Killstreak Book One

by Stuart Thaman

  “I’m sorry…” he muttered.

  “Hey, Kadorax!” the voice whispered a little louder.

  Finally, Kadorax looked up and brushed a bit of dampness from his eyes. Penn motioned for him from the side of the barracks.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the assassin asked under his breath. They both crouched low in the shadows. Their view of the forges was limited compared to the original spot they had agreed upon, but moving would have been too obvious to be worth the risk.

  “Sorry,” Kadorax repeated. He wasn’t really sure if he was talking to the assassin at his side or the woman clinging so fiercely to his memories.

  Penn dismissed the apology with an inaudible exhale. “Nothing’s happened yet. You’re fine.”

  “No,” Kadorax replied. “I shouldn’t have been late. I just… I just got caught up in something for a bit. Speaking of which, you said you’ve met another Earth-born, right?”

  “Just you,” Penn whispered back.

  Kadorax felt his heart sink a little lower into the abyss. “Sure.” All the questions he had wanted to ask, the practical interview he had looked forward to conducting, had slipped from his mind completely.

  Instead of trading question after question of life back on Earth, the two sat in silence as they watched the forge workers making their small shop ready for the night. They counted five Miners’ Union members in total—the goblin and human Kadorax had seen earlier were gone, likely returned to Skarm’s Reif, leaving two dwarves, a gnome who appeared to be in charge, and a pair of burly orcs that got to do the heaviest of the manual labor. Unlike all the games Kadorax had played and all the books he had read back on Earth, orcs weren’t treated any different than the other intelligent races of Agglor, something that struck him as a bit odd. Humans did tend to give the orcs a wide berth in taverns and on the streets, but that was simply due to the orcish superstition that forbade them from bathing.

  A little after midnight, when most of the torches in the camp were neglected and burning low, there came a bit of movement from the forge. The gnome and one of the dwarves exited the building with slow, measured steps. To any of the Blackened Blades, their movements were easily recognized as poorly executed tradecraft.

  “They don’t even have Sneak talents,” Penn whispered under his breath. “They’re idiots. Trying to skulk away in the middle of the night when they’re surrounded by rogues, thieves, and assassins is illogical, even for the Miners’ Union.”

  Kadorax scanned the area for any signs of a trap before skittering up to the next shadow. “I think you’re giving the Union a bit too much credit,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Let’s hope,” Penn replied. Both of them were on high alert as they followed the pair of miners around the camp.

  The gnome and dwarf remained silent, skulking from building to building, finally leaving the camp altogether. They departed on the western side of the encampment near the priory, careful to avoid the guarded paths in the north. There was still the matter of climbing the palisade guarding the western flank, a tall order for two of Agglor’s shortest races, and the venture lasted a painful ten minutes. The gnome even managed to cut his arm on one of the sharpened stakes, though to his credit he did not make a sound.

  When the two conspirators were finally over the barricade, Kadorax and Penn waited a few moments before vaulting it easily in a single silent leap. The gnome bordered on too nervous as he frantically looked all around before running into the woods.

  “I don’t know,” Kadorax whispered. “It doesn’t feel right. No one is so obvious.”

  Penn stopped and crouched low, the leaves beneath his feet crunching ever so quietly. “You think we’re being led into a trap?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It has to be, right?”

  “We’ll follow them a little longer.”

  “Alright,” Kadorax agreed. “Stay a little farther back. Just in case.”

  The gnome and the dwarf kept up their pace long into the night. They seemed to know exactly where they were headed, but they did stop once to consult a map. Kadorax made a mental note of where the gnome had stored the map in case he needed to pilfer it from the creature’s corpse later.

  After an hour or more in the forest, the gnome finally came to halt. No one else was around, so Kadorax and Penn had to wait some distance off. They crouched behind a few small trees, grateful for the darkness and the lack of awareness of their prey. Had they been stalking someone trained who knew what to look for when being tailed, their cover would have been entirely insufficient.

  “They said they’d meet us here,” the gnome said. The two were far enough away that the dwarf’s response was lost to the trees.

  A few moments passed before the gnome spoke again. “How long should we wait?”

  Kadorax was wondering the same thing himself. He covered his mouth to keep his voice from drifting. “You really think these are our guys?” he asked.

  “They have to be, right?” Penn answered. “Why else would they be out here? Someone’s selling equipment to the jackals. Has to be them.”

  A faint howl rose up from somewhere far off into the woods.

  “Did you see the dwarf flinch?” Kadorax asked. “He’s afraid. Maybe they aren’t here to meet dogheads.”

  “Or he’s a coward, simple as that,” Penn quietly replied.

  Another twenty minutes passed without anything happening. The two miners sat with their backs against a tree and talked quietly to themselves, though about what Kadorax and Penn could not hear.

  Then a new sound caught everyone’s attention. Footsteps grew louder, rapidly approaching from the north. “Must be a lot of them,” Kadorax whispered. He tried to pick apart the sounds of the individual footsteps to measure how many there were, but whoever it was moved too quickly, and the sounds all ran together.

  A pack of jackals came to a skidding stop in front of the miners. Kadorax quickly counted eleven of the hairy beasts. Every one of them was armed to the teeth.

  “The delivery hasn’t made it,” one of the beasts growled.

  Panic written on his face, the gnome fidgeted and looked all over the forest before answering. “We… we’ll have it tomorrow, I promise.”

  “You promised today,” the jackal said. The creature stood a full head taller than the gnome, probably on equal height with Kadorax. The creature held a cruel barbed mace in his paw, though his claws were easily long enough to make quick work of unarmed opponents.

  “J—just one more day,” the gnome stammered. “I’ll have it tomorrow night!”

  The jackal menaced over him, glowering and baring his canines, letting a bit of drool escape the corner of his snout and fall on the gnome’s head. “We lost some of our pack because of your delay,” he barked.

  Two of the other jackals pounced on the dwarf, eliciting a yelp of pain and terror from the stout miner. They pinned him to the ground, and the alpha jackal grabbed the gnome fiercely by the shoulders, spinning him so he could watch his companion’s fate.

  “Don’t move,” the jackal commanded, passing off the gnome to two of the others. With the miners both held firmly in place and surrounded by enemies on every side, the leader set his mace to work on the unlucky dwarf’s legs.

  Screams filled the night air. The jackal’s mace flung torn, ragged flesh all over the nearby trees as it shredded the dwarf, hit after bloody hit.

  “Let’s go while they’re occupied,” Kadorax suggested. He had seen enough tortures—committed his fair share of them as well—to know how it would all end.

  Penn nodded and motioned toward the direction they had come. The two left just as they’d arrived: quietly, quickly, and unnoticed.

  Syzak and Brinna still had not returned to the camp by the next day. Kadorax trusted his lifelong companion, and he didn’t think anything of the extended absence. He and Penn had decided to tell Elise as little as possible. They spent the morning loitering around the forges and waiting for the terrified gnome to finally mak
e a move. Neither of them were surprised that the dwarf was nowhere to be seen.

  When the knights and assassins congregated around the main fires in the center of camp to eat their lunch, the gnome finally made his escape. He had a smithing hammer tucked into his belt, both eyes full of fear as he walked toward the road that would take him to Skarm’s Reif. The little gnome hurried, constantly glancing at everyone he passed. It didn’t take long for a sheen of sweat to break out on his pale forehead.

  Kadorax and Penn followed from such a close distance that it almost didn’t feel fair. Any intelligent mark would have seen them at once, but the gnome was so focused on his own footfalls that he never turned all the way around to check his rear.

  They waited until no one else was within sight before stopping the gnome on the road. Kadorax came up behind him, muffling his steps on the softer patches of dirt along the side of the path, and grabbed the frightened miner by his collar.

  The gnome screamed like a wounded animal staring down a hungry predator. It was an awful noise, pathetic even by civilian standards, and made Kadorax’s distaste for the Miners’ Union grow even deeper. “At least have the decency to keep your bowels and bladder in check,” he sneered, stepping around in front of the gnome. He held the small creature aloft with one arm.

  “I don’t know anything!” the terrified miner said all at once.

  Kadorax laughed in his face. “The interrogation hasn’t even begun!” he said with a disarming smile.

  The gnome flailed and kicked, but his feet only scraped at some of the gravel on the road. “Please… Just let me go! I won’t do it!”

  “Do what?” Kadorax asked. He raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious to see how much of his plan the gnome would willingly spill. Penn stood guard behind him, out of view, and watched both ends of the road for any passersby.

  The gnome’s eyes were as wide as they could go without falling out of his head. “Whatever it is, I won’t do it!” he yelled.

  Kadorax was honestly impressed by the miner’s attempt at misdirection. Even such a lame statement was more than he had expected. “You work at the forge, right?” Kadorax asked him. The gnome nodded in his grasp. “Perhaps you could help me out. I was looking for a dwarf who worked at the forge as well. I think he might be in trouble, and I only want to help.”

  Somehow, the panic on the gnome’s face managed to increase. “He… it wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything!”

  Kadorax’s forearm was beginning to seriously tire, so he dropped the gnome back to the ground. “What were you selling to the jackals?” he demanded.

  The gnome backpedaled a few steps, and then he bumped into Penn, and the full gravity of the situation finally washed over him. “It was a drill,” he stated, his eyes downcast and his voice quavering. “I knew a jackal in Skarm’s Reif before all the temples started cropping up around Agglor. We were friends, you know?”

  “What kind of drill?” Kadorax pressed onward. He didn’t care much for the sappy details of a ruined friendship.

  Heaving a great sigh, the gnome continued, “I designed a drill that runs on steam. It isn’t very large, so it could be portable on the battlefield during a siege or something. It was supposed to be a project for the Union, but I could never get it strong enough. It won't go through rock or ore.”

  “But it will move through dirt, and it leaves a path large enough for a jackal to fit through, right?” Kadorax finished for him.

  The gnome nodded.

  “Traitor’s trying to get us all killed,” Penn added. “I say we gut him here, find the drill, and burn it.”

  Kadorax had to laugh at the stereotypical Blackened Blade response. Assassins and rogues hated machinery and the engineers who made it. The true thief in the night trusted only a blade and a sturdy set of quiet leather to get the job done. Anything more than that meant the killer was making up for lack of skill with tricky gadgets. Still, Kadorax wasn’t one to let such an obvious advantage go to waste. “Where did you hide the drill?” he asked.

  The gnome faltered and hesitated a moment before answering. “I left it at the forge, hidden under a few empty boxes,” he said softly.

  Kadorax and Penn turned the gnome around and gave him a less-than-gentle shove in the direction of the camp. “Let’s go see it,” the bastion stated.

  They walked with the gnome all the way back to camp, and it didn’t take any extra convincing to get the miner’s full cooperation.

  The notion of giving Elise an update on their findings danced temporarily through Kadorax’s mind as they arrived back at the forward base and headed right for the forge. In the end, Kadorax couched his decision on the mere fact that he was not an official member of the Blackened Blades and therefore owed the woman no real vow of allegiance.

  The gnome grew more and more nervous as he led the two adventurers into the forge and to a stack of wooden crates haphazardly piled against a wall. After a moment of digging, the gnome pulled out a heavy metal contraption with a circular blade attached to the front and a series of empty hoses hanging from the back. “Here,” the miner said. There was another worker in the forge close enough to see what was going on, but the tall orc didn’t seem to take much interest in the affair.

  “I’d like to see it in action,” Kadorax said. There was a small cart on wheels connected to the main body of the drill where the coal and water would be kept during operation, and the whole assembly was certainly intriguing.

  “Where’s the jackal pack that you’ve been dealing with?” Penn wanted to know. “Let’s take the drill there and give it a little test run.”

  The gnome shook his head, his face showing nothing but terror. “I always met them in the woods. I don’t know where they live.”

  Kadorax knew the explanation was plausible. “Then set up another meeting,” he said. “We’ll go with you, unseen, and give the drill a test.”

  The gnome shook in his boots. Finally, after a gentle prod in the back from Penn, he acquiesced. “I’m meeting with them again tonight,” he said under his breath.

  “Perfect,” Kadorax replied. “Deliver the drill to them exactly as you’re supposed to. We’ll go to the meeting place in advance of the jackals arriving and wait. Maybe we can tail them back to their den. Eradicating an entire pack of dogheads would go far in advancing the cause.”

  He looked to Penn for confirmation, and the assassin returned a grim nod.

  “It’s settled, then,” Kadorax said. “We’ll find their den and turn the drill against them. Risky, but it’ll work.”

  Penn smiled with a bit of malice glinting in his eyes. “I’ll sharpen my daggers. If we’re going to sack an entire doghead den, we’ll need more men. Let me handle Elise. I don’t think she likes me, either, but she’s never tried to kill me. She’ll give us a squad.”

  “I like the idea,” Kadorax said. “We’ll take them out all at once.”

  Nightfall cast a thick shroud over the swarm of hidden assassins and rogues scattered through the forest. The gnome stood in the middle of a little unmarked clearing with his drill laid out before him. He’d brought a bit of coal and a tank of water, and all the machine needed to get moving was a touch of flame and a few moments for the steam to begin to build.

  A small pack of jackals ran into the clearing not long after. They were armed and armored, but there weren’t quite as many as there had been the day before. Kadorax counted eight. He had over a dozen Blackened Blades assembled behind him. Despite his protest against her presence in the field, Elise was among those hidden. He knew her true motivation lay in her mistrust of Kadorax. When Penn had told her the plan, she had immediately jumped on it, far too eager to join in the assault than she should have been. She was there to watch him, and everyone else knew it.

  None of Elise’s misconceptions bothered Kadorax. If she was waiting for him to recruit an army to overthrow her, she’d have to wait far longer than a single night in the woods.

  The alpha jackal, the same leader as the previous night, t
ook his time and inspected the drill as though the terrified gnome wasn’t even there. Finally, he stood straight and looked the gnome in the eye.

  “I—”

  The leader stopped. His snout turned up to the air, sniffing quickly and swiveling from side to side. “What do I smell?” he growled back to the other jackals behind him.

  The warriors drew their weapons and spread out.

  Stay down! Kadorax silently urged. Perhaps a high-level mage or sorcerer would have been able to telepathically transmit the message to all the Blackened Blades, but Kadorax was neither high-level nor a mage.

  “Kill them!” Elise shouted, emerging from the darkness with an enchanted dagger held in her hands. The rest of the group followed suit, taking the clearing by storm.

  Kadorax watched and waited. He knew the Blackened Blades would make quick work of the jackals due to their overwhelming numbers and, ultimately, his own blade wouldn’t be needed. But jackals had a notorious reputation for sending a runner scampering away to warn their other groups and organize counterattacks, something Kadorax knew all too well.

  The initial clash of blades, teeth, and claws was too chaotic to follow. The jackals naturally collapsed from their outspread positions to form a tight ball between the trees. Fighting against such a formation was something the assassins were completely unused to. A small handful of knights would have stampeded over the jackals in no time, their training and equipment designed perfectly for frontal collisions and violent clashes on the front lines, but the Blackened Blades had to dance and roll, parry and dodge, to keep from suffering serious losses despite their impending certain victory.

  A minute into the battle, half the jackals had fallen. At least two of the Blackened Blades were on the ground and clutching wounds. Kadorax was still fully camouflaged when one of the jackals broke rank to flee.

  The bastion leapt into action. The jackal was fast, probably faster than him if they were in an open field, but the tangled roots and fallen branches of the forest floor slowed them both equally, allowing the gap to be closed in mere moments. Kadorax fell on the runner’s back and called on Chaos Shock at once. He thrust his hand forward into the jackal’s lower back, where a small sliver magical ice erupted from his palm. The jackal staggered and tripped, dropping to all fours. Chaos Shock activated a second time and generated a ghostly prism of energy, but his hand was too far from the jackal’s hide for the second emanation to bring any effect.