Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (10 page)

“Yes, if you can spare one. As a matter of fact, my nose has been stuffed up since we entered this place, although that happens to me all the time.”

“You won’t want to try one of my cigars, they’re a bit strong, but I have something new that I picked up and didn’t care for, too mild. They’re called cheroots, kind of light cigars, ought to be right for you.”

Arian
watched with interest as Kroh opened the case, a finely worked wooden box covered in tooled leather which showed the wear of many years. The case had a strong latch, and when opened he saw two small ivory boxes set into the inner side of the lid, the ivory elaborately carved and pierced until they were simply a framework. The lower portion of the case was filled with fat cigars, some green and nearly eight inches long, others a rich brown and shorter. Kroh lifted out the bottom of the case, which turned out to be a cunningly fitted tray, revealing more cigars and a bundle of twisted black sticks. The Dwarf handed one of the sticks to the monk, who saw that it wasn’t a stick at all, but a thin, long cigar with one open end, bent and warped not only from being stored in a bundle, but also from its making.

The cheroot was firm and flexible, not brittle as he had expected. He commented on this to
Kroh, who indicated the ivory boxes inside the case’s lid. “These hold sponges; I put a little water on them every day, it keeps the tabba from drying out and flaking. A pipe smoker puts a few drops into his pouch for the same reason, although the problem is not so critical for them. The cheroot’s already cut; you just bite a little piece off the sealed end to draw through and light it.”

The cheroot was cool and dry
and tasted odd as he bit off the end. Running his tongue over his teeth, the monk frowned. “Tastes a bit like licorice.”

The Dwarf nodded, puffing out a perfect smoke ring. “The plants are related, I’m told. Don’t suck the smoke into your lungs, it’ll just make you cough. The Healers say you get the benefit from
the smoke mixing with your spit, so just pull it into your mouth and breathe it out.”

Puffing the cheroot to life from the candle,
Arian discovered that the smoke was cool and aromatic, making his tongue tingle in a fashion he had experienced before. “It feels like those powders you take for snake venom, I don’t recall the specific name. They’re also absorbed through the saliva wells; this is very interesting.”

It took him a bit to work out how to position the cheroot so that the smoke did not get into his eyes, and how to hold it between his teeth without chewing up the wrapping, but it was no difficult task. He smoked the cheroot until it was a short stub; as
Kroh had told him, there was no real effect other than the sensation in his mouth and the taste, which he found to be rather pleasant in an odd sort of way. Nearly to the end of the cheroot, however, he noticed that he was breathing through his nose clearly. “By the Eight, it really seems to work,” he marveled. “How long will it last?”

Kroh
shrugged. “Depends on the person and the tabba. Me, a cigar will hold it off for a day under the worst conditions, but those cheroots are weaker than my stogies.”

“Stogies
?”

“Cigars that are long and fat.”

“I see.” Arian regarded the unraveling butt of the cheroot. “Amazing the things you can learn if you ask questions.”

Durek tamped his pipe to keep the ember drawing properly and shifted his axe more comfortably across his knees. He was sitting in the main dining hall so that the clouds of smoke belching from his pipe would not offend his comrades, and for a little privacy and peace. While a commander should never lift himself above his men, he should likewise never lose sight of the fact that as commander he had special needs in order to perform his duties; for instance Durek was the only non-spell-caster who did not stand night watch. A full night’s sleep meant a quicker mind and clearer decisions, conditions which could be vital to the unit’s survival.

The day had gone passably well: Starr and the other newcomers were
beginning to cope with the experience of being deep underground, and the veterans were shaking back into the habits of operating here. The oppressive nature of the lost city and the constant dangers would begin to erode everyone’s fighting spirits in a few days, but by then he hoped to be on his way out with the books and tiles in their possession.

Drawing his pipe from his mouth, he puffed a series of smoke rings and
thoughtfully tapped the amber mouthpiece against his teeth. The pipe had been a gift from his father when Durek had left his home to take his first steps on the lonely path of the
Umherr
, the stem a foot-long section of lightly-curved wild sheep’s horn, the bowl a four-inch-high rendition of a volcano done in meerschaum long since gone blood-red from tabba residues.

The fight with the Felher had been unnecessary, but harmless; after all, killing rat-men was a service to the world. It was interesting that they had encountered a
ree
busy scouting the
cidhe
rather than just looting, and he wondered if that could that mean a larger force was nearby. Durek had a Dwarf’s contempt for the poorly armed, largely unarmored Felher whose only strengths were ruthless courage and sheer weight of numbers, but he knew better than to discount them as a real danger, especially underground. Of course, the Felher would have their own problems down here: the Goblins of the Bronze Hydra wouldn’t care for them any more than they would welcome the Badgers, nor would any of the other permanent or semi-permanent dwellers in these abandoned halls.

Tomorrow they would go into the fourth
cidhe
, locate the tiles they needed, check on a cache of goods they had stashed on a previous foray, and move into the last
cidhe
. The ‘day’ after that, they would leave
Gradrek Heleth
proper and enter the
raith,
scout the mud pit, make their plans.

Puffing the ember into a ruby glow, the Captain
stroked the haft of his axe
Aran Kir Rauko
, a potently enchanted Dwarven heirloom they had recovered from these halls some years before in a daring raid on the Bronze Hydra’s main lair in the first
cidhe
, one he had feared would cost them all their lives, although no Badger had perished that day. Not that
Gradrek Heleth
had ever been easy for them: Janna had gotten her terrible wound in here five years ago, and one of the six Founders of the Badgers had perished in the same fight. These halls had not seen peace since the first Dark Threll-Felher assault upon the Dwarves who had made this place their home, and the very stones of the mountain spoke of the blood spilled, the lives lost, the dark ambitions advanced or destroyed in the centuries that had passed since the first battles. In one sense
Gradrek Heleth
had never fallen, but rather had turned into a creature of blood, a spider in a stone web that drew warriors and dreamers from across the world, a well-travelled tomb.

If planning and worry could save his Badgers, then the trip would be a painless one, for
Durek doted on his Company as if they were his own family, but he had no illusions: the killing today was likely only the first blood they would shed down here, and with luck, the shed blood would continue to belong to others. Or at least it would if he had any control over it.

Janna
Maidenwalk scowled down the long hallway from her kneeling position behind a wall-buttress, her chin resting on the cool iron rim of her shield, her finely crafted partisan balanced on one bent knee, the wicked polearm itself loot from a raid into
Gradrek Heleth
, a Dwarven crafted weapon they had recovered from a hidden stock. This polearm was a wide eighteen-inch long double-edged blade flanked by shorter, upward curved blades, the whole mounted on a seven-foot ash pole.

The scarred
former Silver Eagle was unhappy: for the last two hours they had been crossing the fourth
cidhe
en route to a metal-working complex where Durek believed they would find the tiles they needed; Janna and Trellan had made up the rear guard throughout this time, and for the last hour the red-haired warrior-woman had been plagued by the notion that they were being trailed. There was nothing specific, just a veteran’s sixth sense which no veteran ignored. Still, she could not believe that any Goblin or Felher could stay close to the raiders for so long without her spotting some concrete sign of their presence. She had warned Trellan of her forebodings, but the Human was new to
Gradrek Heleth
and thus not much use in detecting their follower or followers, if there were any. At the last break she had passed word of her suspicions forward, hoping they would send Kroh back to replace Trellan as a Dwarf would spot any spy in minutes down here.

The illogic of someone trailing their force was not something
Durek was too concerned about at the moment, however, and Kroh stayed near the front where he could spot an ambush that the advance scouts might have missed. Janna was left to watch and worry, a situation she accepted with patience. If there was someone trailing them, sooner or later she would spot them.

Lately she had decided that t
here had to be only one, if there was anyone at all: more would have given themselves away when she had dropped behind, carefully hidden; specifically one who was very familiar with the
cidhe’s
layout and the Dwarven defense works, for ordinary scouting techniques would have failed them long before now. But why would a single person be in
Gradrek Heleth
, a place where entire companies perished? She had no answer.

So she crouched and waited, Trellan hidden nearby in a handy alcove where his lesser skills would not betray him, watching for some sign of who was back there while the main body moved on, leaving chalk symbols to guide the rearguard.

She had known much patient and impatient waiting in the thirty-five years since she had been born in the eastern reaches of the Empire, bastard child of a serving woman and rich landowner. In her early teens she had been graced with shoulders a boy would have been proud of and an exuberant nature that filled her with the buzzing of bees; assigned as a messenger within the manor house, she was often reprimanded to walk like a maiden on the floors, not to pound along like a bull in rut. Unable to contain her energy, she had been banished to the position of a water-tender in the fields, and not long after a game-keeper took the scarlet-haired girl under his wing and taught her the secrets of scouting and hunting, and the ways of spear, small axe, and bow. Shortly before her fifteenth birthday he taught her the ways of love, as well. He had gone north with his militia unit late in the Fifth Ward War and never returned, although whether it was death or wanderlust that claimed him she never knew. Broken-hearted as only a teenager could be, she had fled her home and ended up in the service of the Temple of Beythar, first as a servant, then a temple guard in the ranks of the Silver Wardens, and finally as a Silver Eagle.

She ha
d left the Eagles when they had started insisting that it was time to take a position as an instructor or captain of a Warden troop rather than continue in field service. The Temple liked to keep its veterans alive and in garrison against future need, but Janna had no interest in spending her days in polished armor checking guard posts and escorting Temple elders. Ten years as an Eagle had not dulled her taste for action and neither had six years with the Phantom Badgers.

Minutes dragged by, and no indication of the trailer appeared; sighing,
Janna signaled Trellan to join her and rose to her feet, flexing her knees and shoulders-they could not afford to let the main body get more than a couple hundred yards ahead of them. When the ex-sailor did not immediately leave his alcove, the Silver Eagle repeated the hand gesture, irritated, then froze: Trellan did not appear.

Moving with care, all senses straining, she silently laid her polearm down and drew a throwing axe from her belt, her long bow and quiver having stayed on the surface as too cumbersome for
underground work. Checking to ensure that her broadsword was loose in its scabbard she eased towards the alcove’s opening, the axe balanced easily in one callused palm. Slipping across the passage, she crept along the wall, pausing short of the alcove to drop to her knees, leaning forward to dart a glance in with her head only inches of the floor.

Stifling a curse, she sprang to her feet, recovered her partisan, and set off to catch up with the main body.

“Write him off and go on,”
Kroh suggested, having never cared for Trellan. “He was a pain in the butt.”

When
Janna had brought word of what had transpired Durek had moved the Badgers into a defensive position and gone back to examine the scene for himself. What had happened was clear: here was where Trellan had sat down and removed his iron cap, which still lay where he had set it, and there was his crossbow, still leaning against the wall. The attacker had soundlessly opened a murder hole in the wall above him, knocked the Badger over the head, then opened a larger, hidden hatch nearby and dragged the body through. There was no blood, so it could be assumed that the ex-sailor was still alive when dragged through the hatch.

“
Janna was right: someone was tailing us using the defensive works to remain out of sight; obviously, they are highly familiar with the hidden ways of this area,” Durek shook his head. “Going into the defensive works after this stalker would not be wise: he, she, or it knows them far too well.”

“He’s dead, let’s move on,”
Kroh suggested, only to be thumped on the back of the head by Gabriella.

“If
it were Starr who was taken you would be more interested in looking,” the knife fighter snapped. “I didn’t care for Trellan either, but we don’t abandon our own.”

Starr clamped both hands on the Dwarf’s shoulders
and leaned back, digging in her heels to hold him from the dark woman until he calmed down. “Perhaps Kroh is right and he
is
dead,” she suggested.

“I don’t think so,”
Arian ventured before Durek could speak. “I think he may have been taken for a specific reason: to make contact with us.”

“W
hat do you base that upon?” Durek asked while Starr pried a rock from Kroh’s hand that the Waybrother had planned to hurl at Gabriella.

“First, t
he stalker took him alive, rather than just kill him silently, whereas the stalker could have stripped the dead body with less risk than dragging him off. Secondly the alcove gave a good view of Janna so the stalker could have taken a shot at her, using Trellan’s crossbow if nothing else was to hand. I think the person following us wants to make contact, but was worried about getting cut down before they could talk. With a hostage, they can be sure of surviving the initial encounter.”

The raiders considered that for a moment. “Which brings us back to a big question: if
Arian’s right, why would someone down here want to talk to us?” Bridget asked.

“What is someone doing down here by them
selves, assuming that there
is
just one?” Robin observed.

“
Janna thinks it was just one, so we’ll operate off that premise for now,” Durek decided. “But Robin has a very good point: who travels alone in
Gradrek Heleth
?”

Nuilia came trotting up from where she had been posted as a sentry. “A rat ran to within three feet of me, dropped this, and ran off.” She handed a two-inch length of arrow shaft to
Durek and headed back to her post.

“Robin, go with her,” the Captain ordered as he unwound a strip of parchment from the stick. “It’s a map, shows an intersection not far from here.”

“Felher,” Kroh announced with enthusiasm. “Felher use rats for things!”

“What things
?” Gabriella objected. “The only thing they use rats for is food.”

“Ambush
?” Bridget wondered.

“Awfully complex plan for an ambush,”
Durek shook his head. “Far too complex for Felher or Goblins. Felher or Goblins would jump us if the opportunity presented itself, but a heavily armed group such as ours would hardly be a prime target under any circumstances.” The Captain frowned into the middle distance. “No, this is something out of the ordinary. We’ll make contact and see what’s what. Myself, Arian, Kroh, Starr; the rest of you wait here.”

“Isn’
t it risky to take both Dwarves?” Arian asked.

“No, we’ll be a lot tougher to ambush, and in any case
Bridget can find her way back out from experience and the maps. I hate to jeopardize the entire mission over this, but I won’t abandon any Badger.”

The four slipped down a side corridor and paused just short of an elaborately carved archway whose bas-relief decorations depicted a battle between Dwarves and Goblin wolf-riders. “The intersection shown on this strip-map is easily accessible only from this direction, at least when you take the main body’s current position as a starting point.” Durek unrolled a map and indicated the meeting point.

“Smart Felher,”
Kroh observed.

“Perhaps.
Arian and I are going to circle around and come in from this corridor,” Durek produced a time candle and lit it with flint and steel. “Give us fifteen minutes, then move forward. Starr, you take up a position where you can cover the intersection with your bow while Kroh, you watch over her, make sure nobody takes her by surprise.” The Captain wasn’t too happy with leaving this pair alone because Kroh was in one of his more childish moods, but they had to have a Dwarf with each detachment as whoever they were dealing with knew the city far too well, and only the little Lanthrell could handle Kroh when he was in a mood. Additionally, the Threll was deadly with her bow, and had recovered much of her spirits since last night, bucking up still further at the prospect of action.

While the candle melted away the minutes, Starr strung her bow and prepared herself for the coming action. She had felt much better for
Kroh’s words last night and a good rest, and although the stone and confinement still weighed heavily upon her spirits she was buoyed by the thought of doing something that very few of her people ever had, and was further driven by racial pride: as the only Threll in the Company, she felt compelled to bring credit upon her people and Forest by excelling.

With time to spend and action ahead she looked to her equipment while
Kroh smoked a short, dark cigar and muttered to himself, occasionally stabbing a tattooed finger into the clouds of smoke that surrounded him as he made a point. Starr had her
yakici
, the recurve Threllian bow, the weapon as native to her people as the long axe was to Kroh’s. The bow was made from layers of wood from the
fauces
tree, each layer from a different part of the tree and specially treated, then bound together with the care that a Dwarven smith used to match strips of metal into a weapon’s blade. The raw weapon was then aged a decade or more before being trimmed and tuned to the user’s arm length and draw strength, arriving at not just a missile-launcher wielded by a archer, but a perfect melding of Threll and bow. This care in construction was matched to thousands upon thousands of hours of practice beginning as soon as a Lanthrell was old enough to speak-by the time such a child reached the equivalent of their late teens, such as Starr was, they would have had decades of training and practice.

The
yakici
was the heart of Threllian warfare and defense: it was light, rugged, and capable of delivering an arrow with massive force and pin-point accuracy up to sixty yards. Beyond that distance the arrow’s performance dropped very sharply as ranges in the forest were short, and the Threll rely upon their expert stalking skills to get in close without being observed. There was no need to send clouds of arrows over a shield wall or above a friendly line of warriors as was common in the wars of other races; the Threll fought defensively, ambushing, harrying, sniping, until the enemy was turned back or whittled down into a demoralized, leaderless mob, easy meat for a sudden, screaming rush from all sides. The Threll are both long-lived and slow breeding, the slowest of any race of the Light, so not for them are the clash and rattle of melee if it could be avoided.

Should melee be necessary, Starr had two daggers (one in her boot) and a broadsword, the latter a weapon she was not comfortable with. The s
word, made of wood from the
iocor
tree and hard as iron, was her father’s, and several inches too long for his daughter, who was fourteen inches shorter. Her slightly curved daggers were a matched pair whose blades were made from
girmek
, the steel-hard crystal made from sap drawn from the ancient, semi-aware trees at the very heart of her Forest, weapons which had been in her mother’s family for centuries.