Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones Read Free Page B

stragister’s command, sir.” Marcus nodded impassively, but he couldn’t quite hide a faint smile of delight cracking his formal reserve. “Thank you, General.”
    “What a touching display of paternal affection,” Saturnius snorted derisively at their formality. He turned to the scout. “Faberus, what do you think of this formality between father and son?”
    The young man squirmed in his saddle. “I wouldn’t presume to have no opinion, Legate.”
    Saturnius guffawed. “Well said, lad! All right then, Corvus, let’s be on our way and see if we can find a place suited to kill some goblins. Tribune Clericus, until we return to the camp, you will address the stragister militum as ‘Father.’ That is an order, Tribune!”
    “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”
    “Patricians!” The little legate laughed. “Heads of wood and hearts of ice. It’s a wonder the Houses Martial didn’t die off centuries ago. Faberus, go round up four knights and meet us at the bottom of the hill. There must be some reasonable ground lying between us and them.”

    The sun had reddened like blood, as if an omen for the morrow, when Marcus Saturnius finally pronounced his satisfaction with the ground that lay before him. Corvus breathed a sigh of relief. It was the third location presented by the young scout, but it was easily the most to Saturnius’s liking. An open meadow spread out from the woods and culminated in a large hill that was higher on one side, lending itself to an oblique line of battle. The knights were already off their mounts and dicing with Marcus and Faberus while Corvus and Saturnius stood together in the middle of the field, looking up at the hill.
    Corvus frowned. “We’re farther south than I’d like.”
    “I know,” Saturnius said, patting his horse’s nose after tying its reins to a bush. “But the goblin army’s natural line of march will push them southward. No goblin wants to cross deep water, and that stream about a league to the north will turn them here. There being no roads out here, they will naturally gravitate toward the open field—here—rather than through those forests we passed earlier. Too much brush.” The legate pointed. “I’ll position cohorts one, six, and eight, there, there, and there.”
    Corvus nodded in approval. Those three were the XVII’s best cohorts, although since the entire legion was greener than a spring apple, he couldn’t put as much faith in them as he would have in another, more experienced legion.
    The three sides of the meadow around them were lined with crimson and gold, festooned with leaves fallen from the trees. Their horses grazed placidly on the browning autumn grass, unperturbed by the talk of the violence to come.
    Corvus picked up a golden leaf and twisted it in his hand. It seemed almost a travesty to stand in the midst of all this natural beauty for the express purpose of slaughtering hundreds, more likely thousands, of God’s creatures. He hoped the scholars of the Church were correct about the goblins being without souls, even if he had doubts that they were outright creatures of pure evil. It would make tomorrow’s slaughter easier on his mind.
    Not that it mattered. For better or for worse, he was a soldier, and slaughter was his true vocation. And right now, turning the young men of Legio XVII into one vast killing machine was his most sacred responsibility.
    “We can establish the bulk of the mules and scorpions on the heights there,” Saturnius said, “behind the second cohort on what will be the right wing. Put the cavalry on the left flank, up against the forest there, and another cohort behind them to deal with any infiltration from the trees. We’ll have room for five cohorts across the front, so we’ll keep two in reserve and leave one to guard the camp.”
    Corvus shook his head and overruled him. “No. Don’t put all the horse on the left wing, I only want eight squadrons of the First Knights there. We’ll put the Second