Dark Practices: Book Four of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Henri blinked, feeling somewhat giddy; Rolf’s demeanor, outside of combat and duty-related tasks, was that of a young boy and despite his size and obvious physical prowess most long-serving Badgers thought of him as such. The half Orc was going to be thirty this year, and child-like nature or not he was a fully-equipped male of the species, although sterile like any other half-breed. “Are you interested in her, Rolf?”

  “Dunno.” The nervous tone spoke volumes.

  Ah ha. Well well well. “You know, dealing with women is a tricky business, guessing their moods and the like,” Henri began cautiously. “The important thing is to go slow, not let yourself get too involved until you know that the woman in question is interested too. Um, have you had much experience with women?”

  “No.”

  “Ergh. All right,” Henri nodded decisively; the lad was wise to come to a master of the craft, a worthy mentor and guide, a veteran of hundreds of such skirmishes and close-quarter actions. “So, do you like her?”

  “Yeah, she’s nice.”

  “Yes she is. Have you spent much time with her?”

  “You known, on patrol and details. She was in my squad on the Spider raid.”

  “Good, that’s a start. Have you had much to do with her off-duty?’

  “We play draughts on guard, when she’s part of my reaction force, that’s sort of off-duty, and she always smiles and say hello to me.”

  “Yes, she is friendly, that’s the first step.” Henri started trying to wrap his mind around the concept of Rolf going a’courting. On the one hand, he was a half-Orc, but on the other that was not his fault. He kept his person and clothing clean and had better personal habits than most men, and cut a good figure, standing six feet six inches tall with massive shoulders and a personal strength second only to Kroh. He was hairless and olive skinned, of course, and his nose looked a bit funny being kind of flattened, although Henri had seen a lot of half-Orcs who looked a lot less Human than Rolf did; in fact, he supposed that by half-Orc standards Rolf was probably handsome. Certainly the rest of his face was Human-like, if massively-boned, but there were plenty of full Humans with an abundance of jaw and a powerful shelf of bone over their eyes, so that wasn’t exactly a half-Orc trait. Women called those features ‘rugged’, he believed.

  And Veda was hardly a classic beauty herself, the Wizard acknowledged: she was three inches over five feet, built nice enough if you liked them full-figured, no fat on her but plenty of hips none the less, although she balanced it up top. She had brown hair that was long enough to reach the tops of her breasts when she wore it down, and carried herself with confidence. She wasn’t a pretty girl, though, having a pointed chin, broad flat cheekbones that hinted at an Eyade somewhere in her family history, and a pug nose that didn’t go with anything else on her face. Homely was the best way Henri would describe her, although she did have a nice smile and good personal habits; the Wizard could not tolerate an untidy woman. And she was a competent Badger, although her height did cause her problems: the most successful women warriors tended to be taller than average so they could use weapons and shields designed for men.

  Women liked Rolf, too, that was a well-established fact: even Janna acted a touch motherly around him, which was completely unprecedented, as the Silver Eagle treated Arian, her lover, with such exacting correctness in public that few people in the ranks even realized that the two serjeants were intimate.

  “Is there anything else that makes you think she might like you?”

  “Um, yes, well...” he could hear Rolf shifting nervously on the other side of the stump, Rolf who held the Ruby Claw for saving Janna’s life in close quarter combat and who had single-handedly captured a Direbreed Fist totem at the Orc fort fight, and grinned: women would do that. Rolf, who would stand and die if that was the order given by Durek, and do it fearlessly, was uncomfortable talking about women.

  “I won’t say a word to anyone,” Henri promised, and meant it; there was a bond of male brotherhood that transcended all else.

  “Well, you know when we took the smugglers, we used the women for bait?”

  “Yes.” Bridget had insisted on being one of the three as it was her plan, she wouldn’t send women into such a dangerous and humiliating position without going herself; Eclipse, Veda, and Edrie Pechuex had been the only other volunteers. Since three had been the number Bridget had decided on, she had taken Eclipse and Veda because of their youth (Veda was twenty-three), and because Veda, despite her height, could fight bare-knuckled as well as most men, her father having been a professional pugilist.

  “Well, you know how she was...dressed?”

  “Yes.” He had paid more attention to Bridget and Eclipse out of preference, but he had to admit Veda could do some very interesting things to a man’s blood pressure while wearing a wet slip.

  “Well, after she got her cloak but before she put it on she caught my eye, she was grinning, and she winked and blew me a kiss.”

  Ah. “You know, Rolf, sometimes women do things like that to men who...are gentle men and who would get embarrassed, a kind of prank, you see; or it could mean that she thinks that you are...attractive.” He had problems visualizing that, but plowed on. “And she wants to get your attention. The thing you should do is go slow, carefully. Each time you see her look her straight in the eye and say hello, and if you’re not on duty, try to say something casual, like, ‘isn’t is a nice day’, or something like that, you know, an opener for conversation.”

  “I’m not very good at that,” Rolf observed nervously.

  “All right, stick with saying a greeting each time you see her, and sometime approach her and offer to teach her dagger-fighting; you’re an expert with the dirk, and she might like to learn it, being too short to wield a normal blade; that short sword she carries isn’t much longer than your dirks. That would let you spend time with her and get a measure of how she feels about you. It would also give you a chance to impress her; if you aren't good with words, make sure they see you doing something that you are good at.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “Invite her to go practice with the crossbows, too; if she’s interested in you she’ll agree to it, and if she’s just a friendly girl who likes to flirt, she’ll say no. That’s a start.”

  “What do I do if she says yes?”

  “Be yourself, Rolf: you can’t help it that you’re shy, and she’ll see that; you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. You might have a chance, and you might not, just relax as best you can and be yourself. Show her your trained rats, that would be good too.”

  A whistle interrupted them; a moment later Arian came trotting up. “The Goblins are close; Rolf, you take three men and lay out the goods, Henri, you stick close to me.” The Serjeant hesitated, then looked Rolf square in the eye. “I know how you feel about Goblins, but you leave this to me, Rolf. Today we let them go.”

  The tall Badger nodded calmly. “I understand.” For Rolf, an order was an order.

  The monk slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll get ‘em later, don’t you worry. Now, let’s get at it.”

  Arian stood with Henri, Turhan, Hanns (who would act as interpreter), and Nagel by the unpacked goods as the Goblins arrived; Rolf and the other eight Badgers were positioned in a defensive half-circle behind them, weapons ready. Starr was out in the forest, secretly shadowing the Goblins to keep an eye on them, and Axel was hidden nearby in one of the fishing boats with three more Badgers in case this went badly.

  The Goblin contingent was twenty strong, sixteen jugata led by a Lapla, or serjeant, plus two older Goblins who were unarmored and armed only with knives, and a half-Goblin interpreter. The three real smugglers had been given their weapons back after they had agreed to help with the deception, but with the hilts tied into their scabbards with silk thread; when the Goblins had been sighted Arian had cut the bindings. Should a fight break out the Goblins would not distinguish between foes no matter what was said.

  The jugata and th
eir Lapla held back at the edge of the trees keeping an eye on Rolf and his men while the two Goblin traders, or tamall, came forward with the interpreter to examine the goods.

  Henri watched carefully as the greetings were exchanged, the half-Goblin translating his masters’ comments into Pradian while Hanns translated Turhan’s into Ganjun. Turhan had been carefully briefed by Arian over the last few days, and now settled back into his role as smuggler leader with ease. Questions and arguments about the quality of the Human goods for trade were fielded while the tamall examined each ingot, weapon-head, and trinket personally. It took the best part of five hours, but Turhan explained that it had to be done, and would be repeated when the trade actually took place.

  Finally they came to the discussion about the Goblin’s half. “Tell them that we will accept gold, coins, furs, or Human slaves as currency, with sap as a poor replacement.” Turhan advised Hanns.

  After a few minutes the reply came. “Why do you want slaves?”

  “The families and Imperial government offers rewards for their rescue,” Turhan said.

  “Why don’t you want sap?” This was obviously a sore point with the Goblins, as the drug was a mainstay of their trade.

  “The Imperial government is getting tougher on sap smugglers; slaves, furs, and gold are safer.” The real reason was that contraband was of no value to the Badgers, while gold and furs could be resold along with the smuggler’s goods and rescuing slaves from the Goblins enhanced the Company’s reputation.

  A half-hour’s haggling established that a Human slave who was healthy enough to walk would be worth ten spear heads, a price Turhan privately thought was too high, but since the Badgers weren't planning on paying for anything, the haggling was simply part of the deception.

  There was further delay while the interpreter laboriously wrote out the values agreed upon while Hanns copied them, and then the Goblins finally departed, promising to return on the eleventh with their trade goods.

  “You know, they’re going to be coming here with more than just an Ordular when they make the trade,” Turhan pointed out after the Goblins were out of sight. “And they’ll have considered the possibility of a double-cross.”

  “Yes, I expect they will,” Henri shrugged indifferently. “But we get paid by the ear, so the more that come, the more money we make. We’ll have most of the Company in the area when the fight starts; all we have to do is hold them for a couple minutes and it will be over.”

  “A couple minutes is a long time with a hundred screaming Goblins coming at you,” Turhan grinned unhappily.

  “Three half-naked women shouldn’t pose much threat to fourteen armed men, but they delivered all of you to us without a problem,” the wizard laughed. “We Badgers have our own way of doing things.”

  “Just how are we going to handle that many Goblins?” Henri asked Arian when they were alone. “They’ll come loaded for bear, you know.”

  “Magic and luck,” the monk looked up from the list of prices. “They’ll be expecting to deal with the smugglers, for one thing. With you and me in the group, plus we’ll substitute Axel for one of the rankers, Starr sniping with those enchanted arrows, and a few trinkets from our steadily-depleting store of magical tricks we should hold them until Durek comes roaring up with the rest of the Company.”

  “I wish we could swap one of the rankers for Kroh, he’s worth four in this kind of fight.”

  “True, but while Humans look pretty much alike to a Goblin, they can definitely tell when a Dwarf’s in the group. We’ll do fine, Henri.”

  “I know, it’s just that the plans always look more brilliant after we’ve won than they did before we tried ‘em.”

  “That’s a fact. By the way, what was the disposition of the enchanted loot your bunch brought back from the raid on the liche last year ? I’ve been meaning to ask Axel if he was done going over all of it.”

  “We took a sword, which went to Bridget, a bundle of javelins that do incendiary work, a leather pack whose enchantment failed while we were testing it, two staves which are some sort of focusing devices, but they’ve too advanced for me, Axel’s still working on them, and four boxes containing small items: eight Storms of Disruption, eight Orbs of Warding, eight rods of light, and ten Orbs of the Messenger. Stock expendable stuff, but all very useful.”

  “The Storms and the Orbs of Warding will come in very handy in this fight; after all, look what the Storms did to the smugglers.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Henri grinned ruefully. “After all, you and I are the ones with our heads in the noose.”

  Durek studied the dispositions he had drawn in the dirt; things were coming together, and he hoped he had considered all the problems. He wished he had Elonia here: she wasn’t a very good Seeress, but she might have given him a clue as to what the Goblin’s basic plans and attitude were. At least he had Starr shadowing the Goblins, with Eclipse orbiting a safe distance away; the little Lanthrell would slip back to Duna, describe what she saw to the girl, and the dark Badger would then carry the message to Durek.

  Thus he knew that the trade mission was guarded by a serao, a company of a hundred Goblin jugata, led by a serann, a Goblin commander of the middle rank; the warriors were supported by a shaman who had two bodyguards, and the whole effort was screened by a dozen yasamas, a small number for the force, but there were also ten mule-drawn carts crashing through the brush to carry away the trade goods, so stealth was impossible. Each cart had a slave driver, the portage train being directed by a half-Goblin overseer and six guards. There were also twenty slaves, presumably as trading material, and nine tamek, skilled Goblin workers he guessed would take charge of the skiffs.

  The ‘smugglers’ waiting for them consisted of Arian, Henri, Axel, Rolf, the three captive smugglers, and seven good rankers; the camp had been improved by filling the smuggler’s packs and bags with sand, and drawing the three skiffs up onto the bank on rollers made from young trees, thus giving the ‘smugglers’ cover to fight behind.

  The main body, Durek and thirty-two Badgers (not counting Eclipse and Starr) were four hundred yards to the north hidden in a small creek bed, ready to respond when the call to arms sounded, and hoping that the decoy group could hold out until they arrived.

  Goblin activity in the area had been heavy for the last couple days, with several patrols making contacts, exchanging missile fire and twice closing to blows, plus the usual harrying of river boats. So far the Badgers had taken a number of non-fatal wounds, as had the Spider forces, but heavier clashes were inevitable. Given the power of Healers and the small scale of the skirmishes they were fighting, the heaviest losses were sustained by the side that was driven from the field without recovering its wounded.

  The Captain sighed and hefted his axe, sweating under his armor; he would be a lot happier when action was joined and there was no time for brooding.

  “Now, the way we do this is to rock them hard from the onset, kill the serann and the Shaman and throw the guards into confusion,” Axel advised as Arian cut the threads binding the real smugglers’ weapons into their scabbards. “Then we go to ground behind the skiffs and sand-filled packs and fire at the Goblins until they close or the main body gets here. Henri, you’ve got the Goblin commander, I’ll kill the shaman, and everyone else knows their parts, so stay calm and make every shot count. Take your positions, everyone.”

  Henri tightened the straps on his studded leather tunic and adjusted his steel cap; his enchanted sabre was loose in its scabbard, as was his parrying dagger, and his loaded crossbow was close to hand. He would start with magic, but his powers were limited, and would not last very far into the battle. Axel’s would not, either, but they would last considerably longer; Arian had no spellcasting beyond his abilities with Amplus Viraes, the Healing arts, but he had several of the tiny silk envelopes that were the material component of a Storm of Disruption, and several glass balls the size of sling bullets that were Orbs of Warding; when the latter were cast with a command word, t
he Orb would create a brief wall of fire wherever it landed. The rest of the Badgers would make do with ordinary crossbows and throwing weapons until the Goblins closed.

  As ready as he would ever be, the wizard forced himself to relax, taking several deep breaths and working his arms to limber up as the first jugata stepped into the small clearing that ran along the stream bed. All around him the other ‘smugglers’ shifted and stretched, checked weapons and armor by touch, and eased into more comfortable positions. It would have looked suspicious, except for the situation: file after file of Goblins entered the clearing as the shaman moved out front to take up position; anyone would have been nervous at such a display of strength.

  The first cart worked its way out of the brush, followed closely by a second, and then a file of twenty slaves roped together in lines of five as the serao’s command group and standard came into view along with the last of the jugata; the tamall appeared with their interpreter as the nine tamak came out of the brush and stood to one side, unarmored Goblin males who were only armed with knives.

  The scores of jugata stood in untidy groups, fingering their weapons and muttering to one another; a few called comments in their own language or made rude gestures, but most watched the ‘smugglers’ and kept to themselves. They knew from long and bitter experience that a face-to-face fight with Humans was a bloody business, all the more so when every one of their adversaries had good armor, better weapons, and a longer reach due to their greater height.

  Henri watched the Goblin Serann and waited for the start of the business. The twenty slaves were marched to the edge of the stream and tethered to trees while the slave drivers of the two carts unloaded bales of furs and clay jugs, and the interpreters began exchanging the routine greetings and assurances. Durek’s orders had been very clear: nothing starts until the Goblin loot is out where it can’t be hauled off until after the fight was over. There were eight more carts further out in the brush which would probably flee to safety when the fight started, but that was beyond helping; they would have their hands full just staying alive once the fight started.