by RW Krpoun
Next spring, however, the deceptions and story-book raids would be absent, replaced by simple toe-to-toe combat, a slugging match that would settle the eventual course of the war in a couple battles. The Army of the Heartland would either be victorious or destroyed in and around this ridge. Should they lose here without crippling the Hand’s strength Sagenhoft would fall before winter came again and in a year or two the entire Realms would be mopped up. The war hung in the balance and he himself was riding the edge: he could be remembered as the hero who saved the Realms or the fool who lost them.
At least they were much more unified: in the last few days the Kingdom of Ophair had quietly absorbed the shattered Duchy of Halgoria, while the Southland Dunhalls had taken in the war-ravaged Principality of Poitair, reducing the southern lands to two large nations (Ophair and the Dunhalls), and one small but influential one (The Fastness of Nethy, which controlled the Realms’ only other deep water port). With these consolidations considerable duplication of effort should be eliminated and the links of command simplified. In the north the King of Vasternas-Wesland, recently widowed by an assassination attempt in the early days of the war, had ended his mourning and married the teen-aged Baroness of Baklar, joining their two realms under one throne, and rumors pointed to further expansion, as the King had done a very good job of holding Bohca Neft at bay while commanding the Army of the North, and was very popular with the troops and the Arturians, if not his fellow northern rulers.
Sighing, Grand Marshal Laffery stood and resigned himself to returning to his command post and attending to the pounds of reports and requests that weighed his desk down. Glancing to the west, he wondered what Grand Commander Descente was plotting. Nothing good, he mused as he headed back to the waiting paperwork. The man was as slippery as an eel in a vat of butter.
The Badger’s winter quarters were a box-style farmstead west of Galati and south of Mancin, about forty miles from the roads the Hand was using to move supplies and troops from the Plains, across the Wall, and on to Apartia and the Royal Highway. It was a stout collection of well-tended brick buildings connected with a buttressed walls of field stone, and required very little in the way of improvements to make it defensible. The Badgers reached it seven days after the battle at Brown Wood, having parted ways with the two units of irregulars once the defenders had safely disengaged at the ford. Before the separation Durek had set the twelve artisans they had press-ganged in Apartia free, and recruited irregulars to make good the Badgers he had lost in the raid into the entrenchments around Sagenhoft and the foray into Apartia, having studied the available candidates and approached the most suited men during the days of preparation at the ford.
Their job during the winter months was to help form and train the fledgling Seventh Invoquar and assist that formation in harrying the Hand supply trains that used the roads to the north, simple enough tasks and ones well-suited to the Badgers. Within two weeks of their arrival they had made such defensive improvements to the farmstead and the surrounding area as Durek thought necessary, scouted the region thoroughly, contacted the irregulars, and augmented their stocks of food and other expendable supplies as much as possible. Once settled in the Company stood down for ten days to give their members a much-needed rest.
Immediately after breakfast on the seventeenth of Schnienteil the Captain summoned his officers and specialists together in the large common room to lay out the plans for the winter months. “We’re going to be here for at least four months, perhaps longer,” the Dwarf announced. “We’re guaranteed pay from Ilthania until the end of the fourth month of next year, with the cash already in a money-lender’s vault in Sagenhoft, pay at the same rate as we got from Chaton, along with an agreement that we revert to Sagenhoftian control once the Kingdom of Ilthan is done with us, unless the war ends first.”
“Not much chance of that,” Henri observed to a general murmur of agreement.
“Very true,” Durek nodded. “So we might as well get comfortable here. Henri is being made permanent Quartermaster as Bridget is going to be overseeing the Healers when she is finished commanding a platoon, and Jothan will be assigned to him as a subordinate with the responsibility for foodstuffs and drink in addition to interpreting, while Dayyan will see to fodder, transport, and beasts of burden as part of the expanded post of standard-bearer. From the experiences of the last few weeks it is obvious we’ve got to spread the duties out a bit thinner than we had before. Henri, how do we look in terms of supply?”
“Good,” the wizard shrugged. “We’re a bit tight on missile weapon supplies from all the consumption over the last three fights, but if we’re careful, and Kroh gets coal for the forge here so he can do a bit of metal-work, we’ll do all right. We’ve plenty of winter clothing, an adequate quantity of blankets, and enough footgear, although socks are always a problem to keep in supply. Soap, candles, and lantern-oil are in short supply, try to keep your people from wasting those articles, and grab any you come across on your operations. Fuel is doing fairly well.”
“Good. Jothan, what about food?”
“We’ve nearly two months’ worth on hand, and we’re rounding up sheep and goats that the locals set free when they fled the area. It’ll get bland by the time spring comes, but we’ll eat good for the most part. Water’s no problem, we’ve two deep wells.”
“Good. Dayyan?”
“Plenty of fodder on hand for our stay here.”
“Good. On the operational level, Scout Section will conduct patrols and support raids at my direction; Starr and I will work out a duty and relief schedule after this council. We shall work on a three-day rotation, with each line platoon pulling the same duty three days in a row. One platoon will be tasked with manning the farmstead’s guard posts and performing household tasks, while another platoon mounts offensive patrols and trains the irregulars. The third platoon will be resting.”
“How are we going to mount raids on the roads within three days?” Arian asked. “With forty miles as the crow flies between our base and the roads, more since we can’t mount every ambush on a direct line from our camp, it’ll be impossible to complete a raid on time.”
“Raids on the road will be mounted outside of the normal rotation,” Durek explained. “I plan to take two platoons, most or all the Scout Section, Healers, spellcasters, and some irregulars on each raid to ensure that we can deal out respectable damage, but such raids aren't going to be too common, I think only four or five between now and spring, maybe even less depending upon the circumstances. Our main job is to build up the irregulars into a real force and keep the Hand from pulling the security units from road duty and sending them west to help in the spring campaign.” Durek explained the details involved in each type of platoon duty. “Silver will start with base duty, Blue in patrolling and training, and Gold will be resting. Base duty goes to patrolling, patrolling to rest, and rest to base duty. Any questions?”
A few points had to be cleared up, and several suggestions fielded before the Captain could move on to other business. “We have completed what will likely be the finest campaign season in the history of the Company, with the greatest profits and hardest battles in our history. Eight gold studs were issued since the spring, compared to fourteen issued in the ten and a half years preceding this war. There was a time when to wear three studs marked you as a hardened veteran of the Inner Circle, and now we’ve rankers who wear six without a single silver service stud. All of you have performed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, and I appreciate that far more than you can ever realize. Still, the job is not done, and it is incumbent upon everyone to realize that despite our outstanding levels of armor and arms, the Company has taken a terrible pounding over these last few months; a fifth of the Company has never laid eyes upon Oramere, so this winter we must see not only to the training of individuals and sub-units, but also the education of our new brethren as to what it means to be a Phantom Badger.”
“Mostly it means living rough and not getting enough sleep,”
Henri observed, and the chuckle that followed it softened the mood at the table.
Durek nodded, a smile touching his eyes. “True enough. Now, two points remain: first, we have a quantity of captured documents picked up from the raids on Hand intelligence centers, the raid into the siege works, Apartia, and other bits and pieces found here and there, even some sort of journal taken from the Hobrec; Arian, you’re in charge of sorting the mess out.”
“Thanks,” the monk observed drily. “With your permission I’ll farm some of the odder pieces out to Doctor Kuhler and Jothan, particularly in the foreign-language cases.”
“Fine. The second item is a pair of enchanted mirrors we picked up in Apartia. Axel?”
“Henri will have a go at them,” the Lieutenant grinned. “Rank and rolling downhill, and all that.”
“So be it. We will convene an awards ceremony around the end of the year, so make sure any recommendations are ready within five days, along with any proposed promotions. Anyone have anything else? Very well, that will be all today.”
Durek gave orders that the end-of-year festival, which the predominately Eisenalder Company called the Breham Festival, be celebrated with as much opulence as their supplies and situation could provide, and by all accounts the event was an complete success. The irregulars were invited, and brought in such supplies and luxuries as they could gather, and the result was a day and night of feasting, dancing, drinking, and merry-making that did much to lift war’s dark stain from the spirits of the wildly mixed band. The Fifty-Seventh year of the Third Age, also known as the Age of Enlightenment, was ushered in with all due style.
The day after the Festival the Company gathered to listen to readings from the Roll of Honor, descriptions of battles fought deep in the Company’s past, and for the announcement of promotions and decorations. Arian was awarded the Topaz Claw (his third) for his handling of the actions against Arthol Mane, which Elonia also received; Milo received the Ruby Claw for saving Brandywine during the Apartia raid, and eight Roll entries were awarded, including ones to Henri and Axel for their actions during the Battle of Pittmann’s Breach. More than twenty rank and file Badgers were promoted, and the Company as a whole, less the new-hires, received a bonus equal to a month’s wages in recognition of their excellence during the preceding campaign.
In all, it created quite a bright bit of humor in the darkness that was winter.
An even greater boost to morale arrived the next day, when Janna Maidenwalk rode into their winter camp, leading a mule loaded with medical supplies and a heavy mailbag.
Chapter Thirty-Five
On the fourth day of Achemteil, the first month of the Imperial calendar, Durek called for a council of war regarding certain new developments, bringing the officers and Inner Circle together in a well-heated single-room outbuilding.
“As you may have noticed I have taken steps to isolate this meeting, and what is said here should remain secret even from the rest of the Company. We have, in the course of the last few months, acquired items and information which will radically affect the future operations of the Company, and today we shall begin planning how to use these acquisitions to their best effect. Henri, you may start.”
The wizard looked up from his wine glass, a bemused expression upon his face. “Early on in the war we had heard that the Hand had made major breakthroughs in the construction of Gates, the physical focal points, which allowed them to be moved repeatedly and subjected to rough handling without breaking down. This was vital to the Hand’s advance and ability to support its armies without a complete reliance upon foraging. When the raid out of Sagenhoft was mounted these rumors were confirmed by the capture of some of the new types. After the raid out of Sagenhoft, in which several of the supply-Gates were ruined, the commander of Bohca Tatbik ordered that Gates currently being used to support intelligence operations in the central Realms be sent to his army to replace the destroyed portals and restore his supply situation; while most of these Gates were of the old type, a few were also of the new.”
“Which brings us to our situation: the man Philip and Tonya killed was a Markan-Fet assigned to carry a complete Gate assembly to Bohca Tatbik, this new-style Gate having been intended originally to be used to shift Hand agents around the hinterlands. The two ‘mirrors’ in the case they captured were in fact the egrai and egran of the Gate, along with the necessary support documents and some intelligence papers which explained how the Gate happened to be in Apartia. No doubt we missed several other Gates which were en route to Bohca Tatbik.”
“So we’re got a Gate,” Starr looked up from the owl she was drawing on the table top with a charcoal pencil. “So what?”
“Not just a Gate, but one of a new sort, that is rugged, durable, fully powered, and soon operable by myself or Axel,” Henri explained. “This can be used many times, years even, before the enchantment fails, and since the physical portion is immune to wear, it could be re-powered without much difficulty, albeit no small expense.”
“I saw the plates when we captured them,” Philip observed. “What do we do, try to crawl through them when the Gate is open?”
“No, they lie flat and project a door-sized field of effect, just as the old-style tripod types do.”
“But what good are they?” Kroh rumbled around his cigar. “You’ve still got to get one plate into a place before opening the Gate, any Watcher can spot them opening, and all that. Unless you figure to sell them.”
“No, you miss the point,” Henri shook his head, carefully keeping his voice light lest the Waybrother take offense. “What these plates mean is that...well, for instance, if we had had them before we set off on this campaign we could have left one back at Oramere, and thus we could have had communication with our home base, sending people back to rest, moving loot into safekeeping, and all that, copying Bohca Tatbik on a vastly smaller scale.”
The assembled Badgers thought about that for a bit. “I see,” Tonya nodded. “It would be nice, we could have leave on rotation and things, but it still is just a bit of luxury.”
“More than just luxury: we could use it to move the Company,” Durek explained. “Instead of the entire Company spending weeks marching on foot, we could send a small team on horseback to where we want to go, say Sagenhoft at the start of this campaign, open the Gate a day’s march from the city, and the rest of the Company comes through, fresh as daisies. Then, if word comes that Oramere is threatened, we can pull all but a small team back to the fort on short notice.”
There was a general murmur of appreciation around the table but the Captain could see that most still could not grasp the long-range ramifications of such a device and moved the discussion along. “Arian, your briefing is next.”
The monk thumbed through a couple sheets of notes and sighed. “After endless hours of complying all the papers we captured on the raids in Sagenhoft and the pounds of documents captured in Apartia we’ve gotten a rather good picture of the Hand’s situation, and with this Gate I feel we have the capability to strike at a point where the Hand will feel the impact, and where we can turn a pretty penny, loot-wise.”
“Loot,” Philip howled. “Hear, hear.”
“In brief, amongst hundreds of others, we captured a report in Apartia that contained a detailed description of the black market operations in and around Apartia since the Hand’s initial conquest. Apparently this is a normal and expected phenomenon when Hand armies take the field, and one which the Hand commanders tolerate so long as it does not seriously impair the military operations. Essentially, the black market operators sell drugs and other luxury goods to individual troops in return for stolen army goods and mis-routed loot and slaves; larger-scale corruption is also practiced by officers and Markan interested in creating a secret retirement fund for themselves. With a little scouting we might to be able to locate these black market centers in order to obtain equipment that we will need for the mission in question, even minor enchanted items.”
“Why not raid them and take
the gear we need?” Kroh rumbled around a cigar.
“We may very well raid them, but the priority will be to ensure that we get the gear first,” Arian shrugged. “Anyway, these black market operators are simply a means of procurement. The real key to our enrichment and fame is the Hand supply system. As you may or not know, the Bohcas are supplied with the essential elements of sustenance by Gate-delivered supplies, and ship back high-value loot and some captives that way. These supplies are Gated from the Hand homelands in the east to staging bases in the Blasted Plains, which then deliver what each Bohca requests, and receives the aforementioned loot and slaves. Additional loot and slaves are received overland, while some supplies are likewise sent overland. The one we are interested in is located sixty-odd miles east of the Wall, fairly close in; it will be packed with loot. We will send a small party to within a few miles of the base, open the Gate to bring the Company in, and raid them, retreating via Gate.”
“Two problems,” Maxmillian observed in the silence that followed. “First, you can only withdraw through a Gate if you’re willing to lose the egran you emerged through, as it cannot be pulled through itself. And second, sixty-five miles of Plains is a long and dangerous trip.”
“Good points. First, we plan to use the black marketeers to obtain Orbs which duplicate the Gate travel on an individual basis; a rearguard of two or three Badgers will pick up the egran and use the devices to withdraw after the main body has passed. Obviously, if the black market cannot get these Orbs for us, the mission will be cancelled. Secondly, with the vast bulk of the Plains dwellers either serving in the various Bohcas or back home enjoying their loot, the Plains are much safer to travel than they have been in years.”
“What about the base’s defenses?” Starr asked.
“They count on distance and a semi-secret location for a great deal of the protection, although there will be a Direbreed guard force,” the Serjeant flipped a page. “After over a year of boredom, however, we hope that they will be less than at their peak of efficiency. Some of the documents have noted that the base security units have been stripped of their veteran Direbreed and given brand-new replacements to help replace the losses taken in the west, the spellcasters assigned to the bases have likewise been shipped off to the combat theater, and the Watchers reduced to a single adept per base; apparently the replacement pool in the homelands has become strained, and the Bohca commanders are stripping assets from wherever they can find them. The most important point to remember is that not one of these bases has received a raid since the war’s start; this breeds complacency.”