patterns could be sniffed out, but Kustar thought that was hogwash: the reports from her station and those watching the Ascendi ports produced such a volume of paper that it would be only by blind chance that any secret pattern could be deduced, if in fact anyone was looking. Most likely the entire exercise was a ploy to gain an easy promotion from somebody back in Alantarn.

  Still, policy was policy, and she went at it with a will, if no enthusiasm. Entries regarding a preliminary report that Cave Goblins had wiped out a caravan carrying a cargo of Sagenhoft porcelain midway between mile markers seventeen and eighteen on the Imperial highway, that a Dwarven group was seen panning for gold along a stream near mile marker twenty-two, and that a scholar or wandering magician had passed from west to east escorted by a mercenary company possibly known as the Mist-Weasels or Ferrets required follow-up reports, and elicited a moaning sigh from the intelligence officer.

  The first entry would require checking with her Goblin contacts to see who had done it and if they had gotten anything interesting; she could get the second cleared by them as well, although that rumor cropped up about every six months. Even if it were true, Goblins knew better than to try and steal gold from Dwarves; sooner steal cubs from a rabid mother bear. The third entry was just as unimportant as the others, but her masters insisted in no loose ends, so she pulled down a bound register of known mercenary companies and ran through the listings, looking for likely companies. She worked her way through a third of the book and noted three whose name could tie in with the garbled title she had been given: the Ghost Wolves, the Phantom Badgers, and the Reavers of the Mist, although the latter was listed as missing in action after a foray north of the Emperor's Ward last fall.

  Replacing the book on the shelf with strips of parchment marking the likely candidates, she shook her head at the wasted time. The report could wait for now, as it was obvious that a handful of sell-swords escorting some would-be wizard could hardly have any bearing on the empire she served. Taking up her pen, she carefully closed out the last of the monthly reports.

  Having put a dent in the pile, she dried her pen, sanded the last signature, and stretched. It was time to look after her coop, which was another of her complaints: with no enchanted communication authorized for this station, pigeons were her primary means of communication. A trained slave to tend the coop and exercise the birds should be assigned, in her opinion, to lighten the burden on the station's one intelligence officer. But at least it got her out of this hole now and then.

  Her sword belt was looped over the other chair; automatically she strapped it on and eased the weight about until the hilt rode just so. Thanes were non-Direthrell who willingly entered Direthrell service, usually renegades and vermin; the numbers-poor Direthrell used the riff-raff to bolster their ranks, and the more intelligent and trustworthy as low-level officers. These guards that Kustar had were of the riff-raff; she had commanded Thanes of this quality several times over the years and had learned the hard way to never turn her back on them, or to ever approach them unarmed or unwary: make one slip around them and she would be stripped and tied to a bunk before you could say mutiny. Reporting such an incident to her superiors would, she knew, result in a negative view of her
, not her troops, as to be assaulted by your own guards would be interpreted as an inability to command. A Nepas or even a reliable Thane assistant to watch her back was another luxury that headquarters had deemed too costly for this station.

  Checking through the spy port first, she unbarred the door and stepped out, alert, but no one was in the dank hallway. She carefully locked the door behind her and made her way out of the narrow warren of rooms built into what had once been the retreat’s cellars to her coop, cunningly hidden in a tangle of ivy on one of the still-standing surface walls, stepping out briskly for the sheer joy of activity.

  After mucking out the coop and seeing to the birds' water, seed, and cuttle shell she decided to take a break; the summer days in the mountains were lovely and this one was particularly nice. Using the ivy, she climbed up one of the taller remnants of the outer walls and made herself comfortable. Years of experience let her relax and enjoy the sunshine while remaining alert; if her service to her dark masters taught her nothing else, it had shown her that an attack could come from any direction at any time.

  Sighing, she wished she had brought the bottle of wine with her, or something stronger, but she was too comfortable to go and fetch it, and her personal slave would be in her quarters attending to Kustar’s household chores. She had been station commander here for just over two years with another ten months to go before she was routinely replaced, a three-year stint in such living conditions being about all anyone could stand and maintain effectiveness. At the end of her tour she would travel to Alantarn, tender her final report and enjoy a month’s leave before her next assignment, the nature of which would be based largely on the effectiveness of her service at this station.

  Her next assignment was not a subject of much speculation: it would be a good one, if the next ten months ran as smoothly as the rest of her assignment her had been; the exact position would depend on the conditions facing the Direthrell at the time. Alantarn, amongst other roles, was the primary hub for all of Arbmante’s Pargaie operations in the west, the clearinghouse of all data and the ultimate controlling site for all assets; she could count on an assignment that would put her at the cutting edge yet once again, a place where careers were made or broken.

  Instead of wondering where her career would lead, Kustar amused herself with what had become her favorite subject over the last year: plotting the entertainments she would indulge in during her month-long leave in the fleshpots of Alantarn with three year’s pay burning a hole in her pockets. The thirty-two day leave would be a dedicated practice of every excess she could manage, she promised herself; she would plumb the depths of depravity early on and stay there until her time or gold ran out.

  She would have been caught if it were not for the amulet, laying there on the ruined wall dreaming about being in a waist-deep tub of hot water with a bottle of Navian aquavit and two nubile girl-slaves, or perhaps a young boy and a young girl. Nestled between her full breasts on a thin silver chain was a ugly little lump of gray-blue iron stamped with two oddly-twisted runes; since she had been issued the device the only indication that it had any special proprieties was that it didn't rust or tarnish no matter how long she had been wearing it. Now a wave of pain swept across her body from the lump of iron; a heartbeat passed, and the wave returned. The second time she realized that the pain ran outward from the amulet to cover an arc on her right side from the base of her neck to her bottom rib; that was to indicate that magic was being used in that general area, and the intensity of the pain was supposed to give an idea of the distance, but Kustar didn't worry about that as the item was short-ranged, and the pain radiated towards the center of Baydar's Way and her little station. Given the direction she didn't have to be a master of the visionary arts to figure out that a raid was afoot, and that her very primitive security was compromised.

  For a moment she hesitated, but for a moment only. Obviously the spell had been used to insure that her sentry's death was silent, so no doubt the intruders were already inside the ruins. The enchantment on the locked box should safeguard the secret material and the rest would have to be written off. The thing to do now was to escape, and later start working on a good story for her masters.

  Easing over the far side of the wall, she used the ivy to slow her descent as she slid down the crumbling stonework. They would see where she had climbed down, but all she needed was a hundred yard's head start and they would never catch her; she had made plans against such a day. Slipping into the brush, she paused to remove an oilskin-wrapped throwing star from her belt; carefully unwrapping it, she checked to make sure that the quills were still blue and the points sharp. Satisfied, she slipped it between her fingers and began easing her way to the escape point.

  They had sent scouts to cover the back of the ruins to catch anyone escaping; but for the amulet's warning, they would have found her still lying on the wall. Creeping as quietly as she could, she watched for landmarks and tried to hurry: there were two sentries and in moving to meet up they had unwittingly gotten her in a pincer.

  Stopping to listen, she cursed. The escape point was sixty yards away and they were closing from either side. Her options were varied but poor: double back towards the ruins and try to circle around them, rush the escape point, hide and wait for them to leave, or kill them both. With only seconds to work with she discarded stealth or hiding as her woodcraft was rusty, and more might show up. Killing them both was out: they were separated and alert. Setting her feet, she took several deep breaths and wished she hadn't spent so much time cramped in that damned hole.

  She exploded out of the brush, running but not racing full-out as that would have robbed her of any control and made tripping far too likely. To her left she saw a human male step out of the bushes leveling a crossbow; without thinking she hurled her star and ducked. She heard a yelp of pain and the crossbow release, and then was past, arms pumping. Behind and to her right she heard an angry yell and then something slapped her on the left shoulder blade; she felt warmth and wetness on her back and knew she was wounded.

  "Just...a...little...further...now," she gasped to herself. A detached part of her mind recorded the fact that the man had been wearing leather armor and some sort of unit badge on his right arm. Professionals, then.

  The bastards.

  Janna and Roger had led the attack, rushing the sentry after the silence spell was in place and then cutting down the three half-Orcs in the crude little barracks. The excitement seemed to do them both good, and Elonia was glad to let them go at it; fighting was not a big priority in her life, just winning.

  The horn from the rearguard startled everyone; Bridget ordered Janna, Roger, and Henri to check it out, told Elonia to search the little inhabited area in detail, and stood guard over the cringing slave-servant.

  There wasn't much to search: the outpost consisted of a barracks room for the four guards, Thanes from their insignia; a kitchen area, a storeroom that also served as sleeping quarters for the slave, the commander's sparse bedchamber, and the commander's work area; only the latter two really needed searching. The bedchamber yielded up the information that the Pargaie officer in charge of this station was a Nepas female with a healthy dose of vanity and a strong (and wise) distrust of her own guards.

  Roger had kicked open the door to the work area while searching for more guards to kill; moving fast, Elonia checked to make sure she was unobserved before sifting quickly through the papers on the desk, then moved on to the drawers. Not finding what she wanted, she regarded the bloody lock box for a moment and then turned to the cabinet. Inside, in the second wicker document pannier she found the files she was looking for. Carefully checking again to see that she was alone, she removed several documents from the files and replaced them with ones from one of her belt pouches and added a sealed package; any watcher would have been shocked to see several pounds of paperwork drawn from, and hidden within, what appeared to be an ordinary wide-mouthed belt pouch. The container was enchanted so as to be able to hold the same volum
e of material as a good-sized chest with virtually no felt weight; the pouch’s proprieties were only one of many secrets she kept from the rest of the Company. A quick double-check insured that all was as she wanted it to be, and she headed back to meet the others.

  They were just returning as she rejoined Bridget. Arian, face haggard, stamped in, followed by a muddy Janna.

  "Johann's dead," the monk announced angrily. "I lost the bitch who did it."

  "Went down an escape hole," Janna put in. "A sinkhole connecting with a underground stream. The killer climbed down a knotted rope and then used another line to untie it before we could catch up. From the signs, there was a little skiff down there, probably had food, clothes, weapons, and money stashed in the boat. She was long gone by the time I got down the hole, but whoever it was, was leaking blood. Arian got a shot at them."

  "Her," Elonia put in. When the others looked at her she explained. "Kustar Pravas, a petty-captain in the Direthrell Pargaie. Her signature is all over the paperwork in the office back there."

  "She didn't look like a Threll, Dark or otherwise. Looked mostly human," Arian's voice shook with anger and anguish. “Wasn’t all that tall, and was too broad-boned.”

  "She wasn't Direthrell, she was a Nepas, a halfbreed. Probably had a Human parent. The Direthrell make extensive use of non-Threll servitors, the half-Orc guards and half-Goblin servant, for example,” Elonia kept her voice carefully neutral as it wouldn’t do for the Badgers to spend too much time pondering Threllish cross-breeding.