Dark Practices: Book Four of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “Did you dance him a pretty little two-step?”

  “Yes, I did, and curtsied nicely afterwards, too: he thinks us both to be clever folk who have gotten money a bit too quickly, and who are a curious about what life has to offer, perhaps even a little restless in our marriage. I believe we’ve passed the first test.”

  “Good; and I’ll name you an assistant of his: Ansel Pogot, the gentleman I punched.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I wasn’t the only one at that table playing with other people’s money; it may not show when you bet, but it certainly will when you lose.”

  “Was he cheating too?”

  “Yes, but doing it with the shuffle, which is only good for the opening; I palmed the Gray King before I passed the deal to him.”

  “Perhaps he’s just a good loser.”

  “Didn’t look to have had much practice at it; besides, he’s the first horse trader I ever met with clean boots and no odor about him, not even on his hands. Nice clean hands, too, for a man who should spend a lot of time holding an oiled leather rein, and not a bite mark on ‘em anywhere, or spur scars on the uppers of his boots.”

  “You don’t think he sells horses?” Elonia was removing her jewelry and laying it out on the table next to them.

  “Oh, I imagine he deals in them to keep up appearances, but I bet he gets most of his money from your dance partner.”

  “So what do you think he was sounding you out for?”

  “I don’t think he was sounding me out so much as he was testing my credibility. Obviously, any cult hunter could spring for a gem and some brandy, but would he gamble for high stakes? And would he have good stones on his person? I think win or lose wasn’t as important as what I could lay on the table. Of course, I could be wrong, I’m a bit out of my field.”

  “No, it sounds good enough, if you think gambling is a logical test of authenticity for gem-sellers.”

  “For any wandering merchant, it is; what else is it that ‘we’ do? Buy stones here on the hope that we can sell them at a profit there, same as any other middle-man. It’s a gamble, with skill and luck both large parts of the matter.”

  “Interesting: your horse trader tests you to see if you look and sound like what you claim to be, and then van Feuchter evaluates what sorts we are by talking to me.”

  “So now what, we sell off our stock and wait for the next invitation?”

  “Initially we sell gems, yes, both for the cover and for the Company, but we can’t just wait for the invitation as the next gathering will have a more stringent test; one or both of us will have to end up in someone else’s bed, and that’s not going to happen. We’ll lay low for a few days, then quietly find out what we can find on van Feuchter and your friend Ansel; perhaps the other team will come up with something in the meantime.”

  “That’s not too likely: they can’t ask openly about the badge, so it will be a blind shot in the dark to come up with something. Do we inquire about the Duchess?”

  “No, we can rule her out; she probably knows that her gatherings are being used by the cult as a screening place, but they pay for the parties which lets her and her sick little circle play their games, so she’ll never talk.” She related the incident with the young woman, earlier.

  “Terrible thing, horrible,” Maxmillian shook his head. “Let’s deal with the cult first, and then perhaps we’ll help Fate along in the matter of the Duchess, invite her to a private gathering someplace where a body can easily be hidden.”

  “That’s a fine idea; we’ll get the ‘helper’s’ to come along and make a party of it.”

  “One thing that bothers me: where does the cult get all its money? There was a good deal of gold spent on this party, and I doubt there was more than a half-dozen newcomers there, plus a few of the Duchess’ circle who are being watched and weighed. They must have considerable wealth at their disposal.”

  “They do; they don’t just use these parties to screen new recruits for the cult’s roster, they also look for wealthy men and women who can be drawn into a web of pretty lusts and then blackmailed, bilked out of their fortunes, or in cases like ours, robbed and murdered. Other ruses would be using their assets to obtain information that could lead to timely investments for quick returns; keep in mind that this group is made up of men and woman with no inhibitions and complete loyalty, potent tools for profit if used wisely.”

  Maxmillian shook his head. “Amazing, they really have covered all the angles, haven’t they?” He slid a thin cotton stocking off of Elonia’s leg. “I left the fire banked in the water-heater before we left; what I really need right now is a long hot bath to wash away the feel of that party. Care to join me?”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all night.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Burgen River is born in the Thunderpeak Mountains, rolling westward from between Mount Koros to the north and Mount Gesham to the south, sliding out onto the plains for about fifteen miles before swinging to a southwesterly course. Eighty miles further on the Burgen forks, turning nearly due south while the Hirsch River splits off to the west. Fifty miles further on, as the Burgen edges to the southwest and the Hirsch elbows sharply south, the two rivers reform to continue almost due south as the Burgen once again. Teasau is built at the southern joining of the Hirsch and Burgen rivers, with the growing town of Hohenfels some twenty miles upstream on the Burgen. Badgerhof is seventy miles upriver from Hohenfels, just a few miles south of where the river leaves its westward course to angle southwest. The Burgen forms the north and west boundaries of the Badger holdings where it angles from east to southwest; it is also considered by the Purple Spider Keiba to be their western boundary, the foothills of the Thunderpeaks marking their eastern limits.

  The Burgen is also paralleled by the Burgen Road, a hard-surfaced highway in the Imperial manner, following the river from the south up to, and just past, Hohenfels, the town having once been just south of the Old Ward. In the early Fifties, Third Age Imperial bureaucrats in charge of road production within the Empire adjusted their priorities to take into account the growing interest in the headwaters of the Burgen, and moved the extension of the Burgen Road up in priority. In the fall of the year fifty four, Third Age, it was announced that the Burgen Road would be extended from Hohenfels to Badgerhof on the east bank of the river, with the road continuing from Badgerhof to the Emperor’s Ward, twenty-five miles further north, this last leg of the road being named Van Peller’s Way, after a deceased head of the Imperial Roads Administration. The project was to begin in the spring of the year fifty five, and was expected to take a decade to complete, with work crews beginning at Hohenfels and the Ward and working towards each other. The intention was to provide the Army with the ability to rapidly move troops and supplies through the area, to open the area to further development, and to weaken the Goblin presence in the region.

  The Imperial Roads Administration was highly expert in the matter of road-building, with finely trained survey crews who could plot highways through the worst terrain, skilled administers who could choose quarry sites, supply depots, and road gang camps with precision for each stage of a project. The excellence of this highly developed road network had its start in the first Emperor, Heinrich Besmarit: the Emperor felt that prisons and sentences of confinement had no place in an enlightened and civilized state, and categorically forbade their construction or use within his new Empire. Sitting in a cell, the Emperor reasoned, taught a man nothing but bitterness, and accomplished nothing in terms of changing his outlook in life. Under the newly-written Imperial Codex of Law (much of which remained largely unchanged), minor crimes were punished by fines and flogging, high crimes such as murder, treason, and similar offenses were resolved by hanging, and everything else resulted in sentences of varying lengths on a Volunteer Work Group building and maintaining public works, which usually meant roads and bridges. Service was completely voluntary: any person sentenced to such a group who didn’t want to perfo
rm the labor could decline the sentence and be executed instead. Likewise, failing to meet established standards of work performance while serving in such a group resulted in sentence extensions, loss of privileges, flogging, and hanging.

  Imperial authorities noted that after a two or three year stint hacking roads out of raw wilderness, digging paving stone out of quarries and similar tasks, the average criminal was healthy, comfortable with the outdoors, had learned many useful skills, and would often reform his or her life or leave the Empire for good. The wisdom of the first Emperor was thus confirmed, and the Empire continued to enjoy the finest road network in the world.

  Brushing away wood chips and bits of bark, Durek tried the seat for size: still not quite perfect. Standing back up, he gave the stump another half-dozen strokes with the adze. He had a clever folding stool he had acquired a few years ago which was convenient for camp life, but they would be here all summer, and he wanted a good stump to sit on and smoke his pipe while he planned operations. This particular tree-stub had been perfect: sawn down the day before, it was the right height and width and properly shaded, requiring only a bit of hollowing out of the top to make a good seat, and scorching the seat with a hot iron to keep sap from oozing out; sprinkling around a few treated herbs to kill any ants who might wish to build a mound nearby would finish the project.

  The sounds of similar activity echoed through the woods all around him: the main body of the Phantom Badgers (all but the Teasau group, and Corporal Gottri Gravel-breaker and five rankers left to garrison Oramere) was at the junction of the Burgen and Hirsch Rivers setting up the camp that would be their home for nearly six months. With the announcement of the creation of an Imperial road through the area, further development was coming to the Burgen. A wealthy couple had had obtained the necessary Imperial Charter for a new township on the river which they were going to call New Fork. Last fall Dwarven engineers and Human surveyors had given the site on the east bank of the fork a careful looking-over, and this summer the village site and surrounding areas were going to be surveyed, some land cleared, and good stone piers built in preparation for the influx of villagers and townsfolk that would come in the spring of fifty-six.

  Naturally, the Goblins of the Purple Spider had noticed the convict road gangs which had gone to work two months ago on the road north of Hohenfels, and if they weren’t aware of what was planned at New Fork, it wouldn’t be much longer before they figured it out. The road was bad enough, the Goblins had lived on the edge of Human territory to know that roads were more dangerous than anything else when facing Humans, but the new village would draw them like a magnet, for another Human enclave on the Burgen would, like Badgerhof, sprout outgrowths of farms that would drive deeper and deeper into Purple Spider territory.

  Just as naturally, the founders of New Fork wanted protection, and while the Empire was perfectly willing to sell them huge tracts of forest at a shilling an acre and give them a charter for a township, it drew the line at providing Imperial troops to protect the new holdings. Thus the founders went shopping for mercenaries, and who better to hire than the Phantom Badgers, who had experience in colony establishment and two victories against the Purple Spider to their credit?

  In addition to providing the services of fifty warriors for the summer and early fall, the Badgers also sold the colony the stone needed for the piers and foundation work from their quarry, and drew a profit from the sales of finished timbers (they had a quarter-interest in the lumber mill at Badgerhof). Durek was pleased to see the new town, which should distract the Purple Spider from harassing the Badger’s colony for the next few years.

  The Badgers were setting up their camp on the site of the village, which at the moment was a ten acre square of forest with the west boundary being the river. Durek had paced off a three-acre square to be their camp upon their arrival three days earlier on the twentieth of Kammteil, and since then the Badgers had been establishing their summer home. Latrines and wash points had been established, guard posts designated, brush had been cleared from the compound’s interior and then for fifty yards outside of it, their storage and sleeping tents had been erected, fire pits dug, and work on a defensive ditch encircled by a belt of sharpened stakes begun. The entire area, like the township site, was gently rolling and covered in virgin timber, good land for growing once the trees and stumps were cleared away to make room for fields.

  He tested the seat, chopped away a troublesome knot, and decided it was complete. Replacing the adze in the central tool rack back at camp, he grabbed a bag of charcoal, a squat soot-blackened brazier, a flask of lantern oil, and a handful of copper heating bars and headed back to his stump. Using the oil to get things going quicker, he had the charcoal a nice light gray by the time the poison was spread around the stump. Carefully positioning the bars to begin heating, he headed back for a heavy glove and the porcelain-handled iron rod which he would use to lift the hot bars out of the coals and apply them to the stump.

  “Ah, there you are, Captain; isn’t it a wonderful day.” It wasn’t a question, nor had Durek ever really heard her ask a question in a conventional manner, it was her knack to make everything a statement and wait for agreement or a rebuttal. Yvonne von der Jabs marched up to the Dwarf with the implacability of a siege tower being rolled up to a city wall, a tall (near six feet) woman of generous proportions; it would be wrong to call her fat, which suggests a certain softness, when in fact Dame von der Jabs was a very solid looking woman of even (if large) proportions. Her pale blond hair was worn pulled back into twin buns which framed a broad well-tanned face whose bright green eyes looked out at a world that might need a bit of seeing to, but which was still a jolly place all around. She extruded an air of happy confidence in herself and her authority, the kind of unquestioning assumption that she would be obeyed that came from wealthy parents and a doting husband.

  She was dressed in a tough flannel shirt, an old leather riding skirt, long cotton stockings worn under canvas gaiters, and stout half-boots. Her husband, Herbet von der Jabs, trailed behind her, a man of a completely average appearance: average height and weight, short brown hair, hazel eyes, unremarkable features usually set in a thoughtful, unfocused look, wearing an unremarkable tweed jacket, brown shirt, whipcord riding breeches, and stout walking boots, all the clothing of good cut and excellent manufacture. A sword-rapier of the Navian Solerte style hung at his left hip, balanced by a finely-made parrying dagger on the right. He spoke only rarely and in a soft voice, although when he did it was with considerable intelligence. The von der Jabs were the Badger’s paymasters and the founders of New Fork; he knew little about them other than both were from distinguished Landgreave families from the southwestern reaches of the Empire. They planned to settle in New Fork next year and manage their new estates as well as the little colony.

  “Yes, it is quite a nice day,” Durek nodded. “Can I be of service, Dame von der Jabs?”

  “You can start by calling me Yvonne, Captain, there is no need for this ‘dame’ business, I should think. Here in this Goblin-infested wilderness is hardly the place to stand on petty formality. Herbet and I were wondering about your thoughts on a few matters.”

  “Very well, Da...Yvonne; if you’ll come with me we can talk while I attend to a stump I’m working on.”

  “Splendid, splendid, I see, making a seat, how clever. Firstly I would like to say what an wonderful job your chaps are doing, work, work, work, and so polite. I had thought mercenaries would be a far rougher lot than your Badgers have turned out to be, and frankly, I was astounded at the number of women in your Company. Now, Herbet and I have set up our camp to our satisfaction and have attended to all those bits of work that living in the field entails, and find ourselves quite without anything to do. Seems we’ve gone and planned out the summer, hired professionals to oversee each bit that needs doing, and completely forgot to leave ourselves with something with which to stay occupied.”

  Laying a cooling bar back onto the coals and hooking up a h
ot one, Durek gave her a second to make sure she wasn't just taking a breath. “Are you asking for something to do?”

  “Yes, seems unfair that we’re sitting around playing draughts while every one of your people are working from sun up to sun down, or out in groups looking around.”

  “Patrols.” Herbet’s voice was soft but surprisingly, it carried very well.

  “Yes, patrols, I’ll learn these things yet. I was surprised at this business with a ditch and sharp stakes and the tree-trunks on their sides with the branch-stubs that look like hedgehogs, what are they called, dear?”

  “Abatis.”

  “Yes, abatis, but Herbet says these are sound precautions and a sign of a good commander. In any case, we would like something to do, to help.”

  “You and your husband are paying the bills, Yvonne,” Durek tossed the bar back onto the coals and selected another. “You don’t have to do anything at all, that’s what being a paymaster means.”

  “Oh, goodness yes, we understand, but still, we would like to help; just tell us where you need two more sets of hands digging or chopping or something and we’ll get right on it.”

  Ten years of mercenary work had not prepared him for this. “You want to help us fortify the camp, when you’re paying us to do it in the first place? All right, do you know who Serjeant Maidenwalk is?”

  “Tall lady, scar from here to here, red hair, black hand-and-a-half sword?”

  “Bastard sword.” Herbert stared off into the middle distance.

  “I know, dear, but it seems such a vulgar phrase.”

  “Yes, that’s her, she’ll be over on the east side of the camp; go see her and tell her I said to put you on a detail.”

  “Thank you, Captain, we appreciate this.” Yvonne marched off, Herbet drifting along in her wake. Durek shook his head and returned to his scorching.

  He was returning the cleaned tools to the racks when Picken came trotting up, a tow-headed boy of eleven, the youngest of the first draft of orphans and Axel’s apprentice. “Captain, there’s a river boat at the bank full of Dwarves!”