Dark Path: Book Three of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Axel leaned against the rope ladder leading to the surface while he studied his handiwork. Oddly enough, his legs weren’t bothering him as much as he had expected, given all the exertion of the last few hours. When this raid was dealt with, he decided, he would start using a single crutch every day, and spend an hour or so a week trying to walk with a cane.

  “Will that really work?” Rolf asked, studying the now fully-exposed portal. Axel had spent much of the day carefully inscribing over about a third of the carefully etched runes surrounding the bricked-over doorway.

  “That, combined with the effects of time,” the wizard nodded tiredly.

  The big half Orc shook his head. “So that’s it? They’ll fall for it that easily?”

  The Badger Lieutenant shrugged. “They should; the plan is based upon two basic attributes: power-lust and suspicion of outsiders. With sentient nature behind us, I don’t see how we can lose.” He chuckled hollowly.

  “Are you all right, Lieutenant?” Concern colored Rolf’s voice.

  “Just tired, Rolf, just tired. Tell Kroh to get to work; I want to be out of here as soon as possible, give the Threll plenty of time to do their job.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Axel looked at the altered runes. “Trust me, Rolf, tripping this trap won’t be hard, but cleaning up after it might be a different story.”

  The trees were festooned with lacy fragments of dried web, proof that they were entering the outer limits of the spider colony. Agyra found it to be a welcoming sight as this day had started out badly and had only gotten worse. The trouble had begun this morning, when a Goblin sentry was found dead with his skull smashed in half as if from an axe stroke, yet the only footprints nearby were Goblin and Thane. Since it was a fact that it was impossible to hurl a heavy axe any distance, if at all, it was blindly obvious to the Goblins that the killing was committed by the Thanes. Agyra had been unable to offer a convincing explanation otherwise, and had been forced to have his men display their axes to the Goblin Shaman, who was unable to detect any signs of recent use. With the combined efforts of the Shaman and the Baia, the Goblins rank and file were kept under control, but the tensions between the Adder and their Alantarn allies had risen to unacceptable levels. Agyra was well aware that his retinue troops held the Goblins in contempt, and took the accusations of cowardly murder poorly.

  Worse had followed; in the space of two hours five yasahe and all the lizards disappeared on short scouting patrols advancing ahead of the main body. After the last losses, the surviving two yasahe and virtually all the other Goblins refused to leave the main body. Unwilling to advance without a vanguard, Agyra ordered four of his retinue to take the advance guard, a maneuver which came back to haunt him as the four were unmolested throughout the remainder of the march to the colony, an exemption which further fueled the Goblin’s suspicions and heightened the tensions between the two groups.

  A rest stop was called a few hundred feet into the colony area. The Anlarc beckoned Bakmann to him. “How are the retinue?”

  “Ready for a fight, Curion,” the Thane responded grimly. “Say the word and we’ll sort these bastards out.”

  “That is the attitude that benefits our foes the most,” Agyra swung his helmeted visage towards his subordinate. “You are being manipulated by a clever and resourceful enemy.”

  “Yes, Curion.”

  “What are the men saying?”

  “That the Goblin scouts who disappeared are not dead, only hiding to give them a reserve with which to use against us. They think we are being used to escort them through Badger territory to this spider den. Once they get what they want, the Goblins desert, and maybe try to cut our throats in the bargain, Curion.”

  “And what is your opinion?”

  “Curion, I think that what they are saying is possible. The Badger’s main force should be out on campaign; while they might have a few Lanthrell in their ranks, surely they do not have as many as the Goblins claim, and just as surely, if they did, they would be with the main body. I think the Adder ran into scout-archers, perhaps with one Lanthrell as a leader. And I think if the Badgers were trailing us, they would have begun sniping at us, wearing our numbers down, not picking off a few Goblin scouts and leaving it at that. Aside from the lizards, which were useful in a night camp, they haven't affected our fighting strength at all, if it is them behind the disappearances.”

  “That, Bakmann, is where you are wrong. I agree with your assessment of the Lanthrell threat, but I point out to you that the actions of yesterday and today have done far more than ordinary sniping would accomplish: they are splitting our force into two separate factions, factions which might even turn on each other if pressed hard enough.”

  “Yes, Curion.” The ingrained response, Agyra knew. The Thane had been too long in Alantarn, but not long enough in the field. He was contemptuous of any race which the Direthrell deemed inferior, and seen too many Goblin slaves in the fortress to hold the little humanoids in much awe. They had never seen Goblin jugata in action, or even on the march; for most of the Thanes he had with him this was their first encounter with free Goblins, a weakness in his retinue due in no small part to the mauling the Badgers had given his personal retainers in their raid on Alantarn, further exacerbated by the losses sustained during the second Felher raid. Too many of his force were too new to his command, lacking the years of service that would give them the confidence in his leadership needed to overcome the simple doubts that were now plaguing them.

  “You and the retinue are fine troops, good fighting men, but you do not understand the ruses employed by these types of mercenaries. You must hold yourself in readiness for an attack from without, and give the Adder no further incentive to distrust us. I still have need of their services.”

  “Yes, Curion.”

  The Anlarc watched the Thane walk away with a growing sense of concern.

  Halabarian slipped noiselessly through the underbrush, appearing at Axel’s side as if by magic. “They grow quarrelsome with fatigue and suspicion. The axe ploy was a stroke of genius.”

  The wizard grinned. “Lanthrell tactics: confuse and dismay. Where are they now?”

  “They’ve stopped on the edge of the colony, a routine rest stop from all appearances. The Shaman is looking anxious, and everyone else looks tense, except for that walking statue of an anlarc. I must say, you meet the most interesting people when you stay with the Phantom Badgers.”

  “Have you deduced why a Direthrell Temple force is mucking about with Stone Adder warriors in this part of the world?”

  “That is something of a puzzle,” Halabarian nodded. “It seems clear the shaman seeks whatever is in that sealed off chamber we found, but what the Direthrell are about is a mystery. The Stone Adder have long been rumored to have connections with Arbmante; perhaps the Shaman has dragged the Anlarc along on this undertaking for security on one pretext or another.”

  “You seem to be well informed about the inhabitants of this part of the world,” Axel eyed the Threll carefully. “Quite well, even for a wandering tale-singer.”

  “You never know what will make a good ballad,” Halabarian observed blandly.

  “This one won’t,” the wizard stated flatly. “Killing a Direthrell party isn’t something the Badgers want to advertise. Arbmante has been known to hold a grudge.”

  “I understand,” the minstrel assured him. “I’ve no interest in feuds with them, myself. Still, killing Dark Threll is a social pastime that holds my interest.”

  “Ours as well, especially this close to home,” the Lieutenant nodded. “Now, spread the word to our people: we should be in action in an hour or less, depending on how sensitive the Shaman is.”

  The Lanthrell sketched a salute and vanished amongst the trees. Axel reviewed his plan and sighed; how Durek stood up under years of command was a mystery to him.

  The column stopped, and the jugata sluggishly moved off the trail to establish flank security. Agyra, Bakmann in tow, strode up the t
rail to the head of the column, which had halted in a modest clearing. Two of the shaman’s bodyguards were industriously pounding stakes into the ground near a large crevice, and a pair of jugata were bringing up a rolled rope ladder. The Anlarc marched up to the Baia and asked the Goblin leader what was going on.

  “This is what the Shaman has sought,” the Baia gestured towards the crevice with his mace. “Once he is finished within, we will be at your full disposal.”

  “I would think it wise to deploy my Thanes in a defensive posture about this clearing, in case of attack by the Badgers, and I would think a similar disposition of your jugata would be wise as well.”

  The Baia shrugged indifferently, and ordered a bodyguard to pass the command on to the section leaders. Agyra watched the lackadaisical Goblin deployments for a moment, and then drew Bakmann aside. “Form our people into a position upslope of this hole, in a formation that is not threatening to the Goblins but nonetheless is secure from all sides. Remain alert, but take no action against the Goblins unless directly attacked by them. If attacked, hold your position, make no attempt to aid the Goblins with other than missile fire, and mount no pursuits of the foe, no matter how panic-stricken they flee. I intended to accompany the Shaman into the crevice.”

  “Yes, Curion.” The Thane hesitated. “Curion, the Goblins seem surlier and less alert than would be normal; are they up to something?”

  “Not deliberately; there is something down in that crevice which the Shaman seeks. It is affecting the Goblins as they draw near, affecting the way they think. Should the Badgers be in a position to do so, they could have no better time to attack than when the shaman goes into the crevice, leaving the Goblins without magic support and in a state of disarray. Hold yourself and your warriors in a state of readiness.”

  “Yes, Curion.”

  The Anlarc moved to confront the Shaman, who was watching the first of his bodyguards climb down the rope ladder. “I wish to accompany you on this endeavor; my curiosity is peaked.” It was neither a request nor a demand, simply a statement of fact made with all the assurance and force of will the twisted Anlarc mustered.

  The gnarled spellcaster studied the helmeted visage for a moment before giving a curt nod. Turning to the last two of his guards, he carefully supervised the lowering of a sack of tools and a number of wooden boxes decorated with runic symbols before climbing down himself. When the shaman reached the floor of the chamber below, the Anlarc simply stepped off the edge of the crevice and dropped downward at a stately rate, alighting on his feet as if having stepped off a stool.

  The chamber he found himself in was oval, nearly twenty feet wide and ten or so high at the center, narrowing to eight at the walls. The floor was littered with leaves and other debris blown down from above, and a pile of crumbling stone in the center, directly under the opening. At one end of the chamber was a small, squarish hole leading downward. The four bodyguards stood in the center of the chamber with the tools and chests; the shaman, after first driving a brightly glowing spike into the wall to illuminate the chamber, began to prowl about the chamber, a short baton of elaborately carved bone in one hand, the spike’s light winking off gems set into the device.

  The Anlarc let his vastly altered senses roam freely, and determined that the chamber was carved from living stone from a section of a natural crevice that had once connected the vent in the ceiling to the hole in the floor. There were nine smaller sub-chambers set off of this larger room, each walled up and sealed with potent, if ageing, enchantments embedded into the very stone, all the entrances hidden by layers of limestone buildup. Several of the sub-chambers had residual traces of enchantment still within them, hints of magic and the Void, but it was very difficult to say given the interference of the sealing-wards. The aura that was affecting the Goblins was coming from a sub-chamber centered on one of the long walls, and even as Agyra began to focus upon it he noted the Shaman homing in on it as well, and returned his senses to the normal realm.

  It struck him, then, that the debris on the floor had only been disturbed by Goblin feet; how had the Badgers and their minions missed this place, located as it was at the very heart of the spider colony they had so dedicatedly exterminated? They wouldn’t, he knew with sudden, ominous certainty.

  “Trap,” he said aloud, bringing his axe to the ready position. Instantly, all four Goblin bodyguards spun to face him, weapons at the ready.

  The shaman paused at the Anlarc’s pronouncement, baton scant inches from the limestone that concealed the portal, and half turned to look at Agyra. Turning back to the hidden entrance, he studied the wall for a moment, then reached out and ran a claw-like nail down the wall, carefully examining the grit it gathered.

  “Not limestone,” the Goblin muttered. “Limestone mortar. Clever work.”

  Too late, Agyra saw the true nature of the trap. His altered senses could perceive magical power, although his lack of wizardly training often stymied his ability to understand what he was detecting. With an awful clarity, he realized that whatever was in the sealed chamber was drawing power away from the shaman’s baton and other enchanted items, and was even tapping the residual power of the Void that his armor and axe shed like static electricity.

  Even as he began to warn the shaman the false layer of limestone mortar, applied to hide the fact that the Badgers had uncovered the sub-chamber’s entrance, sagged away from them, cracks dancing across its surface as the supporting brickwork behind it was pulled away. A heartbeat later the mortar dissolved into a spray of fragments exploding across the chamber, erupting into puffs of powder where they struck the twisted Direthrell’s armor and sending the shaman sprawling.

  Through the low, curving doorway where seconds before had been a solid wall stepped a queer, hunched creature strangely illuminated in a sickly greenish-gray radiance that seemed to originate from within itself. As the thing crabbed over the threshold into the main chamber towards the dazed and bleeding shaman, who was cut in a hundred places by the flying mortar fragments, Agyra realized that it was an animated Goblin skeleton, a time-grayed structure of age-worn bone without a remaining trace of flesh or sinew, held together by the source-less light that sprang from within it. A belt of gold disks was looped across its chest, supporting a gold drinking horn and a sheathed dagger of baroque design.

  “Necromancy,” Agyra breathed, shaking his helmeted head to clear it. “Anointed of the Night King and necromancer; no wonder they walled it up.” Vampires as a rule do not practice necromancy; as with most rules, there are always exceptions. Agyra shook his head again, touching various runes upon his armor; as the harsh blackness of the Void rose within him, he felt his thoughts clearing and his control return. “Quickly, you fools, strike! Kill it while it is still weak,” he snapped at the gaping bodyguards, stepping forward as he spoke.

  The hesitation caused by the thing’s spells and awful, centuries-old aura had served the creature well, however; even as the Anlarc was recovering and speaking, the vampire had seized the stunned shaman and ripped open his throat with one bony hand, lifting the thrashing corpse so that the hard pulses of arterial blood shot directly into the fleshless skull. As Agyra leapt to bring his axe to bear, the blood-drenched vampire turned a bony claw towards him and sent him tumbling across the room like a leaf before a wind with a soundless burst of arcane power.

  Momentarily dazed, the Anlarc staggered to his feet in time to see the vampire shrug off the bodyguard’s blows while ripping open the throat of one of their number; the shaman lying discarded on the floor, his life all but left him. With one guard’s blood fountaining over its skull, the vampire seized a second jugata by the throat and held it off the ground, its lifeblood flowing down the thing’s wrist and arm. With horrified clarity, Agyra saw that the blood that struck the vampire flowed only for a few inches before vanishing; even as he watched, the skeleton stood straighter, the bones shedding their age-rotted appearance, changing from pitted gray-brown to firmer yellow and at last becoming healthy white b
one, straight and strong. The two surviving guards had had enough; both broke and ran, one for the rope ladder, the other simply in a panic which took it to the hole in the floor and a long, tumbling death.

  Agyra beheaded the guard who fled for the ladder as only living blood would benefit the vampire. Bracing himself, he brought his axe to full potency and willed his armor to its best effectiveness. Once again, he thought sourly, he was going to do battle with another follower of the Void.

  The vampire tossed aside the two corpses and regarded the Direthrell champion with interest. Finally, a calm voice echoed in Agyra’s helmet without the creature actually speaking. “Stand aside, Threll. This is none of your concern.”

  “And if I do?”

  “There is blood above; blood I need, blood which is mine. I do not require yours, stand aside.”

  “You could not taste mine even should I allow it, and the blood above belongs to me; I require it where it is now, inside the warriors under my command. Return to your chamber and let us pass, or your bones will rest as they should have centuries ago.”

  “You grow overbold, Anlarc. Only treachery by my inferiors bound me the first time; Goblins will pay for their ancestor’s weakness, and I plan the repayment to begin immediately. Stand aside; it is true your blood no longer could benefit me, but that will not save your life.”

  Irritation at the creature’s arrogance tore at his good judgment, but Agyra made one last attempt. “Return to your chamber, Goblin. I am near your own age, and we both serve the same dread Master in our own ways. The lands of the Humans have grown to encompass this place, much because the followers of the Void spend so many lives in battle with each other. Let us pass, and you can wreak your vengeance on the followers of the Eight, or the Goblins not under my command if you so insist. Your bonds were weakened as a trap for myself by followers of the Eight, and we serve their purposes by fighting.”