Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (17 page)

“Don’t be absurd,” Marcus Saturnius broke in. “Valerius Fortex is neither green nor a child, and while he may not have as many years of experience as you do, he is your superior officer. As for Valerius Clericus here, this may be his first campaign, but given his scholarly training, he is perfectly capable of understanding an order as simple as the one he received today. You are no more to blame in this than the draconarius or any other knight who was on that hill.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, Legate.”

“The disciplinary issue aside, Decurion,” Saturnius said, “I must commend you for the performance of your men today. I saw them rout the wolfriders on the enemy right. See that they receive a double wine ration tonight with my compliments.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. General. Proculus.” The decurion saluted crisply, bowed, and marched from the tent without once glancing at Marcus. The centurion saluted too and followed suit. After the two officers departed, Corvus leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together. He still looked weary, but for the first time since Marcus had entered the tent, he smiled at his son. He rose stiffly from his chair, then startled Marcus by walking over to him and embracing him. “It has been a long day, but I am pleased to see that you are unscathed, Tribune Valerius. How did you find your first battle?”

“I didn’t piss myself,” he answered truculently, looking from his father to the legate. “There was a considerable amount of noise. I discovered horses can slip on goblin blood, if there’s enough of it splashed about. Oh, and one more thing. Even when the enemy is running away instead of standing his ground, your sword arm gets tired much faster than you would have thought.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d killed eight or nine goblins today, but he remembered exactly how heavy his sword felt by the time he’d leaned out of his saddle to chop down the last one. He was vaguely surprised he’d managed to hang onto it.

“How very fortunate for you that you were able to learn such lessons so early in your career.” Saturnius poured wine from a winesack into three crystal goblets. “After my first battle, the singular lesson learned by most of the men in my century was that neither a shield nor a breastplate will suffice to stop a dwarven battleaxe. Sadly, they were in no position to profit from the lesson afterward.”

Marcus winced. “Can I conclude from the fact that you are offering me wine instead of screaming at me that I am not in imminent danger of mortification?”

“Never fear, Marcus Valerius,” Saturnius said, glancing at him and chuckling. “Even when we are under the
Modus Austeris
, we are not inclined to punish inexperienced young tribunes every time they make foolish decisions or issue unaccountably stupid orders. If we were to make a habit of it, we would very soon find ourselves without any young tribunes at all.”

Marcus was almost embarrassed at the intensity of his relief. Not that he was actually worried that Saturnius would dare to have him flogged or broken, but he was fully aware that he had violated his orders to remain on the hilltop.

“As it stands,” Saturnius said, distributing the goblets, “I would not even go so far to say you made the wrong decision, considering the impossible position in which you were placed by your cousin.

Marcus froze, wondering if he was going to be put on the spot and queried about Fortex’s actions. But neither Saturnius nor Corvus seemed inclined to ask him further questions about the subject. He breathed a sigh of relief. If he wasn’t going to get in trouble over disobeying orders, he couldn’t imagine that the hero of the hour was going to, either.

His father, being the senior officer there, gave the toast. “To Amorr, to her Senate and People, and to her most recently victorious general, Marcus Saturnius!” They drank and Marcus was unsurprised to discover that, even deep within enemy territory, the wine served in the general’s quarters was a rather better quality than that which was provided to the junior officers.

“Thank you, Sextus Valerius,” Saturnius said. “But I should say it is more properly accounted as yet another famous victory for your most noble House.”

Corvus snorted. “I can’t blame you for not wanting to take any credit for it. Perhaps I should give Polycarpus free rein. I have little doubt that anyone who takes the sort of liberties with the truth that that ‘poet’ does would soon have this shabby little affair numbered among the most valiant triumphs our scribes have ever recorded.”

“Perhaps you should consider doing so.” Saturnius laughed. It was an infectious sound, so much so that it drew another half-smile from his father. “I imagine we’ll be fortunate if the Senate and People even manage to recall they are presently at war with the goblin tribes. These particular tribes, in any event. No doubt our letters will be the first that half of the Senate has heard of it.”

Corvus shook his head, but Marcus wasn’t listening anymore. Having escaped the prospect of punishment, he found that the nervousness and fear that had been keeping him going now that the battle was over were sustaining him no longer. He was finding it hard to even pretend to pay attention to the conversation.

At length, his father removed the goblet from his hand. “You’re dead on your feet, Marcus. Go now: Wash that goblin blood off you and get some sleep while you can. You’ll have an hour, perhaps two, before we summon the general assembly.”

Marcus nodded dutifully, saluted both Saturnius and his father as sharply as he could manage, then staggered out of the tent and down the Via Principalis in the direction of his tent. He decided the washing up could wait, but before he took a nap, he was determined to write down his impressions of the battle while they were still fresh in his mind.

He woke to the sound of horns, startled to discover that he was seated. He had fallen asleep at his camp desk in the midst of attempting to record his thoughts about the day’s earlier events. He wiped at his left cheek, which was slick with his own saliva, and squinted in the receding light at what he had written.

Small-boned and wiry creatures. Skin is green, but ranges from light yellow-green to dark grey-green. Faces sharp-featured and bestial, but not especially reminiscent of any specific animal. Their speech is said to be guttural, but war chants and cries during battle tend to mostly consist of high-pitched shrieking. Could not discern any coherent words. Armor is crude, consisting of either boiled leather reinforced with wood or various bits and pieces of metal or chainmail acquired from men and orcs over time. Do they even have their own metalworkers?
Little
No tactical imagination. Poorly disciplined as units but individually brave in some cases. The suddenness with which they collapsed into a routed mass almost like scaring up a flock of birds. The rear lines

Marcus desperately wanted to continue writing things down while he could still clearly recall the shape of the battle as well as the foe against whom it had been fought. But as his mind began to emerge from its sleepy fog, he realized that the horns were summoning the entire legion to the forum in the middle of the camp, as his father had told him earlier. Fortunately, except for his arm greaves and his helmet, he was still wearing his armor, so he was able to simply slide his helmet on his head, grab his greaves in one hand, and a moment later, he was on his way down the Via Praetoria.

As he approached the forum, he could see the great mass of the men gathering in orderly formation behind their standards. Four of his fellow five tribunes were already standing on the two sides of the raised wooden platform behind the legate and the laticlavius. He made his way past the rows of legionnairies and mounted the stand, still tightening his greaves.

Lucius Volusenus nodded to him in a friendly manner as Marcus, being junior to him, took his place to Volusenus’s left. Marcus imitated the others, and stood with his chin upraised and arms behind his back.

Volusenus leaned over and whispered to him. “Have you seen Fortex?”

“No, I lost track of him once we hit their infantry. He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“I think so. I saw him after the battle. Did he really kill the goblin commander?”

“Yes. It was the commander of the cavalry on their left, though, not the warleader.”

“Oh. Still…did you see it?”

“Yes, I was at the front with the draconarius. I saw the whole thing. You would not have believed—”

A trumpeter sounded a triple blast on his horn, and all the men throughout the assembled legion, Marcus included, fell instantly quiet.

Marcus Saturnius stepped forward and put his hands on his hips, nodding as his eyes swept over the thousands of troops.

“I hope you bastards don’t think you’re going to hear any praise from me for spanking a few greenskins and sending them running. That wasn’t a battle today. I don’t know if it was even worth calling an exercise!”

The legion roared its approval. Scattered shouts of “Saturnius” could be heard interspersed with the general laughter.

“I’ve seen Titus Falconius work the first century of the second cohort harder in sword drill than they got worked today. And I noticed the left flank saw even less action than Publius Licinius gets in a whorehouse! I’m going to have to consider replacing the horses of the First Cavalry with some sturdy wooden stools. Their precious soft arses would be more comfortable—and the damned stools would eat less hay.”

The legate’s barbs weren’t actually amusing, Marcus thought, and yet Saturnius barely had to open his mouth before he had legionaries laughing harder than a crowd watching clowns at the theatre. The jokes at the expense of the cavalry wings went down particularly well, but the knights bore it with noble aplomb. Saturnius proceeded to methodically pour false contempt on every group of soldiers in the legion, from the artillery to the surgeons. He poked fun at one century after another, and the men not only endured the mocking criticism he directed at them, they seemed to swell with pride when their unit was singled out, even in this fashion.

Ever since he’d joined the legion, Marcus had wondered about his father’s high regard for this vulgar little man, but now he began to see that the legate was a charismatic genius. Saturnius played the mass of soldiers as expertly as a skilled musician handling his instrument. He disguised his flattery of them under a veneer of denigration, and he praised them by belittling their deeds. And, Marcus suddenly realized, by demonstrating his contempt for their victory over a foe that had badly outnumbered them, he was instilling in the men a powerful belief in their own superiority.

The little legate was, Marcus began to realize, an exceedingly dangerous man. Saturnius was a seducer—not of women but of soldiers.

There was movement behind him, and he saw two centurions carrying his father’s high-backed chair, placing it on the dais behind Saturnius as the legate stalked back and forth across the stage.

Marcus began to realize that there was an additional purpose to Saturnius’s taunting. Thanks to his relentless chaffing, the men were stirred out of what could have easily become a post-battle depression born of exhaustion and repressed fear. Several chants of “Imperator, Saturnius, Imperator” began, but each time, Saturnius waved them off as if they were nothing but a petty irritation. It was masterfully done, and not even the most perennially paranoid Senator could have found anything objectionable or ambitious in the legate’s behavior.

And then, with the legion all but eating out of the palm of his hand, Saturnius smoothly effaced himself in favor of Corvus, who was already seated upon his favorite chair. Saturnius went and stood behind the stragister militum’s right shoulder, while Honoratus, the primus pilus, stepped forward to stand at his left.

Unlike Saturnius, his father didn’t attempt to encourage the men or win them over. He didn’t need to. They chanted “Corvus, Corvus” until he raised a hand, and they fell obediently silent.

“Men of the Legion, the People and Senate will soon hear of your victory. Your valor and your discipline has defeated the combined might of the Chalonu, the Vakhuyu, and their allies. Tonight, we shall celebrate their defeat at your hands.”

The legionaries cheered lustily.

“Your legate, Marcus Saturnius, has ordered a double-issue of the wine ration to be released to you and your centurions will oversee the distribution.”

Another cheer.

“Tomorrow, I intend that you shall recuperate from your labors today while messengers ride out to the chiefs of the Insobru, the Vakhuyu, and the Chalonu, demanding their submission to the People and Senate of Amorr.”

The men cheered again. They didn’t care in the least about what the goblin chiefs did or did not do, but they understood very well the gift their General was giving them. Tonight, everyone who was not on sentry duty was free to drink himself senseless without fear of having to march out the next morning.

Marcus groaned, and he could hear the other tribunes doing the same. Without a female army of camp followers nearby to distract the men, there would be an ungodly number of fights tonight. He, the other tribunes, the centurions, and the decurions were in for a difficult and possibly sleepless night. He did not relish the thought of having to break up fights between men who had stood bravely in arms together this very morning.