by RW Krpoun
Mane watched the dawn become the day for a bit before gesturing for Luella to move out of earshot, and waved Tolver to his side. “Is she lying?”
“Not at first look; I spoke with each of the four artisans individually, and each told the same story: they scouted, then were left on a ship; they saw the light of the fire, and an hour later Blackthorn shows up with an arrow through her shoulder, looking like she does now. I left the head with the section-leader in case there was a homing enchantment upon it, but it was Meredith, no doubt about it. They must have killed her not long after we obtained our reading that she was in their hands.”
“There were no other survivors?”
“None. Most of the Hobrec, well over thirty, either died in the pond or from the smoke in the warehouse; the rest were shot down as they tried to get away from the fire. Forty Hobrec and a Human interpreter died, according to the count made by the fire-watch. One of the artisans got a count as they were loading them into the corpse-barge for their last ride out to sea. I’m assuming the Human was the interpreter, of course, unless the Hobrec bagged a Badger.”
Mane shook his head. “We were neatly duped; it was fortunate we didn’t use our own people for the task. In any case, we know Meredith is dead, which was the point of the entire mission. Luella’s superior always gives her good ratings, and her background is secure and recently checked. We can write this off as a partial success and go back to breaking the city. Now, as for these insolent mercenaries, something must be done. Assemble a team, nothing large, to monitor their movements and find out how they obtain their information. Eliminating them is not worth the effort, but we can at least blind them.”
“As you command. What about Blackthorn?”
“See to it that she gets a Healer’s attentions and give her a couple days off. And this fellow, Simer, he deserves recognition; his location was factual and his warnings well-founded. See to it that he is given a more responsible position, in fact, put him on the team that’s watching the Badgers. He was right about them once so perhaps he’ll be right again.”
“I’ll see to it at once.”
“Which one is the commander?” Starr asked Elonia, peering at the figures on the pier. The two Badgers, dressed in dirty, shapeless dresses, were pushing a handcart filled with rubbish along a dock, heading for a trash barge.
“The tall one on the right. Get as good a look at him as you can.”
“Too bad I had to leave my bow behind,” Starr eyed the distance with a professional eye. “The wind’s a bit wrong for that long of a shot, but I bet I could make it.”
“Waste of an arrow; I would bet a month’s pay he’s carrying an enchantment against missile fire,” the Seeress shrugged. “He’ll have the best the Hand can provide.”
“How can you track her so clearly? I thought tracking things wasn’t one of your specialties.”
Elonia quirked a grin at the subtle evasion of the truth: she had in fact no specialties, being rated as a Seeress for the Company only because they had no one else with the Art. “I can’t track strangers and such very well, but before we released her she swallowed one of my favorite earrings. That I can find.”
“Ugh,” the little Threll made a face. “I hope you won’t wear it again.”
“No, I lost the other, and before you ask, it fell off in Teasau last year when I was kidnapped.”
“So how do we kill this bastard?” The pair took their place in a line of identically-loaded carts.
“We find out where he stays or a place he frequents, and ambush him, which won’t be easy; those bodyguards will be agents, specialists trained in the Hand’s homelands. They can spot a trap a mile away and a day before you set it up, so we’ll be patient for now. We need to know more.”
Durek studied the battered ex-interpreter as the man ate a hot pork pie with obvious enthusiasm. Jothan Todhunter was thirty years old but looked older from years of hard living, a wiry man with a sailor’s calluses and a ready grin standing two inches shorter than average and whipcord-lean from years of slave’s rations. The Dwarf glanced over at a sooty Arian, who was leaning against the wall next to the door. The monk shrugged noncommittally.
When the man had finished eating and wiped his hands clean on a napkin the Captain introduced himself. “You understand we put a Human body into the fire so your former masters think you’re dead; we had a number of corpses on hand for just such an eventuality.”
“Tote a lot of dead around, do you? I suppose its common enough in your line a’ work. As for the Hobs, they can kiss my arse; I’m never setting foot on a ship again, and they won’t take me alive if I can help it. They take a dim view of escapees, you see, puts bad ideas in the heads of the rest. So what can I do for you, Capt’n?”
“Tell him what you know about the Hobrec operating in Sagenhoft, just as you’ve told me,” Arian instructed him. “Help yourself to the ale.”
“Don’t mind if I do. Well, it goes like this.” Jothan explained that the reavers had slipped through hidden channels in the Maior Fens, using Swamp Goblin guides hired by the Hand, and entered the Ascendi Sea. They were intended for shock raids such as the Amphitheater action, and to disrupt the shipping heading into the port. “ ‘Course, they weren’t doing so good at that,” the ex-slave observed with gusto. “The Arturian Navy’s thick on the waves around here, and they do like to fight, those lads. Burned one dramar to the waterline, they did, and not more’n twenty out of a crew of two-fifty was pulled out of the water, afterwards; prettiest thing I ever saw before you cooked the bunch in the warehouse.”
“How did you know there was a trap?” Arian asked. “You backed off the trick floor before I could throw the lever.”
“I was a sailor, first mate at the end, ten years man and boy, before the Hobs boarded my ship back in fifty-one,” Jothan shrugged. “I spent plenty of time shifting cargo from hull to shore and back; no one stores oil in a plank-floored warehouse, you put them on dirt in case of leakage. Hobs don’t hold much with oil, too dangerous on board ship, and they see fine in the dark. You might find a gallon of oil on a dramar, and no more’n three lamps all told; they use candles below decks, and that not often, so you fooled them and that lubber girl, but not me. ‘Course, Hobs aren't the brightest things to walk this poor old world, that’s for sure.”
“It’s lucky for me you didn’t warn them,” Arian observed lightly.
“Warn them?” Jothan scowled and pulled up the ragged sleeve of his shirt to expose a brand on his shoulder. “They took me off my ship after a boarding action, threw our wounded overboard to feed the sharks without finishing their pain, branded me like a cow, and made me a piece of property. I became a translator ‘cause I’ve a knack for words, I can learn just about any tongue, read and write, too, and because the alternative is to work at one the fleet-ports until you’re too old or crippled to work. Then it’s the edge of a varka for your efforts, and your body feeds the fishes. I figured an interpreter might have a chance to escape, and at least you eat regular. Women were hard to come by, though; the Hobs don’t carry slaves on their ships except for specialists like me. Warn them? By the Light, I would have thrown the lever myself if I could have. I did what I had to in order to stay alive.” The battered ex-slave shook his head.
Durek motioned for the monk to step outside with him. They had brought Jothan to their tower under the cover of darkness and hidden him in a small room off the storeroom used for storing emergency repair supplies. “What do you think?”
The monk shrugged. “He certainly didn’t warn them, just eased back to the door and jumped the instant I threw the lever. Other than the slave-brand and some sailor tattoos, he’s free of any markings, and the Hobrec certainly didn’t trust him; in fact, he’s wearing the marks of more than one lashing on his back and legs. I would say he’s what he appears: a rescued slave. He met the Hand station commander once, and a couple other Hand agents, but he can’t tell us too much about them.”
“We’ll have to keep him hidden
or get him shipped out of the city, although from what he says I doubt he’ll willingly go aboard a ship again.” The Captain scowled at the wall.
“Keep him for a few days and let me talk with him some more,” Arian suggested. “After I’ve learned all I can, you can decide where he goes.”
“Fair enough,” Durek nodded.
The city bells marked midnight and the start of the first day of Banteil, the eighth month of the Imperial Calendar. Corporal Starr Brightgift lay flat against the cool roof tiles of a warehouse that was separated by an alley from the workshop she was guarding. Spikes hammered into the roof gave her a solid enough perch for archery, but it was uncomfortable half-laying in armor all night long. Except for a couple special forays such as the ambush of the Hobrec she and her section had had ambush duty every single night since the siege began twenty-seven days ago. A master of woodcraft, the little Threll had quickly learned that there was a whole new side to sniper-craft when practiced in a city, where eyes were everywhere and cover was hard to come by. After experimentation and advice from Philip and others who were familiar with urban environments, the scout section had developed tactics for their new mission and now were becoming fairly proficient.
Despite their efforts and those of the garrison, the displays of dead arsonists, and the best efforts of the fire-watch, not a night passed without a warehouse, lumber-yard, ship, or workshop going up in flames. Mercenaries were hired as guards and more watch men were recruited from unemployed refugees, but there were more places to guard than there were troops to watch them.
At first Durek and Arian had burdened her with orders to take prisoners for interrogation, but since the Hand was hiring hungry men and boys for the work there was no information to be gained. For the last two weeks the Scouts operated on a shoot-first basis.
She had begun giving one of her section off every night to help reduce the fatigue, but everyone was still tired; it was hard to sleep in the stuffy tower; she herself slept up on the tower’s roof, but that meant just a couple hours’ rest before it got too hot. Her woods-loving spirit was badly oppressed living in this stone anthill stuffed to the overflowing with people who couldn’t get along. Disease from bad water was spreading through the poorer quarters; sickness was claiming around fifty people each day and would only get worse until the cooler weather came. The only consolation was that out in their untidy camps Eyade and Orcs would be dying as well, a slow steady trickle of foemen carried off by disease.
The scuff of leather soles upon cobblestones brought her back from her contemplation of the stars; catching up her bow from where she had propped it against the sooty brick of a chimney, she slid an arrow free of her quiver as she watched the road. The four figures slipping along the house fronts across the street from the workshop paused and looked around, obviously nervous. She saw the flicker of a hooded lantern being checked and pulled back to full draw. Aiming carefully with a master archer’s concentration, she released and immediately thrust two fingers into her mouth, producing a whistle of shocking clarity as a man screamed down in the street. Other bows snapped, and two more fell as the fourth man took to his heels.
Kicking the coil of rope over the edge of the roof, Starr scurried down the knotted rope and trotted out of the alley, an arrow ready in her bow. Milo met her at the street entrance. “Duna went after the fourth one.”
“Good; have you checked these three?”
“Not yet, that crash you heard was me falling off of a dustbin.”
Drawing Snow Leopard, Starr carefully approached each of the three; one was moaning, but the other two lay still. She kicked the two who lay still, each getting a hard blow to the belly; one grunted, the other merely flopped lifelessly. Milo finished off the two wounded while Starr checked their gear: canteens of lantern oil, buckets of fresh tar, closed lanterns, bags of oily wood shavings, and two long pry bars. “Good news: they were really arsonists.”
“That’s good,” Milo grunted, wiping off the blade of his knife on a corpse’s shirt. “Ambushing those burglars was kind of embarrassing.”
“Yes, ah, here’s Duna. Did you get him?”
“I put an arrow into him, but apparently not so bad that he couldn’t out-run me,” the dark Badger shrugged. “He dropped his lantern and gear-bag, but someone got it before I came back.”
“Some refugee, no doubt,” the Corporal shrugged. “Well, we’re exposed, so we might as well set up for a conventional guard detail. We’ll split into two watches, one sleeps while the other guards. We all ought to get about two hours apiece before the sun comes up.”
The Scout Section trudged home through the teeming streets of the newly awakened city, ignoring black looks and muttered insults from the drifts of homeless refugees who huddled on every corner and cranny; troops weren’t popular with the refugees, and were slipping in the regard of the poorer citizens as well. Starr knew that things would only get worse as the summer dragged.
The little Threll was swinging along at a steady pace, the north wall already in view between the buildings up ahead and their tower not far off, sweaty, tired, and in a sour mood, sick of stone and crowds and night ambushes and shooting down desperate or greedy men, when a sudden lilting flute’s cry from her right snapped her out of her gloom and back into the present. Looking around, she stopped so abruptly that Milo blundered into her and the Scout Section halted in confusion.
Leaning against the tall wheel of a water-cart was an olive-skinned male Lanthrell dressed in a light linen tunic and canvas trousers, with a cased bow and quiver riding on his back, along with a cased harp. A long knife and a sword in the Threllian asuka style (similar to a Human bastard sword) rode on the belt of hardwood plates that cinched in the tunic, which was stretched across a chest and shoulders that was surprisingly broad for a Lanthrell, who as a race tended to be narrow of build and delicate in bone structure. The Threll stood six foot three inches, average for a male, with his coal-black hair held back in a simple horse-tail plume which gave his strong features an open, thoughtful cast. He was smiling at Starr, his strong white teeth flashing against his tanned skin, a beautifully carved flute held in one long-fingered hand.
“It seems this stone and bustle can hide an old friend far better than the deepest glade,” he observed lightly, slipping the flute back into its case.
“Halabarian....it’s....I’m very.....hello,” Starr finished lamely, unconsciously rubbing at a smear of dirt on her cheek.
“Leading patrols now, a Corporal, I’m told; things certainly have progressed for you,” the minstrel observed.
“Yes, I lead the Scout Section,” Starr suddenly realized she was standing exactly where she had stopped, grinning like an idiot, with her entire Section watching. “Milo, take the section back to barracks and make the report to Durek, please.”
“My pleasure,” the red-haired Badger waved to the other. “Come on, let’s get to breakfast.”
“After all, duty calls,” Duna whispered as she passed Starr, who flushed beet-red.
Halabarian Storms-kin watched the section move off with many a backward look. He had met Starr years ago, and had made a practice of stopping off at Oramere from time to time. He was older than Starr, being roughly equal to a Human just past thirty, and from a different Lana, or Forest, but neither fact was a barrier in their culture. “A rough lot you command.”
“They are becoming competent in bow and woodcraft,” Starr shrugged, on safer ground. “So, what brings you to Sagenhoft?”
“A hope of finding a vision of beauty I haven't beheld in a long while,” the minstrel smiled, watching as the burning flush surged up again in the tired Corporal’s face.
“You’re wearing a sword, and not many musical instruments,” the little Threll pointed out shyly.
“Yes, I’m afraid the drum’s call to war may have had a bit to do with it as well,” he admitted. “Even minstrels and poets must take their part in this struggle, I’m afraid. Both your Lana and mine has sent levies to help the Realms.”
“Lanthrell? Here in Sagenhoft?”
“No, they didn’t care to see a Human city this close; they remain to the east, harrying the foe while we wait for Marshal Laffery to move. Someone had to come here to act as a liaison, so I volunteered. I understood the Phantom Badgers have distinguished themselves to date.”
“We’ve seen hard fighting to the east, and here in Sagenhoft as well,” Starr shook her head. “Janna Maidenwalk was badly wounded a month ago in a Hobrec raid, and we lost several good Badgers. Since we’ve reached the city we’ve been skirmishing with Hand plots and plotters.”
“War is a terrible business, all the more for this scale,” Halabarian observed somberly. He had been more than a little surprised by Starr’s appearance: the Threll mercenary was thinner and a bit harder about the eyes than she had been the last time he had seen her. Tales of the bitter fighting to the east had not been exaggerated, he guessed; certainly Sagenhoft, which had always been a lovely city before the war, had been transformed into a ghastly ant-hill of bad smells and far too many unhappy people. “Still, we must seek joy even in the very shadow of despair. I happen to know where a quiet garden and a flask of very good wine can be found, where music of the Lana can be heard and one’s cares be safely left unattended for a bit.”
“That would be wonderful,” Starr smiled, and he saw the girl he remembered once again.
Chapter Twenty
The fourth of Banteil was a sullen, overcast day, which matched Grand Commander Descente’s mood perfectly. He sat at his forward command post on the north bank of the Bercer River six hundred yards from the walls of Sagenhoft, staring thoughtfully at the grim battlements and waited for inspiration, hope, or brilliance to come to him. He hated sieges, with their constant troubles, the long, dull days, the meticulous planning, and the general sensation of fighting in slow motion while holding one’s breath. They were endurance matches, grinding actions in which stubbornness counted as much or more than courage, skill, or training.
