~
The cove which once sheltered Dawnchaser was awash in floating debris and blackened corpses. The prow of the sloop crested the lapping waves, the bow resting in a rocky cleft on the seafloor. The lanky Dog Soldier set himself to the grisly task of collecting the dead. Ovidius was hauling the third Man from the ocean when the corpse twitched.
Ovidius pulled the Man above the waterline and looked at the blue skin, the lolling tongue, and the rolling eyes. Quickly, Ovidius squeezed the Man's chest, pushing seawater from his lungs. In a heave, the Man gasped for air, coughing and gasping for air. The Dog Soldier pulled the Man to shore, dropped him to the rocky soil, crouched low and thumped mightily on the half drowned wretch's back.
"Seven... Hells..." The man croaked before collapsing, breathing fitfully in ragged gasps and shaking in spasms.
Ovidius grinned. "Lieutenant, I am glad you survived the Scarlet Man's assault."
After a minute of heaving and gasping, the gray eyed and fair haired officer rose shakily to his knees, and finally looked up at the lanky Scout. "Are there... any other... survivors?"
"Just you so far, Sir." Ovidius remained crouched near the officer and surveyed the ruin of the cove. "They were waiting for us, and we had just enough intelligence to hang ourselves."
The officer nodded grimly, but then lapsed into another fit of coughing and wheezing. The Man rolled onto his side, shivering in the night's chill. After a moment the Man seemed to get control of himself, and struggled to sit up.
"Many thanks Scout. Ovidius, right?"
"Yes Sir."
"Basilus Aurelius." The Lieutenant extended his hand, and Ovidius grasped it at the forearm in the way of the Legion. With a shrug, Ovidius pulled the Man to his feet.
"Yes Sir." The last Man to shake Ovidius' hand had been General Tarkun of Blackrock Tower at Graduation Day.
"What of your squad?"
"Killed in action, Sir. We overheard three persons, a Man, a Dogman, and a female Catiin foreigner. I believe it was the Scarlet Man, the subordinate we were hunting. Things went wrong, and Sirius died first from a spear through the hull if you can believe it. Paulo and I fought Scarlet and the Dogman, while the foreigner watched from a chair. The things he did, he could only be a witch, he lit me up with crimson lightning. Paulo ordered me to retreat and warn the rest of the company, but something... bright and orange knocked me unconscious underwater. I never found Paolo, but I assume he is KIA. I nearly drowned, but woke up and made my way to shore. Satricola left my line of sight heading in this direction. Half drowned, I had no chance to warn the rest of you."
"I see... and Dawnchaser?" Lieutenant Aurelius seemed mostly recovered, but his pupils were still dilated and every so often he waggled fingers in front of his own face.
"Sunk at the bottom of the cove. Her prow barely crests the waterline." Ovidius pointed to the water.
"We need one of the skiffs at least." Aurelius spat to the side. "We need wine too, if only to mask the taste of the sea in our throats. Did you overhear anything useful from Scarlet and the other two?"
"Scarlet didn't name Ancimas, but claimed to the foreigner that his real master was rich, powerful, and anonymous. The female Catiin could have been Ishtarian. She tasked Scarlet to prove himself, then everything went to the Seven Hells." Ovidius shrugged.
"Nothing else?" The Officer sighed and shook his head.
"The crew sang cryptic shanties with revolutionary themes against the Realm, taunting the Legion. The first caught my notice based on our excursion in the jungle a few weeks ago; they called on the Morgannon to reap our souls."
The Officer raised his eyebrow. "Morgannon? Are you sure?"
Ovidius hummed to himself and recited the last lines.
Say, old Man your Dog will die
Say, old Man your Dog will die
We'll drop him down to the depths of the sea
We'll drop him down to the depths of the sea
We'll sing him down with a long, long roll
Where the demonfish'll savage his body
and the Morgannon reaps his soul.
Lieutenant Aurelius nodded once before another coughing fit shook his frame, falling to the beach. After a moment, Aurelius raised his hand and Ovidius clasped it in an overlarge paw, pulling the officer to his sandaled feet again. The officer sat on a nearby boulder as Ovidius cast his gaze around the shoreline, and headed off in search of driftwood. In his satchel was flint and steel, but in the rain drenched Shining South kindling proved a rare commodity. After a dozen minutes of searching, Ovidius used lichen from boulders lining the shore and coaxed a flame with Lieutenant Aurelius' aid, who quickly warmed his hands to the fire and dried his crimson officer's cloak.
"What do you remember of the battle?" Ovidius watched Lieutenant Aurelieus over the crackling fire.
"The moment Satricola came in sight, the alarm went up. Captain Marius ordered us to engage. When the distance halved cottage sized balls of flame erupted through the air and hit our decks, blasting the hull into shrapnel. On the second volley, I was thrown into the drink and... dreamed... before I came to in your arms."
Aurelius smiled ruefully and held his fingers to his temples, as if he should remember something but could not. "Ah, it's gone."
Ovidius was quiet, because the feeling was contagious. Ovidius knew he had dreamed something, but it had evaporated from his mind like morning dew.
Exhausted and weak, the pair slept near the small fire on the shore among the recovered dead.
~
Salvaging the portside skiff proved relatively easy for Ovidius the morning after. The boat was still lashed to Dawnchaser's port side, so a dagger and a length of rope allowed the Dog Soldier to haul it up to shore, upend it of sea water and set it back with the Lieutenant's aid. Their breakfast consisted of roasted dogfish wrapped in kelp. It was impossible to save all the corpses from the small sharks, so Ovidius felt obliged to spear a few of the scavengers eating Private Sextus and Sergeant Anius. Only fifty-six Dog Soldiers and eight Men were recovered from the cove, with a dozen Dog Soldiers and two Men unaccounted, namely Captain Reynolds and Second Lieutenant Hyte.
Ovidius and Aurelius salvaged arms from the dead, and outfitted the skiff with provisions gathered from scarecrow nuts of coastal palm trees, called so because they vaguely resembled a face despite being hairy and brown. The nut was the size of a Dog Soldier's fist, hard on the outside but within was white fleshy meat and sweet clear juice. According to Paolo on the first day the Corps made camp the giant nuts were a blessing to castaways and locals, able to quench thirst and satisfy a grumbling belly.
"Where to now Sir?"
Lieutenant Aurelius shook his head at their stores. "We find the rest of the fleet, regroup, and use different tactics."
Ovidius nodded. "Should we alert the Inquisitors? Get a professional to deal with the Witch?"
Lieutenant Aurelius laughed. "Those queer clerics of pain and malice torture old herbalists and hunt rebellious voices. No, they are not professionals to hunt the likes of the Scarlet Man. I wish we had our own Witches, trained in warfare to fight fire with fire, but the Order of the Rose was destroyed root and branch the same time that the High King disappeared in the Bleak East centuries ago. We have no Eldritch Knights to battle the Scarlet Man, so we use the strengths we do have; unity, discipline, and training. A Witch cannot evade a storm cloud of javelins and arrows. Surprise is the Scarlet Man's favorite weapon, and we must deprive him of his arsenal."
Ovidius nodded slowly, as the Officer's resolve reminded him of General Gravius. He resolved to follow Lieutenant Aurelius as long as the Man would have him.
The pair rowed out of the cove and set the small skiff's sail to tack against the wind, the only survivors of the Expeditionary Corps of the 64th Legion.
END
About the Author
Silas A. DeBoer temporarily resides in the fifth circle of hell (some call it Oklahoma). A native born Nebraskan and life long student of history
, philosophy, and legend, Silas makes a life with his wife Carrie and their five cats. Silas and Carrie enjoy role-playing games, video games, and reading for pleasure. May all our readers recognize the blessings in their life, and do all they can to make this dark world a brighter place.
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