by RW Krpoun
“Can I help you, good sir?” The man’s eyes took in the bracer-borne Company badge.
“Yes, I need maps, surprisingly enough, and I was told you would have some in stock.” Henri put both hands on the counter and smiled.
“You’ve come to the best map-shop in the city, sir. I am Keig, the chief clerk in charge of sales. And you are?”
“Corporal Henri Toulon of the Phantom Badgers, mercenaries in the service of the Duchy.” He tapped his brass gorget for emphasis. “What I need are six sheets in good detail of the area around what is now called Laffery’s Ford. Would you have those in stock?”
“Laffery’s Ford, Laffery’s Ford,” the clerk mumbled, producing a map from beneath the counter. “You mean this area, sir?”
“Yes, exactly, now, I need a map which will accurately represent it for about twenty miles in all directions.”
“Ah, now, that will require some time, sir, as we’re mainly a sea chart firm, but I see that we’re the masters for the area already drawn, so, hmmmm,” Krieg studied a page in a portfolio he had produced. “Now, unless you wish to pay extra for a rush job...”
Most of the horses and oxen had been removed from the city in the hours before the siege set in, or eaten since then, as it was difficult enough to feed all the people in the city, and the stables made excellent temporary housing. A few animals were still in the city, war horses and some dray beasts for the garrison, but it did not affect the transportation much, as hand carts and wagons drawn by men were plentiful, especially since with the huge number of refugees there were five men for every job. Two wagons loaded with straw drawn by teams of men rolled down Magnolia Street at a brisk pace, the pullers eager to get the job done.
Another wagon drawn by men had lost a wheel near the alley leading to the Golden Cartographers’ sales entrance, forcing the two wagons to run up on the sidewalk to avoid the draymen who were busily effecting repairs, so for about twenty yards the two wains travelled with their sides mere inches from the front of the map-maker’s building.
A sudden, sharp whistle caused the straw on each wagon to explode as figures leapt out and crawled-ran up the side of the building as if it were a flat surface. Starr lead the Scout Section out of the first wagon, while Durek, Axel, Bridget, Kroh, and Rolf emerged from the straw on the second wagon. Their ascent was made possible by a light coating of enchanted wax on the soles of their boots and the palms of their gloves which enabled them to climb like a spider. The friction of the climb wore the wax away quickly, but the building was only two stories so the Badgers had no difficulty in reaching their goal.
On the roof Axel struck a likely-looking patch of tiles and uttered a complex incantation, then limped twenty feet down and repeated it as behind him Kroh slammed a five-pound hammer into the spot where the wizard had touched his staff, the tiles and boards shattering like a multi-layered sheet of glass, leaving a roughly circular hole three feet across. Rolf, meanwhile, had tied a rope around a handy chimney and tossed the coil of knotted rope down into the hole.
While discussing the time and cost schedules with Keig Henri kept an eye on the hourglass that Dayyan held beneath the level of the counter, the green-dyed sand clearly visible at five feet. Pretending to consider the final price as the last emerald grains slid down the narrow glass waist, the wizard muttered a quick cant and gestured with his staff, coating the far wall in inky blackness. Keig gave a startled yelp as he looked in the direction of the Corporal’s gesture and reached for an alarm bell as Jothan lunged over the counter and split his skull with throwing axe.
That they had been watched through a peephole was obvious as the sound of the framed maps clattering to the floor on the other side of the wall of shadow, exposing archer’s slits . Henri ducked below the counter (his wall merely obscured sight) and thrust the butt of his staff against the inner wall to his right. Concentrating on each syllable as he chanted, he drew the staff up the wall from the base boards to a level even with the counter, and then dragged it horizontally about two feet over before dragging it back down the wall to the baseboards, the blue-gray nimbus encasing the stave’s metal cap utterly consuming the wall-planks in a three-inch belt centered on the staff, the fire so hot that almost no ash and very little smoke was produced.
As Henri reach the floor and dragged his staff along the baseboard to meet with his starting point, a two-foot wide, four feet high section of the wall fell into the sales area, creating a small portal into the office on the other side of the partition.
The wizard sagged against the counter and mopped away sweat, breathing as hard as if he had sprinted three hundred yards as Jothan and Dayyan ducked through the charred opening in the wall. The neatly furnished office didn’t interest Dayyan, but the door leading into the main area of the building did; leaping across the room, he noted approvingly that it opened outward, and smashed the lock’s catches from their slots in the door frame with a single well-aimed kick. As the door swung open the standard-bearer brought up his crossbow and shot a man in an ink-spattered tunic and trousers squarely in the chest, the man’s own crossbow discharging into the floor as he fell. Hopping sideways to clear the doorway, Dayyan stepped into the cocking stirrup of his crossbow as Jothan hurled a bloody throwing axe through the doorway and ducked back as a quarrel flashed into the room.
Confused shouting and running feet could be heard from the large room their door opened into as Dayyan recocked his weapon and slapped a quarrel in place. Henri, pale and sweating, slipped through the opening into their office as the exterior door of the sales office crashed open and the first Badgers from Silver Platoon, panting from a hard run, burst in and took up positions behind the counter. One shouted the code word that indicated that the main assault team was in place.
Henri took a long pull off his engraved pocket flask as Dayyan held his crossbow around the door frame and fired blindly. So far, so good.
After a quick glance to ensure the room below was empty Kroh went down the knotted rope hand over hand, letting his legs hang free to speed his descent. Resisting the impulse to drop the last couple yards, the Dwarf ripped his axe free the instant his boots touched the seldom-swept planks of the floor and darted to the doorway, pausing to listen for a second before jerking the door open and bobbing his head into the hallway for two fast glances, once in each direction.
Stepping across the hall, he opened the door on the opposite room and checked it for occupants as Rolf followed him into the hallway and darted to the door of the adjoining room. As the Waybrother stepped into the hall he saw two doors opening further down the hall and hefted his axe, relaxing as Durek’s head bobbed out of the nearer and Starr’s out of the further. Moving quickly but without haste, the Dwarf darted down the hall to secure the stairs, Rolf close behind him, as the rest of the assault team checked the remaining rooms for occupants.
So far, the plan was still holding true.
Arthol heard the running steps and the sound of his bodyguard standing up and drawing his sword, and motioned for Tryza to put the hot poker away; to disturb him during these two hours meant either a dire emergency or even more dire punishment for whoever made the mistake.
A clerk burst into the room, and tossed a fast, clumsy salute. “Sir, we’re under attack.”
“What, the building? How? By whom?”
“Mercenaries, Phantom Badgers, sir, they’ve taken the sales area and your office, supported by wizardry and missile fire. We’ve two dead and a couple wounded, but they’re contained for the movement.”
“How did they take my office? Never mind, is Tolver in command up there?”
“Yes, sir, he sent me.”
“Good, tell him I’m on my way, and to prepare for an evacuation on my order.” Tryza had already fastened the girl’s wrist to a punishment rack and pulled her own shirt on. Arthol motioned for her to don her mail tunic, which was carried in a leather bag by his guards so as to be ready for trouble without showing too much of a military aspect, and could hear the other gu
ard donning his. So the Badgers had figured out where his headquarters were, or perhaps just that this was a Hand front; in either case, the place was compromised. From the sound of it the Badgers had broken through the wall between the sales area and his office, hoping to gain a undefended route into the main areas of the building, but they would have small luck there. His people could hold them bottled up there for a while, long enough in any case. “Kill the girl as soon as you’re armed, and join me at the archives,” he snapped at Tryza, and darted out the door, his other guard on his heels.
Durek joined Kroh, Rolf, and Axel at the stairs as Starr organized her people. “One man, a warrior by his looks, killed as he slept in a room for four,” the Captain advised the others. “The top floor is ours. Bridget will hang back in case we need Healing, while the rest of us rush the main area of the first floor. How’s it sound?”
“Lots of yelling, but no melee yet,” Kroh observed around a cigar, Rolf having found a lit lamp in the room he had checked. “They’ve got our decoy team ‘trapped’.”
“Another success for Arian. Ready, Starr ? Good, let’s go. Time to teach them that ‘trapped’ is a relative term.”
The first four Badgers (Durek, Kroh, Axel, and Rolf) were able to slip down the staircase quickly and nearly soundlessly, much aided by the shouting and desk-turning-over going on in the main area of the ground floor as the Hand staffers created a bulwark against the attack from the west. Henri’s shadow-wall had faded, and there was a lively fight going on at the loopholes overlooking the sales area as Hand staff fired at Silver Platoon and the mercenaries peppered the narrow slits in return.
As soon as he could see into the ground floor Axel gestured with his staff, sending a fine mist into a group shoving desks together to form a fighting position, killing four of them instantly. Kroh hurled his axe and roared across the room after it, Rolf at his side, Moonblade in hand, Durek close behind. Scout Section swarmed down the stairs, Jepson Plumer darting across the room to cover the entrance to the cellar as the rest plied their bows.
The surprise assault from behind had a stunning effect upon the clerks and staff officers, an effect magnified by the Hand operatives’ fatigue and the fact that few had had time for much in the way of weapons-drill lately. Worse, while all were well-armed from the arms chests carefully positioned for just such an contingency, the Hand staff were in their shirt sleeves, with only a couple having had time and the presence of mind to don armor.
Durek leaned away from a wild swing of a mace and slammed the enchanted edge of his axe into the woman’s left knee, shearing the joint in two, finishing the clerk with a solid chop to the temple after she crashed to the floor howling in pain. Alerted by the sounds of melee Silver Platoon smashed open the door between the sales area and the main work area with a log ram they had brought for that purpose even as one of their sections and the decoy team charged in through the adjoining office.
Deflecting a sword’s thrust with the haft of his axe, Durek smashed the top of his axe into his foe’s unarmored belly, knocking the man off-balance and nearly out of breath, spinning his weapon around for a solid overhand swing which split the Hand staff officer’s skull like a melon. Stepping back from the dying man, the Captain surveyed the fight and found it nearly over; there had been around thirty Hand operatives in the room facing forty-one armored Badgers attacking from both sides.
So far, things were going very well.
Unlocking the door to the archives, Arthol used a key to open an iron box on top of the nearest file cabinet. Grabbing four glass balls from the box, he hefted the first sphere and muttered a quick phrase. Hurling the ball against the last cabinet on the left produced a wall of fire a foot wide and six feet long and high; within seconds two other balls created more fire, the blazing walls lasting for about six seconds, before winking out, plenty of time to set the sheaves of paper, vellum, and parchment stored within the cabinets ablaze. Tucking the last ball into his belt pouch, Arthol backed out of the small room, coughing, and slammed the door shut. Vents in the room would allow the fires to continue without flooding the entire building with smoke, while the stone walls and metal-shod ceiling would slow, perhaps contain, the spread of the fire.
“Go see how things are going, just a quick look,” Mane instructed the male guard as Tryza joined them, then hurried to the vault door. A small key thrust into a hole half-hidden by a hinge disarmed the door’s clockwork defenses, and three more keys unlocked the door itself.
“What is taking that idiot?” Arthol snapped as he unlocked the inner gate and swung it wide. “Check on him, but be careful.”
Tryza was back in a moment. “He’s dead, an arrow in the throat; apparently there’s an archer at the top of the stairs. I could hear melee on the ground floor, a lot of fighting.”
“Blast, we’ve lost the building and the staff, then.” As he spoke Arthol was thrusting boxes and bags into a backpack stored in the vault for circumstances such as these. “Here, take this and stand guard.” Working swiftly, he filled a second pack and slung it on his own back and grabbed the ledger which detailed the vault’s inventory. Slamming the cage door shut behind him, the lock catching automatically, he stepped out of the vault to find Tryza, sword in hand, racing back to him. “They’re coming down the stairs, and I’ve no missile weapons, sir.”
“I understand. Grab that lamp and follow me.” He would have liked to lock the vault’s outer door and reset its traps, but there was no time. Pulling a oddly-shaped key from his pocket, he jerked open the door to the storage room and raced through the aisles between stacks of various goods. Coming to the far wall he counted cracks in the wall, finally inserting the key into a chipped area and twisting it. A section of the wall popped loose and he carefully pulled it open, exposing a door with a sheet of stone cunningly fastened to its outer face. “Pull it shut behind you,” he ordered Tryza and entered the narrow escape corridor.
The corridor was short, barely thirty feet long, ending in a ladder that led to a trap door which yet another key unlocked. The trap door led into a room filled with barrels and the smells of fresh tar and seasoned wood: one of the storage rooms in the ship chandlers across the street.
“Take off your mail and leave it here,” Mane instructed Tryza, as he concealed their backpacks in a handy barrel. “Hang onto your weapons, though.”
Using a window, the two climbed into the alley behind the chandlery, and slipped off into the crowds in the street.
“All right, search teams, get to it,” Durek bellowed. “Starr, send runners to Blue Platoon and see how they’re doing, and another to bring up the wagons. Bridget, how are our losses?”
“Seven wounded, two seriously, but no one will die or be maimed.”
“Excellent.” Spotting Elonia coming up from the cellar, the Captain went to meet her. “How does it look so far?”
“Only one in the cellar, and one upstairs, neither wearing Fet or Hern tattoos, plus a girl they had been interrogating. They set the archives on fire, and took the best gear out of the vault, but they left the money and a number of minor items. Since none of the corpses is carrying bags of enchanted items taken from the vault it’s a certainty that someone escaped out of the cellar, probably more than one. Kroh spotted a false door in a storage room, and took Rolf across the street to look for the escapees, while a couple Gold Platoon Badgers are breaking the door down with sledges.”
“So we may have missed ‘A’, unless he’s among the dead in this room?”
“Yes. And since whoever escaped had keys to the vault we can bet that it was a high-ranking officer, either ‘A’ or the operations officer. Whoever escaped was either in the cellar when we hit, or fled there immediately after.”
“Bad luck, but I hadn’t been too confident that we’d bag ‘A’ so easily; he would be the type to cut and run at the first hint of trouble while his followers bought him time. Still, even if he escaped, things will be a good deal harder on him in the future.”
Arthol spent
an hour circling and dodging to ensure that he wasn’t being tailed before heading for the secondary headquarters that Fussock operated, arriving there well after full darkness had settled into the city. The fall-back headquarters was in North Town, operating under the guise of a book-maker’s shop. Mane found his deputy in a loft over the main work area with a blond staff officer studying a map, both men armed and more weapons ready to hand.
“What is this display?” Arthol snapped as he entered the loft, Tryza close behind. “Are you planning on seizing Dragon Isle?”
“You’ve been out of pocket for a while,” Fussock sighed, lines of fatigue framing his eyes. “The garrison has been hitting our people left and right, led by Green Bureau thugs. We’ve been compromised from within, that much is obvious. I risked an action team to ambush one of the Greens and got his list, a partial one, but it’s obvious we’ve one or more moles within our organization, operating at least at associate level.”
“How bad is the damage?” Mane crossed the loft and elbowed the staffer away from the map.
“Bad; we’ve lost about a quarter of our people, although our message system is still largely intact for the moment. I’ve ordered all survivors to halt operations and head for cover until we reactivate them, as per standing orders.”
“Good. We’ve lost our headquarters and primary staff, as you already know, but I destroyed the archives and extracted two-thirds of the enchanted goods, which are cached.” He jotted down the location of the two backpacks. “Send a team to recover them first thing tomorrow.”
