Dark Tide: Book Five of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  The Badgers were assigned to fighting tower Sixteen in the wall around North Town; the tower would serve as barracks and primary fighting position for the Company, along with the two hundred foot section of curtain wall immediately to the east of the north-facing structure. Both North and South Town were secured by a twenty foot curtain wall topped by an enclosed catwalk with round thirty-foot towers set every two hundred feet, and each gate-house being a double-walled fort complete with either four or six towers. The ground outside the wall was cleared of all structures and cover for half a mile, a brutal project which had been completed while the Heartland Army was fighting out east.

  Walls are only as good as the men who guarded them, and the Duchy officers were keenly aware of it. There were three regular cohorts (I-III), which had served in the east, and which had been brought up to strength with newly-trained replacements, three cohorts made up of a cadre of regulars and called-up militia (V-VII), and four cohorts made up purely of militia (VIII-XI). Additionally, there was an artillery cohort (IV), part of which had fought in the east, and which provided crews for the wall-mounted war engines, and a cohort of engineers (XII) which oversaw repairs to the walls. Three new Cohorts (XIII-XV) were formed from individual replacements, with veteran leaders drawn from cohorts I through III. The Horse Guard Corps could only field half of its normal compliment of three hundred sixty after the bloody battles out east, but these heavily-armored veterans could serve good stead on the walls in case of an attack.

  On the second the last of the Royal Bridge forts fell and Hand engineers went to work putting the bridge back in order. The Hand now had a clear path to Sagenhoft, a victory marred by the fact that every supply dump in the Bridge’s area had been consumed, moved, or destroyed, and that the entire Duchy was stripped of all foodstuffs, fuel, and most fodder.

  At dawn on the third Sagenhoft sealed its gates, and enacted emergency laws which included food rationing, a curfew, and government control of all wheat, barley, corn, rye, flours from those grains, and all livestock. Half of all ship cargos unloaded in port were required to be dedicated to the transport of bulk foodstuffs, war supplies, timber, metal, or troops.

  By noon on the third Eyade scouts could be seen from the city’s walls.

  On the third of that month the Healers Durek had hired reported that Janna Maidenwalk would certainly live and keep her arm, but would not be fit for duty for some weeks, if not months.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “This is getting worse,” Arthol Mane glared at Quat Fussock. “Why was her background never investigated more closely?”

  The deputy station chief shook his head. “Firstly, she covered her tracks well. When she was initially engaged by us for simple jobs she came with several month’s verifiable employment in similar matters for various crime figures; prior to that she had not been in the city, having come over from Arturia. As she gained acceptance and proved herself, she was tested in the usual methods, and passed with flying colors; it was absolutely certain that she was not affiliated with the Light or any other mortal power.”

  “And that was all factual, but it still missed the point that you did not notice that she was a half-breed?”

  “No one did,” Quat scowled. “If she had still been in Pargaie service we would have detected it long ago.”

  “Still, this Meredith Vacktal frequented a dozen of the local whores, both male and female, and you never checked with any?”

  “Yes, we checked,” Quat worked to hide his irritation. “Firstly, we weren’t looking to ascertain her ancestry, and secondly, I don’t think any of them noticed, either; Meredith kept herself overweight, and took other steps to hide the hints of her Direthrell blood; one thing all of her lovers mentioned when we did contact them was that she always made contact during the hours of darkness, and took their services in her own room, which was only dimly lit. Other than bone structure in the face and hands, her ears, and some differences in limb proportions, a half-breed is identical to a Human. Cover her ears, put on extra weight, and she passed every causal examination. Under the circumstances, it is unfortunate that she deceived our lower-level associates tasked with her background checks, but not surprising: she was a trained professional. You have enough field service to know that such incidents occur.”

  Arthol shook his head and sighed. “All right, you have a point. Our four general programs are clearly known to the enemy, drastically reducing their effectiveness, the Regent is busy trumpeting that the Hobrec raid and the death of a popular Duke were engineered by Hand agents making it unwise for us to kill the Lady Eithne. What enrages me, however, is that in the space of seconds the Phantom Badgers were able to determine that Meredith was a Nepas and to save her life, thus revealing far too many of our plans. She is still alive?”

  “According to our Seer, yes, as of yesterday.”

  “And they’re sure it is Meredith?”

  “The Seer says that he detects a mixed-blood female, one with Direthrell blood; earlier the subject had some of Meredith’s belongings and home-aura about her.”

  “Could he have gotten a false reading from a Badger who had handled items belonging to Meredith?”

  “Only if the Badger in question was a Nepas who was a former Pargaie operative and who had some abilities in one of the Arts with which to blur the reading.” Quat grinned. “What are the odds on that?”

  “They have unbelievable luck,” Mane kicked a chair. “Merideth’s loader swore he cut her throat cleanly, that she shouldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds.”

  “But he ran before she was dead,” Quat pointed out. “Under pressure he obviously didn’t make as good a cut as he should have, and the Badgers acted quickly. I’m guessing they had no idea what she was, and merely took steps to save her life on the chance that she could tell them something.”

  “No doubt. Have you had the loader killed?”

  “Yes, it seemed safest. What about Meredith?”

  Arthol frowned at the wall for a bit. “I hate to divert our resources, especially when we are weakened by the exposure of our plans, but put a Seer and a couple good people on trying to track down where the Badgers have her. It’s probably too late, but we had better silence her. Have you checked on these mercenaries’ background?”

  “Yes, and it isn’t good. They’ve been in existence for eleven years, formed and led by an Umherr Dwarf who is well-known for his war against our Master. Over the last five years or so they have become very proficient in their undertakings, both in conventional military endeavors and in special operations. They are held in high regard both by the Regent and Lady Eithne. It was one of their officers, in fact, who saved the girl’s life, killing a large number of Hobrec in the process. I would suggest we widen the scope of the team you’ve just assigned and seek to destroy the entire Company.”

  Mane gave that some thought. “No. As you’ve just pointed out, these people are very good; to dispose of them would require more forces than we can spare, and entails far too much risk. Eliminate Meredith and any of the Badgers who, as individuals, draw too close to our operations. Now, we’ve other matters to discuss.”

  Durek thumped the table with his mug, rattling the breakfast plates and ending the chatter. “Let’s get to the point, we’ve busy days ahead,” the Captain announced. When he had his officers’ attention he continued. “The Hand forces should have Sagenhoft’s landward sides invested by sundown, so today the siege begins in earnest, as do our operations. We have a variety of responsibilities and obligations to our paymaster, and not a few of our own. The Regent has given us a great honor in assigning us to duties equal to that of his regular military; nearly all of the mercenary Companies in the city are stuck guarding warehouses and workshops, while we serve on the wall and have additional duties which will afford us excellent opportunities for loot.” The Captain paused for a drink of ale. “Now, Sagenhoft cannot be starved out because even with Hobrec reavers in their pay the Hand cannot close the port, which leaves them with di
rect military action or treason to deliver the city to them.”

  “Now, today is the fifth; best estimates say the Hand’s light siege train won’t arrive for at least six more days, and the siege efforts can’t really get moving until the heavy train can be released from Apartia and crosses the distance between that city and Sagenhoft.”

  “How does it look at Apartia?” Bulldog asked.

  “Poor, their walls are far from the best, being earth-core types with...anyway, their walls are not the best, and they hadn’t cleared the ground in front of the walls before the city was invested. Worse, too many troops were sent to the Heartland Army, leaving the garrison undermanned. In any case, we can plan to spend the summer and much of the fall here in Sagenhoft, perhaps even longer, it is hard to say. Our routine will revolve around several duties to our paymaster, and our own operations. Firstly, we must secure this section of wall, and secondly, we must mount both day and night patrols to help enforce the curfews and keep order. To do this we shall pursue a duty roster as follows: one platoon on the wall, which means resting and training, one platoon on day patrol, and one platoon on night patrol, rotating each day, wall duty to day patrol, day patrol to night patrol, and night patrol to wall duty. This will mean limited sleep and long hours, but it cannot be helped. Doctor Kuhler will be attached to Gold Platoon when it is patrolling, Henri and Axel will be assigned as needed, and Dayyan will replace individual Badgers to afford them a day off. The Scout Section will operate as a nocturnal ambush force against the arson teams the Hand is sending against food storage points, workshops, ships, and other key installations.”

  “For our own operations, Arian will be conducting investigations aided by Elonia, Philip, and Tonya; we hope to be able to identify and act against the primary Hand officers here in Sagenhoft. Axel will be monitoring the routine dangers within the city and will give us a preliminary report. Lieutenant?”

  The wizard shuffled several pages of notes. “The primary problem is that Sagenhoft, whose population is normally seventy thousand, now has an additional one hundred thousand souls jammed into the walls, these being both rural citizens of the Duchy and Ilthanians who fled Hand occupation. Since the Duke’s family and top ministers were out east with the army no one bothered to force the refugees on to safety, and once the Hand took the Royal Bridge it was too late. Naturally this creates massive overcrowding and makes equitable food distribution difficult. As tensions rise between the locals and the refugees so do the dangers of wide-scale rioting which could wreck the city in a matter of hours, so the Hand is hard at work agitating amongst both refugees and locals. The Duchy has commissioned a dozen cogs for the sole purpose of evacuating refugees to the south, and every ship that departs port must either have a family of refugees on board or pay a fee, but this amounts to only a few thousand a month, so we can count on the problem lasting the duration of the siege. To reduce the danger of riot military units and select mercenary Companies have been given the authority to arrest, and everyone will be patrolling heavily. Draconian rules have been established for breaking the curfew, agitating, rioting, and so on, so make sure every member of your units are briefed on the laws and the proper manner for handling prisoners. Now, once you’ve made an arrest, let’s say for possession of barley flour without a permit, you take the subject....”

  Corporal Philip Milden hopped up onto the rim of the handy rain barrel and vaulted over the man-high plank fence, a slender man of average height who always seemed to look shorter than he was, the slight olive cast to his skin almost hidden under the thick pelt of curly hair that coated him from the top of his head to the tops of his feet. The wiry man landed cat-like on the balls of his feet next to a dirty bald man who was kneeling by a leather case; the Badger grinned at the startled street toughs, his teeth flashing whitely beneath his drooping coal-black mustache. The Corporal was dressed in a simple blue coat cut in the style common to ship’s masters and black breeches; he wore no insignia of any sort, nor any obvious weapons.

  “Tell your boys to take a walk, Bruce,” the Badger advised the bald man.

  Bruce stared at the slender Badger for several long seconds, clearly astonished. Finally he waved at the two toughs. “Take a walk.”

  Philip moved a flap on the case aside with his toe as the two men walked to the other end of the alley, out of earshot. “Looks like flour, Bruce; I take it you’re in a new line of business.”

  “I thought you were gone,” the fence-turned-black market-seller blurted. “You were gone, and somebody said you were a soldier now, not a thief-taker.”

  “Some things never change,” Philip observed complacently. He had been born and raised in the Duchy, serving in its military before becoming a thief-taker, a hunter of criminal-bounties. “So, how is the black market these days?”

  Bruce sighed and sat on a handy crate. “What do you want, Milden? You didn’t come looking for me because of a load of flour.”

  “No, although they’re pretty strict about such things these days,” Philip grinned. “I need ears and eyes on the street, Bruce, same as before. You talk to me, and I forget that you’re breaking laws that could get you flogged or even hung.”

  “Just like old times,” the bald man observed bitterly. “I’m just tryin’ to make a ducat, you know. What am I supposed to be watching for?”

  “Something every patriotic Sagenhoftian should be looking for: Hand agents.”

  “Oh, sure, lots of them come to me every day to pick up a bit of flour,” Bruce sneered. “I sell stuff, Milden, remember? I buy stolen stuff and I sell it, deal a bit in girls on the side as usual, or I did, anyway. These days its food instead of other goods, but it’s still basically the same. How’m I supposed to find Hand agents?”

  “Because they travel in the same circles, Bruce, and they hire bully-boys and thieves to do the scut work. You know everybody, Bruce; I’ve confidence in you. By the way, why are you out of dealing in girls?”

  “It’s these blasted refugees,” the bald man spat. “There’s twenty half-starved farm girls willing to trade it for a pint of flour or a quarter-pound of bacon on every street corner, and it’ll only get worse as time goes by and belts get tighter.”

  “Terrible,” Philip observed with mock sincerity. “Have you seen anyone unusual, Bruce, someone I might find interesting?”

  “Might have a hint or two,” Bruce conceded sullenly. “Let me work on it a bit. How do I get in touch?”

  Philip explained the procedure. “Take care of yourself, Bruce.”

  The lean Badger climbed back over the fence and strolled down the street to where Corporal Tonya Oesau waited for him, five feet ten inches of well-muscled woman who could not be called much more than handsome but for the flashing sky-blue eyes that shone in an otherwise plain face. The tall Corporal, a veteran of the Imperial Legions and Philip’s lover, was dressed in a long peasant skirt and simple blouse, worn with a lace shawl the Imperial style, her long walnut tresses flowing freely across her shoulders and back. A parasol shaded her from the summer sun.

  “It’s about time,” she chided him. “This is not a place for a lady: I’ve been offered food and cash for my favors, and every offer was embarrassingly low.”

  “Times are tough,” Philip observed, taking her arm. “There’s lots of desperate amateur talent working the streets now.”

  “How was Bill?”

  “Bruce. The same as always, selling flour now instead of clothes or metal goods, but a villain through and through. Of the six I’ve re-contacted so far, I give him the best chance of actually coming up with something. Back in the old days he gave me half my bounties.”

  “It’s a risky business for him,” Tonya observed. “I’m surprised that he didn’t just take his lashes and go on.”

  “Ah, but he can’t, you see: he needs me to keep quiet about all his competitors that he sold to me, men who have since served their sentences and are back out on the street. Besides, he knows I’ll pay in good coin for every word he tells me. Whe
n it’s all said and done, though, I think he does it for his own reasons. There’s lots who love to inform just for the sake of dropping some poor sod in the drink. Let’s see, we’ve two more to check on, and we’ll be done for a week or so; later we’ll develop people our patrols catch as informers as well, but for now we’ll rely on my old comrades.”

  By the tenth of the month tensions were rising between the local populace and the refugees; minor clashes between the two factions were growing common, as was violence between refugees and the military patrols that stalked the city. The Hand’s light siege train was thirty miles from the walls and, given its average pace of fifteen miles per day, was expected to take its place at the growing ring of earthworks and trenches around the city by the twelfth.

  Bridget led Blue Platoon down Crofter’s Row, a broad east-west street in North Town that had been the scene of several ugly incidents lately. The Badgers left polearms behind, replaced by stout oak rods half as long as a spear shaft and a bit thicker, capped with iron at both ends, a very useful weapon for dealing with unruly citizens; crossbows and other bulky missile weapons were likewise left behind, although throwing axes and slings were still carried. The advocate had added a buckler and riot-staff (as the cudgels were called) to her usual armament after her first street-clash on a day patrol.

  So far their presence kept order, at least wherever they were in eye-shot, but tensions were running high, larders were running low, and the first hints of disease were beginning to surface. News of the Hand’s plan to use rat-farms to spread sickness had been reported widely, and the government had hired every rat-catcher in the city and recruited more from the refugees, which along with a bounty on rats had off-set the danger to some degree, but outbreaks were coming, of that everyone was certain.