Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (13 page)

After four hours of hard travel into the
raith
Durek called a halt. “We’re nearly there,” he announced to the gathered raiders. “First order of business is to find a safe, defensible place to establish our camp, and then we will scout the mud pit and the surrounding area. Myself, Bridget, and Janna will take care of this, aided by the maps the wizard provided for us, thoughtful bastard that he is.”

“You know, I’ve always
been curious about this: he can send his cleavage-goddesses halfway around the continent to deliver his demands and instructions, so why can’t he just pop a couple of his personal guard to where we’re standing, have them grab the books, and then bring them back?” Gabriella wondered, cleaning dried clay from her fingernails.

“As a matter of fact, I asked Axel that very question,”
Durek grinned. “It seems that enchantment, bulk power, messes up gating magic such as he uses to send his couriers flitting about.
Gradrek Heleth
is strongly wrapped in enchantments, mundane ones to move air and water around mostly, but enough to keep him from using his courier-magic within miles of the place. He would have to send someone in to set up a physical device, a Gate egress Axel called it, to open the way, and if you have to walk in to do that, you might as well walk out as well. Or so he figures, not having to do any of the dirty work himself.”

Dropping their bedrolls, the three Badgers slipped forward to explore,
Durek noting details and changes onto the maps they had been given. The area was a seething mass of cracks, crevices, odd-shaped chambers, and old watercourses, with more than a few small streams and pools in the area. After some hunting they found a suitable camp site, a small cavern with three widely-spaced openings, a roof crevice that would vent away the smoke from their braziers, and easy access to a clear running stream. The cavern was about four hundred yards from the mud pit; the scouts returned to the main body and led them to the camp site to get settled in while they moved forward for the final leg of their explorations.

The mud pit where the books had been lost was on a supply route used by t
he Felher in their siege of
Gradrek Heleth
, at a point where the route crossed a bowl-shaped cavern. According to the notes provided by Bluefire the cavern was a rough oval running east-west, four hundred feet long, two hundred fifty wide, nearly one hundred feet from the surface of the mud to the ceiling. The walls were a mass of cracks and crevices, as was the whole area; a Felher tunnel (which had been dug along the path of a fault line to speed progress) bisected the cavern very nearly at its center, the tunnel openings halfway up the cavern’s wall on both sides and connected by a plank and chain bridge. It was on this bridge that the group which had recovered the books had come to grief.

The Badgers were camped south of the cavern; moving as silently as they could, the scouts slipped forward to, and down, the Felher supply tunnel. Fifty yards short of the cavern’s opening they halted in a niche carved by the Felher for some unknown purpose and conferred in hushed tones.

“There’s too much light, and what are those noises?” Janna asked, a frown twisting her scar. “It sounds like voices.”

“Leofric said there was interest in the books,”
Durek muttered. “Looks like that was old news.”

“So how do you want to do this
?” Bridget asked.

The Captain thought about it. “
Janna, you stay here on guard. Bridget and I will creep up and peek in. One quick look to get an idea of what we’re up against here, and then we trot back to the main body and start making plans. This might be tougher than we thought.”

“Or easier, if they’re close to finding the books,”
Bridget suggested. “We let them do the hard work, then ambush them and run for sunlight.”

“That’s always a good idea,”
Durek nodded. “If it works out that way. Let’s get moving.”

Crawling for thirty feet was hard on elbows and knees despite their heavy clothing, but
Durek had no intention of revealing their presence a second before it was necessary; surprise doubled an attacker’s effect, and with only eleven warriors at his disposal he needed all the help he could get. At least whomever was making all the noise hadn’t bother to post a guard on the bridge. Easing forward an inch at a time, the two Badgers moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Bridget, who being taller reached a vantage point quicker than her Captain, suddenly hissed and urgently elbowed the Dwarf in his plate-covered ribs. Scowling with annoyance at her reaction, the Captain slid forward the last foot and looked in the direction the advocate was pointing with her chin.

And had to bite his lip from cursing aloud.

The raiders gathered in their camp site to hear the scout’s reports. Durek grimly ignored all questions as he smoothed the dirt on a large patch of floor and began drawing on it with a crossbow quarrel; Bridget and Janna held their tongues as well, on orders of their Captain. Some assaults could be ordered, the Dwarf knew, and some assaults had to be persuaded. This was going to be one of the latter.

Finished, the Captain borrowed
Janna’s partisan to use as a pointer; keeping it simple, he described the dimensions of the target cavern, which he named the bridge cavern, adding that the accumulated depth of the mud pit was roughly twenty feet, created by a muddy underground stream that entered in the west end of the cavern and drained away through crevices largely clogged with silt, which had created the mud-pond that the books had been lost in. The lighting in the place was nearly as good as that in the city above them, he informed them, as apparently the hot steamy atmosphere of the mud pit had agreed with peton moss; in any case, the upper reaches of the walls were covered in the stuff.

“Except that there’s no mud now, it’s all dry dirt, which brings us to the crux of the matter: apparently a lot of items have ended up in that mud pit over the years, or maybe a caravan loaded with a lot of goodies got tipped into t
he stew just like the books did. In any case, there is another group already in the bridge cavern digging for treasure, and finding it from all appearances.”

“Aha,” Gabriella nodded. “And let me guess: they wouldn’t care to trade for the books and just let us be on our way.”

“No, it’s not likely as the group consists of a Minion of the Dark One and his personal Talon, plus slaves and some
Fortren
engineers. From the Dark Star nation-cult, to be specific.”

“What are
Fortren
again?” Trellan wanted to know. “I know I’ve heard the term before in one of the endless briefings I’ve had to endure, but the meaning escapes me, cogged as my mind is with all the details rammed into it from all these damned planning, pre-planning, post-planning, and general-purpose briefings I’ve suffered through.”

“Dwarves from the clans given over to the Void, what you would call Dark or Black Dwarves,”
Kroh rumbled, missing the ex-sailor’s sarcasm. “I hate Fortren, killed dozens of the bastards, I have.”

“Tell us more about this
Scarred One and his Talon, Captain,” Robin’s voice was silky smooth, but his face was set as stone. “A few more details, if you please.”

“Details? They’ve diverted the stream with common engineering, and dried the mud with enchantment. Now the slaves sift the silt for loot, of which they’ve apparently recovered a good deal, including the chest of books we were sent for. The Scarred One is a Draktaur, and his Talon consists of thirty-three Direbreed divided into three sections, a human mage of the dark arts, and nine
Fortren
, whom I believe are attached and not actually part of the Talon. Plus the slaves, about thirty all told.”

“A Draktaur, a spellcaster
, and forty-two warriors against eleven Phantom Badgers,” Robin drawled thoughtfully. “Even with surprise on our side that will be one damned tough fight. If we hit them, that is.”

“Scared, Robin
?” Kroh put a hand over his mouth, or more accurately over the middle region of his beard, and produced a surprisingly realistic hen’s cackle.

“No, but I’m not suicidal, either. Leofric can find something else to read,” the swordsman snapped,
glaring at the Waybrother, who shoved a finger up each of his own nostrials and mimed dragging himself along. “I’m not dying for any damned books. I’ve never had to face a Draktaur and I’m not interested in trying it.”

“Draktaurs die if you hit them just right, same as anything else,”
Kroh sneered, surreptitiously wiping his fingers on Trellan’s trousers.

“It’s more than just books,”
Durek interjected. “Bridget, tell them the rest.”

“Children,” the advocate faced the rest of the raiders squarely. “They’ve got eight children do
wn there, along with a full altar; apparently the power to dry the mud and keep it dry is coming from the regular sacrifice of the children. Who here will walk away and leave eight young boys and girls in Dark Star hands? Speak up so I can spit in your face and name you for the cowardly bastard that you are.”

“We vote on this,”
Durek announced, motioning the flushed priestess back. “If a majority says attack, we’ll start planning; if a majority says retreat, we retreat. I say attack; Bridget?”

“Attack.”

“Janna.”

“Attack.”

“Gabriella.”

“Attack.”

“Arian.”

“Attack.”

“Kroh.”

“Hit ‘em hard; I’ve never killed a Draktaur yet, and I want to while there’s still space on my fingers.”

“Starr.”

“Attack.”

“Trellan.”

“Attack,” the ex-sailor shrugged unhappily.

“Robin.”

The swordsman shook his head. “Getting a home has made you go all soft and moralistic,
Durek. I’ll oppose the attack to no effect, and just hope the little bastards have rich families.”

“Nuilia.”

“Withdraw,” the dark-haired standard bearer sneered at Kroh, who was being shushed by Starr.

“Rolf.”

“Attack.”

“That’s settled, then:
we go in, get the books and any other loot we can grab, rescue the kids, and set a record running for daylight. My plan right now is very fragmentary, but basically it revolves around the bridge and the cracks that honeycomb this area: if we can find a route into the bridge cavern via the cracks, we’ll attack from the crevices while archers and spellcasters support us from the bridge. That’s just the concept, everyone feel free to dig at it and come up with any twists, tricks, or gimmicks to help even the odds. By choosing a rest period as the time to launch the attack, we’ll achieve maximum confusion. I agree four to one odds are damned long, but we can narrow that down by no small amount before we come to blows if we do it right.”

“Now,
Arian will give us an overview on the cultist angle on things, and Bridget will refresh us on the Direbreed. After that, I’m going to assign a roster of scouts; we don’t move until we’ve studied the Talon for at least a full day, two being better, and until each of us has had plenty of time to get familiar with the bridge cavern. Arian, you and Trellan pick out a nearby cavern and build a scale model of the target cavern in it, leave enough room for everyone to look at it, and come up with some sort of markers to use for us and the Talon members; we’ll use this to lay out the plan in its final version. Kroh and I will go rock-crawling in an attempt to find another way into the bridge cavern; Janna and Gabriella will take the block and tackle, the rope, chains, and the tools we lugged all this way, and cache them someplace secure since there’s no point in carrying them back to the surface.”

“Now, the Talon has constructed three structures on the dirt floor of the cavern. Each is an eight-foot-high, ten-foot-wide, and varying length caged area whose roof is planked over to serve various purposes. Built against the north wall to the west of the bridge is a twelve-foot-long structure which houses the child
ren, and whose roof has the altar and other cult equipment on it. Also against the north wall to the east of the bridge is a thirty-foot-long structure housing half the slaves, and whose roof-platform serves as the
Fortren’s
camp, tool storage, and supply point. Against the south wall to the east of the bridge is a thirty-foot structure which houses the rest of the slaves; the roof-platform is used for storage of the loot and the Minion’s personal perch. The Direbreed sleep wherever they please, apparently, although we’ll know more about their habits in a day or two.” The Captain indicated the structures with the partisan’s point. “They didn’t have any guards in the tunnels or on the bridge while we were watching, although they do have rope ladders and winching gear on the bridge.”

“Pretty stupid to ignore the high ground like that,”
Arian commented.

“It very well may be, although the Minion may be thinking that the defense of the loot is his primary concern, or perhaps the posting of guards has gotten sloppy over the time they’ve spent here; from the looks of things they’ve been here for ten or twelve days.
Arian, give us some basic background on the Dark Star.”

The monk shifted nervously. “Well, the Dark Star is a very organized cult of the Void whose holdings in the northwest corner of Alhenland has achieved nation stat
us. They are ruled from a city called Hrothgar, and control or influence much, if not most, of the Northern Wastes. All five of the Ward Wars have pitted the Star against the Eisenalder Empire, as the cultists are extremely unhappy with the Empire’s slow but steady expansion north into what the Star considers its rightful domain. The Star also control one of only two known
anverax
, which is a site where each variety of
andern
can be drawn forth, including the most powerful variety, black
andern
. Additionally, the Star control other, lesser
veraxes
which produce poorer grades of
andern
. As you all know,
andern
is the pure stuff of Chaos, the by-product of the Void, and the basis for most of the power of the followers of the Dark One.”

“C
ults and Void-worshipping races elevate certain elite individuals to altered physical and mental states by means of
andern
-based potions or salves, these altered individuals being called Minions or Champions of the Dark One, or Scarred Ones for the cuts the
andern
-based salves are rubbed into. So far as I know only the Dark Star can elevate its Champions into Draktaurs. A Draktaur is a long-serving servitor of the Star and the Dark One who has been deliberately mutated into a deadly form, essentially a centaur combining a very large humanoid torso with the legs and body of a rhino, the whole very heavily armored. Naturally, no two Draktaurs are identical, but all are very strong, very tough, and effectively fearless, although years of
andern
use and the mutation frequently diminishes their thinking processes; while all are cunning, many become vastly overconfident or prone to irrational actions.”

“What in blazes is a ‘rhino’
?” Robin asked.

“Big creature, armor-plated, horns on its snout, lives in Sufland,” the monk shrugged. “At least, that’s what the lower, four-legged half of the Draktaur looks like to me. Imagine a torso like a bull’s covered in big sheets of horn-like plate, and legs like tree stumps.”

“Good,” Durek nodded his thanks. “Any more questions? Fine, Bridget, proceed.”

“Direbreed are the backbone of the cultists’ military machine, no matter what cult, and the truest servitors of the Void, being not of this world. Direbreed are created creatures, centered
around Breedstones. Breedstones are summoned directly from the Void by a magician-cult called the Harbingers of the Dark in a ceremony called the Seeding; each Breedstone thus summoned resembles a dark crystal arrowhead. The Harbingers then conduct the Harvest, where a Breedstone in placed into the living body of a non-sentient creature, and the combination of the ‘Stone and the enchantments of the ceremony causes a Direbreed to literally
grow
from the host creature, completely consuming the beast in the process. Naturally, both ceremonies involve the use of
andern
, prepared sites, the sacrifice of sentient beings under horrible conditions and the like.”

“The new Direbr
eed is humanoid and Human-sized and retains a few physical characteristics of the host creature, although they are purely cosmetic. The new Direbreed is vicious, fairly skilled in basic weapons use, and utterly evil; as time passes the beast gathers cunning, knowledge, and skills. Killing the Direbreed is not an end to the creature as all experience and knowledge is stored in the Breedstone, which contains the creature’s life-force, and grows as the Direbreed ages. The Breedstone can be recovered and re-Harvested, the resulting Direbreed having lost no abilities or knowledge. Likewise, all temples of the Eight have the ability to destroy captured Breedstones. Thus the age of a Direbreed is a vital consideration, the older it is making it all the more dangerous. All persons spying on the Talon should take that into consideration.”

“I hate
Direbreed, killed dozens, I have,” Kroh abruptly announced. “Old ones and young ones, too.” Having made this pronouncement he lapsed back into silence.

“Fine. Good
work, Arian, Bridget,” Durek stood. “We’ll take our rest period now and begin on the various tasks fresh and rested in the ‘morning’. Everyone needs to give the fight ahead of us special consideration in the coming hours; any idea, no matter how far-fetched or simple, must be brought forward. We need every advantage we can wring out of the hours before we attack. All persons scouting the bridge cavern will be debriefed by Bridget, who will be tasked with compiling all data about the Talon into written form so that no observation is lost. Janna, assign sentries; if there are no questions or comments, get some rest.”