Dark Tide: Book Five of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  The pendant wasn’t a piece of jewelry, she decided, but an enchanted item of some sort, consisting of a rectangular plate of gold an eighth of an inch thick, an inch wide, and two inches long covered in tiny runic inscriptions hung on a chain made of braided steel wire. She carefully dumped it into a small wooden box the tent-owner had used to carry her personal eating ware and went to see how the other two Badgers were doing.

  Jothan was searching the last chest, his full pack on his back, while Dayyan added some items to his pack. Elonia quickly removed her own pack and helped the standard bearer load the items Jothan had set aside as valuable once his own pack was full. When the last chest was searched and the items stowed Elonia went back through the rooms dumping lantern oil onto the floor, bedding and cushions, pausing at the slit she had cut in the wall to hurl her lamp against a oil-soaked table. The trio of tents were engulfed in flame by the time the three Badgers rejoined Maxmillian.

  “How did we do?” the Serjeant asked Elonia.

  “Couple of interesting things, and a good bit of loot.”

  “Good. We’ll be pulling out in a couple minutes.” He gestured to the park, where the work was nearly done: pots of resin-tar-wood shavings mix were carefully being poured over the major timbers of the war engines and lit. “There’s eight light siege engines, three drills, and a half-dozen mantelets which won’t be used again.”

  Durek had kept the Scout Section at the fort to add their bows to its defense, but had allowed Starr to remain in the main camp area, roving about harassing the Hand troops in true Lanthrell style. She had crept along the curving camp, picking off an Orc here and a Direbreed there, pilfering bits and pieces of loot from the tents, storerooms, and corpses she passed; now as the light came across the land she was half a mile from Fort Trellan, crouched inside a communications trench on the edge of the Inner Line watching a Darkhost form up in preparation to moving against the North Force. The Hand hadn’t been waiting for daylight, she knew, but rather for the command apparatus to overcome the confusion and for the units to reform and deploy to where they could strike at the invaders. Fortunately Bohca Ileri was made up primarily of Direbreed and Orcs, tough fighters as individuals but somewhat less impressive as units, lacking the internal discipline that made rapid changes in mission easy.

  She watched the unit of Direbreed for a few minutes, and then slipped down the trench, heading back to where her comrades were working to improve the fort’s inward defenses.

  It was easy travelling despite the number of Hand troops moving here and there; between the sprawling lines of trenches and earthworks that made up the Inner Line and Outer Defenses the camp was a crowded jumble of tents, huts, shacks, supply dumps, dugouts, artillery parks, workshops, and a thousand other emplacements, with hordes of captives and slaves huddling here and there, their guards having abandoned them to return to their units. In such a hectic and confused environment, it was child’s play for a veteran Lanthrell to move unseen.

  She took a break halfway back, lying beside a balk of tarred wood that had once been the frame of a medium war engine before a Sagenhoft artillery piece had gotten in a lucky shot, a spear’s length from an empty trench. She was about to re-enter the trench and proceed when footsteps to her left caused her to fade into the shadows beneath the broken frame, an arrow nocked and ready. Seconds later she saw a hooded figure trudging down the chest-deep trench, head down and muttering, an armored Human warrior trailing after, a Sevenguard, the Corporal saw. Crouching in the shadow with her face covered in swirls of gray and black paste, her clothing and equipment wrapped in rags to muffle noise and break up outlines, she was all but invisible to any but a very careful inspection.

  As the pair passed her position she whistled sharply; when the Guardsman looked in her direction she shot him, the bodkin-pointed arrow flashing in through the vision slot in his full-face helm, punching through the thin bone of an eye socket and slipping deep into his brain. The hooded figure hadn’t looked up at the whistle, only stopping at the Guardsman’s painful grunt and subsequent convulsions. Before the figure could recover from its surprise Starr had flowed out from her position and slipped into the trench, a broad-head war arrow nocked and aimed.

  It was a woman inside the thick robe of green and black, Starr saw, a Human woman not yet thirty whose wide eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon the arrowhead aimed at her chest. The robe was decorated in swirls of runes done in gray thread up the sides of the skirt, with further insignia at the left shoulder. An ornate waist belt supported an oddly-shaped pouch, a decorated dagger, and an ordinary belt pouch.

  “If you don’t speak Pradian I’ll have to kill you right now.” Starr smiled at the woman, arrow at half-draw.

  “I speak,” the woman assured her, the words thickly accented but understandable.

  “Good. What are you?”

  “I am a Markan-Sem of the First Orbit,” the woman said, careful to hold her entire body motionless.

  “-Sem, eh? What specialty?” The -Sem were the specialist magic-users within the Hand priesthood, including the Seers, Watchers, Direbreed-creating Harbingers, and other practitioners of non-combative Arts. The Corporal had recognized the symbols of the -Sem before she had loosed her first arrow.

  “What you call Inner Sight, Amplus Novo.”

  “A Seer, then; with your left hand unbuckle your belt and let it fall, slowly, mind. Good, now let’s take off your robe and set it to the side, there, hang it on that nail sticking out of the trench support to your left. Ah, nice ring, put it on the edge of the trench.” The Corporal studied the shivering woman, who now wore only a wool shift and her shoes. “So those’re the Hand tattoos for a -Sem? Pretty.” The broad-head took the woman in the center throat, severing her windpipe and deflecting between two vertebra, the impact knocking the dying woman off her feet.

  Removing her quiver and bowcase and wrapping them in the Nightguard’s cloak, Starr slipped into the robe and buckled the woman’s belt around her waist. The dagger’s blade was sharp and plain, good steel; she hitched it around to her left hip and slipped her boot dagger into her right sleeve. Catching up the seal-ring the woman had placed on the lip of the trench, the little Corporal slipped off, a Seer for the present.

  The fort they had occupied had been designed for defense on all sides and professionally so; aside from shifting stakes from the belt that faced the city to the east and north sides and digging knee-breaker holes in those areas there wasn’t a whole lot of improvements to make. Durek had recalled the entire Company into the position as dawn broke, allowing two-thirds of the Badgers to rest while one-third stood guard, rotating the duty in shifts. The plan called for the Badgers to weather one attack and then fall back to the river, letting the Navians take the next assault as the mercenaries were evacuated. If everything went according to plan, which it had so far, it would take the Hand all day and scores of lives to drive the North Force out of their camp, with the same applying to the South Force.

  The Dwarf was sitting with his back to the blockhouse, a pile of spear shafts to his right and a pile of stakes to his left; using a saw and a draw-bladed spoke-shaver he was making stakes from the spear shafts. It was a simple repetitive chore that kept his hands busy while leaving his thoughts free to wander. At the moment he was watching Doctor Kuhler inventory and repack the loot taken in the raid while Axel and Henri puzzled over the items Elonia had found.

  “How does it look?” the Captain asked the wizards, who had been muttered amongst themselves.

  “The incense appears to be of erotic interest only,” Axel closed the box and set it aside. “Set a price and sell the sticks to any Badger who is interested. The medallion produces a two-inch flame at one end, useable for perhaps fifteen minutes in a twenty-four hour period.”

  “A fire starter,” Henri clarified, thumbing through the written works the Badgers had captured. “Waste of enchantment if you ask me.”

  “Huh,” Durek thought about it. “So all it does is create a small flame
?”

  “Yes, for anyone attuned to it. You could light any number of candles or lamps in the course of a day,” Axel shrugged. “I suppose it would be handy but I’m with Henri on this, seems a waste of effort. What do you want to do with it?”

  “Offer it to Kroh,” Durek grinned. “He can use it to light his cigars, and he’s passed up two enchanted items since he’s been with the Company. I bet he takes this one.”

  “Clever,” the Lieutenant nodded, then turned to look as Starr trotted up, a bundle slung over one shoulder. “About time you showed up.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Starr observed mildly, dropping the haversack she used to stow her loot by Doctor Kuhler, who grunted sourly and turned to a fresh page of his ledger. “Bagged a Night Guardsman and a Hand Seer, as a point in fact. I even walked around disguised as her.” She unrolled the bundle, displaying the robe, belt, and seal ring. “Can I keep the robe and ring?”

  “Sure, once Axel checks the ring. You want the belt and pouches, too?”

  “If there’s nothing enchanted.” The Corporal sat cross-legged near her Captain and began going through the belt pouch. “Nope, just some coins and pouch-junk. Here’s a dagger she had.”

  Axel examined the dagger and ring. “No enchantment. What’s in this pouch?”

  “I don’t know, but you better open it.”

  “Picken, go get Elonia, we’ll wait to open it until she’s here.”

  “What have you seen out there?” Durek asked, drawing the Lanthrell’s attention away from her souvenirs.

  “There’s a Darkhost forming up to assault our positions, ought to be ready in a half-hour or so, with another behind it getting set to hit the Sagenhoftian infantry in the Outer Defenses,” she reported, and adding details. “Plus they’re trying to get artillery assembled and positioned to fire upon the positions we hold, but they’re having trouble getting organized.”

  “It’ll take more than six hundred Direbreed to lever us out of this position, at least for one attack,” the Captain grunted, finishing one last spear shaft before setting the tools aside. “Starr, take these stakes to Bridget. Officers call at the blockhouse in twenty minutes. Jothan, go advise the Navians of the impending attacks, and ask them to send a runner to warn the Sixth Cohort.”

  Henri carefully opened the odd-shaped pouch under Axel and Elonia’s watchful gaze; the pouch unfolded to expose a wood block with velvet-lined cavities cut to hold a small book and a two-inch globe of some vibrant crystal-like material; swirls of blue, green, and gold swam across the globe as the light touched its surface. After the wizards had made a careful study of the items without touching either, muttering brief incantations and making concise gestures over the pouch, Axel indicated that Elonia could try. She immediately picked up the small globe and held it reverently in her cupped hands, the weak morning light bringing out the vibrant colors in rich hues as the ball shifted position.

  “I take it you know what it is,” Axel observed.

  “Yes, a focusing device, the name would mean nothing to you,” the Seeress breathed. “A very good one, of both rare and expertly-crafted materials. Where did you get this?”

  “Off a Markan-Sem if the First Orbit,” Starr said from behind them, having just returned from her errand.

  “You misjudged the rank, this would hardly have been entrusted to a low-ranked Seer.”

  Starr tossed her the seal-ring. “Look for yourself.”

  Elonia studied the ring’s face. “Fourth Orbit.” She tossed it back. “That fits.”

  “Can you use it?” Durek asked. “And what is the book?”

  “The book would be used to record her unclear sightings for later interpretation, and after I have had the item for a while to attune myself....perhaps. This is a powerful device, and it may prove beyond my abilities to employ. It is not of the Void in any sense, just a tool for any Seer regardless of allegiance.”

  “You might as well keep it, then, and the book as well,” the Captain shrugged. “See if you can get anything useful out of what she had written.”

  “I can’t see the number on the standard,” Axel squinted against the sunlight. “Not that it matters, they just number the Darkhosts within the confines of their individual armies. No archers in support, no artillery, this isn’t going to be too bad.”

  “One attack, that’s it,” Durek stated firmly, watching the surging mass of Direbreed forming up just outside arrow range. “That’s what I promised, and that’s what we’ll deliver. As soon as we break ‘em we’ll head for the river and let the Navians take their turn in the barrel. There’s still plenty of fighting left in this war, we don’t have to go looking for any extra.”

  “Too true.”

  Maxmillian watched the Darkhost start forward as he worked his arms to limber them up and give him something to do; all along the trench Badgers were shifting, nervous but not afraid. They were all veterans and knew what to expect, and it still amazed the former archivist that he was a veteran, much less a leader of troops, but there was no arguing that he was both. He had come a long ways in the four years since he had joined the Badgers and his first battle at the Orc Fort. He had made his first kill there, a harpy he had slain more by luck than anything else, the beast having misjudged the historian’s reach. He had fought Direbreed there as well, and others since, losing the fear the creatures’ warped appearance had initially inspired.

  The plan was to remain in the trench until the Darkhost closed to protect the Badgers from whatever hurled weapons the Direbreed might employ (the beast-men disdained bows and crossbows), then to form a line behind the trench so that the foe would have to cross the trench in the face of Badger attacks. While he was nowhere as seasoned a warrior as Kroh, Maxmillian was confident in the first attack’s outcome.

  The Markan in charge of the Darkhost was thinking ahead, he admitted as horns blared and the line of inhuman beasts swept forward: the lead rank were carrying doors and ten-foot sections of plank walkway in front of them for protection against missile fire, the barriers being suited for bridging the trench as well. The Serjeant shouldered his crossbow as the lead Direbreed passed the brightly painted stakes that had been planted to mark the distances for archers and fired, stepping into the stirrup to recock the weapon.

  He had fired squarely into the nearest such barrier, his bolt hanging transfixed in the wood as other bolts thumped into the walkway; the Direbreed would find it less easy to cross the plank walkway once it was bristling with trapped shafts. A section of walkway was broken into two as a seven-foot bolt from the ballista mounted on the roof of the blockhouse blasted through the barrier and killed two Direbreed behind it.

  The battering of arrow and quarrel impacts and the necessity of dodging through the stake belt caused more than a few barriers to be dropped by the Direbreed, who were notoriously undisciplined and hot-headed, the creatures being far more concerned with getting to grips with their foes than lugging the doors and lengths of walkway. Slapping his third bolt into position, Maxmillian dropped a Direbreed in the middle of the stake belt and reloaded. The Direbreed cleared the stake belt and pressed on, half their arrow-barriers abandoned and over two score of their number dead or dying behind them.

  Dropping a Fist-Lord with a quarrel to the chest, Maxmillian threw his crossbow into the central area of the fort. “Gold Platoon, formmm...on line.”

  A little raggedly, the platoon scrambled out of the trench and formed up, many Badgers firing a last quarrel or letting fly with a throwing axe or javelin as the Direbreed broke into a sprint and covered the last few yards to the trench line. The other two platoons were on line on either side of Gold, with most of the headquarters group mixed in, less the Healers and the wizards, the latter engaging in their duels with the Hand’s Arts-masters. Scout Section had been positioned on the crest of the fort’s mound to give those archers the best possible field of fire, and even now arrows were still flashing over the Badger line to cut down Direbreed, along with an occasional shaft from the ballis
ta.

  A door was flung across the trench near the Serjeant’s position as he shrugged his shield into place and pulled his hammer from his belt, but the Direbreed handling it had misjudged the distance and the far end simply dropped into the trench. A length of walkway crashed into place a few feet to his right, but the first Direbreed across its battered surface impaled a foot upon an exposed arrowhead and was cut down by a halberd while it struggled to free itself. Off to his left Maxmillian saw Rolf grab the near edge of a door laid across the trench and scuttle backwards, dragging the bridge away before the slow-witted Direbreed could react.

  The Darkhost skidded to a halt at the edge of the trench as the bridges were set into place, several of its members getting knocked into the earthworks by the pressure of the rear ranks, but the whole process was too slow for most of the Direbreed-many of the beast-men simply jumped into the trench and clawed their way up the far side, straight into the weapons of the waiting Badgers.

  Maxmillian stove in the skull of a ram-headed Fist-lord and then smashed the shoulder of a wolf-faced Direbreed into bony gravel, yelping as a rock hurled from across the trench slammed into his thigh. He warded off another stone with his shield as he crushed a furry hand clutching a trench support and missed with a swipe at its owner’s head.

  It was easy going at first, the Direbreed were terribly exposed as they scrambled up the side of the trench, but once weapons of the fallen were jammed into the dirt and clay wall to give them footholds the Direbreed were able to climb quicker, while the few bridges that had been emplaced allowed an assault on a more even footing. No other infantry would have pressed home an attack across such a barrier, but Direbreed possessed an insane desire for bloodshed and the sure knowledge that death in battle was temporary so long as their fellows could recover their Breedstones.

  The fighting intensified as the Direbreed gained better footing, but by now more than a hundred Direbreed lay dead or badly wounded at the bottom of the trench, with nearly as many more cut down on the far side, a third of the attacker’s strength gone. It was far from one-sided, Maxmillian knew: Badgers were staggering or crawling back to the blockhouse and the waiting Healers, and he had seen one of his men, one of the youths rescued at the Grand Crossing, foolishly kick a Direbreed back into the trench, only to have another beast-man seize his foot and jerk him into the trench where he died on a half-dozen blades.