Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (38 page)

“You, speaking of too much risk? No, Kroh, it isn’t, not for me. And I have a debt to pay.”

That was logic to which a Dwarf was vulnerable. The Waybrother scowled, thinking hard, but finally had to concede. “All right, but be careful.”

“Always. Make for Hohenfels with all speed.”

“We should go to a warning-house,” Gremheld volunteered.

“What’s a warning-house?”

“A farmstead with trained pigeons; you tie a message to its leg, a little roll of paper in a bone case, and the bird flies right to the Watch House in town. About one farm in four out here on the edge of our territory has a coop of them; a good bird could be back in Hohenfels in less than an hour.”

“Good idea; go to the nearest warning-house, send off a few birds with news of what has happened, and
then
head back to town, warning the people about the Goblins as you go,” Starr nodded.

“What about trying for Forst
?” Kroh asked.

“We’ll deal with him later,” the little Threll spat. “I would like to get that clever bastard on the wrong end of Snow Leopard and teach him to dance to a new tune. He would end up singing in a higher voice than mine.”

“You were close to the mark,” Sleiger advised Khan. “Three of the five named were cultists, one was missing, and one had no tattoos.” He passed the clerk the list of names, with dispositions noted after each. “Two had to be killed, wounding four of ours in the process.”

“So we have twelve in the cells, four dead, and three whom we are reasonably sure are out of town,” Felix nodded thoughtfully. “That leaves four unaccounted for. Where are the dead and the new captive? I need to examine their tattoos.”

“They’re bringing them in.” Wearily the Mayor made his way back outside, trailed by Halabarian, who had appointed himself as Mayor’s Bodyguard when not out scouting. “Four left, and we may know the name more soon, if Kahn is correct...” He was interrupted by the
thrumm
of the Threll’s bow releasing and the mallet-sound of a quarrel striking wood. As Halabarian shouted for the reserve section of Militiamen to rush the house across the street, the Mayor dazedly studied a crossbow bolt jutting from the planks of the Watch House; it had missed him by inches.

“I missed, but my shot threw his off,” the Lanthrell kept his eyes on the surrounding houses. “Perhaps you ought to step inside, Lord Mayor; with Captain Meyer out of the game, your death would leave the Militia leaderless and confused.”

Stepping back into the Watch House, Sleiger bellowed for Khan. When the clerk appeared from the cell block, sketch pad in hand, the Mayor called him over. “Write up an order making Claus Becker acting Captain of the Militia, with Jospur Kilner as Acting Cornet and second-in-command. Bring three copies to me at once.”

Corporal Paul Gildner led a couple militiamen carrying a corpse into the Watch House. “Got the assassin, Lord Mayor, but he killed August Kilner while we were about it.”

“
Damn
,” Sleiger put his head into his hands for a moment. “Go ask his father to come here. Set the body down there, lads.” Pulling the ink pot to hand, the Mayor signed the three copies of the order promoting Becker and Kilner. “There, now killing me won’t change a thing. Who was the crossbowman, Felix?” Sleiger indicated the corpse four Militiamen were lugging through the Watch House’s door.

“Philip Lipfert, a dock worker, and a ranking member of the Inner Assembly if I’m not mistaken; he wasn’t on my list of names as you will recall, but I believe he’s shown me where I made my mistake.” The clerk hurried off.

“Glad the bastard did
something
useful with his life,” Sleiger mumbled to himself. “All right, lads, put him with the others.”

After breaking the news of his son’s death to Kilner, the Mayor sat back down at a desk the Watch used for writing reports and sent for a glass of ale and some food. He was sitting there in a half-doze when Felix and Claus Becker burst into the room from different doors calling his name.

“WHAT! Oh, the Eight, will this never end? Captain Becker, what is it?”

“Two pigeons just arrived, sir.” Becker handed over the tiny bone capsules.

“Here, Felix, get the messages out and read them; I’m too tired to bother. How are the gallows coming, Claus?”

“As good as can be arranged,
we’re using that old silo of Forst’s (ironic, eh?), and some scaffolding. We can begin with two at a time as soon as you wish.”

“Good; Felix
?”

“The first note
says the Badgers captured Forst and one Ehrler brother, killed three Ehrler brothers, all cultists, and ‘destroyed all’, whatever that means.”

“It’s good news, that’s what it means. Excellent, three more dead cultists, that’s seven dead in the Outer Assembly out of eighteen.”

“The second note says that Forst was taking them to a cache site when they ran into an ambush, and that in the course of the fight the Ehrler brother and Hergar the smith were killed, and Forst escaped. Apparently Forst is with a war party of around two hundred-odd Goblins, and the war party is coming into our area.”

The Mayor sighed. “Forst free again; at least we know he’s not in town. Oh, yes, and
an invasion to boot. What is it?”

Corporal Gildner saluted. “Another pigeon, sir.”

“Felix.”

“Yes, sir, let’s see, it says Captain Meyer and the remaining Watch officer are with the Goblins, along with several other Humans. It also lists some names o
f cultists as provided by Forst, but we’ve either checked them or captured everyone on this list.”

“Lies and expendables,” Sleiger shrugged. “Two hundred-odd Goblins won’t take Hohenfels by storm, not with nearly all the Militia under arms. Still, now we know that there are only three cultists of the Inner Assembly left unaccounted for, and ten of the Outer, although some will be with the Goblins.”

“Better than that, sir,” Felix produced a list of names. “Otto Kittel, Walter Egon, and Johanna Egon are the last three cultists in the Inner Assembly. Kittel was on the first list I complied, as you will recall, and the one who was missing.”

“Are you sure of this
?”

“Very confident, sir.”

“Good. Claus, get someone looking for the Egons, and pass the word that Otto is to be seized when seen; get the Doctor and a couple men to search their homes. Felix, I want death warrants to be written out for each of the captives: summary execution for participation in a proscribed cult, threat to the Empire, and so on. As soon as two are done, bring them in for my signature and we’ll get the hangings underway. Men first, then women, start with Edmund Forst. Claus, you and Kilner need to be here to co-sign them. Felix, as soon as that is finished I want the names of the remaining ten members of the Outer Assembly.” The Mayor examined the markings on the note canisters. “We’ve a couple hours before the Goblins can get near town and with a little luck we’ll have this whole bloody business wrapped up by then. There you are, Cornet Kilner. Now, we’ve got Goblins on the way, so see to the ringing of the great bell and get someone to light the warning fires.” He smiled wearily. “I must say, I’ll be glad to see foes that you can
tell
are your enemy.”

A dagger ready in her hand, Starr lay motionless beneath a young pine whose branches were a scant six inches off the ground and watched the boots of a Goblin sentry stroll past her position. A scarf of mottled brown and black patches covered her hair and was wrapped around her neck, and gray grease paint coated her face, with brown and black stripes slashing jaggedly across her features to further break up their outline. Walnut dye darkened her hands and wrists to the color of old leaves, while short lengths of fraying brown and black rags were tied to her biceps, forearms, thighs, calves, and scabbards, as well as being looped through her belt, their dangling ends helping break up her outline.

When the sentry was a dozen paces away the little Badger slipped from beneath the tree and scuttled on forearms and knees to another hiding place, every move of her noiseless passage carefully planned in advance, her movement both irregular in pace and relatively slow in speed, as it is both quick and regular motion which
is the easiest to spot.

From her new position behind a mossy log which was in the final stages of decay, Starr studied the Goblin main force which was arrayed before her along the banks of the same stream where she and the others had been ambushed. The Goblin force was organized as an
Afora
, a Goblin unit consisting of four
Seraos
, a command group, a scout group, and a transport group. Each
Serao
, or company, would usually consist of between sixty and one hundred
jugata
organized as the commanding
Serann
saw fit, but these had less than fifty Goblins apiece, a clear sign that the Purple Spider had seen better days. The command group consisted of the
Baia
in command of the
Afora
, a dozen bodyguards, a few staff officers, two Healers, a unit standard bearer, and a half-dozen adolescent Goblins who would act as runners; the Threll was glad to see that this force did not rate a shaman. Transport for the force was provided by a dozen heavily-loaded mules tended by an equal number of slaves, the latter overseen by four well-armed Goblins. The twenty or so
yasama
of the scout section were assigned to sentry duty while Forst spoke with the Goblin commander.

Apparently either Forst spoke the Goblin tongue, or the
Baia
spoke Pradian as the two were speaking directly to one another without an interpreter. Starr studied the pair, some forty yards distant, as she sheathed her dagger (whose bright crystal blade had been coated in grease darkened with soot for concealment) and eased her bow out of its case. There was too much noise from the careless chattering of the groups of
jugata
scattered all along both banks of the shallow stream for her to understand what the two were saying, but it was obvious that they were both very intent upon what was being said.

Stringing the bow, she drew two arrows out of her quiver with agonizing slowness as she studied the rest of the command: except for the eight Human and four half-Goblin slaves who were watering the mules, and the
yasama
on watch, the entire
Afora
was sprawled about as if on a picnic, weapons and shields laid aside and the units hopelessly intermingled. She nodded to herself: one arrow, then run; by the time the
Seraos
were sorted out she would be half a mile away and still moving.

Checking the
fletching and shaft before nocking the arrow, Starr frowned at the pair: which one should she shoot? Forst would be the most satisfying target, but killing the
Baia
would be more likely to cause the Goblins to head for home, unless the senior
Serann
was an unusually aggressive Goblin. Reluctantly, she decided that the
Afora
commander was the most logical target, and with one last, regretful look at Forst, she brought the bow up and focused upon the
Baia
.

The Goblin leader was wearing a mail shirt that had been made to fit a Goblin; from the color of the m
etal and the fine craftsmanship she guessed it to be Black Dwarven work, for no Goblin smith could produce any but the very crudest mail. She had chosen a bodkin headed arrow to defeat the mail, the oak shaft topped with a steel needle point that should slip through the mail’s rings without being slowed too much, although with a full draw at forty yards she should have penetration to spare.

Concentrating, Starr pulled back to full draw, held a second to steady her arm against the exertion of the draw, and released, rolling to her feet and darting away even as she nocked the second, broad-bladed arrow. She had seen her first shaft strike, but had not wasted the time to see how much damage it had done; kill, wound, or merely annoy, the result was moot, and escape was everything.

A
yasama
, startled by the sudden chorus of howls, surprised cries, and general shouting that had erupted back at the main body, stepped incautiously out from behind a tree to see what was happening only to take an arrow through the throat as Starr darted towards, and past, his position. The arrow she nocked after killing the scout proved to be unnecessary: as she had predicted, she was safely away long before the Goblins sorted themselves out.

Friedrich Forst was seething with anger as he stomped through the snowy forest, trailed by Meyer, Watch Officer Lutje (or more accurately,
ex
-Watch Officer Lutje), and five members of the Outer Assembly. The day’s events had gone from bad to worse: first the disaster at the storage site where he had lost the Knotsmaster and two good Knotsmen, not to mention all their carefully gathered supply of poison; then after managing to escape from the idiot Phantom Badgers (losing another Knotsman in the process), he found out that the
Baia
in command of the Goblin force was unhappy at losing two spiders and a handful of scouts, not to mention the element of surprise, and wanted to go home.

Then, as the argument about whether or not to raid into the farmlands of Hohenfels (and perhaps even strike at the town if the initial results of the raid were favorable) was finally going Forst’s way a
n arrow comes out of nowhere and very nearly kills the
Baia
; by the time things were finally sorted out the senior
Serann
had the supply mules and the command group pointed east, back to the Spiders’ camps, and there was nothing that Forst could say or promise to budge that worthy’s determination to go home. Of course, finding one of the sentries with an arrow through his throat didn’t help much. Unreliable fools! Couldn’t they see that this was their only opportunity to strike, with the Militia leaderless and disorganized? Fools, he was surrounded by fools.

The Assembly’s emergency rally point was a stout little cabin hidden near the south end of the settled area around Hohenfels; smoke was coming from the chimney and lights could be seen in the window. Disdaining recognition signals, confident that no sentry was posted, the Master Guide marched to the front door and threw it open. Inside were the Egons, Otto Kittel, and four of the Outer Assembly.

“A fine gathering we have here, Bondsmaster,” Forst shook his head, striding to the center of the room. “Lights in the window to welcome any passing stranger, no guards posted, the door unbolted for anyone to enter.”