by Krpoun, RW
“We vote on this,” Durek announced, motioning the flushed priestess back. “If a majority says attack, we’ll start planning; if a majority says retreat, we retreat. I say attack; Bridget?”
“Attack.”
“Janna.”
“Attack.”
“Gabriella.”
“Attack.”
“Arian.”
“Attack.”
“Kroh.”
“Hit ‘em hard; I’ve never killed a Draktaur yet, and I want to while there’s still space on my fingers.”
“Starr.”
“Attack.”
“Trellan.”
“Attack,” the ex-sailor shrugged unhappily.
“Robin.”
The swordsman shook his head. “Getting a home has made you go all soft and moralistic, Durek. I’ll oppose the attack to no effect, and just hope the little bastards have rich families.”
“Nuilia.”
“Withdraw,” the dark-haired standard bearer sneered at Kroh, who was being shushed by Starr.
“Rolf.”
“Attack.”
“That’s settled, then: we go in, get the books and any other loot we can grab, rescue the kids, and set a record running for daylight. My plan right now is very fragmentary, but basically it revolves around the bridge and the cracks that honeycomb this area: if we can find a route into the bridge cavern via the cracks, we’ll attack from the crevices while archers and spellcasters support us from the bridge. That’s just the concept, everyone feel free to dig at it and come up with any twists, tricks, or gimmicks to help even the odds. By choosing a rest period as the time to launch the attack, we’ll achieve maximum confusion. I agree four to one odds are damned long, but we can narrow that down by no small amount before we come to blows if we do it right.”
“Now, Arian will give us an overview on the cultist angle on things, and Bridget will refresh us on the Direbreed. After that, I’m going to assign a roster of scouts; we don’t move until we’ve studied the Talon for at least a full day, two being better, and until each of us has had plenty of time to get familiar with the bridge cavern. Arian, you and Trellan pick out a nearby cavern and build a scale model of the target cavern in it, leave enough room for everyone to look at it, and come up with some sort of markers to use for us and the Talon members; we’ll use this to lay out the plan in its final version. Kroh and I will go rock-crawling in an attempt to find another way into the bridge cavern; Janna and Gabriella will take the block and tackle, the rope, chains, and the tools we lugged all this way, and cache them someplace secure since there’s no point in carrying them back to the surface.”
“Now, the Talon has constructed three structures on the dirt floor of the cavern. Each is an eight-foot-high, ten-foot-wide, and varying length caged area whose roof is planked over to serve various purposes. Built against the north wall to the west of the bridge is a twelve-foot-long structure which houses the children, and whose roof has the altar and other cult equipment on it. Also against the north wall to the east of the bridge is a thirty-foot-long structure housing half the slaves, and whose roof-platform serves as the Fortren’s camp, tool storage, and supply point. Against the south wall to the east of the bridge is a thirty-foot structure which houses the rest of the slaves; the roof-platform is used for storage of the loot and the Minion’s personal perch. The Direbreed sleep wherever they please, apparently, although we’ll know more about their habits in a day or two.” The Captain indicated the structures with the partisan’s point. “They didn’t have any guards in the tunnels or on the bridge while we were watching, although they do have rope ladders and winching gear on the bridge.”
“Pretty stupid to ignore the high ground like that,” Arian commented.
“It very well may be, although the Minion may be thinking that the defense of the loot is his primary concern, or perhaps the posting of guards has gotten sloppy over the time they’ve spent here; from the looks of things they’ve been here for ten or twelve days. Arian, give us some basic background on the Dark Star.”
The monk shifted nervously. “Well, the Dark Star is a very organized cult of the Void whose holdings in the northwest corner of Alhenland has achieved nation status. They are ruled from a city called Hrothgar, and control or influence much, if not most, of the Northern Wastes. All five of the Ward Wars have pitted the Star against the Eisenalder Empire, as the cultists are extremely unhappy with the Empire’s slow but steady expansion north into what the Star considers its rightful domain. The Star also control one of only two known anverax, which is a site where each variety of andern can be drawn forth, including the most powerful variety, black andern. Additionally, the Star control other, lesser veraxes which produce poorer grades of andern. As you all know, andern is the pure stuff of Chaos, the by-product of the Void, and the basis for most of the power of the followers of the Dark One.”
“Cults and Void-worshipping races elevate certain elite individuals to altered physical and mental states by means of andern-based potions or salves, these altered individuals being called Minions or Champions of the Dark One, or Scarred Ones for the cuts the andern-based salves are rubbed into. So far as I know only the Dark Star can elevate its Champions into Draktaurs. A Draktaur is a long-serving servitor of the Star and the Dark One who has been deliberately mutated into a deadly form, essentially a centaur combining a very large humanoid torso with the legs and body of a rhino, the whole very heavily armored. Naturally, no two Draktaurs are identical, but all are very strong, very tough, and effectively fearless, although years of andern use and the mutation frequently diminishes their thinking processes; while all are cunning, many become vastly overconfident or prone to irrational actions.”
“What in blazes is a ‘rhino’?” Robin asked.
“Big creature, armor-plated, horns on its snout, lives in Sufland,” the monk shrugged. “At least, that’s what the lower, four-legged half of the Draktaur looks like to me. Imagine a torso like a bull’s covered in big sheets of horn-like plate, and legs like tree stumps.”
“Good,” Durek nodded his thanks. “Any more questions? Fine, Bridget, proceed.”
“Direbreed are the backbone of the cultists’ military machine, no matter what cult, and the truest servitors of the Void, being not of this world. Direbreed are created creatures, centered around Breedstones. Breedstones are summoned directly from the Void by a magician-cult called the Harbingers of the Dark in a ceremony called the Seeding; each Breedstone thus summoned resembles a dark crystal arrowhead. The Harbingers then conduct the Harvest, where a Breedstone in placed into the living body of a non-sentient creature, and the combination of the ‘Stone and the enchantments of the ceremony causes a Direbreed to literally grow from the host creature, completely consuming the beast in the process. Naturally, both ceremonies involve the use of andern, prepared sites, the sacrifice of sentient beings under horrible conditions and the like.”
“The new Direbreed is humanoid and Human-sized and retains a few physical characteristics of the host creature, although they are purely cosmetic. The new Direbreed is vicious, fairly skilled in basic weapons use, and utterly evil; as time passes the beast gathers cunning, knowledge, and skills. Killing the Direbreed is not an end to the creature as all experience and knowledge is stored in the Breedstone, which contains the creature’s life-force, and grows as the Direbreed ages. The Breedstone can be recovered and re-Harvested, the resulting Direbreed having lost no abilities or knowledge. Likewise, all temples of the Eight have the ability to destroy captured Breedstones. Thus the age of a Direbreed is a vital consideration, the older it is making it all the more dangerous. All persons spying on the Talon should take that into consideration.”
“I hate Direbreed, killed dozens, I have,” Kroh abruptly announced. “Old ones and young ones, too.” Having made this pronouncement he lapsed back into silence.
“Fine. Good work, Arian, Bridget,” Durek stood. “We’ll take our rest period now and begin on the various tasks fresh
and rested in the ‘morning’. Everyone needs to give the fight ahead of us special consideration in the coming hours; any idea, no matter how far-fetched or simple, must be brought forward. We need every advantage we can wring out of the hours before we attack. All persons scouting the bridge cavern will be debriefed by Bridget, who will be tasked with compiling all data about the Talon into written form so that no observation is lost. Janna, assign sentries; if there are no questions or comments, get some rest.”
Robin Threadgill surveyed the camp site: Starr, Janna, and Gabriella had first watch at the various entrances, Kroh was sitting with the little Threll, and Arian was talking with Janna. Durek was sitting by himself puffing on his pipe and frowning into the distance, wrestling with the future, no doubt. Bridget and Trellan were already in their respective bedrolls, having the second watch, as did Robin, who was too angry to rest just yet. The new Badger, Rolf, was sitting to one side slicing paper-thin strips off his block of cheese and eating them with equally thin slices of dried apricot.
He was keenly aware that the Badgers had launched many a daring raid and won far more battles than they had lost, but this fight did not seem necessary to him. Oh, so what that there were children down there; a hundred whelps died every day in the Empire alone from disease and bad living, so what were eight more or less? Leofric could whistle for his books; the odds were just too long, planning and surprise notwithstanding. Durek was letting Dwarven pride go before Badger safety, and the others were too overconfident or too raw, excepting fanatics like Janna and that manic Dwarf, Kroh.
Frowning, Robin ran through the numbers: six votes were needed to withdraw; he had two, and the Captain could count on four (his, Janna’s, Bridget’s, Kroh’s) for certain, with Rolf unlikely to oppose Durek. That left Arian, who was a former monk and not too likely to bypass a Talon with hostages, Gabriella who wasn’t too fond of Robin but who had a level head on her shoulders, Starr who would side with Kroh until a compelling reason could be found to sway her, and Trellan who was clearly not too keen on the fight.
Let him swing three, he felt, and at the first setback he could pick up at least one more. It was still possible to halt this madness before it began. Of course, the only reason there was a chance at all was because Durek had decided to put the subject to the vote, a rare occasion in the annuals of the Company, and a risky tack for the Captain to take as such were the only times his decisions were overcome.
Robin had nothing against his Captain other than that the Dwarf was too prone to turn soldiering for gold into a battle between Light and Darkness, and his propensity to appoint Company leaders from like-minded types, such as Axel and Bridget, or mindless head-bashers such as Dmitri. If Robin were in charge, a circumstance which had been crossing his mind with some regularity over the last year, the Phantom Badgers would keep their feet firmly planted upon the mercenary path with none of these deviations on errands of mercy.
Robin had been born and raised on a tiny farm in the southern regions of the Empire. His family lost the place when he was ten, and they had known no permanent home again until the money sent home by Robin and his two younger brothers managed to buy another small holding. The money came from the three Threadgill brother’s pay as Imperial Legionaries, pay and the death-bounty of the youngest boy, killed in some nameless skirmish north of the Ward. Robin had done his basic service and an extra hitch in the Legion before setting out on the path of a sell-sword, while his middle brother returned home to take up the new farm from his ageing parents.
The farm was still in the Threadgill name with nephews and nieces aplenty for free labor, although both of his parents were long gone, but Robin had no interest in the place. He would not claw the dirt for a pittance, waiting to lose the land after two bad seasons or four mediocre ones. Better to kill or be killed than to live at the mercy of the weather. He had a good woman now and a growing cache of Imperial Marks tucked away; when Durek founded the village on the Company holdings next year Robin planned to step out of the active campaigning and see about bettering himself. After all, he would be thirty-three then, and unlike Janna he had no intention of staying in active service until some damned Orc got in a lucky stroke.
Composing his features, he moved up to Gabriella’s guard post. “Wine?” he kept his voice soft so as not to give the position away. “Navian white, travels pretty well.”
“Thanks.” The dark knife-fighter took a long drink before passing the skin back. “You’re right, it travelled well, and a good vintage; my thanks again. Now piss off, Robin, I’m not going to change my mind. We need the books, those children aren't going to get sacrificed, and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop this. I didn’t come all this way to turn and run from a Scarred One and his troop of freaks. Period.”
The swordsman took a swig of wine to cover his shock. “A bit more vehement than perhaps was necessary,” he chuckled lamely. “I just wonder if we really need to risk this. With Axel here it would be another story, as one good Wizard would make a huge difference, but he’s still waiting for his legs to finish recovering, so here we are, back to cold steel.”
“And surprise, which counts for a great deal, plus whatever deceptions we can come up with; put a Threll archer on that bridge and the odds will narrow quick enough. A scattered, disorganized Talon versus eleven Badgers are not that long of odds, Robin. Not long enough for me.”
“We could win, that’s very true, but we could lose some Badgers doing it, and that’s equally true.”
“Losing Badgers is something we risk in every fight, Robin. We win so often that we lose sight of how high the risks really are, but we could lose Badgers every time we draw a blade. My way of thinking, if I have to die on a Direbreed’s blade, I would like it to be while rescuing some children, rather than in some skirmish we were hired to fight.”
“I see you’ve made up your mind.” Robin levered himself to his feet. “I’m not convinced, but a vote’s a vote.”
“You’re thinking with the wrong blade, Robin,” Gabriella grinned. “It’s always a bad idea to bring your lover along in the field: it gets you thinking too domestically.”
The next ‘morning’ saw the Badger camp humming with activity as the mercenaries turned to their assigned tasks. Durek and Kroh gathered the rock-crawling supplies together and set off to explore the crevices in the area, taking Starr and Trellan along for security. They spent two hours probing the area, scraping dust and limestone drippings off of walls to better see the layering of the rock, discussing the possibilities in low voices using their native tongue. After considerable debate, they selected a crack in the stone that to Starr looked like every other fault they had encountered, and crawled in. They emerged twenty minutes later in good spirits and moved a few hundred feet away to another hole in the mountain and crept into it. This process was repeated three more times before they settled on a crevice that seemed to suit them.
For the little Threll it was a dull duty indeed, leaning against the cool stone with an arrow nocked, watching an empty tunnel or corridor-sized fault for long periods of time; she couldn’t even talk to Trellan as he was usually positioned too far away. Guard duty was no new experience to her, but at least above ground there were the thousand and one sights and sounds that her attuned and highly trained senses noted to keep her from getting bored. Down here it was just stone, stone, stone, stone, stone, stone. And then more stone. She spent thirty minutes watching a spider the size of her little finger’s nail build a web, an experience which was the high point of her guard duty. Naturally, when bored enough, one broods upon the past, which was a problem for Starr, as in the terms of her people, she was not far out of childhood and hadn’t much past to brood upon.
She had been born and raised in Lana Larnex, the huge and ancient forest in the southern reaches of the Empire, overshadowed by the Thunderpeaks where they angled to the southeast as they headed towards the sea. Of course, the Larnax Forest was not part of the Human Empire despite the fact that everyone, Human and T
hrell alike, referred to it as in the Empire; to be accurate, the Empire had grown up around the Forest. The Threll and Humans got along well enough; both the Empire and Threll marked the boundaries of the forest with a wide belt of non-Forest forest land to accommodate the very slow growth of the Elvan holdings and to provide the Threll with a handy buffer zone, and in return the Threll respected the Empire’s right to the rest of the continent.
As a child, Starr had been raised in a conflicting manner by her parents: her mother, Lonia, had initially been an adventuresome youth who was fond of forays outside the Lana and all sorts of mischief. This spirit of carefreeness had ended abruptly when she was not much older than Starr, for she and a group of friends (including Lonia’s closest companion, her cousin Star) were ambushed by a Direthrell raiding party while they ventured into Human territory for a picnic. The Dark Threll killed or captured as slaves every member of the little party except for Lonia, who was hidden by Star, who then led the Direthrell and their Direbreed minions on a merry chase away from Lonia’s hiding place, being captured in the process but ensuring that her cousin escaped. Lonia never set foot within miles of the Lana’s boundaries after that day. Star, of course, was never seen again, although the fate of anyone who fell into Direthrell hands was clear: slavery, a lingering death through torture, or a combination of both.
Eventually Lonia finally married and late in her life bore her only child, whom she named Starr Brightgift after her beloved and heroic cousin. Thus Starr was raised by a mother whose morbid fear of the world outside of the Forest was offset by the tale of Starr’s heroic namesake, the beloved Star who had saved Lonia from a horrible fate by sacrificing herself. Starr’s father pretended to agree with his wife about the horrors of the outside world, but any traveler who entered Lana Larnex would find himself stalked and relentlessly questioned about the outside world by Starr’s father, who often had his daughter in tow.
