by RW Krpoun
“Excellent work,” Philip’s teeth flashed through his mustache. “I’ll be at a key smith’s first thing in the morning.”
“Make sure they get them right the first time,” Tonya said, idly fingering her mask. “I don’t want to have to make three trips to the Basement. Close combat is more enjoyable than what I had to do with Gerhard.”
“It’s that bad, eh?”
“Worse.”
Philip waited until Tonya had left in the carriage before going downstairs. He had a mug of ale to kill enough time to ensure that there would be no danger of crossing paths, and then set off on his way, purchasing three torches from a street waif. By the light of the first he made his way to the street where Stotz lived, just three blocks from his shop, a small two story house in a row of similar residences, each house surrounded by a tiny garden. From previous inspections under the guise of a casual walk he knew Gerhard was a firm believer in drawn curtains, a habit that would work to his advantage. Dousing the torch in a sand-barrel a hundred yards from the house, he slipped down the street and up to the porch.
Easing a well-greased key in the lock, he gave an experimental twist and was pleased to hear the bar slide back into place. Stepping through the door, he closed and locked it behind him before pulling the light rod out of his pocket and activating the crystal. The light it gave had a yellowish tinge to it, sure proof that the enchantment was failing, but he had a fresh one in his pocket, and several hours to work with.
Beginning with the cellar, Philip searched the house from bottom to top, careful not to waste too much time or to disturb anything. Two of the large keys, he found, unlocked rooms in the basement where Stotz stored his finished goods, and the former thief-taker spent several minutes puzzling out what some of the outfits and devices were meant to be.
The living areas were relatively neat; apparently Stotz had a housekeeper come in several times a week. The small parlor, kitchen, pantry, and dining room were unremarkable in all regards.
Upstairs were two bedrooms, one the leather-worker slept in, and which was a typical bachelor’s room, and a second which he obviously used for entertainment. There was a large bed with velvet sheets and the leather restraints Tonya had mentioned, some low shelving holding riding crops, the slapping device Tonya mentioned, and other, stranger toys; the ceiling over the bed and the walls had large mirrors mounted on them.
The attic held what most attics did; careful to lock the door behind him, Philip slipped off down the street, conscious of wasted time and the lack of progress. Tonya would be quite upset if she had to endure another trip to the Basement and dealing with Stotz if there was nothing to show for it, and her being upset would disrupt certain plans Philip had. His ambitions were a great deal more normal and far less accessory- oriented than Stotz’s were, but they all pointed in the same general direction.
The key to the shop required a bit of working back and forth before it finally opened; Philip made a mental note to purchase a small fine file and polish it up on the morrow as he slipped in the shop’s door. The workshop took only a few minutes to confirm that there was nothing useful there, although Philip did double-check the two rough-drafts he had found to insure that he hadn’t been mistaken. He was tempted to take one as proof, but resisted the impulse: there was always the danger that Stotz was more clever than they thought.
The office was a much larger job than he had first guessed; apparently Stotz never bothered to carry out the trash until he couldn’t find the floor. The three small keys, he found, opened a three-lock box built into the floor which held the deeds to the shop and the house, a large sum of money, papers indicating that certain bankers held sums of money for Stotz, and an address book. It was the work of nearly an hour to copy every name and address, an exercise that used up the light rod, but Durek had told them to accomplish the mission and hang the cost. Interestingly, under the ‘F’s’ he found van Feutcher, Geraz, a name Elonia had warned them to be alert for, although no Prillers were listed.
Sifting through the masses of bills, receipts, orders, and other paperwork was tedious, although it was a bit livened by the sketches Stotz made for special items; Philip had to admit that Gerhard had a good hand, and although he had no interest in the outfits, he did like that fact that they were pictured on the nude bodies of nubile young women. He also found an interesting portfolio of drawings of Tonya in poses and situations that Stotz had certainly not gotten her into yet, but clearly hoped to.
He had almost given up when midway through a stack of bills he found a sheet of vellum folded in half, the cracked circle of an unmarked seal still showing on the page edges. Unfolding it, he found himself looking at a neat drawing of a Company badge in colored pencil, with a note underneath stating that they needed two exact copies of this badge done in the best workmanship possible within six hours; the note was signed with a functional, almost severe capitol ‘C’. Philip smiled to himself as he copied the note.
Philip was making a second copy of the address book when Tonya let herself in. “Home is the warrior ! Can I get you a cup of tea, or something stronger?”
“Something stronger, I have a distinct need to get good and drunk tonight.” Tonya tossed her purse and the bag containing the outfit onto a chest and hung up her shawl as Philip poured her a large brandy. “Ahhh, that’s good.” She removed her shoes and examined a scuff on one toe. “Blast, these are new.”
“So, would you like to hear what I found?”
“Only if it was a success.” The tall standard bearer pulled the combs from her hair and shook the long tresses free. “I could use some happy thoughts.”
“The house was a waste of time, although I learned that that’s where he keeps his stock. The shop, however, was productive: I double-checked the rough badges I found, and I found a note ordering two copies of our badges from someone who signed with a ‘C’. I also found an address book in his lock box and copied it; I’m making a copy for Elonia and Maxmillian now. It had van Feutcher and the Duchess in it, and no doubt there’ll be other interesting names there, perhaps some that will ring a bell with Elonia and Maxmillian. Tomorrow I’ll go put it in a drop point outside while you get a sausage.”
“How many last names with ‘C’ are there?” Tonya hung up her dress, drained her glass, and refilled it.
“Three; once we get the messages sent I figured we would look them up, see what they look like. Interestingly, friend Stotz is quite an artist, and he’s working up a detailed portfolio on you.”
The standard bearer finished pulling off her stockings and made a face. “Oh, good, just what I’ve always wanted: to be molested in ink by some sweaty deviate.”
“Bad night?”
“Bad enough; I’ve learned that I’ll never make a living as a mistress or even a well-paid whore, that’s for certain. For most of the night it was all I could do to keep from punching Gerhard’s teeth down his throat.”
“That must have excited him,” Philip grinned.
“Oh yes, he likes the look in my eye, that’s a certainty.” Tonya tossed off the rest of her glass and set it aside, choosing to drink directly from the bottle instead. “I must say, he’s easy to please: he would probably marry me if I came at him with a sword.”
“I wouldn’t rely on him as being too passive,” Philip warned. “In most of the pictures he drew you were the one tied up, and some of them were some pretty complex bindings; I wouldn’t say that he’s only interested in his pain.”
“Good point,” she conceded. “I can’t underestimate him. Anyway, it was fun and games at the Basement tonight, and the problem is that I’m playing his game, and a tricky bastard it is, too. From what I can see, you spend time together and whoever breaks the rules is the one who gets tied up.”
“What are the rules?”
“I’m not sure. Anyway, he’s behaving himself perfectly all evening, so we’re heading to his house and I’m wondering how to keep things from getting out of hand; after all, I’m supposed to be this slut
who’s excited about this new thing he’s showing me, so I hardly think I can expect to peck him on the cheek at the door and hope to see him again. Like it or not, we need him for the moment, and since he behaved himself, he wouldn’t be likely to settle for only his hands touching himself.”
“It is a dilemma,” Philip nodded. “How did you resolve it?”
“When he handed me down out of the carriage I pretended to slip, fell into him, and put my knee right into his groin.”
“Ohh,” Philip flinched. “I bet that put an end to the slap and tickle for the night.”
“It did. I’ve arranged to meet him at his shop in the next few days to plan another get-together.”
“Good. By then we’ll have a course of action planned out.”
“My course of action tonight is to get good and drunk,” Tonya advised him. “I need something to take my mind off all the sick things I’ve seen in the last few days. By the Eight, I wish I was with the main body at New Fork.”
Chapter Ten
Duna ‘Eclipse’ Kadal slipped between two oaks and froze, listening; hearing nothing, she took a half-dozen careful steps to another large tree and froze again. Eclipse, as she had resigned herself to being called, was a well-muscled girl of sixteen standing an inch above five feet, a cheerful woman-child of considerable exuberance that clashed with her intended role as scout, and, as her nickname suggested, a burning desire to be the very best at anything she undertook. Part of this stemmed from the fact that she was of Ruwen stock, her parents apparently being from the Freeholds on the west coast of Sufland, the southern continent, and thus gifted with skin the color of good walnut planks that was actually a shade or two darker than her hair, which was light brown and worn nearly to her shoulders. They had abandoned her on the steps of a temple in Teasau when she was still a toddler with no note or explanation. Dark Star raiders had taken her from her foster parent’s farm four years ago (as well as killing every other person there), and but for the Phantom Badgers she would have been part of a blood rite used to gather dark energy for a Void spellcaster. Duna was keenly aware that she was different; other than Rolf, who was olive-skinned, she was the only dark-skinned Badger, and while no one had ever made an issue of it other than the oblique reference to it in her nickname, it was still a sensitive point with her. She was not the first Ruwen to serve in the Company, but unfortunately the other, who had also been a woman, had been killed in the same mission that had rescued Duna and the other seven orphans of the first draft.
She had fought to be accepted into the area militia, the Ravenmist, when she turned fifteen, and had gotten accepted more as a means of shutting her up than anything else. In the fighting last summer she had proved herself sufficiently capable to be accepted into the Badgers on her sixteenth birthday, the youngest applicant ever to be taken into the Company as a warrior. She quickly discovered that while her skin color meant nothing in a Company that included Dwarves, Threll, and various mixed-bloods, her age did, and her competitive spirit was born anew.
She was out on solitary patrol as part of a new Company policy begun by Durek late last year. Up to the past year scouting, while important, had not been a major concern of the Company; used to operating as a compact body on a mission-oriented basis the Badgers had never had much of a need for scouts beyond one or two expert woodsmen and a few who were skilled at leading reconnaissance patrols. Since the establishment of Oramere, however, the Company had discovered the need for large amounts of scouting on a regular, year-round basis, and these demands completely exceeded the Company’s limited abilities. This, in fact, had a great deal to do with Duna’s swift elevation to Badger: the Company needed woodsmen, and Duna had had above-average woodcraft before Starr had taken her to train.
The Company had no formal internal organization; there were twelve officers (one Captain, one Lieutenant, three Serjeants, and seven Corporals), but other than Gottri Gravel-breaker who was permanently assigned to command the squad left behind in Oramere, the Company simply configured itself for the mission at hand, forming squads and detachments from the rank and file and assigning them to such leaders as Durek saw fit.
Now Durek was considering a permanent squad of scouts under Starr, and the first step towards that goal was to train those Badgers who had the basic skills. Currently only Philip Milden and Duna were expert enough to be considered scouts, although Starr was training two more likely recruits. These solitary patrols increased skill and confidence, and extended the Company’s scouting assets until such time as they could bring more scouts to bear.
The primary problem in raising the squad hadn’t been the lack of woodcraft; over half the Badgers were of rural upbringing and comfortable in the woods and wild areas. Rather, it was the military rule that a scout must be accomplished with a missile weapon to give them a chance of surviving a hostile contact; crossbows and javelins were too bulky for scouts to carry, and archery and the use of a sling took years to train to combat proficiency. Janna was holding regular classes in the use of throwing axes, but that weapon still required months to master and was a poor substitute for a bow or sling. Duna had been practicing with a bow for three years now and was gratified to be considered competent.
She was patrolling the riverbank going south, a relatively safe trip; the more dangerous patrols sent into the east were never solitary unless performed by Starr. Goblin missile-fire harried the river boats that supplied New Fork and Badgerhof, fishing boats from Hohenfels seeking the river pikes and catfish, and the timber rafts bringing fresh-cut timber south to the mills in Hohenfels and Teasau; occasionally they ventured out in hide boats in an attempt to capture a vessel, but in the main they stayed in the forests and harassed the encroaching settlements, Forest Goblins having very poor skills with boat-building and waterborne endeavors.
To increase the range of these patrols without wasting large amounts of time Durek had had the scouts ferried down or up river in a skiff rowed by two other Badgers; the skiff would drop the scout off four or five miles from New Fork at dawn, and then wait while the scout prowled the riverbank for a few miles looking for any signs of Goblin activity.
Easing forward a careful step at a time, senses alert, Duna remained focused on her surroundings, listening to the forest, watching for clues, testing her skills against rabbits, squirrels, and birds as she moved along, just as Starr had shown her. Fool an animal who lives at the bottom of the food chain, the Lanthrell had advised her, and you'll outdo any Goblin yasama.
A splashing up ahead made her freeze in place; it was far too loud and rhythmic to be an animal messing about in the water: someone was wading not far ahead. Dropping to her belly, she crawled forward, taking ten minutes to cover a hundred yards, speed being unimportant to a scout. Her diligence was well rewarded: at the end of her crawl, which brought her close to the north bank of a stream which flowed into the Burgen, she heard the crashing of someone walking through the brush, careless of the noise. Duna crept into a thicket and watched as a half-Orc came trudging past her hiding place, walking twenty feet further north before sitting down with his back to a handy tree trunk, a crossbow across his lap and a fighting axe at his belt. A sentry, she guessed, and waited ten more minutes before slipping to the stream bank.
Crawling upstream along the bank, she found three heavily-loaded fishing boats pulled alongside the banks with over a dozen men moving around them taking camping gear and personal effects out of the boats, every man in the group well armed. There were shields and armor in the personal gear they were unloading; the cargos in the fishing boats were covered with canvas, but were large and bulky. Shifting a dozen yards to the east, Duna saw that they had three skiffs drawn up on the bank as well, the smaller boats apparently having been towed by the larger; even the skiffs, which were about fifteen feet long and five feet wide at their midsection, were loaded with canvas-covered cargo.
She laid in a brush pile for an hour, watching, before creeping a mile upstream to where she could wade across the creek and s
lip back downstream on the far bank to examine the group from a different perspective, watching them for another hour from under a black locust’s flower-bedecked branches before circling around and heading back to the boat with all speed.
Durek sat back in his stump, which he had improved by lining the seat with material from a blanket which had gotten left too close to a fire so that sparks had set it aflame, burning a foot-wide hole in the material. The Company officers, less Starr who was on patrol to the east with two Badgers she was training to be scouts, were seated on folding stools in a half circle in front of him, with the von der Jabs to his right. In the five days which had passed since they had ambushed the Goblins the Spider had been lying low; their scouts had picked up sign that yasama were in the area watching them, but no further contact had been made. There would be more trouble in the future, he was sure, but for the moment the Spider had learned caution.
Duna, working by the light of a lantern in the growing twilight, finished drawing the dispositions of the smugglers using a charcoal stick on a sheet of whitewashed cloth nailed to a wood frame, and explained what each item was, and what she had seen. Durek had heard it all before, so he pondered the situation until she had finished. “Fine work, Duna,” he nodded; as Captain, he felt it would be wrong to use her nickname, and in any case he didn’t really understand this business of forcing new names on people whether they liked them or not. “I believe these are smugglers planning on trading with the Goblins. Apparently they are going to make one big run rather than risking multiple contacts, hence the added skiffs.”
“Actually, Captain, I think the skiffs might be trade material,” Arian suggested. “The Goblins have real problems building boats that won’t sink half-way across the river. You could pile plenty of the little bastards into three skiffs, enough to take a river boat by storm.”
The Dwarf gave that some thought; like the Forest Goblins, he had a poor grasp of water-borne operations. “That’s a good idea. All right, Duna saw at least thirteen individuals, perhaps a couple more out on sentry, say no more than fifteen all told, well armed and armored and used to a good fight. How are we going to take them?”
