The Soldier's Tale (4 page)

“What?” I said.

“Nothing, sir,” said Romilius.

“Lad,” I said, “you saved my life. No,
don’t be modest. The wyvern would have bit off my head if you
hadn’t acted, and that’s that. If you don’t screw up, Sir Primus
will probably make you a Tessario by the end of the year. So that
means you can ask me questions.” I waved a hand at Mallister. “In
private, anyway. The Magistrius and I drink together, but in front
of the men I always defer to him, and he always defers to Sir
Primus. In front of the men, you’d damned well better hop when I
say jump. In private, though…well, we can be frank with each
other.”

“If you say so, sir,” said Romilius, taking
a deep breath. “Is it true what they say about you?”

I shared an amused look with Mallister. “I
can imagine what the men say about their Optio. Probably said the
same things myself when I was your age.” I expected him to say
something about the drinking or my foul temper.

“That you became a man-at-arms to avenge
your wife and child,” said Romilius, “who were slain by the
Mhorites?”

For a moment I was so surprised that I
couldn’t think of anything to say. I looked at Mallister, and he
seemed just as taken aback. Romilius shrank back a little, fearful
that I would explode.

Then Mallister and I burst out
laughing.

“No, no,” I said, once I got myself under
control, “no, it’s not like that. My wife died of plague, not the
Mhorites.” How she would have laughed at the thought. It made me
sound like some grim avenging champion from the old days, like a
Swordbearer going on a quest to rescue his lady love from an
urdmordar or an orcish warlock or something like that.

“Oh,” said Romilius. “I’m sorry, sir.”

I snorted. “Wasn’t your fault. Wasn’t
anyone’s fault.” I had tried to save her. I had galloped to Castra
Durius to fetch a Magistrius, killing my horse in the process.
Mallister had come with me, and we had ridden for the village in
haste. We had arrived a day too late. The fever had claimed both
her and my baby daughter. “I would have saved her, if I could. But
I couldn’t. I…”

We stood in silence for a moment. I poured
myself another cup and drained it in one swallow, my head buzzing.
It didn’t help my headache.

“So what do they really say?” I said at
last.

“They said the Mhorites slew your family,”
said Romilius, “and that you joined the Dux’s service to avenge
them.”

“No,” I said. “I’d been in the Dux’s
service for three years before I even met Judith.”

“Why did you join the Dux’s service, sir?”
said Romilius.

I shrugged. “My father was a tavern keeper,
and I hated scrubbing the vomit off the floor when the guests drank
too much. So I took service with the Dux…and then I wound up
scrubbing the barracks floor.”

Romilius burst out laughing, looked
embarrassed, and fell silent.

“What brought you here?” I said.

Romilius shrugged. “The monks at St.
Matthew raised me. I thought I would join their order, and then a
group of dvargir attacked one of the nearby villages. I realized I
could not spend my life behind monastery walls when I could fight,
not in good conscience. So I asked the abbot to write a letter to
the Dux…and here I am.”

“Noble,” I said.

“Also,” said Romilius. “I didn’t want to
become a monk because…uh…"

Mallister smiled. “A life of celibacy did
not appeal?”

“I think he’s trying to say he wants a
tumble with a pretty girl,” I said.

Romilius turned even redder. “Uh…if you’re
not waging vengeance upon the Mhorites, why do you stay, sir?”

I considered that. “Because it is my duty.
I took the Dux's oath. I will not betray it.”

Mallister nodded. “A good answer.”

I lifted my cup. “To duty, then.”

We toasted and drank. Romilius coughed
quite a bit, but managed to get all of his drink down. The young
man had many virtues, but holding his liquor was not one of
them.

###

Two weeks after that, the Dux himself came
with Sir Primus to speak with us in the courtyard.

I had a bad, bad headache. It was almost
enough to make me ask Sir Primus for a day of sick leave, but I
kept going. Drinking had not made me abandon my duty, and a damned
headache wasn’t going to do it, either.

Though I hadn’t drunk anything for three
days. Whatever was wrong with me, it wasn’t a hangover.

“Optio Camorak,” boomed Dux Kors Durius. He
was a huge man, built like a blacksmith, his face half-hidden
beneath a shaggy gray beard. “How fare the men?”

“Well enough, my lord,” I said, bowing. The
recruits hastily followed suit. Though they acted less and less
like recruits these days. They had seen firsthand how training and
discipline saved lives in battle, just as old Vegetius had said.
Had they panicked and scattered when facing the wyvern, the beast
would have picked us off one by one. Fear had always made them obey
my orders before, but now a heathy bit of self-preservation
motivated them as well.

“Splendid,” said Sir Primus, “for the Dux
has a task for us.”

“The Three Kingdoms of the dwarven kindred
lie beneath the mountains of Kothluusk,” said Kors, “and the King
of Khald Tormen is sending a taalvar – ah, their word for emissary
– to the Prince of Cintarra. To reach Cintarra, the taalvar and his
men must cross the lands of Durandis. Therefore, to uphold the
honor of Durandis, you shall escort the taalvar to Castra Durius
before he continues on his way to Cintarra.”

“We may face foes,” said Primus. “The
enmity between the dwarves of the Three Kingdoms and the orcs of
Kothluusk is ancient and deep, and predates the foundation of the
High Kingdom by centuries. If the Mhorites learn that a taalvar is
leaving Khald Tormen, they shall almost certainly try to kill him.
Of course, the taalvar shall have his own escort of dwarven
soldiers, but if the Mhorites try to attack him, we shall assist in
his defense.”

“Hence the escort,” said the Dux. “The
taalvar shall march along the main road from Castra Durius to the
Great Gate of Khald Tormen. Sir Primus, your company will ride out
and meet him along the road.”

“Optio,” said Primus. “Prepare for
departure. I wish to be on the road within the hour.”

“Sir,” I said, and I started giving orders,
trying to ignore my unending headache.

###

Just under an hour later, we rode west, Sir
Primus at the head of sixty men-at-arms. For this task, we had a
mix of veterans and new recruits, which was a relief. The new lads
were shaping up, but the Mhorites were vicious fighters, and I
wanted steady men with us. Magistrius Mallister had also been sent,
just in case one a Mhorite shaman decided to show his ugly face. As
bad as the Kothluuskan orcs were, the shamans of the blood god Mhor
were worse, and even the Mhorite warriors were afraid of them.

We rode west along the broad, wide road the
dwarves had cut from the foothills. Of old, when the High King had
first made alliance with the dwarves, the Three Kingdoms had
constructed the road to Castra Durius as a gesture of friendship.
It had weathered the centuries with the stubborn defiance of
dwarven engineering, and so was still flat and level. The Dux’s men
patrolled it often, so the Mhorites usually avoided it, preferring
instead to creep through the maze of gullies and valleys in the
foothills, even using the caverns of the Deeps to mask their
movements. So it seemed safe enough to assume we would not
encounter any trouble, but I had been a soldier too long to be an
optimist.

The corpses we saw a few hours after
leaving Castra Durius proved that correct.

Sir Primus called a halt, and we reined up.
A dozen orcish men in leather armor and chain mail lay scattered
across the road, all of them dead from sword or axe wounds. Their
faces had been tattooed red and marked with ritual scars, giving
their features the looks of hideous crimson skulls behind their
tusks. The crimson skull was the sigil of Mhor, the old orcish
blood god of death and murder, and in his honor the Mhorites carved
his symbol into their flesh.

“Looks like there was a sharp fight here,
sir,” I said, looking over the corpses.

One of the veteran men-at-arms, a wiry old
man named Philip, dropped from his saddle and considered the
ground. “I would say about a hundred Mhorites, Sir Primus, maybe a
hundred and fifty. It looks as if they ambushed a group of fifty
dwarves. Struck from either side of the road.”

“Cowardly, as befits the Mhorites,” said
Primus.

“Seems the dwarves had the better of it,” I
said. God and the saints, but my head hurt. “I don’t see any
dwarven dead.”

“Nor do I, sir,” said Philip. “I
think…wait!”

He pointed at the hills rising over the
road. Pine trees cloaked the sides of the hills, and a short figure
staggered from the trees, weaving back and forth as if drunk. It
was a dwarven man, standing just about five feet tall, broad and
strong and tough. He wore armor of bronze-colored dwarven steel, a
battered shield upon his left arm and a bloody sword in his right
fist. His helmet was missing, revealing his gray, granite-colored
skin, his black hair and beard, and his eyes like orbs of green
marble. The dwarven man staggered to the edge of the road and fell
to one knee, blood dripping down his cuirass.

“Magistrius,” said Primus. Mallister
dropped from his saddle, knelt next to the dwarven warrior, and
cast a spell, white fire flaring around his hands. The dwarf
flinched, and Mallister went rigid, his eyes widening, his teeth
clenched in a rictus. He had told me once that to heal wounds he
had to take the pain of the injury into himself, that he felt the
wound as if the sword had pierced his own flesh. It didn’t sound
like a pleasant experience, but I envied him that. Perhaps if I had
possessed that ability, I could have saved Judith and the baby,
maybe…

I shook my head. My thoughts were
wandering, and that was dangerous in a crisis. Maybe I should have
asked for sick leave after all.

The dwarf straightened up, his green eyes
wide. He looked tired and worn, but better than he had a moment
earlier. Mallister let out a long breath and straightened up,
wiping sweat from his forehead.

“He should live, Sir Primus,” said
Mallister.

The dwarven warrior said something in the
strange, jagged language of his kindred.

Primus frowned. “Do you speak Latin?”

“He does not, sir knight,” said Mallister,
“but I speak some dwarven.” He listened for a moment as the dwarven
warrior spoke, his bronze-colored gauntlets flashing in the sun as
he gestured. “They were attacked. Ah…Mhorite orcs, a large warband.
Hit from both sides. The taalvar…the taalvar’s name is Azandran. He
defeated the Mhorites in a battle in the Deeps, and they have come
for revenge. Some of the taalvar’s warriors were slain. The
remaining dwarves have formed a shield wall and fallen back, trying
to hold off the Mhorites.” Mallister listened to the warrior’s
narration for a moment, nodding here and there. “Sir Primus, the
fighting was recent, nor more than a few moments ago. If we hasten,
we might be able to attack the Mhorites while they focus upon the
dwarves…”

“And then catch them between the hammer and
the anvil,” I said.

Mallister nodded. “Precisely.”

“Then let us hasten,” said Primus. “Optio,
make sure our guest gets a horse.”

###

We found the battle about a mile further
into the hills.

A score of dead Mhorites and a half a dozen
dead dwarves lay upon the road, the blood pooling beneath their
bodies. The battle had moved off the road, the dwarves falling back
towards the hills. They had formed an interlocking shield wall,
stabbing with spears and swords through the gaps in their
shields.

Nearly a hundred Mhorite warriors faced
them. The Kothluuskan orcs threw themselves at the dwarven shields
in a frenzy, hammering at their foes with axes and maces. The
dwarves had superior armor and better discipline, but the Mhorites
fought with a bloodthirsty madness, screaming cries to their bloody
god of murder. They were pushing the dwarves back, and the dwarven
warriors were running out of space. Once they reached the base of
the hill, their formation would collapse, and the Mhorites would
carry the day.

Unless the dwarves had help.

“Men of Durandis!” shouted Primus, raising
his spear. “Charge! Charge now!”

The men-at-arms, veterans and recruits
both, shouted and kicked their horses to a gallop, racing for the
Mhorites in a wall of swords and spears and stamping hooves. The
veterans moved smoothly, keeping to a solid line, but to my
surprise the recruits kept up, staying more or less in formation.
Romilius kept in formation next to some of the veterans, lowering
his spear with easy grace.

We smashed into the Mhorites. Infantry can
withstand a charge of horsemen, but only if they are properly
arrayed and prepared, with spears braced to receive the enemy. The
Mhorites had no spears, and encircled the dwarven formation in a
ragged half-circle. It was one of the worst formations possible for
meeting a charge of heavy horse, and we proved it as we trampled
the Mhorites like wheat. A dozen of the orcish warriors went down
beneath stamping, steel-shod hooves, and a dozen more perished upon
the tips of our spears. I drove my spear through a Mhorite, the
steel head punching through his leather armor and burying itself in
his heart. The impact ripped the spear from my hand, and I drew my
sword with a steely rasp. I whipped the blade around and it sank
halfway into a Mhorite’s neck. Another warrior came at me,
brandishing an axe, and I managed to get my shield up in time to
block. Splinters flew from the impact, and I staggered back in the
saddle, but I raised my sword and brought it down with a shout.