Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (35 page)

Wrapping a turn of the cord around his left hand to keep it from being jerked tight again, Kroh ‘tossed’ his axe back onto his right shoulder, slipping his hand down to the balance point for one-handed swings; his opponent was desperately jerking on the cord, unaware that all his efforts accomplished was to bind Kroh’s fingers ever more tightly. Stepping in, the Waybrother brought his axe forward with a single
mighty swing, the enchanted steel catching the Human squarely in the forehead, splitting his skull with no more resistance than a log-section being reduced to kindling.

Ripping a dirk free with his left hand, Rolf cut the cord on the catch-pole and dove into his attacker, driving the holder into the ground. His foe, a trapper from the stench that clung to his clothes and hair, was no novice to a brawl, kicking and clawing with everything he had, but the Badger already had a weapon in hand; before the cultist could break free or draw a blade of his own, he was stabbed twice, once in the side, and again in the neck, neither fatal wounds, but the effect of both instilled wit-destroying panic when coolness was the thing most needed. As the cultist’s efforts became more frantic and less effective, Rolf gained control and finished the struggle with a sure thrust to the heart, angling in under the breastbone.

The
komad’s
roar, the sounds of struggle on the porch, and Kroh’s explosive charge through the closed door brought Starr from a heavy doze with a start that sent the remains of her bun arcing into the fire. Sitting forward in her chair, she stared in bewilderment at the confused melee at the doorway, fumbling behind her on the chair. Before she fully grasped what was happening a man dressed in a hide tunic and leather trousers burst into the room, a wavy-bladed dagger in his hand and blood streaming from a badly torn nose and cheek.

“Please don’t hurt me!” the little Threll squealed, curling up on the chair. “
Please
.”

“Town Militia,” the man gasped, moving forward, the dagger hand dropping back behind his leg. “Now, don’t be afraid.”

“I didn’t eat all the cookies, I left some,” Starr sobbed in
Comala
, crouching on her chair.

“It’s all right, little thing,” the cultist reached out and gently placed his left hand on the back of the cowering maiden’s neck. “This’ll just take a ...
yeggh!
” The man had brought his dagger forward as he spoke, planning to drive its point into the Threll’s throat preparatory to opening her windpipe and major blood vessels. As he struck, however, Starr, leaning back on a too-large chair, kicked him in the groin hard enough to throw off his balance while sweeping a double-fold of blanket up to foul and divert the dagger’s blade. Cursing, the cultist jerked his entangled blade free as Starr gathered her feet under her and sprang upward, driving the top of her head into her attacker’s jaw with all the strength of her tautly-muscled legs.

The two crashed to the floor, the cultist spitting and gagging on a blood-filled mouth after nearly biting his tongue in half; sitting up, he looked down and saw (with a growing, mind-numbing horror) that the icy burning in his midsection was caused by a long rent in his abdomen from which a fatty coil of intestines was spilling. Looking wildly about, he saw the sword belt hanging on the back of the chair where Starr and her blanket had hidden it from view, and the empty, slightly curved dagger scabbard it bore.

Having rolled to her feet and scampered behind the cultist while he goggled at his wound, Starr grabbed his chin from behind with her right hand and stabbed him in the base of the skull, driving the point into his brain through the gap in the bone called the ‘wind gate’, and rocking the blade for good measure, jumping back as involuntary convulsions racked the already-dead man.

Shifting the dagger to her right hand, the little Badger drew Snow Leopard and darted out onto the porch, unable to repress a girlish shriek as a gust of cold winter air whipped up under the tails of her night-shirt. The fight outside was pretty much over: Rolf was getting Iron Tusk off a cultist she had apparently been dancing on, another, his head cloven into two pieces, lay near the door, and a third lay just off the porch, steam rising from stab wounds in his chest.

“Where’s Kroh?” Starr asked, thankful she had soft ankle-high house shoes on.

“He’s trying to catch one who ran. Did you get the one Eek bit? Then it looks like we got four out of the five, unless Kroh gets lucky.”

“G-g-good. Are you hurt? F-f-fine, I’m not either.” The shivering Threll surveyed the surrounding area: luckily the fight had lasted only a handful of seconds, and the cottage was isolated from the rest of the town by a couple warehouses and several grain silos. “T-t-take them inside; I’m going to put some clothes on.”

“I’m going to give Iron Tusk a bucket of ale,” Rolf scratched the beast behind her battered ears “She took ‘em from
ambush, didn’t you, baby girl? You’re Daddy’s little piggy, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Good
girl
!”

Kroh came trudging up as Rolf was sluicing the blood and brains off the porch with a bucket of warm water preparatory to mopping it. “Starr said to get the bodies inside and hide the signs of a fight until we know what’s going on. Any luck?”

“Nope, never got
close to the long-legged bastard. It’s early, plenty of people still up and about, so once I lost sight of him one time there was no telling who he was since I never really got a look at him.” The Dwarf took the mop and cleaned the porch with sweeping strokes. “Not a bad fight-I can see how Emil went so easy: those damned choke-poles are an effective ambush weapon.”

“Good thing they weren’t familiar with what a
komad
can do.”

“Yep. Plus, we knew to expect catch-poles; they lose a lot of their effectiveness when you know what you’re facing. Your rat all right?”

“Yes, he’s inside eating bacon, and I gave Iron Tusk a whole bucket of ale.”

“Good; speaking of ale, I wouldn’t mind a tankard or two myself.”

Starr, now fully dressed, had mopped up the kitchen floor, searched the bodies, and was arranging their possessions in neat groups on the floor. “Each of you take a look at the dead men, see if you recognize them, and check their bodies for tattoos; I saw inking on the one I killed.”

Kroh lit a cigar and poured mugs of ale for himself and Rolf while the half-Orc checked the bodies. “They’ve all got at least four tattoos,” the tall Badger announced, finishing cutting away clothing so the skin-art was exposed. “Most have the same ones, and they’re all ugly. From their clothes and hands, I’d say we killed two trappers and two farmers.”

“Cultists,” Kroh grunted. “I wonder if these are the ones that killed Emil, or the Langs.”

“Either or both are possible,” Starr shrugged. “Anyway, they were carrying daggers, choking-cords, and some little tins of paste that I think are poison, although all the weapons are clean. They had three catch poles and a couple crossbows as well, plus whatever the one who ran off had.”

“Their plan was to kill Rolf outside, then stroll in and finish us off, probably open with a volley with the crossbows and then rush in with poisoned blades,” Kroh observed. “Might have worked. We must really be making them nervous.”

“Well, they’re making
me
nervous,” Starr scowled. “There’s more than five members in a cult, so we had best move fast if we’re going to avoid a blade in the back.” She sighed and stared at the array of belongings laid out on the floor, wishing someone with more experience was in charge. “We need help. We’ll bring people we trust in one at a time, and explain things to them. We’ll start with Halabarian.”

“Him?” Kroh sneered.

“Yes, him. He wasn’t here when Emil was killed, and if he was aligned with the cultists in any way he could have killed me in the forest last night after we found Trella. For all that, if he was a cultist they would have had Trella long ago.” Starr gestured to the bodies. “Plus, being widely traveled he might know something about cults.”

“We figured Claus Becker and the Doctor weren’t cultists ‘cause they helped us when Kroh started looking for the murderer,” Rolf offered.

“Good, we’ll follow up with them. Rolf, go fetch Halabarian; take Eek and all your weapons. Kroh, we need to plan.”

Halabarian studied the tattoos on the corpses as Starr explained the evening’s actions. When she finished the minstrel smiled tiredly. “I had my suspicions, but this confirms it. In the course of my wanderings, and through the studies which are essential for understanding much of the old epic poetry and ballads, I’ve come across a great deal of information on the dark cults that operate within Human lands. These four are members of a cult known as the Scarlet Web of the Dark One, or very similar titles; each
individual cult-group calls itself an Assembly, led by a Master Guide and various other officers. Tattoos in areas normally covered by clothing are used to show membership, rank, honors, and the like. I’ve no real knowledge of the individual tattoos themselves, but I would guess that these four were veteran Knotsmen, the basic rank in an Assembly, foot soldiers drawn from those who live outside Hohenfels. The Scarlet Web are a murder-cult who honor the Dark One by covert murder, sudden, unexpected slayings, any death from surprise or facilitated by a breach of trust. You can see the motif of skulls, daggers, webs, and blood common to all the tattoos.”

“Then all we have to do to test a person’s loyalty is to check ‘em for tattoos, cult ones, that is,” Rolf nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes, basically, the first ink is applied upon initiation.”

“Good enough,” Kroh grinned, causally inspecting his axe-blade. “Just to keep things neat, why don’t you step out of your clothes for a moment, flute-player?”

“I’m hardly a cultist,” Halabarian cocked an eyebrow at Starr, who had flushed beet-red.

“No, Kroh’s right, for security we’ll,
he’ll
need to see. I’ll go into my room, call when you’re done.” Her exit was not much short of a run.

The minstrel looked at the two Badgers before him, and considered the options: lose his dignity, or get pounded into the cracks between the planks in the floor. Moving as quickly as he could, he stepped out of his clothes, turned around once, and got dressed. “Now what shall we do for entertainment?” he inquired.

“Start bringing in those we trust,” Kroh shrugged. “Before this is over the whole town will have to get naked in front of us.”

“It was a disaster, Master Guide,” The Bondsmaster finished his description of the attack. “Only I survived.”

“Were any Badgers slain
?”

“I doubt it, Master Guide, but I cannot be certain given the press of battle and the poor light.”

“This...pig, it actually routed the entire attack?”

“It was a really
huge
animal, sir, you would have had to see it... anyway, the Badgers seemed to be expecting our attack.”

“I shouldn’t wonder: they are professionals, after all, a quality that seems to be rare in our own ranks these days. Enough,” the Master Guide waved away another explanation from the Bondsmaster. “Everything has changed: now we must set aside our plan and fight for the survival of the Assembly itself. At least you employed Knotsmen who cannot be quickly traced back t
o the main body of the Assembly, so with care and caution we can weather this storm and wreak havoc upon our foes in our own good time. Contact our friends and tell them that we have learned that five cohorts of Imperial troops are on their way to Hohenfels to mount a campaign against the Purple Spider; tell them that if they attack within two days we will be able to open the gates and aid them from within, thus depriving the Imperial forces of a supply base from which to mount their attacks.”

“Yes, Master Guide.”

“I shall alert the outer Assembly before going to relocate our supplies at the primary site. We can wait with alerting the Inner Assembly until tomorrow as I doubt the mercenaries will act effectively before then, there is a vast gulf between
knowing
that you face an Assembly and knowing
whom
makes up the Assembly. The plan can be implemented elsewhere in the future, once things have calmed down.”

“What shall we do
about the Badgers, Master Guide?”

“Once we have returned from our tasks and carefully alerted the Inner Assembly we shall mount another assault upon them and anyone they have rallied to their cause. You shall lead this cleansing and succeed in each particular, or die in the attempt.”

“By your command,” the pale-faced Bondsmaster bowed.

Rudolf Sleiger stared at the line of bodies while Doctor Drewes got dressed. It was all like a bad dream: the sudden, secretive summons in the night, the four corpses of locals known to him to some degree, the tattoos of obviously evil design, the deadly serious nature of the mercenaries. He had seen dead men with the wounds of battle upon them before, of course; during his stint as an Imperial Marine he had killed a few himself, but that was when he had been young and stupid, far from home and searching for adventure. He had hoped to have left all that behind him when his enlistment ran out and he returned to Hohenfels.

Rolf thumped on the door and a red-faced Starr entered the room, avoiding the unconcerned Doctor’s eyes. “These four live outside town: two trappers I know only by sight, Theodore Weissenberger who is a hired hand of the Ehrler’s, and another hired hand I can’t place, probably because his face is split in two,” the Mayor observed, tearing his gaze from the dead. “Now we know that we have a cult in Hohenfels, one which has ties to the Goblins and who is responsible for at least six deaths locally, no, seven counting Trella. Rooting them out would seem to be in order.” He scowled at the bodies again. “I’m wondering how many killings and disappearances up and down the river which we put down to the Purple Spider were actually these buggers’ work.”

“Quite a few, I would imagine.” Halabarian shrugged. “What surprises me is that they attacked the Badgers, thus tipping their hand.”

“It’s because we found Trella, and the location of the ‘Bad Place’,” Starr offered. “I’ll bet the ‘Bad Place’ is a ritual center for the cult, where their presence can be proven.”

“Actually, no, that wouldn’t be likely,” Drewes demurred. “The Scarlet Web have no ritual sites, only meeting grounds which have no special significance to them. It is the site of a murder, preferably one that includes the betrayal of trust and slow, painful death that is important to them.”

“An arms storage point? They were trading weapons to the Goblins,” Kroh puffed a smoke ring.

“As a point of fact, I have developed my own theory, which I believe might have some bearing upon the matter,” Drewes took a sheaf of notes from his battered backpack. “I examined those shards you gave me, and in truth spent a considerable amount of time with them as they were nothing known to me. It wasn’t until I rethought the site at which they were found and applied that to my testing was I able to uncover their nature. There is a plant called Meson’s vine, a creeper whose berries are very toxic if ingested in quantity. The plants are fairly rare, and in any case are seldom used as poisons because the berries are very small and extremely sour; before anyone consumed enough poison to harm themselves the taste would have long since driven them away. Now, a semi-dried berry from this vine is pale yellow, almost white, and has the consistency of firm cooked potatoes outside their skin, but the sourness and an acidic smell are very noticeable in this state, which is also the most toxic.”

“But we gave you
flakes
of stuff, not any berries, and they didn’t smell,” Kroh interrupted.

“Yes, which was why I was confused, until I tested...to cut to the meat of the matter, the berries had been influenced by enchantment of a dark variety, removing both the taste and smell, and cementing them together into blocks or similar masses which could be cut or formed similar to the inner portion of a raw potato.”

“The Langs: their killing was ritualized,” Starr exclaimed. “You mean they used the ritual to make magic which changed the berries? But why?”

“Firstly, not magic precisely...” Drewes began and then shrugged. “Anyway, because the finished product could be cooked in any dish calling for potatoes, and the end result would be a terribly poisonous concoction, all the more so as the toxins involved are slow-acting, relatively-speaking.”

“By the Eight, the puddings,” Sleiger breathed, eyes wide. “Forst is giving a holiday pudding to every household in this area; they’re the lesser sort (because of the cost and number), containing minced beef and potatoes, amongst other things. They’ll all be eaten at about the same time, so there probably won’t be one person in fifteen that won’t have at least one portion.”

“Except the cultists,” Kroh scowled.

“If cooked in a pudding, I would suppose the result would not likely be fatal except to the weak, the very young, and the very old,” Drewes thumbed thoughtfully through his notes. “But anyone who ate even an average portion of a pudding would be incapacitated by severe stomach distress, headaches, and extreme cramping of the primary muscle groups, the effects lasting for several hours at the very least.”

“Leaving the entire town helpless,” Halabarian stroked the frame of his harp. “The cultists could do whatever rituals and acts they desired on a grand scale, steal what they want, and then let the Goblins into town to loot and burn. Hohenfels is largely destroyed, and the Purple Spider takes the blame. The ‘survivors’, cultists all and now secretly wealthy, re-establish the town, and...Forest protect us, they would have the whole area under their thumb.”

“You said these berries are rare, but it would take pounds to make all those puddings,” Kroh argued. “So where do they get them from?”

“The Goblins,
as the vine thrives near sulfur springs, several of which exist in the foothills under the Purple Spider’s direct control. I imagine the cultists paid the Goblins with arms to sow and cultivate the plants, then bought the harvest of berries with more weapons.” Drewes shrugged. “They’ve probably been working at this for years.”

“Well, it’s going to come to a damned screeching halt, by the Eight,” Sleiger stood up angrily. “I’ll see every last tattooed bastard dancing at the end of a rope before sunset tomorrow.”

“That’s the idea,” Kroh thumped a fist on the table. “We’ll show them how to play about with strangling ropes!”

“But we need to move carefully,” Starr interjected. “Otherwise the cultists could kill those of us who know about the situation; after all, th
ere are only six of us who know and whom we can surely trust.”

“True in part, but in an hour there’ll be more in town who know and whom we can trust,” Sleiger
countered. “I know my wife’s no cultist, and with the doctor to come along and ‘check’ for some sort of disease that affects the skin, we can sort out a goodly number of the town before the cat’s out of the bag. We’ll move slowly at first until we’re sure of enough of the Militia to be able to act overtly.”

“Then we’ll split into two forces,” Starr offered. “We three Badgers will go and investigate the place Trella described while you and the Doctor begin to sort out the Militia, wi
th Halabarian along for support, as an expert archer he would be of great help should things go wrong.”

“True enough, but shouldn’t you take more than your companions?”

“Hergar the smith seems competent,” Kroh observed. “He and his big journeyman should round us out.”

“Fine. Now, when should we act, and in which direction?” the Mayor unfolded the map of the town he had given the Badgers.

“Forst would seem to be a cultist,” Halabarian pointed out. “Firstly, because of the puddings, and secondly because of his behavior when we questioned his daughter.” The minstrel described the interview.

“What about Captain Meyer?” Kroh rumbled. “That bastard strikes me as a sneak-killer.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take that seriously,” Sleiger nodded. “When we decided to hire an outside professional for the post of Watch and Militia commander, it was Forst who was in charge of seeking out a suitable candidate; as I recall now, the three final applicants were all known to Forst in some manner or another. If Forst is a cultist, then it would make sense for him to see to it that a member of a similar cult took the position of Watch and Militia commander. Best to start there, then. If your people will go and recruit the smith, I’ll take the Doctor and Halabarian and verify the loyalty of several good men I’ve known for years. Once they’ve been checked and armed, we’ll move against Meyer and the three Watch men, each of whom is a Serjeant in the Militia as well. We’ll take control of the Watch House and Militia armory, and fan out from there. By the time you return we should have things well in hand.”

“Good enough,” Starr nodded, standing. “To work, then.”

“Bloody work,” the Mayor sighed deeply. “Hohenfels will never be the same after this.”

“Neither will the Assembly,” Kroh
snarled.

The starlight was ample for Starr’s Threll-keen eyes as she crept towards Trella’s ‘Bad Place’, which was a ruined farmstead on the edge of the settled lands surrounding Hohenfels; interestingly, it was not far from the farm where Theodore Weissenberger had worked, a holding owned by the four Ehrler brothers, men described by the Mayor as a surly and untrustworthy lot.

The ruined farm house was guarded: a Human male sat in a tree-stand, a cocked and loaded crossbow in his lap, the vapor of his breath giving his position away. Moving with excruciating care, Starr drew a
n ornately carved arrow from a side-pocket of her quiver and breathed words as she stroked the shaft, words muffled by the kerchief that covered her mouth and nose. Drawing and aiming carefully, she released, the shaft leaping across the distance to strike the sentry in the chest and rattle off into the undergrowth. The Human slumped back against the tree trunk, and seconds later a snore could be clearly heard on the still winter’s night air. The arrow she had fired was enchanted to send the victim into a deep, natural sleep; grinning, Starr slipped back to where the others waited and sent Rolf forward.