by RW Krpoun
The worth of a victory was usually determined in the minutes and hours immediately following a battle, rather than in the fighting itself, Durek had found; the Badgers had captured the village and slaughtered nine out of ten of its jugata as well as a fifth of the females and young, but it still remained to make this raid a real success. The Purple Spider might be worn down to a shadow of its strength by years of warfare, but it still could muster better than a thousand warriors supported by several spellcasters and various beasts of war, and the Captain was keenly aware that too much delay could place the Phantom Badgers into a deadlier trap than the one they had just set upon the Goblins at the southeast gate.
When Janna returned with Tonya and two more Badgers in tow to report her task accomplished the Captain put her and her small command to work setting fire to the storage buildings used to house the kanketa’s food, fodder, and seed, using the flasks of oil every Badger had carried for this raid and oil captured in the village. Healing completed, Catlin and Arian, with two of Maxmillian’s squad for security, were assigned the task of interviewing the rescued slaves, while the historian and the rest of his squad, once finished with their initial task, were assigned to loot and fire the huts in the north end of the village. Rolf’s squad was given a similar assignment for the south end of the village once they had finished their sweep.
The johat was the timepiece Durek used to measure the operation: when Elonia’s squad had finished loading the valuables pillaged from the long house into the two mule-drawn carts Kroh had found and the structure was burning well the Captain sent runners to recall Starr, Rolf, Maxmillian and Janna and their squads. While Axel counted heads and organized the Company Durek tracked down Kroh and his squad to warn them of the pullout. He found them near the north end of the kanketa turning a corral into an abattoir.
Corporal Kroh Blackhand was a distant cousin of Durek’s, and somewhat younger, being just short of his hundredth year, roughly equal to a Human male in the prime of his life. Kroh, who went into a near-berserk fighting fury in combat, chose his ‘outside name’ from his habit of tattooing runic markings on his hands to commemorate the battles he had fought in and the various races he had slain. At a distance it appeared as if the Dwarf was wearing gloves of course lace.
Standing four and a half feet tall and nearly as broad with muscle, the Dwarf was the strongest Badger, with only Rolf coming anywhere close to his strength. A Badger for four years and a long-serving member of the Guardians of the Way, a Dwarven brotherhood whose simplistic creed was to spend their lives killing anything that might even be a remote threat to their race, Kroh was a well-tested veteran who had uncontestably held the position of the Badger’s deadliest single combatant since the day he had joined. With a temper as stable as a one-legged duck, a child’s patience, and a weird outlook on life, he was also the Company’s most difficult member when combat was not in the offing.
Durek tried to keep Kroh and Starr together as much as possible as the little Threll was the only person who could consistently keep Kroh in line outside of combat, although he was fairly reliable under field conditions; the two had been close since Kroh had saved the Threll maid’s life in a fight with Undead shortly before she joined the Company. Surprisingly the promotion to Corporal last fall (which Durek had made with deep misgivings and most of the Company had viewed with dread) had sobered the Waybrother a bit, at least when he was in charge of some detail or another. Certainly he never had discipline problems: no one wanted to make him angry.
The Dwarf’s snow camouflage was blood-spattered and he was obviously disgusted with his assignment; when he saw Durek approaching he shook his head. “I’d rather roll in dung than do this.”
“It needs doing; goats are a mainstay of Goblin life,” Durek shrugged. “Meat, milk, cheese, leather, hair for weaving, glue, all that sort of thing. You know how it works. If we try to take them they’ll just scatter-we smell wrong.”
“It doesn't make it any more fun. Or easier, for that matter: sheep would just be bloody butchery, but these bastards run like the wind, and fight like blazes when you finally get them cornered. We’ve gotten half of them, so far.”
“That’s all we’ll get, then; gather your squad together and head for the north gate, we’re pulling out.”
Kroh tossed aside the gory Goblin-made hammer he had been using on the goats. “Good. I would rather be killing Goblins than these little bastards, killed dozens of Gobs, I have.” A thought struck him. “Any chance of setting up an ambush? There’s bound to be a reaction force heading here by now.”
“No, I don’t want to split the Company, and besides, Goblins coming at you through the woods are a different proposition from Goblins caught by surprise.”
Durek headed for the north gate while Kroh gathered up his squad, mind busy with the many details that awaited his attention. Half of the goat herd in the hour that had passed since the final fight at the southeast gate was good work; Kroh was always at his best when assigned a straightforward task with definite goals.
Serjeant Bridget Iola Uldo was waiting for him with the slaves split into three groups and under guard, the rest of the Company forming up just outside the gate. A slender, delicate-featured woman just short of her thirty-first year but who (as Durek was told, being a poor judge of Human age) looked much younger, Bridget was both fresh-faced and open in her manner which often led people to take her lightly, a serious mistake. Before helping form the Badgers Bridget had been trained as a churchwoman of the goddess Hetartian, mistress of birth and death, choosing the position of Advocate after mastering church dogma and the arts of Amplus Viraes (healing magic) and Ampara Oseta (faith-based magic), an Advocate being a priestess without assigned duties or temple, a wanderer dedicated to furthering their deity’s interests rather than a congregation’s. She had long been the Company’s conscience and peacekeeper, as well as Durek’s primary administrator. She and Axel were entering their fifth year of marriage, both having met with the founding of the Company nearly ten years ago.
Bridget had tucked her wool cap under her sword belt, the cold breeze stirring her short dark hair, the polished brass of a torc such as Janna and Elonia wore gleaming against her neck and accenting her elegant features; as the Captain approached she was standing with one foot resting on an overturned wheel barrow twirling several amulets by their chains. “We have found something interesting, Durek.”
“Such as?”
The advocate tossed him one of the amulets. “Three of the slaves aren't exactly slaves; I would say more likely spies or advisors posing as slaves.”
The Dwarf examined the pendant. “Hand of Chaos. They’re a long ways from home.” The Hand of Chaos being a Void-cult that had achieved nation status, occupying a large section of the east coast of Alhenland, the northern continent.
“And they’re much too clean and well fed.” The Serjeant scowled. “The other slaves are too frightened of them to explain much. All told we’ve twelve women and eight men; these came off two men and a woman. There’s two other women and a man who’re in much better condition than the norm, but who were not carrying any cult insignia. The three with the pendants have the usual excuses.”
“Perhaps the three ‘maybes’ got rid of their insignia before we found them.” The Dwarf shrugged. “Have Kroh trim the three who had these down to size, just to be safe, and have Arian stick close to the other three; if they’re of the Dark he’ll sniff ‘em out.”
“Odd that they would be here, in an inconsequential Goblin village.”
Durek scowled. “Rumor has had the Hand plotting another assault on the west; they’ve long coveted a port on the Ascendi Sea, Sagenhoft in particular. They tried it less than two hundred years past, the Ostwind War, so perhaps they’re extending their spy network west to watch the Empire before another run at it.”
“But they lost the Ostwind badly, mainly because they’re not alone on the east coast: Arbmante occupies the southern portion of the east coast, and although both fol
low the Dark One they hate either other worse than they do the Eight. The Hand will have to leave most of their forces in the homeland to watch the Direthrell of Arbmante, just as they did during the Ostwind, and another force to watch Alantarn, which is Arbmante’s outpost north of the Border Realms. Remember, Alantarn’s defenses weren’t completed until after the Ostwind War was over,” the advocate pointed out.
“True, but the Hand already controls most of the Eyade and Orc tribes on the Blasted Plains; give them permanent footholds in the Realms and the Plains would be a Hand province and Arbmante isolated, by land at least. That’s a reward worth plotting for.”
“But to mount an invasion they would have to distract Arbmante proper or take Alantarn, and Alantarn is one of the strongest non-Dwarven holds in all of Alhenland, if not the world.” Bridget shook her head. “I think the Hand is gearing up for another war with Arbmante.”
“I hope you’re right,” Durek grinned. “Better they spend their time and energy killing each other. Here’s Kroh and his squad; get him started on the executions while I brief Starr on the route I want her to scout.”
Ten minutes later the Badgers moved away from the kanketa. Durek paused on a low hillock and turned to watch his unit pass by: they were tired, cold, and weary after a night march and the morning spent fighting and looting, but they moved with a confident gait and they carried their weapons like veterans. The rank and file were armed with pole arms or spears (many of which were of expert Dwarven forging, loot from the Badger’s forays into an abandoned and Void-haunted Dwarven hold), with swords, maces, or war hammers in reserve, armored in chain mail or studded leather and carrying stout shields. Every Badger was skilled with, and bore, a missile weapon of some sort, usually crossbows. The officers of the Company (Corporals and higher ranks) were better armed and armored as befitted their longer service to the Badgers, and employed the slender store of enchanted weapons and items the Company had acquired.
Behind them Niou Ureyki lay still and lifeless, dozens of columns of black smoke rising from its interior, a message to the leaders of the Purple Spider. The Badgers had lived on their chartered area for four years so far, and had not struck at the Goblin enclaves until after a Spider raid into their holdings last summer. Durek hoped the Goblin leaders would understand his message: leave us be and we will let you be as well.
They probably would understand, he reasoned; after all, the Purple Spider had more to worry about than the Badgers: once this forest was part of a belt that stretched across the continent like a wall between the southern grasslands and the northern steppe called the Northern Wastes, home to nearly a hundred Goblin keibas. But the Empire had advanced northward a step at a time, facing each Goblin clan-nation individually and destroying it, until the great belt of forest was now farmlands and pastures, with only a few small fragments at the east and west ends still wild; of the scores of Goblin nations only a dozen or so remained, the rest driven out onto the Northern Wastes or wiped out to the last nit. Now the Empire stood on the fringe of the Northern Wastes, and still there were more Humans coming.
The Dwarf eyed the burning village and nodded to himself; the Spider didn’t need any more enemies, but if it didn’t heed this message, more kanketa would burn, and more raids would follow. He hadn’t brought the Badgers to this point only to have them turned back by Goblins. The Company would keep its home and chartered colony if it meant killing off the entire Keiba themselves, one Goblin at a time.
Chapter Two
The wind coming off the distant ice fields to the north howled like a frustrated wolf around the buildings and defense works of what appeared to be an Orcish ovaka, a fortified place for storing goods and supplies, in the northeastern area of the Northern Wastes; in reality this ovaka was owned and operated by Arbmante Pargaie operatives charged with keeping an eye on this region. Fort Margave, as the place was called by the spies, was garrisoned by Orc and half-Orc Thanes, willing servitors of the Dark Threll, and controlled by a handful of Direthrell officers. The fort gathered information and relayed it to Alantarn, the fortress which served as communications hub and clearing house for all intelligence gathered in the west for Arbmante, amongst other duties.
In a dome-roofed structure of clay bricks that from the outside appeared to be a beehive-shaped grain silo of the sort used by Orcs (the Fort mimicked an ovaka in every physical detail) Dooaun finished polishing the plate of amber that was his primary tool and slid it back into its stout leather and wood case. As a slave of the Dark Threll Dooaun’s full name would be Dooaun three one five four four six, written 315-446, indicating that he was a slave taken or (as was his case) born in district three, the Northern Wastes, in the fifteenth year of the Third Age, making him forty years of age this year; the last three numbers meant that he was the four hundred forty-sixth slave registered in that year in that district. In everyday use Dooaun thought of himself as Dooaun Wisebee, a little play upon words which brought him no end of simple pleasure. And simple pleasures, he was fond of reminded himself, were the safest and best.
Dooaun reclined on and within a mound of cushions and pillows with the tools of his trade and a rack of pipes close to hand, a wizened figure three inches short of five feet tall who seemed to be lost within a hooded robe of rich dark wool and a matching turban, his bright brown eyes peering out at the world from a face so seamed by wrinkles that he appeared to far older than he actually was. He shared the interior of the false silo with a tripod of richly engraved five-foot brass rods, a hooded mirror mounted on a stand made from Human bones, a small chest, and a locked trunk.
The tripod was an egran, the secondary end of a Gate, a magical assembly that acted as a doorway across vast distances, this one being matched to a egrai in Alantarn, over two thousand miles to the east. The mirror was an enchanted device used to transmit the image it reflected to a similar, and attuned, device in Alantarn; it was normally used to send the image of written documents, which fast-writing scribes copied at the receiving end. The small chest held supplies for both devices and other equipment, while the locked trunk held two additional Gate egrai matched to other established egran, used for rapid deployment of agents into specific areas as needed. Heat was provided by two charcoal stoves built into the walls of the structure, and whose output kept the room toasty warm.
A nap or a pipe were the variables Dooaun was pondering for his afternoon, life here at the Fort being very slow while winter held the area in its ice-taloned grip. His musings were interrupted by the crackling of a loud spark popping at the apex of the egran; a black sheet of nothingness expanded from the apex to take on the general dimensions of a doorway, and seconds later a woman stepped through into the room. Behind her the black sheet slid away to nothing, with only a few oddly-hued sparks dancing around the tripod’s apex indicating that the device was active.
The visitor was a full-blooded Direthrell female of plain and severe visage, noticeably shorter than the norm for her race. She was armed with a sword and dagger that had seen use over the years, and wore no jewelry or decoration save rank insignia (which was Choralon, or junior Colonel) and assignment badges on her otherwise plain uniform; from her insignia Dooaun could tell that she was assigned to the personal staff of the Hold Master of Alantarn.
She was a considerable shock for Dooaun, and not merely because of her sudden appearance: he had been a slave of the Dark Threll for all his life, but seldom had he seen one with eyes as hard as this one’s. All Direthrell were born to the dark path, evil holding their forms together as surely as did their bones, but he was accustomed to a baroque style of manner and dress that advertised their viciousness and appetites, while the power that made their race so fearful despite their small numbers remained shadowed. This Dark Threll, however, wore a killer’s face as plainly as the sword on her belt, and walked with a warrior’s stride nakedly apparent.
The shock that seared his inner being, however, came from within, not without. Dooaun had been trained since childhood to serve his masters i
n the realm of magical expertise, specifically in the art of Amplus Novo, the art of scrying the past or future. He had displayed only a small aptitude for the art, which, when coupled with his expert ability in the art of subtle dissembling, had caused him to be banished to this remote outpost, a situation which pleased him to no end. Out here on the edge of things there was no danger that another adept would stumble upon his deepest and most carefully-guarded secret: the aptitude that the recruiters had noted in Dooaun the child did exist, and to a large degree, but in the area of Amplus Xystus, not Amplus Novo. Amplus Xystus is the art of the Watcher, the ability to see events and actions as they happened elsewhere in the world, the Sight of the Present, just as Amplus Novo is the Sight of Past and Future. Naturally, the two arts are not exactly defined nor are mutually exclusive: all Seers can tell something of far-off events while all Watchers can receive insights of past or future events; the difference lies in accuracy and scope.
Dooaun’s skill in Seeing, however, was magnified by a quirk in his aptitude to be very strong on persons or items which had just been transported through a Gate, an oddity which was hardly unique to him: the phenomenon had been well-documented in many others and was a matter of considerable discussion and study by experts in the field. Naturally, no one knew that Dooaun had this quirk, otherwise he would not have had the maintenance of the Gate and signaling mirror assigned to his care. When this officer came through the Gate, however, Dooaun was struck by a reading of her plans and intentions that was awful in its clarity, a revelation that shook the Watcher to his very core.