Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones

by Vox Day

  “You saw them already?”

  “The first thing I did upon arriving here was to deliver Fortex’s bones to them. Saturnius came with me to pay his respects.”

  “Did Magnus know the truth? About Fortex’s death?”

  “I told him, fortunately before Julia arrived. It was ugly. I didn’t expect him to thank me, but my idiot brother actually struck me. Can you believe that? In front of my fascitors, no less.”

  “Oh, no,” she gasped, alarmed. “You didn’t have him arrested, did you?”

  “Of course not! Do you think me mad? That wouldn’t have been justice—it would have been pure sadism. He was out of his mind with grief. I ordered them to forget it ever happened.”

  She put her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his chest.

  He could feel her shaking as she cried. He would have liked to have said something to comfort her but, considering how his previous attempts had gone, decided to simply hold his tongue. A few moments later, she dried her eyes on his tunic and pushed back from him.

  “Never mind what I say when I’m angry with you, Corvus. You’re a good man, you are. I know you would have saved Gaius Valerius if it was possible. I don’t understand these things. I don’t even want to think about them. But someone has to, and I’m glad it’s someone like you rather than the likes of Patronus or Centho.”

  “Damned by faint praise indeed.” He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be hard on you, I know. Don’t blame Julia if she doesn’t want to see you or speak to you for some time. The wound is still raw, and it isn’t going to heal anytime soon, if ever.”

  “Poor Sextus. He looked up to Fortex so. I hope this won’t cause too much of a rift between him and Marcus when Marcus returns home.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that anytime soon,” Corvus told her. “I don’t like the reports I’m hearing from the provinces. If we don’t put down the Cynothii quickly next spring, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rebellion spreads to two or three more provinces by mid-summer. I’ve even heard that there are some unpleasant rumblings among some of the allies, and that would be a real nightmare.”

  Corvus heard a polite cough behind him and turned around. Nicenus stood in the doorway with Torquatus at his side. The majordomus looked a little embarrassed, but he could hardly be expected to have denied entry to the ruler of the city.

  “My lord consul, my lady, I apologize for disturbing you, but the Consul Civitas assured me it was urgent.”

  “Of course, Nicenus,” Corvus assured him as he stepped adroitly away from his wife. “Good morning, Titus Manlius. This is an unexpected honor. What is it?”

  Torquatus entered. He was neither tall nor short, and his close-cropped hair had mostly receded, but he carried such an air of unconscious power that he seemed to fill the room. His features were thick and rounded, and this morning, they were weighed down with obvious worry.

  “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Lady Valeria, but there has been murder, concerning which I very much need to consult with your husband.”

  “Think nothing of it, my lord Manlius,” she assured him. “But since when is murder a matter for the consuls? Isn’t there a quastor available?”

  Torquatus glanced at Corvus, then grimly shook his head. “This is no matter for quastors, Lady Valeria. Six princes of the Church were murdered while in conclave at the Sanctal palace last night. Including, I am deeply distressed to report, both of the leading candidates to replace the Sanctified Father.”

  “There is something exceedingly troubling about this,” Torquatus commented as the two men took in the full extent of the gory devastation that surrounded them in the chapel. “I’ve seen murders, and I’ve seen the aftermath of some reasonably hard-fought battles, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this before. And certainly never anywhere near here!”

  The two consuls were surrounded by a small army of fascitors as well as guards from both the Manlian and Valerian households and a squad of armored Michaeline priests. Six Sanctal guards stood watch at the door. They could hardly have been safer were they ensconced in the heart of a stone-walled castra, surrounded by two legions.

  And yet Corvus felt a cold frisson of terror run up his spine as he looked at the dead bodies of the once-powerful churchmen sprawled in a variety of impossible poses around the high-ceilinged chamber. Two had their throats torn out, and three had been disemboweled as if by the claws of an enormous feline. Their flesh looked as if it had been torn by teeth that were pointed, though not necessarily sharp. It was a tableau out of a mad butcher’s Hell.

  “No man did this.” Torquatus turned to a pair of gold-cloaked Michaelines, who were examining a large pool of blood that appeared to have been forcibly liberated from the body of Carvilius Noctua, the less likely of the two main contestants for the Ivory Throne. “A demon—or demons—wouldn’t you say?”

  The warrior priest, whose scarred face made Corvus think the man had probably seen as many battles as he had himself, shook his head. “I would not. There is no indication of any demonic activity here, my lord consul. Not in the material sense, at any rate. The wounds may not be consistent with conventional bladed weaponry, but neither is there any of the spiritual pollution that a demon capable of manifesting physically and wreaking such havoc would leave behind.”

  “You’re sure of that, are you?” Torquatus demanded.

  “As sure as my lord consul is confident that these men were neither struck down by arrows nor run through with swords. However, there is something more. Look here. These smears of blood look convincingly ritualistic. They’re complicated, and there is an amount of detail to the patterns. To the uneducated eye, they would appear to be indicative of something esoteric at work. But they’re almost entirely without meaning.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” Corvus’s colleague demanded. “You Michaelines aren’t magicians. By the blood of Unctios, how would you know it’s not some sort of occult inscription used for a demonic summoning or something?”

  The priest blinked slowly and did not respond right away, clearly unimpressed by Torquatus’s consular status. “Our training is comprehensive, my lord consul. In order to counteract the various magicks of our enemies in the field, it is necessary for us to be familiar with them. The fact that we refuse to soil our souls with the practice of their dark arts should not be taken as ignorance of them.”

  “Then what are you suggesting, sir?” Corvus broke in before Torquatus could further annoy the Michaeline.

  “It is not a suggestion, my lord consul. At this point, it is at most only a suspicion. My thought is that it is no secret to anyone that this republic brooks no traffic in the esoteric arts. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that whoever did this would have believed that the quastors investigating the murders would think these false symbols are real. They can’t have anticipated that the consuls would be involved or turn to our order for assistance. Nor would they necessarily have known the full extent of our knowledge of the occult.”

  “A false trail, then,” Corvus nodded. It made an amount of sense. Whoever did this couldn’t have thought it would go uninvestigated, so an amount of misdirection would be wise. “Orcs, do you think? Or kobolds.”

  The Michaeline smiled approvingly. “You are on the right track, Lord Consul Valerius, but I should guess neither. You’ve fought orcs before, I believe, so I draw your attention to the observation that none of these men has been vivisected.”

  “Not orcs, then.” The priest was right, Corvus realized. Orcs, especially those eschewing the use of conventional arms, had often been known to rip a man’s limbs off his body. But each of the dead men were more or less whole. Also, when he looked more closely at the body of the nearest celestine, he could see that the width of the teeth marks on his face and chest were much too close together to have been left behind by the jaws of an orc. And now that he was on that train of thought, he could also see that the wounds were also much too s
mall to have been inflicted by an orc’s massive tusks. “Not kobolds either?”

  “No, my lord consul. Kobold teeth are small and somewhat needle-like. These marks were left by teeth that were thicker and more jagged. See how the edges of the wounds are torn and crushed rather than slashed?”

  “Goblins,” Torquatus interjected. “Nasty creatures indeed. But how would a pack of goblins get into the palace? Or into Amorr, for that matter? It’s not as if they’re permitted residence here.

  “You have it, my lord consul. I am confident it was goblins. But I see you are not one for the games. The Greens always keep quite a few of them in their stables, mostly as minor attractions between the major bouts. I saw some in the arena just a few months ago myself—they were pitted against dwarves. The poor creatures didn’t last long, but I should think two or three would have been more than a match for a few unarmed old men.”

  “That’s as may be, but even if the priest here is correct, who is to say that there wasn’t some sorcery involved in disguising them?” Torquatus asked. “It’s not as if one could simply march a pack of goblins through the streets and into the palace without attracting attention.” He looked around the room in disgust. “And in any event, I’m not convinced there wasn’t something seriously amiss here. I can’t imagine evil has penetrated so deeply into the Church hierarchy that this many celestines were involved in some filthy practice. Could it be that there was a secret coven active within the Conclave and what we’re seeing here is the consequence of some black magick gone awry? Evil ever delights in feeding upon evil.”

  “We can search the city for goblins, beginning with the stables,” Corvus suggested. “But how do you propose determining if there was sorcery at work here if the Michaelines don’t see it?”

  Torquatus snorted bitterly. “I suppose it would be easier if over the years we hadn’t executed everyone likely to know anything about it. There must be a few secret practitioners hidden away somewhere in the city, though. There always are. We can have the quastors make inquiries, and I’m sure the Michaelines must have a few inquisitors who would be helpful.”

  “No, that’s not necessary,” Corvus told his colleague as a thought occurred to him. “We don’t need to dig for any hidden mages, not when there are two highly skilled sorcerers who practice their arts openly. They don’t practice them here, of course, but they will almost certainly have the knowledge we need. And if they don’t, I can’t think who would.”

  “Sorcerers, here in Amorr?” Torquatus looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What are you talking about?”

  “Take some men with you to the elven ambassador’s residence,” Corvus had already turned to Caius Vecellius. “Give the ambassador our regards, and inform him his presence is requested at the Sanctal Palace by the Consul Civitas and the Consul Aquilae. Escort him here and answer his questions, but don’t tell him about the murders. Just tell him we have urgent need of his esoteric expertise and ask that he come without delay.”

  The captain of his fascitors saluted, divided his squad with two simple gestures, and departed hastily with five men at his heels.

  Corvus looked at Torquatus and shrugged. “The ambassador is surely of noble elven blood, and from what my son tells me, most of Elebrion’s aristocracy are far more learned in their various witcheries than any human could hope to be.”

  “This is a dirty business, Corvus. I don’t like it. Involving elves in a Church affair? The Church is already going to be in a state with this many celestines dead in the middle of a conclave!”

  “No more do I, my friend. No more do I. But as we’re told they have souls too, I can’t see any harm in it or that it’s any more sinful than asking a ruffian about how a knife was used.”

  “It is already going to be bad enough when word leaks out. People are waiting for a new Sanctiff. They’re going to think the worst when they find out half the electors are dead. And if anyone discovers elves are involved somehow, they’re bound to get it wrong. They might even think the elves were responsible!”

  “Then it will be up to us to make sure they know that is not the case. We can handle the people.” Corvus indicated the dead bodies surrounding them. “I shoudn’t think what’s left of the Sacred College will be in any state to object either. Now let’s go outside. It will take Vecellius some time to fetch the elf, and this place stinks like a charnel house.”

  FJOTRA

  The grey fury of the aalvarg pack crashed into the Dalarn shield wall. All the howls and shrieks, to say nothing of the clash of metal on metal below them, carried easily to Fjotra’s vantage point high above the battlefield. How downright deafening it must be to be caught in the middle of such chaos! She thanked her stars that she was only witnessing the furious violence safely from a distance.

  Claws and teeth tore at exposed flesh, but more often than not, they failed to pierce the iron shields and boiled leather armor of the northmen. Whereas the tough shaggy fur of the aalvarg was not nearly tough enough to protect them from the heavy axe blades that severed limbs and split skulls and breastbones alike with equal ease.

  “I’m not sure your father’s men even need our knights,” Blais, the elder battlemage, commented with satisfaction as the big black creature that had led the attack was staggered by an artfully swung shield that smashed against its right knee from the side, followed by an axe head burying itself into its opposite hip.

  The beast shrieked and lunged at its tormentor, but received the bottom half of the shield in its jaws for its trouble. A second Dalarn warrior stepped forward and put the howling aalvarg out of its misery with a spearthrust that pierced its throat.

  The fall of their leader was too much for the undisciplined beasts. Demoralized, they fell back from the shield wall in some disarray. They left behind nearly thirty dead and wounded, and about a dozen men slipped from behind the safety of the shields to finish off the latter. It was a brutal business, and for a moment, Fjotra felt her stomach beginning to roil, but the memory of Garn’s fallen sustained her.

  There were only three Dalarn down upon the ground, and at least one of them was crawling slowly toward the rear of the line, his right side a mass of blood. Two of his companions lifted him and began carrying him back toward the hills that hid the Savoners.

  The aalvarg leader and his guards, or perhaps they were his officers, stopped the retreat of the creatures by means of a series of barks, blows, and bites.

  “If the big one is going to simply keep smashing them against that shield wall, these things are less intelligent than I’d imagined,” Patrice observed.

  Blais didn’t reply. The younger mage was too busy studying something on the field below them. “Do you notice anything strange about those two wolves the leader has near him? I mean, the real wolves?”

  “They appear to be better trained than his troops,” his younger colleague replied with a wry smile.

  “I’m not sure they’re even animals. There is something strange about them. I can feel some sort of aura radiating out from them, and it’s getting stronger. It’s almost as if there is some sorcery surrounding their bodies, or it may even be contained within them.”

  “An illusion, perhaps, or some sort of enchantment?”

  “If it is an illusion, it’s too strong for me to see through it. But in that case, the aura isn’t anywhere nearly as powerful as it would have to be.”

  “Do you think they might be the leader’s familiars? He could be drawing some sort of power from them.”

  As the two mages discussed the wolves, Fjotra observed them closely. The older man was right to be suspicious. There was something very strange about them.

  Their predatory eyes were clearly more intelligent than those of the wolves that she’d so often seen lurking around the evening fires. They were unusually calm and showed no signs of agitation even though they were very nearly in the midst of all the extraordinary sights, sounds, and smells of a violent battle. And then, when the two animals exchanged a glance with on
e another, she knew.

  “Those are no animals, my lord mages. Those are sigskifting.”

  “They’re what?” Patrice asked incredulously.

  “Sigskifting. It mean they change their skin when they want. I hear those things before, but I do not believe them. The Wolves and the Moon—it is stories for children. But those two, I think they are not true wolves.”

  Patrice shook his head, but more in disbelief than denial. “That’s not possible. Masks and illusions are one thing, but to materially change one’s corporeal being…. I can’t think how one would even begin to go about it.”

  Fjotra looked back at the aalvarg. As the commander’s black guards shoved and snapped their milling ranks back into a semblance of rudimentary order, the two big wolves moved in a perfectly coordinated manner behind them, stopping to urinate on the ground every few seconds. They appeared to be making a pattern of sorts, but it was complicated, and she was unable to make any sense of it. But their movements confirmed for her that, whatever they were, they were more than mere animals.

  “Look at that,” she pointed as the two giant beasts squatted again to release a splash of urine. “Do beasts do that?”

  “Amazing,” Patrice breathed. “It’s clearly some form of ritual. If it’s a spell, I’d imagine it must be based on an earth magic. Blais, do you realize we may be witnessing the first known example of ritual urine magic?

  For the love of the Thunderer, did the foolish man ever stop babbling? Fjotra wanted to strangle him. It was obvious that whatever the two sigskiftings were doing wasn’t likely to be harmless to the men standing in the shield wall. The Dalarn were too few to attack the waiting aalvarg, who still outnumbered them two-to-one. They had no choice but to stand their ground and wait until whatever evil magic the skinchangers were preparing was ready. And, of course, the Savoner warriors couldn’t possibly have any idea what was in store for them, never having fought the beasts before.