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

by Vox Day

  “Sebastien!” he shouted in despair.

  “Gor-Gor!” a guttural cheer went up from the orcs. “Gor-Gor u shaggat!”

  Theuderic had heard of the orc wargod before, every royal battlemage had, but he had never truly believed in the power of the inhumanités to actually summon it. How did one dispel a god? Even if it was only a demon, as he suspected, the only priest in the vicinity was about as unfit as a man could be for an impromptu battlefield exorcism.

  If you can’t kill the summoned, kill the summoner. He could almost hear the voice of the hoary-bearded Immortel instructing the class on les démons et les élémentaux. It brought another maxim to his mind. No plan survives contact with the enemy. So, change the plan. Kill the summoner first. He raised his staff.

  A sparking word and the balefire, called forth from one of the higher levels of the lesser hells, roared forth from the sigils at the end of his staff. It leaped out to engulf the bleeding shaman, which was too caught up in its demonic summoning to see it or even to scream. Caught up in its blood-addled reverie, it burned in silence, without struggle or protest. Its flesh was black by the time its hands dropped to its sides; only then did it take a single step forward before collapsing into the unnatural flames that were consuming its body.

  There was a hollow cry, as if from very far away, and Theuderic glanced up towards the treetops, looking for any sign that the terrible fist might be descending upon him. He pulled up his horse and circled around, holding his staff before him warily. There was no sign of the war god, so he was forced to conclude the immolation of the shaman who had summoned it was sufficient to break its link to this dimension. He kicked his horse after the charging survivors. He did not look back at the crushed remains of his colleague; there was no chance Sebastien had survived the blow from that terrible demonic fist.

  One sorcerous threat was averted, but it was not the only one. One shaman still remained but it was well aware of the danger Theuderic posed. Having seen what he had done to its two companions, it was not inclined to stand and fight. Instead, it disappeared behind a cloud of magical smoke and vanished.

  De Cervole and his men were already furiously battling the big orcs around the warleader. They were more muscular and better armed than most of those Theuderic had encountered earlier in the day, but they were no better armored. The mercenaries rode down the first bodyguards with relative ease, but then a dozen, a score, and even a few more surged forward and managed to slow their momentum. The cavalry charge slowed, then came to a complete halt as it was transformed from a unitary assault into a melee of mercenary islands held motionless in a boiling sea of orcs.

  Somehow, one man-at-arms managed to duck a thrusting pike, then slash his way past two more orcs until only a pair of bodyguards stood between him and the warleader. But one of the orcs he’d ridden past gutted his horse, and the beast collapsed without warning, sending its rider crashing face first to the ground. The man somehow managed to roll sideways and avoid a club that would have crushed his skull, then, instead of trying to retrieve his sword, he pulled at the stabbing arm of one bodyguard and used it to simultaneously get to his feet and throw the orc behind him. As he did so, the other bodyguard swept his legs out from under him, then bent over and bashed out the man’s brains with repeated blows of the metal-studded club.

  And for a moment, nothing stood between de Cervole and the warleader except the three orcs grabbing at his rein and slashing at his shield. To Theuderic’s surprise, the defrocked priest pulled himself up upon his horse’s back, then leaped from it over the heads of all three orcs. As he fell towards the ground, de Cervole swung his sword down as well and buried it deeply into the big orc’s unarmored neck. The monster screamed, its collarbone shattered, as green blood gouted messily from the mortal wound. De Cervole was immediately swarmed by the three orcs over whom he’d jumped, in addition to four or five surviving bodyguards.

  “Mage!” Theuderic heard de Cervole shout in a voice that rang with command, not fear or desperation.

  Theuderic didn’t hesitate. He channeled another burst of balefire, and it swept over the pile of struggling figures, man and orc alike. The orcs staggered away, shrieking in pain as the hungry nether-flames devoured their green flesh. They fled screaming, six or seven living torches, into the depths of the forest. And after them fled the remaining orcs of the warleader’s bodyguard. The warleader itself lay dull-eyed and dying barely a hand’s reach from the badly injured man who had dealt it its death wound.

  Two of the former priest’s men rushed to their captain and were already beating out the flames from his clothes and his red, blistered, half-melted skin. De Cervole had been bludgeoned, stabbed, and bitten, as well as burned, but he was still conscious, if only just. But he, too, was mortally wounded. Theuderic could see a question in the dying priest’s agonized eyes. His lips, bleeding and partially burned off, moved almost imperceptibly. But Theuderic understood.

  “You killed it. The rest ran. You’ll have saved them all, I think.”

  De Cervole’s eyes closed and he seemed to relax. If he was destined for hotter flames than those that had just burned him, he was ready. Theuderic kneeled down, placed his hand gently on the man’s shoulder, and quietly spoke the words that Vermouton had first arranged nearly eighty years ago. De Cervole’s burned hands involuntarily reached for his throat, his upper body jerked once, violently, and then he slumped back onto the ground again.

  “What did you do?” one of the men asked.

  “What had to be done,” he replied. Was it mercy to send a man to Hell? He wouldn’t have thought so. And yet it felt like a kindness all the same. He looked at the dying orc, which gazed back at him with yellow eyes of impotent hate. Theuderic smiled coldly, then spat and turned away. Let the creature find its own way to the Devil.

  Marcus

  The forest was much thicker than any the Amorrans had seen before. In certain places where the tree trunks were exceptionally thick, the leaves and branches overhead formed a canopy that concealed the afternoon sky entirely from the view of those marching underneath. But despite the darkness, the mood of the legionaries was exhilarated, and it was with some difficulty that the centurions kept their men in order as they marched in skirmish order through the sun-dappled ground. Each century had a single contubernium designated as ear-catchers; they roamed ahead of the line of march carrying daggers with which to remove the ears of the dead orcs they found and sacks in which to carry them. At intervals, a call went up, as the legionaries marched past, or sometimes over, a corpse that had not yet been deprived of its appendages.

  “Oy, Audens! You missed one!”

  “Move it along, Opis,” an optio barked. “Where is it?”

  “Back here, to the right, by that big tree there!”

  A tired legionary, his forearm greaves splattered with dark green gore, trudged wearily back towards the marching century, a half-full burlap sack slung over his shoulders. He sighed as the men marched past him, and nodded as one man pointed towards a wide-trunked oak with a large knot on the side. After they passed by, he walked over to the dead orc, kneeled down, and with two expert strokes, removed the green ears. After slipping them into the sack, he stood up and rubbed at the small of his back, then began half-jogging at a pace that would let him overtake the century again.

  “How many do you think were killed?” Marcus asked Arvandus as they rode along the path through the forest made by the men’s iron-soled sandals.

  “A few hundred. Ten percent at most.”

  “That would be nearly twenty-five hundred silvers.”

  “If we find them all. Which we won’t. We’ll be lucky to collect five hundred.”

  “Even so.”

  Think the king will pay up?”

  Marcus snorted. “We just saved his eastern provinces from being overrun. More importantly, we have five thousand swords. He’ll pay.”

  Collecting from the king of Savondir was the last of Marcus’s concerns. At the moment, his main d
ifficulty was keeping a smile from his face and his own overheated emotions in check. Corvus had never smiled in front of the men, not even in the aftermath of battle when victory was assured, and Marcus was doing his level best to follow his father’s example.

  It was harder than it had looked, though, as every corpse past which he rode reminded him of the massive weight that had been lifted from his shoulders two mornings ago.

  Somehow, he’d managed to force himself to sleep after Cassabus and his men marched forth to launch the risky night assault. The thought of spending the night in prayer and fasting had occurred to him, but the knowledge that the legion might find itself surrounded by ten thousand or more orcs if the attack failed made him decide to snatch some rest while he could. If he was going to be leading his men into battle at dawn, he owed it to them to be at his best and sharpest.

  The centurions had their men ready to march before the sun rose, and a bright golden gleam was just beginning to appear on the horizon when the two riders were spotted. He’d been going over their current state of supplies with the legion’s armicustos, Obsidius Montanus, when Vitius Sintas strode over and warned him that news of the battle was imminent. He’d steeled himself to be prepared for anything, a disorderly retreat, a rout, or a desperate call for reinforcements; the one thing he had not expected was complete and utter victory.

  He savored the knight’s words in his mind. He could still see the man’s face, sweat dripping down from his helmet into eyes that were filled with an exultant pride. “General, the enemy is no more. They did not stand, but fled in complete disorder. Titus Cassabus reports no losses and only thirteen wounded, none seriously. He also requests that you bring him several dozen sacks, as he has nowhere to store the ears he has been collecting.”

  The promise of an ear-harvest was why he’d determined to march the entire legion, less three centuries and two squadrons under the command of Julianus to escort the supply train, through the forest rather than around it. They would have linked up with the Savondese army more easily by going around it, but if the enemy was routed, he had wanted to crush as many of them between him and the northerners as he could before they escaped to the east. His plan had not been without risk, given how many orcs and goblins still survived Cassabus’s attack, but the silver bounty made it worth taking.

  They’d reached the tribune and his exhausted centuries before the sun reached its height. Although several of the senior centurions had wanted to press on and further harry the orcs, Marcus demurred and they’d made their camp early yesterday. If the orcs were going to gather themselves and strike back in force, he wanted to them to find the legion whole, behind fortifications, and armed with its war machines. The scorpios were disassembled and being transported on the wagons, but the onagers were more useful in the heavily wooded forest anyhow.

  But he’d ordered an early start this morning to compensate for the slow pace the forest imposed on them even without the mules and wagons. The men were carrying five days’ provisions too, and the additional weight combined with the uneven terrain further slowed them down.

  A decurion on horseback made his way through the trees to avoid the infantrymen and approached him. “General, the Primus Pilus says there is something you should see ahead.”

  Marcus frowned. The scouts had spotted a few scattered orcs roaming about, but they’d fled upon catching sight of the Amorrans, and with the exception of a single wolfrider brought down by a slinger, they hadn’t engaged in any combat. “Is there any sign of the enemy regrouping?”

  “No, General. It looks like there was a battle of sorts. Yesterday, most like.”

  He followed the man forward, and at the barked commands of their optios, the centuries parted, one after the other in succession, to let him pass through their ranks. The two of them rode some way in advance of the First of the First, with the way marked by pairs of knights and Savondese guides who were serving as the vanguard and picking out the legion’s path through the forest. One of the knights, Marcus saw, had a green-stained sack hanging down from the saddlehorn to which it was tied; he was pleased to know that the knights did not disdain to do their part for the legionary coffers.

  He could see from the brighter light that some sort of clearing was ahead, presumably one of a reasonable size, but before they reached it, they began to encounter the bodies. Orcs mostly, but there were also horses, goblins, and wolves, as well as splashes of red blood that suggested men had fallen here as well. There were dozens of corpses scattered about, with more than a few missing limbs, and not infrequently, heads. In the clearing, which was considerably larger than he’d expected, Proculus was standing with a pair of knights whose horses were tied to a tree well away from the various heaps of dead orcs and goblins that had been piled up by parties unknown; the pungent scent of death that filled the air already had his own horse skittish and tossing its head. He reined it in and looked around, more than a little confused by what he saw. Unlike the scattered bodies they’d previously passed, here it looked as if the orcs had not been running away in a panic, but attacking in what passed for good order. On the other side of the clearing, there were three large piles of green bodies stacked up in front of what appeared to be a hastily constructed fort.

  “There must be five hundred dead here!” the decurion who’d accompanied him exclaimed. Marcus nodded and dismounted, then silently handed the reins to the other man.

  Proculus and the two cavalry officers saluted as he approached. Their faces were grim. “Ave, General.”

  “What is this?”

  “The Savonners must have ridden into the forest rather than waiting for them to come out,” the centurion said. He reached out and tapped a wooden shaft that was holding up part of the makeshift barrier. “That’s a spear with the spearhead snapped off, and based on the size of it, I’d say it’s a human spear. See how the wood is polished? And the way the bodies are piled up, ain’t no orcs did that. I seen some with arrows in them too, and they didn’t look like they was no elf arrows.”

  “They must have been gathering their own dead. Otherwise, they would have left the bodies where they were.”

  “If it was the Savonners, they lost more than a few,” Proculus agreed. “I’d guess thirty, maybe forty all told. Lots of red blood around the barricade, on all three sides too. There’s about eighty dead orcs around the back, most of them crisped; looks like they rushed the side too. Didn’t get through, though, because there ain’t much blood, red or green, inside the barriers.”

  Marcus looked around, worried by the implications of the unexpected battle. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would the king’s knights have ridden into the forest? They couldn’t have made use of their heavy cavalry in here. It would have made considerably more sense for them to wait beyond the treeline and hit the orcs once they emerged from the trees.”

  “I know. Maybe that prince of theirs ain’t got no sense.”

  “I don’t like this. If the orcs have got a chieftain able to get them back in order so quickly, they’re more disciplined than we’d thought. It’s not likely, but we could find ourselves walking into an ambush. They still outnumber us four-to-one.”

  “Be a good place to camp if it weren’t for the stink and the flies,” the big centurion commented idly. “Scouts say there’s a river not too far ahead.”

  “Route the men around this place. And assign thirty men from your century to ear-collection; choose those who won’t let their imaginations get carried away. We’ll cross the river and set up march fortifications on the far bank.”

  “No ditch?”

  “Too many roots, I should think. Tell Cassabus to have the men clear a site for the overnight castellum. However many managed to regroup here, it wasn’t enough to attack us. I don’t see the risk as being too great, not with the Savonners within a day’s march.”

  “Ave,” Proculus saluted and mounted his horse, signaling for the two knights to accompany him.

  Curious as to what the Savonners could have be
en protecting, Marcus pushed his way past the makeshift barrier of brush and branches, and examined the ground behind it. What he saw there made him frown. In amongst the well-trodden ground and the crushed grass, there were were footprints in the moss and dirt that were too small to belong to any soldier. He kneeled down to examine one of the more cleanly demarcated ones more closely, and saw it lacked the long toes and claws that would indicate a goblin.

  Had it been left by a woman? Or perhaps even a large child. Well, they would learn soon enough. He peered towards the West. They might reasonably hope to exit the forest on the morrow and make the acquaintance of their royal allies the day after that.

  He glanced around the remains of the forest battlefield again, feeling the violence and desperation that were still palpable here on the stinking, bloodstained earth, written in every rictus and twisted limb. How terrible it was, and yet how glorious to be the victor at last!

  And, he thought more coldly, how profitable. There were nearly a thousand silvers to be harvested here. The men of the First Cohort would need to strop their blades well once their work was done.

  The Savonner camp was a bewildering array of sights and sounds, to say nothing of a brilliant rainbow of colors. It reminded Marcus more of a fair than a military encampment, let alone a proper castra. Open tents were erected haphazardly as far as the eye could see, small herds of goats grazed and gamboled freely about, while men, women, and even children went about their business as if there were not still thousands of orcs lurking somewhere inside the nearby forest. And there were banners and pennants flapping everywhere in the breeze, as red pigs, white horses, green lions, blue griffins, and nearly every possible combination of color and animal, real or imaginary, were used to mark the owner.