Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (16 page)

“There is evil. Big evil come. It kill…all. It come to here, to Savone.”

The comtesse’s green eyes narrowed, but she did not appear to be either shocked or skeptical. She merely pursed her lips and looked to Brynjolf for further explanation.

“The
loup-garou
, you say, comtesse. Or
loup-diable
? We say aalvarg, they be beast they walk like Man.”

“Ah, you refer to the ulfin, of course,” the comtesse nodded. “Yes, I know whereof you speak. An army of ulfin invaded the north coast many, many years ago, with rather less success than your forefathers have enjoyed over the centuries. The Duc de Montreve, whose daughter married my late husband’s great-grandfather, smashed them at the Battle of Crociers. They say more than ten thousand ulfin were killed that day, so many that afterward, the duc gave all of his knights and men-at-arms three wolf pelts each.” The comtesse smiled, a little wolfishly. “No ulfin has been seen in Savondir since that time, and I don’t believe they ever dared to cross the Nordique to trouble us again.”

“No, they take our islands first.”

“You are saying that the ulfin are attacking your people? That the reavers are themselves reaved?” She smiled and shook her head. “You must understand that the news will not be mourned in Savondir. Of course, it does explain why our northern shore has been relatively unmolested in recent years.”

“No, Comtesse,” Brynjolf said, shaking his head somberly. “I say the aalvarg defeat my peoples. Only Raknarborg stands. When it fall, they kill the Dalarn. All mans, all womans, all childs. And then they cross the seas to come here, to kill your people. To kill Savone…Savonne.”

Fjotra closed her eyes. She could vividly recall the terror of their desperate retreat from their village of Garn to the last remaining fortress in Ulvoen.

“Are you well, Fjotra?” The comtesse was leaning over and holding her hand. “For a moment, I thought you might faint.”

“You help, lady. You need help.” Fjotra took the comtesse’s delicate hands in her own and implored her. “You need know. If Dalarn no can come to Savone, we all die!”

The Comtesse de Domdidier looked from Brynjolf, to Fjotra, then back again. Then she nodded and smiled brightly. “Well, we certainly can’t have that now, can we, my dears?”

“You help us?”

“I will ensure you receive an audience with the king. The assistance you seek can only come from him. I can promise you nothing in my own right. I am merely a woman. I have no armies, I cannot use a sword, and I fear even my household guard has been chosen with more concern for aesthetics than martial valor. Nor can I give you permission to settle reavers on my lands. For one thing, my comte is too small, and for another, it has no access to the sea.”

“But the viscomte say with you we must talk above all!” Brynjolf protested. “You say you can give no help?”

The comtesse laughed and tucked her wayward hair behind her left ear. “I said nothing of the kind, my dear prince of reavers. I am merely telling you that my weapons are not the sort you are likely to know, or perhaps even understand. Nor are the battles you are unwittingly asking me to wage on your behalf any less vicious for all that they are bloodless. Well, not entirely bloodless, I suppose. On occasion one can admittedly find the judicious use of the duel to be of some utility.”

Fjotra had no idea what the Savonnean woman was trying to tell them. “I no know.”

“No, my lovely girl, you most certainly do not.” She squeezed Fjotra’s hand, then patted it. “But you must understand this, my pets. We have two weeks. The Duchesse de Meridiony is giving a ball, and His Majesty is going to be there. So is the Red Prince, which may actually be more important. Naturally, I shall be there as well. I will bring you in the guise of one of my guards, Brynjolf. And you, lovely Fjotra, shall be my lady-in-waiting. How fortunate that the two of you are suitably handsome, which I doubt escaped the viscomte’s eye. And then, we shall arrange what we can arrange.

“But you must understand two things. Not everyone in Savonne will be as well-disposed toward you and your people as the viscomte and me. You reavers have harried our coasts and rivers for five hundred years and for some, the bitterness runs deep.”

“Some hate us, we know,” Brynjolf admitted. “But if you make them see danger to all Savoners, not just Dalarn, they need help!”

“Oh, I shall certainly be sure everyone who matters understands the danger, never fear,” the comtesse said, her green eyes sparkling with an emotion that Fjota could not read. But the smile she gave them this time was more fox than wolf. “Indeed, I imagine I shall have little difficulty in convincing certain grand personages to see something rather more important, which is to say, the opportunity this presents.”

MARCUS

The ride from the battlefield to the legionary camp was not a long one, only about five leagues. But after the long hours of tedium and terror had climaxed in a furious orgy of violence, it was exhausting, which made it feel more as if it were twenty leagues.

Marcus pitied the poor infantry, who had not only borne the brunt of the savage combat throughout the day, but who were now forced to march back to camp under their own power. On most days, Marcus and his fellow riders bristled at the way their horseless fellows taunted them as being lazy and effete, but today he found that he didn’t mind the occasional jibes from the infantry they rode past.

Their victory had been as complete and as glorious and as devoid of personal injury as any virgin soldier could hope his first battle to be. What he wouldn’t have given for Caitlys to see it—what a view she would have had soaring high over the battlefield on her hawk!

Fortex had not only been correct about the goblins being on the verge of running, but his timing had been absolutely magnificent. After driving the wolfriders from the field and killing more than one hundred of them in the process, the Second Knights had wheeled left and smashed into the goblin infantry, pinning them between the crashing charges of the cavalry and the inflexible line of the infantry’s steel shields.

The decurions estimated that more than twelve thousand goblins had been slain, pierced by swords and pila, crushed by stones, impaled by bolts, trampled by hooves and speared by lances. The Second lost only five dead—one to an arrow, two had fallen off their horses and been trampled in the initial charge, and two more had fallen to maddened wolves fighting on in the absence of their riders. Another fifteen had been wounded, including the decurion, Julianus, but only the two who suffered broken legs were seriously injured.

For the knights, the most dangerous part of the battle had not been fighting the enemy, but simply riding down the steep incline of the hill on which they’d been positioned.

It would have been a famous victory even without his cousin’s single combat with the goblin cavalry commander, which was already approaching mythic proportions. The legend of Fortex’s Duel was growing throughout the legion. Marcus had already heard a version of the tale from a man in the fourth cohort in which the skull-helmed goblin killed by his cousin was transformed into a fearsome mountain orc, and the big black wolf upon which it had ridden into a bear.

Finally, the familiar wooden walls of the legion’s camp came within view. They were more easily seen now than would normally have been the case, as the massive field of tents and wagons belonging to the female camp followers and the many small merchants who lived an itinerant life following the soldiers around was missing. The legion’s camp was usually a lively place akin to a moderately-sized, albeit movable city, but because the XIVth was more than ten days march from the nearest town or legionary fort, the general had ordered everything and everyone that was not essential to battle left behind at Berdicum. Most notably, the small army of women who lived off the lusts of the soldiery in one way or another.

A few foolish traders attempted to follow the legion when they’d marched out of the fortified town, but the burning of their wares on the first night, followed by a public flogging of the vendors, had been sufficient to prevent anyone else from imitating them.

The sentries on guard at the gate of the Via Praetoria saluted Marcus as he entered the camp. He was surprised to see Julianus, his arm neatly bandaged, standing near them. The decurion’s face was grim. He didn’t seem to be at all inclined to celebrate the day’s victory. He waved Marcus over.

“Come with me, Tribune Valerius. Take his horse to the stables, Jeron. What’s your lad’s name?”

“Ask for Deccus,” Marcus told the rider as he dismounted and handed the reins of the horse to him. “Is something wrong, Decurion?”

“Why did you let him to ride out to meet the goblin, Clericus? He was your cousin! You couldn’t stop him?

“Are you talking about Fortex?” Marcus had to walk faster to keep up with the bigger man.

“Do you have any other cousins here?”

“Of course I tried to stop him! I told him to ignore the gobbo’s challenge and to remember your orders, and I kept telling him that until he told me to shut up! You know Fortex. Since when does he listen to me? He isn’t in trouble, is he?”

The decurion shook his head and spat. “Worry about your own arse, Clericus. The men say it was you, not Fortex, who gave the order to advance, when we all knew damn well our orders were to stay on that hill. What in the seven dirty hells were you thinking? How hard was it to do what I damned well told you and just hold your filthy ground?”

“How could I? He ordered me to hold the legion until they looked like breaking, then ride in after him. What was I supposed to do? Anyhow, you saw what happened. He was right.”

The decurion shrugged and didn’t press him further. Marcus wondered how much trouble he was in. He had caused the Second Knights to disobey its orders, he couldn’t deny that. But he’d only done so in obedience to an order given by the Knights’ commander. But would Saturnius see it that way? For that matter, would his father? Of the two generals, he had the sneaking suspicion that the legate would be more inclined to be merciful than the stragister.

They walked past the rows of butterfly tents belonging to the officers, including the tent Marcus shared with Gaius Marcius. But instead of turning right on at the Forum, where those who had been wounded in the early part of the battle were being tended, the Decurion turned left.

Among those being treated, Marcus recognized Quince de Sorrengis, an ornery young legionary who hailed from a small village within the Valerian lands, arguing with the doctor trying to sew his wounded shoulder closed. He would have liked to stop and see how the Valerian liege man was faring, but it was not an option. Julianus didn’t so much as glance at the group of wounded soldiers but continued walking toward the large canvas tent in which the standards were kept.

“Decurion, where are we going?”

“The general’s quarters,” he snapped. “Your father wants to see you.”

A number of officers were gathered in the huge open tent that served as the headquarters. They looked quizzically at Marcus and the decurion as the two of them passed by. They arrived at the regal, crimson-dyed leather tent that belonged to the legion’s general, Sextus Valerius Corvus, Propraetor, Count of Vallyria, and Senate-appointed Stragister Militum and Dux Ducis Bello for the Senate and People of Amorr’s campaign against the Chalonu, Vakhuyu, and Insobru tribes.

The guards saluted both Marcus and Julianus without expression and stood aside to let them enter.

His father was seated in an imposing wooden chair that served as a makeshift throne when it was deemed necessary to cow the enemies of Amorr who were summoned before it. By the looks of it, he was deep in conversation with the legion’s general and Caius Proculus, the senior centurion. All three of them were still wearing their battle armor. Proculus’s right arm was well stained with blood too dark to be his own. Marcus did his best to avoid looking directly at any of them, but instead focused on the chair.

The crows that had become his father’s sigil were carved into towering ears that rose from the back of the chair, while its legs were shaped into large talons to signify the eagles of the legions, one for each that Marcus’s father presently commanded. The other two were both many leagues away, and considering the apparent lack of pleasure with which all three officers greeted his entrance, Marcus found himself fervently wishing that he was serving with either of them right now instead of Legio XVII.

“I brought Tribune Valerius here immediately, General,” Julianus addressed his father. “I met him at the camp gate, as instructed.”

“Thank you, Decurion. I cannot tell you how delighted I am to learn that at least one officer in this legion is capable of following orders. I see you took a wound to your arm?”

Julianus glanced at the white bandage wrapped around his left arm and shrugged. “Just an arrow. It ain’t nothing, sir.”

“Decurion, were you there when my nephew and my son were overcome with what I can only conclude to have been a moment of sheer madness?”

“No, sir, I’m sorry to say I weren’t. After I took that arrow, I thought I’d have the medicus wrap it up since those howlers didn’t look like they was in any mood for a fight. Nothing had happened all day. So you might say it were my fault, General.”