Dark Path: Book Three of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “That’s a point,” Starr conceded. “Let’s see how the Goblins are after another good volley.”

  The night passed without much rest for the Goblins, who dared not remove their armor or build fires to heat their meal. What sleep they got was interrupted by haunting Threll voices in the distance. Dawn brought no attack, and very little relief; for the first time the watchers saw bitter argument before the group moved off, still heading northeast.

  An hour into their march they were attacked again, this time as they were trudging up a steep slope. Arrows whipped in from both sides, killing two jugata and wounding three more. The ambushers were called away by a nimble Threll warrior brandishing a sword of blue crystal, who darted through the bushes, in and out of view, shouting commands and encouragement to her fellows.

  The bolder of the Goblins roared off in pursuit, charging headlong into the thick brush only to have three jugata lightly wounded by stepping into shallow pits lined with captured arrows, and another found dead by Threll wizardry, his chest frozen by eldrich means.

  Those too intimidated or too veteran to charge into the brush were harried by more arrows, losing another jugata wounded as they retreated down the slope.

  “That took the fire out of their forge,” Eclipse chortled. “Too bad I’ve only one arrow left.”

  “Save it for the trip home,” Starr advised. “I’m down to five, and no less will do to scout on until you get back.” The short Badger studied the milling, arguing Goblins below: the raiders had pulled back a quarter mile to the protection of a copse of northern beeches, and were having a council of war. “Of course, if they don’t start moving soon we’ll try to recover some of the ones we loosed in this last ambush; otherwise, that was our last effort. I’ll keep up the strain with the yelling in the distance while you go and warn Axel. Five out of six yasahe and half the rank and file are dead or wounded, so it’s hardly unlikely that they will have had enough.”

  “How did you kill that last Goblin? There was hardly a mark on him?”

  Starr drew her sword. “This is Snow Leopard; besides the usual proprieties of an enchanted blade, it can deliver what I call the Leopard’s Kiss, sending a wave of intense cold in from even the most minor wound. Of course, it can only do it once each day, something to do with the way it is enchanted, but it has made all the difference on a number of occasions. I found it while rock-crawling in Gradrek Heleth, in the same mission where you were rescued. I was by myself, so the sword is mine, not the Company’s.”

  Eclipse examined the sword with no small awe. The hilt was made of milky crystal, the grip covered with wire-bound sharkskin rubbed black by use; the down-swept crossguards were formed as leopard’s taloned paws, and the pommel was carved as a leopard’s head in repose. The blade was made of sky-blue, translucent crystal etched on one side with a striking snow leopard, and on the other with graceful Threllian characters an inch high. The cutting edge was outlined with characters a quarter-inch high, and both the words and the edge they lined were unmarked by battle’s nick or cut despite the sword having seen considerable use.

  “What do the words say?” the girl breathed, hesitantly touching the blade, which radiated an unnatural cold.

  “The ones on the center of the blade is its name in Threll, Snow Leopard; the small ones along the edge are a poem about snow leopards.” Starr sheathed the blade with no small satisfaction.

  “Someday I’m going to be a Badger,” Eclipse announced, unconsciously rubbing her sap-darkened Ravenmist badge. “I don’t know whether I’ll ever rate an enchanted weapon, but I’ll be a Badger someday, the sooner the better.”

  “That I don’t doubt,” Starr nodded. “You’ll get my vote...hello, what’s this?”

  “They’re pulling out!” Eclipse squealed, drumming her fists into the dirt. “We did it! They’re going back.”

  Below the two scouts the Stone Adder raiding group was forming up and heading south, keeping a sharp eye on the surrounding terrain.

  “That would seem to have done the trick,” Starr observed smugly. “We’ll gather up what arrows we can salvage and follow them for at least another full day to make sure that this isn’t just a feint to throw us off; by then it’ll be time to head back home anyway.”

  “Do we hit them some more?” Eclipse grinned.

  Starr shook her head. “Not unless they change their minds again. We’ll keep up the calling now and again to keep them from getting their confidence back, but beyond that we’ll lay low and see what happens.”

  ‘And to make sure my independent command’s success is complete’, she mentally added, glancing at her dark companion, sure that similar thoughts of glory occupied the much younger girl.

  “All in all, I believe we’ve accomplished what we set out to do,” the little Threll nodded sagely.

  “I believe so,” Eclipse smiled hopefully. “Everything.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Zvolen and the Third Ward were left behind in pre-dawn grayness as the four Badgers began their trek into the Wastes, with many a backward look towards civilization and safety. The long, low, tower-studded line of the Ward dropped steadily south until it faded from sight, an event that served to buck up the Badgers’ spirits: shorn of the constant reminder of what they had left, they were able to concentrate on the tasks at hand.

  The first day was the pattern for the many to follow: ride at a steady pace for two hours, rest for ten minutes, lead their mounts for an hour’s march, rest for ten minutes, ride for two hours, rest for ten minutes, and so on. They took an hour’s break at mid-day for a meal, and stopped for a hot meal an hour before sundown, then moved another hour before making a fireless camp.

  The four rode in pairs, the rear pair leading the pack animals, their group too small for the formalities of scouts, flank security, and rear guard. They kept below the crests of the rolling hills as much as they could, and used the tree-lined streams wherever possible for maximum concealment. At each rest stop Elonia moved away from the others and used her abilities as a Seer; several times the group altered course based on her predictions of danger up ahead. On the second day of their journey Bridget had them bury most of their prospector props in the sandy bank of a shallow river to save weight.

  There was little sign of occupation of the Wastes: they passed a few Legion scout-camps, neat squares surrounded by a ditch and thick stake-belts that the Imperial troops occupied periodically on their forays into the Wastes to keep their enemies off balance, one granite marker on the site of a bitter fight between Imperial troops and Orcs, and occasional camp sites left by other travelers. Nor did they see any other travelers during the first few days; a distant Legion patrol was sighted on the fourth day out, but the Badgers avoided it.

  After five days of hard travel, the group rested for a full day, using the time to hunt and smoke a quantity of meat into jerky. Sleep and the routine matters of hygiene, and some weapons practice occupied these precious hours; morale was steady, as all four were veterans who were quickly adapting to the pace.

  The next five days were marginally easier after their rest, and they pressed on with the knowledge that another such rest was only days away. The rolling grasslands did not change much, but as the second series of travel-days passed signs of Human intrusion into the Wastes, albeit never plentiful, became rarer and rarer. They passed the last Legion scout-camp on their seventh day in the Wastes, and their last military camp site on the eighth. Camp sites of trappers and prospectors dwindled away to nothing soon after.

  A low whistle caught the pair’s attention. “Time to move out,” Henri tossed the contents of his plate into the stream and sluiced the metal disk clean. “Another two hours on that damned horse.”

  “Mounted or afoot, this is the toughest trip I’ve ever been on,” Maxmillian agreed, carefully dropping a number of golden flecks into a suede pouch. Bridget had allowed the group to keep a plate for panning in the shallow streams, and the two men had occupied their rest stops, whenever watercourses w
ere at hand, in panning for gold. By this, their fourteenth day in the Wastes, the two had each acquired a quarter of an ounce of gold dust and an equal weight in small nuggets.

  “Anything?” Bridget asked Elonia as the four tightened saddle girths and mounted. The Seeress shook her head. “Right, then, head towards that hill with the gray rocks. We’ll take a sighting from there.”

  At the hill, two miles from their rest stop, the Serjeant consulted their maps and took a sighting with the nescia, a finely crafted creation of milled brass wheel-works on a carefully inscribed gray onyx central shaft used for exact navigation. The free-turning brass globe in the center of the device indicated due north after careful adjustment of the precisely carved piece of cordierite crystal and polished brass mirrors, while other fixtures allowed a skilled user to calculate their degree of movement east or west by the angle of the sun’s light. After the application of the device, Bridget indicated their direction of travel and the four set off.

  The Wastes were beginning to show a change: although the four Badgers were travelling northwest at a steep angle, they were still pulling further and further north of the Ward: the lands here were flatter, and the water-courses narrower, deeper, and further apart; the flanking trees were beginning to include eastern cedar, blue spruce, and cembram pine. The webs of clear-running streams were being replaced by limestone pools, small and very deep, and marshy bogs spotted with reedy ponds that were the homes of tribes of muskrats, beaver, and plumed wood ducks, the latter two creatures being added to the travelers’ menu.

  Another, more important change was the appearance of unorganized Orc campsites and garnir, the latter being simple platform-like assemblies of peeled logs bound together with rawhide, decorated with runic carvings, skulls, broken weapons, and similar trophies. The garnir, Bridget explained served as rally points, message drops, and signposts for the wandering bands of Orcs in the area. The lithe advocate carved her initials into each that they passed, placing them in joints unobservable from ground level or tucking them into especially ambitious carvings. She also gathered any Human skulls on the structures and gave them a proper burial, as her goddess was the guardian of the death-gate, amongst other things, and burial ceremonies were an important part of her creed.

  Maxmillian was sweating under his breast and back plates, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it; out here, sweating was the price you paid to reduce your chances of bleeding. It was just another irritation added to a grimy body, dirty hair, unwashed clothing, sore butt and thighs, and the kind of fatigue that comes of hard marching on a night’s sleep that was interrupted by guard duty. It had been a rugged trip so far, with plenty of hard riding still ahead, culminating in a desperate fight and (hopefully), a ride back that would be just as long and hard as the one they were making. Thus it was odd, if not completely insane, that he felt good in a way that he could not explain. He found himself liking the smooth sweep of the Wastes, and the daily exertions and danger. There was a stripped-down simplicity in this existence, living in a community of four, the world revolving around the contents of your saddle bags, the condition of your horse’s hooves, and whether or not it would rain today, the specter of a potential fight hanging at the back of one’s mind at all times. He began to understand why men choose to live their entire working lives in the Legions, endlessly marching into the wild lands in search of a battle.

  “What is that?” Elonia wondered out loud, pulling him from his musing.

  “Where?”

  The Seeress jerked her chin towards the distant line of trees that marked the next river in their path, a half-mile distant. “Four hundred paces to the west of our crossing point; I saw a flash of sun on glass.”

  “Ambush?” Maxmillian studied the area she had indicated, noting that Bridget and Henri, a few yards ahead, had noticed it too. “There, I saw it.” Instinctively he twisted in his saddle to search the sides and rear. A favored Goblin tactic was to divert attention from the concealed ambushers, and although they had not seen any sign of the little humanoids, that did not mean that they weren’t near.

  “That is the possibility that first comes to mind.” Elonia kicked a foot free of the stirrup in order to cock her crossbow. “Although it’s glass making that reflection, not a weapon or armor.” She frowned, and dug in her belt pouch, allowing her mount to drop back.

  Bridget reined in, allowing Maxmillian to catch up. “This is strange. We’ll angle more to the east of the reflections, and hole up in the trees. Elonia, you and Henri will go forward through the trees and check it out. Recon only, no fighting.”

  “Not necessary, unless you want us to do it for practice,” Elonia announced, tucking a small slab of crystal back into its case as she caught up with the other three. “There’s nothing alive over there.”

  “Rather a clear viewing, isn’t it?” Henri cocked an eyebrow at the Seeress.

  Elonia shrugged, her gaze cat-complacent. “I’ve had something tickling at the edge of my vision for the last few miles. Sometimes readings are stronger than others.”

  “Doesn't that mean there’s something special about them?” Maxmillian kept his eyes moving as he asked; Elonia hadn’t vouched for their flanks.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Would ‘nothing alive’ include Undead?” Bridget inquired, eyeing the gap in the trees where the reflection had been sighted. At the Seeress’ nod the Serjeant urged her mount into motion. “No point crawling around through the brush then. Let’s see what this is.”

  Maxmillian cocked his crossbow as they approached the tree line, just to be safe, noting that Elonia hadn’t uncocked hers yet, either.

  Bridget reined in a dozen yards short of the trees. “Some sort of trail here, looks like carts or wagons have used this a bit. I’ll bet this leads to a good fording place for wheeled transport.”

  “Orcs,” Henri shrugged. “Orcs or complete idiots, dragging wagons around here. It wasn’t our valiant Legionnaires, because they would have cleared the trees out for twenty paces on either side of the path before a cart came within bowshot. Very industrious lads, I’ve always said.”

  “Fond of axe and shovel,” Maxmillian nodded. “And careful, too. Waste sweat, not blood, which is an attitude I sympathize with. Dismounted?” The scholar turned to the Serjeant, who was studying the path.

  “Right; put the horses into two strings of three; Maxmillian take one, Elonia the other. Henri, lead the way in, and kill anything that moves.”

  The path they followed was no more than a wagon wide, with two faint ruts marking the occasional passage of wheeled traffic. It led into the thin tree cover, then turned sharply to the left to follow the lip of the riverbank, which dropped steeply to the water twenty feet below. The river was twenty yards wide and perhaps three feet deep at its center, fast-moving water which had gouged a deep channel over the centuries.

  “There’s our reflection,” Bridget nodded grimly, studying the device standing a few feet off the trail where it turned to follow the riverbank. It was a straight shaft of wood about eight feet long planted upright, its length decorated with symbols and runes burned into the wood. Ropes tied midway and at the top held the shaft steady against the wind; a pair of rusting broadswords were wired crossways onto the shaft a few feet apart and served as anchors for a variety of decorations hanging on tough cord. The latter included several bundles of yellowing bone that might have been hands, two skulls with only traces of hair and flesh, a few rags, half a glass mirror, a hand axe, and a book’s spine and one cover.

  “Strange place for a garnir,” Henri commented. “Aren’t they usually put out in plain view?”

  “They are,” Bridget nodded, fitting a bullet into her sling pouch. “This isn’t a garnir, it’s a garnul, a victory marker. Orcs put them up to mark their triumphs, the bigger the fight, the more poles they put up.”

  “That’s a wagon tongue,” Maxmillian observed, indicating the shaft. “Want us to knock it down and get the skulls for you?”
<
br />   The priestess frowned, then shook her head. “No; garnul are a different proposition from garnir. Tamper with it, and every Orc or Goblin who passes will know that it was disturbed. The last thing we need is an Urtala of upset Orcs looking for whoever dishonored their marker. Let’s see where the rest of the wagon ended up.”

  A short distance beyond the victory marker they found a small, trash-littered clearing with a fire pit dug into its center. Not far from the clearing the trail swung down a steep slope into the riverbed itself; on the opposite bank another slope offered access out of the river course. Midway across the river, with water lapping a foot above its axles, was a wagon, the complex tracery of harness and reins rippling in a fan downstream, held in place by a knot around the brake lever.

  The dark-haired Serjeant looked around, irritation souring her pretty features. “Elonia, what was so special about this place that you felt it miles away?”

  The Seeress shrugged. “Something around here, either thing, person, or event, was very remarkable. What, I can’t say just yet.”

  The slim advocate nodded, none too happy. “Maxmillian, mount up, check out the wagon, and then cross the river and stand guard on the bank. The rest of us will picket our horses and look around. Elonia, get me some answers.”

  Cutting herself a stout stick, Bridget began to move through the clearing, examining the trash and damaged areas, using her stick to probe. It seemed likely that the clearing had been the scene of a victory celebration by the Orcs after ambushing a party escorting the wagon which now stood abandoned in mid-stream, and the debris she was sifting merely confirmed that initial impression. Scattered about were well-gnawed bones (the remnants of the wagon’s team and whatever mounts the victims had had), rusting eating utensils, tools, and a few odds and ends, no doubt dumped from captured packs and saddlebags. On the side of the clearing opposite the trail she found the skeletal remains of two Humans who had been tied to the trunks of trees. Half-burnt brands and fire-blackened strips of metal spoke of a lingering, painful death for the two. Both sets of bones still had their skulls attached; casting about in the bushes, she found a jumble of bones that a Healer’s eye determined were the remains of five Humans, although only three skulls were mixed in. Using her stick, she probed amongst the bones and the bits of ragged cloth, looking for any insignia or decoration that might give a clue to their identity or allegiance, without success.