Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Consuming alcohol on missions in the field was forbidden by the Badgers as the mercenaries were inevitably outnumbered in any significant engagements they fought, and drunkenness was simply another strike against them in the figuring of the odds. Kroh was the sole exception to the rule as the change to mad blood-rage that came over him in combat would overcome any effects of strong drink short of complete drunkenness, and because alcohol mellowed his otherwise unpredictable temper.

  Running his stubby fingers over the shaft of his axe, Kroh murmured the names engraved on the rings, and their manners of death. After this mission, he promised himself, he would go back to the Guardian Halls for a few months, meet with the Brethren, chant the old ballads, see the old trophies and the new loot. It would be good to see his friends, find out who was where, who had died and how, who had achieved greater glory and security for their race. Being a Guardian of the Way was more than belonging, it was what he was. Kroh did not just believe the Brotherhood’s tenants, he lived them, and they lived in him. You no more joined the Guardians then you became a Dwarf: life made you a Waybrother, or it didn't. There was no other way. Either you had the fire burning within you or you didn't.

  The fire always burned hot within Kroh, for as long as he could remember. Some of his earliest memories were of the big Cave Goblin raids that had claimed his sister's life, cut down right in front of him. He would have died, too, if his mother had been a second slower with her war hammer. That had been when he was a child, equal to a five-year-old Human. He had buried his mother when he was the equivalent of nine to a Human, and too many more since. All Dwarves were fighters from the day they could hold a weapon, with varying degrees of involvement from the mothers who only fought if the nurseries were breached to the professional warriors of the Clanguard, but for Kroh, there had been only one direction: to the best of the best, the Guardians of the Way, the warrior brotherhood who represented the very epitome of Dwarven warriorhood.

  Never again would he wait in fear for the foe; the Waybrothers sought out the enemy on their home grounds and waged war on them there, killing them far from the sacred halls of the Dwarven clans. That had been the substance of his life since adulthood and the first level of Guardianship: seeking out the enemies of Dwarvenkind, and slaying them. He had gained experience and battle-lore over the years that augmented his fighting abilities, and advanced in rank and status within the Guardians. It was a good life, and his had been a longer one than most Waybrothers experienced.

  Being in the Phantom Badgers had made it even better. Kroh had a Dwarf's need for order and belonging and the Badgers were a good substitute for Fuar and Hold while in the field. They also got him into the thick of things, which was where a Waybrother needed to be, right there out in the middle of it all, killing the foes of Dwarvenkind, but not in this blasted rain, by the Eight, he growled and shook his head.

  Movement caught his eye and dragged him a bit out of his brooding and misery. A moment later Starr and Bridget, both armor-less and soaked to the skin, slid in behind his tree, grinning like a pair of idiots.

  "What's so funny?" the Dwarf growled, rubbing a streak of mud from Starr's forehead with a tattooed paw.

  "Oh, nothing," Bridget murmured, causing the two to collapse into convulsive giggling.

  The Waybrother sourly shook his head. Sometimes being in the Badgers wasn't so good, too. "If you're done, let's head back."

  Slogging through the ever-present rain, which at least had lessened to a steady drizzle, Kroh eyed the quick glimpses of Starr as she scouted ahead. He wished she would take it more seriously, scouting and such. This was too dangerous a business for such a young one, anyway, no matter how competent she was, and he often worried about her. She was so little and pretty...like his sister had been. He shook his head. No point in thinking about that. Besides, there was nothing Dwarf-like about Starr, either in form or in personality; she was a proper young Lanthrell, and there was nothing wrong in that. Dwarves and Threll were never on too close of terms as peoples, cloistered as they were in two completely different climes, but they shared similar foes and that was enough to maintain tenuous bonds. Kroh had never really gotten to know a Lanthrell before joining the Badgers, and only two since then, but he felt Starr was different, though; her being a Threll had nothing to do with how he felt about her.

  Like a daughter, sort of, he guessed, if he had had a wife to have a daughter by. Or a sister, maybe. Gertria had had blonde hair, he recalled, and then crushed the memory. He shrugged and trudged on, turning his mind to arguments he planned to use to demand that they have a campfire tonight.

  As it turned out there was no need for argument: Durek had them breaking camp after listening to the scouts’ reports, and two hour's forced march brought them to a snug cave that Dmitri had located the day before. Morale, which had begun to wilt under the miserable weather, definitely perked up at the prospect of a night of sleeping dry, a hot meal, and a roaring bonfire to dry out everything from clothes to saddles.

  Giving up lighting the sodden tabba in his pipe as a fool's errand, Durek leaned back against the stone and put away his tinderbox. The Badger's new camp was a deep horizontal notch under a granite cliff, the narrow cave fifty feet long, twenty feet deep, and seven feet high on the average, although the Humans had to watch their heads when moving around underneath.

  The Badgers bustled about at their tasks: Rolf and Roger were stringing picket lines for their mounts, Arian was building a fire pit, Kroh was dragging in wood, Henri was using a simple spell to dry out the surface inches of a torso-thick deadfall, Bridget and Dmitri were pounding spikes in the ceiling to hang saddles and tack for better drying, Starr was out patrolling the area, Janna was choosing the best points for sentries, and Elonia and Maxmillian were using fresh pine branches to clear away cobwebs and ground litter. He himself was doing what a Captain was supposed to do: think, plan, and ponder. You can't lead and do chores both; a commander needed time to work things out so that the unit had a direction and a purpose.

  And their purpose at this point was to defeat in detail and loot a caravan that was currently the possession of the Hand of Chaos, dark travelers in evil whom the Badgers had fought before, and undoubtedly would fight again. From experience the Dwarf did not expect an easy time of it. They did have several advantages, so far: the caravan did not know they were nearby so the first attack would have a good degree of surprise, although the caravan guards were veterans who would not be taken in completely at any time; they had information from the captured Golden Serpent papers and two day's observations to get an accurate count and estimation of the enemy force, and the battles would be fought at times and places of his choosing. The terrain favored them as well: smoothly rolling foothills liberally coated with scrub oak and thickets of dense brush that pressed in close to the narrow track the Hand were following: prime ambush country, made all the better by the Hand being burdened with road-bound wagons.

  On the negative side was the force they faced, the size of which had been an unpleasant surprise. The caravan consisted of ten wagons, each drawn by four pairs of oxen, with a half-dozen beasts in reserve, led by a Human caravan master whose bodyguard were a half-dozen Sevenguard, a Bloodweaver, or cult priest, two novice assistants, and twelve armed drivers. The escort was an Orc Urchek, or captain, with his five heavily-armed bodyguards, commanding an Urtala, or company, of three Tala for a total of forty-seven Orcs. Three scribes and five slaves, all unarmed, rounded out the force, with eight mastiff war dogs giving them an added element of security at night.

  Twenty-two Humans, three of whom were spell-casters, and forty-seven Orcs made for long odds even given the high quality of the Badgers under his command. Worse, the cultists and Orcs were well armed and equipped. Their primary weaknesses were being tied to the slow wagons, a lack of mounts (no Goblin wolf-riders, and only ten horses), and a shortage of missile weapons. The Orcs had a few simple short bows in each Tala, but Durek knew from experience that they were hardly a preferred w
eapon. Throwing clubs and javelins were in evidence, but these lacked the range of the Badger's bows and crossbows even in this bushy country. The range, that is, should the rain not ruin all their bowstrings, he reminded himself; weather was ever a consideration on the battlefield.

  Although few, it was the human bodyguards who worried him. The Sevenguard, as they were called by their foes, were members of the Sicaria Turba, or elite warrior societies within the Hand of Chaos. There were seven Councils, or Colos, as they were called, within the larger framework of the Sicaria Turba, each Council with its own doctrines, combat style, and mores. Each Colo was different, but all were well armed, well trained, and fanatical; it was from their ranks that the andern-enhanced Champions were chosen. The term Sevenguard was derived from their insignia, as all seven Colo had seven devices of some sort depicted in their individual insignia. These six were from the Colo Rubor, the Red Guard, who fought as medium cavalry and whose charges were legendary for their intensity.

  He had considered subterfuge, but had decided against it. It had worked with the Serpent, and hopefully would work when dealing with the Felher and Direthrell, but was not appropriate for this situation, even as the basis for an ambush. Nor could they do it in a single stroke; there would be plenty of fighting before they were done. Far too much, he was afraid.

  "One last time," Durek surveyed the grim faces around him as he prepared to go over the plan again. It was his long-time policy that any sort of rehearsing, even if just reviewing the plan over and over, paid off once the fight started. Amazingly, it had stopped raining shortly after they had left their new camp for a punishing hour's hard ride to get into position, and had not resumed, although the sky overhead still roiled with pregnant masses of gray clouds.

  "They're heading for their night camp site. We hit them after they've moved in and begin setting up; experience shows that anyone is most vulnerable at that point, and these undisciplined types most of all. We'll be split into three groups. Assassin group is commanded by Bridget, and consists of her and Elonia; Assault group is commanded by me, and consists of myself, Dmitri, Janna, Roger, Kroh, and Rolf; Archery group is commanded by Arian, and consists of him, Starr, Maxmillian, and Henri. A deer carcass was left in the area yesterday after being dragged around; it should distract the dogs so that we can get in as close as we need."

  "The area itself is a nice flat meadow about two hundred paces across, bordered by the trail to the north, a stream to the south, and scrub oak everywhere else. The scrub will make approaching and retreating easier for us, if we're careful. Bridget."

  The dark-haired priestess ticked off the points with muddy fingers. "The Bloodweaver, we know, likes to stretch his legs and use the latrine in privacy, usually as soon as they halt for the night. Assassin group will ambush him when he leaves the clearing; we will try for some of his Sevenguard escort as well if the opportunity presents itself. Assault group will attack the west side of camp, killing anything that moves, especially leaders and dogs. Hit and then run. Archery group will take up positions along the south, and aim for the two junior spellcasters, the caravanmaster, the Orc Urchek, and dogs, in that order of importance. All groups pull back once the Orcs figure our locations and try to close.”

  The Captain nodded. “This is just the first blow, people. We don't need any heroes today, or any glorious stands. We just draw some blood and then run."

  "No Company or rank badges, no insignia of any kind. All distinctive weapons need to be covered in mud, and no throwing your axe, Kroh. Rolf will carry a broadsword we took off the Thane guards at the temple and plant it in one of the Orcs for them to find afterwards, just to sow a little confusion. Any questions?"

  There weren't; it wasn't the first time they had gone over the finished plan, but he asked anyway. You never missed a chance to improve things for yourself; in fact, he had always thought of that as the Phantom Badger's creed.

  Merak Sulfensader worked his shoulders and sighed to himself as he slogged through the wet grass to another cold, slick-rocked stream, guards in tow. Riding was not something he did happily or well; even after all these weeks he still wasn't fully adjusted to it. There were a lot of things in his new life that he hadn’t adjusted to so far, such as the company of Orcs, the casual treatment of his position, the hardships of caravan life. He had thought to quit the intrigues and stifling structure of the Hand's holdings in the Dark Lands for the independence and opportunity for reputation-building on the frontier, but so far it had amounted to a great deal of privation and discomfort, and no glory. The stout priest of the Dark One sighed again, immersed in self-pity, as he lowered himself onto a small boulder and began rinsing the mud from his boots preparatory to pulling them off.

  Zerren, the caravan master, had been nagging him for hours to perform rituals of locating to settle his worries that they were being hunted by some unknown agency, as if he had power to spare! The dolt had simply no idea how difficult it was to renew oneself properly: Merak was a practitioner of Furue Saserum, called the Blood Arts by the followers of the Eight as the recovery of expended magical energies was accomplished through the torture and death of living creatures. Even for one as low in the ranks of Power as he it would take a serious blood sacrifice to fully recover his energy once it was spent on such a task, and Zerren firmly refused to part with his slaves or even a dog. Rabbits and such small creatures as could be trapped during the hours of darkness (which was the only time this damned caravan halted) were usually enough to replace what little strength he expended each day in basic sensing skills, but wouldn’t suffice for anything beyond maintenance. Small wonder that the puny fools who followed the Eight called he and his ilk names with 'blood' in them, for it was only by spilling blood could they renew their ability to wield enchantments.

  He had even been forced to rely upon his slicker as protection against the rain, rather than the simple spell that would have kept him warm and dry. Merak's face creased in indignation at the thought. No one had warned him of this; indeed, since he had been out here he had learned that there were adepts who had not felt full Powers for months at a time due to the incessant demands of the fighting types and the ever-present dangers to be found this close to the lands of the Eight.

  No danger of that for him, of course; save for the tiny drain of a parasite bane and three day's protection from rain, a luxury he no longer afforded himself, he held as full measure of the Power as he was capable of handling. And by the seven-fingered hand of the Dark One he was going to keep that power until there was a visible and real danger to warrant their usage, or until he had sacrifices on hand to replenish himself with, no matter how much Zerran ranted.

  Focused on the problems besetting him and his senses dulled by the relief of being off that self-propelled torture rack of a horse, Merak didn't decipher the distant, tooth-numbing tingle caused by spell-weaving as a threat for a vital second and a half. Snapping abruptly back to the matters at hand, he flung his hands to chest level (sending his saddlebags arcing into the stream), words of warding on his lips.

  They died unspoken along with their speaker as the fiery rings swept in and snuffed the life from his body.

  Henri lay on the wet grass, each breath of breeze sending another wave of cold drops pattering down from the wet branches of the scrubby trees overhead. Lying there, the young magician tried to ignore the cold and wet, the better to concentrate on the ebbs and flows of arcane power in the area. As he waited for the distinct feel of spell casting that would signal Bridget's attack upon the blood-priest, he surveyed the clearing across the stream, carefully settling two lead sling bullets into his left hand.

  The caravan had moved into its night-camp with the speed that spoke of long practice. Rather than risk bogging his wagons on the rain-softened grass of the meadow, and also seeing no reason to ruin good grazing under the iron-bound rims of his wheels, the caravan master had the first five wagons pull off the rutted track to one side, and had the second half of the caravan pull alongside on the oppo
site shoulder. The Orcs could sleep under one set of wagons and the men under the other, with the oxen grazing under guard in the meadow and a ready defensive position created by the double row of wagons. In the morning the caravan would regain the road and move off with a minimum of fuss.

  The wagon drivers looked to their wagons or herded their teams and spare beasts to the stream before fencing them in for the night with ropes strung between spears driven into the ground. The slave-servants were busy starting a fire with carefully hoarded ox dung and smearing tallow onto a wet log to help it burn. The Orc guards spread out and watched the brush line with obvious suspicion, as befits experienced guards, while their leaders bickered over whose turn it was to patrol around the camp for any sign of hostiles, or so the Arturian assumed; the Orc officers could have been arguing about anything. The operation was smooth by Orc standards, although the Badgers would have been secure in half the time.

  He had seen Orcs before, of course: although originally native to the far eastern coastlines, now known as the Dark Lands, and the frigid realms of the Northern Wastes they had spread with the assistance of the various cults of the Void, helping to drive the Hobrecs from the Blasted Plains, and serving in every dark army that had invaded the West. Raiding bands from the Blasted Plains followed the Thunderpeaks south to raid the Empire and Arturia alongside their smaller Goblin cousins.

  They were big, burly creatures, standing slightly taller than a man and much broader and heavier of bone. Hairless, with thick hides the color of the scum that forms on dank ponds, clawed fingers, and massive fang-like teeth, the Orcs seemed the very embodiment of violence made into flesh. Their facial features were course and broad, with black eyes swimming in remorseless pools of red or yellow, eyes that spoke of the violence and brutal humors that lurked very near the surface. As a people the Orcs were fierce, fearless, completely devoid of mercy, compassion, or pity; pure warriors, they lived for battle, loot, rape, destruction, and served only the Dark One or their own bloody purposes. Gifted with a rugged stamina, amazing health, a high rate of birth, and a cultural obsession with strength and personal victory, they were both deadly and feared foes. Their only saving graces were a pig-headed stubbornness, short attention spans, and virtually no loyalties beyond personal allegiances, which made Orc armies less fearsome as forces than Orc warriors were as individuals.