by Zack Finley
Argon's main weapon was a mace with a backup knife. I prefer blades to blunt objects because arterial blood spray has a way of generating a lot more interest in backing off. It certainly works for me.
I nearly missed my perfect weapon. It was on a lower shelf and next to the glitter and shine of a rack of swords. It was easy to overlook. The blade had a modest curved sheath and was less than 2-feet long. When I wrapped my hand around the grip and pulled the blade, I knew this was to be my main backup weapon.
It was similar to the kukri that the Gurkhas used so effectively. This model sported a full tang and was just over 18 inches long from butt to tip. The blade began to bend sharply inward about one-third of the length. The blade widened immediately after the bend and then tapered to a sharp tip at the end. The edges were honed to razor sharpness.
I never used one in combat before but many considered kukris the perfect weapons for personal protection. The bent design delivered significantly more swinging punch than a straight blade. The Gurkhas we worked with demonstrated how well it sliced while chopping into the enemy. While they only demonstrated for us on combat dummies, it took no imagination to appreciate how effective it would be in close one-on-one combat. In many ways, it was more machete than knife, but it still had a nice sharp point.
I was surprised this simple looking blade had an enchantment. I began providing some juice to it, too.
While I went for the blades, Argon headed for the maces. By Jaloan tradition, maces were favored by mages. They were stuffed with enchantments. Armorers embedded a host of gems into the handle and head, to bolster the limited magic metal can store.
The choices available were overwhelming. My warrior was drawn to the ugly duckling resting near the end of one rack. The mace looked well-used. One edge of the mace head was discolored. The types of rundown enchantments seemed similar to those on the other maces. She started filling its magical charge.
When I asked her about crossbows, she decided to pick her old one up the next time we were at the hospital. "Now I have fire and earth magic, I'm not even sure why I carry it. Habit, I guess."
I was done shopping; now I wanted breakfast.
While we were choosing our battle gear, Tobron sent us an invite for dinner. They wanted us to join them, Alba, and Cleon for dinner tonight. Argon accepted for us. Tobron retrieved the enchanted items worn by the mage we killed last night. Tobron was worried they might cause some mischief if stumbled on by civilians.
Early this morning Argon messaged Olive that she had recovered and we’d be in touch later today.
Argon commed her while I was eating breakfast and checking out our new mage locator app in the Klee market. I was surprised by how many mages were here.
While tweaking the refresh rate I noticed my reservoir of force magic was significantly lower than normal, and my flesh magic and four elementals were definitely dropping.
Argon looked at her own and immediately shut off the refill for her new mace and armor. I secured my force magic but let the others continue filling. I intended to monitor it closely.
"I think I'll let you teleport us," Argon said. "My force magic is down to half. I can’t believe my armor and my mace still register as empty.
"Same here, but I seem to have some kind of flesh magic going on, too. It makes you wonder how much do these things hold?"
"Clearly more force magic than we have in our personal supplies. We might allow the elementals to fill continuously, but I don’t want both of us to drop low at the same time. At the very least we will need to stagger them," Argon said. "Actually, this is a great problem to have."
"Hunh?"
"When these are charged we should be able to call on nearly double our normal supply of magical power. That should help us keep breathing," Argon said.
I let her have the last word as I checked in on events in Augun.
Our former bargemen were scattered all over the Flom area. One was with a squad of king's guard chasing the handful of raiders who scattered last night. They'd already caught two and executed them on the spot.
One of the bargemen remained at the garrison where the wounded men were. We arranged to see them right away.
Two of the bargemen had recovered the barges the raiders planned to use to take the slaves away. The barges weren't from the area. They were filled with loot. I asked them to move the loot into the empty warehouse we were using last night.
I commed Ramda asking if we could give our bargemen the two barges recovered from the raiders. I told her the only price would be a commitment to begin moving cargo. It was an easy sell. I commed Olive to let her know some of her bargemen were about to be reassigned. I suggested she keep them in the militia even while they were on barge duty. She wasn’t happy but knew the importance of getting the river traffic moving again.
I commed the bargemen about their new barges but reminded them they were still in the militia and subject to military requirements. I told them to meet with Sgt. Bomes to be released from Flom garrison support.
We 'ported to the garrison to finish healing the wounded men. One had a fierce infection from his gut wound. I took me more than an hour to patch him up and eliminate the infection. By the time he was sitting up and drinking broth, Argon had the other two eager to leave sickbay.
I told Sgt. Bomes about the barges but suggested he require one of the bargemen stay on duty at the garrison until further notice. This would have two benefits, instant communication for Bomes and if one of the barges ran into trouble, the garrison could send support with the on-duty mage.
I offered to dig a hole for the raider's bodies scattered to the north and south of town to avoid a sanitation problem. He thanked me for my consideration and said they'd fill it if I dug it. He was glad we left the bodies out for all to see today. Dead raiders don’t pose a future threat. He thought it would help the locals get back to living. His guards were posting copies of the king’s farmland proclamations on the doors of all the local farmhouses as well as prominently in town.
"I don't see Flom farmers letting some stranger plant crops on their land. They'll be in the fields without much delay. They aren’t happy to be told what to plant, but they don't want a famine either," said Bomes. "Maybe some lads working in the tanneries will take up farming. I’m sure some enterprising lads will chase down the jarma that ran off. I suspect some of the herders are out looking to restock their herds and start supplying meat and leather to Augun again."
I banished two quick holes for the bodies. I left conjured piles of dirt beside each one to fill with.
We asked the bargemen where we would most likely find pirate trouble on the river between Flom and Augun. They didn't hesitate. The main pirate problem centered around the village of Omba on a wide river bend.
They provided several teleport locations near Omba if we wanted to check it out.
We said we'd do that but wanted to grill our prisoner first.
Olive had an escort waiting to take us to the prison where the raider we captured was kept. “Sir, do you know how long we should plan on keeping him?” asked the grizzled prison warden.
“Not long,” replied Argon. “We will release him for you to execute within the hour.”
A huge emotional burst from the warden made me scramble to turn the sensitivity down on my mind reading app. Before this, I hadn’t felt any need to scan his mind. I was concerned his distress was because he didn’t agree with executing the prisoner.
Far from it.
He was conflicted because he was too short-handed to properly handle the execution this shift. He was also worried about whether conditions would be any better next shift. Lt. Valso had arrested or executed all the prison guards hired by Arbos. Our warden came out of retirement to handle the job at King Rufix’s request. The poor guy was chronically shorthanded, and all his help were troublemakers volunteered by the king’s guard.
“If it would help we can handle the execution for you. This man is guilty of capital crimes. The only reason
we didn’t execute him in the field was to give us time to interrogate him thoroughly,” I said.
“If you could handle that I’ll be truly grateful,” the warden said. “If you could make it very messy I have just the men to assign to clean up the cell.”
He was quite relieved when we offered to execute him ourselves and leave the remains for him to dispose of. He knew just which of his screw-ups to assign that scut work to. He hoped it would be gory and extremely unpleasant.
We only had the raider from camp two to question. I now wished we’d killed him with the rest of the raiders. Inoa had gotten a lot of intel from those she questioned last night, so I doubted we’d learn anything new.
We agreed Argon would handle the interrogation.
Argon nodded. “Let’s get this over quickly. Even being in the same room with this scum makes me sick.”
The raider was an open book. The six raider groups assigned to Flom came from a well-known pirate base on the coast between Ylee and Kavil.
The compound was well-guarded. It served as home base for many different pirate groups and raiding companies. The hiring mage met mainly with Rofcher, the leader of camp four. Rofcher was the mage who tried to kill Argon.
Rofcher was the raider who invited the other five raider groups to join the raid. None of the groups had ever worked with Rofcher before. As a signing bonus, they all received gems and precious metals with the promise they could keep all the loot and slaves they acquired in Augun. This guy hadn’t known Rofcher was a mage. He still believed the mage that hired them gave Rofcher a special attack, effectively undercutting the other five groups.
The pirate base was an active port with ships arriving and leaving frequently. The ships distributed slaves and loot throughout the region. Most were pirate ships that avoided the main cities known to be hostile to their kind. Some were trading ships either fencing or buying a cargo of contraband. The pirate ships serviced several small ports up and down the coast that welcomed their traffic. These small ports had a special signal flag they raised to indicate when it was safe for the pirates to dock.
Most raiding companies disbanded between missions.
Once Flom was sacked, the raiders expected to cram their slaves and loot onto barges and return to Augun. Rofcher promised a ship was waiting to take them back to the pirate base.
The raider didn't know the name of the ship, nor anything else of value.
"I got what I need from this guy," said Argon.
I used a force blade to cut his throat.
Argon had originally planned a quick bubble of nitrogen to limit the mess the prison guards would have to clean up.
"Trust me, the warden will love us for leaving this mess. The boy he assigned to this cleanup definitely needs a kick in the butt."
The warden was practically gloating when we left.
We briefed Olive on what we learned from the raiders and our intent to check out Omba after lunch based on input from our bargemen.
I told her there seemed to be plenty of barges abandoned on the river, and I was going to give each of our bargemen one.
I felt sure if we fixed Omba, our bargemen would contact their families to come out and help them with this windfall. Olive thought it was sneaky but might work.
Once Omba was cleared, I suggested Gera and a troop of king's guard ride from Asme to Omba searching for hidden raiders or pirates. He should bring enough soldiers to kill any small groups but might need help if they spotted a large unit.
We needed to be sure that section was peaceful before asking any barges to risk the trip to Asme. I was concerned if the first barges got attacked, restarting the trips again would be even harder.
She agreed, especially with the area immediately around Asme pacified. She was still very concerned about the freed slave camps but realized they were coping for now.
Other than helping the ex-slaves, the biggest problem around Asme was the near revolt over forcing its farmers to plant food crops only. Asme was a textile town. Traditionally most of the area farms were geared toward crops used to make cloth. It wasn't just the farmers who were pissed, those who normally worked in the textile mills and other ancillary services were not happy either.
Lt. Brik was holding firm, telling them any fields not planted in food by the deadline, would be awarded to someone who would follow the emergency proclamation. This had caused a short-term seed shortage which required Gera to teleport back and forth to the capital. Another reason to restore barge movement up and down the river.
I messaged Ramda with the suggestion the king charter several barges with a substantial delivery bonus to take king's guard replacements and supplies to both Asme and Flom. I explained having king's guard aboard would discourage problems and jump-start the flow of goods and personnel up and down the river. I thought he should charter both types of barges, mage and barnta. She thought these were great ideas and promised to present them to the king for approval.
I expected the king to agree and told Olive that Sgt. Bomes and Lt. Brik should be prepared with a supply and replacement request, not just for their barracks but for things needed by their communities. Once the barges headed up the river, they should post a notice in each town announcing the restoration of river traffic.
We went home for lunch, and I put my old gore-stained armor in the shower to clean it. I doubted I'd ever wear it again but wanted it to be in good shape to return it to Cleon. I had to use force magic to get some of the stubborn bits off.
Argon was already eating when I got into the kitchen, but her attention was focused on her new gear. "It may take me a week to charge these fully," she announced. "The enchantments are so complex I still can’t figure them out, but the armorer was awesome."
She showed me her gear charging spell. When her magic pools reached capacity, the excess poured first into the armor. If there was any magic left over, it went into her mace. While the spell allowed her to set different levels for different magics, she wanted to have maximum magic available for combat when we teleported into Omba.
I copied her spell and monitored my flows. My force magic was the only one not refilled since the first surge.
"Great spell, I had planned to charge it when I thought about it. This is much better," I said.
But that gave me an idea. "Do you want to have us charge each other's gear if we have excess? It should work if we are together. If we store our gear close to us while we sleep, we can take advantage of that downtime, too."
Argon thought it had a lot of potential and promised to work on it after we returned from Omba.
“Have you forgotten something?” Tobron commed to us both. “I have your apprentice here fully charged and ready to go.”
“Hey, she’s not my apprentice,” I protested.
“Sorry, Tobron. I forgot,” commed Argon.
“I hoped you weren’t expecting me to keep her busy,” Tobron commed back. “I know you were injured, so if you can’t handle her today, I’ll find something worthwhile for her to do.”
“I’ll get her started on the slave camps,” Argon promised. “How did your meeting with the chamberlain go?”
“As far as he’s concerned we can visit anytime we want. I just need to get the counterspells and teleport location from the mage guild when I meet with them this afternoon,” commed Tobron.
“I’ll come to get Findot, and we can discuss visiting the keep over dinner tonight,” sent Argon.
Argon set up a communication net limited to Tobron and the two of us, expecting to add Findot to that limited channel. She used some of the techniques learned from Inoa to segregate this channel from any others. Argon expected to add Findot to our Augun mage net at some point but thought we should continue to control her access for now.
We decided Findot could teleport to each slave camp near Asme and then to Flom, assess their condition and report back. Argon would need to spend some time with Findot to set up the communications net and make sure she maintained a deadman's teleport active
while she was in the field. We didn't want her in combat until we could assess her battle skills.
“Why don’t you get her moving and I’ll reconnoiter Omba,” I offered.
Argon started to protest.
“I promise to be careful and sneaky. I’ll even use our invisibility spell to stay out of sight.”
Argon was still not convinced.
“I promise not to start any combat until you join me.” This promise was one I didn’t want to make. Despite that, I knew she would not let me out of her sight until I made it. Sometimes mind bonds can be a pain.
This new armor covered some body parts the old armor didn't. We found hugs weren't quite as satisfying or as intimate. Our kisses were still dynamite.