by Vox Day
“These things are magic. We’d better burn it, just to make sure it’s true dead.”
He extended his shield hand to Fjotra and effortlessly pulled her to her feet.
“Thank you,” she said.
The Dalarn warrior only shook his head. “How did you know? I thought it was one of the Prince’s men.”
“Oh, by the gods, Prince Karl!” she cried, and she ran into his chamber.
It looked as if a cow had been slaughtered inside, perhaps two cows. Steinthor’s third man was standing over the body of a man that Fjotra recognized as one of the Red Prince’s servants. His throat was torn out, although it was impossible to tell if it had been the aalvarg’s teeth or claws that were responsible. Another servant was unconscious. He appeared unmarked, but he was clearly breathing, and the broken wooden chair lying in several large pieces around him made it obvious how he’d been attacked.
“He’s not here!” she cried, more relieved than she ever would have imagined. But then she heard a groan from someone lying out of sight on the other side of the chamber’s large bed. She leaped upon it and felt something wet and a little sticky under her hands, but she paid it no mind. For there, lying on the floor with his eyes closed and his face half-covered by a blanket, was the prince. His gold-hilted dagger lay by his side, and its blade was covered to the hilt with blood, but Fjotra couldn’t tell if it was his or if it explained the monster’s wounded shoulder.
“No, no, he’s here, behind the bed,” she shouted, throwing aside the blanket and pressing her hands frantically to his face, to his chest.
His face was scratched, but not badly, and his throat was unmarred. Then she saw his stomach, or rather, what was left of it, and her heart sank. A deep wound to the gut usually sufficed to kill a man, and she knew that no man could survive the terrible mauling that had left the prince’s insides torn into an obscene ruin. Fighting back tears and biting her lip to keep her horror from showing on her face, she gently pulled the blanket back over his torso.
“My reaver princess,” the Savoner prince said, but his smile turned into a grimace. “I fear I shall never be king over your isles.”
“I am sorry, your royal highness. They would think you well for their lord.”
“They would have, would they? Did you see it? The creature, the ulfin—it turned into a man!”
“Yes, my prince. It is dead now. The Strongbow killed it.”
Steinthor was standing at her side now. He nodded to the prince, his face grave, then glanced at Fjotra. His question was obvious. She shook her head by way of reply, and his eyes grew dark with impotent anger. He kneeled down and took the prince’s hand in his own.
“Tell him that the Dalarn will not forget him. Tell him that his name will be honored among us. Tell him that one day, he will be avenged, that we will cross the sea and grow strong again, and then we will come back and wipe out their accursed race. And tell him that if his gods do not want him, ours will be proud to host him in the Hirdhal.”
She told the prince as best she could manage in the southern tongue.
It made him cough with laughter, and smile at the grim-faced warrior. “Tell the man I am well-pleased. If the Immaculate will not have me, then perhaps we shall meet each other on the battlefields of your gods.” But when he coughed again, there was blood on his lips.
“My lady, tell your father to be loyal to mine, and all will be well. And tell my father that one day, your people must come back here and claim these lands for the realm. The comtesse…” His eyes closed, and his face suddenly turned even whiter than it already was. “God, it hurts. A priest, I need a priest!”
“He wants one of their spirit men,” she told the Strongbow.
“There is no time. He’ll be dead soon.”
“You tell me the words,” she suggested. “You say again to priest when he come.”
“Are you purified?” he asked, his voice growing weaker.
She didn’t understand his question at first, then she realized he was asking her if she worshiped his god.
“Oh, yes,” she lied without hesitation.
A faint expression of relief flickered across his face, then he began talking in a low voice, telling her of things he had done, of things that he had not done, and of things that had shamed him. Most of it went completely over her head, but one thing was very clear: The comtesse had, without question, been his mistress.
It seemed mad that jealousy should strike her, even now as he lay dying, but she could not help it. Behind her, she could hear that others had entered the room. But Steinthor, understanding the essence of the ritual if not its substance, permitted none of them to interfere, until she felt a hand upon her shoulder and saw that it belonged to an older Savoner wearing a long black robe.
“He has confessed his sins to you?” the priest asked her.
“Yes, my lord.” She tried to move out of his way, but the prince, still mumbling unintelligibly with his eyes closed, was holding onto her hand.
The priest indicated by gesture that she could stay where she was, and he knelt down to place his hand on the prince’s brow.
“Prince Charles-Phillipe de Mirid of Borgoune, the Almighty God, the giver of all mercies, through the fall and rise of His Immaculate Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent His purified Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Holy Mother Church, may the most merciful God give you pardon and peace. And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Holy, the Immaculate, and the Sanctifier.”
With his index finger, he drew a shape on the dying man’s forehead, and both Fjotra and the Strongbow gasped as the prince’s flesh began to glow in the shape of a vertical line crossed with two smaller, diagonal lines, precisely where the priest’s finger had drawn them.
“Be at peace, my son. May the Immaculate Lord be your advocate and usher you into the life eternal.”
The prince’s eyes were closed, but his face relaxed. Whatever pain he had been in appeared to have vanished. The movement of his chest slowed, then stopped entirely. A few moments later, the glowing light on his forehead began to dim.
When the last vestiges of the light disappeared, the priest rose unsteadily to his feet. His face, Fjotra noticed, was streaked with tears that she had not heard in his voice.
“He is gone to glory now, to the very great loss of the realm.”
“What does the priest-man say?” Steinthor asked her.
“I think he says the prince is dead. I’m not sure. It is hard to tell. They always say so many things that don’t mean what they say.”
“Well, he is dead, anyway,” Steinthor assured her with the nonchalant certainty of a man who had sent dozens of men and scores of aalvarg to their graves.
Fjotra, her shift torn and covered with blood, nodded and swallowed hard, looking down at the peaceful face of the man who might have been her husband. He had been so strong, so commanding, so warm and full of life. And now, there was nothing, nothing except an empty shell of what had once been a vigorous, handsome leader of men. The hand she held was dead weight. It was an object, not a person.
For the moment, the waste and the tragedy of it struck her more than her own sorrow. Everything depended on the king’s response to his heir’s death, and only the gods knew what that would be. She leaned forward and kissed Prince Karl, for the first and last time, on his bloodied lips.
AULAN
The road from Cynothicum to Gallidromum was longer and colder than it had been when Aulan traveled it the previous summer. Winter had not yet arrived, but it would come in a matter of weeks, and already it was much colder than he and his knights found comfortable. The hardiness of the provincials with whom they were riding impressed him, as neither they nor their shaggy, stump-legged horses that looked more like oversized ponies seemed to mind the weather in the least.
They made good time too. At first, Aulan had been inclined to join with the rest of his knights in sniggering at the ugly, ill-bred beasts as w
ell as their mounts. But after seeing how they managed to not only travel farther in a single day than even a veteran legion could march, but also nearly keep pace with the sixty riders of his command, he had to admit that the Cynothii appeared to be on to something with this idea of rapidly moving infantry around.
It would be impossible to fight from the backs of the rugged little horses with one’s feet all but dragging on the ground, but they served perfectly well for rapidly moving the provincial’s infantry from one place to another. If being there first with the most was the key to winning battles, such a tactic would go a long way in ensuring the former.
Not that being there first applied in this particular situation. The Valerian legion wasn’t going anywhere, being comfortably settled into the castra stativa near Gallidromum for the winter. Neither Aulan’s half-wing nor the Cynothii they were accompanying were to attack Legio XVII. Their orders were to bypass the fortification and secure the roads leading to the south against any messages being sent to Amorr alerting the Senate and the Consuls about the presence of a second legion inside Cynothicus.
Strictly speaking, there wasn’t much that either the Senate or the Consuls could do about where House Severus, or any of the other Houses Martial, chose to march their legions. But his father had made it very clear that he did not wish to be called upon to explain himself before the Senate until spring. No doubt this would upset one or more of the countless strands of the web that the old spider was always spinning. Aulan didn’t even bother trying to keep them all straight anymore. He had given that up as a lost cause several years ago.
He heard unshod hooves cantering on the hard surface of the frozen dirt road and sighed. It was sure to be Vestremer, who was the Cynothi equivalent of a tribune. Neither of them was entirely sure who was supposed to outrank the other, but since the Cynothi was, despite himself, a little in awe of an actual Amorran tribune, whereas Aulan found it difficult to take a precariously balanced provincial on the back of a shaggy pony very seriously, they had reached a functional accommodation. Vestremer commanded his pony riders, Aulan commanded the cavalry, and whenever their different perspectives diverged too far from parallel, Vestremer would track down Aulan and complain. Aulan sighed. Sweet sanctification, but how the man could complain!
“What is it now?” he asked wearily, trying to keep a sharp tone out of his voice. He’d been counting: This was the eighth time today that the Cynothi captain had sought him out. No doubt it would concern something about as vital and as relevant to the task at hand as the previous seven times.
The Cynothii were a touchy, prideful bunch, and, thanks to their victory this summer over the Andronican legion, they weren’t inclined to behave in what a patrician might consider to be an appropriately submissive manner on the part of a mere provincial. After the most recent fight, in which blades were actually drawn, though thankfully unused, Aulan had finally been forced to tell his decurions to whip the next knight who came to blows with one of their loyal provincial allies.
“I’m worried about the outriders,” Vestremer said. “They should have been back already. I sent a pair out to ride ahead at midday.”
Aulan looked around. The road was making its way through a wooded valley of sorts. The trees were thick on both sides, and when he looked back he could see that the men and horses were descending somewhat, though the slope wasn’t steep enough to really notice as you were riding. “They couldn’t possibly have gotten lost. However far out they had been ranging, they wouldn’t have difficulty finding the road. And once the road was found, it was a simple matter of checking the markers laid at one-mile segments of the roadside and determining if you were closer to Cynothicum or Gallidromum.
“Bandits?” Aulan didn’t think even a good-sized pack of bandits would dare to attack a pair of armored Amorran knights. But except for their short, curved swords, the Cynothii scouts didn’t look much different than any of the bearded farmers past whom they’d ridden over the last two days. “Or some peasants might have killed them for their horses.”
Vestremer stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack with surprise, and then he smiled. “Lord Severus, there are few farms near here. Few peasants. Few people. Not until we get closer to the river will we see much in the way of civilization. It must be the Amorrans from the Gallidromum fort.”
Civilization? Aulan nearly choked as he repressed the instinctive snort that the other’s words had provoked. There were many words that he would consider applying to Cynothicum, but that would have been among the very last.
“Very well, then. It seems likely that they were taken by a Valerian patrol. But what of that? Whoever took over for Marcus Saturnius would never be mad enough to leave the safety of the castra. They couldn’t know how many we are. Besides, legions fight on foot. Even if their commander was foolish enough to march out against us, we’re mounted, and we could easily ride around him. We might even be able to capture the castra. With my sixty and your five hundred, we could surely hold it until Buteo could relieve us with the rest of the legion!”
“The rest of your legion are two days behind us. And the Valerians would leave a large garrison behind.”
“Not if they think they are coming out to meet an entire legion.”
“I don’t believe we could hold for two days against an entire legion, even with stone walls. My men aren’t trained in siegecraft. And neither, I should think, are your riders. It’s your footmen who do most of the manual labor, is it not?”
Aulan shrugged, but he couldn’t argue with the hairy little man. “I suppose you’re right. Even if we could take the fort, Buteo’s appearance would force them to retreat toward Amorr, which is the last thing he wants now.”
“And is the very thing we are riding ahead of the legion to prevent, if I understood him rightly.”
It was annoying, but the Cynothi was correct. Secundus Falconius had made his feelings very, very clear. He was not a legate who wished to see a great deal of initiative out of his tribunes and auxiliaries. “You win, Vestremer. Send out four pairs of yours, and I’ll send out a squadron. Let’s see if we can scare up this patrol of yours and find out if there is anything waiting for us in these woods.”
The Cynothi nodded and turned his horse around to return to his men, who were plodding along on their little horses behind the Amorran cavalry. Aulan called a decurion over and ordered him to take his men and ride ahead in search of either the missing Cynothii or the hypothetical Amorran patrol.
Actually, if the squadron could capture a knight or two, that would be useful indeed, as Aulan could learn who the Valerian commander was and perhaps gain some insight into his thinking. Buteo was a hard man, and he wasn’t easily pleased, but Aulan imagined even the Falconian would appreciate that sort of information.
The ride through the forest continued uneventfully. They stopped once, upon crossing a stream, to water the horses and relieve their cramped legs for a while, then rode on. What appeared to be the edge of the forest was just coming into sight, judging by the brighter light ahead, when he heard the distant sound of metal clashing on metal, followed by angry shouting, and then the sound of hoofbeats rapidly approaching them from the direction they were headed. It was the squadron he’d sent ahead, he could tell from the sound of the iron horseshoes on the hard-packed earth of the road.
Aulan stopped and raised his fist. The column of riders behind him stopped amidst the creaking of men in their leather saddles and the explosive equine complaints of their mounts at being so abruptly halted.
Aulan saw the decurion come into view as he rounded the corner of the curving road, followed by five of his fellows. There was an an arrow jutting from the decurion’s armored shoulder, and as Aulan looked on, alarmed, there was a gasp of dismay as the knight bringing up the tail of the squadron slumped to one side and collapsed, falling off his horse without making any attempt to break his fall.
“Report,” Aulan barked at the centurion and urged his horse forward to intercept the officer, who
was yanking hard on the reins of his horse to slow the gelding before it crashed into the Amorran column. “What happened up there?”
“We didn’t find the patrol, we found the whole bloody legion!” The decurion was no blushing battle virgin, but he was wide-eyed with shock and trembling with a surfeit of excitement. “We saw their lines when we came out from the trees. They were far enough away that I thought we could ride closer and see how they were arrayed, but they had a whole squadron in the woods behind us. We had to fight our way through them.”
“I see that.” He reached out and tried to pull the shaft out of the decurion’s shoulder, but it was buried too deeply in the thick leather underneath the steel, so he had to content himself with breaking it off. “How did you get this? Did they have archers behind you in the woods too?”
“No, two of their riders had bows. I don’t think they were horse archers, though. They just looked like regular knights, and their bows were longer than those the pagans use.”
“Are you sure it was the whole legion?”
“I’m not sure. We didn’t have time to count. But there had to be at least four or five cohorts. Except for the squadron behind us, their cavalry was on the left. Looked like five squadrons, maybe half a wing in all. They had a ballista with them too, but I think they must have broken a rope. They loosed a firepot, but it flew a mile over our heads. Didn’t come anywhere near us.”
“Strange,” Aulan mused. “Why would they decide to come out when they were already in a perfectly defensible castra with stone walls? Vestremer, it would appear that we are indeed dealing with a madman.”
“He’s an Amorran. Of course he’s mad,” said the Cynothii captain, who had ridden up to discover why the column had stopped. “I see you found the patrol,” he told the decurion.
“Found a damn sight more than that.” The decurion spat. “There’s half a legion waiting for us once we come out of the trees.”
Dismayed, Vestremer turned to Aulan. “You said they’d have to be mad to leave the fort!” he said accusingly. “Half a legion is three thousand men. We can’t fight them. We have to turn back!”