Winning back the kingdom

It worked, and I'm alive. The question is, how long can Burne's Badgers keep the town secure.

We hid out in the basement of the Inn of the Welcome Wench. There's all kinds of secret hiding places down there. We kept the kids there in case something went wrong (I have no idea what we would have done with them if something did go wrong). Early this morning we masqueraded as Badgers. It turned out all the Badgers had been replaced by guards from this invading army. Many of the Badgers were killed, but many more escaped and hid in people's homes, outside of town...a few even shacked up in Nulb temporarily.

This town is amazing. About a quarter of the residences used to be adventurers. The rest have been influenced by that one quarter. The result? Everyone has little secret hideaways. Basements, secret rooms--you name, just about every house here has something like that. People use these places to stash weapons, money, food, and sometimes even people (like the Badgers).

What does all this mean? It means that this town has a sizable fighting force, one that the invading army probably didn't realize. They looked at this bunch and saw nothing but peasants. They left a garrison here and have maintained the order with the threat that their children will come to harm. Now, of course, that threat is gone, and the garrison was left standing against a town full of armed men and women.

Last night one of the Badgers ran off to Verbobonc. He's half-elf and knows all the local hiding spots and back roads. He'll warn them of what's happening here, and maybe they'll send troops. They were afraid to do this before because of the children. I can't blame them for that. What if the spy were intercepted, or the Verbobonc troops were spotted from a distance? Off he went, and this morning off we went to Hommlet Keep.

It's damn near finished. The main building is still being worked on, but many of the floors are still in place. The tower ballistas and catapults were manned, and there were guards making regular rounds day and night. That wasn't good.

Remember when I said every building in this town has a secret hideaway of some sort? Well, so does the Tower. It was finished some months ago. Only three people know about it: Burne, Rufus, and Ostler. Yeah, Ostler. The man is an overweight James Bond, I swear.

"James who?" he asked me when I said that. I promised I'd explain it to him later.

Early in the morning we went out in a small force--that would be Marc, Saul, Audry, Anna, and myself. Others wanted to come, and we considered it briefly. But this was the most dangerous part of the job. These people had families. We didn't--except for each other.

Yeah, these guys are my family now.

Marc cast a spell, a very powerful one that I didn't know he had access to. It essentially made everyone invisible--as long as we stayed close to Marc.

"I hope you bathed," Anna said. Marc only winked as he cast his spell.

Getting to the tower was a bit tricky. We couldn't see each other. Someone kept stepping on my heels. "Sorry," they'd mutter. Yeah, sure. No problem. I won't need my feet when I'm facing down the denizens of the tower. I wondered how many were doppelgangers.

We reached the base of the hillside where the tower rested. Above we could see the guards moving back and forth. We still had to be quiet, of course, but at this distance it was unlikely they would see us. Anna checked the area for traps and gave us the nod. We opened it, moving the rock Ostler told us about (this thing was pretty well hidden). The door opened inward quietly.

We went into the dark tunnel and the door closed behind us. It got even trickier at this point. Saul and Anna had to lead the way with their heat-sensing vision.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"Cold," Anna said. "Why do you humans always ask us that?"

"Because we can't see in the dark," Audry said. "And we want to know what you see."

"If there are warm bodies, we'll see them," Saul said. "And we'll let you know."

The passageway was narrow, about five feet wide or so. It sloped upward for about a hundred feet. Suddenly, Saul and Anna stopped us.

"What?" Marc whispered.

"We're here," Saul said. "Get ready."

I heard rock moving across rock. A piece of the wall in front of us swung open suddenly. It collided with something on the other side.

"Unh." I heard something fall over, followed by cursing. "Who the hells--?"

Ahead of us I saw a guard. His eyes grew wide as he stared at us. He held his hand to his mouth and prepared to call out a warning to everyone upstairs. A split second later an arrow slammed home into his skull. His body convulsed and then he hit the floor. Anna already had another arrow in hand.

I ran into the room. There was only one other guard there. He laid on the floor where the secret door knocked him over. And me with my sword still in my sheath. Unprepared, yes, but not helpless.

I reached for his arm and locked his elbow. I strained it and he cried out. Saul was in the room a second after me. He put his hand over the man's mouth.

"You'll do what we say," Saul said. "Or he'll break your arm."

The man nodded quickly, and then sang like a bird.

--------

I can go into details about what happened like I usually do. Suffice it to say that these guys were good, but not good enough.

Heading upstairs I was confronted by three of them. For a split second I wondered whether or not any of them were actually part of Burne's Badgers. Of course, if they were they would recognize us. And if they recognized us and attacked us anyway then they were part of the conspiracy--something hard to accept even considering the Badgers used to be brigands long ago.

In other words, if they attacked then they had to die. All of this passed through my mind in an instant. I then proceeded to kill all three of them.

It was like mowing grass. They came before us and defended themselves reasonably well but they couldn't stand against us. Anna fired arrows. Marc fired spells. The rest of us cut them down the old fashion way. When all of them were dead on this level we opened the Tower door.

"Clear!" I yelled outside. The townsfolk came out of hiding and poured into the Tower.

We ran up the stairs. I ran up these stairs long ago. It felt like running up a ladder. Now I took them three at a time with ease.

We found many more. Our pigeon sang well and accurately. When we reached the top we found what we feared. Some of the soldiers were readying the catapults and ballistas. If we had been a few minutes later, the town would be burning. When they saw us, they stopped.

"It's over," I said. I walked toward them, but one of them threatened to set off the catapult. Anna put an arrow in his left eye. He stumbled back and fell off the tower.

"Anyone tries that again," Audry said. "And you will all die."

I glanced at her. She never bluffed about killing. If she was going to kill you, then she meant it.

"Any takers?" Anna asked.

All of them put their hands in the air and walked toward us.

"Smartest thing you've done all your life," I said.

One of them spit at me. Then they all turned and dove off the edge of the tower.

We stood there, stunned.

--------------------

The townsfolk secured the tower, which wasn't hard since we had killed most of them. They found a couple of soldiers who fought to the death. Fortunately, none of the townspeople in the tower died.

You see, the fighting wasn't isolated to just the Tower. A few soldiers were housed in the unfinished Keep (it was used as a dormitory). They were captured by the townsfolk with relative ease. But in town was where the bulk of the soldiers remained. We were told things were well in hand there and so we went into the streets.

You would have been proud to see it. People fought for their freedom in the street. The soldiers, trained for war and combat, didn't stand a chance. The fighting lasted for hours, going from building to building and rooting out the soldiers. None of them surrendered, even though we offered.

There were about seventy soldiers total, both in town and in the tower. All but a dozen were killed by the overwhelming force of the townsfolk. The remaining dozen took their own lives. No one wanted to be captured alive.

The last one stood in the middle of town, holding his long sword at the ready.

"Give it up," I said. "If you surrender you'll be treated fairly."

He shook his head.

"What, you're going to off yourself like your friends did?" I said. "Where is the honor in that?"

"If I live," he said, "then he will know."

"Who's he?" Anna said.

"He." He turned his sword around and held it by the blade. "He will know." He set the sword so the hilt rested on the ground. He held the sword in place by resting his fingers tips on the tip of the blade. "And then I will pray for death."

He let himself fall on his sword. The blade pierced his throat. He died in seconds without flinching.

Everyone in town became quiet. You never heard such quiet.

We counted our own dead. Twenty had died. The priests at the Church of Saint Cuthbert managed to raise five of them today. They say they can raise more, but more than likely they cannot raise everyone. They've sent riders to look for more priests.

Children have been united with their families...mostly. Some children came back to town only to discover their parents have died in the battle to free their home. I hope more priests can be found, for their sake.

We can only pray to the deity of our choice.

It is late now. I just got out of a bath in Marc's home (it looked in good condition, even though it had been a long time since he had been here--magic is a wonderful thing). I took a hot bath. Any other time it would have felt wonderful, but the events of the day flooded back to me. I watched the blood pull up in the bath, most of it not mine. When I was done I felt less dirty, but not clean.

Tomorrow we head back to the Elemental Temple. I have no idea how long before the Temple realizes something has happened. We would leave tonight, but Marc must memorize spells and that requires a full nights rest. I hate them for what they made us do today. I wished I had some C-4 so I could level the whole structure.

A small nuke would be nice. Dropped from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I realize that I have not finished telling my tale of how we rescued the children. That will have to wait for I am too exhausted.