Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Kroh missed with his crossbow; discarding the weapon, he snatched up his axe and hurled it, the three-foot-long axe, runes glowing hotly, flipping through the air like a weapon a third its size, smashing a nomad from his saddle before reversing and spinning back to the Waybrother’s waiting hands.

  Shocked and appalled by the nomad’s antics, Starr was too slow to react to the sudden turn of events; before she could bring her bow into play an arrow slammed into her side, doubling her over as the air was driven from her lungs. A second shaft ripped into her left thigh, spinning her half around; sobbing from the pain and lack of air, her bow lost in the confusion, the little Lanthrell toppled into the partially-filled wagon bed.

  Rolling to his knees, Maxmillian slammed the iron-bound rim of his shield into the standardbearer’s head as he drew his sword, killing the dazed nomad with a single thrust to the throat before the woman-warrior could recover.

  Iron Tusk, Kroh’s komad mount, had cautiously circled around from the picket line behind the wagons to a point just behind the row of noisy nomads, Durek’s smaller male mount Brown Axe trailing her. The war pig, a grizzled, gray-snouted sow who stood nearly three feet high at the shoulder and who tipped the scales at just over six hundred pounds without saddle or rider, was no stranger to combat, having actively (and happily) participated in engagements ranging from hit-and-run skirmishes to full-scale battles involving large forces and heavy use of enchantments.

  She didn’t like the smell of the Eyade and had circled around after her sensitive nose had picked up the skin-scents from her rider and his companions that indicated tension, correctly deducing that a fight was imminent. When Bridget’s sling bullet knocked the Eyade from his saddle Iron Tusk dug her hooves in and thundered forward in a silent charge. While komad are no match for a horse at a dead gallop, they do possess several advantages on the battlefield: a lower center of gravity, a much more fearless attitude (having no natural enemies), a far tighter turning radius, greater intelligence, and a much faster starting speed. Iron Tusk added surprise to these advantages as she and Brown Axe plowed into the line of horses as the fight broke out, smashing two war ponies completely off their feet, spilling their nomad riders into the dirt.

  Ducking a lance-point, Elonia darted forward, her form blurring as the ward took hold, heading towards one of the five dismounted Eyade, leaving the nine still mounted to the heavier combatants. Durek parried a sabre-swing and struck the nomad’s horse’s left rear leg, the enchanted steel of his axe severing the limb at the hock; dancing back, he beheaded the Eyade as the tattooed warrior was bucked off his hysterical mount. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one saddle emptied by a brilliant bean of light while two other Eyade fell to a javelin and a slung bullet.

  Side-stepping nimbly, Rolf shattered the charging horse’s skull with a single swing of his great axe, twisting the blade free as the renac-armed Moon Howler leapt free of his dying mount and rushed the half-Orc. The big Badger gave a couple steps of ground, watching his foe closely, confident in his greater reach and longer weapon. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Janna holding a dying Eyade in the crook of her arm as a living shield while she plied her black steel bastard sword Rosemist one-handed, the enchanted weapon’s blade gleaming like polished ebony.

  Maxmillian found himself face-to-face with a dismounted Eyade; eyeing the tattooed, bow-legged Moon Howler, the scholar shifted his shield more comfortably on his arm and smiled. “May I have this dance?”

  The nomad, guessing the historian’s intent, grinned wickedly, exposing more gap than teeth, and closed with a savage swing of his saber. Maxmillian caught the blow on his shield and riposted with a thrust, an attack he hoped the Eyade wouldn’t be familiar with, a hope dashed by the Eyade’s quick movement of his shield; the ‘trademaster’ took comfort in the deep rent his blade ripped in his foe’s weaker leather-and-wicker shield. Ignoring the growing cloud of dust that enveloped the battle and the cacophony of pain-filled howls of anguish, yelled fighting cries, weapons-clashing, horses’ screaming, and the sounds of steel meeting iron, leather, wood, or flesh, the two circled each other, trading blows and feints, each seeking the minute opening or weakness that would resolve the fight.

  Knowing that his iron-bound wood shield could parry a good number of saber-blows while the weaker Eyade shield could not, Maxmillian remained conservative in his attacks, content to hack his foe’s shield to pieces while waiting for an opening; what glimpses of the fighting he got seemed favorable: he saw Elonia pulling a yataghan blade out of a dead, net-entangled nomad corpse, and Dmitri smashing a Moon Howler from his saddle with a single axe swing.

  By steadily destroying the Eyade’s shield while possessing a shield that was much more resilient to his foe’s weapon (not to mention having a significant edge in terms of body armor), the Badger was forcing the Moon Howler into a position where he had but two logical choices: flight or making a desperate, all-or-nothing strike before his shield gave way entirely.

  The nomad timed his desperate strike to coincide with a mighty stroke from Maxmillian; the Badger lunged in, swinging hard, only to have the Eyade dart in at the same time, leading with the point of his slightly curved sabre, instead of the edge as he had been. The broadsword smashed the Moon Howler’s shield into a shapeless ruin an instant before the two warriors crashed into body-to-body contact; Maxmillian felt sudden pressure and then searing, white-hot pain lancing into his left side. Reacting instinctively, the scholar head-butted the Howler, driving his iron cap into his foe’s tattooed forehead, knocking the Eyade back and off-balance, bleeding from rents where eyebrow-rings had been torn free. Stumbling awkwardly away, the Badger shook off his shield and clamped his left hand over the tiny rent in his chainmail, feeling the blood welling out between the torn iron links.

  Shaking his head to clear it, the nomad moved forward to close, discarding the ruins of his shield as he came, but the advantage of Maxmillian’s wounding had been lost during the precious second he had spent dazed by the impact of the iron-shod head strike. Warily the two resumed their circling, both shield-less, both injured.

  Each breath hurt worse than the last, and Maxmillian recognized that he was now in the same corner he had backed the Eyade into a few moments before: one of a steadily deteriorating position. Desperate, he feinted and lunged, gasping at the stab of agony that blossomed in his side. His foe struck at his neck, but the historian blocked the blade on his left arm, the mail links of his sleeve shearing away under an impact that numbed the limb from elbow to fingertips, but the sleeve itself held, stopping the edge before it reached flesh. The point of his broadsword had no such problems with the nomad’s leather jack, slicing straight through and into the Eyade’s torso. Rocking the blade, Maxmillian added an inch to the two-inch penetration he had made with the initial strike before his foe leapt back from the sudden savage pain in his belly.

  Drooling ropey strings of blood, wild-eyed with pain and desperate, the Eyade bored in, screaming hoarsely, his saber coming down in a desperate, vicious chop. Sobbing from the pain in his side, Maxmillian darted forward, getting inside the nomad’s swing, striking before the Moon Howler could lift his left hand from the swell of intestines peeking through the rent in his armor, the heavy brass pommel of his sword smashing the nomad’s nose.

  Blinded by the pain, the Eyade backed away, frantically fanning the air in front of him with his sabre in an attempt to keep Maxmillian off of him until his vision cleared. Crabbing to the side, the historian wearily ended the fight with a solid swing that caught the Moon Howler across the side of the neck, knocking him sprawling, jets of blood leaping from the sundered blood vessels in the gaping neck-wound.

  Staggering away, the stricken Badger slumped against the saddle of a dead horse, gasping in agony. Durek came up from his left, liberally splattered with blood, a fierce gleam in his eye. “Maxmillian, are you wounded?”

  “Sabre...in my...side,” the scholar forced the words out between the waves of pain.

 
“Stay upright,” the Captain ripped the waxed paper covering from a bandage; prying Maxmillian’s bloody fingers from the rent in his armor, the Dwarf placed the pad of cotton against the hole and pressed the historian’s hand on top of the bandage. “Hold this tight, I’ll get help. It’s over, we’ve won.”

  When Maxmillian next opened his eyes Arian was kneeling beside him unpacking his medical bag, Rolf hovering nearby. “Get him out of his armor and undertunic, Rolf. Maxmillian, you’re going to be all right; I’m not as skilled as Bridget, but I’ll get you through this without any problems.”

  The scholar bit back a scream as Rolf, having gotten his sword-belt and iron cap off, carefully slid the bloody chainmail shirt over his head. Gasping for breath, blinded by tears of pain, the historian sagged to the ground as the half-Orc cut his undertunic away.

  “Yes, nasty cut, deep, too, but nothing we can’t fix.” Arian quickly washed his hands in a bowl of potato schnapps and waved them to dry before breaking the seal on a canvas bundle of instruments. “As I said, a pity you don’t have Bridget and her herbal brews to put you under; would you like Rolf to give you a tap, put you out?”

  “No,” Maxmillian gasped. “What happened to Bridget?”

  “Nothing: she’s tending to Starr, who took a couple arrows. Her armor stopped one, but it cracked a rib all the same, and the other got her in the leg; to add to the fun, she fell and hit her face on the edge of a wagon-side, may have cracked her jaw. Other than the usual cuts and bruises you get in any fight, you two were the only wounded.” The monk-effector unwrapped the waxed-paper covering a boiled stone probe. “This is going to hurt; Rolf, hold him down. Here, bite on this bandage.”

  It actually didn’t raise the pain level much, although twice his body jerked as if every muscle had contracted at once.

  “Good,” Arian tossed the bloody probe onto a square of cloth set out for that purpose. “The weapon didn’t leave any bits inside other than the usual dirt and such.” Unwrapping a short birch rod, the monk murmured a lengthy cant. Easing the stick into the wound, he carefully probed the entire inner dimensions of the gash. “There,” he examined the bloody stick with satisfaction. “That takes care of the debris.”

  Tossing the stick aside, he unwrapped a scalpel and carefully cut a row of runes into Maxmillian’s flesh above and below the cut. Placing both hands on the scholar’s chest, he chanted slowly for a moment, eyes closed in concentration. When he finished, the wound had stopped bleeding. Unwrapping a fresh scalpel, he cut two more rows of runes into the flesh, one on either side of the gash, and then carefully pinched the wound closed with a small pair of tongs before beginning a lengthy incantation that left him gray-faced and swaying with fatigue. When he finished, however, the wound was gone, leaving nothing but blood stains and four rows of shallow-cut runes in Maxmillian’s side, hardly more than scratches.

  Sitting down beside the now-unwounded Badger, Arian finished the last of the jug of medicinal schnapps. “Damn, I never get used to that. Maxmillian, the wound is Healed, but you still are short the blood you lost and the shock to your system is unrelieved. Stay where you are and try to rest; Rolf, watch over him. We’ll load you into a wagon for the rest of the day.” Wearily, the monk repacked his bag.

  “Thanks, Arian,” Maxmillian was weak and dizzy, but the pain had faded away to nothing as the wound had Healed.

  “Think nothing of it, its all in a day’s work.”

  Durek moved from Badger to Badger, overseeing the post-battle cleanup. “Strip the Eyade of all weapons and jewelry, take the saddles and tack as well; we’ll dump whatever’s useless a distance from here, but we need to make this look like the usual sort of Plains bickering. Make sure every one of the bastards is well and truly dead.” The Dwarf went to where Maxmillian lay, resting. “Historian, how goes it?’

  “Healed,” Maxmillian grinned weakly. “Although weak as a puppy. I’m sorry now we pushed the issue.”

  “We would have had to fight them anyway,” the Captain shrugged. “Once they sensed the andern we had two choices: fight them eventually, or give all the andern to them. Better to start it with them in front of us rather than some midnight raid on our camp. Besides, these bastards aren't any better than Orcs; killing ‘em’s a public service.”

  Bridget was repacking her gear, having just finished working on Starr when the Captain came up. “How is she?”

  “Fine; I Healed a cracked rib, broken jaw, and a deep arrow wound in her leg; she’s sleeping now, a good strong dose of passionflower put her down.” The advocate nervously finished packing. “I’m sorry, Captain,” she blurted. “About starting this mess, I mean; two wounded badly, everyone battered and cut up, all my fault.”

  “Not hardly,” the Dwarf shrugged. “They weren’t leaving here alive, of that I was certain. Once they smelled andern we would have had to fight them sometime, better now than later from an ambush.”

  The Serjeant nodded mutely, guilt still stamped on her face.

  “Soon as you’re packed, see about getting the captured stuff divided, what’s loot and what we’ll need to dump later, I figure tomorrow.” Durek knew activity was the surest cure for what the slender woman was suffering from. If she hadn’t called the dance when she did, he would have. The Eyade had ridden in too close, lulled by the Golden Serpent disguise; the merchant-cultists didn’t go in for much aggressive violence. By the time they figured out they were dealing with a different breed of fish it was too late to cut the line.

  He surveyed the little battlefield: dead Eyade, dead horses, muddy puddles of blood, and tired Badgers going from body to body stripping the fallen of all weapons and belongings. A typical scene in the life of a mercenary, the face of victory. No one, he reminded himself, ever wrote glowingly about the fruits of victory after having seen the fields upon which it was harvested.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rain was something the Captain rarely prayed for when in the field, especially when it was the twenty-third of Hoffnungteil and the first frosts were nipping at the mornings, but it would serve them well if an inch or two fell upon the morrow to wipe out their tracks. The Badgers were a day's easy march from the outer regions of Alantarn; the Felher's waiting period had one full day left in it, and it was time to put the final touches into their plan.

  They had made night camp early, with nearly an hour's light left, both for time to complete their planning and because they had found a place suitable to their needs. A mile off the track was the ruins of a Hobrec granary-fort, complete with ditch, rampart and the stumps of a palisade. The remains of brick grain silos still stood to a height of six feet or more, making it the perfect place to leave their regular mounts and equipment until they returned from Alantarn. Henri erected the egrai, or primary construct of the Gate they had obtained from the Felher in the best of the remaining silos, and with many misgivings, the Badgers buried their magical arms and all distinctive belongings that might identify them or their Company. Despite the Threllian craft employed in the concealment and the wards of protection that Bridget wove around the hiding place, none of the Badgers felt comfortable leaving the hard-won gear behind.

  Having completed their work at the granary the Badgers returned to their own camp, and set to work on the wagons. The loads had to be redistributed and checked again to ensure that nothing incriminating was present. The third wagon, used to haul enough grain so that they had never needed to stop in a town and risk discovery of the forbidden cargo they carried, had been abandoned two days earlier, the front axle broken in what would seem to be an unlucky stream-crossing. One of the spare oxen had been employed when a snake-bite cost them a beast, and one other had been butchered for fresh meat; the remaining spares and the third wagon's team were released onto the Plains a half-day after their wagon was abandoned.

  When their chores were completed, the briefings would begin again; the Badgers had to be flawless in their charade as cultists and contingency plans had to be memorized until they were second nature. Due to
the pervasive spy network within the Direthrell stronghold there would be little opportunity for extended planning conferences or detailed briefings when they were within the hold.

  "The nature of the Direthrell should be a welcome relief from hearing about the Golden Serpent," Elonia began to a round of chuckles. "I'll try to keep it short, but remember that this is very important. All Direthrell society is the same from nation to nation. It is controlled by three power blocs who constantly intrigue and maneuver against each other. There is the Ercagrad, called the Noble or Administrative Bloc, which controls the army, the Pargaie, the Treasury, and all academies. They make all treaties, and provide nearly all military and civil commanders."

  "Next is the Ercahel, or Temple Bloc. The Temple consists of the Harbringer cult within the Direthrell, and their cult for the Dark One, the Obrita Toritar, or Silver Net cult, so called because of their insignia. The Temple therefore controls all Direbreed in the military, as well as a large percentage of their spell-casters.

  "Thirdly are the Ercamanen, or Merchant Bloc. This bloc is made up of individual Ercamana, or Houses as they are called. Each 'Mana, or House, is a body organized around the creation or acquisition of specific types of materials or goods; in effect each has a monopoly. A specific House might be charged with obtaining horses, mules, and donkeys, another with production of all non-military leather goods, and so on."

  "That doesn't sound very effective," Maxmillian observed. "For instance, if one House obtained horses and another horseshoes, you could end up with problems."