by RW Krpoun
“So what is the tariff?” Shad asked.
“Depends on what you need. I rent wall-chambers and stables, and have hay and oats for sale at a reasonable price, along with preserved rations. If you rent my chambers we will safeguard their contents and your animals as if they were my own. I also have maps of the area and details of the loot potentials of various spots based upon my observations and discussions with groups who have survived forays during my tenure here.”
“You see much traffic through here?” Fred asked.
“It is not frequent,” Justin admitted, holding his shield atop his head to protect himself from the rain. “We spend more time cultivating our garden and gathering hay and wild oats than we do tending customers, but hardly a fortnight passes without one group or another coming to view the wonder of the place or to try their luck, often with some innovative scheme which is surefire and bound to succeed. Of course, many now make up the Undead garrison of the place. Winter tends to be our busy season as the revenants seem to be slightly easier to see when there is snow on the ground outside the Great Field.”
“Let’s start with housing and stabling,” Shad decided.
“A stable with straw for two animals is a Mark a day; a single chamber, which has bunks for eight, is two Marks a day.”
“One stable, one chamber for two nights,” Shad said through gritted teeth. “How much for hay and oats?”
Justin looked at the two animals. “A Mark a day.”
The chamber was clean and had a fireplace with chimney, a large stack of firewood, four mattress-less double bunk beds, a rough table and two benches.
“No candles,” Shad observed as the Talons trooped in.
“But holders,” Derek gestured to a wrought-iron holder barely visible in the gloom. “We have a lot of candles.”
“The last door to the left is the privy,” Jeff noted. “I checked it-it has been cleaned recently.”
“As good as it gets, I guess.” Fred heaved his pack onto a bunk.
“We need to get to business,” Derek observed as he lit a candle with flint and steel. “If any more expenses crop up we’ll be borrowing from Margit.”
“Can we trust Justin?” Shad wondered. “We’ll need to leave Margit and the animals here.”
“I thought we could have Margit with Durbin on the sidelines in case we need to drag someone out,” Derek objected. “Or something heavy.”
“Durbin’s not battle-trained, and I’m not dragging a girl into Death Valley,” Shad shook his head. “This is our fight, not hers. Speaking of which, if we don’t make it out, can you find your way back…well, to someplace safe, Margit?”
The girl nodded.
“Good. This is the best knife and a hatchet from the trappers, you should have something handy just in case.”
“You have a plan?” Jeff asked.
“Basic doctrine,” the Jinxman shrugged. “We scout the objective, probe the enemy’s capabilities. I figure we load up, pick a spot, do a quick probe to see what the revenants are made of and whether the bang-sticks work. If they don’t work this whole expedition may be a lost cause.”
“Crap. Then we’re screwed,” Sam shook his head.
“Well, then we get the furs from the cache and go back to the City-State, where we come up with a new scheme. One way or another we’re getting back home.”
“You really brought weapons for Margit?” Sam asked the Jinxman as the Black Talons navigated the dog-leg passage through the wall.
“Yeah. From the trappers. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re surprised because I’m such a bastard?”
“Your words.”
“I brought my entire squad back upright from our tour. I didn’t like most of ‘em, but I kept them alive. Margit’s part of the team-when we rescued her we took responsibility for her until she leaves us.”
“That’s cool.”
“No, that’s leadership. It doesn’t always practice it, but the Army has honed leadership down to a fine art, and that’s where I learned my trade.”
The Talons headed down the track to the rise where Death Valley, the Great Field, lay before them in its bath of warm sunlight.
“Damn,” Jeff sighed. “That’s both horrible and amazing at the same time.”
“Epic,” Fred observed.
“We need to try to grab some loot while we are testing this,” Derek suggested. “Justin wants twenty Marks for a map, and twenty more for the notes he has complied. Both would be very helpful.”
“We’ll move around the fringe and look for a place,” Shad flicked the water from the brim of his hat and put it back on. “North or south side?”
“North,” Jeff said.
“OK. We’ve got plenty of daylight so lets go a mile or two and get a look at things. Derek, take notes.”
“Way ahead of you.”
The five trudged along the north unaffected edge of the Valley, pausing every hundred yards so Derek could scribble notes while Sam held a spare rain cloak over the Shadowmancer’s journal.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Shad asked Sam.
“Something powerful, like artifact quality.”
“Great-what’s the odds of finding something like that in an area this size-we’re nearly a mile in and there’s still plenty to go.”
“Actually, pretty good odds-virtually every known artifact in circulation today came from here; see, the age where they made artifacts ended on this field. The problem is that artifact gear was held by great heroes and commanders, and they tended to die near the center of the field.”
“I take it you’ve got Artifact Lore?”
“Yeah, plus two boosters for all the research I’ve done. I’ve got the skill point package of a tenth-level Bard from all the practical application I’ve done over the last year.”
The Jinxman stopped abruptly, causing Jeff to bump into him.
“What?” the Night-grifter asked, looking around.
“Derek got a point for a little research work, back in the Fist.”
“Yeah, an entry-level point. So what?”
“And Sam here has skill points three times his actual level. Well, two point five now that he has leveled.”
“Yeah. And?”
“And nothing. I had a thought and then I lost it.”
“Look, it stands to reason: acquisition of skills cannot be tied to purely adventuring. Nor should book learning translate into class levels.”
“Yeah, its just…I don’t know. Its like what Sam said struck a spark: for a second something made sense, and then it was gone.”
“Probably early onset of senility,” Jeff suggested helpfully.
“Get bent.”
“We’re going about this wrong,” Derek suddenly announced.
“How so?” Shad looked back at the Shadowmancer.
“The artifact is immaterial-we just grab the first one we come across. What we need to be looking for, really looking, is stuff for us.”
“Yeah,” Fred said slowly. “Most of the ordinary soldiers have stuff that’s better than what I’m carrying.”
“Smart,” Shad nodded. “We’re too low-level to use an artifact, its just barter gear, while ordinary enchanted or just quality-crafted gear would really boost our firepower. OK, Sam and Jeff are equipped, but we need a sword for me, an axe for Fred, and some sort of staff for Derek.”
“A bow,” the Shadowmancer corrected him. “I could get a lot more mileage out of a bow for the next four or five levels.”
“A bow,” Shad nodded. “Plus anything else of quality that we can grab. Good-we have a much clearer set of objectives.”
“And we need to hit from a different location each time,” Jeff suggested. “We don’t know how smart the revenants are.”
“Probably smart enough to watch us hiking along the edge,” Shad pointed out. “Although you’re right, new ground each time we go in, that’s solid. And we return to the fort after each try-I bet entering the
Valley is like chumming for sharks, gets the revenants agitated. But we avoid a pattern of tries.”
“Just like old times,” Jeff grinned.
“No shit-I want to tell everyone to check all radio cables and go over communications channels and call signs,” Shad grinned. He stopped and faced the Valley. “OK, Derek, get caught up on your notes and then let’s pick a place. We’re about a mile and a half in; if the bang-sticks work we’ll walk the south side and try there next time, keep ‘em guessing.”
“OK,” Derek pointed. “That group around that banner there, it looks like an infantry unit tried to make a stand and got over-run by horse archers and medium cavalry on big emu-things. We head towards the banner, and pull back when Shad gives the word.”
“Wedge formation,” Shad crouched beneath a rain cloak held by Derek and Jeff while loading and arming the bang sticks and attaching the three-foot hardwood shafts to the iron firing mechanisms. “Six brass balls per load-if that doesn’t stop them, we’re screwed. I’m at point, Fred to my right, Jeff to my left, Derek and Sam in the rear rank. Sam, your only job is to pick up the fired sticks as we drop them, Derek you test out your bow and spells after the first one.”
“Shouldn’t Fred be point?” Sam asked.
“My idea, my risk. If the bang sticks work Fred will be point from then onwards. We move twenty feet in and wait until we make contact; this run is to test our options. Sam, are you done with your singing buffs? Good. On three everyone dumps their rain cloaks and double-times into the sunlight. Remember to keep the muzzle of the bang sticks pointed down. One…two…three!”
“Wow-it kind of smells like springtime,” Derek marveled as the Talons entered the breezy sunlit Great Field. “Fresh and nice.”
“Yeah, its like a feminine hygiene commercial,” Shad snapped, settling his shield onto his arm. “Anyone feel strange?”
No one did.
They never agreed on how the revenants looked while moving-Shad thought they looked like the shadow of something flying, Jeff said it looked like an optical illusion, and Derek said it looked like a cross between a dust devil and an ink blot as it dissipated in moving water.
The ambiguity ended when the things got within ten feet or so-then they were a seven-foot apparition of bone clad in wisps and curls of black smoke which clung to the bones like the mist on dry ice, a vaguely humanoid shape whose arms ended in bone blades, no two weapons being completely alike.
Blurting an oath as one such shadow erupted into a specter of death and closed, Shad nearly froze-this was several wide degrees of horror above the Undead they had brought forth from the barrow or which had served the necromancer they had hunted. If the creature had closed the gap swiftly he would have died, but it stalked forward like a praying mantis, blades held elegantly before it as a second closed from the wedge’s right.
Jerking himself back from the edge of blind panic the Jinxsman lunged forward, shield held upwards and angled as he thrust with the bang stick. Bone scraped across the iron boss as the bang stick struck the revenant and Shad tripped the striker with the ring around his right thumb whose horsehair line led to the catch-release.
The fulminate sparked and a half-heartbeat later, a delay that later Shad swore he could measure, the weapon fired, driving the shaft’s butt into the Jinxsman’s armored ribs.
The revenant stumbled backwards, a shriek that echoed in Shad’s sinuses erupting from the creature as he dropped the bang stick and grabbed one of the pair he had slung on lanyards around his neck. Setting his thumb into the ring as two sticks went off to his right to the accompaniment of another shriek, he parried a wild blow and slammed the iron muzzle into the revenant’s skull-like face and fired. Thrashing, the revenant spun away as inky smoke poured off the creature until the flow abruptly stopped and there was nothing where once was a boney engine of pure death.
Fred was hacking the second one apart, the Jinxman saw as he dropped the expended stick and drew his third one. Ordinary steel seemed to function well enough, he was glad to see.
“Everyone OK?” he gasped as the second dissolved into smoke.
Everyone was. “Sam, you have the fired sticks?”
“Yeah.”
“That was freaking horrible,” Derek pointed out.
“Yeah,” Shad took a deep breath. “But the sticks work. Apparently the locals can only see them the way they look to us when they are a ways out-that looks like it has made the revenants cocky. Let’s hope they don’t learn too quick. OK, Fred, we change places. Derek, you fired a stick? Give me your other two and try spells and your bow. Remember, cover your section of the defense, and Sam, make sure you watch the rear. If we hold our formation, we should be OK. Ready? Let’s go.”
The banner surrounded by dead men and beasts was a quarter mile from their entry point; the Black Talons moved at a measured pace towards it, straining to catch the first indications of the enemy as they moved.
They had covered half the distance and were passing a dead horse which had been stripped of its saddle and accouterments when Jeff stopped. “One inbound, east.”
A split second later a revenant flared into full view ten feet from the Night-grifter. As it took its first stalking step forward an arrow struck it in the area of the ribs, the snap of the bow’s release making the other Talons jump. The creature staggered at the impact and seemed to hesitate a second before sweeping forward, mismatched blades held ready, only to encounter Jeff’s bang-stick to the chest. Fred leapt in and hewed mightily as the creature staggered from the impact of the blast, and then Jeff had Blackwand drawn and was in the fight.
“West!” Shad yelled, and a second later a second revenant flashed into being. Derek hit it with two arrows as it closed, the second nearly missing, and the creature turned slightly towards the Shadowmancer just before Shad hit it with the bang stick.
Derek hit it with a bolt of energy before the Jinxman used a second bang stick to shatter what passed as the revenant’s head.
“Sam, you got the sticks?” Shad called, dry-throated and tense, as Fred resumed his position.
“Yeah. Half fired.”
“Somebody made it this far,” Jeff observed. “That horse is stripped of gear.”
“We’re going to push a little further,” Shad decided, drawing his sword and arranging it so that he could hold it against his shield with the fingers of his left hand.
“They are surprised we can see them,” Derek observed. “They must fight like the alien in Predator.”
Moving cautiously they closed on the banner, sweat dripping despite the breeze. “This is worse than a minefield,” Jeff said from between clenched teeth as they began to pass horses and riders who had been brought down by the infantry’s missile weapons.
“New plan,” Shad halted by a mummified horse, its rider lying in a boney heap nearby. “Derek, salvage this guy. We’re going to make a shallow arc towards the east through these bodies and then head back. I’ll be honest with you guys, this is harder than I thought it would be.”
No one disagreed. “OK,” Derek stuffed a belt pouch into the sack that Fred, like all the Talons, had tied to the back of his belt. “See that horse near the yellow flowers? The quiver on the saddle is real fancy, might be gold inlay. Let’s head towards that, cut close by that gray-ish horse on the way.”
Shad eyed the path. “OK, but let’s not get too greedy.”
“Horse archers, Shad. Composite bows, I bet,” Derek reminded him. “That one is the only one I can see that still has any archer gear left.”
“Others have made it this far,” Fred nodded.
“Yeah, and others have become revenants,” Jeff reminded them as the wedge turned and moved east-southeast.
“We’re not going to do this in one go,” Shad reminded them. “Fancy saddle is the high water mark-its back out after that.”
After Derek swiftly checked it for loot they eased past the gray horse; Sam startled all of them by suddenly crashing to the ground in a clatter of equipment.
“Could you make just a little more noise?” Shad snapped. “I don’t think every revenant heard that.”
“Tripped on a rope,” the Bard muttered, scrambling to gather the empty bang sticks.
“Hey, that’s a neat-looking rope.” Derek knelt and gathered it in.
“Incoming,” Jeff reported, hefting a bang stick, and a revenant materialized to the Night-grifter’s front. Derek paused in gathering the rope to hit it with a blue-white bolt of energy, and Shad dropped his bang stick to try a throwing knife, which struck true.
The shop teacher smoothly ducked the undead creature’s opening swing and riposted with a bang stick to the thing’s face, dropping the creature as Derek hit it with another bolt of energy.
“You see my knife? Forget it then. You done, Derek? Let’s go.” Shad checked in all directions. “This is not getting any safer.”
“Look at that,” Sam pointed as they moved onward.
“Clothes and an ordinary-looking sword,” Jeff shrugged. “So what?”
“No body. A bravo or looter became a revenant there.”
The Talons moved on, sobered by the thought.
“You have one minute, Derek,” Shad advised when they reached the horse. “Then we are DEROS’ing out of here.”
“Dee-ross?” Sam asked.
“Leaving,” Jeff snapped. “Military term. Stay alert.”
“Hey, there’s a bow case under the horse, the bow is still in it!” The Shadowmancer exclaimed from where he was kneeling by the horse.
“Ruined, then. Let’s get gone.” The Jinxman eyed the field with suspicion.
“I don’t think it is ruined.”
Shad sighed. “Fred, give me another bang stick and help Derek.”
The big barbarian lifted the dried remains by the saddle and held it, red-faced and sweating, while Derek sawed through straps and cords with the knife he had gotten in Wyrm.
“Got it.” The horse cadaver thudded back onto the grass. “Let’s check out the rider….”
“Back in formation,” Shad snapped. “Time to go-we’ve got movement to the northeast.”