Dark Tide: Book Five of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “Two good points,” Elonia conceded. “We can wait awhile.”

  They did not have long to wait; the night had not fully settled in when they heard the sound of booted feet on a path and saw the glow of a hooded lantern with the secondary ports open coming through the trees toward the opposite side of the camp. Using the careless noise of the walkers traversing the wood to cover what sounds they made the three Badgers worked up to the very edge of the camp, lying side-by-side behind a slab of mossy rock. Besides the carts and horses, there were a few small cases in the camp, and a few well-hooded lanterns opened just enough to illuminate the small camp itself. There were six occupants: a well-dressed man in a fine doublet and hose (and wearing a silver-mounted sword-rapier and dagger), two burly men in simple workmen’s wool jerkins and canvas trousers armed with stout cudgels and fighting knives, and three young women dressed, or rather partially dressed for seduction. As the newcomers approached the well-dressed man issued a few instructions in a voice too low for the Badgers to hear, and opened the ports on the nearest lantern so that light fell on the cases and upon the three girls, who adjusted their hair and clothing to best effect, while the two workmen slouched back on the stumps they were sitting on, assuming attitudes of disinterest.

  The newcomers were two Lasharian soldiers, ordinary footmen it appeared from their dress, and a guide who bore the lantern and a loaded crossbow, otherwise being dressed as were the two ‘workmen’.

  “Welcome, lads, welcome,” the well-dressed man greeted the two like long-lost comrades. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance. Naturally, there will be no exchanging of names, but for social purposes you may call me ‘Friend’, which is as apt a name as I’ll be needing tonight. Now, what have you to offer?” The older of the two soldiers silently handed over a canvas sack. Friend sorted through the contents quickly, humming to himself. “Excellent, excellent, these are perfect, exactly what I’m looking for. Splendid. Now, as for your payment, I must confess with some embarrassment that I have run sort on cash at the moment, but perhaps I can interest you fine fighting men in a bit of trade.”

  The two exchanged glances, and the older man shrugged. “What’ve you got?”

  “Well, first and foremost I’ve three lovely young associates whose, ahem, services I might offer as a form of payment; we’ve set up a few cots down along the creek bed for the purposes of privacy. May I introduce Silk,” a buxom brunette wearing only a long-tailed silk shirt waggled her fingers. “Velvet,” a dark-haired girl wearing a man’s jacket over nothing else blew a kiss. “And Satin.” A chubby blonde in a black slip pouted at the soldiers.

  The two footmen conferred briefly. “I’ll take Silk, and Ha...he’ll take Satin,” the spokesman announced.

  “Very good, sirs, very good indeed. The ladies will carry the lanterns and show you the way, and then my comrade here will lead you out of the woods.”

  The two soldiers followed the girls down into the creek bed while Friend stowed the contents of the bag in a chest on one of the carts and the three ‘workmen’ poured themselves tankards from a keg on another cart. In a few minutes the soft noises of love-making echoed up over the sounds of the creek, causing two of the Badgers to blush furiously, and after a while the two soldiers reappeared, obviously pleased with themselves.

  “I believe that concludes our transaction tonight, gentlemen, unless you’ve any more merchandise? No? Then I bid you good night, kind sirs. If you will follow the gentleman with the lantern, he will show you on your way.”

  The two girls rejoined the group in camp as the two soldiers were led off through the trees.

  “What are they doing, I mean, what are they trading for?” Duna whispered to Elonia. The Seeress shrugged.

  “Are you sure they’re of the Dark?” Starr whispered from the other side. When the Seeress gave a single, definite nod, the short Lanthrell grinned. “Then let’s take them; three on three, with us from surprise, and them without armor or missile weapons. There’s probably two more out on sentry, one to watch and the other to escort; we’ll take them out when they come to see what the noise is.” Duna grabbed Elonia’s arm and squeezed it to signal her acceptance of the plan.

  “One thing: take Friend alive,’ the Seeress breathed. “We need answers.”

  “Fine, you take him, I’ll take left, Duna take right.”

  “You lead.”

  The three quietly shifted positions, drawing and positioning weapons, and then Starr slid over the slab of rock and crept towards the darkened camp, Friend having covered the lantern-ports that he had opened for the transaction. Moving across the ground with the smooth grace of a cloud crossing a night sky, the little Lanthrell was within four feet of her target, who was unconcernedly chatting with the others in the camp when the ‘workman’ suddenly turned on his stump and looked in her direction. Springing to her feet like a ballista fired from a war engine, Starr slammed the slightly curved point of her boot dagger into the side of his neck, grabbing the long hair at the back of his head for purchase, and then shoved forward on the hilt, ripping open the air-way and the big neck-artery.

  Friend leapt to his feet, his sword sliding out his scabbard when the fighting net struck him, the weighted mesh swirling around his head and shoulders in a blinding, entangling cloud of tough cords and stinging lead weights.

  Duna had circled to the left, following the creek bank; when her target bounced to his feet facing Starr, knife in one hand, club in the other, she barreled in out of the deeper darkness on his right side, slashing him across the side of the face with her short sword, getting a brief glimpse of bright white bone before blood flooded the deep gash. Screaming, the ‘workman’ dropped his knife and instinctively reached for the burning wound as Duna’s return thrust caught him square in the front of the throat, cutting off his howl to a dying gurgle.

  Elonia kicked Friend’s legs out from beneath him as he struggled with the entangling mesh and knelt astraddle his chest, her knees pinning his arms and a yataghan-point at his throat. “For social purposes you may call me ‘Enemy’,” she advised the stunned man.

  “Please don’t hurt us,” Velvet shouted, dropping to her knees in front of Duna as the two other women screamed and dove behind the stumps they had been sitting on.

  “Don’t be afr....ahhhh!” Duna screamed as the thin-bladed dagger caught her in the side, dropping her sword as she clawed at the wound. Velvet twisted the blade as she jerked the weapon free, punching the dark-skinned Badger in the face with her off-hand, knocking the girl down.

  Starr leapt towards Duna and Velvet only to be struck on the side of the head by a throwing axe hurled by Satin, the impact knocking her sprawling. But for the enchantment in her torc her skull would have been split like a melon; as it was, the impact raised a sizeable bruise.

  At the screams and Starr’s involuntarily yell behind her, Elonia shifted the yataghan to her left and drew a throwing knife as she twisted to look, careful to keep her weight firmly planted on Friend’s arms. The ghostly glow of a silk shirt and the pale gleam of a dirk’s blade betrayed Silk’s silent rush; the knife-cast was hurried and hardly produced a deep scratch on impact, but it was enough to shatter the glass-like quills. Silk staggered, then fell scant feet short of Friend, gagging and clutching at her chest.

  Through the pain-haze Duna felt Velvet grab a fistful of her hair and jerk her to a sitting position, the woman’s knee slamming into her spine between her shoulder blades. Realizing what was coming, the Badger slapped her bloody hand across the right side of her neck just as the dagger slid in to open her throat, the narrow point ploughing a deep furrow across the back of her hand and wrist. The pain was incredible, but the wound was survivable.

  Rolling to her feet, dirty and dagger-less, Starr ripped Snow Leopard free of its scabbard and thrust blindly at Velvet, who had pulled Duna up into a throat-cutting position, screeching the command word like a harpy’s cry. The sword’s point slid through the rich wool of the coat and caught the woman under
the armpit, the freezing effect of the Leopard’s Kiss stopping her heart in mid-beat.

  Starr’s second scream was shriller and less coherent as a throwing axe caught her in the upper right thigh, knocking her leg out from beneath her. The little Threll crashed into the dirt once again, losing her sword as she clutched at the great rent in her leg.

  Throwing her weight to her left, Elonia rammed the yataghan’s point deep into Friend’s throat to free her from having to pin the man and rolled off his thrashing body, drawing her other net as she moved. Rising to her knees, she cast just as Satin threw; both casts were off as they were made in poor light at moving targets, but a three-foot-wide net was a much more forgiving weapon, and a skirt of the net slapped Satin across the face, the impact of a lead edge-weight smashing two of her teeth. Taking advantage of the woman’s brief blindness from the pain, Elonia rolled to her feet and made a proper throw with her second knife, the blade catching the woman square in the belly.

  A quick glance showed that Silk and Friend were both in the last throes of dying and that Velvet had already preceded them; Satin was likewise dying, while Duna was gray-faced and edging towards that dark state herself. Scrambling across the clearing, kicking out lanterns as she went, Elonia reached Starr’s side and slapped the Lanthrell hard across the face. “Get a grip on yourself! Bandage your wound and tend to Duna, there are at least two more men out there.”

  The blow snapped the short Corporal out her shock; snuffling at the pain, she dragged a couple boiled bandages sealed in waxed paper out of her pouch and set about binding her thigh.

  Knocking out the rest of the lanterns (her Threllish night vision was far superior to those of a Human’s), Elonia darted to the trail the soldiers and their guide had used and waited with her back pressed to a tree trunk, a knife in hand. Seconds later she heard the sounds of hesitant footsteps as two men came cautiously towards the camp.

  “What’s going on?” One of the men called out; Elonia leaned around the tree and threw, dropping flat as a crossbow fired at the movement and a quarrel whirred overhead. A man yelled in surprise, then groaned and began to cough; there were a few staggering footsteps, and the sound of a body falling heavily, followed by retching. The other man fired his crossbow blindly into the camp and fled through the trees, his racing footsteps fading away towards Apartia. Slipping forward, Elonia silenced the guard’s retching with a thrust of his own dagger, and recovered her knife.

  Back in the camp she found that Starr had bound Duna’s wounds as best she could and recovered the dark girl’s weapon and her own blades. Heaving the small cases into the same cart that Friend had stored the goods that the soldiers had traded, Elonia un-hobbled the remaining horse (the other had broken its hobbles and fled) and harnessed it to the cart. Grabbing blankets from the horse-less cart, she laid Duna out on the bed of the cart between two chests and the cases, then helped Starr into the driver’s seat.

  “Head for camp as fast as you can go,” she instructed the pale, sweating Corporal. “I’ll follow in a moment.”

  As the cart rattled off through the trees she darted from body to body, recovering her nets, knives, and yataghan and stripping off Friend’s sword belt. She rifled through his pockets as well; none of the women were wearing enough to have anything hidden on them, although behind the stumps each had been sitting on she found a sword belt and various weapons. Cutting the pouches from the belts of the two dead ‘workmen’, she hastily searched through the contents of the second cart, finding nothing but the women’s clothing, the ale keg, and odds and ends of camp gear.

  Dumping the pouches, nets, and sword-belt into a handy sack, she raced after the cart, cursing herself for agreeing to such a stupid plan: to charge into the camp assuming that the three women were simply whores had very nearly gotten all three of them killed; as it was, Duna might very well die.

  Doctor Ernst Kuhler, easily the best Healer of the three the Badgers boasted, sat back from the pallet and took a swig from the flask of the gin he normally used to bathe wounds. “She’s Healed without complications, but the shock and blood-loss are great,” he informed an anxious Durek, with a grimy Elonia hovering nearby. “Of course, she’s young and strong, and freshly-hurt, so she’s likely to survive, although it will be several days before she’s fit for duty.” The Healer began to wash the blood from his hands.

  “How long until you know for sure?” Durek asked, eyeing the gray-faced girl who was deeply unconscious thanks to a sleeping draught.

  “If she lives until dawn, she’ll survive,” Kuhler shrugged. The Healer was a stocky man in his mid-twenties, an amiable and good natured practitioner of both Amplus Viraes (the Healing Arts), and of practical medical lore. His pudgy features, round cheeks, and heavy-lidded eyes made him appear as if he was always squinting out at the world, while his white-blond hair, worn close-cropped to hide the fact that it was both thinning and receding at a frantic rate, gave the impression that he was a good deal older than he really was. “I would put good money on her survival if we don’t move her for the next six hours. Keep her in a cart for the next couple days, and she’ll be as good as new.”

  “We won’t be going anywhere before dawn, and not much of anywhere after it, either,” the Captain murmured. “Bridget, how is Starr?”

  “Healed; nothing a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast won’t cure,” the advocate smiled tiredly. “And if that’s all, Captain, I’m off for bed.”

  “Yes, that’s all.” The Dwarf motioned for Elonia to follow and headed out to the central fire pit of the Badger camp. Aside from the Healers and four sentries, the Dwarf and the Seeress were the only two persons awake in camp. Durek sat on a wood block near the pit and prodded a long stick into the bed of coals until it caught flame, using it to light his pipe. Fixing the dejected Corporal with a steely gaze, he blew a smoke ring. “Now tell me again how a shopping trip got two of my people cut up.”

  She related the events which led to the attack. “Basically, we assumed that the three women were whores chartered for the job at hand; instead, they turned out to be first-rate fighters. I suppose I should have considered that members of an Evening Gate cult would gladly perform the duties, but Gate cultists aren’t generally warriors as well, so our plan still should have worked.”

  “I admit, I would have thought along the same lines,” Durek sighed. “It was a close-run thing, though; all three of you could have died out there, costing the Company its only Seer, its chief scout, and a fine young Badger.” He smoked in silence for a bit. “I’ve sent Rolf with a section and Henri to recover the other cart and the bodies, as well as the clothing the three of you purchased; perhaps there will be cult tattoos or ritual scarring on some of the dead which will unlock some of the mysteries. Did you see what was in the cases and chests you recovered?”

  “No, I was watching for trouble on the trip in, and I stayed with Duna once we got to camp.”

  “The cases contained pulvas and zanga, that drug-paste, apparently that was what they traded if the women weren’t to the seller’s tastes or if they weren’t payment enough. Axel’s got them secured; we’ll burn it all tomorrow.”

  “What was it the soldiers were bringing them?”

  “Crossbow and bow strings, preferably those for long bows and heavy or siege crossbows. Arian did some asking around, and it seems that a serious shortage of such things has developed since the army reached Apartia, the stocks have been evaporating, and nearly all the shops in the city have been bought out. Torsion ropes for war engines are in short supply as well. No doubt this explains why: a few groups trading women or drugs for the strings or ropes, never enough changing hands in one place to alert any quartermaster until things reach a critical stage.”

  “Clever; no doubt Hand agents bought up every string in the shops before we got here to help things along.”

  “Clever indeed; it will hinder our missile-use when the battle comes, which will be tomorrow or the day after. Yours will hardly have been the only group
involved, but the others will have to lay low once the word gets out. I have to credit the Hand: they don’t miss a single opportunity to narrow the odds.” The Dwarf studied the Seeress. “In the future, you had best keep that in mind, and use greater caution, Elonia.”

  Chapter Ten

  Duna lived to see the sun rise, and Doctor Kuhler calmly predicted that the danger to her system had passed; given rest and regular meals the dark-skinned scout would be back in service within days. Starr was already back in the ranks, pale-faced and limping a bit, but fit for duty all the same.

  And there was a need for every hand, for as soon as the sun had cleared the horizon on the sixth of Gleichteil, the Bohca Tatbik began to advance upon Apartia. Grand Marshal Laffery issued the command and the Heartland Army fell into battle array. Laffery had had two and a half days to lay his plans for the defense of the area, drawing upon his experiences of the battle at Mancin as well as his formal military schooling. The Army of the Heartland would face north, its right flank anchored in the sprawling twenty-acre Great Fallow, the capitol city’s low-walled cemetery. With the Arturian foot established within the park-like graveyard, the Hand would not be able to quickly or easily flank the Heartland force to the east. Next to the Great Fallow were the Legions of the Imperial Field Force, each with a full cohort of infantry held in reserve; to their left stood the Lasharian foot, then the Kordian infantry, and lastly the Ilthanian Foot Guards Division. The latter seemed decidedly exposed, but that was a misconception: although the Army’s left, west, flank seemed to be hanging, the line actually ended well within range of the artillery mounted on Apartia’s walls, meaning that any Hand troops which tried to flank around the exposed left would quickly find itself pounded to pieces. Laffery doubted that the Hand commander would fall for such a simple subterfuge, but individual units might drift too far to the west in the heat of battle.

  Behind the Ilthanians (I Cohort), the Kordians (II Cohort), and the Lasharians (III Cohort) was a cohort of Sagenhoftian infantry in reserve; additionally, the Arturian horse (three divisions) was on the right flank while the Sagenhoftian, Ilthanian, and Lasharian cavalry were on the left (three divisions). The Kordian cavalry (one division) and three Imperial squadrons were held as a Grand Reserve a distance behind the center of the line, while the fourth Imperial squadron secured the baggage trains.