Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (11 page)

For protection, she ha
d a helm made of boar’s hide stretched over a hardwood frame, lighter than iron or steel but not as durable, carried a buckler of the same construction, and wore a shirt of Threllan ‘lattice’-style armor, made up of two layers of plates and strips of iron-hard but light
iocor
wood, held together with cord spun from the silky and very tough web material from Titan spiders. The two layers of plates and strips were offset so that the vulnerable joints between one layer was protected by the other, and the two layers separated by, and fastened to, a layer of spider’s silk that kept the pieces of wood from rattling against each other while still allowing them to move with the wearer’s body. The end result was a shirt that offered the same or better protection as that of good chainmail for less weight and without the constant noise of rings rattling against each other.

When the melted head of the candle consumed the colored line
Kroh pinched out the small flame. “Time to go, little one. Stay close.”

Slipping through the arch, they moved down the corridor to their left for a hundred feet and peered down a side-passage. Twenty yards further on was the intersection in question, the meeting point indicated by the rat
-borne map. Trellan was there, alive and seemingly unhurt, but also bound, gagged, and strapped to a chair. Standing behind him was a tall humanoid, easily as tall as an adult male Threll, holding a loaded and cocked crossbow the back of the Badger’s head with one hand, a massive two-handed, double-bitted battle axe leaning against the wall nearby.

“Orc
?” Starr whispered.

“
No, half-breed, I think,” Kroh muttered back, motioning for the Threll to cross to the other side of the corridor.

“That’s far enough,” the tall figure called in Pradian, the language of the Eisenalder Empire, as Starr darted to the other side of the corridor’s entrance and took up a good kneeling position. “Now we talk.”

“You aren't Felher, are you?” Kroh bellowed down the corridor in a thoroughly false tone of friendship as a brilliant and subtle plan came together in his mind: move forward, lull him with friendly chatter, get close, snap the bastard’s neck, be a hero.

“No.”

“Neither are we.” Kroh stepped into full view, leaving his helm and crossbow behind. “I’m Kroh Blackhand, a member of the Guardians of the Way and killers of dozens of Felher, I am.” He leaned his axe against the wall and took a couple steps forward.

Nocking an arrow, Starr drew back to half draw and took aim. Even in this poor light she could put a bodkin-point arrow through the half-Orc’s skull without any problem, except for the fact that the stranger had looped a length of copper wire around Trellan’s neck and attached both ends to his crossbow; she could kill the half-Orc, but the chances were good that he would release his bolt in
his dying throes, and the wire ensured that it wouldn’t miss. “Kroh, come back,” she hissed.

“Stay were you are; I’ve been watching you, you’re merce
naries, aren't you? Servants of the Light?”

“We’re the Phantom Badgers, myself being their foremost warrior,”
Kroh nodded, removing his dirk and dagger from his belt and laying them on the floor before taking a couple more steps forward. “We all oppose the Void. Who are you?”

“Rolf, Rolf Lightseeker; you had better quit moving forward. I’ll trade for your friend, he’s not hurt or harmed.”

“Trade?” Kroh repeated the word with elaborate incomprehension, as if he had never heard it before, sidling a few steps forward. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll let him go if you give me real food and tell me how you got into
Gradrek Heleth
. Quit moving forward.”

“Done; see, we came in through a side gate on the first
cidhe
, then moved downward by way of the...well, we’ll have to draw you a map,” Kroh explained earnestly, moving forward a smooth step at a time, now closer to Rolf than to Starr.

Starr frowned as she listened to the conversation; she had grown up listening to the finest singers and declaimers in the Larnex Forest, and nuance and tone were an exact art in both endeavors. Lightseeker’s voice was telling her more than his words on a very basic level, if only
Kroh would be quiet for a moment and let her think.

“I want
traveler’s rations, lots of oatmeal and brown sugar.” There was a painful longing in the half-Orc’s voice now, raw yearning. “Stop moving forward.”

“Listen,”
Kroh stepped forward, closing the remaining gap with a confident stride. “There’s a Threllian archer behind me with a shaft aimed at your heart, while you’ve wired your crossbow to Trellan, so you can’t move your weapon or even shoot our friend without losing your shield. Now, what we’re going to do is...”

The Dwarf froze in mid
-step, ten feet short of his goal, for Rolf had reached down and picked up a second cocked and loaded crossbow which had been leaning unseen behind the chair. Bracing the butt of the weapon against his thin hip, he had pointed it at the Waybrother, who was keenly aware that at this range his breastplate would barely slow the quarrel down.

“I said for you to stop moving forward. I don’t want to hurt you or him, I just want to trade. I can pay for the food and the map
, but I
need
them.”

Hastily setting down her bow, Starr stepped into the hallway, hands in plain view. “Wait, Rolf;
Kroh, don’t do anything. Rolf, listen to me for a moment: my name is Starr Brightgift, a Lanthrell from the Larnex Forest far to the south, and a member of the Phantom Badgers. I assure you we mean you no harm, Kroh is just concerned with freeing Trellan.” She paused for a breath, wondering where Durek and Arian were. She heard no hostility in Rolf’s voice, no danger or blood-lust, just a very real desperation. “The Phantom Badgers are mercenaries, but never for evil masters or for those who serve the Dark One; we are not pure as a bird’s song, but we neither pillage nor rape, and we always honor our contracts and hold to our pledged word. If you deal with us fairly, we will do the same with you.”

“I don’t cheat.” The ph
rase set all the puzzles over the half-Orc’s tone slipping into place with smooth precision: Rolf sounded like a little boy, a scared and lost boy who was struggling to keep his pride. Starr was young in the reckoning of her people, but the maternal instinct is as strong in the Threll as it is in Humans.

“You’re lost, aren't you? You can’t find your way to the surface.” Starr shuddered at the thought.

Rolf nervously scuffed a boot across the dusty floor. “Yep.”

“But you want out of here, don’t you?” At the thin half-Orc’s eager nod, she plunged ahead, excited at her own cunning. “Do you follow the ways of the Void o
r call the Dark One your master? No? Good, then here is what I propose: the Phantom Badgers are raiding
Gradrek Heleth
in order to recover certain items, and then will return to the surface. All you need to do is to release Kroh and Trellan and agree to serve the Company until we reach the surface; we can always use an extra warrior.”

Rolf thought that over. “The Phantom Badgers, they’re a good Company, with officers and regulations and that sort of thing?”

“A very excellent company, yes, which has been in service for years.”

“Then let me join:
I’m good with an axe, and very loyal. I’ll even pay these two compensation for my actions.”

Unmindful of the crossbow,
Kroh spun to face Starr. “NO! No, No, No, No, No, No, NO. Period. No. He’s not going to pull a crossbow on me and then join the Badgers-I don’t care if he kills Trellan an inch at a time! NO!”

“
Kroh, Kroh, please be calm, I have this under control,” Starr assured the furious Waybrother. “My friend, please, let me resolve this,
please
, Kroh.” She put the tone she had used to best effect on her father into her plea; red-faced and mumbling, the Dwarf stomped back down the hall, gathering his weapons as he went, heedless of the crossbow pointed at his back.

The Waybrother safely out of the line of fire, Starr turned back to the bemused half-Orc. “Agreed; if you are honest about your loyalty to the Light and the Eight, the Badge
rs will treat with you fairly.”

“Are you an offic
er, who can make these promises?”

“No, I’ve only been with them a short while, but I swear to you on the honor of my
Lana
, my home Forest, that I will see to it that the Phantom Badgers will treat you fairly and retain your services until we return to the Empire. Beyond that, they may choose not to keep you in the ranks.”

“You’ll take me back to the surface?” Rolf
visibly struggled to keep the hope under control.

“Yes, after we have completed our mission, which you will have to participate in.”

Trembling, the starved half-Orc lifted the wire loop from around Trellan’s neck and set both crossbows against the wall. “I’ll join, I’m good with an axe and dirks and I know this part of
Gradrek Heleth
real well and I move quiet, you’ll see...” Frantic with excitement Rolf began to untie Trellan.

Darting back down the hall to where
Kroh was loading his crossbow with a purposeful air, the diminutive Threll grabbed the Waybrother around the neck in a happy hug. “We did it, Kroh, we did it! We got Trellan released and a new recruit before Durek could find his way around to the intersection. Think how irritated Gabriella will be when she hears about how clever we were to resolve this without any fighting.”

The Dwarf’s hands slowed
, then finally stopped. “Clever?”

“Yes, how you fearlessly distracted Rolf while I talked him into surrendering.
Durek would have ended up handing over half our food just to get Trellan back, but we got the half-Orc to give him up
and
promise to fight for us until we get back to the Empire.”

“Yeah, th
at is the cunning bit, isn’t it?” Kroh grinned. “Trellan back and new spear-fodder, all in one neat stroke.”

“And compensati
on to you and Trellan, remember?” Starr grinned, thankful that the Dwarf was buying it. “Profit all around.”

The Captain finally appeared, Arian in tow, trudging up the way they had come with a black frown twisting his beard, an expression that softened when he heard Starr’s news. It seemed that the route they had taken to circle behind the intersection had been blocked by a minor cave-in, a fact Rolf shyly admitted to having taken advantage of. The recruitment of the half-Orc did not dismay the Captain as he was accustomed to recruiting where the opportunity presented itself.

A panel was convened consisting of
Durek as Captain, Bridget and Janna for their religious backgrounds, and Arian for his cult-hunting expertise and detailed knowledge of the dark ways, the purpose being to interview and evaluate this prospective new recruit in order to determine his true allegiances, skills, capabilities, and trustworthiness. Rolf cooperated fully, although he had requested that Starr be present during the interview, as he had come to view her as his personal benefactress.

The desperately thin half-Orc was both op
en and honest, but terribly shy, which slowed the process while in no way impeding it. The story he told was both familiar and tragic: Rolf Lightseeker (the latter name a recent adoption) had been born in the shadow of the Ward, the offspring of an Orc raider and a raped farm girl who had had the luck to be rescued by Imperial troops before the raiders had finished sacking the farmstead her family owned. She bore Rolf, a healthy baby, and refused to allow her family to drown the half-breed bastard, a common resolution of such occurrences. She had raised the child as her son, fiercely defending him against those amongst her family who hated the son for the crimes of the father.

Her love and constant attention pulled the Human side in him to the fore; Rolf had been raised as any other farm boy in the northern Empire, and had thrived in his mother’s care. His mother
had never been well, however, and died when he was six, although his Orcen blood insured that he was as large as a boy twice his age by that time. Although feeling within the family towards him fell far short of love, his mother had won him no small measure of acceptance, further enhanced by his good nature and willingness.

He was put to work on the farm as a hired hand rather than a family member, living in the barn and working as a groom and swineherd, tasks which stood him in good stead over the years. At sixteen he was indentured to a promoter of gladiatorial games under the name Rolf Pitdeath, and was taught the skills of pugilism and knife fighting. Two years later, in what was perhaps the single dishonest act of his life, Rolf ran away from his master with his indenture unfulfilled.

Rolf joined the Scarlet Raiders, a half-baked band of mercenaries who were enjoying a run of luck hunting Goblin raiders in the Thunderpeak Mountains. A couple years after he had joined the Raiders made a foray into
Gradrek Heleth
which ended in disaster: they ran into a Bronze Hydra ambush which left the few survivors scattered through this
cidhe
, lost and alone. For the last eight years the half-Orc had struggled to stay alive and sane while looking for a way out. Illiterate, he had found mapping to be beyond his skills, and had settled for careful exploration.