Dark Key: Book Two of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  To add to the confusion, the large slave population in the fortress was badly agitated; in the hours since the raid there had been scores of escape attempts, one fairly large uprising in an Outer Keep barracks that took four hours and thirty casualties to suppress, and a general reduction in work efficiency that was badly hindering repair efforts.

  After three days order had been largely restored and the garrison, which had been on full alert in case the raid had been a prelude to an all-out conventional assault, was beginning to stand down. The situation was still confused and the slaves had not yet fully returned to a proper level of obedience, but it was felt that the danger to Alantarn had passed.

  Kustar's role in the raid was another justification for her optimism. When the alarm had been sounded the security office personnel had formed into an emergency response unit as per the standing plan for defense and set off for its duty station, only to run headlong into a band of Felher. Kustar, the only unit member who had seen field service in years, distinguished herself in the fight, and again after the survivors of her unit and other reaction forces were formed into an expedient company and committed to the battle.

  Made a brevet Chora in recognition of her expertise and heroism, she had led an improvised Albar in the first phase clearing operations that were mounted to deal with those Felher who had been accidently or deliberately left behind. The Albar was disbanded and its personnel returned to their normal positions as the second phase of recovery began; Kustar, along with nearly every other intelligence or security officer, had been given a couple clerks and a team of slave laborers and assigned to examine, diagram, and record as many battle sites as was possible. The entire Inner Keep had been divided into sectors, and teams like Kustar's were required to investigate virtually every place where fighting or damage had occurred. Hold-Master Peria, it was reported, wanted answers about the raid. Detailed answers, and ignore the cost.

  Kustar, after a tough night's fighting and a day hunting stragglers and runaway slaves, had thrown herself into the work with enthusiasm, driving herself and her subordinates without mercy. In the last two days her team had completed detailed reports on more battle sites than any other team, and half again as many as was the average.

  The price, of course, had been high: the Nepas hadn't gotten more than three hours’ sleep in the last two days and had hardly eaten, but she ignored her body's protests. The impressive Direthrell organization had recovered from the shock of the raid and was steadfastly applying all its resources to reorganizing, so the opportunity to distinguish oneself was very finite, in fact a period measurable in hours. Kustar had vowed not to waste a single one of these hours as there was no telling when such an opportunity would return.

  Fatigue was biting in deep, however; she paused at an intersection to rest, studying her map as an excuse, although none of her command noticed, being all too glad to collapse and rest. The lines on the map blurred and faded, came to sharp relief again, then faded away altogether as the weary officer slumped against a rain barrel, dozing on her feet.

  The voice snapped her out of the fitful doze. "Brevet-Chora Pravas?"

  With a start she jerked erect, dropping the map and rapping her knee on the barrel, the pain clearing her head as much as it could be cleared in her battered condition. The owner of the voice was a Nepas warrior wearing the insignia of the Hold-Master's own Guard. Kustas blinked blearily at him for a moment before nodding. "Yes, yes I am." As comprehension, aided by pain, filtered back she was struck by the neat, polished appearance of the messenger, which contrasted sharply with her filthy clothing and battered war-gear.

  The guardsman handed her a sealed packet of vellum. "Orders from the office of the Hold-Master. I've already delivered a packet to your commander." He saluted briskly and set off about his business.

  Shaken, Kustar examined the seal on the packet: the Hold-Master's, himself. Breaking it, she studied the contents. There were three orders: the first was directed to the commander of the intelligence services of Alantarn, advising her that brevet Chora Kustar Pravas was hereby detached from that worthy's control and temporarily assigned to the Hold Master himself. The second instructed Kustar to report to the headquarters of the hold eight hours hence, while the third made the acting rank of Chora permanent.

  For several minutes the import of the orders failed to sink in; the weary Nepas simply read and re-read the terse orders, trying to wrap her weary mind around their import. Finally she tucked them carefully into her pouch, and roused the senior clerk with a vicious kick. "I've been reassigned; take this party back to the search headquarter. No doubt you'll be given a rest period."

  Feet dragging, she made her way towards her quarters, dazed by the sudden turn in her fortunes. Her old rank won back, and a reassignment: it boded well for her future. A tired smile illuminated the delicate features of the mixed-blood officer as she passed through the battered streets of the Inner Keep, oblivious to the bustle of work crews repairing battle damage, Pargaie teams surveying the debris of the raid, and sections of troops moving to and fro with equal amounts of military precision and veteran indifference. Things were finally looking up for her.

  They took her weapons at the entrance to the complex that served the fortress as a headquarters, searched her at two checkpoints within the complex, and ran some kind of enchanted stave over her. Finally she had to wait for the better part of an hour, but none of this served to darken her mood. After six hours of sleep in a real bed, a hot meal and hotter bath, she was well on the road to being fully recovered from the exertions of the last three days. More importantly, her morale was higher than it had been in months.

  At last an officious secretary escorted her past a final pair of sentries and into the Hold Master's presence. The room was surprising: a bare cell a dozen paces square, windowless, furnished with a large desk and ornate chair, two small visitor's chairs, and a low table covered with neat stacks of paperwork. The walls were closely hung with framed maps of Alantarn and the surrounding areas; two frames were covered with attached sheets of green felt to hide their maps from casual observers.

  Peria was another surprise: a Direthrell of slightly less than average height, with intelligent but battered features under a shaved and polished scalp, the whole set off by a net of scars that covered the left side of his head and drew attention to the stub of his left ear. He was dressed simply in green, his only decoration being a finely etched buckle on the belt that supported a well-used dirk. He acknowledged her salute and waved her to a chair with an economical gesture of his right arm; protruding from the sleeve was a shaft of red oak fitted with a gold clip. A silver stylus was held in the clip, and the Hold Master employed it to finish signing a stack of documents, which the secretary took with her as she left.

  Using a blunt prong that jutted from the bottom of the shaft that replaced his lower arm and hand, Peria pulled a sheet of parchment to the center of the desk and studied it for a moment, a slight frown of concentration twisting his narrow, bloodless lips; Kustar took the time to study the new ruler of Alantarn. His age was difficult to estimate given his shorn scalp, an uncommon affection amongst the Direthrell, but she placed him as still in his prime, perhaps equal to a Human male in his mid to late forties.

  The room gave few overt clues as to her new commander’s personality, and the surface of the desk bore nothing more than writing tools, paperwork, scrolls, two books, and a delicate gold bell mounted on a black jade base that, she knew, would summon guards at the slightest touch of Peria's hand. The new Hold-Master looked hard even for a Direthrell, and, unusual in the higher echelons of the Dark Threll, a veteran warrior. The cream of the Direthrell rarely saw much personal combat.

  "Kustar Pravas," the Hold-Master's voice was smooth and even. "A promising career before that unfortunate business with your station. I am not one to second-guess those in the field, but perhaps a bit better security could have been in order?" Pale blue eyes stapled her to her chair with a gaze that pierced rather than exa
mined. Kustar's hopes began to wilt.

  "Yes, Curion,” using the verbal salute proper when addressing a superior of the highest level “But I felt that secrecy and isolation were our primary security assets, under the circumstances."

  "You had a security force, though?"

  "Yes, Curion; four half-Orc Thanes."

  "All of whom had been assigned there as punishment, I see. The report indicates that you lost your routine files and support indexes. How much damage could that create for our establishment?"

  "Very little, even with myself or a recent station chief as a captive. The documentation captured would give some indications as to how Pargaie operations were conducted in terms of policy, and a fair insight into administrative procedures, but would not compromise any operations."

  "So the real threat was to capture the contents of the classified document chest intact, or the station chief, yourself, alive; their mission, therefore, was a failure."

  "Not exactly, Curion. They gained no real intelligence, but they did shut down our station in the Bloody Road area for weeks. It had been two weeks since the monthly courier had made a pick up, so we lost most of the intelligence gathered during the last two weeks of the station’s operations, as well as any possible information during the time it took for me to reach help, and for another station to be established. Whoever did this hurt us more than a little." All of which was fairly obvious, even to someone from a non-Intelligence background, Kustar knew. The Hold-Master was conducting a test in some manner.

  "And for this you were demoted and assigned to the Fortress security office?"

  "Yes, Curion."

  Peria nodded thoughtfully. "And if you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?"

  "Very little, Curion: there were few options open to me. Keeping a sentry posted around the clock was impractical given my resources; I had to make do with a partial sentry schedule and hope for luck. In any case, we were hit by professionals, so one bored sentry would hardly have been much defense."

  The eyes nailed her even deeper to her chair. "You hardly seem remorseful, Chora. You lost a station and staff, yet you claim you had done all you can. What went wrong?"

  Kustar hesitated. The correct answer was to plead ignorance, while the truth was to blame her superiors, which always was a dangerous and unprofitable course. Except that Peria seemed different. "Plainly, Curion, the station had been in place too long to trust it to remain a secret, and the staff was inadequate to rely on any defense other than secrecy. I no longer have my personal files, but I made numerous reports and requests in writing for relocation or a larger garrison, and all were denied. I believe I did the best I could with what I had assigned to me."

  The Hold Master studied her for a moment, and then nodded. "True enough. I've seen your reports and requests; what you predicted for your station came to pass. And, to the point, what you predicted for Alantarn has come to pass." The tips of the gold clamp indicated a sheet of vellum on the desk. "This report you sent to the late Hold-Mistress was still on her desk when I took command. It seems she had read it, but had not yet made a decision before the raid." Peria smiled. It was not a pretty smile. "When I read the report, it struck me that you must be very competent, very lucky, or a conspirator in the effort to make this raid possible, perhaps experiencing cold feet."

  Feet and the rest of her were cold now. It had not occurred to her amidst all the confusion that she could be under suspicion for treason.

  Peria let the silence stretch a bit, and then continued. "Fortunately for you, we have quite competent Seers here. One spent several hours in your quarters and office; that and a careful interrogation of your staff clerks cleared you of any possible connection with the raid. Nor were any of the staff in your office implicated, despite careful checking. Reluctantly, because it makes things much more difficult, we must discard the possibility that there was treachery within our security organizations, and look elsewhere for the causes of this raid."

  "That is where you come in: as I pointed out, you must be very competent, or very lucky, and an officer with either or both of these qualities is what I am looking for. Actually, five officers." The Hold-Master carefully laid out a folded sheet of vellum, a seal ring, and a carved ivory baton. The latter was about a foot long, twice as thick as Kustar's index finger, elaborately carved and bound with bands of green jade every three inches. The top was capped with a pale blue disk inset with a dark blue and scarlet fortress, the symbol of Alantarn.

  It was hard to breathe, Kustar discovered. The baton was an atingo, a special rank baton that indicated that its wielder had the full authority of the Era who issued it; in this case, the officer assigned that baton would have the same authority as the Hold-Master of Alantarn while acting within the scope of their orders.

  "I see you recognize this," Peria smiled. "I want to know Who raided this fortress, exactly Why they raided it, and How they were able to make it happen. As I have said, we've written off treachery within the security organization, but that leaves several other broad areas from which it might have come. It is possible that the Felher managed to send egran-bearing scouts all the way into the Inner Keep, it is possible that some new sort of Gate magic is being used here, it is possible that the raiders had some sort of magic heretofore unknown that allowed them to reach the Inner Keep unobserved, and it is possible that the gaps in our security procedures you revealed in your report were exploited to bring in the egresses.”

  “As you obviously deduced from the atingo, I am very serious about this mystery being fully and truthfully resolved, and I am offering you one of the five investigator positions. You are being offered this because your career has been ruined, and because you seem to be capable of telling the bare facts rather than the usual dancing around bad news. Do you have any questions?"

  "Yes, Curion: the raid was obviously carefully planned and executed; barring a lucky break or glaring mistake on the part of the raiders, it could take months to determine who did this, and longer to offer definitive proof. Would that be acceptable?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. Besides looking for treachery within the Pargaie, I have had the best Seers we have hard at work since my arrival, with no results. There was too much magic cast in too small of an area for wide-application scrying to work; nor were any of the Felher captured of a rank to give us answers. With the easy options exhausted I am forced to consider the slower, long-range efforts. Teams have already been established to interview all survivors and examine the various battle sites with the fortress (as you well know, having served on such a team) in order to chart the course of the raid from start to finish; no doubt your investigation won't be fully underway until their findings are completed, and the earliest estimates for the completion of those reports has been six weeks. I'll give you a year to get to the bottom of this."

  "A year should settle it one way or another, Curion," Kustar nodded.

  "Very good. You will submit a report to me personally every sixteen days or after any significant discovery. Administrative matters will be reported to Choralon Miara, on my personal staff. She is the only other person you will report to under any circumstances. You will cooperate with all other investigative bodies at your discretion, and voluntary pooling of all information is expected." Both understood that each investigator would conduct their operation in complete secrecy, hoarding every uncovered fact like a miser’s last coin: such was the way of Direthrell ambitions.

  "Travel away from the fortress might become necessary," Kustar ventured. "The raid originated outside Alantarn, and the answers to our questions may lie there as well."

  "Let Miara know in advance so that we can establish some sort of communications," Peria nodded. "Above all, do whatever you have to do in order to get me the answers."

  Kustar bowed her head. "By your command, Curion."

  Snowflakes swirled and danced about ramparts of the guard tower overlooking Passage Two in Malker's Wall. The guard captain shivered despite his heavy clot
hing as the winds, barbed with winter's true breath, swept in off the Blasted Plains. Despite the cold and poor light of the fading day the officer kept a sharp eye upon the party making their way up the passage, and ensured that his men did the same. A single rider had approached, paid the toll, and vouched for the others. They were supposedly a prospecting group fleeing winter's hard grasp, but the captain would wager a year's pay that this bunch dug their gold with a weapon's edge.

  Lifting his gaze from the battered band wearily climbing the passage the veteran officer studied the gray expanses of the Plains below him, the view having gone vague now with blowing snow, low clouds, and the dying day. The Plains had been quiet this summer; the Orc and Eyade raids had been mere tokens of what was expected, although scouting groups had been plentiful. Many said that it must mean troubles for the Void-worshippers in the east, more wars between the Hand and the Direthrell, but the captain doubted it. He suspected that it boded ill for the Realms,.

  The post Seer was approaching him, so wrapped in a massive yalla-skin robe that he appeared to be a mobile rug. "Well?" the officer demanded.

  The scryer shrugged, the robe smothering the gesture. "They're not of the Dark, although there's bloody deeds aplenty in their recent past. How much further did you want me to dig?"

  The garrison commander brooded for a moment over the climbing figures. "That will do. No one rides the Plains without bloody deeds." He waved a command to the duty officer. “Let them pass.”

  The Badgers spent the night in a farmer's barn; the landholder took one look at the group escorting the Monk of the Fiery Staff and left them well alone, which suited the mercenaries perfectly well. They were twelve frigid days from the battle, twelve days of hard riding while bearing wounds, cold, and loss. They wanted nothing more than to be left alone and sleep warm.