Dark Obligations: Book One of the Phantom Badgers (39 page)

The seven hung their heads. “What, no explanations? No excuses? Bah, I waste my time. You, Otto, what
are you doing out of Hohenfels?”

“They are onto us,” the thin man mumbled. “Was out to see to my cow and I saw the Mayor and some militiamen marching your family through the streets in irons, I did. In their night clothes no less. Look around and there’s sentries posted on the river and walls, patrols checking buildings, and I says, the game’s up. I use the back door to my boat house, get
into one of my skiffs, and off I go. I found three of the Outer Assembly and come here.”

The former brewer nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Johanna, did the two of you see anything?”

The lanky red-haired woman, the real power in her house and a potential Knotsmaster, met his gaze squarely. “We were awakened by the Militia moving around; by the time we were up and about they had squads everywhere. I went to the Red Lion to do the baking as is my custom and I see Doctor Drewes come running past the kitchen door with your case and that jester, Hala-something, right behind. I sent Walter to take one of the skiffs and move our best things here, just in case, but I stayed on to see what I could see. I kept the door open, and both my ears: they dragged off most of the Inner Assembly while I waited and watched. I had a small crossbow and some venom, but there were too many Militia about to have any chance at the Mayor or anyone else. I heard that Philip Lipfert tried to purify the Mayor, but that vile man was saved by a bystander; I also heard Lipfert killed two Militiamen before they slew him, but that might have been gossip, as no names were mentioned. As things seemed to be going from bad to worse, I said I was going to the privy and slipped over to hide in a place I had picked out in a warehouse, near the Armory; while there I heard a Militia Corporal saying that Otto, Walter, and I were part of the Assembly, so I took our other skiff and left.”

“Damn.” Forst was silent for several minutes
. “Did anyone else see anything?”

Reinhard Kollack jerked his chin towards t
he Master Guide. “Me and Josef went into town with a load of wood just as they was postin’ guards on the palisade. We did our business and then hung around, kept an eye on things. It was just like Johanna said, ‘cept not long after they started circulating names, they start hanging people two at a time in your old silo, they got a gallows set up there. Your son was in the first pair, and they hung six while we were waitin’ about, took no more than an hour. We was stickin’ around ‘cause the Goblin raid bell was ringin’, and such, lots of people coming in the gate. We was near the gate, gettin’ nervous since we left our weapons at home, and then Claus Becker, he’s got Meyer’s job now, comes running up yelling that me and my brother are Assembly members. I knock somebody off a horse and run for it. Josef tried, too, but they shot him down twenty feet outside the gate.”

“By now only the Ehrler brothers and those present are left of the Assembly,” Johanna Egon announced.

“The Ehrlers are dead,” Forst sighed, sitting down. “Bondsmaster, see what we have in the way of arms, and make up a guard roster. We’ll stay here for the night and leave first thing in the morning. There is gold and copies of the Assembly ledgers in a cache not far from here, along with weapons and provisions; we’ll relocate and begin again elsewhere.”

They posted guards, cooked a meal, reviewe
d everything everyone had done to make sure there were no clues that could lead the enemy to this place. Not that there was much worry: the Militia would be paralyzed by the confusion generated by hunting the Assembly, and by the threat of Goblin raiders. The three Phantom Badgers were scattered around the area and by the time they sorted out what was what the remnants of the Assembly would be long gone.

Forst ate sparingly, and claimed a bed, which he took Johanna into when Walter went out on guard duty, sending her away when he was done. He m
ight take her as his own, later, as she was tough-minded and clever, and would make a good partner in assembling a new following. It was a shame about Jolla, as she had been a good wife and a solid partner in business, the cult, and bed, but that was the way of things. He would see that Sleiger and the rest paid for her death.

As he waited for sleep to take him he cursed himself for failing to alert the Inner Assembly before he had left town, having marked Sleiger as too slow-witted to have moved before dawn at the soonest. Instead, the bald bastard had acted with decision, using the cult tattoos to expose the Assembly. How had he known what to look for? It was true that the Mayor had served in the Imperial Marines, but as an enlisted man, not an officer, and had never indicated any sort of knowledge of the Dark cults. Perhaps that young Doctor or one of the Badgers had had knowledge of cult insignia, or perhaps the Mayor had just stumbled upon the tattoos by chance. Forst vowed to tickle Sleiger’s eyes with a hot wire until he revealed how he had known about the tattoos, and sighed. He was getting far too old to be starting all over again, but it was better than hanging.

A tickling on his nose brought him out of a sound sleep, fuzzily thinking of Jolla’s long blond hair and the way she had used it to tickle him awake when they were younger. The sharp, cold bar suddenly resting on his throat dispelled all remnants of sleep and memories of his wife, who most certainly must be dead.

Carefully opening his eyes without moving, he saw Starr Brightgift kneeling beside his bed in the weak light spilling from the hearth, a sword held lightly across his throat. The little Threll, grimy from travel, smiled at him, one finger raised to her lips. Behind her he saw the Dwarf ease across the floor, and watched the axe raise slowly, drop with terrible speed, spring up coated with blood, and descend again with tremendous force. Off on the other side of the cabin he heard an axe being used as well; figuring two on sentry left twelve other people in this room, less four from the sounds of things.

“No one should move...” Halabarian’s voice halted with the sound of an arrow releasing and a sudden scream across the room; Reinhard, Forst guessed, who got the arrow he had dodged leaving Hohenfels. “As I said... no movement.”

“We took your sentries alive,” Starr murmured conversationally. “Captain Meyer and some Outer Assembly cultist. From your ledgers we know who is considered the most effective amongst you; we kill those immediately, and will hang the rest of you as time permits. Bring your hands out from under the blanket very
slowly
Master Guide, very slowly and very empty. Good. Now raise them up and cross your wrists.”

The sounds of the two Badgers moving from person to person binding their hands and disarming the cultists continued; finally Kroh came over and tied Forst’s hands, grinning down at the Master Guide when he finished. “Nice of you to be so helpful.”

“My pleasure,” the brewer tried to smile back. “And what, pray tell, brought you here?”

“I would like to say su
perior woodcraft, but actually Jolla told us,” Starr shrugged.

“I don’t believe that,” Forst shook his head. “Neither torture nor
bribery could have moved her.”

“No, they wouldn’t—
after all, we hung her anyway. No, we just showed her your ledgers, the coded symbols next to the names of the Assembly? When she saw the codes next to each of the women’s names indicating when and how often you had slept with them, well...”

“There were no such...” Forst began, furious, then subsided as the realization sank in. “I see.”

“So did she; actually, we told her we had added the runes just before we put the noose on.” The little Badger shrugged. “For what it’s worth, she started crying when she realized that we had tricked her into handing you over. Funny, you would think that you people would be pleased that your deaths involved a breach of trust-isn’t that what you’re all about?” Starr stood and sheathed her sword, giving Forst a good view of the room: the bed opposite his on the far wall was a tangled mess of blood-soaked linen; Johanna’s severed head lay on the floor nearby.

Rolf was standing on a table tying a stout rope to a rafter; catching the direction of the Master Guide’s gaze, the Lanthrell Badger shrugged. “No point in dragging you all the way back to Hohenfels; it would just give you another chance to escape. But don’t worry, Master Guide, we’ll hang you last, just like we did Jolla. Think of it as a gesture of respect.”

Starr sat on a chair set out on the plank sidewalk near the Red Lion, drinking mulled wine and watching the street dancing; the dancers, mostly young people, swung and twirled in the lantern-light to the fiddle’s wail as if it were a balmy summer evening instead of a frigid winter’s night. Shoals of children ran here and there, burdened with candies, pastries, and small gifts, laughing and prancing in the twisting shadows created by dozens of torches. Outside the palisade older men tended the circle of bonfires that banished darkness from the town’s land side, and tended kegs of ale and stronger drink as well; good cheer was becoming loudly apparent out there.

Rolf and Kroh were to her left, sitting on stools sharing a pudding between the two of them, tossing bits to Iron Tusk now and then. Rolf’s arm had healed cleanly, and was now nearly as good as new. Their proximity warmed her heart more than the wine: two good friends who would stand by her through anything. It was a wonderful night, full of laughter, good cheer, happy children, light, and music. The darkness that had lain over the town and which had tried to turn the festival into a dance of death had been dispelled, and the people of Hohenfels were celebrating.

A shadow fell over her. “A fiddle is a vulgar instrument, but it’s not a day to concern oneself with such things,” Halabarian s
miled. “Would you care to dance?”

As she swung through the opening steps, Starr threw back her head and laughed at her namesakes glittering ov
erhead: it was truly a perfect Breham Festival.

Glossary of terms

Imperial Calendar
:

Achemteil
:
1st month.

Chiffteil:
2nd month.

Marlt:
3rd month.

Kammteil:
4th month.

Natterteil:
5th month.

Gleichteil:
6th month.

Summteil:
7
th
month.

Bannteil:
8th month.

Zahmteil:
9
th
month.

Hoffnungteil:
10th month.

Frosteil:
11th month.

Schnienteil:
12th month.

Advarkel:
Dwarven anvil tiles.

Afora:
Goblin battalion.

Alhenland:
The northern lands.

Amadan:
A Threll ‘Wanderer’s belt of wood plates, common to Larnax Forest. See also
Patik, Matzil.

Ampara Oseta:
Clerical powers, primarily of a healing nature.

Amplus Viraes:
Healing arts.

Andern
: The pure stuff of Chaos, drawn from the Void at certain special places.

Argalt:
Dwarf industrial area.

Baia:
A Goblin senior captain, a
Afora
commander.

Black Dwarves:
Chaos Dwarves, as called by non-Dwarves. See also Darklings, Fortren.

Bloodmaster
:
A Void priest possessing spellcasting abilities which are powered by
andern
or blood sacrifices.

Blotar Gaughak:
Orcish term for the Northern Wastes, the ‘Iron Land’.

Bonaid:
Mines, mining area (Dwarven term).

Breedstone:
The jagged crystal shard which contains a Direbreed's life-force. A Breedstone grows with age, and can be re-harvested to reproduce a slain Direbreed complete with past memory and skills..

Breham:
An Imperial midwinter holiday of hope and peace.

Burunmek:
Substance used in smelting by Black Dwarves, hence their name.

Careau
:
A game of hexagonal tiles that is a cross between poker and bridge.

Ceth:
Tribal clans of humans hanging on in the northern wastes; extremely anti-Chaos.

Changelings:
Dark Champions. See also Scarred Ones, Champions of the Dark One, or Minions of Chaos.

Champions of the Dark One:
Dark One Champion. See also Scarred Ones, Changlings, or Minions of Chaos.

Cidhe:
City level in a Dwarven city.

Comhla:
Lanthrell language.

Darklings:
Chaos Dwarves, as called by non-Dwarves. See also Black Dwarves,
Fortren
.

Direbreed:
Beastmen housed in mutated flesh. See Breedstones

Direthrell:
Dark or evil Threll.

Draktaur:
Massive centaur-like Champion.

Ead Gluais:
Grand or central stairway, in a Dwarven city.