Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (48 page)

“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 one 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.

“Can you not stop those?” she asked the two mages. “What you wait for?”

“I would think we probably could, but we’re under strict orders not to reveal ourselves.” The older battlemage shook her head. “The ulfin don’t even know we have battle magic, since your people don’t. It would be most unwise to show our hand this early. Unless we can be certain to wipe them out completely, we do not dare.”

“If it is bad magic, many Dalarn will die!”

“Don’t you think we can signal the prince now, Blais?” Patrice pointed to the mass of aalvarg. “I’d say it’s more important to kill the two whatever she called them, the wolf-mages, than a hundred of the regular sort. If nothing else, a cavalry charge by a few hundred horse should distract them nicely and interfere with any spellcasting.”

“Yes, that’s true, I suppose. But I’d quite like to see whatever it is they’re preparing. Right now, we have no idea what their capabilities are. This won’t give us a ceiling, but at least it will provide us with a conceptual floor of sorts.”

Fjotra was aghast. She didn’t understand what they were discussing, but one thing was clear: They were willing to let her people die in order to satisfy their damnable curiosity about wolf magic. She reached out and grabbed the front of the silvered breastplate that Patrice was wearing over his blue robes.

“If you no sound horn now, I jump up and scream!”

The two Savonders looked at each other, then at her.

She glared back at them, undaunted. They might be masters of terrible magics and capable of turning her into a fox or boiling the very blood inside her, but she knew they wouldn’t dare, not so long as she had the favor of their king’s son and heir. Or as long as they were planning to stay within the high-walled safety of her father’s great fortress. Of course, they could simply bind her mouth, either with rags or by magic, but threatening to scream and alert the enemy was about her only option.

“We’ve already learned a considerable amount,” Patrice admitted. “And we really should save as many of those northmen as we can. God knows the Reaver King needs every man he’s got, and every one we save today means one less man-at-arms we’ve got to bring from across the sea when the king decides to add the isles to the realm.

Blais glanced down at the pattern that the two wolves had nearly finished marking on the ground. He sighed, but at last he shrugged and reached for the horn tied to his belt. “I suppose we have our orders.” He adroitly untied the leather thongs, raised his horn to his lips, and blew three sharp blasts. The heads of the aalvarg jerked up in almost pefect unison as the signal echoed across the battlefield below, followed by a loud cheer from the Dalarn shield wall.

The two wolf-mages, however, paid it no heed. Their complicated pattern completed, they appeared to be snarling and growling, although at such a distance it was impossible for Fjotra to see exactly what they were doing. She wished for another water lens. The steam rising from the pattern in the ground abruptly flared red, and the assembled aalvarg began to howl, loud enough to drown out the cheers of the Dalarn warriors as well as the rumbling sound of the Savonders who were beginning to ride out behind and below her.

“Did you feel that?” Patrice asked Blais, sounding worried. The older battlemage nodded.

“Let it be. Whatever it is, we’re not to interfere further unless the prince is in danger. We don’t want them to know we have magic too.”

“What is it?” Fjotra pulled at Patrice’s sleeve.

“The spell. Whatever powers those two mages summoned with their piss magic is being released now. Blais and I can feel it, but we don’t know what it is. We could try to break it up, but if we did, their mages might learn about us, and we can’t have that.”

But when the two companies of cavalry entered the field, they discovered the nature of the aalvarg spell. The mass of aalvarg began frothing at the mouth and snarling uncontrollably. Fjotra recognized it immediately—even in monstrous beasts, it was impossible to mistake the signs of a berserker. Only instead of five or ten battle-crazed warriors tearing off their clothes and biting at their shields, there were nearly three hundred wolf monsters going mad with rage!

The two mages recognized it too.

“Well, it must be a new experience for your friends to see the berserkers on the other side for a change.” Patrice commented. His tone was cool, but his eyebrows had nearly climbed to his hairline.

“Why you say that?” Fjotra was confused. There were often berserkers on both sides when the tribes fought, which, prior to coming of the wolf demons, had not been uncommon.

The gleaming sight of the two massive groups of horsemen cantering toward them was enough to nearly sober the maddened aalvarg. But their magical courage soon returned, and despite the furious efforts of the aalvarg commander and his officers to arrange them into some sort of defensive position that would allow them to face both cavalry forces at the same time, first one aalvarg broke away from the pack and charged at the shield wall, then another. Soon they were followed by a third, then a fourth, and before long nearly all the monsters were baying and charging recklessly back toward the Dalarn warriors.

It was a terrible sight to see that maddened grey flood rushing at what looked like a painfully inadequate dam, but even though the front two lines of the wall staggered as the crazed wolf-beasts leaped fearlessly upon their shields and impaled themselves on spears, they did not break and run.

A grey flood of wolf flesh surged toward the shield wall, which now looked tragically weak. Like a storm wave crashing upon rocks the crazed wolf-beasts leapt savagely upon the shields.

The front two lines in the shield wall staggered but held, and scores of aalvarg squealed, impaled on spears. The warriors shouted and steadied and kept their shields raised.

“Perfect!” Blais exulted. “Those furry bastards finally stuck themselves in, precisely as we’d hoped. And here comes the prince, precisely in time to hammer them against the anvil.”

The Red Prince looked a brave and formidable sight in his crimson armor. The powerful black horse upon which he rode was nearly as magnificent as the prince himself, and behind him rode a burly man-at-arms who sat his horse with all the grace of a sack of flour. But the man’s arms were thicker than Fjotra’s thighs, and he held a staff upon which the prince’s unadorned red flag proudly sailed beneath another flag bearing the royal crest. Behind them rode two hundred armored horse, the bulk of the Savonder force, looking calm and lethal.