Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Maxmillian found himself in the street with Elonia after the briefing; he invited her to dinner and was mildly surprised when she agreed. They walked along in companionable silence for a while, the early evening bustle of the old city swirling around them.

  "It would seem that there is a falling out between Roger and Arian," the scholar commented lightly. "I had thought they were friends."

  "Roger has no friends, and now has one less supporter," Elonia agreed.

  "Two, counting Janna."

  The seeress arched an eyebrow. "Janna, you say. And how do you figure that, friend Historian?"

  Maxmillian shrugged. "They're close, Arian and Janna, I mean. It always seems that they're together, and when one is missing, so is the other. That sort of thing, plus the way Janna glared at Roger when he was questioning the soundness of Arian's planning in such a caustic manner."

  Elonia considered him as she strode along, hands behind her back, not even turning her head when she nimbly skipped to avoid a pile of horse dung. "As a point in fact, they're lovers, and have been for some time," she said, finally; Maxmillian sensed that she had thought hard before telling him that.

  "Ah," he nodded, and considered it. "Woman's intuition or your abilities?"

  "Intuition, if you must know. It shows plainly enough, to a woman's way of looking. It's a good enough match: they're both of a faith, and have similar backgrounds. Where are we going, anyway?"

  "A little place I found near the Artist's Quarter; the food is very good and the place itself is amazing: the building is actually a cellar from an old Imperial barracks; the surface structure is in ruins, of course, but they've planted a garden in it; in the warmer months you can dine there, which I imagine would be quite charming. We'll dine in what used to be the cellars, which are decorated with all manner of Imperial relics, and has quite a period atmosphere."

  She favored him with a sidelong look. "Artist's Quarter, Maxmillian? How a young man's mind doth turn to art, it would seem."

  He felt his cheeks redden. "It's called that from old; there used to be a university nearby, but it burnt down and moved decades ago. It's all warehouses and trade buildings, for the most part."

  "Very well, then; lead on"

  Chapter Twelve

  The Phantom Badgers made a sizable force as they headed northwest away from Narnhelm: besides their usual twelve members and mounts, they had three wagons, thirty-two oxen, nine extra warhorses, and a donkey. They pushed hard, and even though slowed by the wagons they reached Malker's Wall in five days.

  Few of the party had ever seen the Wall, and even those who had were deeply impressed, as the Wall was a sheer cliff-face averaging a hundred feet in height caused by a sudden shifting in continental plates during the ancient Wars of the Gods. To the north and south the Wall's blank face curved away; in the north over four hundred miles away it blended into the Thunderpeak Mountains; to the south at five times that distance it ended in the Celebro Mountains. The only passages down to the Blasted Plains below had been laboriously carved out of living rock, and were equally laboriously fortified.

  The way they went was called the Sixth Passage, as the Pernia Empire had in its day numbered all passages from north to south, and was a good example of the average design. The passage itself was a ten-foot-wide ramp cut into the stone with water-gutters to either side to contain the stream that had made the original cut. The passage dipped between sheer walls of rock, angling downwards in a shallow 's' pattern to make traversing it safer and to hinder attackers coming up from the Plains. Two well-maintained towers overlooked the Passage, sited so that their archers and ballista could fill a different section of passage with death without being exposed to risk; each tower was further protected by a ditch and embankment against attacks made by footmen who scaled the cliffs. Passages had been forced in the past, but never cheaply.

  Durek sent Roger ahead to pay the toll and gather any news, but the latter was sparse: Hand-backed raids by the Plains-dwellers had been markedly less through the summer, but enemy scouting was much greater. The garrison was speculating that the Hand was plotting another invasion of the West as they had tried during the Ostwind War, but it seemed unlikely to Durek: Arbmante, the Hand’s neighbor and deadly enemy, would never pass up the opportunity afforded by a shifting of Hand armies to the west.

  The garrison raised the heavy log barricades at the top of the ramp after having been paid their toll and allowed the Badgers to pass. Conversation and contact with the guards was kept to a minimum; unit insignia had been removed and distinctive weapons were covered. From here onward the Company traveled incognito.

  Emerging from the passage onto the Blasted Plains, the Badgers headed west for a full day before angling northwest again. The Plains were easy to cross, being rolling grassland that stretched as far as the eye could see, the grasses' tough root structure easily withstanding the effects of the wagon's iron-shod wheels. Antelope, bison, and wild cattle abounded, and once they saw a herd of wild horses. On the first day out from the Wall they passed the ruins of several farmsteads; during the great wars between the Hand of Chaos and Arbmante during the seventh century of the Second Age daring herdsmen and farmers had moved beyond the Wall and established holdings on the Plain itself. Once the wars ended the Hand recovered, however, and the holdings quickly became untenable.

  The Plains are the buffer between the Hand of Chaos and Arbmante in the east, and the nations of the West. Any invasion of the Border Realms had to traverse the wide expanse of grasslands first, straining army logistics and preventing any sort of surprise; it had taken the Hand a full year to prepare advance bases before starting the Ostwind War, a year the Realms and the nations of the West had put to good use.

  At noon on the second day out from the Wall the Badgers assumed their Golden Serpent disguises and changed to their captured mounts. Durek allowed the enchanted arms to be carried, but warned all to practice daily with their new weapons against future employment.

  The next morning the contact team swung their mounts due north and set off on their mission.

  "Seems like it goes on forever, doesn't it?" Maxmillian ventured, standing to look out at the vast sweep of the plains. “Two thousand miles to the Celebro Mountains in the south, the better part of a thousand miles running north to the ice fields, and the same to the Dark Lands in the east.”

  He had been riding with Rolf for nearly two uncommunicative hours; Elonia was scouting ahead and the remaining three members of the team were deep in conversation as they rode a short distance away. The scholar had had little contact with the big half-Orc to date as Rolf usually tagged along with Starr and Kroh.

  The burly Badger nodded slowly. "Like the sea, when you're a long ways from shore." He stood in his stirrups and carefully surveyed the horizons, which were broken by only by the growing heights of the Thunderpeaks to the west. "This is a bad part of the world to be in; sure wish I was back with Starr and them."

  Maxmillian nodded. "She's quite something, your little friend. I understand the three of you had quite an adventure the winter before last; perhaps you could give me some background on it for my History of the Phantom Badgers."

  The day passed quicker once he got Rolf to talk. He discovered that this was the first mission since Rolf had joined the Badgers where he had been separated from his two friends, and it wore deeply on the big Badger’s spirits. Once started, the half-Orc quickly found comfort in idle conversation, and proved to be a good traveling companion. When Elonia joined them later in the day, relieved on scout by Dmitri, the topics broadened, but Rolf held his own.

  Riding along in the cool fall air, the talk rambling aimlessly from subject to subject, Maxmillian found that he was enjoying himself despite the deadly seriousness of their mission.

  That night the team made camp in the fading ruins of a Hobrec winter camp, using the mounded remains of longhouse foundations to hide their fire. Maxmillian was enthralled by the place, and raced about in the growing dusk, a bemused Rolf i
n tow, sketching rapidly and accurately.

  Elonia sauntered up and stood watching, a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. Waiting for a pause in the racing progress of his pen, she tapped the scholar on the shoulder. "Just what is so exciting about these mounds and rubbish, friend Maxmillian? Or does all art set your blood to racing?"

  "Only that involving nicely rounded shapes," Maxmillian fired back without thinking. "Rolf, pace off that shorter mound, yes, that one. Five? Thank you; now, the width of the ditch, if you please. What is so exciting," he turned to explain to the Seeress without missing a beat, "Is that this is a Hobrec winter camp. The last clans on the Blasted Plain were driven out nearly five hundred years ago; those clans that fled to Sufland or the islands abandoned their nomad ways to become sea-reavers, and their lives changed completely. Seven? Thank you, Rolf. What were the Plains Hobrecs like? How did they live? These are questions every historian wants to know. I've read quite a bit about them, but there always has been considerable mystery involved as the Plains Hobrec never took slaves, captives, or hostages. The only depictions of their home life comes from expeditions that overran their camps and put them to the sword. While I admit that there is little here beyond the foundations and some half-filled ditches, it does at least show the outlines of the camp. A great deal can be learned from this."

  "Not enough for a book, surely," Elonia shrugged. "Why bother?"

  Maxmillian stared at her, then flung his arms wide to encompass the camp, grinning. "Why, to know, that's why. To let me see a little into the past the way you look into the future. I read about this, and now I'm seeing it, you see? It makes it real."

  She laughed, not unkindly, at his enthusiasm, and he laughed with her; for a moment in the growing darkness something passed between them, startling her. Stepping back, she pulled an object wrapped in a rag from her belt and tossed it to the scholar. "Here, this will make it even more real."

  He juggled the bundle and his writing kit. "What is it?"

  She shrugged, cool and cat-poised as always. "An old Hob dagger, iron and bronze. I found it when I was digging a trash pit, which was Rolf's turn tonight. No, don't worry Rolf," she smiled at the dark figure seated on a grassy mound before he could get the protest out. "You can pay me back. It looks sort of like those I saw on Hob mercenaries back in Encien, but different, too, ought to make a nice souvenir. It was in a keg, or what was left of a keg, anyway. That's what must have protected it."

  She was gone before the stunned Maxmillian could thank her.

  Sitting alone on the guard post that night, she wondered what had moved her to use her Sight to seek out just such an item for him. It had been no luck that she had dug where she had. She shook her head; strange times indeed, when you have to suspect your own motives.

  The next night's camp was made amidst granite outcroppings that were part of the jumbled foothills of the Thunderpeaks. After their supper Arian gathered the team, a sheaf of notes in hand.

  "We'll make the initial contact late tomorrow afternoon, if we can keep up the pace we have been maintaining. We will be the representatives of the Third Green Den of the Outer Circle. Maxmillian will be the mission's Trademaster, with Henri as the Spiritual Guide; Dmitri and Rolf are loyal Brethren bodyguards. Elonia and I will hang back as security, such as it is. What we are going to go over now is the Felher themselves; Maxmillian and Henri can go over the details and conditions that we are seeking later."

  "And get our wills in order," Henri added dryly, eliciting a nervous chuckle from Maxmillian.

  "A little contingency planning couldn't hurt," Arian nodded, grinning. "Still, remember, all we have to do is convince them we're Golden Serpent. Whatever else the Felher may agree to or refuse, they won't openly attack Serpent followers, and certainly never a Serpent embassy, no matter how covert. The Serpent are the lifeblood of the dark followers out here, and they enjoy an immunity denied all others."

  "Now, as to the Felher. They are an artificial race, one created by the Black Dwarves early in the First Age. The Black Dwarves intended them to act as spear fodder and laborers, cheaper than Direbreed, and so on. Decades later the Felher revolted and nearly caused the Black Dwarves' destruction by crippling them from within, followed by a series of wars as the Dwarves' neighbors leapt in to take advantage. Such was the inter-Dark strife that the Black Dwarves to this day hold no territory of their own, but exist as servants of other forces. The Hand of Chaos issued the Edict of Axah in 214 First Age prohibiting the creation of any creature capable of breeding, and backed it with their monopoly of black andern. The Dark Star cult supported the Edict when they acquired an anverax in 527 FA, and so it has been ever since, although both the Hand and the Star have had to fight wars to keep it that way."

  "As a people, the Felher are vicious, warlike, and cruel by Human standards. They dwell underground for the most part, fighting with the Cave Goblins and occasionally the Dwarves for space. Oddly, they rarely create new holdings of their own, preferring to occupy abandoned halls or seize other race's holdings by force. While intelligent and capable of magic use, they are difficult to understand as thinking beings, and almost insanely hostile to any who trespass on what they consider their territory. At the same time they routinely trade with the Golden Serpent and conduct treaties with others of the dark creeds, thus proving that there are few hard and fast assumptions that can be made about them. Torture and sentient sacrifice is a common practice in their unique and little-understood worship of the Dark One, and similar atrocities are also performed for sport. Fortunately for us trade and pacts seem to be important to them; meeting points and promises are very rarely violated, and usually with some extraordinary cause."

  "Each Felher nation-clan, called a Weehoc, operates alone; the Felher are a singularly distrustful and vicious race, even towards their own. The Weehoc is formally organized, with virtually every member or slave having an assigned position and place. The backbone of the Weehoc is the Pac, a formation that is used to control virtually all Felher. A Pac is made up of like-trained Felher, with a Pac-master and an internal structure based on the duties performed. There are laborer Pacs, scholar Pacs, artisan Pacs, miner Pacs, school Pacs, whelp-care Pacs, and so on."

  "The warrior Pac is based on six to ten sections, each section consisting of six to ten Felher. A Battle Pac will have several Pacs and supporting troops; a Swarm is a field army. What is unique about the Felher is how they rate the warrior Pac. A newly formed Pac is called a Tak; Taks receive no replacements, poor arms, and poorer rations. They are, in short, completely expendable. But a Tak that proves itself in battle becomes a Tak-re. Further promotions, to Mak, Mak-re, and the highest of the high, Brek, may follow should the Pac prove itself worthy in combat. Each stage means replacements, better arms and armor, better rations, easier duties when not in combat, and the like. Mak units will often have teams of Titan cave spiders, war dogs, or bears attached; most Mak-re and all Brek units have spellcasters, and Brek units draw their replacements from Mak units, thus ensuring that battle losses will not weaken the unit’s performance. Mak-re units are also the source of bodyguards for high-powered individuals, and the like. It is very rare for a Weehoc to have more than two Brek-level Pacs due to the difficulty of creating and maintaining such units. Conversely, should a unit perform badly, it can be demoted a rank, which gives the warriors great incentives to fight hard and well."

  "So if they agree to our proposal the first units through the Gates will be Tak-level Pacs in case it's a trap," Maxmillian observed. "And that's why the Felher will agree to it; Tak-level are completely expendable."

  "Exactly," the monk nodded, using a burning twig from the fire to light a cheroot. "It would be like getting Lanthrell to risk arrows. Once it is clear that the operation is no trap, better units would flood through. On a raid such as this, I doubt that many, if any, Mak-level units will be used, and certainly no higher level, but the forces involved should be adequate to our needs."

  "The Felher possess great numbers,
breeding fast and true, but they are poor as a nation, made doubly so by the number of warriors they must equip. Mail and other metal armor is rare; what little protection they employ is usually leather or wicker. All warriors carry the Theeb, a sort of war adze, and the Hekka, which is often called a stirrup-knife; this consists of an oval metal grip with one or two blades jutting from the knuckles."

  "Easy to make," Rolf observed.

  "The point exactly," Arian nodded. "Easy to make, and cheap. Spears and polearms make up the bulk of the offensive weaponry, with some wicker bucklers, although shield-use is rare except by the very best-trained warriors. Man-catchers, and weighted ropes are often encountered as they are useful for disabling better-armed but outnumbered foes. Missile weapons are javelins, darts, slings, and glass sling bullets filled with acid or biting ants being common issue. The Felher use no cavalry, and have few war machines except in their rare surface sieges."

  "The Weehoc we face is called the Night Sun, and uses a blood-red sun on a black background as their insignia. They are threatened by Alantarn and are rather loosely allied with the Hand of Chaos. They've raided Alantarn several times in the past and aided in Hand operations against it, so we shouldn't have much difficulty in getting them to try their luck again. Besides the basic conflict going on, the Felher will be looking for loot, specifically tools, wealth for dealing with Gold Serpent groups, weapons, armor, and slaves, especially slaves who are skilled artisans, although any slave will do for ritual torture, either for religious purposes or just for fun."

  "Amazing how simple you make all this seem," Henri saluted the monk with his cup. "No doubt when it comes time to invade Alantarn and invoke the wrath of an entire nation you will make it sound like stealing from a blind beggar."