Dark Path: Book Three of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “I think,” Starr began slowly, carefully watching her companion, “that we might do a little harassing before sending off for help; get the measure of this particular band, that sort of thing.”

  Eclipse’s normally sunny features were as darkened with concern as if by her nickname. Nervously snapping her headband, which she had just finished rinsing in the stream, the girl stared at the Threll. “But Axel said we were to report any Goblin or hostiles sighted as soon as they were located.”

  The short Lanthrell nodded carefully. “That’s true. I follow them, while you warn the hold. Then they send you back to find me, while Rolf and Kroh muster the Ravenmist; then you return with an updated location, and so on. I follow them, you carry messages, and the Ravenmist gets all the glory.”

  Starr let that sink in, idly chewing on a hard ginger cookie while she watched the wheels turn in Eclipse’s head. The Company bylaws barred recruitment before the sixteenth year for Humans; in fact, no recruit had been younger than eighteen to date. Eclipse was desperate to be admitted to the ranks on her sixteenth birthday, and was keenly aware that both Rosemary and tradition were campaigning against that possibility. The prospect of winning glory on this mission carried with it fruits as tangible as those before Starr herself.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to find out just what we are up against,” the dark Human nodded slowly. “I mean, you’re a Threll and all, but there’s always room for error in tracking, isn’t there? We need to get an actual look at them, snipe off a few to judge just how determined they are, before sending out a report.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Starr grinned.

  They caught up with the Goblins two hours later, and with Starr’s skillful direction, easily circled the raiders to reach a rocky promontory which gave them a clear view of the foe as they took a rest break. They were indeed Cave Goblins: scrawny humanoids whose height was on a par with their watchers, with tough ruddy hides the color of new bricks and too-bright eyes of yellow or bilious green. Their facial features were compact and seemed to have been stamped onto the front of their oddly rounded heads, their ears thrusting fox-like from their hairless scalps. They were dressed in rough cloth and leather, their garments well-made, as were their weapons and accouterments.

  There were forty-six, all told: thirty jugata, or foot warriors, organized into two sections, armed with spears, small axes or maces, and bundles of javelins; armor consisted of iron caps, studded leather jacks or shirts, and shields. Six yasahe (scouts) disdained shields and long weapons, carrying short bows, and leading three long-bodied, short-legged seko lizards (the invaluable guard dogs of the Cave Goblins) on stout leads. The commander stayed apart, with four bodyguards, a standard bearer, and four young Goblins who apparently served as runners.

  “No Shaman,” Starr whispered to Eclipse, the two lying flat behind a rotting log a good hundred yards from the Goblins. “That’s good news. Get rid of the scouts and lizards, and the rest will blunder around like a herd of sheep.”

  “There’s more Goblins than we have arrows,” Eclipse whispered back. “And I’m not that good of a shot.”

  “You don’t have to kill them all, just the lizards, scouts, and enough others to convince them to head for home.” Privately, Starr was inclined to agree with the girl. Each had twenty shafts in their quivers, plus three enchanted arrows in Starr’s, but two of the latter belonged to the Company; expending them would call for a detailed accounting. “Anyway, we handle this one encounter at a time. We’ll hit them as it gets close to sundown and they’re looking for a place to camp, shake them up and draw a little blood, then hit them again near dawn. If that doesn't have any effect, off you go for help.”

  “Could we really turn back that many?” Eclipse’s voice shook a little.

  “The Phantom Badgers have carved their way through rougher odds.” The dart hit home, Starr saw: the dark girl visibly rallied.

  “Then tell me what to do.”

  “The first part’s easy. Listen carefully so you can repeat this...”

  The sun was dropping behind Mount Gesham as the lead yasahe of the Stone Adder raid group made their way downslope, heading northeast. Their destination was a likely-looking meadow observed from a high ridge, which was to be their night camp, and the imminence of a stop to the day’s march had put all in better spirits. The Goblin force was led by three scouts and two seko lizards a moving a hundred paces ahead of the main body.

  With the heart-stopping abruptness the characterizes an ambush, an arrow snapped out of the brush twenty yards to the yasahes’ left and impaled the lead seko. With a blood-freezing war cry, a Forest Threll warrior sprang into view, sending an arrow into the shoulder of one of the scouts, while more Lanthrell cries and a volley of arrows ripped at the yasahe from their right. Panicked, the Goblins stampeded back to the main body, trailed by their hissing lizard.

  Eclipse darted through the last clump of brush and dropped beside Starr, who was waiting at the rock pile that had been their primary rally point, breathing hard and choking on excited laughter. “Did you see them run?” the dark girl chortled. “Like they were on fire.”

  “I told you, Goblins, especially Cave Goblins in the woods, are afraid of the Threll. By the time they calm down and tell their story, they’ll have seen a dozen or more,” Starr grinned. “They’ll move a lot slower after this.”

  Her companion nodded, and sobered. “I missed with all three shots, Starr. I can’t believe I shot so badly.”

  The little Badger shrugged. “I only wounded with the second shot. Don’t worry, it takes years to train an archer, and hundreds of arrows fired in battle before you can count yourself as skilled. You accomplished what was needed, missed or not. The important thing is that we routed them and killed a lizard; the other two seko have to die as quickly as we can manage. They may be used to the underground, but they still can smell and hear better than either one of us.”

  “What do we do now?” Eclipse was eager for more action.

  “Watch them set up camp, and then get some rest ourselves. We’ll hit them an hour or so before dawn, rattle their cage but good. After the sun’s up we’ll decide whether to send for help or spend the day harassing them.”

  The Goblins proved to be only moderately disrupted by the small ambush; after collecting the dead lizard, which, once the meadow was reached, they proceeded to butcher and roast, the raiders simply set up a small and untidy camp with three fire pits, posted guards, and settled down for an evening’s rest. The Goblin leader posted one yasahe with a seko at the east and west points of the camp’s edge, and assigned jugata to watch the other two sides, with the sentries relived at irregular intervals.

  After an hour’s study of the foe and the outlines of a plan hatched over a hasty meal, the two scouts turned in to rest.

  The night was clear and warm, the half-moon bathing the entire mountain slope in a pale silver light that drained all color from the world and made shadows the color of the best ink; a breeze from the east stirred the trees into mild scratching and creaking. Starr and Eclipse, moving one planned step at a time, crept close to the west side of the little camp. The fire pits had burned down to three faint red glows in the darkness, and the raid group itself was merely a series of irregular humps dotting the tramped meadow. From a previous circuit of the camp Starr knew that the sentries had gotten over any fears generated by the afternoon ambush and all four were nodding and yawning. By positioning the lizards on the extreme edges of the camp, whose fires and unwashed bodied created an olfactory wall separating the beasts, the Goblin leader had inadvertently made the scout’s job much easier. They faced two separate beasts, rather than two sekos on sentry.

  Stopping her assistant with a touch, the Threll signaled the girl that they had arrived at the proper place by gripping Eclipse’s bisep and squeezing twice, as always being surprised at the firm muscle she encountered. Youth, hard work, and good food had given Duna strength that, while no way comparable to a man’s, was nonetheles
s respectable.

  Moving slowly to avoid noise, Starr drew her bow from its case and strung it. Fingers sure in the darkness, which was far less dark to her eyes than to a Human’s, the little Threll drew two arrows from the side-pouch on her quiver and arranged them close to hand. Waiting while Eclipse strung her bow and drew an arrow, Starr studied the vista before her. Forty feet away the west sentry sat with his back to a stump, head drooping onto his chest. At his feet was the seko lizard, curled up like a dog, apparently fast asleep although she knew that should the wind change or too much noise be made, the creature would be awake in a flash.

  That could not be allowed; selecting the first arrow, Starr held up the head to one eye and peered through the hole drilled through its center, carefully positioning the lizard until it filled the aperture. Whispering a command word, she nocked and released the shaft without bothering to aim except in a general manner. The arrow, one of a number of such shafts taken in the raid on Alantarn, leapt from the bow, adjusted its angle, and swept in to rip neatly into the lizard’s chest, killing it instantly.

  Starr had immediately nocked the second arrow, but the sentry only worked his shoulders and glanced around at the soft noise the arrow’s impact made. The Threll waited until the yasahe had slouched back down before aiming very carefully. She had another of the assassination arrows in her quiver, (and eight more at Oramere) but each use entailed the risk that the enchantment in the arrow would be broken, entailing a detailed accounting when she returned to Oramere. Just as importantly, there was the danger that, however sure the kill, a sentient creature might get off a dying scream before expiring. Just as she released the shaft Starr breathed a word; the headless arrow darted out to strike the sentry on the chest, bouncing away harmlessly.

  The Lanthrell sighed with released tension; the arrow, the last of a set of four presented to her by her father when she left the Forest to wander in the realms of Men, did no real harm, instead sending the victim into a deep sleep. Carefully replacing her yakici in its case, she tapped Eclipse once on the elbow and slipped forward, drawing a dagger from her right boot as she did so.

  Taking her time, making no more noise than the gentle breeze that stroked her tightly bound hair, the little Badger slipped up to the sentry post, where a quick dagger-thrust sent the guard into the deepest sleep that existed. Moving quickly but quietly, she patted the ground until she located her sleep-arrow, only to stifle a curse: the intricately carved shaft was split and charred, sure proof that the enchantment had consumed itself. Shoving the ruined arrow under her belt, she pinned a wide strip of bark to the ground with the sentry’s knife, and carefully heaved the lizard’s corpse onto her shoulders.

  Back at the sniper’s post, she recovered the enchanted arrow, which thankfully had retained its powers, and took up her bow to cover Eclipse, who slipped out to drag off the sentry’s corpse. The two moved their cooling burdens a quarter-mile from the camp and dumped them into a convenient bramble patch before circling around to a vantage point north of the camp as the predawn grayness began to transform the night.

  The sentry’s absence went unnoticed for some time as the Goblins woke and, with much bickering and argument, tended to the tasks that accompanied the start of a new day. A shout from the chief yasahe raised little attention in the noisy camp at first, but the sight of that worthy trotting to their commander, waving the strip of bark which bore charcoaled warning runes quickly drew everyone’s attention. In moments all hands were armed and armored, and a dozen jugata were beating the brush on the west end of camp, helpfully trampling any tracks the two might have left behind.

  Starr tapped Eclipse’s shoulder twice and nocked an ordinary arrow. After a moment to steady her breathing, the little Threll took careful aim and sent the shaft whipping out to impale the last seko. With the smoothness of long practice, she plucked a second arrow from the row stuck into the ground before her, aimed, and released.

  Her shot missed completely as Eclipse’s shout startled her. “I GOT HIM! STARR ouch!”

  After punching Eclipse, Starr snapped off another shot that wounded a random jugata, grabbed up her arrows, and dragged Eclipse after her in a headlong run; behind the two, the Goblins were pouring into the brush in hot pursuit.

  “I’m sorry I yelled,” the dark girl mumbled, clearly miserable. Finished, she stepped back to examine her handiwork. After (easily) losing their pursuers, Starr had led her back to the corpses, where Eclipse had hacked off the scout’s head with his own axe. This grisly trophy was mounted on a shaft cut from a young sapling, and was now positioned where the raid group would surely pass it.

  “Don’t worry about it, happens to everyone. The important thing it we got all three lizards, and chewed them up a bit. Now, use that branch to cover your tracks, there, now brush as you back away. Good.”

  “I still missed with my second shot,” Eclipse sighed. “Archery is hard.”

  “That’s why crossbows are so popular: takes a day to learn it, and a month’s practice to become expert. Trouble is, it’s heavy, clumsy, costs as much or more than a good bow, and even in the hands of an expert can only fire a quarter as many shafts as a bow can in the same amount of time. Now, back to the subject at hand: the Goblins are more angry than fearful at this point. They’ve lost one dead and have three wounded, plus all their lizards are gone, and they are moving a lot more slowly.”

  “That’s the important point, them moving slower, isn’t it?” Eclipse slung her bowcase and quiver. “We really haven’t lost anything by waiting, because they’re covering less ground.”

  “Right the first time,” Starr nodded, studying the surrounding terrain. “And we’re going to slow them up some more. If we haven't demoralized them by dawn tomorrow, I’ll send you off.”

  “What about killing the leader with one of your special arrows? Wouldn’t that break them up?”

  “Killing the leader would cause them trouble, but probably not enough. Risking the arrow is out, though: all the enchantment does is assure a chest hit over the heart; the arrow acts normally otherwise, and the leader is wearing a chain mail shirt. No, we’ll do this the hard way, if at all.”

  The sight of their former comrade’s head halted the raid group; while one yasahe trotted back to inform the main body, the other two scouts moved forward to examine the pole-mounted remains and the Threllian runes drawn in the dirt. Starr’s arrow dropped the older of the two yasahe in his tracks while Eclipse’s first arrow badly wounded the other, and her second finished the job. The two snipers were a hundred paces from their firing point and still moving by the time the main body reached the ambush site.

  “That’s how it’s done,” Starr slapped her partner on the shoulder. “And your first Goblin. The scouts will keep closer in from now on, you can bet.”

  “How long until we hit them again?”

  “Noonish; give them time to get over the shock and start to hope we’re gone.”

  The noon attack struck while the Goblins were eating their midday meal. From a distance of a hundred paces Starr and Eclipse each put three shafts into the raid group and then fled while confusion swept through the Goblin ranks. Starr had killed one jugata and wounded a second while Eclipse had wounded a third jugata.

  Twenty minutes later two shafts swept into the rear of the band, killing one jugata and missing a second. The Goblins marched on, but their pace slowed still further, and the yasahe remained with the main body.

  “Half my quiver left,” Eclipse announced, taking a long drink from her freshly refilled water skin.

  “It’s a good question, which runs out first, arrows or Goblin morale,” Starr nodded. “Trouble is, we can’t use up many more shafts before we have to quit; I can’t send you back to Oramere without some arrows to protect yourself with.”

  “Five ought to be plenty, don’t you think?” Eclipse plainly didn’t want to end the excitement.

  “I suppose so,” Starr conceded. “Of course, arrows aren’t all we have; once we get the Go
blins fixed with the idea that they are being hunted by Lanthrell warriors, the rest will be easy.”

  The Stone Adder raid group’s progress slowed as the afternoon wore on. No less than five times did they encounter markers bearing ominous Threll warnings, and twice they found the severed heads of dead comrades left behind. Lanthrell cries floated through the warm summer air, first from one flank, then another; several times signal mirrors were seen flashing messages from one ridge to another. At the third warning marker a pair of arrows whipped in, killing one of the unwounded yasahe, and wounding a jugata. The surviving scouts peppered the brush with half of their stock of arrows, and more than one javelin was hurled into the greenery, but it apparently did no real good: taunting Threll cries were the only response.

  As they moved into their night camp another pair of arrows slew the wounded yasahe.

  “That last scout is shaking so bad you can see it from a hundred paces off,” Eclipse chortled. With an unladylike grunt, she threw a Goblin javelin, sinking it into a stump twenty paces away.

  “Nice throw,” Starr offered as the girl readied another. “Yes, he’s worried all right, so shoot him we won’t. Better to keep him alive and poisoning morale. Too bad the Goblin arrows are so short, and that the bastards hunt up every one of our arrows they can find and break them; another ten shafts apiece and we would stop them cold.”

  “The javelins are shorter than what I’m used to,” Duna nodded at Starr’s compliment before hurling another. “But I'll get used to them quick enough. By taking four of the best, it won’t matter if my quiver is empty on the way back.”