Quinta Macedonica Legio - completed and retitled in honour.

[Diomede]

Diomede - you want me to write shorter updates? Really?!

No, there's nothing wrong with your update length. What I meant was that I wanted to save a few updates for me to read in one go. Like reading several chapters in a novel. Alas, I only managed two. Please don't take that as criticism.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Not at all!

[Ybbon]

Well Charles Dickens wrote his novels in a weekly format with each edition eagerly awaited - so not bad company to be in

"There hanging in the dark lay that blank face of the Tribune Zeno, the last of the Macedonica, his dark eyes fastened on mine like talons"

Love that, I can feel those eyes staring at me and I have to believe the reference to Last of the Macedonica is a tribute to one of my favourite films - and not a bad book either.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

What movie would that be I wonder?!

The Dust Which Always Blinds

For eight days after that internment we sweated and heaved the fort into something resembling a military outpost on the limes, our guards always facing into the Black Desert, our patrols in force never far from the stone walls and towers. The heat of the Harra assailed us. Flies were never off our backs or faces. The water rations doled out from the solitary well were never quite enough to assuage our thirst.



It is said that there is nowhere in the respublica that one does not see the eternal footprint of a legion encampment or castellum – and I for one will vouch for that – but each encampment be it a temporary marching camp or the stone fort along a river bank or nestling up against a brooding forest is also its own mark that will never be repeated. Yes, the roads, the barrack-blocks, the tent layouts are always the same. There will be four gateways in and out. And always the principia will nestle in the centre complete with the standards and the pay chest. But look deeper and you will always see a different stain to each fort or camp: the talismans hung over the leather flaps of the papillio tents, the swirl of languages around the braziers or atop the parapets under the ubiquitous stamp of Latin, the graffito on the barrack-block walls, the colours of the cloaks and tunicas, the tattoos and scars, often of a ritualistic nature, on the arm or the neck, the style of a haircut – perhaps after the Frankish fashion long and braided or the Syrian coiled and perfumed – and the shape and cut of the beard – short and harsh after the ancient emperors or long and wild after the desert prophets and the wily ascetics of the Greeks – seeing all these in each fort or camp and you will realise that each place is both eternal and unique. Each Roman military settlement is both exact and chaotic – and so it was with the castellum of Nasranum.

Eight days we sweated in that fort named after the Nazarenes who had been slaughtered about the ruined Nabatean tower, we, the Quinta, the seeds of the acanthus, the men of a legion never known to abandon an emperor or Rome, our backs runneled with sweat and stained as if with grape juice by the curse of the bronzen sun.

Eight days and not once did we see a sign from the Black Desert of life. Outside the walls lay only the endless shimmering horizon wrapped about us like a gauze; a filmy shroud. Inside was motion and shouts and curses – the toil of men hard at work – but outside lay silence and stillness as if we guarded nothing but a lost place, a void, cut off from the world of Rome and the matters which consumed her.

It was towards the end of those eight days that the men under me, the men of the Second Maniple, began to coin this place the Fort of Oblivion in jest often around a fire or a gaming board – but that jest stuck like a beggar’s filthy hand on your cloak and soon it spread and rippled out among the other centuries and maniples. It spread but the humour of its original boast did not. Legionaries were heard to whisper that we were ‘nowhere now in the Fort of Oblivion’ and those words were grim words, spoken under the breath as men twirled beads about their fingers or touched an amulet to a lip or nervously traced an ancient tattoo along the arm . . .

We were the Nowhere Legion lost in the Fort of Oblivion –

Silence and heat and the endless black rocks of the desert hemmed us in and it seemed as if time itself faded from us in that litany. We marked the days by rote and nothing else. Inside the fort, the little rituals persisted – the drills, the work details, the punishment parades, the duty rosters, the evening meals and entertainments, and so on. Every second day, the Tribune mounted a small dais and extolled the virtue of our presence here, his stern words ringing out and back from the stone walls. These rituals remained but outside in that desert rested only a mocking emptiness which seemed to dwarf us all.

It was only on the evening of that eighth day, as Sebastianus led in a detail from a patrol, the men all tired and covered in dust and sweat, that word spread out that a column of dust had been sighted deep in the west. As he marched past me and little Barko by the yawning gap of that Negra Porta, he smiled coldly, his face a network of tension, and shouted out that it would be here by midday tomorrow – and despite a little chill of fear in my stomach, something else stirred deep in me and I knew that even if death itself and all the furies fell upon us and this brittle fort at midday tomorrow I would laugh at it – if for no other reason than at last the spell of the Black Desert and its grim stillness would be broken.

Dust and an unknown force marched upon us – and I laughed with Barko and my eyes sparkled in anticipation. Better death in battle under the legion’s standards than oblivion and a nameless loss unknown to any!

[ReD_OcToBeR]

Ah yeah!, the tension has been building for so long and I can hardly await this fabled battle coming.

[Ybbon]

I'm wondering if this is just more ramping up and no battle, just more confusion and tension. Can't wait though.

Wonder if the protagonist would be called Magua?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The clues are all in the text!

[Merula]

The clues are all in the text!

Damn you! Now youve made me go back and read it all again haha

But seriously, great update(s) mate

Im still trying to work out who this hidden enemy is, if it isnt the sassies, and not the arabs, who else could it be?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Hidden enemy? I have no idea what you mean!

Among Ruins The Brave Strike the Hardest

I remember the cold that night for it was brittle and sharp. Above us lay a curved moon, gibbous and unnaturally large, crowned with a diadem of frosty stars. The dome of the night capped everything and it felt as if we were entombed under a glittering obsidian lid; a sarcophagus heavy and inimitable. Our breath heaved about us like filmy rags and the curt orders I barked out - and which were echoed by the Centenarius under me and the file-closers up and down the lines - seemed muted and dull as if covered in cloth.

We moved cautiously some three stades, as the Greeks mark distance, from Nasranum in open order, our military cloaks wrapped up about us and little bits of rags stuffed into the metal chinks and gear we carried to reduce our noise, like thieves, like bandits, slinking away into the nooks and crannies of the land. Beneath our feet the harsh black rocks of the Harra chaffed at our boots and more than once I heard a legionary cry out in sharp pain as a sliver of rock cut through that leather to slice into the underside of his foot.

We moved silently north in long open files, our weapons wrapped up, our voices low, in full battle-gear while far to the east beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris, in the dim lands of unseen hills and deserts, a slight purple wash was beginning to grow – dawn was arriving like a thief even as we slinked away from the fort, we, the Second Maniple of the Quinta, cold and shivering, little vexilla of white breath trailing us. Less than two hundred men in two centuries, equipped with a dozen mules burdened with sheaves of javelins and the weighted barbs we nicknamed the ‘darts of Mars’. We moved in a long winding column, our heads low and the pace steady.

Ahead, emerging out of the still night like an omen, loomed the Nabatean tower, all ruinous and gaping with holes and jagged clefts. That faint purple wash in the east was touching it lightly like a lover so that it seemed to drift or float out from the night; a galley-wreck coming to land upon a broken shore.

That Nabatean tower was to be a refuge and a spring for the legionaries of the Second Maniple.

The words of Angelus were still ringing in my ears even as we forged through that brittle night with its frosty embrace. He had appeared outside the flaps of my little tent around midnight and gestured to me to walk with him. I remembered his dark face being closed and distant and I knew then even as I gathered up my military belt and hurried to meet him that his words would not be easy on me. I was not wrong. He had a wineskin in his hands and handed it to me. His eyes danced with a morbid light only the Syrians here in the east can manifest – a sort of mocking fatalism as if even death itself were nothing more than an inevitable joke in bad taste. I supped deep from that wineskin and then passed it back to him, its dark red fluid filling my gullet in a warm wash.

He told me then in plain language that we were not equipped yet for a siege – we had no heavy artillery for the walls, no stockpiles of missiles in any great numbers, not enough men to man all the towers and parapets – and worse still the annonae supplies would barely hold for another ten days. It galled him to be caught like a rat in a trap and no legion commander ever liked to be pinned behind walls and watch his men drop one by one.

We strode up the north portus steps and paused then gazing out into the night. I sensed rather than saw the broken ground further off and knew that far away in that black blanket stood the broken ruins of the Nabatean tower. He handed me the wineskin again and I smiled then a cold smile. I knew without being asked what it was he wanted of me. Me and the Second Maniple. As he had used me at 'The Seleucid Needle' so he would use me again.

No legion commander ever liked being caught – unless the trap itself was also bait.

The purple wash of dawn was spreading wide across the great unknown east as we finally reached the tumbled ruins. I paused and strode atop one large basalt block as the men and mules filed past around me. The small puckered face of Octavio, my newly-promoted Centenarius, bobbed passed, the large oval shield slapping against his back, one hand on his spatha hilt and the other pulling in the cloak about him. Octavio – a small walnut man with a hard round face. He was a native Italian from the hills of Umbria and boasted Etruscan blood in his veins. His life was a life bred for soldiering and there was nothing in his wily form that was not muscle or corded sinew. I nodded to him as he passed and without let he began barking out orders in the sharp Latin of the army of Rome. Swiftly, the mules were tethered up deep inside the ruins, their bundles stripped off and unwrapped. The maniple broke up into the two centuries which in turn further separated out into the smaller conturburnia, all of which vanished into the nooks and crannies of the endless ruins. Within a few heartbeats, the Second Maniple had disappeared and all that was left to show its presence was myself, standing atop that rock alone and still, like a statue carved by a nameless hand.

Dawn rose in the east, glorious, resplendent, and inevitable. I stood there wrapped up in my sagum cloak, my helmet under one arm, my hand resting on the hilt of my spatha, all but alone, while at my back rose the endless jagged fragments of that ancient Nabatean tower, like a shattered skull, like a wreck of a titan brought low by the folly of the gods.

And deep within that wreck, within its twists and curious cells, waited my men, tense, eager, like Hibernian bloodhounds waiting for the wind to shift.

The sun rose and washed the Harra in a golden light and below in the distance stood the walls and towers of Nasranum. And there out of the west it came – a veil of dust, seething slowly as if alive. It came upon the fort in majestic slowness and deep in its folds and waves I caught a glimpse of fire on fire – those inevitable sparks which herald only war and blood.

Almost without realising it, Octavio was beside me, his walnut face grim but satisfied. He reached up then and ran his thumb along a dull raven tattoo on his brow – the mark of Mithras, the god of war and brotherhood and the crimson baptism so at odds with this new wash of forgiveness that was Christianity. He glanced briefly at the fresh mound which still marked where that nameless centenarius had been buried only days before – and I remembered the scar on that man’s cheek and the unknown tale behind it.

I smiled a wolfish smile then and nodded back to Octavio – his shade would be avenged after all it seemed. The Tribune had concealed us as one hides a dagger deep in one’s cloak to smite a foe when he least expects it . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

That Irony Which The Gods Alone Breath

Dawn rose and the wash of it seeped across the Harra like a judgement. I stood upon that basalt rock, little Octavio beside me, our cloaks tight about us, and felt the heat and dry lift of air enwrap us both. That basilicus of the sun rose in majesty over the desert and there naked beneath its glow lay the castellum of Nasranum, alone and exposed, the walls white and bleached. Little tufts of smoke rose inside from the cooking braziers and I saw glints and sparks from the legionaries now moving up onto the parapets. It lay three stades distance but seemed to my tired eyes as if it occupied a remote world like a dream or a phantasm.

Flies swamped us and I sensed more than saw the odd scorpion scuttle in the rocks around me. Far in the distance, I saw black dots moving listlessly to the east and knew a small herd of goats tracked the Harra seeking the next waterhole. Above us, the desert kites began to circle in long lazy arcs, drifting high on currents and wafts of hot air. The desert stirred as that sun rose in all its baleful light.

What absorbed me most though was that carpet of dust as it rolled out of the dim west and that receding dusk. It bloomed like an omen and roiled in slow mesmerising pulses as if alive. A slight wind from the south tugged at its wake and lifted it up and out in ragged streamers. Now and then, little shades moved in that dust and a sudden gleam would flash out, fitful and inconstant. I remember peering closer then and leaning out on that basalt rock as if I could stare into the very heart of the roiling cloud itself and divine its secrets.

Octavio grunted beside me then and spat into the dust at his feet. ‘Horse and foot, Ducenarius.’ He pointed then. ‘See? The cloud is leaner at the front and swollen to the rear – slower moving I wager and that means foot or a baggage train. Horse ahead moving fast with the foot or wagons bringing up the rear, eh?’

I frowned at that. He was correct. The more I stared at that mass of dust and sparkling light the more it did not make sense. It was stretching out as if being pulled apart. Ahead at the van it rippled and tossed, agitated, but behind it seemed to move sluggishly and in a greater mass. And yet if that was the case and horse were moving at speed and leaving the slower-paced foot behind where was the sense in that, I wondered? What use cavalry or light raiders against the walls of the fort if there were no infantry to back them up? Something did not make sense.

Almost without realising, I found myself leaping higher up among the ruins of the Nabatean tower to gain a better view. I flung the cloak aside and scrambled up an incline of razor-sharp rock, pausing once the further reaches of the Harra were visible. I stood now almost on the ruined pinnacle of that tower, its shattered blocks about my feet, even as below Octavio stood away to stare up at me in puzzlement.

I stood as if upon the needle of the world then and around me spread out the empty vastness of the Black Desert. Sweat streamed down my face and stung my eyes but I wiped it away and saw as if in a vision from the gods the enormity of that desolation. It engulfed everything and all life in it was merely tolerated – never indulged. The Harra was absence. It was the negation of life. It was the blasted anger of nameless gods who were forlorn now in the minds of Men. I stood upon a needle and felt a vast emptiness engulf me as if I alone surveyed the end of all things and all that was left at my feet were the ruins of all, of vanity, of majesty, of grandeur, even of Rome itself. I witnessed nothing but what would be the fate of all things – here in an empty place in which a dry wind tossed nothing but dust and black pebbles with no rhyme or purpose . . .

A curt laugh from Octavio shook me out of that momentary mood and I saw him mock salute me as one does the standards of the legion. Before I could snap back at him and his levity – I saw it. I saw it and a cold fear rushed through me like a blast of icy water. What I saw stilled the retort on my lips and made me break out in a fresh sweat. I cannot remember what my face was like but the look on it caused my Centenarius to swear in an ancient Umbrian dialect and turn to face the Harra in alarm.

And there it was – high on this pinnacle I saw what Octavio nor those in the fort could not. Behind that ragged stream of dust lay another, larger, wider and more insistent. It trailed the first with all the determination only a hunter gives its prey. It fanned out wide and glittered with torchlight and sparks of fire thrown from helmet and shield rim and spear tip – and it bore down on the straggling rear of the first cloud with an inexorable pace which brought a cold knot into my stomach.




‘Felix?’

My mind spun in an uneasy whirl and for a moment I ignored the Centenarius. A supreme irony hit me then. There, deep in the fort, the men of the Quinta were girding the walls with armour and weapons, waiting for an enemy which was appearing to bear down on them, not realising that this was no enemy but a friend in need of succour – a succour that would never come in time. There in that first dust cloud the horse were spurring away as fast as they could to reach that safety which Nasranum promised while in their wake toiled the foot and supply wagons, lumbering, floundering, in a wave of dust and sweat, falling behind – even as that monstrous cloud behind them spread out and began to fall upon them like a doom.




I laughed then in madness – fate mocks us all in the end and all we ever to do to foil it is no more than straw on the wind! I laughed and little Octavio stepped away as if from a crazed prophet on a pillar of volcanic rock, his eyes wide with uncertainty.

On an impulse I flung my arm up to salute that baleful sun which was emerging in the dim purpled east. I raised up my hand, palm open, and saluted it as one does the old ancestors and the daemon of one’s name – ave, Sol! Ave!

It seemed it was ever my fate to lead men forth alone and abandoned into red ruin and war . . .

Moments later, amid confusion and chaos, the men of the Second Maniple tramped forth in full battle gear, and at their head I jogged, my eyes consumed with madness and on my face a cruel pitiless smile. All I heard was the sound of my name being uttered like a silver coin thrown into the darkness and behind it that cold Syrian face of my Tribune –

We sallied forth from the Nabatean tower and raced across the dusk of the Black desert towards our fate – nusquam, nusquam, nusquam . . . And a small part of me missed that scarred visage that was Palladius even as it fell amid the flaking petals of the acanthus . . .

We marched as fast as we could into dust and gloom and the flickering light of men toiling under a laboured flight, madness on my face, laughter on my lips still, even as the men around me cursed and spat into that sand.

We were the Quinta, ever loyal, ever faithful. Tell me, what else could I do?

[Boustrophedon]

Oh lovely two whole new chapters waiting for me I'll get to reading them tonight ^^ have some rep for your amazing tale! (too much rep given, wait 24hours )

btw: the last pic isn't showing for some reason?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Hmmm. Odd. It is loading here. Maybe a slow connection issue? Enjoy the new chapters!

EDIT - just refreshed it and you're right. It is not showing - very odd!

EDIT EDIT - hopefully that has fixed it!

[Merula]

Great Update mate

EDIT: Oh and just thought id let you know, ive fixed my AAR up now, and just got a new update up if you havent seen it already Just doing a bit of shameless self promoting haha

Getting on the SBH bandwagon

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I am a bandwagon?! Oh dear! Look forward to the new updates, BLIP99!

[McScottish]

+Rep for you, sir! Fine updates, and an overall rather excellent AAR.

[Merula]

I am a bandwagon?! Oh dear! Look forward to the new updates, BLIP99!

You mean you have a bandwagon Your AAR is just so awesome of course its gonna get some of the little guys (like myself) to tag along for the ride And what a ride it is sir! I havent repped you in a while so here you go!

[Ybbon]

We'll have a new Miloism before long, especially as Milo seems to have deserted his faithful followers of late.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks, guys! I appreciate the feedback and encouragement - there is a campaign background to all this as in a usual AAR but I am just taking longer to drop into it and set up all the main players so that a deeper empathy may be built up. Selfish, I know!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

In Bitterness We Drown But Never Completely

In the end among those dry and bitter days to come they would call it the Battle of the Unending Sighs - spoken easily among the old legion transit camps up north towards Circesium where the remnants of the Quarto Parthica were stationed and whispered also down among the caravanserai runs south to Petra and the Erythraean Sea - the Battle of the Unending Sighs, a paean, a universal cry here in the desert alone on the lost frontier between Rome and Persia. Of course in the great annals and histories written of our empire it will never be found let alone named but that does not matter. Let the perfumed Senators and painted eunuchs read what they will. It will be remembered among those who matter in the agoras and the bathhouses and the garrison blocks of Rome. Men will speak of it and mutter of deeds won and lost here among the dust and the black rocks in that battle which will remain forever wrapped in sighs and laments.

We made good ground at speed for a lone stades as that furnace of a sun rose over our left flank, dropping down into a baked ancient gulley that had once been a river. We ran hard with our shields loose on our arms and sweat pouring out from under our helmets. Dust rose in our wake but we knew it would never be seen by those who fought and slew up ahead – all wrapped up in their own desert shawls. We ran grim and silent – the maniple standard tucked under one arm, the men breathing hard under the strain, the biarchii mouthing hard words to those who strayed out of the line in their exhaustion. We ran and in my mind difficult thoughts raced like chariots around a never-ending track – whoever was up ahead had been abandoned by the horse and left to the mercy of the encroaching pursuers. It did not matter much who they were – they sought succour at Nasranum and that meant potential friends and allies out here in the Auranitis. The fleeing horse would arrive at the Black Gate in time, of that I was certain, but those struggling ahead would never be so fortunate –and we, the Second Maniple, were all that stood between them and slaughter. In moments such as this the gods place a single coin of fortune in your path and leave it to you to decide to pick it up or walk on past . . .

And in my head all I could hear was that bitter word which was our legion, our life and our fate . . .

I halted the men in a dip in the gully and we all crouched down in the hard dry ground now covered in spidery cracks. Some fell and rolled over panting and laughing silently. Others squatted and heaved up yellow bile into the dust at their feet. I hauled myself up over the lip of the gully with Octavio at my side and a dozen biarchii at my back. Ahead dust and that haze which always seemed to be the mark of the Harra greeted our eyes. Far over to the left, the brazen orb of the sun stood higher now and burned hard upon my eyes. Immediately, the sight of battle assailed us – not four javelin cast’s distance. Men fell and struggled all wrapped up in a thin gruel of dust and wind which rendered them all unearthly and vaporous. Nearby, a corpse lay in the sand, headless, gashed, a shattered shield by its side –

‘Mithras’ bane!’ swore one of the biarchii – ‘Romans!’

He was right. The emblem on that broken shield was a Roman one although I could not place it immediately.

We fell back into the gully and I gathered all the men of the maniple around me. Their eyes fastened on me. ‘Listen well, we do not have much time – the men up ahead are Roman soldiers. They have been abandoned by their cavalry and left to their fates. They are fighting now deep in confusion among the dust and the banners of the enemy. I want the two centuries to form up on this gully lip abreast of each other, four deep, I will command the left flank, Octavio here the right, dress the lines, raise the vexillum and draco and at my command we will advance in tight order at speed. We halt at twenty paces, discharge a volley of missiles, then charge ad scutum ad spatha. Maintain the lines. Stay in formation. Obey the file leaders. Look to the standard. We fight to save our comrades. Remember the retreat after the divine Julian had been killed? Remember how we marched and fought always protecting the men at our backs? Now is the same. Remember that and do the Quinta proud.’

Without pausing I pulled myself back up onto that gully lip and strode forward until I found a place to marshal the line. All down my right side legionaries fell in silently seeing to their gear and weapons, loosening swords, readying their shields, gripping the javelins and ‘darts of Mars’, settling the heavy iron helmets into place. Odd phrases rippled out and along the lines – ‘Deus Nobiscum’, ‘Roma Victa’, ‘Acanthus Bright’, and others I could not make out. At my immediate side, the vexillarius appeared, young Suetonius, his face tight and serious as he raised up the flag of the maniple. In moments, we were ready and far down the long line of the two centuries I saw the small figure of my Centenarius raise his spatha high into the air.





Ahead, in a haze of dust and fighting, I saw small dark figures on foot falling back before a range of mounted enemy, and for the first time that morning the sound of that deadly conflict fell over me and I could hear a sort of confused order in it all – someone was shouting out orders in Latin – Cede! Cede! And slowly and surely those small men on foot were falling back in tight groups, shield outs and pulling what they could of the fallen with them into some semblance of order. Somewhere deep in that endless haze a lone standard rose up and then swayed dangerously about as if caught in a storm. Corpses lay everywhere. All about thundered the hooves of the enemy horse as they darted in and out maddening the infantry with strike after strike. All was chaos and confusion.

As if in a moment of divine inspiration, I saw that those Romans on foot would not last much longer despite the stern commands being shouted over and over – Cede! Cede! – and the lines which were forming up in some sort of order.




We were a single long line four men deep standing with our backs to a dried-up river bed now waiting abreast of that bloody conflict not a hundred paces from us. What could a single maniple do in such a battle? What could these men accomplish who numbered less than two hundred under that hot morning sun here in the Black Desert? I laughed as I raised up my spatha high and brought it savagely down – and young Suetonius dipped that little vexillum flag with a sudden deft movement even as the trumpet sounded behind him like a braying oxen. We were men of the Macedonica – what could we not accomplish?

We fell into the Battle of the Unending Sighs alone and determined.

[McScottish]

That sir, is most excellent. I shall rep you when I am able, can't wait for the battle itself, its gonna be good!