Dark Tide: Book Five of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “Thank you, sir.” The burly officer expertly bound the helpless man using wrist and leg manacles fastened to lengths of stout oak, which were then strapped to the legs of the chair; finished, he saluted and returned to the other side of the tent, where the sounds of bodies being dragged and equipment being sorted could be heard.

  “Good men, those,” Arthol remarked as he sorted through the papers on the chest. “Members of the Sicaria Turba, what you would call the Sevenguard, seven elite warrior Colos, or Councils, each with its own insignia, combat style, and training, but all hand-picked fighters of the finest loyalty. These four are from Color Rubor, the Red Guard as they are called, or the Red Lighting for their insignia, which is a fan of seven red lightning bolts erupting out of a deformed skull. I understand the skull being deformed was a mistake on the part of the original artist back when the Colo was formed, a misunderstanding about what they wanted, but the Colo found that they liked it better than what they had planned and never bothered to change it. Interesting to know how things come about, isn’t it? Good, I see the effects are beginning to wear off, a simple material-based spell someone stumbled upon a few years ago, expensive, but useful. I suppose you’re wondering why an official of my rank and title, escorted by four of the best of the Hand’s warriors is doing wasting his time and enchanted devices dealing with a wretched little drug smuggler?”

  Screaming from outside made conversation outside impossible for two or three minutes, during which time the trader recovered the use of his limbs. When the screaming died away to soft moans the trader licked his lips and spoke. “Sir, if...”

  “I will advise you when I wish for you to speak,” Arthol cut him off. “The outburst you heard just now was one of your former customers who guided us to you. He required more persuasion that I thought was reasonable, so for that he died, or rather, is dying rather badly, as you can hear. This is a point you would do well to keep in mind. Speak when I tell you to, tell me exactly the facts, quickly and with no blubbering, and then wait patiently for my next inquiry. Nod if you understand. Good. You said you received art work in return for your powder, where is it stored?”

  “In the chest marked ‘three’, over there,” the trader pointed with his chin, then flinched at the sound of a woman screaming in anger and pain through a gag on the other side of the divider.

  “Is it locked or secured by any sort of trap?”

  “It is locked, the keys are in my pouch.”

  “Good. Yes, here they are.” Arthol dragged the chest to where he could see both the trader and the girl, who had buried her face in the pillow and dragged a blanket over her head, and unlocked it. He sorted through the contents for a bit before removing a stout wood casket and closed the chest, shoving it back against the tent wall with his foot. “Do you know what is in this case?”

  The trader eyed the box, sweating and visibly trying to ignore the muffled cries and muted men’s laughter coming from the front of the tent. “A... something like a mirror but instead of glass it had a slab of onyx. Rather odd, but the materials....”

  “Go on.”

  “The materials were valuable, so I gave three vials for it.”

  “It is valuable, much more than three vial’s worth. Not to you or anyone you might deal with, of course, but still very valuable indeed. This is what I came for, you see: an orderly with a taste for your powder stole it, not knowing what it was, and traded it to you. When its loss was discovered, I was assigned to locate it, which was somewhat difficult as it defies detection by a Seer or Watcher. However, I prevailed, and here we are. I need two men for a detail.” The last sentence was pitched so the men in the other area could hear.

  Two Guardsmen immediately hurried into the sleeping area. “Cut away his clothes, gag him, and leave him outside,” Arthol indicated the trader, ignoring the man’s pleading. “If he’s still alive in the morning we’ll put him on the fire along with the rest of the useless junk.”

  When the sobbing, protesting trader had been carried out of the tent still bound to his camp chair, Arthol sat on the edge of the bed and slid his hand up the girl’s leg to her thigh. “Look at me, girl.” When she finally drew her face out from beneath the pillow he favored her with a cold smile. “This evening you shall experience pain, degradation, humiliation, and uses, I am confident, to which you have never before been subjected. But if you please me, if you are obedient, pliant, and learn quickly you shall live to return to the main Army encampments. Otherwise you will feed the flames in the morning. Do you understand?”

  Eyes wide, the girl nodded slowly.

  The trader was in poor shape when dawn came but still alive; frostbite had claimed the life in his hands, feet, ears, and portions of his face, but he still lived. As ordered, the Guardsmen threw him onto the bonfire they had made of his tent, camp gear, and excess supplies, where his screams rang out across the ruins like the peals of an insane bell.

  Arthol heard the screams faintly, as he had risen well before dawn, enjoyed the girl for a bit, eaten a hasty meal, and set off with one Guardsman for the Army’s camp, leaving the Section-Leader to follow with the slower carts and captured goods. The girl was with them, en route back to the service of the Hand.

  It was eight hour’s ride to the central camp, although they began passing Hand holdings after the third hour, having encountered patrols a full hour before. The effort of invasion was a massive one in any case, but the undertaking was made all the more difficult by the distances involved: the Hand of Chaos’s holdings on the east coast were separated from the Realms by the Blasted Plains, a distance of over seven hundred miles as the crow flies and considerably further as the wagon rolled. Worse, the Plains were trackless grassland, without roads or settled centers of population to help support an army on the move. Every weapon, piece of armor, and nearly all the rations would to be transported from Hand territory to the edge of the Realms for the war to be possible at all.

  However, where there was a will, there was a way. The forces of the Light blamed impatience when, during the Ostwind War, the Hand commander laying siege to Sagenhoft gathered every ship he could find and mounted a daring amphibious invasion of Arturia while the rest of his army stormed the Imperial Highway, taking the mercenary-held forts one after another. The defeat of the sea-borne force gave the northeast corner of Arturia the name of the Red Shores, and the defeat of the Hand forces along the Highway coined the name Bloody Road, but in truth it was not recklessness that drove the Hand commander, but desperation: his troops were running out of rations, and the food stocks in the lands he held or could reach in the Realms were either stripped bare by his foragers or had been destroyed by the retreating Light forces. He had ordered the desperate invasion in an attempt to break out into territory where his troops could forage and sustain themselves.

  Having learned from that disaster, the Hand had devoted countless hours of research, study, and planning to overcome the problems on this second attempt, and had been working towards the goal of supporting a second invasion for the last century. Part of the effort had been to establish stronger ties with the Eyade nomads and Orc tribes on the western edge of the Plains in order to facilitate the safe construction and maintenance of hidden storage depots where non-perishable supplies could be stockpiled against future need, mainly bulky items such as siege weapons, wagons, and the like; other steps had been to radically re-organize the Hand military and its quartermasters to ensure more efficient service.

  None of these methods, in part or as a whole, would have sufficed to make a second invasion possible, however; like the Ostwind War, this second effort would have to be supported by enchantment, most specifically Abedo Vardo, commonly called Gate magic. By use of this Art two devices are created that, when properly activated, cause what appears to be a doorway-sized area of darkness or light known as a Gate. What goes through one Gate immediately comes through the other, attuned, Gate, allowing the instantaneous transport of persons or supply across vast distances.

 
The problem with Gates were several: firstly, one Gate structure must be physically transported to the receiving site and set up before the system can be used, Gates are very easy for Watchers or specially-trained Seers to detect even at a good distance, Gates are expensive to create and operate in terms of magical energy and material cost, and because the largest Gate is no bigger than an average door, making it impossible to send large items such as siege weapons or wagons through unless they were dismantled; even sending large numbers of troops through was extremely time consuming.

  After years spent trying to enlarge the area of effect (the Gate size) and failing, the Hand’s researchers turned in another direction, that being the complexity of the two devices (called an egrai and a egran) needed to create the effect at either end of the Gate. Traditionally the devices consisted of a complex tripod-like assembly which was fragile, very expensive to build, and could not stand repeated assembly and disassembly; it was the latter weakness that doomed the Ostwind invasion: by the time the Hand forces reached Sagenhoft more than two thirds of their Gates were inoperable because of wear caused by frequent dismantling, transport, and reassembly. Since it is impossible to support a major army in the field by wagon-trains if it is more than one hundred miles from established supply depots, the Hand force had begun to starve.

  After decades of research, however, the Hand had struck upon a new method of creating the two fixtures of a Gate; the new models were no cheaper to build, and could not create a larger portal, but they were rugged, compact devices requiring no assembly, thus allowing egran with the army in the field to be moved forward as the army moved, permitting a steady flow of supplies and replacements from the depots on the Plains and back in the Hand holdings.

  It was an egran that Arthol had been tasked to recover; while an activated Gate was easily located by any Watcher, the device itself was nearly impossible to track when not activated. It rode in its plain wooden casket on the side of his saddle, bumping his right knee occasionally, but he ignored the annoyance; he had succeeded in a task deemed highly difficult, and his career would surely benefit.

  Currently he was assigned to the personal staff of the Grand Commander of the Bohca Tatbik, the Sword Army, as a troubleshooter and replacement staff officer, held against the inevitable losses the invasion would bring.

  The invasion consisted of three Bohca, or armies, attacking simultaneously: Bohca Neft, or Halberd Army, would strike into the northern Realms, with the city of Narnhelm as its target, pinning down the forces of the northern states and taking the ancient capital of the Pernia Empire. Bohca Tatbik would drive due west off the Plains to take Sagenhoft and the eastern terminus of the Imperial Highway, isolating the Realms from the rest of the nations of the Light, while Bohca Ortak, or Pike Army drove into the southern Realms to take Cashel, the largest city in the area and pinning down the forces of the south. Next year the three armies would mop up what was left of the Realms between them and await further orders, the Hand’s next step depending upon the political climate at the time and the condition of the invasion force after their victory. No one doubted that they would succeed, but just as surely, no one doubted that it would be a hard and bloody road they would have to travel to reach their victory.

  Bohca Tatbik was assembling on the Plains fifty miles east of Malker’s Wall, bringing up supplies, preparing their troops and support elements for the invasion and waiting for the passing of the spring thaw to open the campaign. Just over one hundred thousand warriors of five races waited for the order to march west, while the two smaller armies waited far to the north and south for the same order.

  The Bohca headquarters consisted of a half-dozen large tents housing work areas and meeting rooms, the entire complex guarded by an entire Sacred Band of Colo Magice, three hundred fifty elite warriors trained as heavy foot. Arthol dismissed his escort and turned his horse over to a slave at the compound’s entrance, had his forearm tattoos examined and waited while a Night Guardsman (the Colo Magice were commonly called the Night Guard) checked an access roster to insure that he was allowed entry, before finally heading into the headquarters area.

  Arthol found Markan-Hern Magda Lyris at a folding camp desk in one of the smaller tents. Magda, who held the rank of Fourth Degree, was his immediate commander, the officer in charge of the unassigned Markan-Hern of intelligence backgrounds, as well as the unassigned Markan-Fet, the branch of the priesthood devoted to intelligence-gathering, assassination, and covert operations. Arthol had entered the priesthood in the Fet branch, serving there until promoted to the Hern five years ago. Magda was a stocky, gray-faced woman in her late fifties, a tough-minded officer whose over-fondness for strong drink and drugs had badly slowed what should have been an exemplary career. She was excellent in the field, however, and had achieved promotion to the Hern some ten years earlier despite her handicaps. Arthol disliked and distrusted her, but no more than he did most of his contemporaries.

  Stopping before her desk, he perched the casket on the clearest corner and sketched a salute. “Success as promised.”

  “Success as was ordered,” Magda corrected him, opening the casket to have a look at the egran. “Still, you have done well, Arthol, very well indeed. Any losses?”

  “None, although I expended the enchanted devices I signed out. Three of the Red Guard are escorting several wagons and a quantity of equipment that the trader had obtained in his transactions. The traders and all his staff are dead, of course.”

  “Of course. And your informant?”

  “Dead.”

  “Any loose ends, then?”

  Arthol shrugged. “We recovered a slave girl at the site, one of ours that was traded for drugs. She knows nothing of import.”

  The priestess made a note on a pad. “I’ll order her killed anyway, just to be safe. I hate comebacks.” She turned to unlock a chest and remove a thick file, locking the chest before turning back to the desk. “Take a seat and something to drink while I get some space cleared here; you’ve another assignment, and an important one.”

  Not unexpectedly, Magda’s drinks chest was well-stocked; Arthol poured himself a glass of Dwarven ale and dragged a camp chair to the front of the desk. “Is this another temporary mission or a permanent assignment?”

  “Permanent enough, I suppose, at least until we take Sagenhoft; ought to get you the Third Degree, if you succeed. You’re familiar with Sagenhoft, are you not?”

  “Yes, I served there three times during my Fet days, with my last assignment being chief of station there, commanding all Hand assets in the Duchy; that was five years ago, just before I was promoted to the Hern.”

  “Well, you’re going back there again; with our Bohca’s primary objective being the siege and capture of the city intelligence and subversion efforts within Sagenhoft are of the highest priority. In keeping with that we replaced the Fet station chief in the city with a Second Degree Hern officer nine months ago in preparation, with the former Markan-Fet station chief retained as his deputy to ensure continuity.”

  “A sensible step,” Arthol nodded, sipping his ale.

  “The problem is that two days ago the new station chief and his deputy were both killed, leaving the control of Hand operations there in very poor shape. We need to send a new commander and deputy commander in at once, the officers to be drawn from our reserve pool here in our Bohca. You are of the proper rank and qualification to take over as station commander, and I have a list of five possible candidates you may choose from for your deputy. Obviously, you will travel there by Gate, as there is no time to lose in getting you in position and familiarized before the invasion.”

  Arthol took a long drink to steady his nerves. “This is a great honor, and a terrible responsibility,” he murmured, thinking fast. “To be offered such a key position, that is. How much damage has been done to our structure there? How did the forces of Light penetrate our organization to such a degree?”

  “They didn’t. The commander and his deputy had a meeting in a docksid
e restaurant for a routine briefing. They ate a meal while they talked, and left, walking together for a short ways. The traffic on the docks is apparently extremely intense as the Realms and their allies prepare for war, and an over-worked crane broke, dropping a slung net full of kegs of brandy. One keg bounced when it landed and flew off into the crowded street, dashing out the commander’s brains and breaking the deputy’s back.”

  “They were eliminated by an accident?”

  “So all our investigations show; such incidents are very common on the dock-front these days, and in fact another bystander was killed and seven seriously injured in the same accident. Neither of the two was identified for what they were, and our people were able to recover the bodies without mishap. It was very unfortunate, but it cannot be helped; all we can do is get replacements into position as quickly as possible and hope the damage can be overcome. You must pick your deputy within the hour; the two of you shall leave within four hours via Gate, arriving at a safe house about a day’s ride from the city to avoid detection by Watchers. It is a very hasty replacement, but you cannot afford to waste any time.” Magda took a long drink from the tankard at her elbow, a sour look on her face. Arthol guessed that she had applied for the position herself. Being chief of station of the Bohca’s target would virtually ensure a promotion should the city fall, as Arthol was confident it would, and it would set his career on track for more important duties. The Markan were the Hand’s elite, and the Hern were the elite within an elite; with a little luck and such a key role in this war, he could find himself in the Hand’s ruling Council of Seven by the time he was Magda’s age.

  “I accept, of course.”

  “Of course.” Magda took another drink. “Here are the dossiers of the five possible deputies currently available. Before the briefings you will need to submit a very brief report on your actions in recovering the egran, which will terminate your assignment to my command.” Magda favored him with a bitter smile. “The station-chief in Sagenhoft answers directly to the commander of our Bohca for the duration of this operation.”