Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (18 page)

The Captain reminded himself that if all went well the section by the children’s cage and the
Fortren
dozing above him would he slain or disabled in the initial rush the battle, leaving twenty-odd Direbreed caught between nine Badgers and a few armed slaves, with an archer and slinger on the bridge overhead. But for the Draktaur it would not been much of a match.

Lying on the dusty stone of the tunnel a few feet from the start of the bridge, Starr inventoried her quiver yet again for something to do. The accounts hadn’t changed: five broad heads coated with Titan venom and the heads sealed in wax paper to preserve the poison, one enchanted broad head that was supposed to split into a half-dozen when released, twenty broad head arrows whose razor edges inflicted terrible wounds, and ten bodkin-pointed shafts, the business end being a simple steel needle to give it the ability to drill through armor or heavy bone. They were all there, a fresh bowstring was on her bow, and she was as ready as she was going to be. With all her being she was grateful that she wasn’t going to have to charge onto the cavern floor, sword and buckler in hand, to engage in the bloody melee that was sure to come.

She was badly frightened and knew it; to date her experience of warfare had entailed some long-range sniping at Direthrell raiders and Titan spiders, the battle with the Undead (where she would have died but for
Kroh), the skirmish at the ‘pavilion’, and killing the spiders while rock crawling, a level of experience which hardly qualified her as a veteran warrior, especially in the realm of hand-to-hand combat. Drawing a shaky breath she focused on the realm of archery, striving to control her fear and to achieve the inner peace that Threllian accuracy was built around. The Badgers were counting on the expertise of a Lanthrell archer on the bridge to even the lopsided odds against them; she was to rain death and confusion into the ranks of the Direbreed and prevent them from organizing. It was an awful weight upon her shoulders, a terrible responsibility that threatened to crush her spirits. Not for the first time did she wish that she had not agreed to help Elonia by joining the Phantom Badgers.

Axe ready at his side, crossbow cocked and loaded, the inner fires of his fighting spirits stoked and ready, Kroh leaned against the cool stone inside the slave pens, gnawing on a chunk of cheese (while wishing it were a cigar) and idly wondering where on his hands he would place the victory rune for this battle.

Bridget lay on the cool stone at the sill of the tunnel, the thick, rough planks of the bridge just inches from her face, hugging a hooded lantern and wishing she was someplace else; a fight like this was something that came along only rarely, and often at the very end of one’s life. Sighing, she eased open the well-greased light port on the lantern and looked in; beyond a doubt, the candle had burned down to the blue line, and through it, to be precise. Time for the attack to begin. Extinguishing the tiny flame with a shaky puff, she carefully set the lantern aside where it wouldn’t be underfoot, and moved a reluctant arm in the signal for the attack to begin.

Behind her Group Two and Rolf
slowly eased back on the ropes tied to grapnels (brought along to fish for book-chests in the mud) which were hooked into the support chains of the bridge. Carefully, inch by inch they pulled the slack out of the bridge without making a noisy production of it and tied off the ropes to a pair of Robin’s javelins which had been wedged into convenient cervices. When the chain-and-plank structure was rigid from the strain, Bridget signaled again and she and Starr crept onto the planks, their progress producing no swaying or jangling chain links.

When the two were in position
Bridget waved the rest of the Badgers onto the bridge, slipping forward a plank at a time. The strain induced by the ropes had held the bridge motionless for two slender women, but the addition of five more bodies was another matter entirely. By moving three abreast across the bridge very slowly Group Two covered the necessary distance with only a modest amount of swaying; enough swaying to have been noticed by anyone on guard below who was even halfway alert, but not enough to attract the attention of the sleeping Direbreed or their dozing master.

Down in the slave pen Durek saw the bridge being cinched up tight and the motion that indicated Group Two was moving into place. He signaled Trellan to be ready, and looked over the rigging of the block and tackle one last time. The key to this would be the timing: he would have to launch the attack out of the pen at just the right moment, just as the Direbreed and their master were committing themselves, but before Group Two found itself being overrun. That was going to be tricky.

A poisoned arrow was nocked, and another was tucked behind her belt buckle for fast loading; bow at quarter draw, Starr peered over the west edge of the bridge and studied the scene below. There were eleven prone figures scattered across the dirt floor (the Direbreed), and the crude pen for the children consisting of a timber framework with iron bar stock rammed into the dirt to keep the captives within, and planks laid across the top to make a roof and walking space. A half-dead Goblin could have escaped from it in a minute flat but for the absolute lack of places to escape
to
, not counting the guards lying just outside the cage.

A plain wood alta
r had been set up at the west end; the Bloodmaster, an indistinct figure swaddled in a garishly decorated robe, was wandering between it and an open chest nearby, apparently preparing for the rite to keep the dirt dry. When the advocate touched her on the shoulder Starr did not turn to look; instead, she pulled smoothly to three-quarters draw and aimed, waiting for the right moment. There was no hurry in this shot: Group Two was in place with no alarm raised, giving her time to make this one count. No archer’s ego, Durek had warned her, ‘
put two arrows into him and both with poison on, we can’t afford to bugger this one up
’.

A true archer never takes their eyes from the target; she completed the draw, steadied, released, plucked the arrow from her lap, nocked, full draw, steadied, released, all without shifting her eyes from the man below. The instant the second shaft leapt from her bow she was slipping to the east side of the bridge, drawing another poisoned arrow from her quiver.

The first arrow caught the Bloodmaster in his midsection, knocking him back a step and driving all the air from his lungs in an agonized croak; while it is axiomatic that persons with severe intestinal or stomach wounds do make a great deal of noise while expiring, it is a fact that must be tempered by the observation that they only do so if they get their breath back before they die. The second arrow sliced through the wounded man’s upper lip, shattered three teeth and was slightly deflected by same, struck the inside right corner of the jaw with enough force to crack the shaft and fracture the bone, then slid over the bone and ripped through the muscles and flesh to emerge just below the ear, finally coming to a halt with the arrow’s fletching just inside the spellcaster’s mouth, which was filling with blood, saliva, and measurable amounts of Titan spider venom.

The impact and shock of the second arrow’s impact sent the Bloodmaster staggering b
ackward to collide with his altar, dazed and confused, his eyes instinctively locked shut against the white-hot pain in his lower face. But one does not tread the pitfall-studded path that is the Dark Arts for long without quick wits and the ability to function under pressure and adverse conditions. The cultist had seen the first arrow jutting from his stomach and understood by that observation what had struck him in the face. Gagging on the blood, he allowed himself to drop to a sitting position while he pawed at his mouth, which ached horribly and would neither open any wider nor close completely. Shoving on the notched base of the arrow, he found the protruding head under his ear (cutting his hand in the process) and pulled the shaft through, allowing him to spit out the mouthful of clotting blood and sharp fragments of tooth that had been gagging him.

When the second arrow leapt from the Lanthrell’s bow Bridget murmured a lengthy cant, tracing symbols in the air with a finger which left behind a trail of sparks that continued to glow after the digit moved on. As the wounded Bloodmaster below managed to pull the arrow from his face a puff of smoke leapt from the edge of the bridge and darted down to the lip of the plank roof covering the children’s pen, leaving a slender arch of pale gray stone. Janna immediately leapt the bridge’s low chain ‘railing’ and raced down this ramp, followed closely by Nuilia, Arian, and Robin. No battle cry was uttered; the only sound was the wounded spellcaster’s frantic gasping and the scuff of feet on the pale stone of the arch.

A couple Direbreed were sitting up and looking about, alerted more by the smell of blood or by the sixth sense of a veteran than by any concrete alarm when
Janna leapt off the stone and landed amongst them, the blade of her partisan ripping the open the nearest beast-man’s throat. Booting the dying creature onto its back and out of the fight, she impaled a second as Rolf dropped another with Arian’s crossbow.

Howls and screams erupted all around her as the Direbreed swarmed to their feet, seizing their weapons and raising the alarm, which drew a chorus of screams and wails from the children in the pen. The Silver Eagle heard
Arian land behind her and engage a Direbreed as she caught a sword blade on her shield and riposted, cutting a deep wound into her foe’s calf.

The enchanted great sword
Moonblade’s blade was a bar of silver in front of him as Robin raced down the ramp and leapt onto the warped wooden planks of the platform, Nuilia close behind. The Company had acquired the enchanted blade less than a year after it was founded, and he had been awarded it after dicing for it with Janna, the other claimant to the weapon; winning it had spawned bad blood between himself and the ex-Silver Eagle, a dislike which had never faded. It seemed like he had spent his whole life chasing this blade into one action or another, a thought which had occurred to him in every fight he had been in for the past five years.

The Bloodmaster was on his knees and one hand, frothing blood from his torn mouth as he gurgled an incantation while drawing the arrow out of his belly with hi
s free hand. ‘
It takes more than a couple poisoned arrows to drop a wizard
,’ Robin observed to himself as he swung his long blade; the lanky Badger leapt off the platform and joined the fray below even as the spellcaster’s head rolled off the boards and onto the dirt. Bridget’s stone span had dissolved into mist already, but no one was in a position to notice or care as the cavern rebounded with shouts of alarm, howls of battle-lust, and screams of pain.

Dropping the first of his own pair of crossbows, Rolf snatched up the second, admonishing himself to be more careful: the quarrel had caught the Direbreed in the shoulder, wounding but not slaying. It was essential that the section to the west of the bridge be eliminated before the main body could respond. Steadying himself, he sighted carefully and released, dropping the Direbreed cleanly. Stepping into the iron stirrup at the head of the bow, he
slipped the bowstring into the iron hook riveted to his belt and straightened his leg, cocking the bow. Slapping a quarrel in the slot, he shouldered the weapon and sought another target.

Janna
hooked the Direbreed’s spear in the curved side-blades of her partisan and jerked the weapon to the side, throwing the goat-headed creature off-balance; stepping in, she slammed the iron rim of her shield between the thing’s slanted amber eyes with enough force to send it to its knees, stunned. A shake to rid the partisan of the spear, followed by a short thrust and another positive adjustment was made to the odds they faced. Carefully breathing through her mouth to ensure that she got as much air as possible, keeping her eyes moving and her feet squarely planted, the sweat pouring beneath her breast-and-back plates, muscles yelling at the demands being placed upon them, Janna was feeling extremely alive and was very nearly enjoying herself.

The silver bar was scarlet now, a transformation that was a staple in every fight. Wielding a great sword meant two hands on the hilt and no shield; it was a very difficult weapon to master, not so much the blade as the fear accompanying fighting without a shield to hide behind, but master it Robin had. The key to it, as he was often given
to pontificating about when he had had a drink or three, was timing and momentum, facets he now demonstrated as he neatly sidestepped a mace’s swing and disemboweled its wielder before the creature could recover, letting the force of the blow jerk him off balance, a shift he turned into a staggering charge of four steps which ended with a Direbreed impaled upon the five-foot, richly engraved (under the clotting blood) blade. Behind him Nuilia made sure that those Direbreed who were on the ground did not get back up again.

It never failed to amaze
Arian how much of a difference having a plan and a bit of organization made in a fight like this. Four landing amongst eleven with the odd crossbow quarrel from above should have been very long odds, but the Direbreed were stumbling about tripping over each other while the Badgers operated in two neat killing machines, Janna and Robin going into them like a pair of water-driven mill saws while he and Nuilia saw to it that no one came at them from behind. He had split one Direbreed’s skull as he came off the stone arch at the onset of the festivities and mauled another which had staggered off in the confusion; after that he had just followed behind Janna and given those she had knocked down the obligatory chop to the neck or a quick thrust to the chest to make sure that they were good Direbreed: i.e., dead. Then it was over, Janna and Robin suddenly spinning around like a pair of homicidal tops, looking for more prey while Arian gave a gagging Direbreed who was staggering away from the Silver Eagle with its bowels in its hands a full-armed swing that half decapitated it.