Dark Practices: Book Four of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “And what am I supposed to do to feed my boy, eh?” Orah snapped. “Mind your own business.”

  “I’ll pay your way to Teasau, and give you money for a new start,” the advocate persisted. “The Temple in Teasau will give you help too, find you a place to live and help you get a job, a simple one to start, maid or washer-woman...”

  “Why don’t you just piss off?” Orah spun to face the Badger Serjeant, the yoke falling from her shoulders. “How I live my life is my business.”

  “Yes, but...you don’t have to get beaten...” Bridget fumbled for words. “Your life doesn’t have to be like that, living with a man who hits you.”

  “What would you know about my life and what I want? I live my life the way I want to, and you can keep your money and your snobbish ways; go look down your pointy little nose at somebody else!” Orah shook a grimy fist in the stunned advocate’s face. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what your damned Dwarf did to my Wilibald, either.”

  “But he was beating you, I had Kroh stop him,” Bridget backed up a step in the face of the angry woman’s single-eyed glare. “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Stay out of it,” Orah answered promptly. “I know how to handle him, and your blasted Dwarf hurt him so bad that he lost half a day’s wages.”

  “But he beat you,” Bridget persisted somewhat dazedly. “Look at your face.”

  “Just bruises, aren’t they? Go away in a week or two, I should think, but Wilibald was back sawing logs this morning, just like he does every day,” Orah snapped. “He spends the day shovin’ on a saw’s handle from can-see to can’t-see, dodging falling trees and breathing sawdust for two pence a trunk, and brings it all home to me. So what if he drinks a tankard or two of an evening, or loses his temper a bit, there’s worse men in the world, and plenty who don’t work half as hard. We’ll have enough saved to get a farm out here in a year or two, land we’ll be buying from rich bastards like you that got it with the edge of a sword or the ink off a pen. Now, I got water to fetch so’s I can make my boy some oatmeal and myself some tea; you can either lug it for me or get your skinny butt out of my way.”

  Bridget watched the woman stomp off, bewildered beyond words.

  The advocate was eating her lunch, sitting a ways apart from the rest of her detail so they could indulge in their usual topics of conversation without being inhibited by a woman’s presence when a shadow fell over the napkin-covered stump she had laid her meal out on. She looked up to see Wilibald standing over her, a sap and sawdust-coated figure of slightly below average height whose broad shoulders, bull neck, and massive arms attested to the demands of his profession. At two feet the stench of fresh sweat mixing with a week’s worth of old was like a physical blow.

  “I hear you been messin’ with my woman, telling her how she should get away from me,” the logger snarled, sap gluing bits of leaves to his scraggly, unwashed beard. “Maybe you ought to mind your own business.”

  Bridget rolled sideways, ending up on her feet five feet from the angry man. When Wilibald took a step forward to close the distance, the lithe advocate smoothly drew her rapier, placing the enchanted weapon’s point against the sweat-blackened shirt just below the logger’s breastbone. “Stay right there, Willibald; you stink too badly to come any closer.”

  “Maybe you just aren't used to how a real man smells,” the logger sneered.

  “I’m married to a real man,” Bridget shrugged. “And I’ve killed any number of trash with this very blade; care to add to the list?”

  “It would be a different story without your sword and that bastard Dwarf to back you,” Wilibald said bitterly. “You would sing a different tune then, I bet.”

  “It would be a bit different, I agree,” Bridget nodded. “Although you would find I can fight better than Orah can, armed or unarmed. And you would go to sleep some time, Wilibald, a nap from which you would never wake up. Now get out of my sight before I carve my initials across your ugly excuse of a face.”

  “Everything all right?” Rolf asked as he walked up behind her.

  The advocate watched Wilibald stomp off into the brush and shook her head. “No, but there’s not much I can do about it.”

  “There’ve been yasama everywhere,” Starr reported, absently smearing a line of dirt across her forehead as she wiped away sweat brought on by wearing armor on a hot summer afternoon. “Fanning out in groups of three or four, covering this area of the forest like a broom.”

  “Looking for something or screening something?” Arian asked, tapping the ash from his cheroot. The rest of the daily fighting patrol, which today consisted of Arian, Starr, Kroh, Henri, and ten line Badgers, took advantage of the halt to spread out in the shade and relax.

  “Screening, I would guess,” the little Lanthrell shrugged. “Although if they are, they’re either the vanguard of a very large force, or they want us to believe that they are.”

  “Odd,” the monk muttered. “Still, we had better swing a bit further out to...what was that?” He cocked his head to listen.

  “Someone calling out in Pradian off to the east, perhaps two hundred paces,” Starr pointed with her chin as she fitted an arrow into her bow. “I can’t make out what they’re saying.”

  “An ambush?” Arian asked, then shook his head. “No, that’s a Human voice. Come on,” he waved his patrol to their feet. “We had better take a look. None of the surveyors should be this far out.”

  The Badgers crept deeper into the forest, and moments later were rewarded with the appearance of a young woman running towards them crying for help, her short dark hair thrashed into a tangle by her passage through the brush; her bare arms and legs were equally battered, as was the shapeless sack-dress she wore. She slid to a halt at the sight of the Badgers thirty feet away, jamming her knuckles into her mouth with fear.

  “Easy, girl, easy, it’s all right, we’re friends, you’re safe now,” Starr called out, returning the arrow to her quiver and unstringing her bow and stowing it in its case as she slowly walked to the girl, who seemed poised on the brink of flight. “What’s your name?”

  Arian waved the rest of the patrol into position as the girl, a young woman of around twenty he could see now, filthy and much-disheveled, pulled her hands from her mouth. “Afra....my name’s Afra. My friend’s back there a ways, she fell and hurt her ankle, it’s all swole up....we’re running from the Goblins.”

  “It’s all right,” Starr soothed the girl as she walked up to her. “How far back are the Goblins?”

  “Not far,” Afra looked back over her shoulder. “Not very far.” She turned back to face Starr. “You’re a woods Threll.”

  “Yes, a Lanthrell,” Starr agreed absently, looking back at Arian, who was waving for her to bring the girl back to the group. “We need to rejoin the others...” the little Badger frowned and looked off to her right at a small flock of quail that erupted into the sky some yards away.

  The monk saw the change in the girl’s carriage and shouted before he really understood what he was seeing; Afra slid a hand into the waist of her dress and produced a small axe as Star, distracted by Arian’s shout, looked back at him for an instant before turning to Afra just as the girl drove the blade of the axe into the Threll’s forehead with all the strength in her arm.

  Starr dropped in her tracks as Kroh and Arian fired, their bolts missing Afra by inches as she dove into the brush; a split second later they heard her racing away, blowing a shrill bone whistle.

  “Ambush!” Arian shouted, slinging his crossbow as he pulled his shield from his back. “Kroh, get Starr, the rest of you look alive.”

  Before the Dwarf could reach the fallen Threll the brush exploded with a rush of screeching Goblins; alerted, the Badgers killed two and wounded a couple more before switching to close-quarter weapons. Arian settled his sword firmly into his grip and braced himself, angling his shield into a small-axe swing and driving the point of his enchanted broadsword over the axe-wielder’s shield and on into the Gobl
in’s chest. His opponent, he was surprised to see as the Goblin fell back mortally wounded, was not a jugata, but rather a yasama; obviously the Spider wanted this patrol very badly to risk their scouts.

  A yasama leapt out of the same bushes that Afra had disappeared into and sprang upon the prone and unmoving Starr, a long knife gleaming in his hand, only to be smashed off his feet by the impossible flight of Kroh’s Named Axe, which ripped itself free of the dying scout and flew back to the waiting tattooed hands. The other three who jumped out wisely headed straight for the Dwarf, recognizing that he would have to be dealt with first. Sliding to a halt six feet from Starr, Kroh exploded into a savage series of figure-eight swings that left two Goblins with shattered chests and the third with a spouting stump where its shield-hand used to be. Darting forward, breathing hard (even a Dwarf as heavily-muscled as Kroh could not swing an axe so many times so quickly without feeling the effects), the Waybrother touched Starr’s throat, nodded at the pulse, slid an inked paw around to feel the back of her neck, straightened and side-hopped to avoid a thrusting spear, slamming the keen edge of his Named Axe into and through the Goblin’s leather helm, cleaving the creature’s skull in half.

  Twisting his blade free of the sundered bone case, Kroh slung Starr over his left shoulder, knocked a yasama off its feet with a pile-driver thrust with the head of his axe, and was saved a attack from behind by Emory, who cut the Goblin down even as he closed. Covered by Emory and Milo, Kroh carried his unconscious burden back to the rest of the patrol, who were standing in a tight circle holding off the scouts.

  Kroh shouldered into the center of the circle as Milo and Emory stepped back into the ranks.

  “Head back to the clearing with the lighting-burnt stump,” Arian ordered once Kroh was in position. “Stick together and watch your backs.” Grabbing the little Threll’s head, he carefully ran his fingers across the back of her neck, along her throat, and then across the planes of her face. “She’s all right, just unconscious,” he told the Waybrother. “The enchantment in her torc stopped the axe like a helm, although the force of the blow has knocked her out.”

  Tossing aside the stub of his cheroot, the monk unwrapped a probe and ran it along the circumference of the bruised facial area and paused, frowning; setting the instrument aside, he placed both hands on Starr’s face and murmured a short cant. Removing the scout’s enchanted torc, he tried again.

  “What’s the matter?” Kroh demanded. “You said she wasn’t hurt.”

  “Not beyond bruising, but the axe they used on her must have had some sort of enchantment on it, not an enchanted weapon, but a spell cast upon the weapon to increase its effect.” The monk tried a third incantation. “Blast, no luck. An enchanted weapon often precludes Healing.”

  “But she’s all right?” Kroh was clearly worried.

  “Yes, it is just bruising, but I won’t be able to Heal it.” Arian replaced the torc on Starr’s neck. “Let’s get moving.”

  The Badgers trotted back to the clearing Arian had indicated, one they had passed through not long before; the yasama harried their passage with arrows and slung bullets, taking return fire in kind from the Badgers, but apparently had lost their taste for melee combat; Kroh, burdened with Starr, threw his enchanted hand axe three times, striking home once, then thrust the bloody weapon in his belt, the enchantment expended for the time being.

  In the clearing the Badgers took the opportunity to reload crossbows, and Arian bound several minor wounds while Kroh had Milo and Emory hold Starr in a pig-a-back position on his back while he lashed her arms and legs together and then bound them to his belt and weapon harness, holding her secure on his back while leaving his hands free. Milo tied a strap around the unconscious Threll’s head and bound it fast to the hinge-straps on the Waybrother’s left shoulder so that her head would not beat itself against the Dwarf’s steel armor.

  The yasama had broken off their harrying of the patrol, but crashing and cries from the surrounding forest indicated that jugata were coming up to take their place. “Form a wedge with Kroh at the point,” Arian called quietly, waving the Badgers into place. “They’ll be on us in a rush, give ‘em a volley and have at them with cold steel. Keep moving towards the river, make no contests of individual valor, and always guard the back of the Badger ahead of you. Emory and I will travel at the open end of the wedge and harry any who attack into it. Kroh, keep up as good a pace as you can. Let us go.”

  The Goblins attacked before they had covered twenty yards, coming in from all sides in a sudden howling rush. Kroh put a quarrel through a Het’s neck and threw the spent weapon into a charging jugata’s legs, tripping it up while he unshipped his axe. Splitting a wicker shield with his first swing, he lumbered forward a step and slapped aside a thrusting spear point with the haft of his axe, then chopped through the wielder’s leg and advanced another step, Goblins pressing in upon all sides.

  Arian caught a blow from a spiked club upon his shield and thrust, pinning the Pa’s foot to the ground; withdrawing his blade, he skipped back a pace and exchanged blows with another Goblin, cursing as a spear point slammed into his ribs, severing several links of his mail shirt and raising a fist-sized bruise. He caught the next thrust on his shield and drew blood with a hard chop, but the wound he inflicted was neither mortal nor incapacitating. He hopped back another step and deflected another strike.

  Even with Starr on his back Kroh was a deadly foe in close quarters; a badly wounded Goblin cradled in a headlock held before him, wielding his Named Axe one-handed (Dwarven long axes being balanced for either one or two-handed use to give the wielder the option of carrying a shield or not), the Waybrother was hammering his way forward one step at a time. He was used to the shock action of a charge, leading with the edge of his axe, proud to be from a race that produced the best heavy infantry in the world and ready to prove it, but for Starr’s sake he curbed his instincts and slogged ahead a step at a time.

  The Goblins surrounded the patrol, but the Badger’s triangular formation robbed the encirclement of nearly all its advantage; yet once again the Goblins found themselves faced with the same problems they always faced when in a toe-to-toe fight with Humans: their foes had longer reaches, better armor, and better weapons. Skill and courage were evenly matched, of course, but neither could compensate for the differences between cord-armor and steel plate or chain mail, between a small axe consisting of a poorly-forged steel head and a fourteen inch oak handle and a broadsword whose twenty-six inch blade was as good of steel as Humans could produce.

  After the first few yards the war cries and bellowed curses died away as the combatants saved their breath for weapons-use and moving; red-faced and panting, the Badgers hacked their way through the forest one contested foot at a time, harried on all sides by sweating, panting Goblins.

  The Goblins broke off their attack after a hundred yard contested passage; Arian called for a halt and went from man to man, Healing three Badgers of moderately serious wounds and binding up minor injuries. When he came to Kroh he found the Waybrother kneeing by Starr, giving the little Lanthrell sips from his flask. “How are you feeling, Starr?” Arian asked, lifting the wet kerchief Kroh had laid over the Threll’s face.

  “My face hurts,” she mumbled. “What happened?”

  “We ran into some sort of renegade who hit you in the face,” Arian shook his head: Starr’s entire forehead was swelling and turning greenish; already her eyelids were darkening.

  “Are my eyes all right?” Starr asked anxiously. “I can see, but I can’t open my eyes much.”

  “They’re fine as far as seeing goes, your torc’s enchantment stopped the axe blade from penetrating, but just as with a real helm some the kinetic force of the blow carried through. The reason you’re having trouble seeing is that your face is swelling, and within an hour or two you won’t be able to open your eyes. There aren't any broken bones, so once the swelling goes away you’ll be fine, but I can’t Heal you, Starr; they had some sort of spell on the
axe they used on you. You’ll have to heal naturally.”

  “You’re gonna look like an eggplant for a week or two,” Kroh observed bluntly.

  Starr felt for Snow Leopard’s hilt. “Where’s my bow?”

  “In its case, you put it up just before you were hit,” Kroh assured her, guiding her hand to the case. The little Lanthrell mumbled dazedly.

  “Are they going to make another try for us, Kroh?” Arian as quietly as the Dwarf put the kerchief back across the bruise and gave Starr another swig from his flask.

  The Waybrother looked around at the forest for a moment before answering. “I would guess so, even though we killed a couple and carved up quite a few more; either way, though, they’ve got what they wanted, which was to hurt Starr. By now they know we’ve only got one Lanthrell scout, and she’s going to be out of the fight for days. It was a clever trap,” the Dwarf observed reluctantly. “I haven't ever heard of Forest Goblins using renegades as bait before.”

  “No, but we certainly do it often enough, posing as someone else, I mean,” Arian shook his head. “I should have caught it. We’re so confident that Goblins can’t get close to us when Starr’s with us that we get complaisant. I imagine they’ve Watchers of their own which they used to track us and set us up. I would give a hundred Marks to have that girl here, alive. We had better get moving. Milo, help Starr walk. Let’s keep with the wedge formation, Milo, you stay inside the group.”

  They could hear the Goblins moving around them in the brush as they continued to march west, weapons at the ready, but they were jugata, rather than scouts; twice they tried short rushes from all sides in the hopes of catching the Badgers off-guard, and both times they were repulsed without serious loss of either side. After the second attack the Goblins broke off their pursuit and faded away into the woods.

  They came up on New Fork from the south, avoiding the logging crews they passed on the way as Arian wanted no trouble, and the sight of the battered, bloody patrol coming back would have prompted catcalls and jeers from the tree-cutters, which would have provoked beatings or even killings from the more hot-headed Badgers. Several of the women in the logger camp screamed at the sight of the bloody band trudging past, and the filthy children gathered in a mutually-supportive pack and followed them to the edge of the stake belt surrounding the Badger camp.