Dark Path: Book Three of the Phantom Badgers Page 3

  "Well, well, look here: a tasty morsel half-unwrapped and all in a hurry. Looking for me, were you?"

  Her captor had grabbed her from behind, seizing her left arm (which was near to her side with a fistful of skirt), just above the elbow with his left hand and pulling her into his chest. His right arm came around her waist and across her body, lifting, the hairy, filthy hand clamped firmly on her left breast. Axel's dagger was in her right hand, blade lying tight against her forearm, her thumb holding a fold of her neckline against the pommel, her right elbow jammed against her body by his right arm.

  There was a second man, she realized: he said something she didn't catch in an amused tone of voice as the surprise faded and the veteran instincts took over. Squealing and pleading, the advocate kicked and wiggled helplessly, amusing her captor who was carefully lugging her back towards an alley.

  Her struggling having established her captor’s dimensions, she twisted her right wrist painfully in order to bring the keen edge of her dagger around to the back of his right hand.

  With a roared curse that numbed her left ear the hand was snatched away in a spray of blood-drops, freeing her right arm and releasing her body. As she dropped to her feet she twisted, thrusting the dagger in vicious back arc, driving it deep into her assailant's right thigh. Ripping it free as he let go of her left arm, Bridget spun away, seeking to put distance between herself and her first attacker while trying to locate the second foeman. As her husband had pointed out, the offensive spells of Ampara Oseta needed room in which to work, and the priestess had no illusions about her situation: let one of these bastards get in body-to-body contact with her again and she would be raped and murdered here, no doubt about it. Janna, Elonia, or Tonya, armed with a dagger, could probably fight the two of them off, but not her. Not while wearing a dress that was slipping off her shoulders and threatening to trip her at any minute; give her a tunic, trousers, and a sword-rapier, however, and there would be a different song for the bastards to sing.

  Luck or her Goddess favored her: surprise and the ale they had drunk slowed her attackers enough for her to cross the width of the alley before they could react. With the blessedly solid wall of a house pressed against her back, she faced her assailants, two roughly-clad trappers with skinning knives in hand. A good twelve feet separated them from her: more than enough. Dropping the dagger, she uttered a single sharp word that seemed to twist in the hearing and traced a sigil in the air; rings of fire erupted around the trapper who had seized her, rings that appeared a yard wide and constricted into his body in the space of a heartbeat. He hardly had time to open his mouth to scream before it was over.

  The second trapper was staring at her, skinning knife and cudgel drooping from hands gone slack in shock, jaw hanging wide to display more gap of gum than teeth. "Drop your weapons," Bridget ordered in a nearly steady tone of voice, only then realizing that in the struggle most of the buttons on the front of her dress had torn away. Irritated, she shrugged to keep her dress from falling off entirely. "I said, drop your weapons! You can be a prisoner or a corpse, it’s one and the same to me!" Inwardly she cursed; she could fight as well as many man, but it took a man's voice to carry authority in these circumstances. Anger and stress drove her clear tones up too high to intimidate.

  The weapons dropped from nerveless hands. "You be a witch, then, meaning no disrespect, yer Highness?" The trapper, she noted, was hardly out of his teens, a tow-headed youth of medium size and heavy dirt.

  "Close enough," Bridget nodded. "Turn around and put your hands under your belt in back of you. No, put your hands on the small of your back; now slide them under your belt. There, keep them like that." Hitching her dress up, she gripped the torn neckline in her left hand. "Where are the rest of your bunch?"

  "In the brewery, your...Ladyness."

  "Right, any other sentries...guards, is there anyone else on guard? Good. If you lie I'll burn your manhood off. Now, keep your hands where they are and get back on the street, head to your right. No, the other way, don't you know... anyway, are you with Hekbar? Well, at least it's the same group. Step lively, yes, towards the festival; turn here, in the direction of that flask on your belt." The priestess shrugged her torn dress up again and took an equally tight grip on her emotions. She had been in worse spots before, and would be again; right now she would do her duty, and later when all was safe she would take the time for a good case of the shudders and what-ifs.

  The door had been forced, and rather crudely at that, Axel noted: the frame had simply been weakened with an axe, and then kicked in. "Dolts," he muttered, and wished he had some help, or at least one good leg. Easing the door open with the tip of his crutch, he hopped in, then side-stepped and murmured a spell that adjusted his eyes to the gloom inside.

  "Brewery's closed, half-man," a voice sneered from the stairs to his left. "Hop on your way." The voice belonged to a burly trapper sprawled on the second step, a small axe dangling easily from one filthy hand. No one else was in sight, although the cluttered interior of the brewery offered numerous hiding places.

  "Pardon, many pardons, kind sir, but I was concerned," the Badger officer bowed, dropping his right crutch. "I saw that some congenital idiot had bashed open the door after killing a dog, and felt it was needful to investigate."

  "Shoulda taken your sticks and moved on," the trapper grunted as he heaved himself to his feet. The wizard whispered, gesturing delicately, and the crutch he had dropped lifted from the ground, aligned itself, and shot forward like a javelin to ram its point into the trapper's groin. As the big man doubled over, gagging, the shaft of the crutch snapped up to connect with his temple, dropping him as if pole-axed.

  Casually plucking the crutch from the air and settling it under his arm, the wizard surveyed the fallen man. "It's not polite to remark on other's infirmities," he commented. A finger-gesture caused a short skinning knife to lift free of the scabbard on the trapper's belt and wobble over to the Badger. Axel examined it, running his fingers over its length. Nodding to himself, he moved deeper into the shadowy catacombs that was the brewery, the tangled layout of tubs, catwalks, pipes, and stacked barrels creating a veritable maze. They would be after the strongbox, and take a few kegs with them, no doubt.

  Coming around a vast brewing vat, the wizard paused and frowned. He could see the closed and intact door to the brewer's counting room to his right, while the voices were coming from his left, in the direction of distillery area. Out of course, grain spirits and brandy were worth more than ale, but to leave the strongbox completely untouched? The Badger shook his head; even lacking proper tools to force a strongbox it seemed unlikely that the trappers would not even try to get at the money. Easing forward, Axel moved to the open doorway that led to the distillery, trying to count voices.

  Bridget, frustrated to the point of tears, trudged behind her captive, careful to keep a proper interval, trying to watch his hands, look for help, and ignore the startled, shocked, and amused stares that followed her as she passed Festival-goers and their families. All she wanted was a single Badger to escort her prisoner and carry the alarm, or even some husky young farmer who was sober enough to be of some use, but had yet to encounter either.

  A flash of blue and silver caught her eye up ahead, bringing hope surging forth. Urging her captive forward at greater speed, the advocate dodged between grinning farmers, fearful that she would lose the Badgers ahead. Emerging into a cleared area, she blurted an unladylike oath. "Oh Lady, not,...ah it would have to be them, wouldn't it. That sort of day."

  Sighing, she herded her captive up to the Me'Coner brothers, who were seated on the ground staring intently at something between them and arguing in their native tongue. As she drew closer she saw that two lines were drawn in the dirt two feet apart, and that the brothers, each using a long twig, were herding a large beetle about between the lines. "Dolan!"

  The burly Thebian looked up uninterestedly, then goggled at the sight of her. "Dolan, it's me, Bridget. Serjeant Uldo, remembe
r? Never mind, just listen: the trappers that tried to steal the girl at the ale tent are back; they're in the brewery. Axel went in after them, and I went for help. This is one of the trappers who was on guard, he's a prisoner. I need you to take him and go find Durek and report; tell Royan what I've said and that he needs to come with me."

  Dolan clambered to his feet and unceremoniously bashed the trapper over the head with his tankard, felling the man in his tracks. "Nofockingneed towatchthe bastardnow," he observed good naturedly. "Twoofusought tobeallthe helpyouneed, then, lass. Twas only nineof thebastardsatthattent."

  It took a moment to work out what he had said. "We still need to send word to Durek."

  Dolan turned towards the woods and gestured; moments later Bridget saw Picken, an orphan the Badgers had rescued from the deeps of an abandoned Dwarven city, come scrambling out of the woods clutching a dripping ale skin. "Thebairnhasbeen makin'abitof pocketchangefetchin' theroundsfromyonstream," Dolan explained. "Mancaintdrinkwarmale withsnowfedstreamsallaround."

  Sitting on a low keg whose purpose was a mystery to him, Axel stroked the captured knife and listened to the noises coming from the distillery, one twisted leg tapping a regular silent beat on the keg's side. Two thousand beats marked the better part of a half hour past, the wizard reasoned; call it five more minutes spent getting this far, and it would be safe to assume that help was on its way, if not close to hand. Time to act; besides, from the sound of it Hekbar's bunch were very nearly done.

  There were five of them, it appeared from the noise, engaged in loading kegs of distilled spirits onto five stout handcarts they had obtained from the brewery's loading dock, and then had been messing about with an axe, smashing something made of wood into small pieces. There had been some hammering, and a lot of arguing, the latter caused by some tasting of the finished products in the room. Axel had hoped that the latter activity would have solved the problem, but luck was not with him to that extent, but at least they hadn't gone to check on their door guard.

  He had been hoping that help would show up before a confrontation occurred, but that was how life went, it seemed. Five against one were easy odds in the ballads, especially for wizards, but in real life they were poor odds indeed unless you were a dragon. Of course, with surprise, magic, preparation, bluff, and human nature on his side, Axel was reasonably confident that he could take command of the situation. Nothing, however, was certain in battle, cards, or women in the wizard's estimation; the best swordsman he had ever seen, clad in good mail and wielding an enchanted blade, had been killed in a one-on-one fight with a half-naked Cave Goblin armed with a rusty falchion, all because the swordsman's foot had slipped on a puddle of clotting blood. Before he could recover a lucky, and wild, swing by the Goblin had caught him in the temple and killed him outright. It was a lesson Axel never forgot: luck can beat skill, equipment, planning, and training every time; fortunately for the skilled and well-trained, luck is a fickle thing.

  Moving to his feet, he swung through the door and side-hopped to put his back to the wall. His magic-enhanced vision was not needed: the trappers had boldly lit every lantern in the place. The Badger Lieutenant saw that the kegs loaded in the carts had been wrapped in rope which had then been frayed and soaked in plum brandy; the cloying scent hung thick in the air, giving his stomach, tight with battle-tension, an uneasy twist. The kegs were half-buried under stacks of barrel-staves, the source of the chopping he had heard; each stave had a thick knot of frayed (and brandy-soaked) rope at one end; further lengths of brandy-soaked rope were tied to bits of metalwork pried off the distilling equipment. It took a moment for Axel to work out that these were meant to be lit, twirled, and thrown onto rooftops or through upper-level windows, the metal being used as weight to give it direction. The broken staves were to be torches, and the rope-covered kegs were to ignite larger buildings.

  "Planning for a hot time tonight, eh?" the Lieutenant asked, leaning his right crutch against a catwalk support. "And which one of you oafs is Hekbar, I wonder?"

  The five trappers, occupied with arguing about how to safely set the brewery aflame, jumped at his voice. All were armed with skinning knives, small axes, and several had cudgels; two still held the axes they had used to break open kegs for the staves, and a third held a heavy mallet with a three-foot handle that Axel imagined the brewers used for setting bungs, and would serve just as well for pulping a skull.

  They all stood and stared at each other for a few seconds; Axel, outnumbered and hoping that help was on its way, was not in any hurry to initiate violence, instead choosing to lean comfortably on his left crutch, the knife held unseen by his leg.

  The burly, bearded mallet-holder broke the silence. "Well, well, boys, looks like we found our wick. Now tell me, cripple, what stroke of bad luck led you here?"

  "Well, it all started around my eighth birthday, you see, which is when you usually are considered for apprenticeship where I come from, which is down on the southern coast of the Empire; actually, it’s the southwest coast, but you understand where I mean. It was in the spring in that year of my life that I mentioned," Axel began earnestly, only to be cut short by an angry bellow. Unnoticed by the trappers, the knife left his fingers and drifted to the catwalk support, which it followed up to the catwalk itself.

  "Cut it short, stick-rider, or I'll fix your arms to match your legs." The way the other four jumped on the nugget of humor in that threat led Axel to guess that it was Hekbar addressing him. The knife, now safely above the trapper's line of sight, floated to a position above and slightly behind one of the axeman, then carefully lowered so its point was a handbreadth from the base of his neck.

  "Oh, well, I was on guard in town to watch for you; the problem is my wife proved willing, and as she's a comely lass I didn't notice you cretins killing the dog or breaking in here. She's gone for help, and I bashed your door-guard and came to detain you. Kindly drop the mallet and the axes, please."

  Hekbar chuckled. "Confident bastard, aren't you? Well, your little wife is getting a second round from the boys I left on watch out in the street, no doubt; like as not a whole man'll be a good thing for her, and two will be twice as good." The burly trapper hefted the mallet up to his shoulder. "And speaking of which, drop your trousers and hop over to yon keg; I'll teach you to meddle in my business. If I wants to burn down a damned town, then it burns by..."

  The startled, strangled cry, followed by the sound of a body and axe hitting the floor cut him off; all four trappers stared at the twitching corpse and especially at the knife-hilt standing out from his spine. With an inarticulate yell, the second axeman leapt at Axel, weapon raised. The wizard gestured, and a fine white mist darted from his hand to his attacker. The yell ended abruptly as the trapper collapsed, his clothes stiff and crackling with a thick layer of what looked for all the world to be a layer of clinging snow, all exposed skin furred with hoar-frost, and his eyes coated in ice.

  "Dead, I'm afraid," Axel murmured. "It's the blood, you see: the sudden drop in temperature causes ice to form. Not large bits of ice, admittedly, but it would seem that large pieces aren't necessary. Drop the mallet, Hekbar, or I'll freeze the eyes out of your skull and then feed them to you. Good. Now all three of you lay down and take a nap; my dear old mother used to say it was just the thing at this time of day. If any one of you make a sudden move you'll join the two with the axes; an interesting question would be which died more horribly. By the by, I was told there was nine of you. With one on the door, two dead, three here, and two out on guard, where's the last? Speak up, Hekbar, or I'll show you how to chop off a man's feet with an axe that moves by itself."

  "He wouldn't come," the trapper growled. "Damn him for a coward."

  "Or praise him for good sense," Axel commented, frowning. A lantern carefully lifted from its hook and floated over to a position three feet above Hekbar. With a couple false starts, the cap on the spirit-well unscrewed itself. Axel paused to wipe sweat away before tilting the lantern to send a long stream of ho
t twice-distilled brandy splashing onto the trapper leader, eliciting a curse.

  "Where is he?" The Lieutenant's voice sliced across the room.

  "On the dock, you bastard."

  "If he comes from another direction I'll be startled," Axel warned. "When I'm startled I drop things. Do you suppose you could get your clothes off before you burned to death, Hekbar? Ah, but heated fuel tends to soak in fast; ought to be on your skin by now. No, I think you would just run in circles screaming like a madwoman until you burned to death, or just thrash in place, perhaps, it’s hard to say. People on fire tend to follow no set response, have you noticed? Of course, rolling to put out the flames wouldn't work, what with all the spilled brandy on the floor...no, I would guess you to be a runner, judging from your looks. Probably just best to lay there and hope help arrives before I get distracted. Of course, once you were fully ablaze I could cast that cold spell upon you and see if the fire had warmed you to the point where the cold wouldn't kill you; I've never tried that, just occurred to me this moment, in fact." Axel watched them like a hawk while straining his ears for the slightest sound of trouble. Should any trouble start, Hekbar would burn, and he would likely have enough time to freeze another man, assuming they all moved together. The real danger lay in the outside guards: if they walked in he might not be able to fight or cow the entire group. Whether he lived or died, he decided, depended on who was first to arrive: Badgers or trappers.

  Durek had grabbed Starr and her little squad and set off for town at a outwardly calm pace as soon as Picken found him, breaking into a faster pace (running for the Dwarves, trotting for Starr, fast walk for Rolf) as soon as they were out of sight of the Festival. The trapper Bridget had captured was still unconscious when they found him; after a moment's consideration Durek armed Picken with Starr's cudgel (the boy had followed unnoticed in their wake), instructed him to bash the trapper if he stirred and to keep thumping him until he stopped moving and give him two extra for safety, before pressing on. Bridget had two Badgers with her plus Axel if he was still alive, and should thus be able to handle anything the trappers could raise, but the boy's tale of a bloody Bridget worried him; better to have all three in case the trappers had more help than he assumed.