Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers

by Krpoun, RW

  “Not just slay them, but hide the bodies: it will be days, perhaps a week before someone notices that they are gone. Such a disappearance will create interest, but those four are the only persons in this area with the breadth of experience and the detachment from local businesses and politics to investigate into our activities. As to why slay them: because Trella knew the forest well so it is very possible that she knew of our cache points, and the location of our central holding place.”

  “You wish to undertake such a drastic action based upon the possibility that a madwoman might know our secret paces, and might have told that to the Threll in coherent form?” The Master Guide’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “More than the possibility, Master Guide,” the Bondsmaster persisted. “This Halabarian took no interest in any Badger activity until he helped find the hag; afterwards he acts as their spokesman at the brewery. I am suggesting that whatever Trella told him convinced him that there was a need to become involved. The same, I might add, applies to the Lanthrell Badger.”

  The Master Guide was silent for several minutes. “Well put. If you are correct, we cannot delay, yet if you are wrong, then we place our plan at the gravest risk.”

  “Yes, Master Guide. Of course, we could watch, and ambush them should they go into the forest seeking our sites.”

  “No: firstly, we will not know what their purpose should be when they leave town, and thus might attack them while they are about unrelated business. Secondly, such an ambush would be against professional warriors with a Threll guide, a very chancy business at best. Should we attack them, it should be within the bounds of our craft, not theirs.” The Master Guide consideed for a bit longer. “Very well, we shall strike now, for to wait until they locate one of our sites would not only put the Assembly at risk, but it would put the Badgers on their guard. At this point it is quite possible they do not know whom they face.”

  “We shall succeed, Master Guide. The plan shall bring power and prosperity to the Assembly.”

  “Perhaps; in any case, the plan can always be shelved and attempted another time, while the Assembly must never be placed at risk. You will lead the purification of the three Badgers personally; use Knotsmen from the outer Assembly in case something should go amiss. After you have disposed of those three, take the minstrel alive; we can extract what we need to know from him. Strike after dark tonight.”

  “Perhaps we should take the other Threll for that purpose as well,” the Bondsmaster suggested.

  The Master Guide shook his head in disgust. “Your lust blinds you: slay her as quickly as the other two. Let no slender waist or bright eyes blind you to the hilt-calluses on her hands.”

  “As you command, Master Guide.”

  “And advise the First Knotsmaster to be alert at the primary storage place; we cannot afford any mistakes.”

  “By your command.”

  The Master Guide stared uneasily at the door the Bondsmaster had exited through, the risks and possibilities weighing heavily upon his shoulders.

  The three Badgers were gathered in the kitchen area of their cottage, a fire crackling merrily on the hearth and a half-dozen candles brightening the room. Rolf sat at the table teaching Squeak to jump through a hoop while Eek watched his son’s performance from the big half-Orc’s shoulder. Kroh sat across from him, cracking walnuts between thumb and forefinger, carefully stacking the meat on the table and tossing the hulls into the fire where they cracked and popped as they burned.

  Starr, bundled in a blue wool blanket and a long-sleeved wool shirt whose tails reached to her knees, was curled up in a chair next to the fire sleepily nibbling at a buttered bun which Kroh had toasted for her. The little Threll’s freshly-washed hair was slicked back from her face, making her look very young and fragile in the dancing firelight. The three sat in companionable silence, the only noise in the room besides the fire being Squeak’s claws rattling on the table-top and walnuts popping open.

  Iron Tusk was dozing by the dry trough in the yard, the bitter frost that coated the ground and sparkled on the tips of her pelt failing to penetrate her thick hide and layers of subdermal fat. She was dreaming of the distant plains where she and her true she-rider had done glorious battle against Goblin wolf-riders. That had been years ago, before her she-rider had gone into a not-natural-small-hill with the others, and not come back out again, although the others had. Iron Tusk had waited outside the not-natural-small-hill for several moon cycles in the hopes of her she-rider emerging, but the she-rider never had; finally her training asserted itself and she returned to the group, crossing many miles to do so. They welcomed her back, and eventually there was the he-rider and new battles, but it was never the same.

  The komad came to full awareness without exhibiting the slightest sound or movement; her distant ancestors had been low on the food chain, and some of the hunted’s keen sense of danger remained with her, interwoven with the legacy of breeding that made her four feet high at the shoulder and well over six hundred pounds in weight, and years of careful training by Dwarves who knew how to turn a piglet into a fighting beast that had no natural enemies.

  By now no dog, cat, or fowl would dare come within the bounds of the area that Iron Tusk had claimed as her own: the stealthily movement that brought her to her senses came from people, beings of which the komad had no fear. Slowly her eyes opened and adjusted to the weak starlight while her notched and torn ears twitched carefully to best track the noise. She was the veteran of a hundred engagements ranging from minor skirmishes with road-bandits to full-scale battles involving magic and the powers of the Void, and she recognized skill and hostile intent in the movements of the men as they closed with the cottage. Moving carefully, she delicately shifted her bulk so her legs were fully beneath her and braced herself for sudden movement.

  The Bondsmaster checked the positions of his men and nodded to himself: all was in readiness. They would wait in position until a Badger emerged to use the privy, kill that one silently, and then enter the cottage after a reasonable interval. The two inside would be expecting someone to come in, giving himself and his Knotsmen a few seconds of surprise which should be sufficient to accomplish their mission.

  The rattle of the latch alerted them, and the Bondsmaster could sense the sudden tension in his men as the half-Orc stepped out on the porch, swinging the door shut as he paused to let his eyes adjust. With a smooth precision his Knotsmen darted in to begin their deadly ballet.

  The smooth, expertly-practiced dance of death was thrown into confusion as the night was shattered by a bellowed roar and the sound of thundering hooves; even as he began to turn the Bondsmaster was smashed off his feet by what seemed to be a hairy, foul-smelling boulder.

  Eek, riding on Rolf’s shoulder, chattered a warning by his ear just as the door closed behind him. Reacting with a veteran’s speed, the tall Badger crouched, the rope of the catch-pole aimed at his head slapping his hairless cheek in passing, missing him. The cultist ‘holders’ aiming at his wrists were quicker to adapt to the Badger’s sudden defensive move, flicking their loops over each hand and jerking the cord tight around the wrist. Before the holder on the left could lever his pole upwards to pin and immobilize Rolf’s arm, however, the cultist had twelve pounds of enraged rock rat land squarely on his face, Eek having leapt from his master’s shoulder to the pole and attacked from there.

  Years of survival underground had honed Rolf’s battle-senses to a keen pitch; without wasting a moment, the big half-Orc bore to his right as the cord-pressure on his left arm abruptly vanished when it’s cursing wielder dropped the pole, shaking the catch-pole’s loop free as he bore in, drawing his trapped wrist into his body to pull the holder to him. The cultist on the pole was a veteran as well, however, expertly sidestepping and backing up to keep the pole’s length between them.

  Kroh hit the door with his shoulder so hard boards splintered and the latch broke; crashing outside, he sensed rather than saw the catch-pole’s loop swinging down towards his head.
Instinctively halting, he ducked his head and flexed his neck muscles, which were thick and rock-hard from decades of axe and pick work. The loop tightened around his throat, but his neck muscles and the thick braids of his beard trapped between his throat and the cord kept his airway open for a couple vital seconds. Grabbing the catch-pole’s shaft with his left hand, the Waybrother slid the haft of his axe over the pole and then angled the butt of the weapon under his bent left elbow. Using all the strength in his broad shoulders and the lever-action of his axe haft, the Dwarf forced the pole downwards, causing the cultist wielding it to hop awkwardly from his perch above the door (where he had stood on wood wedges silently thrust into the gap between door frame and wall).

  Throwing his weight forward, gagging and seeing red as the cord tightened, Kroh managed to ram the pole’s butt into the cultist, who was forced back against the cottage’s outer wall. This lasted but a second, but it was all the Waybrother needed: for a moment both ends of the pole were more or less braced, and without movement to dissipate the captive’s efforts the pole snapped under the lever-action of the axe haft; the attached cord, now without a rigid support, sagged the vital inch necessary to release the pressure on Kroh's throat.

  Wrapping a turn of the cord around his left hand to keep it from being jerked tight again, Kroh ‘tossed’ his axe back onto his right shoulder, slipping his hand down to the balance point for one-handed swings; his opponent was desperately jerking on the cord, unaware that all his efforts accomplished was to bind Kroh’s fingers ever more tightly. Stepping in, the Waybrother brought his axe forward with a single mighty swing, the enchanted steel catching the Human squarely in the forehead, splitting his skull with no more resistance than a log-section being reduced to kindling.

  Ripping a dirk free with his left hand, Rolf cut the cord on the catch-pole and dove into his attacker, driving the holder into the ground. His foe, a trapper from the stench that clung to his clothes and hair, was no novice to a brawl, kicking and clawing with everything he had, but the Badger already had a weapon in hand; before the cultist could break free or draw a blade of his own, he was stabbed twice, once in the side, and again in the neck, neither fatal wounds, but the effect of both instilled wit-destroying panic when coolness was the thing most needed. As the cultist’s efforts became more frantic and less effective, Rolf gained control and finished the struggle with a sure thrust to the heart, angling in under the breastbone.

  The komad’s roar, the sounds of struggle on the porch, and Kroh’s explosive charge through the closed door brought Starr from a heavy doze with a start that sent the remains of her bun arcing into the fire. Sitting forward in her chair, she stared in bewilderment at the confused melee at the doorway, fumbling behind her on the chair. Before she fully grasped what was happening a man dressed in a hide tunic and leather trousers burst into the room, a wavy-bladed dagger in his hand and blood streaming from a badly torn nose and cheek.

  “Please don’t hurt me!” the little Threll squealed, curling up on the chair. “Please.”

  “Town Militia,” the man gasped, moving forward, the dagger hand dropping back behind his leg. “Now, don’t be afraid.”

  “I didn’t eat all the cookies, I left some,” Starr sobbed in Comala, crouching on her chair.

  “It’s all right, little thing,” the cultist reached out and gently placed his left hand on the back of the cowering maiden’s neck. “This’ll just take a ... yeggh!” The man had brought his dagger forward as he spoke, planning to drive its point into the Threll’s throat preparatory to opening her windpipe and major blood vessels. As he struck, however, Starr, leaning back on a too-large chair, kicked him in the groin hard enough to throw off his balance while sweeping a double-fold of blanket up to foul and divert the dagger’s blade. Cursing, the cultist jerked his entangled blade free as Starr gathered her feet under her and sprang upward, driving the top of her head into her attacker’s jaw with all the strength of her tautly-muscled legs.

  The two crashed to the floor, the cultist spitting and gagging on a blood-filled mouth after nearly biting his tongue in half; sitting up, he looked down and saw (with a growing, mind-numbing horror) that the icy burning in his midsection was caused by a long rent in his abdomen from which a fatty coil of intestines was spilling. Looking wildly about, he saw the sword belt hanging on the back of the chair where Starr and her blanket had hidden it from view, and the empty, slightly curved dagger scabbard it bore.

  Having rolled to her feet and scampered behind the cultist while he goggled at his wound, Starr grabbed his chin from behind with her right hand and stabbed him in the base of the skull, driving the point into his brain through the gap in the bone called the ‘wind gate’, and rocking the blade for good measure, jumping back as involuntary convulsions racked the already-dead man.

  Shifting the dagger to her right hand, the little Badger drew Snow Leopard and darted out onto the porch, unable to repress a girlish shriek as a gust of cold winter air whipped up under the tails of her night-shirt. The fight outside was pretty much over: Rolf was getting Iron Tusk off a cultist she had apparently been dancing on, another, his head cloven into two pieces, lay near the door, and a third lay just off the porch, steam rising from stab wounds in his chest.

  “Where’s Kroh?” Starr asked, thankful she had soft ankle-high house shoes on.

  “He’s trying to catch one who ran. Did you get the one Eek bit? Then it looks like we got four out of the five, unless Kroh gets lucky.”

  “G-g-good. Are you hurt? F-f-fine, I’m not either.” The shivering Threll surveyed the surrounding area: luckily the fight had lasted only a handful of seconds, and the cottage was isolated from the rest of the town by a couple warehouses and several grain silos. “T-t-take them inside; I’m going to put some clothes on.”

  “I’m going to give Iron Tusk a bucket of ale,” Rolf scratched the beast behind her battered ears “She took ‘em from ambush, didn’t you, baby girl? You’re Daddy’s little piggy, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Good girl!”

  Kroh came trudging up as Rolf was sluicing the blood and brains off the porch with a bucket of warm water preparatory to mopping it. “Starr said to get the bodies inside and hide the signs of a fight until we know what’s going on. Any luck?”

  “Nope, never got close to the long-legged bastard. It’s early, plenty of people still up and about, so once I lost sight of him one time there was no telling who he was since I never really got a look at him.” The Dwarf took the mop and cleaned the porch with sweeping strokes. “Not a bad fight-I can see how Emil went so easy: those damned choke-poles are an effective ambush weapon.”

  “Good thing they weren’t familiar with what a komad can do.”

  “Yep. Plus, we knew to expect catch-poles; they lose a lot of their effectiveness when you know what you’re facing. Your rat all right?”

  “Yes, he’s inside eating bacon, and I gave Iron Tusk a whole bucket of ale.”

  “Good; speaking of ale, I wouldn’t mind a tankard or two myself.”

  Starr, now fully dressed, had mopped up the kitchen floor, searched the bodies, and was arranging their possessions in neat groups on the floor. “Each of you take a look at the dead men, see if you recognize them, and check their bodies for tattoos; I saw inking on the one I killed.”

  Kroh lit a cigar and poured mugs of ale for himself and Rolf while the half-Orc checked the bodies. “They’ve all got at least four tattoos,” the tall Badger announced, finishing cutting away clothing so the skin-art was exposed. “Most have the same ones, and they’re all ugly. From their clothes and hands, I’d say we killed two trappers and two farmers.”

  “Cultists,” Kroh grunted. “I wonder if these are the ones that killed Emil, or the Langs.”

  “Either or both are possible,” Starr shrugged. “Anyway, they were carrying daggers, choking-cords, and some little tins of paste that I think are poison, although all the weapons are clean. They had three catch poles and a couple crossbows as well, plus whatever the one
who ran off had.”

  “Their plan was to kill Rolf outside, then stroll in and finish us off, probably open with a volley with the crossbows and then rush in with poisoned blades,” Kroh observed. “Might have worked. We must really be making them nervous.”

  “Well, they’re making me nervous,” Starr scowled. “There’s more than five members in a cult, so we had best move fast if we’re going to avoid a blade in the back.” She sighed and stared at the array of belongings laid out on the floor, wishing someone with more experience was in charge. “We need help. We’ll bring people we trust in one at a time, and explain things to them. We’ll start with Halabarian.”

  “Him?” Kroh sneered.

  “Yes, him. He wasn’t here when Emil was killed, and if he was aligned with the cultists in any way he could have killed me in the forest last night after we found Trella. For all that, if he was a cultist they would have had Trella long ago.” Starr gestured to the bodies. “Plus, being widely traveled he might know something about cults.”

  “We figured Claus Becker and the Doctor weren’t cultists ‘cause they helped us when Kroh started looking for the murderer,” Rolf offered.

  “Good, we’ll follow up with them. Rolf, go fetch Halabarian; take Eek and all your weapons. Kroh, we need to plan.”

  Chapter Five

  Halabarian studied the tattoos on the corpses as Starr explained the evening’s actions. When she finished the minstrel smiled tiredly. “I had my suspicions, but this confirms it. In the course of my wanderings, and through the studies which are essential for understanding much of the old epic poetry and ballads, I’ve come across a great deal of information on the dark cults that operate within Human lands. These four are members of a cult known as the Scarlet Web of the Dark One, or very similar titles; each individual cult-group calls itself an Assembly, led by a Master Guide and various other officers. Tattoos in areas normally covered by clothing are used to show membership, rank, honors, and the like. I’ve no real knowledge of the individual tattoos themselves, but I would guess that these four were veteran Knotsmen, the basic rank in an Assembly, foot soldiers drawn from those who live outside Hohenfels. The Scarlet Web are a murder-cult who honor the Dark One by covert murder, sudden, unexpected slayings, any death from surprise or facilitated by a breach of trust. You can see the motif of skulls, daggers, webs, and blood common to all the tattoos.”