Vandalarius: The One Sword of The Romano-Gothic Empire [COMPLETED]- Updated May 24th '19

[Lugotorix]

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[Lugotorix]

CHAPTER X- VANDALARIUS THE PIOUS

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Vandalarius, Magnificus Virs Patriciae

And the Sacrifice He Made For His One God

Part I- The House of Cniva

A Child Is Born

The world during the early reign of Vandalarius, supreme commander of the Kingdom of Tarragon and Rome

From the Library of Odotheus in Rome

On the day of the funeral of Valdamerca, there were only three souls who dared approach the body of the regent. Vandalarius, to place his flowers in her hand, Marius who had to gulp for air from nausea at the decomposition and a third woman, who I learned was a Gothic cousin of Gaatha. Intrigued, I walked to her, as the casket was led to be paraded through Tarragon, and I asked her name, to which she replied. ‘Matasuntha.’ As I spoke to her, I was taken aback by both her beauty and her obnoxious nasal voice as she accused me of being the dog of fearsome Cniva of Tarentum. I asked how the fairer sex would dare risk heaving or wretching near the dearly departed, and she pulled two plugs of swab from her nose, which she explained, were soaked in grain alcohol. She explained that Gaatha’s family was never in a better position, so to find men who weren’t only attracted to power, and marriages of convenience, she would have to stand even higher in the crowd. Sometimes, she explained, like Daniel and the lion, strength can only be countered with a different sort of strength. Her brightness never ceased to amaze me since, and we became quick friends in Rome, where she worked as a weaver. A weaver, a spider was the essence of her character, no surprise, as she was Gaatha’s kin.

She was one of the few people who outwitted me often, and I soon began to suspect it was for my wits that she tolerated my company. As a challenge, for a man who worked on the field to be beaten at home. I was ever respectful but we soon began dining in Rome together, and I invited her to a banquet of my commander, when we were both thirty years of age. She had woven her own dress, and it was her pride, not the Gardingus at her side, but her profession.

The story of the reign of Vandalarius as Magnificus Virs Patriciae begins with a birth. Witigis did not return to the call of the queen regent, and upon learning of her death, began building his forces in Milano for an expedition to Dardania, which he intended to resettle. Chlotsuintha had learned of his infidelity through Valdamerca, who was wrathful with Witigis for not being at home to defend the kingdom as Vandalarius did, and upon the birth of a third child, a daughter named Sunilda by Munifrida to Witigis, she strayed herself, and became pregnant with a child.

It was a disgrace of the entire court, and moreso, the people, as they knew the Princess had not had an opportunity to see her husband Witigis for some years, and so, that the child must belong to someone else. Excuses were made, and there was a rumor among the people that gallant Witigis had spirited himself home to see the Princess, but I, in Calabria, knew better and so would the learned men of the Kingdom should they ever have physical proof of the pregnancy. Vandalarius did not judge. He left that to God. But he assured me that the fine bright Gothic woman I was courting of the line of Amalius, Matasuntha, would require all of my fidelity, should she be the mother of my children. He used the royal line as an example of when nobles marry for lust and power, over love.

Chloe avoided public shows to the people of Tarragon and Caralis for nine months, and after that time, the boy Erwig was born to her, healthy. He was immediately taken from the palace, and kept at a monastery, to avoid Witigis from learning of the affair, whoever the father was.

I had a candidate for that truth, among the subordinates of Vandalarius, who were using the victory over Vosenios to counter-attack and press the Ebdanian Irish from the mainland altogether. Appointed to this northern campaign into Gaul was the second best swordsman in the kingdom, bested only by one-armed Vandalarius in sparring, Theodulf, a lean, black-haired Goth, who had the wide, seemingly innocent eyes of the child Erwig. Victory gave status, and it would have been that status and respectful nature that Chloe would have looked for in a mate, a true Goth, the way she would have reasoned it, not the adulterous ingrate Burgundian she had as a husband. And victory was something this sword-master, Theodulf, had in abundance.

In two battles over the remnants of the Irish in Lugdunensis, he had broken through to the north, and taken Turonum and Rotomagus. Rotomagus was liberated and left in the care of a wealthy Roman patrician and friend of Theodulf named Eutropius Pedius Carbo, who formed our vassal kingdom of Soissons, to serve as a vanguard, should the Irish return to the mainland to avenge their kings. In return for his service, early in the year, he was promoted from Gardingus to the Order of Saiones, officially a noble, and this trait may have induced the tryst.

Resistance melted before Vandalarius, who had an aura of invincibility since the battle in Navarre, and he marched into Bordeaux, demanding a surrender after merely five days of circling the port.

Vandalarius and my master Cniva now stood astride the world. To administer his military rule, he formed a new system of government. The Order of Saiones, which were only joined by bastard feudalism or feats on the field, reported to a Council of Elders. At any time, there were two Elders overlooking the Order of Saiones, and the Elders, somewhat a misnomer, appointed for wisdom and foresight in matters of war, were governed by the magister miletum, who reported directly to the supreme commander, Vandalarius. At any time, the orders of the Magnificus Virs Patriciae to the Elder Council could be overridden by the King, Chintila, but for a boy more concerned with killing insects and frogs, such matters were trivial.

In 467, Hunila passed away, leaving her fortune to her nephew Chintila, her blood descended heir, with Hermanafrid dead. We were further forced to estrange the trespassing Jutish hordes who we had only recently made peace with, when hostilities broke out between them and Soissons. Vandalarius was forced to choose a side, and this enraged the Jutes that ranged across Italy.

Any good commander must survey his troops, but it was not me who Vandalarius was concerned with. Instead he made sure that Witigis was not growing too headstrong, by moving his legion from Brigantium, where he had secured a victory, to Witigis’ errant home.

Vandalarius left Bordeaux for Milano, to meet with Witigis, and personally instruct him how to conduct himself in the east. There was to be no sacking or looting, if the Eastern Romans who had survived the fall of Salona so many years ago would welcome back our presence. Priests were to be sent to every village and resettled city, to spread the word of God, and the people were to know that the Pope’s appointee to the defense of Christendom was in command now, that Vandalarius was a true Christian leader, that rebels would be granted true Christian mercy, and that traitors would meet the pit of fire.

The one time he would not, could not, turn the other cheek, had cost the Kingdom. Roman Africa had not learned fully of his actions against their leader, and with a war breaking out with the Vandals, to their south in Hadrumentum, they could not afford a direct invasion of Sardinia. Instead they relied on their overlords, the Gaetulians and Garamantians to direct their wrath upon us.

Our unquestioned rule of the seas was now kept in place by Vandal privateers, with the Storms of Maeotis lost, and no major navy to replace it, all of our coffers feeding the infantry from Rhegium to Turonum, and they could not stem the fleets of easterners that flocked to a now vulnerable Italy and the pagan isles.

As a direct consequence of this, we could not defend the northern shores of Ajaccio, and the city was sacked by a Gaetulian pirate named Vermina and it’s harbor set alight, the very year Erwig was born.

Other threats confronted us at the undefended ports of southern Italy. I was joined in the south by Roderic, and the lieutenant of Witigis, Odoacer. Known as Odoacer the Fearless, he was never afraid to question the orders of Witigis, and this audacity and his noble birth gave him command over my men, and Roderic’s men in the chain of command in Italy.

Rome prospered, and I rebuilt Naples and Florence to the north, while the southern ports were raided by seafaring Abasgians, Gaetulians, and Garmantians. As Africa had not joined the wars before their vassalage, we didn’t have to contend with the Roman fleets yet, but their Gaetulian masters saw little qualm with sacking Bari and Reggio, when the opportunity arose, usually when we were on the interior, battling rebels who had seen the rise of Rome and Naples as new hegemony to be seized should it’s present governors fall to the vultures.

Our vulnerability was not without reassurances: During the reign of Valdamerca, the Archon Arxa of Abasgia had turned on his Hunnic allies, destroyed what remained of their hordes in the far east, beyond the Danube in Sarmatia Asiatica. Pre-occupied, we had been spared from their visits for some time.

By the time of the birth of Erwig, however, guerilla warfare had intensified in the interior of Italy, and after one nighttime raid, we recovered an Armenian Acinaces, a slashing and piercing sword of the Persians, from one of the stricken combatants. It was all the proof I needed that the Abasgians had returned to harass the Goths over their vendetta in the east. The source of the vendetta Hunila Domatiana was ailing, and would soon die, but bad blood spawned more bad blood, and the Archon wanted vengeance for the death of Machares to Filimer. Who better to expend this vengeance on but his son, me, a Gardingus in the nearest striking distance. I sent the Acinaces to Witigis as a warning of what he might encounter in his travels east, to add to his collection that included a Sampsera.

In December of 465, the Archon sent a fleet under his commander Uvaxshtra on a two week voyage from Hellas to Reggio, and found me waiting with the garrison, and spear masters freshly recruited.

His orders were clear, and he did not know how many of us were waiting for him, so when the Abasgian left the boats, to sack Reggio, he met his death on our sands.
Cniva had fought in the first battles of Theodulf, and was present at the siege of Bordeaux, so for the success of his servant, as well as to congratulate him on the birth of his first son, Vithericus, named after the Emperor, he was appointed as the first Elder to report to Witigis, who served as the warchief.

Later in 468, The Flavians, fearful of our intentions in the east, the Eastern Roman Empire called a truce. The exile Valdamerca was dead, and the word of her funeral had placated calls of bloodshed against the other exile, Marius. The Flavian Empress Annia signed a peace treaty, as much to ensure Witigis’ trip east would be harmless, as to appease the Pope in Rome.

Having proof of Abasgian aggression, the next available target for them would be the Abasgians to their north, across Armenia, so the Abasgians, learning of the treaty between the Eastern empire and Italy, sent an emissary to speak with Roderic, Odoacer and I. We kept our guard up. The entrants were to be unarmed, and the gifts they brought could not be iron or steel.

Herculaneum, Campania

468 A.D.

The Altai Yurt of Odoacer, the fearless general of Rome

Mongolian Yurt- National Geographic

The dead city destroyed by Vesuvius was the backdrop of the camp, in the shadow of the mountain. It was nearing dark, and the sleeping giant loomed over the horizon of the hill where we were located. Perhaps through the fig groves and tangles, there had been something hiding, but I was needed not to be a lookout, but a reliable sword to pressure the quill hand of the emissary of the Abasgians. I had run a quick perimeter as instructed when I entered the Altai Yurt at the camp of Odoacer outside of Naples in Campania. I walked into the yurt, without notice from Giboneus who knew me well. He had been made the chief of Odoacer’s guard, and there Odoacer dined with red-haired Roderic, with his insectivorous eyes, Odoacer still adorned in his helm of black iron, it’s nose guard tapering down his face, almost Corinithian, while his sparkling blue eyes and blonde hair contrasted brightly to his dark apparel. He sat on a wooden chair, while Roderic and his page stood, with a quill. I was disappointed that Roderic had not armed himself. Even emissaries of the Caucasians were dangerous in defeat.

The emissary had a crown of black hair and a short trimmed beard that was lighter, with hazel eyes. The golden beard of Odoacer was tinted red with the wine he had been enjoying. A bibulous man recently, resting on the hard won victories in subduing the south while Florence and Rome rose from the ashes, all secured by my contracts and the palatine of Giboneus. The wine only made him bolder, if that was possible, and he was careening for every advantage with the emissary.

‘How might I further save you from the Flavian Empress?’ Odoacer asked, nursing his wine.

‘Blood ransom.’ The emissary, whose name was Gotarzes, said. ‘I must not return to Archon Arxa empty handed.’

‘Or return here at all!’ Odoacer jested, smiling. ‘So be it, you’ll be paid for every Abasgian we killed, twice over.’ Odoacer was a rich Saiones, but he would bleed the treasury of Rome if it would see one less enemy raiding the coast.

‘Twice over, lord Odoacer? That’s very generous but are you sure it’s appropriate. Your coffers will be needed. The Garamantian desert folk are amassing under a great banner of the lord Khaleme, sailing for Reggio as we speak. You’ll need more men than this Odotheus to fight them.’ Gotarzes stated.

‘ It is very appropriate. The wages of every replacement that doesn’t return. My Gardingi Odotheus has killed an entire army at the shores of Reggio.’

Roderic added to the discussion. ‘We’ll also want assurances that you’ll dispatch of the Huns to the north eastern shore of Ravenna.’

‘Of course, absolutely. We’re committed to the shows of peace. I’ve prepared a gift for the occasion. Boy, open that chest there for the badger of Rome, Odoacer.’ Gotarzes of Abasgia answered, waving his hand. His page was quick to do the work, opening the chest, which contained a golden buckle, engraved with an eagle of Sarmatia Asiatica, and bottles of fresh white wine and olive oil, all corked and waxed over. The boy was a strong lad, with tall breeches, a low brow, and a mess of curly black hair.
‘Boy, fetch the slaves for the quarries of the Dolomite.’

‘They’re waiting outside, under the guard of the Romans.’ The Abasgians referred to all of the westerners as Romans, even if they were Goths. The boy nodded quickly, not wanting to offend his master. Odoacer suspected that this Gotarzes beat the boy frequently, the way he stammered so harmless.

‘Boy, uncork a bottle so that the men might drink to our successful agreement.’ Gotarzes rumbled.

Odoacer took a swill of his wine. It spilled down his face. He was becoming sloppy. He loosened his grip on the spiraled leather grip of his spear to his side.

Instead of uncorking the bottle, he smashed it on Roderic’s head. The bottle didn’t cut or shatter on Roderic’s head. It spilled flames, immolating the second general of Italy in a few instants. Naptha. I roared in protest, unsheathing my sword. ‘Valens, fetch me Sturmwesson.’ I growled. Odoacer spit his wine and took up his spear.
‘The slaves are upon our men.’ Giboneus Valens replied quickly. ‘Our fight is needed here.’ Gotarzes made for the chest of bronze and retrieved a mace from the bedding under the bottles which he smashed, spreading a burst of fire to the floors of the tent.

‘No, drink to peace, drink to our peace with the Huns!’ Gotarzes feinted with his mace. Odoacer was sizing him up with his spear, but the blow came lightning fast through his guard, weaving out without a single thrust of the spear. He smashed the mace on Odoacer’s head. Odoacer fell stricken, dizzy and losing consciousness, bleeding from his nose, which had been broken by the nose-piece of his own helm. I ran Gotarzes through, but he shouted as he was dying to the boy. ‘Gotarzes! Champion of Abasgia. Flee, for Odoacer, Saione of the Romans is slain!’ I realized then, that the boy who had initiated the attack was the champion leading the raid.

He took a shield from the armoire, and unsheathed a Arcinaces from his long breeches and moved to attack Giboneus Valens, who wielded a lance. I would always favor the one with a lance in such contests, and Valens was a veteran, but the champion moved with a quickness I had never seen as he battled Valens. I rushed to stab him in the back, but Valens was thrown aside by one of the warriors posing as a slave outside, and Gotarzes quickly split through the gap to the outside, slashing Valens as he did. The fire was engulfing the entire tent. ‘To arms, men. Fight as if these are Romans and not cowards.’ I bellowed.

I saw then that my chances for elevation through the ranks were so close. Odoacer would die in the fires, and Roderic was already burning across the room, killed instantly. All I had to do was flee and join the battle. I remembered my honor, the faith of Vandalarius, and my honor to Matasuntha to be a brave, upstanding man. I grabbed his petasos from beside his chair. He would kill me if I left it to the flames.

Instead I grabbed Odoacer by his legs, and began dragging him across the floor of the Altai Yurt, away from the flames. Whether he would live was unsure, but I was sure, I thought wincing, looking down at him, that he would never be pretty again. I found Sturmwesson and hauled my commander upon his saddle, whipping the horse in the direction of Naples. I went to settle a score in the raid. The captured soldiers of Abasgia that Odoacer had not mentioned would not be receiving the mercy they would have gotten in the celebration that would have been.

One thing, the Abasgian champion had not been lying about. The desert lord Khaleme of Garamantia was sailing for Italy, and as we recovered from the raid, we learned that Reggio to the south had been sacked. These enemies were in alliance, with the Huns once more, and the Garamantians had finished the job Uxvashtra had started. The coast, from Amalfi to Syracuse, was not safe. We learned that Sela of Sicily had met her maker, and that the new Italian governor of Sicily, Agorius Taura, held no bonds to the oaths of the old Agorius, and was uncertain whom to follow in the conflict, despite our alliance. He let Odoacer know that the pact wasn’t to be counted on. Fair warning, but any target was ripe for Khaleme and our old capital at Caralis could not be counted on to be defended by Vandalic sailors alone. Landing parties of the African Romans disembarked and waited outside of the city, only them knowing who they would back when a siege came to Sardinia.

[Alwyn]

Great chapter! Your portrayal of Matasuntha, the weaver/spider, is nicely done. I like the way that you explain how the commitment of resources to the army left the ports vulnerable to the attack by Vermina's pirates. I notice how well you use details such as the discovery of the sword, the Armenian Acinaces. Both the political intrigue and the action scenes are very effective, I enjoyed the bravado in "Fight as if these are Romans and not cowards." The images add to the historical atmosphere and also (when we see the campaign map) give me a good picture of what is going on - and the images of the burning harbours after the pirates attack do both, for me.

[Lugotorix]

Bibliotheca Gaticia

The Library of Rome

470-472 A.D.

The year was 470. The Picts in the west were encamped near Bordeaux, the court of great Vandalarius, and sent an emissary telling him that they wished to return home, and wanted no further hostilities between our peoples. Quintus Rufinus the Briton commander had seized what was left of their territory in Britain, and they were now a migratory horde. Perhaps better fortunes would greet them in the east, away from such a powerful bastion as Bordeaux. As the year turned into 471, there a second son was born to my former master Cniva, Athanagild. Quintus Rufinus was successful in this year of sacking Zaragoza. Quintus’ position in our heartland would be a proving ground for Elder Cniva.
Two years had passed since the coming of the great horde The Stone Burners and it’s loyal armada of Karkamani, under the banner of the masked scourge Khaleme. They had sacked Reggio and Naples several times, before moving their ships towards Sardinia, to raid the coastal settlements there.

Meanwhile, Rome had remain unmolested by these predations, and while it thrived, I sent a request to the Magnificus Virs Patriciae for Giboneus and I to begin construction of a library to chronicle the rise of our kingdom into an empire, followed by the exodus of Trapstila, the exile of Filimer, and the reclamation of the kingdom by Valdamerca. A history of the trials of the Romano-Gothic people, and our cooperation with the Italians. The building was erected on the foundations of a former palace of one of the Caesars, and the busts and mosaics there were considered as much a part of our history as the museum that the library was becoming.

In Vandalarius’ honor, the library entrance was overlooked by a statue of Theoderic, wielding a replica of his mighty sword artistically represented as a quill against the Huns at Salona. The library was named the Bibliotheca Gaticia after the matron, the learned an cunning Gaatha. If I had written all the histories, I would have left out the parts about rape and incest, and other strange things concerning the mother of Vandalarius.

I had very good penmanship, and I spent most of my time away from battle writing in this library, and collecting the works of those who had chronicled and sent letters in ages past such as Trapstilicus and his daughter. All of the letters, hundreds, formed a complete picture of what life was like during our reign over this old peninsula and the new one across the sea. Much of what was preserved to this date in 471 was collected by monks such as Guitifrida, and those who could write in Latin were mostly from the priesthood. And it is from this library, in the beacon city of the seven hills that I write to you today.

Around this time, the idea of a second kingdom, Tarragon and Rome, under a single sword was becoming very popular with the commoners, but the Vicar of such an endeavor was missing a candidate.

The burns and scars had healed well for Odoacer, but his hatred against Easterners was not given closure. Memories of treachery took longer than scars to fade. He spared none in the battles he fought against Abasgia and the axis of Gaetulians, Garamantians, and Maurians who harassed our shores, and this endeared him with the Romans, who hated the dusky easterners who were holding African Rome hostage. He rewarded Alaric for his victories over the Abasgians in the years to come with splendors of the most exotic flesh.

The Jutes, who had been trespassing near Florence, signed a peace treaty with the Huns, and thus joined the effort against us, sacking Florence and being repelled at Naples. Roderic was replaced by a red haired man as fair as Ataulf named Alaric from Caralis, who quickly made a name for himself helping against the Abasgian belligerence that was quick to follow their raid, and he killed two Abasgian strategos, Tiridates and Phriapatius, sent by the Archon near Tarento.

The defense of Italy would have to wait, however, as the Garamantian armada had reached Caralis, and with it a powerful fleet, the Solar Sailors, and the Stone Burners themselves. Odoacer and I had landed on the north side of the island, and once a blockade by the two fleets reached the city, we called on the Vandal fleets nearby to assist us, and made our way into the city to plot our defense. This ancient city in the Pagan Isles had sheltered from Huns and worse, and if the empire was to return, we had to prevent a sacking of it’s legacy and treasures.

THE BATTLES OF CARALIS AND THE MARE AFRICUM

Caralis

Spring, 472 A.D.

‘That camel herder Khaleme is on one of those ships.’ I said, holding back my temper.

We stood in the alabaster tower of Caralis, on a bright Spring day. The sun beat down on the great city, which had grown since it’s times as a refuge after it was seized from Duccius. Khaleme was by far the most accomplished and esteemed general we had yet faced. His sacking of the coast of Italy was not his greatest accomplishment, that had been turning remote Garamantia with it’s mix of Semitic and Egyptian paganism from a souk into the most powerful city in southern Libya, taking territories from even the Eastern Empire, now sitting in control of Alexandria. The man who had successfully besieged great Alexandria, now stood on his boat, the ring of them in the harbor of the Solar Sails, prepared to assault or wait out Caralis. He wanted us to starve, to second guess, and to turn on one-another. He would have none of what he wanted.

Thinking back to those days, the African army waiting to the west of Caralis must have made it’s bets early. Khaleme was then considered a superior general and a greater mind than I. So even then, I was not surprised when many of the African Romans joined the Garamantians, and took off on boats to join the blockading armada, not only those who had followed Lepidus and Lucius in the past, but some of their best palatine, some of which defected entirely to the Garamantians.

Africa would not commit to war with us, and some of these young men wanted the spoils of Caralis, when it fell, and a chance at vengeance, the greatest pit fall Vandalarius would have felt yet. What perhaps they had not counted on, were two great military minds within that blockaded city.

A companion entered our vantage room at the tower and reported to Odoacer and I.

‘Lord Cniva has had victory over Quintus Rufinus, who joins his cousin Eutropius in the price of defiance. The Britons have been driven back from the Aquitaine. Now the Picts are in full retreat across the expanse. They mean to exploit the situation in Dardania we think.’

Witigis had begun resettling Pannonia and Dardania. Sopianae, Siscia, and Sirmium had been raised from the ashes, with the Greeks and Romans there swearing to uphold Gothic law in exchange for grants of land. Scupi and Domavia were settled soon after. Many of the Goths who lived in those parts had never learned of the fate of the Romano-Gothic empire, and Witigis’ appearance at the head of a Gothic army, the Bear-Sons, was a mythical sighting, on par with unicorns. They had not expected anything other than the Huns, which they saw lurking in the Adriatic, raiding their fishing villages occasionally. Lumber was in abundance in the hills of those lands, and Witigis had taken on the task of rebuilding what was lost to Vandalarius’ father with as much fervency as I had, in Rome. Avidius and many other masons had been sent by Vandalarius to join Witigis in his mission. I prayed for his healthy return.

‘ Khaleme’s fleet is led by Karkamani. It’s mostly dhows, small skiffs, and ramming vessels, and enough catapults to ravage our defenses in the harbor before they’ve even landed. That’s when Khaleme and the Stone Burners will do their worst. We have numbers in the city, and more from your recent conscriptions, but we can’t hold up from a naval assault. If we had any counter-attack, they’ve already anticipated it. If it were just Khaleme’s army, I would be as relieved as Lord Cniva. With this fleet, he can enter the city without the use of siege engines, nor rams at the walls. That’s all we have, bloody onagers, and men who would be ripped to pieces by the catapults and scorpions of the Garamantians in the harbor. We can flee to the north before they take the docks, fight on in guerilla warfare up the length of Sardinia. We may be able to take the onagers with us.’ I said, sad and disappointed to Odoacer. I had done the math, it would take a miracle or a military genius to win this.

Odoacer’s hatred was apparent in his fuming eyes. He would die in defense against these heathens, I knew. He would not follow me into the guerilla warfare in Sardinia. ‘The onagers can be fitted to small boats.’ He said. ‘We’ll put naptha pots in their loads. We needn’t fight the navy of the Garamantians, we need only to lure them into thinking that we will try to break the siege. Stationary, the onagers have deadly accuracy, while the dhows attempt to board the vessels with our Roman swordsman on board that make for the larger ships they have, our decoys with the onagers can hit the larger ones. We’ll order the boarding parties back, and if these gnats give chase they’ll be blasted to hell.’

‘I cannot risk the onagers. I’ll need them in the forests to hit their ranks. Forget your spite and want of them dying in heaps before our walls. We can decimate them in their march chasing us north.’ I implored.

‘Gardingi Odotheus, we will make a stand here, and sink their navy. It’s unlikely a land assault can succeed without the Africans help.’ He emphasized my rank. The decision would be his ultimately.

I was uneasy. I would be expected to be on some of these boats. The seas did not respect the skill of warriors, nor the command acumen of generals. I would be doing the fighting, and if I fell to the waters, the weight of my armor would take me, no matter my strength.

‘Do you at least think it could work?’ Odoacer asked, trying to allay my fears.

I remembered my duty. In my estimate, Odoacer was too fearless for his own good, but I might have a few additions to his plan that might help it on it’s way. ‘I will be fighting on these ships if expected, Lord Odoacer. I think the plan can be improved.’ I shrugged skeptically.

To do that, we needed a more capable navy. We needed boarding parties that would complete the ruse by making contact with the enemy flotilla. Nothing, I explained lured men to irrational contempt of death like gold. I sent word to the Vandalic fleets who waited along with the Romans like sharks that their help as mercenaries was needed.
The numbers of Vandals who signed on with their ships deceived the Garamantians of the Solar Sails into thinking we were engaging them entirely.

Never one to decline a challenge, and knowing that the Vandals were without artillery, Karkamani was ordered to engage us by Khaleme with his full navy by the shores of Caralis. Odoacer’s plan worked well, and they were sent flaming to the bottom of the sea. I watched from the command vessel, behind the lines of artillery ships, the glee and madness in Odoacer’s eyes as the Garamantian sailors screamed, torn between a fate of burning to death or drowning as their hulls were shattered and set alight, steaming in the spray of the Mare Africum by the naptha pots.

Wood worn by salt water never felt so good on my feet, as I weathered the cold mist, and kept myself from hurling over the side of the boat, content with the knowledge that I was not among the Vandals who found themselves and their boarding ships fired upon by the onagers of their own force, sending the naval battle into a pyre for Odoacer’s revenge on the eastern pirates. Also content that if Khaleme wanted Caralis and his pride intact, he would have to meet us on the land.

The fleet is sunk, gradually.

Karkamani was dead, and the navy of the Garamantians shattered, and scattered. Khaleme broke the blockade and disembarked with his two armies, to the west of the city. He besieged Caralis later that Summer, and began constructing siege towers.

The Siege of Caralis

Late Summer, 472

It didn’t take long for the Sicilians of Agorius Taura to notice that our holdings in Reggio and Naples were defenseless, with even more of a threat coming from the Jutes near Firenze and Rome. By the end of Summer, Avitus Trio, their general, had sacked Reggio, and was moving towards Naples, which after seasons of abuse by Khaleme, had not bothered to replenish their garrison. The only thing worse than men dying for nothing, was more men dying for nothing. The expected our delay with the Garamantians at Caralis would be too long for us to recover and return to southern Italy, and that it was not that much of a distant memory since the Agorian family had been Emperor in Italy.

Alaric, the man put in charge of Italy’s defense while we were absent, was killed in a rout at Reggio, and the Sicilians stormed in, moving north from the sacked city to claim more territory. They had hoped to march on Tarento itself soon, so that all of Magna Graecia could be claimed by them.

I took the boats heading back for Centumcellae at the earliest opportunity, commanded by Odoacer who was fearful of one thing, the stability that gave him station in Italy, and who had a score to settle with the siege of Khaleme. What he intended to do was a modified strategy of what he had done to their navy, just a few months earlier. Their siege towers, rife with Shawa’iwa guards would reach the walls, while the Garamantian lancers, Guardians of the Oasis, and other elite Garamantian cavalry including the Warlord’s lancers held back.

The masked scourge would be allowed to think that his assault was proceeding with the general Odoacer, hiding behind the walls, to the point where they would march on the walls with rams and torches, to break the defenders on horse waiting in the square, and capture the city while the fight still raged on the walls. Within the city, Giboneus Valens marshaled the men, telling them that there was fame abound in Italy, the seat of triumphant Romans for anyone who served both kingdoms. He didn’t mention that Odoacer had ambitions on making his victory a triumph in Rome.

Hello

Instead, Odoacer had not devoted the entirety of his milita comitenses and spear veterans to the defense of the high walls. He had left his armored Sagitarius on the walls in wide spaces, as to not be crushed by the tumult of the onagers of the Garamantian force, but had only instructed pikes and axe wielding Iuvenes to hold strong on the blood slick landings.

His horsemen, and the remaining spears would confront Khaleme’s army before the gates of the city itself. Khaleme’s reserves were heavy in armored camels, and they panicked at the fiery arrows of the Sagitarrius, who turned all of their efforts from the fight on the wall, which only had to be stalled, to the one at it’s gates. His reputation as a gate keeper was well earned. The lances had little choice but to abandon the infantry remaining, caught between climbing the siege towers and waiting with the army, or fight the spears. One of the siege engines caught fire, and was soon a charred husk upon the walls.

Odoacer, with his golden hair, golden beard and golden helm, burst from the gates with his spear in hand, in typical suicidal bravery. Oil and arrows rained on Khaleme sieging forces, while the fight for the walls, given elite troops as it was by Khaleme, was becoming terminal in numbers, numbers that could be contained should the clash of the camels and horses be won for Odoacer. The general fought fiercely, his good looks dulled by the burns of the raid at Herculaneum. He was delighted by the mooring of each flaming arrow into the attacker’s, how they lit a path for his troops to drive and further disrupt the reserves while still in the range of the friendly towers. His broken nose carried a long scar, and it snorted in ecstasy at the easterners blood mist.

The spears charged from behind the cavalry which held the foreigners in place. Khaleme’s fortunes were decided by the loss of his navy. He can only compromise his lines so much once committed to a siege.

Khaleme, refusing to be outdone and abandon his troops to almost certain slaughter from the manned towers of Caralis, charged with his horsemen to fight Odoacer personally. It was only after he saw the terrible cost on the walls, the heads of his Shawa’iwa and Amazigh captains being raised on the ramparts, and the camels biting each-other in terror and confusion, as his men begged him to flee, that he ordered the retreat. The mass of an entire army of Khaleme’s two was lost at the walls of Caralis.

The Desert Scourge, Khaleme

The camels become wild, at the sights and sounds (and smells) of the carnage

Now he was the hunted, into the summer greenery of Sardinia, with a vengeful Odoacer chasing his army, and the catapults prepared for the siege, to a hill not far from the city. The palatine defectors of Roman Africa stayed mostly with Garamantian army, but many from the African army, which both declined to join the fight, angered by the seduction of their men, and blocked the way of Khaleme’s retreat, decided to join Odoacer.

Being on horseback keeps you away from the more unsettling aspects of warfare, like flies, entrails, or spraying fountains of gore.



Khaleme took the field with every intention of victory, his roman defectors thick in his ranks. He went for blunt damage as opposed to flaming rounds against Odoacer’s troops.



Our onagers punished the defending elite guard with the kick of an ass. The Naptha explodes, teaching them to hold to their hill, or trespass forth and be run down.



Justice came swifter for some than others in the final stand of the freshly defeated desert scourge. Here a man is beheaded in the fight between the heavy infantry of the two armies.



Our chargers found their way to the archers of the enemy and broke them quickly, wave after wave of horsemen made their way for the elite Garamantian mounted troops.



The field became a killing grounds, with regiments holding tightly to each other, and applying pressure where needed. Khaleme finally needed to make a last stand against the sword infantry pressing the attack on his blustersome defense of his catapults.





African Roman fought African Roman in the decisive battle for the security of Caralis. The gold outweighed their anger for the loss of Lucius. He wouldn’t be missed by the common man.

What followed was the unseating of Khaleme as an undefeated and renowned general, and the unseating of his wretched chainmail masked head from our misery. Odoacer had raised a superior force of Romans while the city was recovering from the siege, and Khaleme, again not wanting to abandon the valuable contingents of his army, was killed on the field in defense of his catapults. The horses were kept alive if not badly injured to be broken by the Romans in Odoacer’s army, which would return triumphant to Italy, with Roderic and Alaric removed from his way to promotion.

When he returned to Italy, he set his army in Rome, before moving directly against Syracuse, and Avidius Lanatus, the city which directed the forces against Campania and Calabria. The Vandals moved their ships to wait for the fortunes of war, perhaps more pay could be garnished by aiding us as they had at Caralis. Avidius, the governor of Syracuse, was indeed related to my former adoptive father, and I urged mercy, but Odoacer would hear none of it, unless the man surrendered. He avoided conflict with the Sicilian army of Avitus Trio entirely, traveled by sea from Naples to the port of Syracuse, and sacked the city of over One thousand seven hundred and thirty florins, upon, thankfully, it’s surrender. I wrote to Avidius in Sirmium telling him that Lanatus had been spared.

I learned at my study at the library that Witigis was moving down the coast of Hellas taking Epirus at Dyrrhachium. The time had come to form a navy to deal with the Huns that stood between the connections of our kingdoms. Odoacer positioned himself with the people, including Giboneus, as a noble to be seated as Vicarius of Italy. Vandalarius allowed the promotion to go seemingly un-contested from his power base in Bordeaux. At this time, the power of the House of Theoderic was uncontested, so a four percent shift of nobles moving to the court of Rome, was a minor slight to the pious commander. He may have perhaps encouraged this un-sanctioned event, as it put a wedge of power between him and the emerging domain of Witigis in Pannonia. Vicar Odoacer was a good commander, but I knew once again I was putting myself under the command of ambitious men. Sooner or later, Odoacer would collapse under the colossal weight of his bollocks.

[Alwyn]

Exciting action, witty lines (I especially liked your line about the impact of the onagers on the elite guard) and stunning images!

[Scottish King]

Your screenshots and writing is epic. Great to see this still going.

[Lugotorix]

PART II- THE VENDETTA of ODOACER, VICARIUS ITALIAE

THE TWIN KINGS OF THE JUTES AT FLORENCE

The great axes of the Jutish hordes, The Serpentslayers and Trees of Woe

If the times of the Vicars had an aesthetic to them, it was a grisly one. With one military ruler of Taifali blood lording over our people, the end of the fifth century was a time for Saiones to consider themselves regal in their holdings, if not name. A time of many petty reguli of our three Kingdoms, ruling from their cities, immense in security and dignity. I remember many sights from those days. The great axe carried by fair giants of men. Burning settlements and fleeing serfs from the hamlets pillaged by these giants, only for their prowess, their great northern furor barbaricus brought down by the tenacity of many stouter but fierce Goths and Romans. The scalps festooned on barding bridles and the tall standard of the Ormhir, the world serpent. The spray of the sea and longships, working in tandem with the dhows of the Maurian Moors.

And the impending vengeance of those Berbers and Africans for the destruction of Khaleme, to strike at any moment, our towers’ gaze fixated on the southern seas and Malta, for the flash raids. These were the grim sights of the seventh decade, the Italian resurgence of our Kingdom. By Fall of 473, Witigis was resting on his long flowing gray laurels in the east. He had created a new domain in the name of the military of Vandalarius, at the expense of tutoring his only son, Chintila in the path of men, and the company of his wife, the princess Chlotsuintha. He had his own vicarius of those lands, Visimar, a rising general with administrative gifts, and a knack for political maneuvering that would shame even our former matron Valdamerca. Instead, the task of the upbringing of Chintila would be left to military men, myself included.

This was reassuring to Vandalarius, he confided in me during a banquet in Bordeaux. Witigis’ ambition knew only the ends of his life, but Visimar, for all his scheming could be bought, and had conquered nothing, merely ruled. He had not earned those lands in Pannonia, Dardania, and Dalmatia for himself, so his loyalty would return to the most powerful umbrella that would ensure reinforcements. Which was of course Vandalarius. His ultimate price of loyalty would be soon known to us.

My old master, Cniva, had sired a third son, Geberic, and already Vithericus, his firstborn, was being instructed in the military academy at Tarentum, his father’s former hall, which from my early adventures there, had blossomed into a thriving seaport. With Dyrhacchium colonized by Witigis, trade across the Adriatic to Constantinople could resume, and a new gateway to the east was put in place. Cniva became known as the trident, for his three strong sons, and his service in Cantabria and the north of Asturia and Spain.

By making himself Vicar of Italy, without Vandalarius approval, Odoacer had set his priorities to me crystal clear. Avitus Trio would be brought to heel, and then the shores would be secured from the north African barbarians. The Vandalic fleet under Gibal stayed close to the newly conquered shores of Sicily, and it was clear that they favored us over the broken African Romans who now were captives in all but name on the coast that was once the breadbasket of the empire. Our liege Vandalarius had contributed the most to their obedience to the Gaetulians and Garamantians by slaying their most powerful plagued lord.

The first obstacle to the rule of Odoacer over Italy was not by the savage seas that surrounded her, but three Jutish hordes in the north, near Firenze. Hroaldr, and the twin king of the Jutes, Danr and Birgir, Danr being the eldest, had been raiding the north ever since Witigis left Milano for the east, and they would be the first to crumble, should the peace over the peninsula prevail.

Odoacer left Naples, which fell under the hungry eyes of Avitus, as shelter after losing Sicily for his lord Agorius Taura, and marched north to confront the Jutes. I remained in Rome, and with Giboneus as my witness, married Matasuntha, whose sparkling eyes saw not only the promise in me, but the promises that supporting me would deliver to her standing. It was thought at the time, that our first born would be blessed by heredity and pedigree with the keenest intelligence, knowing his parents, and as a curse for such ambition, he was born slow-witted after-all, but that is another tale.

Near Firenze, Odoacer met with Danr the high king of these roving Jutes, and my wedding was met with celebration at his bloody triumph that saw the mighty chief of the Nordics felled. There the giant Norse had been taken to their Gods by our troops, but not without splitting skulls clean through helm with their two-handed axes, and having enough salt among them to die fighting, taking an equal number of Gothic soldiers with them. Birgir’s forces were scattered after this defeat, and it was left to me to either widow newly married Matasuntha, or return to Rome with Birgir’s standard broken in two.

Odoacer was hailed as a hero for delivering Firenze, but instead of returning to Rome for his people’s adulation, he stopped only to replenish his numbers, and left for Naples, which had been occupied by Avitus.

Legend says that the sword of Theoderic was desired by the Caledonian King Epillos. Despite our many marriages between our people, he wanted Gaul, the rich steads of Avaricum for his own, and the farms of Lugdunensis, and for us to keep to Spain, which we had usurped. We had held his burgeoning people back too long, and the tensions between him and his fellow Celts had caused unrest. Although a pact might have been forged with the Irish who were losing their moral and ground, the legend says that the sword was sought because Gaatha had been used to comfort the old king Epillos, and that she was to be gifted the sword of Theoderic by her husband. The paragon of a trophy wife had given us one last intrigue, and the Caledonians soon were hostile to our presence in Gaul.

But none dared approach Vandalarius at his hold at Bordeaux. With two Irish fleets to the north, none of the five commanders sent to contain us in Spain, either out of reverence to Gaatha, or fear of Vandalarius might on the field, approached the city. They made their hostility known, but dug in a great line to the east of the city across the river, and divided as they were, refused any order Epillos might have given to march on the city. Vandalarius was incensed that his mother was in the clutches of an enemy power, but she soon passed away, not before she allowed to return home to her son in the good graces of both nations, spending her last days with her son, who she had seen rise to the top of power, as much as any man of his descent could expect.

The Caledonians put an end to Soissons independence to show that they were the sole masters of northern Gaul. The very origin of our dispute with the Jutes was in vain, as the Romans were swallowed up by the Caledonian mainlanders and the Irish, who allied with their former rivals. And now the problem was ours to deal with, not the Kingdom of Soissons, whose rulers would be exiled to our lands as long as they lived.

Vandalarius considered many things in these days. There was an element that wanted to see a new dynasty of the upbringing of both the House of Amalius and Theoderic on the throne, so many expected him to name his young son Sarus as his successor. The boy was, afterall, a cousin to Chintila. To do such would be a betrayal of what he had sworn to do, what his revered pope expected him to do. Instead, when Chintila came of age, he would become governor of Tarragon. He had shown much instability, but the guts to question the yes men around him, and that made his shifting emotions useful in getting what was necessary through the door. So Vandalarius told me, that after his death, he would anoint the young king as the new ruler. We had never guessed what the fates would conspire against this return to monarchy, and how it would change my life.

Then there was the question of Chintila’s half-brother, Erwig. The child was an obstacle, everyone knew it, and Visimar to gain a position beyond reproach in his eastern holdings and the favor of Witigis who wanted to return home least of all, acted on everyone’s suspicions. He let me know through subtle means, that upon his return to the west, he would expose Theodulf, the western general, as the father of Erwig. I begged the Virs Patriciae to dissuade Visimar from this course, whatever the cost. Erwig must be known as Chintila’s younger brother, not a true Gothic heir, to his half Burgundian brother. Such differences between heirs led to civil war. We had seen one, and would not survive another, as we were divided into three realms already, and it being clear that the one furthest from our reach intended to make such a division known to the people. He spread his rumors at Sirmium, and even called for the drowning of Erwig before he could be a threat to Witigis’ son. It must have been his superior, the aging Witigis, infuriated by the infidelity that wanted to make it known that the child was born out of wedlock.

The compromise I decided on was that Chlotsuintha would be ordered by the Virs Patriciae to never see Theodulf again, to treat the child Erwig as Witigis’ son, and that Visimar would be paid by my agents for the rest of his life to never speak of the child as a bastard ever again. If he persisted in the vindictive grudge of Witigis, he wouldn’t just be missing his kingdom and his monthly payments, he would be missing much more, while he slept. Theodulf would never see Witigis again, or the civil war would start before Erwig was even a man. The rumor would die with Witigis, never to return to Tarragon, where Chintila, his son, would rule.

Chintila showed signs of a choleric temper, set off without the slightest sign, and he overcompensated for being of Burgundian stock, by showing his loyalty to the Goths beyond all reason. What had started as a virtue, none possessing more devotion to the kingdom of Tarragon, soon became an infatuation with a hawkish outlook on anything un-Roman Spanish, Italian or Gothic. Only these peoples were worthy of citizenship in his view, and this made him a favorite with our soldiers, as it meant more spoils, lands and titles for them, and less for those we absorbed, but his devotion to the House of Amalius above all, frightened me in the lengths he would speak of it, though I never doubted it. Those that tortured birds, even regal ones such as falcons, soon tortured men if given enough power, and what had started as an unwavering fealty to what was a pet project already signed to him, would have to be watched and checked by someone, and with Vandalarius nearing middle age, that task fell to me, who was expected to be the boy’s mentor.

With a kiss from my weaving wife, who gifted me quilted armor to wear in the battle, I marched with Giboneus from Rome to face the surviving twin king Birgir, who we’d have no difficulty findings, angered by the death of his brother. Once a grudge was sparked with the northern folk, it wouldn’t be dismissed until one of the offenders was dead.

THE BATTLE OF FLORENCE

We met Birgir on an orchard near Firenze, at the end of fall going into winter. But the sun still shone in this well tended place, and we felt graced by the end of the harvest as we dreaded the winter and it’s attrition to come. I wore a helm to protect Matasuntha’s most prized possession, my brain, where my soul dwelled, other than my loins of course, and even through the steel, the men knew me from my scarred smirk. ‘Cut-wood.’ The boys called me. As wise as a tree that had seen the rise of the Roman Empire, but brave enough to fall on a man even if it would break me through the middle. I took the field upon Sturmwesson and marshaled the men with the call that our boy-king would put the military where it belonged, better paid with less responsibilities. I appealed to the solidarity the Romans had with the people of Tuscany, and appealed to the hallowed dead that Odoacer had lost. And I told the men that we had a debt with God, for the same man had to be killed twice, so perfidious was his stench upon Italy. But I knew what the men really craved in hewing these giants, braving the axes of the berserkers and Jutish high nobles with their ghoulish masks and stalwart spears. The bounty offered by Odoacer for purging his realm of the twins by the time he was in Naples, and Avitus was dead.

The pear, fig, and apple trees burned that day. Flaming arrows and halfts whistling to their berths in the marrow of the tall men ignited the ground itself. The Jutish brigades charged on our lances, imbibed with nod, and they were fighting for nothing less than a place to lay their head at night, because we would follow until they were driven from the peninsula. What resolve they fancied over lesser men were soon broken by heavy horse, and the rain of that which could not be broken by brute strength, waves of arrows. The furs of the Jutes stank of tanning, but nothing to the bowels and gallbladders being spilled on the soil in our drive.

Iron clad masked heads rolled as axe met Gothic steel, and the front line belied the many further clusters of warriors who would not throw their fortunes to a single engagement, whether for tactics, or hardened regiments that had broken away, or been broken through to. The fights coalesced around several pressure points, in the burning woods to the north, easily kindled by the onset of winter, and other clashes of our infantry who used utter numbers to bring down the champions of the Jutes. Those fools on their horses, knowing that their proudly displayed trophies would only make their own deaths uglier, and motivate the men not to become more for the next inevitable expedition to avenge the marauding Jutes.

I led a charge on Sturmwesson and located Birgir amongst the nearest foray, gutsy to his end, and directed my skirmishers directly on his warbard, without concern for my guards, who flitted in and out of the fight on horseback. Giboneus and his Herculani Seniores dealt the crush against the foot band of noble Jutes, and their fighting haunted me for years, their bellows not for retreat, but a bloody and noble end against all odds. They were butchered, their bravery nothing but a story to tell their heathen gods.

With his gilded mask he was rich enough to be the same man, but different in appearance than his brother that had taken the ire of Odoacer. I had him skewered as I marauded across the orchard before Firenze. The man who had slain Ildibad in the west of Aquitania, the adopted son of Witigis, was removed, and I was in the graces of the Vicar.

Hroaldr fled north past Milano after the Jutish defeat, never to trespass our lands again. Giboneus and I returned to Rome, and learned of Odoacer crushing the Sicilians at the bay of Naples. Rather than return to Rome, he settled in for the winter there. But boats were coming, not for Naples but our recently conquered port at Syracuse. They were not the Maurians, but Kartli, convinced into joining the Abasgians in their crusade against us. Odoacer would have one of his minions secure Sicily. He was pleased with my performance, and made me a Saione Companion soon after.

Fresh from Tarragon, Vandalarius had an errand for the young king and governor of Tarragon that he hoped would build character and focus, in the addled boy . Syracuse had been raided and those that took the shores of Sicily had been driven back in the past and would be driven back again. He had just the commander for the most recent landing by Kartli in mind already. There were two purposes in mind. To prove their soon to be ruler’s ability in command in easy relation to the men he would command, and to put to rest any burning ambitions Odoacer might have for ‘his sunny Italy.’ Vandalarius very much intended Chintila to rule the kingdom his father had liberated for him. It would also give me a chance to teach the young ruler a lesson or two in leadership, while Odoacer settled in for the winter at Naples, indifferent to the arriving nobles who trusted in the sheer aggressive cunning of Chintila. It was an easy assignment for a man with restraint, but as I’ve mentioned in this library of Gaticia, Chintila had never been strong in that respect. He had much to prove, and with Sarus coming of age, and my rise through the ranks, he felt he was running out of time to do it.

[Lugotorix]

Your screenshots and writing is epic. Great to see this still going.

Thanks Scottish King for the compliments- I'm glad this is still going too- It's my favorite work- I have a timeline to work with now with all of the story-lines resolved.

[Alwyn]

Great update, with an intriguing demonstration of the significance of the ability to choose your faction's heir and an awesome battle!

[Lugotorix]

CATANIA, SICILIA

474 A.D.

Mount Etna- Photo by Pietro

The battle had taken place in the shadow of the largest volcano in Italy and Europe, Etna. This was the volcano that had thwarted the advance of the Carthaginians in 396 B.C. It had rumbled between the years, but it’s position on the skyline to the north of the town. The chronicler Ausonius had mentioned earlier in the fourth century that the colonial district since it’s re-founding was one of the two outstanding ones in Sicily, combined with Syracuse, in his Ordo Nobilium Urbiinum. Nearby on the coast was Taormina, and close to Messana.

Sacked by the Vandals under Genseric in 441, the town, and it’s fertile breadbasket at Centuripe, were held by first Honorius’ commander Eutychianus, then Saturninus, then Duccius Lepidus, then the matron Sela, and finally Agorius Taura, before he was driven from Syracuse to it’s south, and his general Avitus Trio, who then ranged further to the ports in the north of the peninsula.

Lately though, it had been sacked by raiders under the banner of ancient Archon Arxa of Abasgia, from the nation of Kartli. His hunters would follow Marius to the ends of the earth, and the Archon of Kartli, Vonones, was no different, even tempting the bowl under a great volcano to confront whatever stood in his way, beyond it was the peninsula, and the barracks and villa of Odotheus, the son of Filimer, and the bounty on his head. Besides there were riches to be had in Syracuse, left behind by starry Sela, and the Agorian line. So there they waited, and baited an emissary of the Romano-Gothic coalition to meet them in a skirmish at Catania. And an ambassador of war had come, but with none of the experience of Odotheus.

Another line of pikes, some one hundred and twenty men, killed where they stood on the volcanic rich soil, their boot-prints in pairs before their stricken rotting bodies, dry as the air around them that had the rank scent of death on it as a breeze blew from the sea. Near them was the skeleton of an elephant, it’s meat taken by the victors. The plating of the Indian beast was left with it’s skull, the tusks taken to be used in ornamenting. Only the bronze caps and harness remained, and the terrible smell of rotting lard of many of the giants slain here, an island which had not seen the animals since the salt of the earth, Hannibal. Where had the Abasgians and Kartli found ships large enough to house the creatures, I didn’t know, with much of the seas patrolled by Vandals and Africans. Likely they were brought from Africa where they could roam, and used by the Gaetulians until the easterners found use for them. The ruined onagers and catapults were broken and burnt around us. Our horses were shoed, but they had to avoid the splinters of the broken shields and jagged wood that was shattered across the field. They would be useless in taking back to sea, once assembled. The Abasgians and their allies had no permanent intention on the island.

I, Odotheus, was searching for the horses, as I held a rag to my nose. Chintila was just old enough to mount a proper steed, and now he had likely been lost on one. The mountain had witnessed the carnage silently, and kept on with it’s eternal pace, un-phased by the rout and then slaughter of the entire legion of Widimir, the grandfather of Chintila. I let the sweat bead on my brow. I had failed the boy, giving him this task without properly scouting the ‘pirates’ numbers. It had not been pirates, it had been the Sons of Ishtar, a legion of Vonones that had taken Syracuse. Vandalarius had approved the boy’s command, but would be beyond furious if he had been lost in the fighting. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were streaming tears from the tragedy or the glaring Sicilian sun. It was intended to be an easy first assignment for the young King, one I had sent him to with the best wishes. He had gone to the task eagerly, with much to prove. He didn't want to be shuttered away at a desk in Tarragon, he wanted to lead the men, to prove his worth. ‘Dispatch the corsairs and win the people.’ He had done neither, and now too many of our men were dead in a pitched last stand.

‘What of the remnants of the army that fled north?’ Odotheus asked Giboneus Valens. ‘Leaderless, broken, most blaming Chintila himself for being impetuous.’ He replied, taking a sip from his flask. How he could stomach it among this bloodshed was beyond me. I wouldn’t stomach even bread for at least a day, after seeing what Arxa had done to us this time. And after that I would be ever fearful of Vandalarius and Chloe’s wrath for leading their boy into a fair fight. God had no sense of justice, that fairness was expected in civility but despised in war. Then I smelled his breath. It was grain alcohol. Counter-intuitive but at least it was a strategy to deal with this disaster. There had been four thousand Caucasians, not five hundred. The city of Syracuse, had hidden their numbers, sleeping within their own boats.

‘I didn’t ask if he was among them, I asked if they knew where he was.’ I answered sharply. A Saiones life was nothing next to the sacred heir, the only son of not only the Princess Chloe, but Witigis as well.
‘No. They described him as valiant, with their lives.’ He shrugged. ‘ He was last seen leading his lances into the thick of it.’

We soon found the ‘thick of it.’ It was a pile of bodies and ditches filled with more bodies than could be buried. The cracked earth was sandy, white in some places, black in others, red in others still from what had transpired here. Countless more were beneath the black earth. The flies stuck to the blood that was up to our ankles in our sandalions. Past that was the mountain, but directly beyond the battlefield, a collection of gray boulders and crags, and a tower perhaps that had been rent to ruin. The numbers of Abasgians and Kartli had crushed them from the north, south and east, right around his route past the mountain to the north. Their intelligence was splendid, too uncanny for mere corsairs. Arxa must have entered into alliance with the Garamantians and Gaetulians.

I spotted the carcass of a white horse lain out on a slab of pumous and igneous rock. I waved my horses forward, and trotted to the spot, avoiding the slain in a diagonal on Sturmwesson. Upon an Ionian pillar near the piles of rock, which were mixed with stone rubble, was a banner of the House of Amalius, still planted in the dirt, by the lax arm of a slouched corpse abuzz with bottle flies. We had sent some of the richest and most prestigious men from the court to their deaths for this battle. Those closest to Chlotsuintha, cousins of Gaatha and her, their gilded armor too heavy to be pried from their bones. The boy’s last stand was near.
‘Look for gold and silver.’ I shouted, my voice echoing across the field of dead. ‘The King wears his blue blood.’ I said softer to Valens. Vonones had been forced to flee the town upon learning that my army had crossed Messana and made landfall. There would have been time for ragpicking and looting the dead, but not those that had taken refuge in the collapsed tower, and been lost among it’s rubble. We then heard the filtering in of a stringed instrument of some sort, twangs on the bladder of some animal into a wooden case.

‘We are not on the march. Cut-wood will turn your hide if you think of passing the day while our King is missing.’ Giboneus Valens roared. Then the unmistakable rattle of bones. It was coming from behind a boulder higher up the incline leading from the field. I whipped Sturmwesson with the back of my hand, and unsheathed my sword. On the far side of the rock was the boy, the champion from the yurt of Odoacer in Campania, Gotarzes. ‘It’s all gone. It’s been a rich feast on your buttons of fine Gothic gold. The crosses will melt sweetly.’

‘Speak quickly, or I’ll add my steel to it, cur.’ I said, circling the young champion on my horse. I was joined by several other Saiones on horse-back. They poised their lances at him, and waited for him to speak, what little good that would do. To our surprise, he didn’t look wounded.

‘Vonones has had victory over your King, you know. And he waits in his port of Syracuse for your surrender.’

‘Unlikely.’ I replied, grinning as the sweat touched my lips. I got off Sturmwesson, tied the laces to my gauntlet and approached Gotarzes. He raised his eyebrows, expecting less than violence. He would not have that. I backhanded him, and once he was prone, held my sword to his throat. ‘Where is our King, Chintila? There is to be no surrender to the Archon Arxa’s sea dogs, the last of whom my father hewed, boy.’ I cut his face with the edge of my sword. ‘Careful, I’m just the messenger.’ He smiled at the pain.

‘I said nothing of your men. Your surrender, Odotheus Filimer Son. The hand of that wretched Odoacer who should have burnt, and the bastard of Machares’ killer together in exchange for your King.’ The champion boasted.
I was stunned. They hadn’t killed Chintila and it looked to be the death of me. I whipped my sword back. Odoacer would reward me for bringing him the head of Roderic’s killer and he who had scarred him. But Vandalarius was a man of God, a man of honor, and a man of a sacred pact to uphold his blood oath to the High King, the blood of Chlotsuintha, of Vithericus Vandalarius Amalius himself. And so, I was expected to do this as well. I would not sacrifice myself for sight unseen though. This one had used treachery before.

‘Take this one into binds. Break his little noise-box, and lead him on a rope back to Messana where our boats are waiting. We will be negotiating your ransom for the King, Gotarzes.’
‘We’ve had enough of your Gold and enough of your plunder for now. We sacked every town up this coast, and we’ll empty more if Vonones demand is not met, if the Archon Arxa’s demand is not met, in his new alliance with the lords of Africa. Surrender right this instant.’ Gotarzes cajoled. ‘ Chintila was led on a rope as well. I shouldn’t say too much, but sleeping on satin and silks really is poor preparation for horse dung and caltrops and worms.’
My mettle was tested then, and tested thin. These easterners had no honor, Odoacer knew that, Valens knew that, and I knew that they’d sooner kill two generals, and a hero of the Italian wars at that than one King. Giboneus Valens eyes pleaded with me to take the word of Gotarzes and ride alone on Sturmwesson to Syracuse. I saw a glimpse of Matasuntha, and keenly scoured the skull of Gotarzes with my eyes. ‘With this ancient mountain as my witness, being alive is poor preparation for the promises of a cutthroat. We’ll want proof of our King’s captivity.’ I scoured the horizon for the sounds and sights of any spy, and then, satisfied, stabbed Gotarzes in his lower leg. ‘Odoacer will enjoy making a second acquaintance.’ I said and spat into the earth. ‘Bury the dead.’ As I said this. One of the dead scampered up from the pile of corpses and began running. A naked spy, covered in dust and ochre. ‘Bow.’ I said. My Sagitarrius handed me the bow. I took my aim, arching back the short bow, and with a twang, let loose a single arrow. The spy fell dead. Giboneus argued with me.

‘They must have proof of your word!’ Giboneus Valens tried to grab the bow from me. I pushed him away, and trudged through the dust and drying blood from the rocks and rubble.
Enraged I walked to the precipice of the fallen Gothic and Roman legions and shouted, ‘ Do any more of you dead men want to provide proof to Arxa of my word?!’

There was silence over the field of dead. Just the naying and snorts of our horses. ‘I’ll do you better, dead men. Does Gotarzes, murderer of Rittern Roderic, and blood enemy of Odoacer wish to give proof of my word!?’
Silence. I turned the bow on Gotarzes, and fetched an arrow from a satchel. More silence. ‘Does a Roman with an empty purse, who owes nothing to Chintila, and is the cause of his captivity, when he could be as easily dead, for bad blood from the orient east, wish to give proof of my word!?’

My armed ached at the string and arrow. Another second and I would strike Gotarzes dead, dooming our young King. There was squirming among the terrible tangle of limbs, and a ghostly hand raised up. It was a Roman. Not a spy. A rag-picker. A ghoul. A looter of the dead from these lands. I had to seek the guidance and forgiveness of Vandalarius Magnificus on this matter. Odoacer would have his victory at Naples to the north over the forces of Avitus and his generals, but now the seas were lawless, and they could strike there before I even returned to him in disgrace. In the strangest of circumstances, I found myself praying to the superstitious God that Chintila was indeed at the mercy of our foes.

Vonones, strategos of the Archon Arxa, readies his men

The conflict in the shadow of the great volcano

The elephants panic at the flaming barrages of King Chintila's men, while he makes a charge to those that outflanked him by the tower to the north

[Alwyn]

An evocative update with a powerful depiction of the field of the dead.

[Lugotorix]

474-475 A.D.

THE MARK OF ISCARIOT/THE RANSOM OF KING CHINTILA



ODOTHEUS WEARS A PRICE ON HIS NECK

I was recalled from Italy to the Warlord’s Hold of Vandalarius in Bordeaux in the Spring of 475. The road west was fraught with the presence of roaming Caledonians who were searching for the patrols of Theodulf, on orders from Rianorix, their expeditionary chieftain, and the city was still surrounded by the navy of the Irish. Some months had passed since the capture of Chintila, whose name was pronounced ‘Kin’tila’ and Vandalarius already knew of his situation before I was summoned.

In the times which we lived, Vithericus Amalius was believed by soldierly walks such as Theoderic, and monastic walks such as Vandalarius in the later part of his life, to be anointed as High King and Emperor by God himself. The sanctity of his lineage was something they literally believed, as so, not to be trifled with. I had committed a cardinal sin in Vandalarius’ eyes by not immediately sacrificing myself to be traded with our liege. We learned that in these months he was in the captivity of the Huns that remained with Arxa’s fleets. Vandalarius invited me to a banquet where he would be arraigning the peace that was to last with Roman Spain, and the Kingdom of Tarragon.
We feasted in the great hall, with Matasuntha at my side. The forty three year old Appius Antius Gurges was the governor of Spain who we had to convince to seal a pact of peace with us, as Bordeaux and the Kingdom were threatened by the Celts to the north, across the desolate fields that were once glorious central Gaul. Matasuntha kept a dagger beneath her dress, along her shin. She told me simply that she would not allow our lord to deliver me in exchange for untested Chintila.

Uncharacteristically dumber than words, she would have doomed both of us through any violence, but passions were high. Chloe thanked me for bravely searching the battlefield for her son, and assured me that I had done the right thing in not trusting the Abasgian agent. They were, just assurances from the Princess, the final word would come from Vandalarius, who had a more devout view of the monarchy than it’s Princess herself, and a cynical view of the demands of the easterners.

Vandalarius and I were watching Sarus and Erwig play before the great hearth fires and the mantles of slate that held the crowns and helms of the great lords of the former Empire, and I wasn’t sure if my lord had decided to turn me over to the enemy yet, when he began speaking to me at lengths of how I could redeem myself. He placed his maimed arm and hand in mine and began speaking to me, giving a smile to Matasuntha as if to tell her that her fears were for naught.

‘Even now, the nobles would pay a agora’s price just to see me name Sarus, for all of his faults, just to make things interesting, and allow them to jockey against Chloe and Witigis for a better view of our triumph over Rianorix. We must have Chintila back. You did well to spare the champion Gotarzes.’ Vandalarius said.

‘How much do they ask, in forfeit for my life?’ I asked warily.

‘ Too much, I’ve showered Appius with gifts just to arrange this meeting, and it will take even more to ensure his silence on the southern front.’
‘Cniva will pay for my freedom, as best he can. I am his servant still though I serve the Vicar.’

‘Their demands are gluttonous, but our peace with Spain might hold the Maurians abay. The Gaetulians of Dimmidi and Tripolitana would be robbed of the cooperation against us and be forced to fight the Vicar alone for dominion of the seas.’ Vandalarius waved his finger at Matasuntha, making the signal of a dagger with his crippled finger.

‘I’ve never been able to adequately thank you for your service in silencing Visimar’s rumors about, the Prince Erwig. Theoderic II, Witigis’ bastard, grows into a daft but mighty warrior in the east under Visimar’s guidance.’ He continued.

‘I will not be exchanged then? Then I must find the King’s ransom.’

‘Heavens no, cut-wood, I’d never estrange Cniva and the man who calls himself Vicar, nor betray you, not a simple man, but a man of Christ. Speaking of which, the Vicar reports of the Gaetulians sailing for his shores in your absence, led by Aryamani and Vermina.’

The black eyed Aryamani Black-Cloak with his earrings of gold, and reputation for arraying diamonds and gems on his own black satin head-wraps, was the richest man in Africa, after the departed Lucius Duccius, slain by Vandalarius. Some men lived for conquest, some lived for glory, others for their people, and others for ideals such as senates or republics, others for the nobility and the royal line: Aryamani was not one of those men: He had been no noble, and it was only his fortune that made him an echelon above other men. He lived to amass wealth, the wealth that would endure to the lengths of his Numidian line. He lived to buy even more power, and to have mercenaries give him the means to pay them. It was Aryamani and Vermina’s tactics that Vandalarius had in mind for me to use against them.

Vandalarius continued speaking. He had grown older, and more dignified though the loss of his arm’s use, even being a master of combat. His voice was deeper, and held more weight.
‘Christ favors you, my son. The richest man in Africa is coming to Italy, with his fortunes to pay the people of the land to rise up. You will earn your freedom by defrauding Aryamani of this fortune in battle. He will have no use of them when he’s dead. By the Saintly names of those who have suffered in Malta and the coast of Sicily already, bleed him of gold before you vanquish him Odotheus.’
‘My eternal thanks, Magnificus virs Patriciae.’ I said humbly.

‘Good, now do me another favor and thank me by playing along. Visimar must be appeased of your challenge and I must appear to challenge Odoacer. The Governor of Spain, will applaud the son of Filimer King being punished.’

‘Just a minute, Vandalarius.’ I edged in, but he had already stood. He was handed a loop of brambles with a few thorns, as if it were a necklace. Christ, he’s going to strangle me, I thought.
‘I would like to propose a toast. The man who sits with me has saved his own life, which could have been given for our King, who has fell into captivity of the enemy. You know him well. Saiones Odotheus, hero of Caralis and the Italian campaign. The re-founder of Rome, and our best ambassador to the people of the peninsula and the Sicilies.’

‘He has trespassed against a time honored code to honor the blood of Vithericus, Emperor of Goths and Romans, and broken the heart of Chlotsuintha. So I speak to you all today, as witnesses, that until the price for Chintila’s freedom be paid, this man will wear the example of Iscariot, a milestone of thorns from the weeping tree, to wear around his neck, like the noose of Judas.’ Chlotsuintha gave a toothless smile and placed her hands down, looking down, after waving her hand to assure me that no harm was intended upon me.

‘Saiones Odotheus, rise and be reminded of your responsibility. I am ordering you back to Italy to fight for the self-proclaimed Vicar.’ I rose to my feet, and he placed the necklace around my head onto my shoulders. It itched and burnt, and I felt one of the thorns prick my neck. It was a token gesture, done as much to appease the Amalius and the clergy, as Visimar, Vicar of the East, but uncomfortable nonetheless, and although I tried to be a good sport, I truly hated politics over the next several years.

Odotheus and Vandalarius had no way of knowing it, but by the time peace was made with Spain, it’s leader over-eager to sign to peace with the man who had humbled the son of Filimer, the Numidian war had already begun in Italy. The greed of the Gaetulian desert chieftain had come for Italy, weakened by infighting as the war with Khaleme. I returned to the country just in time to see it as the battleground between rebels and the Numidian invaders, with our own occupying garrisons being the third most powerful party in their own lands.

Aryamani Black-Cloak and Vermina had landed at Naples, while Odoacer was away and sacked the city, running in waves over it’s crumbling walls, and flooding in from their ships in it’s port. Some weeks later, with Odotheus returned to Italy by boat, Odoacer defeated Vermina in a clash under the great volcano of Vesuvius. Odoacer used his wings of heavy horse in most of these encounters, with the Taifali joining him later, sent by Vandalarius to relieve our position. I did not want to make an obstacle of myself on Sturmwesson, and I fought on foot in these encounters, in my black scale armor, as if I were any other man.

Odotheus finds obscurity in valor

Odoacer and I knew that we could not become separated while the Black-Cloak was hiring mercenaries in our lands. The sell-swords were easily run down by our Gothic lances, and they broke as quickly as their purses, burst by our spears and swords. They Taifali that rode with us were veterans, and the Italian mercenaries could excuse themselves from the battle, and in a days time be fighting for the winning side at Beneventum without anyone knowing the wiser. They weren’t technically deserters, they were faceless masses governed by the tides of war in their country.

The Numidian nobles and Gothic cavalry clash in the shadow of Vesuvius

Vermina’s harem guards don’t hold up to Gothic steel and mettle

Our horses met in the middle, and broke through Vermina and many other desert vultures armies in liberating Campania. The mountain was witness to those who fought for the cities under it, and we were making these lands ours once more in the eyes of not only the land, but the people who flocked to witness the battles, their hopes and trades riding on the outcomes.

The Numidian invasion had incited elements of rebels looking to avenge Avitus Trio to rise up across the south of Italy. I let Odoacer know that we would raid the convoys of the enemy to their hirelings, and that I would be earning the price for Chintila through loot of each battle. Troops flowed south from Rome to defend their homeland, fortifying themselves at Naples, to avoid another potential disaster to come from the sea. All the while, upon the pain of my honor, I wore the uncomfortable circlet around my neck, while I fought, while I marched, and while I rode. We were becoming quite rich from the spoils of war, even taking slaves to be sold, which Vandalarius had forbade, but the sooner the boy King was free, the better.

For two years the war continued, with the first year seeing Odoacer and I fight and chase the Tripolitan and Libyan armies north to Rome, and the second in early 475, seeing the Goths beaten back to the walls of Naples, which had been rebuilding for most of the war. I was away near Tarentum in the Spring, fighting the rebels in 475, when Naples fell under siege from Aryamani. The Sagitarrius of Odoacer, Vicarius Italiae took their stations on the walls, as the greenery fled the lands, heading into the fall.

THE SIEGE OF NAPLES

This year, 475, was the time of a terrible drought and heat wave across southern Italy, and the ground was barren and crumbling dry by the fall when the siege persisted. The fields across Naples became yellow and orange, and the bright sun scorched the inhabitants of the city, conditions that the desert invaders were more comfortable under. The dry heat caused the ring around my neck to form a red cracked and blistered scar. The earth cracked like the skin on my neck, and I yearned to be rid of the curse, and for the rains to return to Campania. Those pagans from Corsica and Sardinia believed that rains fell after great battles and that our troubles would be solved with a titanic clash with the Gaetulians we were hunting down to meet at our own door.

Odoacer, ever brave, formed a line of his spears and pikes before the great city, keeping his Iuvenes with their axes and swords high on the walls. Knowing that the Numidian army was heavy in camels and horses. The steaming oils had already bathed and boiled many who had tried to break through the many gates of Naples, and now Odoacer took a braver approach, as the siege engines of Aryamani approached.

A bloody fight was fought before the walls of Naples, after which Odoacer, in his focused hatred had driven the Gaetulians back from the walls. Only their siege engines, flanked by heavy Shawia spears reached the walls, where the hurtled themselves over the ramparts and a fight began for the blood soaked walls. As warm as the blood was, it was a respite from the heat, and many a man rolled to the ground in gore to put out the burning on their skin. Flaming arrows sailed from the palisades on the armored camels that bit and butted their way into the fight. Some of the bolts and onager fodder had breached the cusp of the city and burnt the cypress trees within, and the acacias fumed as the nobles put out fires with urine, having nothing else, as much to steel themselves for the fight to come.

Odoacer sallies forth from the walls with his elite guards of the Vicar

Odoacer rushed on horseback through the gates, hollering at the top of his hoarse throat to capture Aryamani and put an end to the war. The men were invigorated by the sight of the Vicar, their commander, as even more reinforcements came from the north, keeping their legs fresh as they approached the city. Victory was almost certain, with some of the siege engines delaying and the camels and desert stallions being stuck at the obstacle of our caltrops, pikes, pits and stakes before the walls of Naples. Aryamani could press no further without confronting the Vicar. He wheeled about on his horse, fighting scores of Gothic infantry at once, beating his way back to safety with a great number of our dead, who would not have to be paid by me, in his wake.

Aryamani Black-Cloak fights his way out of his own siege

I was marching at double time back from defeating the Roman commander Vindonius Urgulanius Paetus near Tarento, when the word reached me, nearly knocking me from my feet.

Odoacer had been too valiant, and had been injured, first by two arrows at his shoulder paltrons, then wading into the battle against the horses of Africa on his horse, been caught in the fighting, which he wouldn’t abandon in his hatred of the enemy.

A lucky throw from a javelin of the Numidian nobles had planted itself right between the eyes of Odoacer. Blood had squirted from his ears, his skull burst from his purple blistered head, and then the screams of dismay from his men. Panic broke out, as the news reached the walls which gave way to the enemy, who pressed deep into the city. We were able to press Aryamani’s invaders from the city, but not after a great deal of looting and fires had broken out, encouraged by the blistering heat.

When I reached the city, it was defending against yet another fleet, this one led by the Maurians who had seized on the cities vulnerability. I was left in sole command of Italy’s armies and Aryamani had escaped my justice, retreating south after defiling the Roman city. The heat fatigued our men and forced us to abandon our heavier armor.

In desperation I called for a horse and took off for the residence of Odoacer in Naples to look through his battle plans, his correspondences with Vandalarius, any thing that could cut off the escape of Aryamani, so that I could loot his caravans and put an end to the war and my oath. He had planned on victory entirely, and had no instructions for the fall of Naples, no further planning, no insight into the defense of Italy.

Instead I found, under piles of maps and everything else, that the man knew the cost his bravery in battle would one day toll. I learned that the Vicarius had left his entire fortune to me, who he saw as the only leader fit to oppose Visimar in the event of his death. Even with the Black-Cloak’s escape, I now had enough to deliver Chintila from captivity, and remove the oath from my head. I wrenched the brambles from my neck, traced my hand over the calloused scar, and wiped my brow, applying the sweat to my neck. I clutched the letter and instructed that it be taken as soon as possible to Vandalarius.

Through the Autumn and the rest of the year, I learned that Aryamani had set sail for Tarragon, taunting me that he would plunder it with the fearless general dead, and reminding me of my failure to stop him.
Chintila had not been treated well as a hostage of the Abasgians and Huns. His bodyguards, and three of his closest friends had been executed. They had tortured him with ropes, while he walked from camp to camp, and ship to ship, and while he slept. The fearsome but edgy boy had lost all of his luster, everything but his wits and body crippled, all of his pride had all but been beaten from him.

He was humble and fearful now, but more deranged than before. He would talk on length about details of his captivity and irrelevant things, but especially his long lasting hatred of the nomads who had taken him prisoner, and their dirty ways. I couldn’t pry any resentment from his eyes, which winced at the sight of me after he was taken back from the custody of Gotarzes and the Huns. I could only suspect that it lurked, and that it would lurk for me once he learned the truth of his kidnapping. We would have vengeance over them for his treatment soon.

In total, I had paid the host income of our nation over a given year, three times over in exchange for Chintila. Nine thousand sesterces, and the shame of seeing Gotarzes have the better of me, giving back damaged goods for the entire troves of both of my rich masters, Cniva and Odoacer. Once we had seen his birthmarks, Valens marveled that the boy was being rewarded for defeat.

I learned that the Abasgian enemy had used much of what they had gained from their captive to buy peace with Roman Pontus, which was emerging as a powerful force in Asia Minor. I cared little about the Abasgians return and focused my attention on avenging Chintila’s defeat by attacking Vonones at Syracuse immediately. I captured the city, using an extended siege tactic I would use many times over that left the defenders suffering from attrition, adding to my reputation, leaving him to flee the port to the southern sea, with his part of the ransom to award him for his trespassing. The war with the Sicilians and Caucasians had ended, and Vandalarius viewed me as the sole protector of Italy, though he knew had I had no need for a lofty title such as ‘Vicar.’ As for Chintila, he was given books and ledgers to read over in the governing of the city of Tarragon, hopefully never to have to see the horrors of war again.

The worst news imaginable, more than he could bear, reached Chintila from his half-brother, the dim-witted giant Theoderic II who returned from Visimar’s east, Witgis, the father of the Italian re-conquest and re-settlement of the east, had died of natural causes, leaving the east to Visimar as Vicar. Witigis had died far too young, at fifty one, in Sirmium. The boy went from being not quite right to dangerous within days of hearing that his father, who had never had time to visit him back in the west, had died young. Chintila was angry in his own way at hearing the news from his father’s own bastard, nearly accusing Visimar of poisoning him, and he went to see his mother about the death in the family, more humbled that he was alone in the powerful world than ever. He was a King now, and when I asked him whether he would have made the same choice, he replied in his quiet voice, shrugging ‘You ponied up the ransom. That’s all I would expect from you.’ I wondered for ages after this what this meant, in his words.

It was not only Vonones who would pay for destroying the confidence and hopes of our King. I re-comissioned the Storms of Maoetis and sent them on a search and destroy mission to the northern Adriatic. The Huns, hiding from the turbulence of land would be destroyed, once and for all. The vendetta of Odoacer remained incomplete however, and it would take the sacking of Zaragoza in our Kingdom considered safe for years now for Vandalarius to contest the greed of Aryamani himself. Aryamani had left the harassment of Italy in the hands of a navy under Shebitqo, who moved his fleet near Naples, which I would have to return to defend again soon. It didn’t bother me, and if I took a lick, I would bounce right back to the task. I asked Vandalarius if I could deal with Aryamani, but he instead had me assigned to Shebitqo.

I was becoming well known for taking my burdens with a smile, even lack of sleep, the pitfall of most men, and vital commanders were in need now that Witigis had passed. I had a homecoming to Tarragon, where I met with Avidius who in old age had returned to the east and told me that he had learned in the service of the masons of the re-settlement that Visimar was becoming ambitious. He advised me to seek the station of Vicar, through more victories. Avidius treated me like a son, and we sat watching Chintila present himself before the adoring people.

‘Be on your guard.’ Matasuntha said, of Chintila, when he greeted the people as their new King, with a quiet dignity. ‘He’ll never trust you again, and he’s short of trust already.’

‘He’s more subdued now. Tempered to the cautions of battle. I gave him the gift of a beard afterall, Maddie.’ I joked, but she shook her head and punched my arm, then placed her head on it. Avidius looked me in the eye and nodded approvingly. She would have my son soon, and Sarus was coming of age alongside Theoderic II. The legacy of generals was continuing.

[RodentDung]

Those pictures are beautiful. Attila looks like a sweet game. We can fall in love with war all over again.

[Lugotorix]

Those pictures are beautiful. Attila looks like a sweet game. We can fall in love with war all over again.

The new screens are taken with Lucifer Hawk's GEM, whose standalone version is now working for Attila, and was last working around the time I wrote 'The Battle of the Savus'. It looks amazing, and just has to be personally toned down a bit through it's config. I've been using an Iranian modder called Aztec's Graphical enhancements for the few updates before that- but I imagine I'll be using GEM in various customizations for the rest of the AAR.

[Alwyn]

Awesome! May Gothic steel and brave Gothic hearts continue to prevail, even against the fiercest of foes!

[Lugotorix]

477-478 A.D.

A Wager?

The End of the Circuit for the Huns, and the Vendetta of Odoacer

TARRAGON

Chlotsuintha, the grand-daughter of Vithericus was ailing. Much could change with a broken hip, falling in Traquilus’ old cellar in the bowels of Caralis, and the death of her unfaithful husband had taken some of the will to live from her. All she had left was her friend from her youth, Vandalarius, at the far bastion against Rianorix and the Caledonians, and her son, who she mourned fore he would never be the same. He would need the strength of her advice if he was to be a good king. She left Caralis by ship, to visit her Chintila where he had begun governing in Tarragon.

I was quite surprised, when she summoned me to Tarragon, fresh on my failure to stop Aryamani making off for a berth close by, and without my army, which would be left in the care of a subordinate of Visimar, Roderic. She told me of her plans, and I knew I must keep my head down when she spoke of them, to never look aquiline, even to a stouter man.

‘Chintila.’ She motioned with a hand, once we were both in the palace built in honor of Vithericus, partially built by Avidius, my former foster father. ‘I want you to sit down.’ Chintila was pacing. He had been a nervous wreck ever since he father was never to return from the east, and he saw the phantom servants of Visimar replacing his father’s command as a real threat to his rule. Already, Visimar was known as Dardanianus, and he defended Siscia and Sirmium in the event the Picts who had migrated to the east ever became brave enough to breath oaths and try to take towns for their own. Roman Illyria had emerged from the ashes and how to deal with our former territorial ally was the biggest obstacle to Visimar, and Chintila as a boy king. But his sights were not set on the east of the Balkans. They were set on the realm I had inherited from Odoacer, Italy. He did not sit. He looked contentiously at me in the eyes, wondering why I was there with his frail mother.

Chintila planned on moving the capital from Tarragon to Rome. The thought had occurred to me before, having refounded it, but I was lacking in the political clout to make it a reality in a Kingdom who’s court and capital was across the sea, not only in Tarraconensis but Bordeaux, where Vandalarius looked down on his patrols returning with word on the movements of the Caledonians. His mother was with him in this sentiment, after all, it had been reclaimed by her late husband, the Burgundian, for his son to rule, but she had other ideas on how he would come to rule from Rome.

‘I have been speaking to the people in the curia, and bringing strength to the notion of re-claiming the empire of my grandfather, with Rome as it’s capital as you have spoken to me of, many times. They were very direct that you were to be the presumptive Emperor of this new state, but that there are obstacles.’ ‘Mother.’ He tried to cut her off.

‘Some favor Vandalarius as favored by God to be Emperor. He has a son, Sarus, through a noble wife, Sunilda, and you have your mistress Glismoda and your gambling. It is a fact we must reckon with. The patricians favor military acumen. You’ve lost much credibility in that area.’ Chlotsuintha continued.

‘Then I will return to the horse, and lead from a hill, to spare me of such inconveniences in the future. They prefer victory. One armed Vandalarius has it often from a distance.’
‘I disagree. We should counter gravitas with gravitas. I propose a marriage to the daughter of Marius, Theodora. Not only is she of the equestrian line that now rules Illyrian Rome, she has claims to Constantinople itself. You will never see this Glismoda again.’ Chloe waved her hand at him.

‘She is with my child. The heir to the Kingdom.’ Chintila said softly, aback.

‘Then that child will be raised by monks to purge him of your impulses. You won’t see him either, or God help me, your brother Erwig will rule.’ Chloe chided.
‘Erwig only wants to chase the Jutes back to their hiding places in Northumbria.’ It was true, Erwig had been obsessed with a military journey to cut the Celts and Jutes off at the source in the British Isles. We had no manpower, or means of reaching the channel, it was a narrow dream, but one that fueled Erwig enough to join the military command. Erwig and Sarus had both come of age in the four years that had passed.

‘Yes, and about the second matter, the people respecting military rule. You will serve under the tutelage of Odotheus, a legend in Italy, as you recall. He will not be Viceroy, just as you will not be Emperor just yet. He will teach you how to fight, and when to run. He will give you an angel for every devil you have, my son. I think you have many, some hidden even to me, by now. I’m giving him, by the vested Amalius, the same hallowed position as Saphrax to Vithericus.’ She wheezed in her thin voice.

‘Vandalarius has seen too many winters. You think too much of him. He must pass the scepter to me. He has no other option.’ Chintila raised an eye at his mother.
‘I’ve told him to pass it to Odotheus Cut-wood. You are our king, my king, and my son, and I love you. But we’ll need more than imperial blood to let the blood of the Celts and others who vie for your crown for you. Once your marriage to Theodora is secure, with Odotheus as your right hand, you’ll have no enemies left.’

‘And Visimarus Dardanianus? My half-brother, Theoderic?’

‘Mercenaries.’ I dismissed them as this. ‘I will faithfully serve you. I have not forgotten, and will not forget the oath I’ve worn as a pain on my very neck. No enemies, Chintila. Theodulf, flaccid and ancient. The sons of Cniva, loyal to me, just as their father. Theoderic the Second, bumbling. Sarus, a Taifali with no name to his claim but his father’s. Erwig, satiated by his pet ambitions. Vandalarius will have me serve as your Chief of Military and Protector in his title.’
‘And you, Odotheus, bastard of the Exile King. What of your ambition? You’ll see on the investment of late Vicar Odoacer?’

‘That’s between me and the family I hope to raise. I pray for many children and Matasuntha’s safety. With a claim against the Amalius, that will never happen. You say I’m a bastard, and that’s the truth. Father Filimer was a scruples barbarian. I’m a son of a Roman mason. This, I swear, I’ll give you the life that was almost robbed of you for my caution.’ I kept my head bowed.

Chintila, the Princess, and I spoke for some time more about transferring power to Rome, and rebuilding governmental orifices there that Giboneus could oversee security of. He insisted on new arenas and hippodromes, out of love of the game, and love of his flutters. He told me that the gangs that supported one team or another could be useful in security, and keeping any corruption playing straight into our hands. They were always talking, he said, and loose lips had stories to tell that could make a governor rich, indeed a King. Something told me, it had already worked for him once.

A few days later, in the comfort of her son, visited one last time by Vandalarius, who marched south to meet with the Moor menace, Chlosuintha died. Chintila had wished he had more time with her, and I sensed resentment for his long captivity away from her, as I led him to his first lessons in building alliances among captains. I introduced him to Giboneus Valens, and he continued seeing the woman Glismoda, but was seduced with my promises that I had seen the Roman noblewoman Theodora in Italy, and that she was all gleaming lustful doe eyes, and thin, almost white golden hair that ran to her olivine complexion on a bare back, cut by a gown. A domestic goddess and a devoted political animal, in raising a family, and an empire of blood. His mistress Glismoda, was a Gothic beauty of red hair, and good parentage, but couldn’t be seen in the court, as she frequented dens of thieves and gamblers, that Chintila had fallen on in his days of despair after his return from being a Hunnic hostage. He gambled his immense allowance, and with each wager, increasingly dangerous, gambled a bit of his stability as well.

Marius was overcome with joy at the match, and it made a sitting High King who would bear heirs of the Domitian emperors. Chintila did not take Chloe’s death well, and with both of his parents dead, began attending the circuses to occupy his mind. He had learned something from me, and quickly, as he soon had a sporting gang of racing fans, the Green and Blacks, in his pay and employ as eyes and ears, and bludgeoning clubs, in Rome.

Odotheus has come far as a legend, under the many trials of himself and Odoacer

The admiral at the helm of the Storms of Maeotis was Captain Tulga, a Vandalic seaman who had defected. The Vandals were the few who hadn’t submitted to the hordes of Numidians that ruled over Africa. They had holdings as far as the Levant, but were strongest in Hadrumentum. If the city were ever to fall, Tulga had plans to liberate it, where he would be placed as a petty king in favor of it’s current dove towards the Gaetulians. He soon became certain that the Huns and their navies were encamped in two blockades of cities they preyed off of. Ravenna had been feared lost, after being razed when Trapstilicus had gathered his fortune and fled the city to the Huns, after storming it alongside Filimer, my father. Instead it had been allowed to remain in subsistence, with any profits from the trickle of trade that flowed north to Milano, going directly to the Huns who waited on their ships, and in camps around the desolate husk of a city.

In not one, but two naval engagements, the Vandal was unable to break the Hunnic fleets, as rife they were with archers that sent many of his ships to fire before being extinguished by the cold seas. Once I had returned to Italy, I disembarked my entire army to hunt down the Hunnic survivors of the naval encounters. Tulga joined with this fleet and pressed on for a third time against the blockade at Ravenna. The yurts of the Huns sat on beachheads, and the blazing payloads of our ships hit them from the sea upon our scorpions and ballistae.

I entered into the ruins of Ravenna, and set ablaze the remaining camps of the Huns, sinking the ships in their own noose of a blockade by nightfall. We learned from those captured that the remnants of the Huns were similarly encircled around Salona, just across the Adriatic, and we crossed the Mares and in another night, crushed all that remained of the Huns. I was a merciful man. Chintila had ordered no quarter. I was also a loyal man. Some of the Huns and their vassals had defected for coin before the battle, these were spared, and those willing to defect to Visimar. Once we were upon the camps, we killed the camp-followers, we killed the women, the children. No slaves were taken. It was genocide and regicide all in one day. This order part of me liked following. After we returned to Italy, with the prizes of the Huns horde, we delivered Naples from the blockade of Shebitqo the Gaetulian instructed to keep me busy while his master campaigned for more gold and glory at our very homes. It was nothing to the confrontation Vandalarius vowed to have with the greedy man who had challenged him, but gave me stronger pull for my new disciple in the ruling party, the young King.

The last Hunnic King Ellac saw his ruin, and was slaughtered after surrendering the golden eagle with the rest of the Huns at Salona. No mercy for the scourge of the world, the ruin of Italy reclaimed. It was genocide, and the Huns ceased to trouble another kingdom ever again, save as bandits and seeded through our ranks. Scattered, destroyed and cast to the winds, much as the ill wind that had brought them to the west, blowing back towards the Danube and the cold wastes.

THE BATTLE OF SEGOBRIGA

In the Summer of 478, Aryamani, the killer of Odoacer, made good on his threats, and massacred the garrison of Zaragoza, sacking the city: that which honored the Christ god was melted down as incongruent with the African pagans, pure smelt, pure gold, the deadly avarice of the Black-Cloak blinded him and he needed a place to store that which was stolen: he did this before making himself an unwelcome presence to it’s south in Hispania Interior at Segobriga in Carthaginensis. Spain had not seen war in some time, peace brought by Valdamerca and Vandalarius, who was furious to see it disturbed, and Vandalarius swore to make the invader pay not only for his escape from justice against Odoacer at Naples, but for defiling the fair interior of his Kingdom.

Peace under Vandalarius had brought a second coming of the Taifali, which had been decimated after Odoacer Grey-Hair’s treason. The House of Sarus, not to be confused with his son, a tribe that loomed on the steppe past the Danube after the collapse of Hunnic power were quick to sign their loyalty to the new Protector of the Realm. Many served as champions who would lead lightning strike raids in the same style as Gotarzes, minus the low blows, proud in the wind that cut across their horses charges, torches in hand as they slowed the advance of the enemy in the north, closer to Rianorix’ armies.

With the peace between Roman Spain under Antes Gurges and the Kingdom, Vandalarius Magnificus Virs, meant to make those harboring the Gaetulians suffer as well. He instructed his onagers to lead a slow march with the Taifali riders and Rhomphaias, a brigade formed in honor of his late brother. The many Gothic archers would bait the Gaetulian thief and murderer out of the city he was looting, Segobriga, a municipium of some wealth and status, though declining, in central Iberia.

Vandalarius, who came to fight in the battle personally, wielding a long lance, drew two lines of pikes, with two brigades of the Rhomphia and an assortment of swords before our archers, who ignited their arrows, others screeching above the defenders towers. The Romans of Segobriga fought against us, knowing that allowing Aryamani to set foot there was all but a death sentence, besides, they wanted a victory, a fortification loyal to the Moor alliance that crossed southern Spain from Tingitania.

Vandalarius punished them from his range with onagers with flaming rounds that set a blaze in the hostile settlement. Panicking at the smoke that blew across the city in the hot summer air, choking them, the Romans, Noble Numidian skirmishers, Desert chieftains, and Amazigh spears of Gaetuli rushed forth to meet us as the barrage continued behind them.

Their horses reached our Rhomphaia and archers first. This was cause for concern, but Vandalarius with his comitus in hand had wanted the archers to take the brunt of the enemy charge, he ordered the sound on the cornicularis for the Taifali to burst forth from behind our ranks and hit at the flanks, while our concealed pikes rushed to impale the Gaetuli riders.

Calamity. What was once behind them, reached the forefront, with our onagers setting alight barns and shacks on the road from the city to the farmland where our troops seized the moment and made their full strength known.
Vandalarius hadn’t seen a battle in too long for his liking. He was fifty years of age, and he instructed his royal Saiones and Gardingus to headhunt for the Gaetuli leader Aryamani, in his black cloak that was ideal for hiding glittering jewels, but made him a glaring target on the battlefield.

He cast down his lance, planting it in a dead combatants, and wielded the sword of his father!

Noble Goths and Romans from the kingdom joined the Taifali flanking forces, who fired their short bows on the move, the last sizable army of semi-nomadic barbarians left in the west. They were accurate, and the fringes of the Segobriga Palatina defectors fell in lines from the men sharpshooting them from the dusty expanse between Vandalarius, who with his horses had made for the slingers and archers of the Gaetuli.

The Taifali were given one conviction by their leader, who spoke in their old Germanic language on a personal level, when he wasn’t bellowing commands in Latin to the main army: vengeance for the death of Odoacer two years past at Naples. The horse irons beat through cabbages and lettuce, trampling through the ash and torn turf.

The fiercest fighting occurred at a flaming pitch and peat shack on the edge of a ricket of fencing. The Numidian nobles braved the flames and out of the chaos there that consumed the men, met the horses of the Goths and Taifali. The men were crushed into the embers, and the Taifals had no cautions for the spears of the Amazigh who had sallied to protect what they had plundered. Aryamani the thief, the slayer of Odoacer the fearless, was near.

Aryamani began to wonder what he was fighting for, with these Germans willing to set their own country afire, but didn’t have to wonder for long. He was fighting for greed. The Black-Cloak had decided to defend all that was taken from Zaragoza, including the slaves put in yokes, rather than yield them to the advance into neutral territory by Vandalarius. It was the death of him, picked out from the glint of his gold earrings and speared from his horse. He wasn’t captured, nor killed, merely trampled with the rest, to be located after the fight had broken from the Romans. They were the last to yield to the attackers, when Vandalarius who resolved a fight with the returning lines of Numidian Javelins on horse, crushed them from behind. Aryamani had died rich, with a fortune of tales to his name as well. He had killed Odoacer and sacked a city loyal to the Kingdom, within the kingdom. He knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. His escape for a second time would have been worth all of the treasure laden carts they would have had to leave behind.

There was justice for Odoacer. Cniva pressed this advantage on Brigantium in the far west of Iberia. Chintila was now to be in my personal council, and the long battle for the security of Italy had found it’s way home, to be stamped out, delivering a respite from the Moor alliance for years to come. Chintila would have none of his mother’s request to disown the bastard born to him, whom he named Artachis, a bloody haired swarthy boy with the eyes of a cat.
He kept him on the premises of the palace in Rome as a toadie to the generals, without a care in the world for how uncouth and savage that would raise him to be. Soon the boy began starting with dice, then cards as soon as he could understand them, a child after his father’s heart. The men would let him win. The heir of Vithericus was a scallywag. I pleaded with Glismoda to stop convorting with Chintila. I had work to do with getting a royal wedding between the Domitia and Amalius together. Theodora was coming to Rome.

[Lugotorix]

Part III- VISIMAR OF DARDANIA AND THE WAR IN GAUL

479 A.D.

ROME

Chintila had summoned Theodora to the Roman center of the new three kingdoms, and made his intentions clear. Their children would be the first Roman children of the Amalius dynasty, he had promised. Who would refuse such a powerful young man, even defeated once, especially with the premature blessing of her father, Marius. Even the Eastern Romans who had exiled the Domitians from Constantinople could see the merits of the arrangement, as it put an Italian at the lead of the east and western hegemons. It was a marriage of two peoples, to cement the Romano Gothic Empire once more. Theodora of Constantinople was seen with the young man in Tarragon enjoying dinners, and even laughing, at his shyness, at his attempts to speak Latin fluently to her, her taking the initiative and switching to Germanic to please him, something the boy really needed a taste of. They often spent the nights in the same buildings, and some speculated that they couldn’t wait for their vows. Sooner than later, he proposed on the insistence of our narrator Odotheus, which brought the Illyrian governors in the east to our side in a firm commitment of peace. Given the number of Chintila’s years, the Domitians may yet sit in the Hagia Sophia of the Eastern empire in God’s new city once more

At the ball in Rome, celebrating the engagement of King Chintila to Theodora, Theodora spoke with the other leading ladies of the court, Sunilda, the wife of Magnificus Vandalarius, and Matasuntha, the wife of the host of the event, Odotheus, your narrator. Sunilda the surgeon was the most experienced of all these women, and she used this power of seniority to ask difficult questions that others wouldn’t dare.

‘His mother had faced the infidelity of late Witigis. He must know it drove her to an early grave. He will surely send his former lover Glismoda away before the marriage.’ Sunilda said, casually gossiping.

‘Better than being second to a dusty old book of Hebrews, suppose.’ Matasuntha answered, sticking a insult to Sunilda for having such audacity to mention Glismoda. Theodora was humble, and intelligent, just like Matasuntha. She wanted to stress the strengths of their men, rather than their weaknesses.

‘Tell me of the good charms that are waiting in marriage, Sunilda.’

‘Master warriors are good with their hands.’ Sunilda answered. ‘ He only has one good hand, so I suppose that evens the tables. But, Vandalarius never strayed in his faith even to Valdamerca his young flame and sister. Even a Taifali can go far in this kingdom, and I will say his position, and being Taifali gives him confidence. Being in control is better than oysters for marriage. I will say the good book has limited his adventurousness to try new things though, and having a serial widow of a mother with her scheming has always given him another woman to please first. He considers himself too distinguished and has lost his boyish curiosity. But he had something to prove, while Chintila will have success from here to the top, without obstacles I’d imagine.’

‘Odotheus never sleeps. He wakes me up three times a night, whether he’s writing or bursting out of bed to plot on the general’s maps. And sometimes its fun to try to take that vitality from him, to give myself needed rest. Or bring him to par with lesser men.’ Matasuntha added.

Now it was Theodora’s time to boast. ‘Chintila has already replaced all of the other women with me in his life. He is as respectful and humble to me as to his mother, and as ravenous in bed as with his former mistress. He sleeps like a rock, and never tell the clergy or parish of this, but he sleeps soundly after fully satisfying me, giving me the most comfortable, safe nights. He has use of both hands, and he fears my anger, as much as he feared his Caucasian and Hunnic captors. They’ve given him some instruction with the use of ropes.’

‘Sounds perfect. You’ll be happy as the wife to our liege when he becomes a man. Though to hear you tell it, he already has.’ Matasuntha purred.
‘ But I was not looking for their abilities, I was looking for their character.’ Theodora answered, in Latin.

‘ Oh. A true Roman raised as a hard working mason by Avidius, with a complexion as fair and blonde as Gothiscandzra. Kind, caring, and attentive of civilized virtues. When he doesn’t speak sweetness to me, he writes just as sweetly, an in good form.’ Matasuntha answered, smiling. She motioned that it was Sunilda’s turn to speak of Vandalarius.

‘Everyone knows Vandalarius is choleric. He lets me know my place if I tempt his anger, and I love it, I even feel pride when he castigates others, when he disciplines others with his temper he’s modeled after your kind which he loves dearly. Like I said, I like a man who puts himself in control. And his virtues, Christian as the Saint Guitifrida. A saint in marriage, and a fierce warrior in his fidelity. And defending it. I have never mentioned it, but I hope his protest of Valdamerca killed her of a broken heart.’ Sunilda was thrilled. ‘And your darling, handsome boy, the effigy of Eutharic without his faults and queerness? She asked.

‘This is what I mean to tell you. I watched him when we were children, and his intent was focal and brave. Something has snapped in his captivity. I don’t blame him, the Huns are monsters as he says. He’s humble, but listening to more than angels when he courts me. He fears not only God, not only me, but many other demons. He’s as mad as Odysseus’ men. He speaks of children already, but when he compliments me on my womanly waist, it’s as if he’s complimenting the thickness of a fatted calf. He thinks of everything in the world at once.’ She looked down sadly.

Sunilda was apologetic. ‘Dangerous men have always had an allure to them, and all with great minds are tinged with madness. Say nothing of his affliction to anyone, especially your father Marius. Godspeed to kill his Sirens before you are wed.’

The year 480 continued much as the previous years had for Vandalarius in the west, with not so much as a skirmish breaking out around Bordeaux. Vandalarius would be counting on young Sarus to make a name for himself if the war led to open hostilities before it’s end, given the vast territory the Caledonians had already gained in their breaking of peace. Theodulf returned to his wife, and would be called upon in this campaign as well, fighting the Caledonians. None of those who knew the truth of Erwig would speak of it again. Theodulf, at that time a younger man, was reaching an age as ripe as Vandalarius.

THE EASTERN THEATER

479- 481 A.D.

Witigis was the old lion in the east. And with his death, some suspected the new male would not be as strong as the previous one, nor as impervious to rebellion in the newly re-colonized land. Once the old lion has succumbed to his injuries, the new lion seizes control of his pride. Two parties in the east had this idea in mind. Visimar was favored by the late lord, and took control, but even given the man’s successes under Witigis, the Picts saw weakness to be exploited and the Picts were growing restless. With Chintila courting Theodora of the Domitians, a military alliance had been securing with her cousin to rule over Siscia, while Visimar emerged from being recalled to Italy in Scupi in Dardania. The second predators to seize the opportunity in the east were the Picts, who had settled to the north of Dardania in the old Quadrian lands, left vacate to the terror of the Huns. Mandubracios, Bogdugnatos and Iliatos were the first to turn on their hosts in 480, clashing against the Goths under Roderic in the early winter of 480 A.D. at Sirmium, emerging from the winter that put the hurt on their camps to the north, even as accustomed to the Caledonian winter as they were. They had no home to return to. The Jutes had taken most of Britain, leading to Hadrian’s Wall, and only the Irish held control of their island, with the Caledonians driven out of their ancestral home entirely, first by the coalition of Celts, and then by the Jutes.

Roderic’s Saiones fight for their burning settlement, so that all of it’s construction was not for the enemy

The walls had not yet been constructed that that which was standing was taken for granted by the invading Picts, who had migrated to Pannonia not that long ago. They could rebuild the stark buildings that stood in the snows, and they began razing the outskirts of the town, quick to kindle in the dry winter where snowflakes fell, while Roderic stayed to the town center, amidst the ruins of the older settlement that had seen the likes of Theoderic and Vithericus against the Huns at it’s height, before Attila himself lit a torch to it in it’s siege. Great pits of spikes were placed before the entrance to the governors building in the town, with caltrops and stakes waiting for the Pictish horsemen who had made it this far through the snows.

Roderic employed crossbowmen, an invention of the east on the walls, and they mowed down most of the approaching Mormaer and black blades: the hounds of the Picts, starving in winter were ferocious, but fell just as easily as the wild infantry of the Picts, raising their swords in the air in ’rah!’ and abandon to self preservation that threatened even the interior of the pikes that defended the entrances to the town center. The Celtic elite archers inflicted heavy casualties on the palatine of the Illyrians who served with us, and there was finger pointing after the battle, as to who had been left to the brunt of the attack, with most blaming Roderic, the servant of Visimar.

The Picts know one thing well, and that’s how to die bravely.



The charge of Roderic’s Saiones



Roderic meets Mandubracios the desperate invader at Sirmium

Mandubracios led this assault, and after he was killed in the several deft charges of the reserve Gothic lancers and Roderic’s own bodyguards who had been brought to the east by Witigis. The Picts were furthermore content to sack Sopianae until it was defended by Roderic again, who defeated Rudos and Illiatos, killing them both in the depths of winter and sending the Picts back into the obscurity of the snowfall, and their camps to the north with a fifth general Magurix.

Many Romans who had helped rebuild, mostly under the banner of Servius Afranius Tuberta, a relation of Agorius Tuberta, helped in the fight, and the Illyrians of Afranius pleaded to Visimar for more sovereignty, while Theodora’s cousin Priscus stayed at an arms length from his allies, spending the winter in Siscia in Dalmatia. They had fought for their country, beyond uprising, and they demanded more freedom as a result. They made their demands with or without Priscus.

Visimar saw this as a sign of insubordination, and he intended to show that he, not the favored general of Vandalarius sent to the east, Oppa, was in charge, by dealing with Tubertus severely. He demanded that the soldiers of Afranius pledge loyalty to him, and Chintila, above their regional governor.

I learned of the breaking of the military alliance between Illyria at Siscia and Visimar with panic. They didn’t take an oath to Visimar the beast-man and Chintila seriously, they were already locked into such oaths through the impending marriage of Theodora, and saw it as pure ambition from Visimar. The relationship was not in tatters, but Visimar did not take such insults lightly.

So without council or restraint, he killed Servius Afranius Tuberta, and captured Siscia for the Goths. This sent a shockwave that reached even Rome, where I was stationed, dealing with Roman insurgence myself. The Vandals cancelled the military passage they had previously allowed us, closing down the route from the seas to Caralis, as Tulga’s navy was occupied in the Adriatic. Macedonia followed suit and broke their military alliance with us, after Chintila refused to aid them in their war in the Levant in Palestine, seeking better relations with the Eastern Empire to mark his marriage. The bonds that had bound our peoples since the times of the Empire were gone.We could no longer rely on the Vandalic navies to contend against the Numidians for us, and we would have to attack them by a land invasion if we were to shut down the port of Hadrumentum sending ships against us. I learned that Priscus, the cousin of Theodora was alive an in a cell on Visimar’s orders as a hostage against further insurrection, and quickly went to inform my disciple Chintila of what he must do to save his marriage, and with him governing Tarragon, it would be me who would carry his wishes to Visimar.

Chintila was practicing archery when I reached him in the countryside outside of Tarragon. Bright targets were set up some twenty yards from him, and he had a quiver of long shafted arrows on his back. He was hitting nothing, and must be distraught about one thing or another.

I climbed off of Sturmwesson and reached the lord, bowing curtly. ‘My king.’ I began.

‘I am your student, why I’ve hit nothing but the fifth ring all today.’ Chintila answered, distracted, fetching an arrow.

‘The alliance with Priscus, our Domitian friend is in tatters. Visimar considers himself above the king’s law. Servius Afranius Tubertus, dead.’ I said, out of breath.

‘ A pity. There will be enough princes of the Domitians when our marriage is sealed, I suppose. Go to Sirmium and replace Visimar with Oppa for his stupid ambitions.’

‘Priscus lives, Chintila, mind you arm there, curl your fingers like you’re holding a spoon at a banquet, a spoon that weighs two stones, before you loose.’ He adjusted his arm, and prepared to loose the arrow. He gained better accuracy and loosed into the inner part of the third ring. ‘There, give mercy and reinstatement to your wife’s kin. We can’t lose the good graces of the Romans who’ve remained in the east and built it back to what it is today.’

‘Thank you, teacher. That’s good, but it’s too late, I want Visimar out for not consulting me.’ He smiled at me, and passed his quiver to a squire.

‘Vandalarius would be pleased with Oppa at the head of the east, but pleased still with him taking another position in the chaos of the east, perhaps magistrate, but Visimar is popular to the men, he has your late father’s blessing, I know that’s a reason for competition, but allow me to talk to Visimar. If I tell him you are representing the wishes of Theodora, he will keep the loyalty of the Illyrians intact, and Priscus will remain governor under our protection. With both of them elevated, we would have gained land and no love from Visimar’s decision.’

‘Clever Odotheus. But only if you tell my wife to be that it was my idea. And the people too.’

‘Of course, Chintila, I’ve already told the people, I waited to tell your wife in the event you disagreed. Thank you, Majesty.’

‘Remarkably clever. You are welcome, teacher. And who has killed Servius? The dog of the misshapen Visimar, Roderic?’

‘Yes, the hero of Sirmium and Sopianae.’ I wondered why he would ask who had committed the act, over who had given the order.

‘No need for further tension. Have him placed in Dyrhacchium, the Caucasians fleets come up that way now that I’ve called Tulga back to defend Caralis.’

‘Are you suggesting we endanger the general’s men?’ I asked. I must remain in the pretense of goodness even if I saw the shrewdness in it.

‘Dead men rarely get blame. For my bride, do this for me.’ He said sternly.

Roderic had used the palatine as a brunt from the Pictish attack. The methods were unethical, but it would not be me making the decisions. I nodded my head and left him to his archery.

Visimar, who I had never previously met, was more than agreeable. He had a rough appearance of a Roman that had mated with a beast, with grotesque features, perhaps due to one marriage or another, with carrot colored hair, and skin that did not burn. His deformity would usually exclude a man from leading, but when incensed he could look quite fearsome, and the men tolerated his handicap. He seemed very pleased when I mentioned that Oppa was going to be appointed as a Judge rather than take his military position. I knew the truth of it when he smiled at the thought of Roderic being sent to the south of Epirus. I had gauged him correctly. He wanted no one else to succeed, but he was someone I could deal with, not as unbecoming to dispatches from home or reason as his predecessor Witigis. He explained to me that vassals such as the Illyrians were, quickly became headstrong, and had to be nipped in the bud, before independence turned to war, capture of territory that could spread like wildfire from lands recently granted acres of land, and numerable serfs to fight for them. He had an arrogant streak, like Witigis, but was at home with a bow, an excellent sniper who had repaid the Picts at Savaria for challenging him, sacking it before returning home.

The power hungry nature of the man, arrogant, was disguised by a likable wit, and he reinstated Priscus to replace Tubertus as governor of Siscia. Chintila’s fiancée was overjoyed that her kin had been spared, and our Roman troops grumbled that accidents happen in war, but were relieved that the problem had been corrected by Chintila, which helped his security in Tarragon immeasurably, surrounded by Romans.

Roderic was in Domavia when the cunningly brutal edict had came for him. Raiding forces of Kartli under Monobazus attacked the town and Roderic was killed by a fire to his tent during the flash raid where he sacked Domavia of one thousand two hundred and three sesterces. I made the sign of St. Matthew and the cross at the price of Roderic’s life, before writing to Visimar that Roman loyalty would never be higher, and united against any other Caucasians who might attack, at that. The mark of Iscariot indeed.

The winter of 480 passed into 481. My tutelage of Chintila in the art of war continued, and the grand wedding of Theodora and Chintila was planned for all of the people of Rome to behold. People would flock from Tarragon and Caralis to the eternal city to witness the event. Cniva and Theodulf mustered armies in Spain, before turning for Bordeaux to break the blockade. My relationship with Visimar also grew through a series of letters, where I learned that aside from his drive to be lonely at the top, was normal and relatable enough of a man, with many interests in common, such as writing, a lost art from early Roman times.

I had one last thing to prove to Cniva, my former master and his many children, out of love for my wife, and I did this, before I learned that a skirmish with Abudos the Caledonian and Theodulf had turned into a battle. The winter that was turning to spring made men impetuous, and the patrols had met an army, and upon fighting it in a few skirmishes, demanded bloodshed from their larger contingents. Theodulf had obliged: he now had a son of fighting age to fight for, Erwig. The western front at Bordeaux, and Gaul, was now a war zone.

Theodulf had victory, but was unable to press into Gaul until Vandalarius and his armies were on the move. Vandalarius had been keeping order near Brigantium, and he returned in time to learn that a proper war was beginning, with no turning back.
I went to Matasuntha to tell her that we would be leaving for Rome for the wedding, and I was astonished by the elation on her face. I could barely contain my excitement as I waited for confirmation. I suspected what it was immediately. If the wedding had been in Tarragon she would have to travel by sea. She could not do this, as she then told me, to my joy, that she was with a son, that she could tell by the way he kicked. In truth I had planned it. A bright boy of bright parents I beamed. I would name him Alaric II of the Balti after our Visigothic king and ally in the fourth century. His blood ran through my veins, and the veins of the unborn child. What I didn’t yet know, that for my wishes of vanity, it ran through the veins of Matasuntha as well.

[crucify_ego]

This is like Game of Thrones. Too many characters!

[Lugotorix]

This is like Game of Thrones. Too many characters!

In Attila, your family tree and 'other nobles' are huge by the this time. Be more specific! Who do you like, and who's got to go?

[Lugotorix]

ACT V: THE ONE SWORD OF THE ROMANO-GOTHIC EMPIRE

Prologue: The Thundering of a Thousand Hooves- The Taifali on the Move

481 A.D.

Aquitania

Draco- The world-eater, the Ormhir of the Taifali. The flowing white banners of the House of Theoderic blew in the wind, the shields held the visage of the dragon consuming it’s tail in bright blue, and they rode, two thousand strong in heavy horse, with their shield prows tied to their backs, their short bow tied with red and blue twine at their hips, scabbards at their waists with gilded swords, and comitus lances in their grasp.

The priests walked with the infantry, which streamed through the hills, gleaming light off their armor in the spring sun, holding crosses. Idols except the Draco standard were forbidden by their lord, as stated by the commandments, Vandalarius, who rode on his tawny horse, a blinded falcon on his broken hand garbed in a leather bib, with his son, Sarus, a grim one with boyish good looks, a thick goatee, and haunting eyes, and Theodulf, with his drooping mustache and bright cerulean eyes. Vandalarius was older now, and wisps of stringy grey mingled with the straight blonde lion’s mane, but still thin and fit for battle. He was like Caesar, Augustus reborn, with a military career that defied expectations and respect around the civilized world as a byword for tactical genius and heroism. His name was an omen itself, owing to the Roman name of Vithericus the boy prince who had founded an empire after Adrianople.

The hills rolled before and behind them and they taxed the horses, each hand-picked by the champion riders of the Taifali who had again flocked to Vandalarius’ banner in Bordeaux, now in the hazy humidity of central Gaul, riding towards uncertainty on unforested ground, looking for confrontation from Rianorix, who had been too brave and battled Theodulf earlier in the past year.

The men scraped at their rations of barley from their pockets and pouches, they were expected to keep themselves strong, because the fight could be upon them at any time. Sarus ate an apple, and murmured to his father: ‘The patrol has been gone too long. Rianorix the invader of the Aquitaine is near.’

‘You’re eating, son? Better to sharpen your blade. I want you to remain with the archers, no chances. Remember what I told you, the men expect me to fight, but you and your lads will serve a better purpose in defense of our missile lines.’ He patted the nape of his falcon’s neck, the bird looked annoyed and darted it’s head in avoidance.

‘If they’ve met battle, the Caledonians will be settling in, eating while they can. This raptor will tell us the truth of it. She hasn’t fed in a day. If she’s not hungry when she returns, whether from things scared up by foraging or the carcasses of our men, we’ll know how close they are by when she returns.’

They did learn. Vandalarius rubbed the thin blood on his thumb and pointer finger, not the gore you would see from a hare or ermine’s guts. The falcon returned with the unmistakable blood of a man on her beak. They had been marching since the early morning, and she had returned quickly, just as the sun was high above them, and in two hours, they would meet with Rianorix, confident in his spears and Cateran warriors ability to fight against the many horses he heard in tremors across the hills.

Sarus yearned more than anything else for war. The Taifali had not joined them and in such thundering numbers, for nothing. As foederati, they would be given the promise of settling on the lands around Lugdunum once it was taken through battle. He wanted to achieve the level of respect his father commanded in the military: Sanguine, he lusted for bloodshed, a fact concealed by his handsome smile at banquets. He had sharp wits, and his father told him that could take him far, but none knew better than Epillos that the key to breaking the morale of the men was killing those with rank and nobility. Sarus would be targeted in the battles to come. His father was a warrior second to none in a fight, and at Sarus’ side was the second best sword in the Kingdom, Theodulf, but Sarus worried obsessively about his father’s strength in the later years of his life.

A single failure of the joints and bones could mean death, if he led from the front. He had seen the mightiest man in the kingdom fall to a knee once and grunt in winter pains, and that gave him a sense of perspective. Upon his father’s back was the sword of Theoderic, his grandfather, the sword that had attracted so many of his countrymen to the Gothic side, even after Grey-Hair’s betrayal. Sarus had been sure to sire heirs with the Taifali women, to ensure their loyalty in the years to come. Marrying into the Amalius was not a priority for a lineage of generals. It would take yards of nepotism to erase his father and his father’s fathers contribution to the Goths.
Rianorix had been brave and confident, but having his men on foot except for the Mormaers meant that they could not run from the coming fight. He and his nobles and their bodyguards were heavily armored elite archers, which made them even slower on foot, and chainmail did little when crushed by the kick of a horse’s shoe.

If the army had a strength, it was their huge number of elite archers, making the horses easy targets, with the spears and Caterans being more numerous than the riders alone. So it began when the banners of Rianorix, the golden swan of the Scotti was sighted, with the thundering of a thousand hooves, and the bleating of pipes.

The Taifali could fire their bows on horseback, and they ran in diagonal waves across the front of the Caledonian lines, strafing. It was strange, to a cultured man like Sarus, that his own kind saw more sport in the art of fighting than practicality. There had been grumbling when the devout Christian father had forbidden the taking of trophies, which the steppe people, and the Caledonians for that matter, believed contained the souls of their enemies.

Theodulf vies with the armored archers, who carry swords and fighting spirt

The giant onagers of the Gothic army rained fire into the din between the Romans and the Scotti. The lines of crashing horses were disjointed as each was assigned by the Magnificus Virs Patriaciae to attack different regiments of the enemy archers, while the three regiments of Roman infantry that marched with the army were directed to hold a central line, as stretched as they could be, against the Cateran. The tartans and hide armors were bright on the field as the horses spilled around and circled this central line, governed more by their captains whim, than the instructions of Vandalarius. Vandalarius and his Saiones from Bordeaux themselves, bolted straight for the elite archers, who mowed down the Gothic lancers that broke for them at the battle’s onset.

Rianorix had two onagers with him for the battle, which were deadly against the horses, and it was among them that the generals met with the Royal archers of Caledonia. Sarus was bored on the back lines, and took five of his men to fight what trouble they could on the edge of it all.

Meanwhile, Vandalarius did what he did best from his armored horse, killing as a master of the blade. He held the sword of Theoderic before him, and slashed through the enemy with broad strokes. He told himself he had never wielded it better, but in truth, age was getting the better of his will to carry such a massive blade. He was a master of horse as well as the sword, and it was that which kept him safe in the battle. The sword failed him, having two much cumbersome reach in toughest encounter he had in the fight, and he was forced to strangle one of the Royals of Rianorix with his bow string. The arrows continued to fall among his riders, felling many of them, and Vandalarius panicked. The Cateran, with the three plumes on their helms, a relic of ancient times, were rushing back to assist their master. He stabbed franticly and punched at anyone, friend or foe who came near him. No assurances of prayer could make guarantees for a man who was past his prime. It was a queasy sight, how the arrows lapsed muscles seconds after they found their berth, taking all of the fight from a man and replacing it with squirming pain in an instant. The arrows choked the sky. God above, who did he think he was to contest the trajectory of so many material wooden and steely things. God could not prevent them sinking into earth and flesh, nor pull them from where they had landed.

He knew immediately, that the thick of battle was no long for him. His heart could no longer take the stress of not knowing if the next moment would be his last. Age and the loss of Valdamerca had done this to him. He had a strong son and a legacy, and a king, it was as good a time as ever to receive a safe retirement.

Just as this charge seemed lost, with many of the lancers slain incoming from arrows, over the hill, he saw the banners of those who had finished with their own enclaves of the fight, the heavy horse riding downhill to crush the Royals under the weight of their own armor. Vandalarius grunted as he pulled his sword and fastened it to his back, having to be more cautious, calling for a lance to be used to pierce the routing archers. There was still a threat from Rianorix’ men who had kept to the sides, but they too were hunted by the overwhelming numbers of Taifali. They would loot these men, and take their lands for their own. The Caledonians, invited to the lands of the Gothic empire, would be nothing but slaves to a more savage steppe people.

After the battle has turned into a breaking of the entire Caledonian army, Sarus and Theodulf rushed to their master. Theodulf looked disapprovingly as Vandalarius was shaken from the fight, and limped off his horse, swaying, hard to keep his balance now. Sarus rushed to help his father keep his footing, but Vandalarius cautioned him. ‘Away boy, you’re not the stronger of these two stags yet.’

But Sarus was, and Vandalarius stumbled around at the sight of his dead stallions, full of arrows, and the many dead Caterans the littered the hills, and finally fell to a knee. He began praying on his knee, mumbling the Lord’s prayer, and the looking to the heavens.

The war was now at full tempo. Peace would only come with beating the Caledonians in Gaul to a pulp. So Theodulf was ordered by the general who retired to Bordeaux to march on Lugdunum, and take the first hold of the enemy, to punish them for their pernicious loitering around his capital!

WINTER IN BORDEAUX

481 A.D.

The winter of 481 would be the last for Vandalarius. He stopped eating regularly, and became thin, his hair fading to silver from the golden blonde it had once been. After time, he could no longer wear the weight of the armor of Vithericus, and instead dressed in a blue tunic with black woolen leggings to keep him warm in the cold halls of Bordeaux.

He was tended to by his wife Sunilda and his son Sarus, but had the most concern for his soul, having killed so many men. His second concern, was that although once the winter passed Theodulf would besiege Lugdunum, Epillos, the former husband of his mother, would outlast him in the war. Who would carry the name of Vandalarius when he was gone. It had gone to him as his Gothic name, but it was the name of Vithericus the cruel as well, like the name Caesar of old. And his third concern, was what would become of the military dictatorship that he had ruled over for so long. There would be no surprises. Beastly Visimar was unfit for anything beyond his domain in the east, besides the man scared small children. Chintila was the governor of Tarragon, unskilled in military matters, and could still yet learn from he who had learned from Cniva. Cniva, had many loyal sons, Vithericus who served in Italy, Geberic who held a magistrates position in Spain, and Athanagild who was a promising captain, but was growing old himself. Theodulf with his secrets of Erwig would be the target of Visimar out of jealousy, but Odotheus, Odotheus had survived the wars of the pagan isles and Italy, and had almost no enemies. He had the ear of the King Chintila. He was most fit to be the high military commander, master of foot, and master of horse, magister miletum.

Vandalarius weighed this against his duty. He had promised Chlotsuintha that he would restore the King to the head of the state and the army. His very title was a protector. So it was with a heavy heart that he felt it was his divinely mandated duty to give sole power to Chintila. He wrote this in a letter to I, Odotheus, to be opened at the time of his death. I was to serve Chintila, and he would take no further delegation to my authority. Vandalarius wandered the halls of Bordeaux at night, mostly thinking of his lost Valdamerca, writing regularly to her sister Eliande, in the court of the Danes, while the war waged between captains and small sorties in central Gaul. Soon he began to slip, and mistakenly called Sunilda as Valdamerca before being reminded by his son. He spoke of his long dead brother Liuva, and battles long past. The poets had said that God has made no weaker creature on the earth than a man, and so the greatest warrior was brought to weakness by the descent of his mind. The body was strong and able, but the mind could no longer master itself.

By the end of winter, Vandalarius had passed in his bed, and his son Sarus made way for the west of Gaul to seize Lugdunum with Theodulf.

When I presented the letter I had received in Rome regarding Vandalarius’ will to Giboneus Valens, he called it a forgery and went to tell my master, Lord Cniva that he believed it to be false. Chintila was unstable, and with his wedding approaching did not need to be worried with absolute authority regardless. Being a master of the pen, I recognized the writing as authentically Vandalarius’ but said nothing, not wanting to confront my friends that they favored me to continue teaching the young king.

Giboneus and Cniva told Theodulf before he made the final journey for Lugdunum, that the letter must be a forgery, and Theodulf agreed that Vandalarius would have signaled me to command. To which Sarus’ replied jokingly, that the authentic will must have named him as the successor. Seeing that matters were spiraling out of control, I told my friends that they should not tell Visimar anything and that I would bring the High Protector’s letter to the king himself and see what he thought of it.

Chintila was having a party with Theodora when I returned to him in Rome. I asked about the wedding preparations, and told him that Vandalarius had given him power to make decisions for the Kingdom on his own. I produced the letter to back up the claim.

Chintila had been drinking for the earlier part of the night, but was sober enough to discuss this with me. He told me that he wasn’t ready for the power yet, being very young, and that he had obligations in Tarragon as governor. He then asked me; ‘These men think I forged it myself?’

‘Of course not. There are others. Huneric, master of spies, Visimar of Dardania. With respect, they see you as malleable.’ I stated warily. It was within the young king's power to remove those he saw as a threat to him. I was too loyal for my own good. I would have walked willingly to my execution that night.

‘I’d rather give the scepter to you than risk a coup by these wayward sons. I acknowledge this will to be real. And as my first order, I disavow it, and name you to the high command to carry the name Vandalarius, after hallowed Vithericus and the Magnificus. But them, all those who doubted Vandalarius, they will be punished and work their way up by my measure of success. If Giboneus Valens wishes to serve you entirely, let him carry your bags, strip him from his captain’s rank in the palatine of Rome. He’ll be naturalized as a Goth if he has such say in our affairs. Now leave me to my future wife.’

Giboneus would not be happy to hear the news. I had secured the command, and the military would continue to rule. I was impressed with the restraint and humility of Chintila. He had been offered everything and turned it down. This was a promising virtue in a ruler. In addition, his first task to me was to reconstruct the city of Salona which had been destroyed with the death of Vithericus. It would be the first gesture to restoring the Empire. Although this meant I would have to travel to Visimar’s lands as a guest, and leave my beloved Italy to the defense of Vithericus, son of Lord Cniva, and the dispossessed Giboneus. Already, a young captain Ermanaric, was making a name for himself, redoubting the attacks of the Gaetulians and Garmantians in Sicily. He would be looking for a chance to prove himself.

Later in the night of telling Giboneus of Chintila’s plan, I walked along the Tiber to the armory of Giboneus. He was understandably tense, and swore that he would distinguish himself even in the eyes of someone who had singled him out for ridicule, the Gothic way, if need be.

Within was the armor and helm of Filimer my late father, with it’s golden plume, king of the Balti. Who was I, Cut-wood a man of scars, knowledge and battles, not to wear it? Matasuntha, who carried my child, the child of the High Protector called Vandalarius and namesake of the Visigothic King. She had said this, and I believed her.


EDIT- INDEX UPDATED IN ORIGINAL POST FOR EASIER READING