A Sea of Skulls (Arts of Dark and Light Book 2)

by Vox Day

  The sight of his grief-stricken officers was almost more than Marcus could bear. He gritted his teeth, looked down at the earthen floor to give himself a moment to regain control, then cleared his throat.

  “Before you ask, no one knows exactly what happened. It seems there was a fire in the palace, in the throne room. Corvus was there, meeting with the Sanctiff. They were found dead there together, burned. An archbishop died as well.”

  “Who did it? Were they attacked?” Proculus was the first to get himself under control.

  “There are all sorts of wild rumors flying around. The elven ambassador disappeared at the same time, so considerable speculation centers on that. But unless Lady Shadowsong, Lady Everbright and that cursed mage were all lying to me, it can’t have been the elves. There are all sorts of incredible rumors, and it’s clear that no one actually knows who was responsible.”

  “Do you think it was the Severans?”

  “It’s possible, of course.” Marcus thoughtfully worried at the cuticle on his right index finger with his left hand. “But I’d be more inclined to suspect my uncle. House Severus is still in disarray by all accounts and Corvus had nothing to do with Severus Patronus’s death. As far as my thoughts go, this is the sort of bold, unexpected stroke that only Magnus would dare. I can’t think of another Senator with the stones to do it.”

  “That makes sense,” Trebonius said. The others looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged. “I don’t know any more about patrician politics than the rest of you, but if the fire that killed the General happened before Lady Shadowsong met us, then he was dead months ago, before we met Magnus near Montmila. We know Magnus must have been planning rebellion before then, and God knows he’s a wily old bastard, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that your uncle would have arranged for something to keep the city occupied in his absence.”

  “Killing a consul and a sanctiff would certainly tie down the Senate and keep it well and truly distracted.” Marcus punched his open palm. “To say nothing of frightening the plebs and eliminating the one general he knew was good enough to beat him. Dammit, if I hadn’t put the horse on the left wing under Nobilianus, we’d have had him and that murderous traitor’s fat arse would have already been roasted over a slow fire!”

  “So what the hell are we doing here?” Tertius shouted. His face was streaked with tears and Marcus recalled that last year it had taken the man weeks to get over Saturnius’s death. “We shouldn’t be in Savonderum, we should be back there, back in Amorr! Damn the northmen, let them defend their own bloody borders from the orc. Let’s march south and put your traitor uncle’s head where it belongs, on the sharp end of a spear!”

  “No one wants my uncle’s head more than I do, Vitius Sintas. There isn’t a man here who wants to avenge my father’s blood more than me.”

  Marcus shook his head. And it was at that moment, the pain of seeing his men’s grief pulling him out of his own, that everything suddenly became clear to him. Let the dead bury the dead.

  “We all want to avenge Corvus. But we’re not marching south,” he told them. “This news is old. The fighting at home may already be over, one way or the other. These orcs, they aren’t something the Savonners can stop on their own. There are too many. If we can help the king stop the orcs here, we’re doing our duty to the Senate and People by keeping them out of the empire and well away from Amorr. Every orc we kill, every orc we even force them to field against us here in the north, is one more that isn’t marching south towards our lands through the Waste.”

  Trebonius nodded. Cassabus exhaled loudly and shook his head, but more in frustration than disagreement. Proculus looked skeptical, but he did not protest.

  Tertius stared angrily at Marcus. Marcus didn’t say anything more, he simply met the man’s angry, pain-filled eyes, until the centurion finally looked away. But he didn’t manage to do so before Marcus noticed another tear run down his cheek.

  “What are we going to tell the men?” Trebonius finally asked.

  “Nothing. They don’t need to know.”

  “Nothing? How can you not tell them the Sanctiff is dead? How can you think they wouldn’t want to honor the General!”

  “They’ll think to honor him by avenging him,” Proculus answered Tertius. “And that ain’t the worst problem. The men who left their women and children behind is already half beside themselves not knowing what is happening to them. If they hear that things down there is that out of control, some of them is going to crack. We might even start seeing men trying to head south on their own.”

  “There won’t be any desertions!” Trebonius said heatedly. “There hasn’t been a single one since the day after the battle!”

  “Do you think anyone was about to desert when the general’s elf girl was patrolling the skies, or run off in the darkness under the mountains?” Cassabus said.

  She’s not my elf, Marcus wanted to say, but he let it slide. “No one is deserting and no one outside of this staff is to hear about either my father or the Holy Father.” He looked from officer to officer, making certain they all understood it was an order. “The families are a legitimate issue. Arvandus, arrange for a squadron to ride south to Gorignia tomorrow, taking letters. Those who can write will have to help those who can’t. And send a chest of silver with them, twenty terces for each woman and another ten for each child. They can spend three weeks looking for news of the camp followers. If they can’t find them by then, they should return. They’ll most likely find the women in one of the Vallyrian castras.”

  “Are you serious?” The senior decurion looked incredulous. “General, you couldn’t be certain of finding them if you sent ten squadrons!”

  Marcus shrugged. “They may not find anyone. But if we can keep the ranks from getting overly restless for the price of a little silver and eight knights, that’s not a bad bargain. The men know as well as we do there is nothing we can do for their families, they just want to see we aren’t ignoring their concerns.”

  “This is why they’re not allowed to marry in the first place,” Proculus grumbled.

  “Camp wife is cheaper than whores,” said Tertius.

  “Depends on the whore,” Cassabus said wryly, drawing a bitter snort from the centurion.

  While they were talking, Trebonius had gone to the far side of the tent and withdrawn a flagon, presumably of wine, from the shadows. He handed it to the pilus prior, then gathered five of the stemless wooden goblets from which the Savondese peasantry drank. But before Tertius could pour it, Marcus intervened.

  “No, not yet.” He held up his hand to stop the centurion. “There are two things that require addressing now. First, we march northeast the day after tomorrow. We will assemble the centurions this evening in the forum and instruct them to inform their centuries accordingly. The duke told me that large raiding parties of orcs are known to have attacked seventeen towns and villages north of the Grimmwalde Gap. The local nobles have assembled a force of two hundred horse and hunted down eight of the warbands, but at least four remain active.”

  “How big are these parties?” Trebonius asked. None of the men looked surprised that they would be abandoning the castra so quickly.

  “About a century. The goblins are mounted. The orcs aren’t.”

  “They can’t possibly think we’re going to chase down warbands that size on foot,” protested Arvandus. “And between my knights and Appius Julianus’s, we’ve barely got more than three hundred horse ourselves! Or we would if we had horses, which we don’t.”

  Marcus grinned wryly at the senior decurion. “No worries, Senarius, the Savonners have no intention of wasting a perfectly good Amorran legion chasing shadows in the forest. They’ve taken captives, and the interrogations have led them to believe that a much larger force is marching through the Gap. We have been requested to march there at all speed, and stop them before they manage to exit the hills and threaten the city of Naeon”

  “Requested?” Arvandus looked suspicious. “How much larger a force?
”

  “There are conflicting reports, but the most credible estimate is between twenty-five and forty thousand.”

  That produced instantaneous responses from the five officers, every single one of which would merit at least a mild penance from Father Gennadius.

  Marcus wasn’t surprised that the praefectus, Cassabus, was the first to stop swearing and think the matter through. “What sort of forces is the king providing? We beat twenty thousand goblins last year, but twice that many orcs is an entirely different proposition, General. And you know we’ve four hundred fewer men now.”

  “I am well aware of that. What’s more, instead of two veteran generals commanding the legion, you’ve got a tribune with no victories and a defeat to his credit, and that defeat with the numbers on his side. Moreover, they’ve got shamans, blood magiciens, and the Immaculate knows what other devilries on hand, whereas we don’t have so much as a single Michaeline novice. Even you wouldn’t take those odds, Proculus.”

  “I hope you’re going to tell us that you didn’t,” the primus pilus said, unsmiling.

  “I wish I could,” Marcus said, as he walked over and reached into a leather satchel that one of the legionaries had brought into the tent earlier. He withdrew a scroll that was sealed in purple wax marked with a very large stamp and handed it to Trebonius. “Unfortunately, the request essentially amounts to an order, seeing as how it comes from Gaius Trebonius’s new liege lord.”

  “What’s this?” the young tribune said, waving the scroll back and forth. “My liege lord?”

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Marcus pointed to the seal and smiled at his friend’s discomfiture. That would teach him not to execute the local peasants in his absence. “It is the seal of His Royal Majesty, Louis-Charles de Mirid, by the grace of God King of Savondir, the Wolf Isles, and the Seven Seats. Break it, Gaius Trebonius.”

  Trebonius broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. Cassabus whistled at the sight of it; the praefectus could read nearly as well as Marcus and the elaborate script was a veritable work of art that looked more like the product of a monastic scriptorium than a royal bureaucracy.

  Trebonius, being a merchant’s son, could read as well, although the over-flourished hand of the scribe seemed to make it hard for him to distinguish one word from another. But at least Marcus had been able to convince the cleric to write the scroll in Church Faleran rather than in the Savonnaise the Chancelier originally ordered. It established that Gaius Trebonius, a mere plebian, was now the viscomte de Lechaire, wherever that might be.

  “What is a viscomte?” he asked Marcus, looking confused.

  “It’s something like a miniature province. The king has made you something similar to a proconsular governor, only it’s a permanent office. Hereditary, even. So, congratulations, Monseigneur viscomte. You’re now a patrician of sorts.”

  “I don’t understand.” Trebonius stared at the scroll as if it had turned into a serpent. The other officers were nonplussed as well. Proculus, in particular, was looking askance at Marcus, as if he thought Marcus had gone completely mad.

  “It’s entirely sensible on the king’s part, gentlemen. We have what is, by Savonner standards, an unusually large army, and the king is a little nervous that we’re going to march on Lutèce and attempt to dethrone him. If it weren’t for the orcs, he’d probably be raising his levies against us. But as things stand, he knows he needs us. He’s trying to buy our loyalty.”

  “Why didn’t he give it to you?” Trebonius asked.

  “He did. He offered me something called a marquisat, which I understand is a larger province and a higher rank. I refused, of course.”

  “Why?” Tertius and Proculus asked at the same time.

  “I am of House Valerius,” Marcus answered simply. “I would not have accepted the crown, had he offered it.”

  The men, somewhat to his surprise, burst out laughing. Marcus ignored them and continued. “What’s more important is that in addition to the lands and income he’s given Gaius Trebonius, the king has agreed to keep us supplied through next winter and meet our payroll for the duration of the summer campaign.”

  “Can’t collect if you’re dead,” Tertius said, rubbing skeptically at his unshaven chin. “Maybe that’s why he’s throwing us in the gap. Figures he can kill two birds with the one stone, getting rid of us and a whole passel of orcs at one throw.”

  Marcus shrugged. “Men, you want to honor the General. This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to honor him by slaughtering these orcs and striking fear into the hearts of every man, orc, and goblin in the north.”

  “This is madness!” Tertius protested.

  “Clericus, you’ve never even fought the orc before!” Cassabus reminded him.

  “Cavator,” Marcus corrected the primus pilus. “I hear the men are calling me Cavator now. And I’ve decided they may as well, because I’ve come up with a plan, and as it happens, it is one that may involve a considerable quantity of digging.”

  The senior officers looked at each other in silence. Then Proculus groaned and pretended to rub at his back.

  “Damn their numbers, General! Can’t we just face them in the open and die like men?”

  The officers laughed again, but there was a faint edge of something that, in lesser men, might have been described as hysteria. Marcus only smiled, located a chair, and pointed to the flagon, relieved to see that they were still with him.

  “You’d better pour us that wine, Arvandus. Trebonius, see if you can locate a wax board and a stylus. This could take some time.”

  Severa

  Amorr was a city under siege. Although no enemy armies ringed her walls, or assailed her gates, the city had been formally placed under military rule and every day, her citizens awoke with the knowledge that they were one day closer to spring. Men volunteered for the four new legions that had been voted funds by the Senate, while women prepared foodstuffs, sewed everything from banners to thick canvas sacks, and made do without half their household slaves.

  The slaves had been commandeered by the Senate vote and it was an indication of the city’s desperation that twelve thousand of them, two legions worth, were being trained as legionaries. Six of the Houses Martial were sharing the cost of the two slave legions, with the understanding that they would be disbanded at the end of the war, but neither House Valerian nor House Severus had been permitted to participate. With two of the three Valerian legions in league with the rebellious provincials and the whereabouts of the third one unknown, the Valerians were under extreme suspicion by the Senate and People alike.

  Three of her husband’s older brothers and no less than eight of his cousins had been taken into Senatorial custody. All of them had served at one time or another with Legio VII, the legion commanded by Didius Scato that Valerius Magnus had so easily coopted. Sextus had been questioned closely by her cousin T. Severus Servius, a quaestor who had been elected at the same assembly, but in light of his youth, his tribunate, and his lack of personal ties to any of the three Valerian legions, he had thus far been spared the indignity of an arrest.

  But it was something she worried about every time she heard a group of men marching up the street to the Valerian domus in which they were now living. Her heart skipped a beat every time she heard the clatter of more than two or three pairs of iron-shod sandals, and she had to endure small agonies daily as Sextus had frequent visitors from both the soldiers under his command and small delegations of those pleading for him to show mercy to them or one of their clients. Her husband, having been deemed untrustworthy of defending a gate or serving in one of the Senatorial legions, had been assigned the ugly task of overseeing the ongoing expulsions of residents deemed insufficiently loyal by the Senate due to their connections in the Allied cities.

  It was wearing on Sextus. Severa could see that. The suspicion that his father’s treachery cast on him was bad enough, but his staunch Valerian pride did not permit him to show how the constant whispers bothered him. Not even whe
n they were alone would he complain about them, or indeed, see fit to mention them. She was convinced that he had chosen to live in Magnus’s own domus as more a gesture of arrogant defiance than anything else, his appeal to his mother’s need to be in her own home and its proximity to the Forum notwithstanding.

  If Sextus’s haughty Valerian pride was up to that particular challenge, his warm and sympathetic nature was almost daily overwhelmed by the cruelty that his Senate-imposed responsibilities demanded of him. She never saw her husband entering the homes of the men identified for expulsion or escorting the families to the city gates, but more than once she overheard the desperate appeals from men who came to plead with him, and saw the confused faces of the children and wives who accompanied them. Where would they go? How would they live? Why had they been ordered to leave the only homes they had ever known when other men, who in some cases weren’t even citizens, had been permitted to stay?

  Sextus had no answers for them. Both he and Severa knew very well that were it not for House Valerius’s loyal allies in the Senate and her own ties to House Severus, they might well have faced expulsion, or worse, themselves. The Senators were frightened. Sextus tried to explain the situation to her one night after he had come home, guilt-stricken and hollow-eyed, fresh from discovering that the man he’d been ordered to evict that day had murdered his entire household, right down to the youngest slave, prior to killing himself. The man’s crime, such as it was, was to have married a woman from Quinqueterra some twenty years before. And frightened men, especially rich and powerful men not accustomed to being frightened, were prone to acting recklessly, unnecessarily, and without thinking through all the probable consequences.

  The mass expulsion of the provincials at the start of the war was dreadful, but tempered by the fact that everyone, including the provincials themselves, understood that the expulsion was a necessary and merciful act. With the provinces in rebellion and word of Amorran citizens being butchered everywhere from Cynothicum to Bithnya inflaming the populace, most of the provincials had counted themselves fortunate to be permitted to try their chances in winter on the Via Epra. There were no few senators, especially among the auctores embittered by the treachery of those whose cause they had championed, who had favored widespread reprisals. Fortunately for the provincials and Amorr’s honor, saner heads, led by Manlius Torquatus, the Consul Civitas, supported by Sextus’s uncle Corvus, eventually prevailed, thus preventing an untimely bloodbath. If, as it was said, hundreds had died on the wintry roads, tens of thousands had been spared.