Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers

by Krpoun, RW

  “Dead,” Kroh broke the head off an arrow jutting through Rolf’s left forearm and pulled the shaft back through, making the half-Orc gasp. “Titan landed on him and got a neck-bite; he killed it, but the venom slowed him down, and before he got clear there were a half-dozen Goblins on him. He got two, and the rest got him.”

  The Lanthrell maiden closed her eyes against the sudden, painful tightening of her chest: the smith had died because his leader, Starr, had been tricked into walking into an ambush. When she opened her eyes, the little Threll’s face was hard, and her gaze bleak. Being a leader no longer seemed like such a fine thing, nor would it ever again.

  “Forst and the other cultist?”

  “Ehrler’s dead,” Rolf wrapped a bandage around the wound and pulled the knot tight with his teeth. “Goblins shot him down at the start, while Forst just disappeared.”

  Neither Gremheld or Kroh had seen the brewer after the fight started. “Damn him! Here they come, listen, head to that trail-fork where we saw the great owl and wait; I’ll keep the Goblins busy for a bit.”

  Starr rejoined her companions a half hour after they reached the rally point, wet from the snow and brush-scarred, her quiver half-empty. “We were attacked by a Serao which was part of a Purple Spider Afora; say two hundred and thirty Goblins all told.”

  “That’s a weak Afora,” Kroh observed, passing the Threll his flask. “Of course the Purple Spider’s seen too much fighting these last few years to mass decent numbers.”

  “There’s more than a few less, now,” Starr gagged at the taste of the ale, but took another drink anyway as she had lost her flask back at the stream when the fight started. “Forst is alive, the Goblins welcomed him like a member of the family. And you’ll never guess who else was there: our old friend Captain Meyer and some other Humans, three or four, I think.”

  “Forst must have sent Meyer to rally up a force of Goblins,” Rolf observed. “I guess they were hoping to catch the Militia off-guard.”

  “Something like that,” Starr nodded. “And the bastard played me like a harp, walked us right into them.” The Dwarf smith’s face flashed before her.

  “Don’t worry too much about it, little one,” Kroh patted her shoulder. “We all fell for it. Hergar was unlucky, that’s all.”

  “Anyway, you three head back to Hohenfels and bring the news that they’ve got Goblins on the way; I’m going to circle back around and see if I can get a shot at the Goblin commander, maybe ruin their appetite for a fight today, or at least slow them down.”

  The Waybrother scowled at her. “Alone? No.”

  “A Lanthrell can walk past any Goblin sentry, Kroh,” Starr smiled bitterly. “But not a Dwarf. I need to go alone if I’m to have a chance. No Goblin can find me in the woods if I don’t want to be found.”

  “It’s too risky,” the Dwarf persisted.

  “You, speaking of too much risk? No, Kroh, it isn’t, not for me. And I have a debt to pay.”

  That was logic to which a Dwarf was vulnerable. The Waybrother scowled, thinking hard, but finally had to concede. “All right, but be careful.”

  “Always. Make for Hohenfels with all speed.”

  “We should go to a warning-house,” Gremheld volunteered.

  “What’s a warning-house?”

  “A farmstead with trained pigeons; you tie a message to its leg, a little roll of paper in a bone case, and the bird flies right to the Watch House in town. About one farm in four out here on the edge of our territory has a coop of them; a good bird could be back in Hohenfels in less than an hour.”

  “Good idea; go to the nearest warning-house, send off a few birds with news of what has happened, and then head back to town, warning the people about the Goblins as you go,” Starr nodded.

  “What about trying for Forst?” Kroh asked.

  “We’ll deal with him later,” the little Threll spat. “I would like to get that clever bastard on the wrong end of Snow Leopard and teach him to dance to a new tune. He would end up singing in a higher voice than mine.”

  Chapter Six

  “You were close to the mark,” Sleiger advised Khan. “Three of the five named were cultists, one was missing, and one had no tattoos.” He passed the clerk the list of names, with dispositions noted after each. “Two had to be killed, wounding four of ours in the process.”

  “So we have twelve in the cells, four dead, and three whom we are reasonably sure are out of town,” Felix nodded thoughtfully. “That leaves four unaccounted for. Where are the dead and the new captive? I need to examine their tattoos.”

  “They’re bringing them in.” Wearily the Mayor made his way back outside, trailed by Halabarian, who had appointed himself as Mayor’s Bodyguard when not out scouting. “Four left, and we may know the name more soon, if Kahn is correct...” He was interrupted by the thrumm of the Threll’s bow releasing and the mallet-sound of a quarrel striking wood. As Halabarian shouted for the reserve section of Militiamen to rush the house across the street, the Mayor dazedly studied a crossbow bolt jutting from the planks of the Watch House; it had missed him by inches.

  “I missed, but my shot threw his off,” the Lanthrell kept his eyes on the surrounding houses. “Perhaps you ought to step inside, Lord Mayor; with Captain Meyer out of the game, your death would leave the Militia leaderless and confused.”

  Stepping back into the Watch House, Sleiger bellowed for Khan. When the clerk appeared from the cell block, sketch pad in hand, the Mayor called him over. “Write up an order making Claus Becker acting Captain of the Militia, with Jospur Kilner as Acting Cornet and second-in-command. Bring three copies to me at once.”

  Corporal Paul Gildner led a couple militiamen carrying a corpse into the Watch House. “Got the assassin, Lord Mayor, but he killed August Kilner while we were about it.”

  “Damn,” Sleiger put his head into his hands for a moment. “Go ask his father to come here. Set the body down there, lads.” Pulling the ink pot to hand, the Mayor signed the three copies of the order promoting Becker and Kilner. “There, now killing me won’t change a thing. Who was the crossbowman, Felix?” Sleiger indicated the corpse four Militiamen were lugging through the Watch House’s door.

  “Philip Lipfert, a dock worker, and a ranking member of the Inner Assembly if I’m not mistaken; he wasn’t on my list of names as you will recall, but I believe he’s shown me where I made my mistake.” The clerk hurried off.

  “Glad the bastard did something useful with his life,” Sleiger mumbled to himself. “All right, lads, put him with the others.”

  After breaking the news of his son’s death to Kilner, the Mayor sat back down at a desk the Watch used for writing reports and sent for a glass of ale and some food. He was sitting there in a half-doze when Felix and Claus Becker burst into the room from different doors calling his name.

  “WHAT! Oh, the Eight, will this never end? Captain Becker, what is it?”

  “Two pigeons just arrived, sir.” Becker handed over the tiny bone capsules.

  “Here, Felix, get the messages out and read them; I’m too tired to bother. How are the gallows coming, Claus?”

  “As good as can be arranged, we’re using that old silo of Forst’s (ironic, eh?), and some scaffolding. We can begin with two at a time as soon as you wish.”

  “Good; Felix?”

  “The first note says the Badgers captured Forst and one Ehrler brother, killed three Ehrler brothers, all cultists, and ‘destroyed all’, whatever that means.”

  “It’s good news, that’s what it means. Excellent, three more dead cultists, that’s seven dead in the Outer Assembly out of eighteen.”

  “The second note says that Forst was taking them to a cache site when they ran into an ambush, and that in the course of the fight the Ehrler brother and Hergar the smith were killed, and Forst escaped. Apparently Forst is with a war party of around two hundred-odd Goblins, and the war party is coming into our area.”

  The Mayor sighed. “Forst free again; at least we kno
w he’s not in town. Oh, yes, and an invasion to boot. What is it?”

  Corporal Gildner saluted. “Another pigeon, sir.”

  “Felix.”

  “Yes, sir, let’s see, it says Captain Meyer and the remaining Watch officer are with the Goblins, along with several other Humans. It also lists some names of cultists as provided by Forst, but we’ve either checked them or captured everyone on this list.”

  “Lies and expendables,” Sleiger shrugged. “Two hundred-odd Goblins won’t take Hohenfels by storm, not with nearly all the Militia under arms. Still, now we know that there are only three cultists of the Inner Assembly left unaccounted for, and ten of the Outer, although some will be with the Goblins.”

  “Better than that, sir,” Felix produced a list of names. “Otto Kittel, Walter Egon, and Johanna Egon are the last three cultists in the Inner Assembly. Kittel was on the first list I complied, as you will recall, and the one who was missing.”

  “Are you sure of this?”

  “Very confident, sir.”

  “Good. Claus, get someone looking for the Egons, and pass the word that Otto is to be seized when seen; get the Doctor and a couple men to search their homes. Felix, I want death warrants to be written out for each of the captives: summary execution for participation in a proscribed cult, threat to the Empire, and so on. As soon as two are done, bring them in for my signature and we’ll get the hangings underway. Men first, then women, start with Edmund Forst. Claus, you and Kilner need to be here to co-sign them. Felix, as soon as that is finished I want the names of the remaining ten members of the Outer Assembly.” The Mayor examined the markings on the note canisters. “We’ve a couple hours before the Goblins can get near town and with a little luck we’ll have this whole bloody business wrapped up by then. There you are, Cornet Kilner. Now, we’ve got Goblins on the way, so see to the ringing of the great bell and get someone to light the warning fires.” He smiled wearily. “I must say, I’ll be glad to see foes that you can tell are your enemy.”

  A dagger ready in her hand, Starr lay motionless beneath a young pine whose branches were a scant six inches off the ground and watched the boots of a Goblin sentry stroll past her position. A scarf of mottled brown and black patches covered her hair and was wrapped around her neck, and gray grease paint coated her face, with brown and black stripes slashing jaggedly across her features to further break up their outline. Walnut dye darkened her hands and wrists to the color of old leaves, while short lengths of fraying brown and black rags were tied to her biceps, forearms, thighs, calves, and scabbards, as well as being looped through her belt, their dangling ends helping break up her outline.

  When the sentry was a dozen paces away the little Badger slipped from beneath the tree and scuttled on forearms and knees to another hiding place, every move of her noiseless passage carefully planned in advance, her movement both irregular in pace and relatively slow in speed, as it is both quick and regular motion which is the easiest to spot.

  From her new position behind a mossy log which was in the final stages of decay, Starr studied the Goblin main force which was arrayed before her along the banks of the same stream where she and the others had been ambushed. The Goblin force was organized as an Afora, a Goblin unit consisting of four Seraos, a command group, a scout group, and a transport group. Each Serao, or company, would usually consist of between sixty and one hundred jugata organized as the commanding Serann saw fit, but these had less than fifty Goblins apiece, a clear sign that the Purple Spider had seen better days. The command group consisted of the Baia in command of the Afora, a dozen bodyguards, a few staff officers, two Healers, a unit standard bearer, and a half-dozen adolescent Goblins who would act as runners; the Threll was glad to see that this force did not rate a shaman. Transport for the force was provided by a dozen heavily-loaded mules tended by an equal number of slaves, the latter overseen by four well-armed Goblins. The twenty or so yasama of the scout section were assigned to sentry duty while Forst spoke with the Goblin commander.

  Apparently either Forst spoke the Goblin tongue, or the Baia spoke Pradian as the two were speaking directly to one another without an interpreter. Starr studied the pair, some forty yards distant, as she sheathed her dagger (whose bright crystal blade had been coated in grease darkened with soot for concealment) and eased her bow out of its case. There was too much noise from the careless chattering of the groups of jugata scattered all along both banks of the shallow stream for her to understand what the two were saying, but it was obvious that they were both very intent upon what was being said.

  Stringing the bow, she drew two arrows out of her quiver with agonizing slowness as she studied the rest of the command: except for the eight Human and four half-Goblin slaves who were watering the mules, and the yasama on watch, the entire Afora was sprawled about as if on a picnic, weapons and shields laid aside and the units hopelessly intermingled. She nodded to herself: one arrow, then run; by the time the Seraos were sorted out she would be half a mile away and still moving.

  Checking the fletching and shaft before nocking the arrow, Starr frowned at the pair: which one should she shoot? Forst would be the most satisfying target, but killing the Baia would be more likely to cause the Goblins to head for home, unless the senior Serann was an unusually aggressive Goblin. Reluctantly, she decided that the Afora commander was the most logical target, and with one last, regretful look at Forst, she brought the bow up and focused upon the Baia.

  The Goblin leader was wearing a mail shirt that had been made to fit a Goblin; from the color of the metal and the fine craftsmanship she guessed it to be Black Dwarven work, for no Goblin smith could produce any but the very crudest mail. She had chosen a bodkin headed arrow to defeat the mail, the oak shaft topped with a steel needle point that should slip through the mail’s rings without being slowed too much, although with a full draw at forty yards she should have penetration to spare.

  Concentrating, Starr pulled back to full draw, held a second to steady her arm against the exertion of the draw, and released, rolling to her feet and darting away even as she nocked the second, broad-bladed arrow. She had seen her first shaft strike, but had not wasted the time to see how much damage it had done; kill, wound, or merely annoy, the result was moot, and escape was everything.

  A yasama, startled by the sudden chorus of howls, surprised cries, and general shouting that had erupted back at the main body, stepped incautiously out from behind a tree to see what was happening only to take an arrow through the throat as Starr darted towards, and past, his position. The arrow she nocked after killing the scout proved to be unnecessary: as she had predicted, she was safely away long before the Goblins sorted themselves out.

  Friedrich Forst was seething with anger as he stomped through the snowy forest, trailed by Meyer, Watch Officer Lutje (or more accurately, ex-Watch Officer Lutje), and five members of the Outer Assembly. The day’s events had gone from bad to worse: first the disaster at the storage site where he had lost the Knotsmaster and two good Knotsmen, not to mention all their carefully gathered supply of poison; then after managing to escape from the idiot Phantom Badgers (losing another Knotsman in the process), he found out that the Baia in command of the Goblin force was unhappy at losing two spiders and a handful of scouts, not to mention the element of surprise, and wanted to go home.

  Then, as the argument about whether or not to raid into the farmlands of Hohenfels (and perhaps even strike at the town if the initial results of the raid were favorable) was finally going Forst’s way an arrow comes out of nowhere and very nearly kills the Baia; by the time things were finally sorted out the senior Serann had the supply mules and the command group pointed east, back to the Spiders’ camps, and there was nothing that Forst could say or promise to budge that worthy’s determination to go home. Of course, finding one of the sentries with an arrow through his throat didn’t help much. Unreliable fools! Couldn’t they see that this was their only opportunity to strike, with the Militia leaderless and disorganized? Fo
ols, he was surrounded by fools.

  The Assembly’s emergency rally point was a stout little cabin hidden near the south end of the settled area around Hohenfels; smoke was coming from the chimney and lights could be seen in the window. Disdaining recognition signals, confident that no sentry was posted, the Master Guide marched to the front door and threw it open. Inside were the Egons, Otto Kittel, and four of the Outer Assembly.

  “A fine gathering we have here, Bondsmaster,” Forst shook his head, striding to the center of the room. “Lights in the window to welcome any passing stranger, no guards posted, the door unbolted for anyone to enter.”

  The seven hung their heads. “What, no explanations? No excuses? Bah, I waste my time. You, Otto, what are you doing out of Hohenfels?”

  “They are onto us,” the thin man mumbled. “Was out to see to my cow and I saw the Mayor and some militiamen marching your family through the streets in irons, I did. In their night clothes no less. Look around and there’s sentries posted on the river and walls, patrols checking buildings, and I says, the game’s up. I use the back door to my boat house, get into one of my skiffs, and off I go. I found three of the Outer Assembly and come here.”

  The former brewer nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Johanna, did the two of you see anything?”

  The lanky red-haired woman, the real power in her house and a potential Knotsmaster, met his gaze squarely. “We were awakened by the Militia moving around; by the time we were up and about they had squads everywhere. I went to the Red Lion to do the baking as is my custom and I see Doctor Drewes come running past the kitchen door with your case and that jester, Hala-something, right behind. I sent Walter to take one of the skiffs and move our best things here, just in case, but I stayed on to see what I could see. I kept the door open, and both my ears: they dragged off most of the Inner Assembly while I waited and watched. I had a small crossbow and some venom, but there were too many Militia about to have any chance at the Mayor or anyone else. I heard that Philip Lipfert tried to purify the Mayor, but that vile man was saved by a bystander; I also heard Lipfert killed two Militiamen before they slew him, but that might have been gossip, as no names were mentioned. As things seemed to be going from bad to worse, I said I was going to the privy and slipped over to hide in a place I had picked out in a warehouse, near the Armory; while there I heard a Militia Corporal saying that Otto, Walter, and I were part of the Assembly, so I took our other skiff and left.”