Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (23 page)

“I would hardly call you inept: you saved Robin’s life with your art, and
Healed myself and your own wounds.”

“Very kind of you to say so, but I’m afraid the truth is that I’m a second-line Healer and always will be. But better second-line than not at all, I always say.”

Starr came up and interrupted their conversation. “Durek says I’m to take the guard post, as you two are needed to put Johann through the full battery of examinations.”

“Is he joining the Badgers?”
Arian drank the last of his tea.

“He’s considering it, but it’s mainly for security: if he passes,
Durek will give him Nuilia’s weapons and shield to beef up our fighting line. You’re going to give the other five an once-over as well, although Durek says it’ll be a cold day in the Suflands before he recruits any from that lot.”

“They do appear to be on the ragged side: there’s a couple who’ve served the Empire at the end of a chain, I’ll wager.”
Arian nodded. “I see you are carrying your new sword.”

“I’m practicing with it, getting
used to the balance and length, and I hope to start wearing it in a day or so, for field use, I mean,” the little Lanthrell tried not to beam with pride and managed only in part.

When the Badgers moved out of their ‘night’ camp they were in better spirits and much better physical condition; save for their spellcasting abilities and Robin’s bottomless gloom, the raiders were om their way back to their pre-battle conditions. Johann had been judged acceptable, although he had not committed himself to enlistment, and had been issued Nuilia’s sword, dagger, and buckler; the five ex-slaves were a surly lot, but the example set back in the cavern as to how the Badgers dealt with those they found unacceptable had been well taken, and they contented themselves with muttering and dark looks as more and more of the work details were dumped upon them. They were, Arian pointed out, a classic example of how short gratitude lasts.

The dark looks and mutterings died away very quickly under the
heavy loads and the long march, as Durek kept to the regular hourly rest stops, but made it very clear that the next ‘night’ camp would be made in the
argalt
opposite the second
cidhe
; ‘tomorrow’ they would traverse the rough paths that led outside. It made for a long, hard march that slowly but steadily drained away the benefits of their night’s rest as the hours and the miles drifted by.

For Starr, however, it was a good day: she was young, strong, and heading for daylight with each step. She practiced with Snow Leopard at each break, working the weapon to learn its nuances and peculiarities, and moved along on the march with a spring in her step and a gleam in her eye. The battle
was behind her, and although she had not taken part in the melee, she had wielded her bow with excellence and precision, slaying two Black Dwarves and several Direbreed, as well as injuring and harrying the Draktaur. The memories of these accomplishments kept her spirits high and her confidence up on the long march through the abandoned halls.

They made their night camp in a work chamber of some sort, but Starr paid little attention to
Kroh’s rambling explanation of what it had been used for. Making metal out of rock, no doubt, or making metal into things, the two great interests of the Dwarves; she didn’t hold either pursuit, or anything else, against the Dwarves, but for now she was heartily sick of the whole business. Sunlight and trees were in the offing, and held her interest all the more surely.

She volunteered to stand guard over the five ex-sla
ves while camp was being set up, noticing that the longer the five were in their company the greater Durek’s distrust of them grew. The Captain had assigned them sleeping quarters in a small room that opened off the main chamber and ordered them to stay in it unless given permission to leave, and had posted a guard for good measure.

Arranging her buckler, bedroll, ration bag, and quiver to her liking, the little Badger sat on the broad rim of a stone tub wide enough to act as a communal bath, and fingered Snow Leopard’s cool crystal; she planned to stow her father’s sword on th
e pack saddle of one of the
komad
in the ‘morning’ and wear the enchanted blade from now on. She couldn’t bring forth the weapon’s freezing attack yet, but having spent every spare moment practicing with it she felt comfortable with it as a sword, much more comfortable than with the longer blade her father had loaned her. Absently whistling through her teeth, she walked two fingers down the length of the sword.

Movement in the doorway of the side-room brought her to her feet; one of the ex-slaves, a man called Pelhan who wore the scars of manacles and the marks of a whip on
his back, stood in the doorway with a leather bucket in his hand. Starr realized that she had instinctively raised Snow Leopard to the ready position, the pommel near her hip and the tip of the blade angling up and across her body, her right hand on the hilt of her sheathed dagger.

“Just goin’ to get some water,” Pelhan muttered, eyeing the sword as he lifted the bucket for emphasis. He was a squat man, very hairy and swarthy, with close-set eyes and more gap than teeth, a look of feral shrewdness stamped on his battered features. Starr instinctively disliked him for no reason she could think
of except the way that his eyes moved whenever one of the women were around. To be looked at with interest was nothing new to her, as many of the male Badgers were known to cast an eye at her and any other of the Company females, but Pelhan doing it was different in a way she couldn’t explain. “If you won’t stab me with your pretty sword,” he added, grinning nastily.

She flushed and jerked her head towards the water-trough across the chamber as several of the men in the small room chuckled. “Help yourself; all of you could use a bath and your clothes washed.” Not that their clothes could stand much in the way of scrubbing: the garments were badly worn and so stiff with ingrained dirt and sweat that they would likely be destroyed in the effort needed to make them clean.

Pelhan’s grin widened. “Not a bad idea, maybe you could scrub my back for me.” His laugh was abruptly turned into a choked howl as a thrown boot caught him in the lower chest.

Before he could recover
Kroh had him rammed up against the wall, one tattooed paw wrapped tightly around the man’s throat. “I don’t like you,” the Waybrother observed in a friendly tone. “What I do like is the idea of squeezing until my fingers meet.” He studied the ex-slave’s purpling features with interest for a moment before releasing his grip. “Next time you talk out of turn I’ll feed you your teeth, one at a time.”

Rolf, barefoot, stepped up to the doorway and studied the other men, thoughtfully fingering the hilt of one of th
e dirks sheathed on the belt he had thrown over his shoulder. “Anyone else have a funny thought they would like to share?” he inquired in his calm, unhurried voice. No one answered him.

“What is going on
?” Bridget demanded irritably. “Kroh, keep your voice down, you woke two of the children.”

Starr quickly explained the exchange that had led to the confrontation. Shaking her head, the serjeant turned to the sullen Pelhan. “I don’t expect that saving you from a dire fate carries m
uch weight anymore, but you
will
show my people some respect. Any more trouble from any of you and we’ll start handing out a few strokes from the shaft of a javelin.” She turned back to Starr, ignoring the protesting ex-slave. “Report any more trouble to myself or Durek immediately.”

Rolf, who had recovered his boot (which
Kroh had seized as the first handy thing to throw), followed the advocate back to the sleeping areas; Kroh lingered for a moment, watching a muttering Pelhan shuffle off. “Bugger a bunch of javelin-whacks,” he rumbled. “Kill the next bastard that gets out of line.”

“I’ll be all right,” Starr patted the b
attered armor at his shoulder. “Why is Bridget so surly? I would have thought she would be, well, more of a mediator than just belting out threats.”

“One of the whelps can’t talk, one of the biggest girls,”
Kroh shrugged. “One of this lot caught her away from the main body while she was taking a littler one to do her business and put his hands on her. The kid didn’t get a look at his face, and doesn’t read or write, so she can’t give many details. Bridget’s ready to start executing them on general principals.”

“Was the girl...
?”

“Naw, just patted her up a bit, then the little one started shrieking
loud enough for both of them and scared him off. Bridget gave them a good talking-to about going around without an escort.”

“I should hope so,” Starr observed, glaring at the returning Pelhan.

“Should be my turn at the brazier,” the Waybrother stood. “Want me to make your supper?”

“No, I’ll take care of it when I’m relieved, I’m not very hungry just yet.”

“Watch ‘em close,” Kroh jerked an inked thumb towards the ex-slaves. “There’s more than one in there who’ll end up on a rope, you mark my words.”

After washing up a bit and a cold meal (the supply of charcoal was restricted to
heating the Badgers’ and the children’s meals, and in fact the last of the fuel was being consuming this ‘evening’), the ex-slaves rolled up in their blankets, weary after a long day carrying heavy packs. Starr sat with her back to the stone tub, absently drawing on the stone floor with a bit of chalk.

About an hour after
Kroh had left, and an hour short of her relief, she heard hesitant footsteps approach her position. Leaning around the tub’s side, she saw two of the rescued children coming up on her position. One was the oldest girl, whose skin was the same walnut brown as Gabriella’s had been; she was carrying a much younger boy on her back. Both the dark girl and her pale-skinned companion bore the signs of having been freshly scrubbed, and their badly worn clothing had been washed and repaired as best the circumstances allowed.

The boy saw Starr and buried his face between the girl’s
shoulder blades, but his bearer merely grinned at the sight of the Badger. “Hello, I’m Duna Kadal, and this is Picken, he wanted to meet a Threll. We’re already met a Dwarf, a half-Orc, and seen a
komad
up close.”

“Rounded out the set, then,” Starr smiled back. “I am called Starr Brightgift.”

Despite his muttered protests, Duna sat Picken on the broad rim of the tub; his shyness was lessened when the dark girl took one of his hands in a firm clasp, and he eyed Starr with obvious interest.

“You were on the bridge with your bow,” Duna observed into the awkward pause that followed. “I couldn’t see you, but I could see the arrows hitting the Direbreed. We put the little ones against the stone so they would be safe, but Sunny and I watched the battle.”

“Sunny?”

“The girl who can’t talk,
it isn’t her real name, but she’s so nice, and when she smiles her whole face glows. We had to call her something, and she doesn’t mind.” Duna fumbled under her tunic and produced a short, single-edged knife. “I reached through the bars and took this off of a dead Direbreed’s harness; your Dwarf leader said I could keep it.”

“That’s a good knife,” Starr nodded.

Picken said something around the fingers he had jammed in his mouth, drawing a short, barked laugh from his companion. Seeing Starr’s curious look, Duna explained. “He said he saw the witch-man’s head fall off the platform, and we knew we were going to be all right, then.”

“How did you get down there
?” Starr wasn’t sure she should ask such a question, but neither child seemed upset by it.

“We were gathered up by raiders, some from the Dark Star,
others by Orcs; they brought us in together with the grown-up slaves. Most of us were only taken a few weeks ago. There were twenty of us to start with; I can count, you know, and I taught Sunny and Picken some of it. One of the girls, Rose, her father and one brother was in the grown-up slaves, they were all taken in a raid on their farm. She wasn’t very nice: on the way in there were Human guards with the pack animals, and Rose used to do nasty things for them in order not to have to work. She did things for the witch-man, too, for extra food.”

“Is
Rose one of the ones we rescued?”

“No, she was one of the ones they took onto the platform and then fed to the Direbreed.” Duna reported this in a matter-of-fact tone; Picken flinched at the words but nodded knowingly, adding a
n indistinct comment of his own. “They took the ones who cried and carried on, first,” Duna translated. “Mostly those who were taken on raids from their families. Picken and me, we were orphans before we were taken, and Sunny can’t make noise too much, and the rest were quiet ones too. Your leader said we could work at your place for our keep until something better comes up,” she added after a thoughtful pause. “We would like that, a place to stay and all.”

Starr nodded, shuddering at the thought of the
children under that bloody altar trying to stay quiet, knowing that to make noise was to be next. Shaking her head, she asked the first question that came to mind. “Why did they take Rose?”

“She was afraid of spiders,” Duna shrugged. “She got one of the little ones taken up for sleeping on her blanket, so we threw spid
ers on her while she slept. She would wake up screaming, and after a day or so she was the next one taken. The witch-man didn’t like noise.” Picken grinned and repeated his comment about seeing the Bloodmaster’s decapitated head.