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

by Vox Day

  “You must have a lot to confess,” Tera said with an inquisitive look.

  “They say sin abounds in us all, my dear. Even in the boring countryside.” She slipped her arm into Tera’s and walked with her from the darkness of the secret temple into the bright light of the brisk autumn day.

  The rioters had passed, leaving a visible trail of destruction that had somehow left the church, even the statue outside, entirely unharmed. The Goddess, it seemed, could protect herself.

  Tera looked around in dismay at the wreckage strewn about the street. Doors were kicked in, shutters were hanging by their hinges, and the body of a woman not very much older than them lay face down in a pool of blood. Her dress was hiked up well past her waist. They could still hear shouts, but they were off in the distance now and growing gradually more faint.

  “What do we do now?” she asked Severa. “Do you even know where we are?”

  Severa smiled, pointing to two men who were limping down the street toward them, one with an arm around the shoulders of the other. It was her father’s men, battered, bleeding, and much the worse for wear. But she was delighted to see they were still alive, even if she didn’t know their names.

  “No, but I imagine they do.” She waved to them.

  After a moment’s hesitation, one of the young men waved back.

  “My lady, thank God you’re alive!” the shorter man said when they finally reached her. It looked as if his ankle might be broken, but he still had his sword. “Your father would have flayed us and rolled us in salt if we’d returned without you!”

  Severa was touched by his heartfelt relief. But don’t thank God, she thought, even as she offered him and his companion her prettiest thanks. He didn’t save us. Thank the Goddess.

  FJOTRA

  An impromptu council gathered in the main hall amidst the remains of the earlier feast that was still being cleared away by the kitchen thralls. But there was nothing festive about the haunted eyes and stricken expressions that could be seen in all of the Savoner faces, and more than a few of the Dalarn ones as well.

  The Skullbreaker’s wounds were clean and bandaged, and, much to his disgust, he had been carefully carried down the stairs by two of his strongest warriors. He now presided over the makeshift gathering with his feet propped up on one of the table benches and goosedown-stuffed pillows supporting him on either side. Fjotra sat between the two sides, as she had to supply the translations required for them to talk to each other, which slowed the conversation considerably.

  “How did this happen?” her father demanded of no one in particular.

  “I went down and looked at the cells in which the two captive ulfin were placed,” Patrice said. He had taken the news of the prince’s death very hard and his uncharacteristically low voice made it hard for Fjotra to understand him. “There were two gaolers. Both were dead. I don’t know how the creatures managed to get out, but both gates were unlocked, and I didn’t find any keys on either body.”

  “They’ve got a demon’s strength, and they have long arms too,” Steinthor Strongbow commented. “If one of the guards got too close to the cell, they could have reached through the bars to catch him, kill him, and take the key from his body.”

  “That seems plausible,” the battlemage allowed. “And one of them did have wounds to his arm that could have been caused by their claws. But what’s harder to understand is how they knew to attack both you, my lord Skullbreaker, as well as the prince. The guards’ bodies were cool, but not rigid, so the beasts didn’t escape long before the feast. That would have given them enough time to explore the keep, and of course, if they slipped into the hall, they would have seen both the prince and my lord at the high table.”

  “It doesn’t matter how the prince was killed!” Gerard de Coucy, the Comte de Montbrelloz and the prince’s captain of cavalry, exploded. “This is the Red Prince of whom we speak, the heir to the realm! Why are we wasting words on how the cursed demonspawn murdered him? Our liege lord now lies dead, and instead of avenging ourselves upon his killers, we sit and babble about how they managed the trick! When a knight falls on the field, do we stop fighting, sit on our arses, and parley about whether it was the sword through the gut or the axe through the helm that slew him? Or do we drive the cursed enemy from the field?”

  Before Fjotra could even begin translating the comte’s words, Blais de Foix was shaking his head. He had been silent until now, but his eyes were dry, and he was visibly less perturbed than his younger companion.

  “His killers are dead, my lord captain. The prince has already been avenged.”

  “To kill the dog that slew him is no avenging. Such infamy demands a reckoning of the sort these islands have never seen! To return to Savonne without ten thousand skulls to place upon his grave would be an insult to his memory!”

  Her father and the other Dalarn looked at her as the Savonners argued, but she only shook her head and let them vent their rage and frustration for a few moments without attempting to translate their actual words, only half of which she could understand anyhow as they shouted over each other. She did her best to summarize the situation for them.

  “The horse warrior wants to take the field and collect aalvarg skulls to take back to the king, and the witch men tell him he’s mad.”

  Her father waved his hand, unconcerned. “They’re angry, that is all. No one will take the field, not unless they don’t wish to re-enter my gates. You’re sure the one you saw looked like a proper man, both of you?”

  Fjotra and the Strongbow both nodded. There was no doubt about it. Even in death, the aalvarg that the Strongbow had slain remained half-changed between its man shape and its bestial form.

  “So we know they can change their shapes to look like men as well as beasts,” her father said. “Or at least some of them can. That might explain how they were able to take Trandhus and Aarborg so easily in the summer. Ambush a villager when he’s out, return wearing his face, and then open the gates to the others at night. I found it hard to imagine how two cunning old warriors like Olaf the Fat and Randver Longreaver could be wiped out to a man before even managing to get a messenger out. But if they were attacked at night in their beds by sigskifting that were able to get past their walls, that makes a little more sense.”

  “We know one thing more,” added the Strongbow.

  “We do?”

  “They’re stupid.”

  “Why do you say so?”

  “If you infiltrated a fortress like this, Skuli, would letting the enemy know you’re inside be the first thing you’d do? Sure, they killed the prince, and they damn near killed you, but if they’d only bided their time and begun with the guards at the gate, they could have taken the place and both of you before anyone realized anything was wrong.”

  It was a sobering thought. As the two veteran warriors stared at each other, realizing what a close escape it had been, Fjotra noticed that the argument between the Savonners had cooled somewhat.

  However, the Comte de Montbrelloz hadn’t given up on his desire to take the battle to the enemy. He was gesticulating energetically as he attempted to convince the two mages of their need to take the offensive.

  “Even if we don’t send out an army, we can enlarge the size of our mounted patrols and hit their smaller groups. You saw how easily we rode them down! I propose that each morning we send out two patrols, each containing four squadrons. Eighty knights should permit each patrol to easily defeat all but the primary ulfin forces. And we have the speed to disengage at will in order to avoid those. I will lead one, and the Baron d’Angennes the other. And, of course, we’ll each take one of you with us in case we run into any more of the sorcerous beasts.”

  “I’m not going on any patrols. And if the lord captain is wise, neither will he,” Blais firmly rejected Montbrelloz’s idea. “We were already in a difficult position before the prince’s death. Taking the risk of losing nearly two hundred of our men and betraying the secret of our magecraft just to let you whet
your appetite for vengeance would be insane.”

  While the comte spluttered in impotent anger at the mage’s calm refusal to participate in his mad scheme, Fjotra quickly explained his intentions to the Dalarn.

  Her father laughed contemptuously. “Tell that southerner the aalvarg aren’t like his turtle-shelled knights. They won’t line up out in the open and stand there waiting to be killed. They will stalk you like prey, look for the chance to ambush you wherever they can, and use darkness as their armor. If he rides out in the daylight, he’ll find nothing until the day he rides out and turns around to find himself cut off from our gates by a thousand wolves.”

  “So you haven’t even sworn an oath to the king and already you would betray him?” the comte demanded once the Skullbreaker’s opinion of his plans had been conveyed to him.

  “No, it would be a betrayal to cut the throats of eight squadrons of his liegemen, include the lord captain’s, while they slept under my care. And that wouldn’t be much more fatal than were I to permit the lord captain to ride out from the safety of my walls. Maybe he won’t be caught out the first day, maybe not the second or third day either. But sooner or later, they’ll catch him out, cut him off, and his patrols will be wiped out to a man.

  “Look at their numbers. We’ve counted more than five thousand already. Given how they skulk about, you can be sure there are at least twice that many. Tell the comte that if he has the sense the All-Father gave a fish, he’ll heed my words. And if he doesn’t, he’ll damn well heed them anyway, because I am not opening Raknarborg’s gates for him or anyone else!”

  The comte glared at her father, but even wounded as he was, the Skullbreaker’s gaze was an intimidating one. Before long, the Savonner looked away and nodded in reluctant acceptance of her father’s verdict.

  De Foix cleared his throat to draw Skuli’s attention.

  “Your Majesty, may I have leave to take the prince’s body and prepare it for the return to Lutece? Since the cavalry will not be riding out against the ulfin, I expect you will want Le Christophe to depart for the north coast on the morrow with as many men and mounts as it will carry.”

  “You may take the prince’s body and prepare it as you see fit. And you should prepare one of the aalvarg bodies as well, or else the king might not believe your story. However, the cavalry stays here until the fleet returns. So does one of the mages—the older one, I think. I will permit an honor guard of twenty men to accompany the prince’s body on board the ship, which will depart tomorrow morning. Another six hundred women and children will be ready to board at first light, as well.”

  Fjotra repeated his words to the Savonners to the best of her abilities.

  The comte drew himself up stiffly before she’d even finished, clearly displeased by her father’s decision. “Le Christophe belongs to his royal majesty, the King of Savondir, Your Majesty. It is for the Lord Admiral of the Sea Nordique to decide who will, and who will not, board the ship, not the Reaver King of Raknarborg!”

  Her father was smiling dangerously even before she translated the captain’s words. “The Lord Admiral is not here. The Reaver King is. And while the ship may belong to—how do they say it?—to his majesty the king, Raknarborg is mine, and no one, including the Lord Admiral, leaves or enters its walls unless he does so with my permission. Now, Daughter, tell those southerners to see to it that the prince’s body is prepared for travel, select his honor guard, and leave the rest of the ship’s cargo to me!”

  Fjotra dutifully told the Savonner, who despite his fury was wise enough to avoid further argument with a wounded and increasingly irritable king of reavers. The comte nodded briskly, bowed in a perfunctory manner, then turned to his the two mages and told them to accompany him to the prince’s chamber.

  She wanted to go to Patrice, as the friendly young battlemage was looking downright nauseated at the thought of returning to Lutece and telling the king of the loss of his heir. But her father leaned forward and placed his hand upon her forearm.

  “Fjotra, you will prepare your possessions and select four of your friends to serve as your attendants in the south. Choose girls you can trust, young ones with the wits to learn the language quickly, but no sluts or silly ones with slanderous tongues. You will be on that ship tomorrow too.”

  He unbuckled his belt, slipped it gingerly from around his waist, and held it out to her, his sword and dagger dangling from it. “You must bring this to Brynjolf. If Raknarborg cannot hold out until the ships can make the crossing three more times, he will be ruler over the Dalarn. Tell him I will hold him to these three vows, which he must swear to sea and sky: He must marry, he must father at least three sons, and each of his sons must be taught one thing with their mother’s milk—we will return. The Isles belong to us, not the wolves.”

  “No, Father,” she protested. “You must not talk like that. I don’t want to go, I want to stay here with you. It is my duty too! And you need me to translate when you need to talk to the Savoners, especially if there is fighting.”

  “We will make do.” He shook his head and pulled her closer to him, then placed his large, scarred hands on her shoulders. “It’s not only that I want you to be safe on the other side of the sea. I need you there. Who can tell how the prince’s father will react? Perhaps he will blame our people. But you were there. You saw what happened. So you must go there to tell him the truth of it and assure him that we feel his loss as our own. The Savonner prince, he was a good man. He was a brave warrior, and he earned the respect of our men. You tell the king I said that. Tell him that I said his son would have made a strong king. And tell him of the sigkifting. They must know of the sigkifting!”

  “You will tell him yourself, Father.” Fjotra’s vision was blurry with tears she could no longer resist. “I can’t bear it. You talk as if you will die here! How can you fight without your sword?”

  “I have other swords. What I don’t have is other daughters.” He smiled at her. “My darling, do you not know I love you far more than life? Brynjolf is hurt, but he is safe, and I thank the gods that I can send you away from here again before it is too late.

  “Now, I have much to do. The aalvarg will be coming soon, perhaps even tonight. So go. Tell your friends who are to accompany you to prepare themselves. I will also send five of my best young warriors to serve as your bodyguard. But you will marry none of them. You will not marry any Dalarn, because you must marry a southern noble—the higher his rank, the better. A prince, if you can. If we are to survive among them, we must become Savonners, at least on the outside. And listen to your comtesse, let her be your star, and follow her lead. She is a reaver at heart. I think she will steer you well.”

  “What about Mother?”

  “Be sure to say goodbye to her tonight. She will stay with me.” Her father smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I tried to tell her she would go with the last ships, but she drew her blade and threatened to cut off my manhood. You will forgive me if I found the argument persuasive. Sweetling, your mother and I have lived our lives together, and if the gods require that we must end them together too, I will not deny her that right.

  “But do not be afraid! Raknarborg’s walls are tall and strong, and they are held by many brave men. I think we can hold them off long enough for the ships to return, and then we will cross the sea ourselves to join you. If not, then we shall live on through you, through Brynjolf, and through your children. The demons may have driven us from our homes, but I have done my best, and I have saved my children. I am content. I have sent many a man to his grave who could not say the same.”

  Fjotra rose and buried her face in her father’s chest, hugging him hard and inhaling his familiar scent. Remember him, she told herself fiercely. Remember how he feels, how he smells. Remember the strength of his arms around you. Somehow, she managed to keep herself from sobbing hysterically.

  “I love you, far,” she whispered.

  “I know, kaelebarn, I know.”

  No one slept that night as tho
usands of howling aalvarg tried to storm the high walls of Raknarborg using crude ladders constructed in the nearby forests. Fjotra stayed in her chamber, two guards standing outside her door, in the company of a group of young women and children who huddled together for comfort and shivered with fear throughout the dark and terrible hours.

  The dawn was near by the time an exhausted young warrior, who had come to reassure his betrothed after the battle, told her that the wolf-demons had been driven back, but at the cost of fifty-seven northern dead and one hundred twelve southern lives. Nearly three hundred men were wounded, though less than a score seriously.

  Not long after first light, Le Christophe set sail, accompanied by ten of the Skullbreaker’s eleven remaining longships.

  As the sun rose from the green-blue waves into the lighter blue of the heavens, Fjotra stood on the aftcastle, holding hands with Geirrid and Svanvhit, two of her closest friends from childhood, who would henceforth serve as her ladies-in-waiting. They watched together in silence as the great black towers of embattled Raknarborg drew slowly away from them, fading into sea and sky.

  CORVUS

  As Corvus followed Vecellius through the streets of Amorr under the last rays of the setting sun, he reflected that his decision to accept a third goblet of wine may not have been the height of wisdom.

  It was not yet dark, but the two leading fascitors already bore torches, which had the result of turning his escort into something of a procession. Several of the clients he had not had time to see today were following in his wake, and as the journey to the elven embassy progressed, they gradually collected curiosity-seekers, until Corvus found himself accompanied by the greater part of a century.

  The embassy was new, having been established only a few months ago after the release of Immaculatus Dei and the return of the legionary eagles lost by Lucius Varrus two centuries ago. It had once been a private residence, but Publius Licinius Dives had not become vastly wealthy by overlooking opportunities.