[RS 2.1a Roman (Auxiliary) AAR] Legacy Of The Father [COMPLETE]

[Knonfoda]

Lovely, you kept your promise and updated yesterday after all! I would have read it last night, but I was very tired and preferred to savour it fresh this morning (er, early afternoon!)

I like how you have included the little scene with Borbrentas consort (I forget her name) and I particularly liked this line:

"our children shall continue the line for a hundred years or more"

Reminded me a lot of "And Commodus and his progeny will rule for a thousand years..." and I like the angle you are going for, making Borbrentas a slightly bloodthirsty and apparently divinely inspired conqueror, confident in his mission and his destiny to rule Germania... like Ybbon said, a dangerous game I think.

[McScottish]

Up And At Them, Part II – Summer 631 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Let me tell you now, friend, that there is a fine line between power and the abuse of said mightiness, an abuse which I had so far managed to avoid slipping into. Not through a lack of advantage and power, you understand, but simply because it was not how I was inside. The conquering of Germans was something I was destined to do, ordained by the Gods to complete, and had to finish lest I give them cause to smite me.

It is only when I think about wealth, glory and power that I realise, at this time in my life, at twenty-six years of age, that I realise how much I could possibly have achieved. Had I wanted to I could have made myself Augustus without much in the way of resistance. All those fine and bold military commanders of past ages were decrepit old men by now, Publius Augustus was nearly seventy and his son was a weakling when compared to his father, one that could be controlled by a steadier hand and more coercive force.

Anyway, enough of this, back to the tale at hand.

I sat atop my mount, wearing a simple Germanic garb, my hooded and cloaked grandfather looking as much like Germanic father of the Gods, Wuotan also known as Woden. This deity, who I believe was one I did see in my meeting with them, was the supreme God of the Germani after Tiwaz and worshipped by all true tribes of that name, wolves and ravens being sacred to him and his blessings bringing victory in battle to whomever was the true victor.

Past me marched those Gallic folk I had had bought to Germania, many of them looking disconcerted at walking through the thick and dark forests, each gazing about him as if every tree and patch of undergrowth held within it a black-clad German warrior ready to leap forth, baying for his soft Gaulish blood.

North we went, mostly in silence, Geminus sending fourth our light horsemen of the Cenomanii to scout ahead, trusting in them to give us an early warning of any danger.

Unlike all others, myself and Marcus excluded, Gislin, Berengar and Avidius all appeared to be rather enjoying this excursion into enemy lands. When I asked them why this was, why their mirth was so great in the face of such danger, they exclaimed as one that it was nothing they had not faced before and would gladly face again, inter-tribal warfare to the Germani what extending the borders of the empire are to the Romani. Yet, for all that, even I found it a little difficult to rise entirely at ease along winding trails and over rough cattle tracks, through Mattiaci lands and ever northward towards the territory of the Cherusci.

We passed few villages on our way, though I am certain there must have been a large number out there, in the depths of the woodlands, German civilians liking to keep themselves concealed when it comes to war. The way in which these supposedly barbaric people obscured their settlements from prying eyes, building them simply from wood and clay, had always fascinated me.

What they could fail to hide, however, was the largest settlement in the region, with each region having one, a town or village that acted as a trading and meeting place for the tribe and as their administrative centre. If I was to quash any and all opponents , then these very places were the ones I was required to take in the name of my cause.

During the march, especially long ones, as any soldier will tell you, it is more than necessary to have activities and such to speed away the hours of boredom. I was lucky enough, on those hot days of riding and long, cold, nights, to have both company to keep me warm and companions to keep me preoccupied.

Gislin, of course, was beneath my blanket, we did not even hide it any more, for all knew where my heart truly lay and what we two were about. Even if it was the smooth and athletic body of a German man and not the soft and warm figure of my bride-to-be, it was a fine feeling all the same. Meanwhile, when on the march or stopping at a roadside, my two Germans taught continued to teach me their language, customs and traditions, as well as how I should present myself to the people which it was my heavenly duty to conquer and rule.

Grandfather Marcus in the meantime taught me how to use, what to the Romani at least, is considered to be the Dacians national weapon. The falx, simply being the Latin word for any curve-bladed or sickle-like implement, was indeed a hard instrument to master, requiring two hands to wield effectively and therefore necessitating the lack of a shield to protect the warrior carrying it. Nonetheless, as was revealed to me, it could be used in many different ways and manners, from the hooking and dragging away of a shield to the minutely precise severing of arteries, limbs and heads from bodies.

**********

As we trudged forth, the men tired and blown from the days exertions, but still with miles to cover, there was a small disturbance at the rear of the column. It required me to ride back and observe the cause of this disruption myself, which I did with all the haste I could muster.

When I came upon the rearmost men, one already had hold of a horses reigns and was leading the steed, and man atop it, toward me. For a moment I did no recognise the Corinthian helmet of bronze, obscuring the wearers face, but I did remember that I only knew one such person who wore one, and so stretched my horses legs further.

“Polymestor, you old dog!” I shouted by way of greeting, the Greek raising an open hand in return, a smile appearing beneath the shadow of the helmet, “hail, Borbrentas and it is a pleasure to see you. Off to slay some Germans I hear...without a drop of Roman blood wasted?”

I told him everything, how could I not, about the Gods and the quest they had set for me and how I intended to unite Germania under my leadership and rule. At first he looked quite sceptical but, as I proceeded in my tale, he began to nod his head and, when I had finished, took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Chieftain of all Germania, ey? Well, if anyone I know can achieve such a feat then it is you. Let me warn you though, you may have been curious as to where I went so that you could not even find me. Let me tell you, I was in Latium and the centre of the world. You Romans sure are very impressive, as are your armies, so as a friend to another friend, do not get on the wrong side of the Emperor.”

Smiling at this, I gave a shrug of my shoulders and looked him in the eye, “Publius is weakening, everyone knows it. Titus sits in the east and laps up the decadence there, waiting for the Armenians to cross over his border so that he may have another cause for war and land. Publius the Younger, governor of Dacia, is no threat to me and my ambitions.” He was not convinced, I could tell by the look in his eyes, yet he let me finish, “then there is the last of the Maximus lineage which extends from the earliest days of the Res Publica.”

Polymestor, as shrewd a Greek as ever there was, knew exactly what I was going to say next before I even spoke the words, “you want his support, do you not? If you have hid backing then you can control him and, if a time comes, use him as a puppet for the Imperial throne.”

“Get me his support, Polymestor. Get me his support.”



- B. M. Laenas

[McScottish]

Only a short'un, but we're getting to the blood-letting very soon.

[Boustrophedon]

Excellent! some blood-letting never hurt anyone...oh wait!

[Knonfoda]

Getting ambitious now are we?! He doesn't even have Germania yet, and already he casts his eye on the Empire itself!

A nice update. I am really enjoying the training with the falx, I can't wait to see it unleashed in battle, as it will make a nice change from the shield and gladius style of fighting. I also enjoyed the little recap at the top of what else is going on in the Empire.

+ rep so we can get to this 'blood letting'

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. McScottish, you work is perfect for the AAR Anthology idea that SBH has had:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post11183254

You work definitely reads like a novel, a very good one at that, you already have a previous AAR finished, and there are no pictures. I can't think of a better candidate!

[Justinian Australis]

Yep, agree on the AAR anthology. it would be the first one I'd choose to go in.

[McScottish]

I am honoured, as always, by your words, my fellow writers-in-AARdom. I have expressed my interest in that very thread and shall now get back to the work at hand, pulling a battle scene out of the black hole that is my mind.

[Ybbon]

Well frankly I'm a little disappointed with Borbrentas, he has such trivial ambition, talking with Gods, king of all Germania and to be the power behind the throne - is that all? Should be aiming to take over the known World as a minimum

As I said in the Boid AAR, the writing fits the character snugly.

[McScottish]

Well frankly I'm a little disappointed with Borbrentas, he has such trivial ambition, talking with Gods, king of all Germania and to be the power behind the throne - is that all? Should be aiming to take over the known World as a minimum

As I said in the Boid AAR, the writing fits the character snugly.

One step at a time Ybbon, one step at a time... They shall all bow down to his majesty, yes they shall.

[McScottish]

Up And At Them, Part III – Summer 631 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was the night before battle, and all through the forest, nothing was stirring, not even some cattle. We had ridden and marched through so-called Cherusci lands, without seeing a single living soul, before I finally found it too strange and, turning to Avidius at my side, asked him why this was and where all the people were.

“It is quite simple, my chief,” he said with a broad smile, always finding it amusing to use such a title with me, “if you are a ferocious tribe and to be feared, then all land around your territory is clear of any living human life. Your enemies dare not accept the challenge of encroaching upon it, and your own people live nearer to areas where they could protect themselves if attacked, showing that the tribe can protect its own an that they are not to be tangled with.”

I asked him then, if that was the case, where all the fighting men were and why we had not been assaulted yet ourselves. This too he had an answer for, as well I thought he should, for it was his land after all and, though I was to lead them ultimately, his people as well.

“A tribal levy is a large and unwieldy tool for all but the strongest of war leaders to gather and then lead into the fray. Your Chatti are exceptional in that they carry their own rations, go on campaigns instead of simply fighting pitched battles, and have some rudimentary knowledge of siege-craft as well. You chose a good tribe to subdue,” the smile widened on his thin face and I saw a small gleam in his eye, though the cause of it I did not know, “I imagine that all men of fighting age and ability are being gathered near the largest settlement, before they decide to face us in battle. This takes time, effort, and the promise of glory and earthly rewards, our people liking singular battles to decide the fate of people and nations.”

It all made sense, and our Cenomanii scouts, Gauls bought from over the Alps, for Germanic cavalry was inferior as a scouting group, had indeed bought back reports that there was a large gathering of Germans to the north-east of my position and just east of the unnamed settlement we intended to besiege.

“Very good, Avidius, thank you. We march a few miles further and then stop for the night, darkness is drawing in and I want some sleep before these Germans are both organised and ready to fight.”

**********

“You see Borbrentas,” grandfather said to me, sliding a whetstone along the inner curve of the falx placed across his cloak-covered lap, “these 'falxes', as the Romans call them, were originally developed out of agricultural tools. You have probably heard of the Thracian rhomphaia, a straighter and less cumbersome weapon, but a cousin to the falx nonetheless. Anyway, what the 'civilised' seem to think of as the weapon of our nation, was created to be used against other peoples within Dacia and outside its borders. Celts, Illyrians, Thracians and so forth. Opponents both less disciplined than good Dacian warriors and armoured in an inferior manner, Dacian smiths as good as any out there, something your Roman officers likely did not tell yo, or me for that matter.”

He started to cough, bending in the middle, clutching the wooden haft of the falx with one hand and his stomach with the other, curled into a fist around the stone he held in his grasp. When he finally recovered, after a few minutes, he continued from where he had been forced to stop, his cheeks red and his eyes watering.

“When the Romani came, they came with mail and broad shields, armour on their torso, head and shins, after they fought us they used it on their forearms too. There are many targets on a man, my boy, many of which you already know how to strike with a sword or spear. The neck, the back of the knee, the wrist, forearm and elbow, places to disable a man or sever a limb at least. This weapon, wielded correctly, will do just that and more.”

Handing the falx over to me, convinced that it was suitably sharp, he bade me follow him to a small section of the woods, where the air was clear, and the moon shone down on the both of us from on high. No prying eyes gazed at us from the surrounding forest, the trees rather too thin in number for a possible ambush anyway, my grandfather clad only in his tunic and cloak and me in but the plain undyed tunic of a Roman soldier.

“Kneel,” he said to me, gesturing to a large rock before which I would kneel, “you already have my fathers sica, so draw it.”

My hand went to the sheath and weapon that sat ever at my side, the curved knife sliding silently from the fur-lined sheath to be held gently in one fist.

“Now, draw it across you palm, not too deep now, and smear the blood upon the rock before you.”

This I did without question, my face wincing slightly as I drove a shallow cut through my palm, turning my hand and smearing what blood came forth onto the cold exterior of the moss-speckled stone.

“Now, into the position of supplication.”

I got onto one knee, stretching my arms and hands, palm upwards, toward the sky , closing my eyes and raising my head heavenward. When this was done, Marcus began to chant in his own tongue, a tongue I knew little of, calling on all the Gods and there help in giving me protection and strength in battle. I heard the names of many war deities, Ares, Tiwaz, Mars and more, before I was told to open my eyes and rise to my feet.

“Now, hold your weapon firm and stand still.”

Grasping my palm and squeezing it tightly, drawing as much blood forth as he could, before binding it with some material from an old and worn German tunic, he smeared my own red essence across my face and chest which I bared to the elements. He looked more like some deity or soothsayer of doom than he ever had before, daubing me with my own blood in patterns which were unknown to me, bringing the Gods above and below to attention and to witness my preparation for battle.

“Rest easy now, my son. Tomorrow the enemy will arrive and battle shall be joined, we shall have victory and the Cherusci will bow down before you.”

It was not my place to question how he knew things that would come to pass, so I did not. Only remembering what he had said when all was done, and seeing that he was right.

**********

I saw the way Geminus looked at me, staring down at me from atop his mount and amidst his bodyguard, as I walked back and forth along the front lines of my Gallic force.

Dressed only in a pair of loose-fitting trousers, doe-hide shoes and covered in my own blood from the face down to the waist, carrying a two-handed sickle that was nearly as tall as me, it was no wonder the look he had on his face was one of contained and nearly hidden disgust. It was the disgust of one who had been in the enveloping hands of the civilised world too long, one who may have been born to hardship but would never willingly go back to it, now that he had attained position and status amongst his peers and his betters. Nevertheless, he had never gone afoul of me before, and I trusted him both to win this battle and with my life.

Avidius and Berengar, both attired in the way of their tribe, each carrying a throwing spear, a longer stabbing spear, a round shield and the single-edged short-sword popular with their own people, stood one on either side of me. They were to be my two guardians in the heat of battle, protecting my flanks from the attacks of spearmen and others, for what use was a falxman if he was simply dispatched by some low-born goat herder with a piece of iron attached to a stick?

Our, or rather my, army were positioned on the rise of hills which extended west and east all along the place of battle. The enemy chief, a figure named Brinno, having decided to meet us here instead of before the walls of his city. It was a wide valley, covered in thin patches of forest and trees standing alone, the entire field rising and falling as if at random to create much varied terrain that particularly favoured neither force. A second German army, the garrison of the Cherusci 'capital', under a lesser noble called Segestes, had come to join with Brinno and it was my intention to annihilate both together, before marching forth and plundering a defenceless city.

Brinno came on as the unwitting savage always does, spreading his forces out into a thin line in an attempt to overlap, flank and envelope our own. Before me, our light infantry, Insubrian youths that had not yet killed a man, as well as hunters from the forests of Gallia armed with their favoured weapon, spread out in a line of equal length to meet them, our Ligurian and Cenomanii cavalry riding to the farthest reaches of our left flank and waiting. Behind me, with Geminus in their centre, the main body of Gallic infantry had been formed into a much denser and more compact formation of two lines of patient and disciplined infantry forged using Roman methods.

At a word from my African senator the skirmishers and cavalry threw themselves forward, the moving line of hair and war-paint that was the Germans already battering aside undergrowth and beating a rhythm on their shields as they came toward us. The tempo was a medium one, allowing a man to walk at a quick pace, their throats rising in the Germanic war-chant known as the barritus as they came forth, men to my rear meeting my eye as I turned about, and I saw genuine fear there.

My blood was already up, I could feel it moving in my veins and pounding in my ears, and let me tell you, whoever you may be that is reading this, that you have no felt the thrill of battle until you have felt the barbaric battle-lust of the barbarus.

The thrill of battle between the Roman and the foreigner can not be more different.

Calculating, disciplined, sharpened and honed to a white-hot point that melts opposition like liquid iron through butter. Everything from the constant drill of the gladius, to the building of fortifications at the end of the march, to the hierarchy and more, these things are what make the Roman army, an army composing of legion after legion and cohort after cohort, able to grind down an adversary into dust. The thrill of such combat amongst them is one of a stern iron will, though the sight of enemy blood will always arouse the barbarian in even the most civilised man.

On the other hand, the barbarian, whether he be German, Gaul or Dacian, is himself without such constraint when it comes to matching one man against another. Man-to-man, personal glory and honour above all things, each seeking to fight his own battle, these are the attributes by which the barbarian fails to conquer Roma. Yet the joy, the sheer bloody joy, gained from such primitive ways of fighting can never be overstated.

It was such a feeling that began to build up inside of me, as I watched those painted Insubrian adolescents, their stiff hair waving in the breeze and drops of sweat coming from their bodies as they ran, back toward the safety of our own lines. A few came from the forest, lacking in projectiles, yet even more were still out there amongst the trees and fighting against an enemy that wanted their heads.

Turning my head about, I gave a nod to Geminus and was relieved to hear the blaring of the cornicines and their instruments of war and the brass shriek of the Celtic carnyx, Gallic voices raising high in their own warcries and yells of victory. Forward they went, rank after rank, breaking apart into three columns of men and advancing toward different sections of the slightly scattered enemy line. The young Gauls had done their duties, separating groups of Germans from their comrades, leading them away to far-flung corners of the rugged valley, taking them on a run which would avail them nothing.

“Avidius,” I said to the man next to me, “Berengar,” to the other, “follow me.”

Into Hades we marched.

**********

The battle swirled about us like the waves of the ocean, Gallic and Germanic enemies clutched in deadly embraces, the three of us moving over the craggy landscape in search of our own chances at glory. This came sooner than I would have expected, Wuotan, God of battle, clearly intending to test my resolve against his chosen people.

Those that ran toward us were impressive specimens in every respect, brave enough to enter the valley-wide melee that now ensued between our two armies in nothing but a cloak and helmet. They were each men in their prime, muscular and carrying but a spear and shield, six of them moving toward us at a jog with their faces as masks of excitement and lust for our blood.

Very soon we were all three of us split from one another, entering our own personal combats with our naked antagonists.

Three opponents came toward me by the time Berengar had already dispatched one of their number, spears flickering like the tongues of snakes on both sides, leaving me truly amazed at the style with which professional warriors of the Germani people wield such simple weapons. It was almost as if they were performing a dance, feinting one way and then the other, whipping the spearhead forward and then dragging it back to strike with the wooden haft and even parrying another spear using their own.

As for myself, though I was nearly thirty years of age, I was racked with the fear and indecision of a semi-civilised man that has lost the wild edge so readily seen in the more barbaric peoples. I may well have been carrying the wickedly curved and quasi-religious weapon of a fanatical Dacian cult and people, but I felt so much more like a Roman than I had ever felt before, stripped of all the trappings which connected me to those people, I was metaphorically naked.

Once the foremost warrior was close enough to lunge, he did so, the lunge of his arm only not impaling me because I twisted aside and clumsily threw my own weapon toward his head. It was the mistake of a novice, an unexpected jerk and reaction, the shield of my opponent raised to slow to stop my weapon, this spear, or framea, of at least equal reach to his own, from cleaving a portion of his skull and spraying his fellows with brain and blood.

Having shown that I knew very little of what I was doing, my fearsome appearance alone having held them off this far, the pair of spearmen closed in on me and lashed out at me from all directions. It took every ounce of concentration to avoid their strikes, my body aching as I used muscles which had remained unused for so long, it soon became clear to me that I would need to choose one enemy or the other and so I did.

Without thinking, I hurled myself toward the spearman on my right, batting his spear aside with the haft of my weapon and moving into him at speed. He attempted to hammer me aside with his shield, stepping back as he tried to gain enough distance to use his spear, but I kept my balance and stuck to him like a barnacle to a ships bow.

When I was close enough, my blood bursting inside me and the veins of my torso jutting out, I turned my weapon horizontally and, letting go of the haft with one hand, placed my free hand, flat and open palmed, against the blunt outer edge of the weapons blade. Expecting an attack, my cunning enemy raised his shield to defend his head and attempted to hammer me again. With the precision of years of gladius training, only his eyes visible, I lunged forward and planted the pointed end of my weapon through one socket and out the back of his head.

At this point I was forced to release the weapon, the curve having been detrimental to withdrawing it from a skull and the second spearman already moving in on me.

What I did next took even myself by surprise, my hand reaching down and drawing the sica from the sheathe at my side, my other hand grasping the spear as I twisted away to avoid it. Letting the German pull me forward, everything seeming to move in slow motion, I shoulder-barged the large, bearded man and, not waiting for him to recompose himself, launched myself forward with my sica swinging.

Every part of my body was alight as I bought my weapon down again and again, from various angles, a hundred cuts cleaving at my desperate enemy who now found himself waving his shield about in an endeavour to stop me. It may have been luck that he pushed it too far out, opening up his wrist to a strike from my weapon, biting deep and spurting blood from the severed limb before my next made a bloody ruin of his throat.

Either way, I was no longer covered in my own blood only.

On my way to retrieve my falx I was soon joined by my companions, both grinning happily to be and one another, both with blood on their spears and a war song in their hearts.

It took a few moments to heave the two-handed scythe from the skull of the fallen man, and by the time I had finally recovered it there were already more Germans on their way, arrows from my own archers whizzing overhead and through the widely-spaced trees to impale men as they would transfix game in the forest of northern Italia beyond the Rubicon.

My ears opened wider as I heard the notes of a command to withdraw and regroup, Roman notes formed by Geminus no doubt, quickly gesturing for the brothers to follow me as I made my way back toward our original position through the thinning undergrowth.

**********

“You seem to have been keeping yourself busy, sir.”

Geminus smiled down at me from the back of his mare and dropped two objects at my feet, both slick with blood and staring up at me where they fell, their mouths agape and lank hair drooping to obscure certain features.

“Brinno and Segestes both, my chief. Tried getting away, but my horsemen and I caught up with them both eventually, and their heads are my gift to you.” His smile dropped slightly and he looked off into the mid-distance momentarily as he spoke, “at least a hundred of them got away, enough to give us a hard time once we try to take their city. It will be a mess getting through their walls.”

“Not quite,” I was quick to counter, “my man Tiberius Structus even now conceals himself there and, when the time is right, shall open the gates for us. Once inside, the city shall be sacked and its fighting men either executed or sold into slavery.”

“Not only that,” came the voice I instantly recognised as that of my grandfather, drifting into my ear from the saddle of a horse somewhere behind me, “but you will soon have a new teacher in the use of the weapon I see you have already used.”

My gaze turned to him, frail and gnarled as he now looked, “but you are my teacher,” I said in a puzzled tone, “why would I need another?”

The sound that came from his throat, the laugh, was like dry parchment, “my favourite son, I am old, as you can clearly see, and a younger man must show you how to fight using such a weapon as you now hold. He comes by the road through Noricum and Rhaetia and into Germania with hundreds of his kinsmen and women to serve you, all the way from beyond the Carpathians and between those mountains and the territory of the Sarmatian horse-masters. He will be here by next summer, so gain some more experience in killing before he arrives.”

Although the last jibe was a joke, I could see that Marcus also meant it to be taken in at least a fraction of seriousness, bowing my head slightly to show that I understood before turning back to the smug-looking African.

“Once the Gauls have finished up here, we move toward the inner lands of these animals and take their city. I want to be feasting there by the time the snow falls.”



- B. M. Laenas

[Ybbon]

"It was the night before battle, and all through the forest, nothing was stirring, not even some cattle." - 'twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse

I bet it took years to master the falx and probably not helped if you knew how to use something very different like a gladius and I like the way you show that it isn't easy for a man who clearly is no slouch in fighting.

[McScottish]

(All rights go to Jason Wickens @ http://www.fotoviva.co.uk/photograph...on-wickens.asp)


Consolidating Your Position – Summer 631 A.U.C to Summer 632 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can almost feel the warmth of the roaring fire as I set my thoughts to papyri, the roasting intensity and heat of the thing, causing me to sweat beneath a fold of furs I already wore about my person in typical German fashion.

After the defeat of Brinno and Segestes, a fierce blow to the Germanic peoples for the first blow struck against them, and a warning to others who would oppose me, we left the field of battle and began toward the innards of the Cherusci lands.

Here and there we came across an abandoned settlement of a few huts stripped bare, or at times found women and children to be living along within them, their menfolk either gone to what they called “Hattozwisha” or killed by my tame Gauls in honourable combat. When we did find these women, alone and unprotected, I will not shirk in saying that on occasion I gave them to my men but it was not out of malicious intent but to keep the rabble of Gauls happy.

It is with little regret that I refrain from telling you exactly what happened and how we took their largest settlement in a little under a day. All I will say is that my speculator did as he was bidden and had the gates of the city open for us before we had even arrived. Once inside there was very little to do, the dispatching of near a hundred footsore and battle weary Germans before plundering and letting my army ransack the city as best they knew how.

In this case the women and children were rounded up and placed under a guard, not a man to touch them on penalty of death. The men of the tribe, however, we given a choice to join me or to be executed. It saddens me to say that over half of them spat on my offer, and received decapitation or disembowelment as just compensation.

Those that did swear fealty to me would prove to be honest and stay by their word, forming what could be called my comitatus along with the Chattian warriors already in my employ. These being drilled and bloodied fighting men, warriors who knew how to kill and how to wield a weapon, that I would pay in women, food and coin in return for serving me. I had power and I had wealth, and such an offer seemed fair to me both then and now.

So there I sat, in the drinking and feasting hall of the Cherusci, their two foremost noblemen slain by a Romano-African propraetor and given as a gift to a Thraco-Roman of Dacian blood who saw himself as the king of an entire tribal people and their land and lives as his rightful property.

Here it was that I received news of Subulo and his increasingly slow progress, I knew he was an old man after all, but not an old woman. He and his main army remained outside the central civitas of the Batavian people whilst a section of his Numidian horsemen terrorised the neighbouring Frisii population. The galloper from this fool of a Roman told me that work on siege equipment had began, and that the settlement would be taken within the year. Though still not pleased, I was appeased for the moment.

Order now had to be bought to Cheruscan lands and so I sent forth agents, tax collectors and regular patrols of Gallic soldiers into the wilds of the German forests. Very sooner, sooner than I would have anticipated, a rough estimate of Cherusci possessions and population were given to me and it was decided to send a number of those Cherusci taken as prisoners of war south to become slaves on the land of the Chatti, Mattiaci, Tencteri and all other tribes that has wisely aligned themselves with me before the campaign began.

Around the time of this decision, sitting alone and listening to a light rain pattering the roof of the quite bare hall, my thoughts were shattered by the entrance of a reasonably dry figure dressed in the garb of a Roman auxiliary. I remember this more because I had cause to frown then anything else, all my auxiliaries ordered to remain in Chattian territory so that no 'Roman' blood was spilt.

“Ave Praetor, I bring word from Centurio Fulvius of the sixth cohort, posted to the eastern fringes of your domain, sir.”

The man had clearly ridden a long way, with apparently urgent news, and I had not the heart nor the inclination to turn him away. Instead I requested that he take a seat, offering him food and drink in equal measure to fill his stomach and quench his thirst. These he excepted, sitting opposite me and removing his helmet to reveal quite a young face, that of a Belgian from northern Gaul and not an Illyrian from the coast as might be expected.

“Tell me, young man,” I began, though he could not have been much younger than myself for all that, “what brings you here?”

“I have an urgent message,” he replied as he wiped animal grease from around his mouth, whilst stuffing his face with the other, “large hosts of Germans have been seen amassing on the eastern border, warriors of various tribes joining together under strong leaders. They seem to have been summoned from their lands further south by a Suebian noble of the Marcomanni, who we take to be named Alfsuind.”

There was a short pause as I scratched my chin, allowing myself a morsel of food in the form of a cooked dormouse, my mind thinking rapidly inside my skull. I had only minor forces on the eastern side of my dominions, though I had sent a larger one some months earlier to reinforce the Cohors Sextae Delmatarvm et Astvrvm millaria eqvitata and their jovial centurion. If the Marcomanni, and their allies, such as the Quadi and Semnones, were truly rallying for war then it was of great importance that I sent equal force to meet them.

“I still have tribes to subdue. The Chauci, Langobardii, Teutones and Cimbri,” I said more to myself than to patiently listening guest, “if the Rugii and Suebians join with other nearby tribes then it could become too much...” my gaze turned toward him then, a smile on my own face to match his own look of horror, “fear not and tell your centurion that I shall have these matters dealt with. You may take your leave and message away with you now.”

Shortly after the rider left, I summoned both Avidius and Tiberius to the hall and bade them both sit before me.

“Let it me known in every corner, that I wish to speak with a certain Alfsuind of the Marcomanni man-to-man. If he is man enough to accept, then I want a time and place arranged, such as on a river, with only one man as a bodyguard and no weapons carried by either leader.”

**********

Months passed and, before I knew it, half the year had flown by. My time was taken up with organising an efficient leadership and client system amongst those I had conquered and those who fought with me willingly, some clearly more deserving of reward and praise than the others, as well as better and fairer leadership from those I either put in or allowed to remain in positions of power.

With my lands by now stretching from the western shore of the Rhenus to the fringes of the heartland of Germania there was plenty to occupy my mind and body, but I never forgot about Alina or her people of the Ubii.

Certain settlements rose in prominence and wealth under my hand, Roman-based improvements made to them, while other, smaller, communities were given the benefit of knowledge in cattle raising and field tilling. Not that the German people, a people steeped in warfare, had much use of the cultivation of fields and sowing of crops.

Yet, little by little, those who would resist me began to cross over the borders I had set and both trade and settle in what I saw as my kingdom of many peoples. Cheruscan women met with traders all the way from Syria, and Roman wine sellers were paid in coin by the hardy drinkers of the Usipetes.

Hadufuns even commented, on one of his many visitations to my temporary residence and I, that he had never seen such prosperity in his simple peoples lives, never so much gold nor so much drink.

Amongst all this, however, I did not, would not, allow myself to set upon these people the trappings of Roma and her empire across the world. Though their homesteads were improved tenfold, amphitheatres built for entertainment and both weapons and furniture imported from Roman lands, I never pressed upon those I saw as my subjects the very same process of assimilation that my ancestors had been given.

Still, in the north-eastern lands away from Dacia, those who called themselves 'free Dacians' still lived and grew in strength. Much like them, I did not wish to see these Germans fall to the decadence of 'civilisation' and would do all in my power to keep them as a rugged and I suppose barbarus people.

**********

Alfsuind and I met in the middle of the Suevus river on a mist-shrouded day, in spite of it being summer , which borders the territory of the Semnones, each taking a small ferry to a tiny island in the middle of the river and stepping onto the solid earth at the same time.

I had bought Berengar as my bodyguard, each personal guard allowed to be armed, my own body completely bare of weapons, my opposite having bought a rather slender man built like a river reed but showing proudly a great number of scars on his person, like me Alfsuind had come without weapons and indeed met me completely naked except for a cloak held in place by a brooch.

“Hail, Alfsuind, leader of the Ingvaeones tribes and son of the Marcomanni, shall we sit?”

A fire was built and both he and myself took a seat about it, Berengar and the other remaining standing, both ill at ease. I used what of their tongue I knew, which by this time was considerable, and tried at all times to make myself as best understood as was possible.

I studied this hard-looking man before I spoke, the grey hair and beard speaking volumes of his age and therefore his obvious experience, his face like a rock face that faced out toward the crashing waves of the sea and his hands large enough that I imagined they could knock a man down in one blow. His body, or what I saw of it, wrapped in the cloak, was firm and built much as my grandfathers had been when I first met him. I had a feeling that any negotiations with such a man would fail.

“I am an honest and intelligent man,” came the words in the sharp Germanic tongue, he being the first to speak, his words slightly different from those I had been taught but understandable enough, “and I know that you seek domination over the tribes of this land. Not just some, but all.”

“You are correct, it is the Gods will and I shall not disobey them.”

“The Gods?!” He mocked, raising his unkempt eyebrows far above his sockets, “the Gods are fake, idiotic Roman, they do not exist. My blade in your guy is reality, clearly you live in a world of dreams.”

Barely able to contain myself, I raised my voice, “do you not understand?! It is real!” I had to stop myself from standing up, keeping myself planted to the floor where I sat, “so much bloodshed could be avoided if you only accepted me as your king and bent the knee. Your lands and people would remain intact and no harm need come to any of you.”

His laughter rang out again, stabbing at me as readily as if he had produced a dagger, even his bodyguard giving me an amused smirk.

“Leave our lands in peace, Roman. Go back to where you come from and take those Chatti pigs with you. They are nothing but sons of Roman bastards and deserve only death, for if you do leave without taking them, then that is what they shall receive.”

“Very well,” I said with a shrug of indifference, “it seems that you are quite immovable in your opinions...for an intelligent man.” Leaning forward, my face highlighted by the flames, I gave him my best smile, “you have made your choice and, should I conquer your people, there will be no mercy as I have shown others. I will see you in battle.”

Before I stepped off of the island and back onto the small wooden float, I could not help turning to him as he left.

“And Alfsuind, may the Gods be with you, always.”



- B. M. Laenas

[McScottish]

"It was the night before battle, and all through the forest, nothing was stirring, not even some cattle." - 'twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse

I bet it took years to master the falx and probably not helped if you knew how to use something very different like a gladius and I like the way you show that it isn't easy for a man who clearly is no slouch in fighting.

Damn, you deciphered my quote!

As for the falx, you are correct again. There are so many theories concerning such a simple weapon, and so few tests actually done, that how long it took to learn to use and how it was actually used, as well as how effective it was against a Roman legionary are constantly in debate. Some even believe that the helmet cross-bar and vambraces were not added because of the falx at all, but were just a progression toward heavier armour all around.

This being as it is, I am portraying it as I personally think it would have been used. I readily admit I could be very wrong, but until tests are done or we invent a time machine, no one will ever know for certain.

[McScottish]

First Impressions And Final Meetings, Part I – Winter 632 A.U.C to Summer 633 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And capture the settlements before the first snows fell, a time when man was supposed to shelter inside and venture to war not at all, my capable subordinates did.

Although I had not been informed of it, Subulo had taken his forces north and into the lands of the Chauci, leaving Marius Varus to besiege the rather permanent capital city of the Batavian peoples. Unlike other German tribes, further from the western side of the Rhenus as they were, the Batavians differed in that they had adopted the mode of building large, if primitive, settlements and it was here that they housed the peoples of their tribal nation.

Others, those who clung to the old ways, lived still on the islands at the mouth of the Rhenus and would have to be squeezed out later as one squeezes lice from the hair of a dog or a rather unwashed person.

As it was, I was reclining lazily in my chambers, my eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, when I heard a knock at my door and the head of Avidius came through the gap as it opened.

“Borbrentas,” he said, using my first name as he had earned the right to do, “there is a Tribunus Varus downstairs who wishes to speak with you, shall I bid him wait a moment and relax himself?”

I nodded my head, getting groggily up from my bed and staggering about the rough-looking chamber as I attempted to dress myself. It was hard, for I was not inebriated, but I was in a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, and I was not sure which one was worse, to be honest.

“My dear Tribunus,” were my first words to the middle-aged and slightly widening soldier at my table, “what news do you bring, that you must bring it all the way from the lands of the Batavii yourself?”

His face did not change from an expressionless mask, looking up at me with eyes and a face rather like a dead fish, “I come with a gift and with news,” was his reply, reaching between his legs and resting a spherical object on the table before me. My mind, even half-dazed, had already guessed what it was, and my assumptions were revealed as I removed the bloodied linen from around the decapitated head.

“And who is this, who eyes me so earnestly from the land of the dead?”

“Allow me to present Segimenus, Praetor, who lead the unsuccessful defence of the Batavian homeland, and...” there was a pause for the build up of tension, a common trick of rhetoricians taught by Greeks, “...he is of the Marcomanni, he and a retinue of his giving my men not a little trouble.”

Now I took a closer look at the head, as if it would give me answers, noting the greying hair and fine jawline, as well as the shocked expression it wore. If this man had been a leader of the Marcomanni, then truly Alfsuind had infiltrated the ranks of many tribes, sending his support far and wide in his campaign against me.

“My gratitude, Tribunus. Please, return to Batavia and assume the mantle of leader to these conquered people in my stead. Treat them well, I do not want enemies at my rear as well as my front.”

A slow nod of the fish-face was all I got before he left, my grandfather entering shortly afterwards with a grin on his face and a hug for me that would have strangled the breath from a bear.

“First the Batavians, now news that the Chauci have been soundly beaten as well. Of course, it shall be some time before every village and every league of land within your ever-expanding domain is counted, but let be congratulate you for your progress thus far.”

I returned the hug with gusto, but my eyes never left the head on the table, Avidius patiently waiting until I asked him to remove it from my sight and stick it on the wall of the city. It would be a shame to waste such a trophy when I could use it to inspire fear in other, to make them more servile and less rebellious if they saw the consequences for themselves.

“Oh,” murmured Marcus as he released me from his wiry but strong grasp, “the Bastarnae have arrived, about a thousand fighting men and twice as many straggling wives and children, and with them comes your new mentor. Come, leave Geminus in command here and return with me to Chattium. We leave at first light.”

**********

Leave at first light we did, travelling hard and fast along the tracks and forest trails, safe in the knowledge that fear kept the locals in line and banditry had been quite unheard of even before I arrived in Germania. I had indeed left the African in charge, knowing that he would not betray me or fail me, but that he would keep the peace and reign justly as my representative in pacifying the lands of the Cherusci of all discontented spirits.

Already, after the battle for that land, I had allowed some of my Gauls to settle and take German wives as their own. Many of them were only too glad not to be killed or sold into slavery, some, I observed, even appearing to have a genuine love for their new or first husbands. These and those Germani that had sworn loyalty to me, would form the inner circle of my Cheruscan comitatus and, as long as I remained strong both on and off the field, would follow me into the very depths of the Underworld.

It took nearly three days before we crossed into Chatti lands but, as I turned to go toward Chattium itself, grandfather gripped my sleeve and nodded his head toward another path leading away from the settlement.

“These Bastarnae like to live as they have always done, a slightly nomadic lifestyle, and though we may find them camped, we shall never catch them altogether within the walls of a city if they can help it.”

We reached their encampment in the late evening on the third day, clouds hanging overhead and spitting droplets of rain being little more than a slight annoyance to us, which was less than it would be later that night, I can tell you!

As we entered the camp, without sentries or guards, we were not even challenged and simply proceeded to ride straight into the large circle made of wagons and roughly hewn planks of spiked wood.

The smell was the first thing to impale the nostrils, the smell of roasting meat mingled with that of sweat, excrement and sex. Each time one got closer to a fire, a circle of shadows sitting about each one of the many dotted within the confines of the wagon-circle, the stench would grow until eventually you were forced to retire by that alone.

In the dim light I was unable to make out the features of these people, one marching steadily past from time-to-time and ignoring us both, yet never at a pace so slow that I could pick out distinct features in the dwindling light for the day and the fires.

“Stay here,” grandfather said as the pair of us dismounted from our mares and tied them to a wagon, “I shall fetch your new teacher and bring him back here. Do not say anything or speak to anyone, or there could be some bloodshed.”

Patiently I waited, one hand on the hilt of my sica, until I heard the sound of two pairs of feet approaching me out of the darkness.

“Grandfather,” I hissed into the shadow between fire and wagon, “Marcus!”

No reply came, and indeed the footsteps ceased altogether, two tongues beginning to speak in a language that I could not comprehend and which sounded distinctly like both German and some form of Sarmatian or other nomadic tribe. It was then that I realised I had made a mistake, the two shadows detaching from the main cloud of blackness with weapons held ready to strike at an unrecognisable entrant to their camp.

My hands moved away from my weapon when a third figure stepped between myself and my would-be aggressors, grunting at them in the same unintelligible tongue until they disappeared back into the darkness and left me alone.

“I told you Borbrentas,” half-whispered the hooded and cloaked figure of my grandfather off to my left, “I did nothing!” Was my only response to the unfounded accusation, my eyes drifting further to the right as the third foreigner now moved close enough for me to make him out.

By the Gods he was an odd looking one, like some mixing of a horse-nomad with a Germanic woman, long blonde hair tied neatly behind his head in a top knot but his nose flaring somewhat larger than a Germans and his eyes brilliant and fierce. A beard, in the same golden colour as his hair, partially obscured his face, but I could see even with it that he was built with sturdy bones.

In all else he was most certainly of the Germani, his frame bold and powerful, his height taller than my grandfather, and his bared torso revealing puckered scars from numerous past wounds, muscular shoulders and arms also marking him out as a wielder of weapons but the way he moved, as gracefully as any feline. It was something that could only have been developed from long years of practise.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Praetor Laenas, future king of all Germania,” came perfectly formed and only lightly accented words, though I must have given something away as he said next, “do not look so surprised, my friend. Anyone if importance learns at least rudimentary Latin, to act as their 'common' or 'trading' tongue with other peoples and cultures. It would also have been a lot harder to teach you anything if you required an interpreter at all times, only your grandfather really knowing anything of our language.”

With that over, he turned and walked back into the night, not even looking back but simply calling back that we should find somewhere to lay down and sleep. For tomorrow my instruction began and I would be without a doubt put firmly through my paces.

**********

By the time we reached the lip of the fiftieth hill, a towering bastard with a steep incline upwards, my legs were burning and my lungs were as if filled with molten steel. Each step was agony, one of my arms carrying my falx and my other simply dangling by my side as I tried to run, half naked and completely worn down, to the top. At this point the water-skin dangling at my side, slapping my thigh with every footfall, seemed to be the only thing keeping me going.

“So your training with the Romani has not made you entirely weak,” laughed the Bastarnae, “stop and take a drink, then we begin.”

I often summon into my mind the memories of what happened next, taking a seat on the earth, damp with the signs of the previous nights rain and only covered by a thin layer of grass. My hands shook, trembling, as I took my water-skin and sighed as I felt the cool liquid ease its way down my throat, the feeling in my legs slowly returned to normal and I stretched them out before me.

It offended me in some way to see that, whilst I was ever-so-close to the Gods at that moment, my mentor, who I still was unable to name, seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease with the entire exercise. If anything, he held his falx lazily in one huge hand, staring out across the wooded terrain with his squinted eyes and a look of satisfaction, yet drew not one heavy breath in all the time that I watched him.

“Tell me about yourself,” I requested, since we were both motionless for the moment and with only talk between us, “I have not even heard your name yet, and your people are entirely foreign to me.”

Perhaps just to humour me, as I believed it was, he left his position of watchfulness and sat down before he, crossing his legs and placing his weapon across his knees. Before he said anything at all, he made sure the blade was clean and adjusted his loose-fitting trousers of animal hide.

“My story is a long one, but I shall shorten it for you,” I thought then that he was mocking me, but whatever sarcasm he might have attempted was clouded by the accent in his Latin, “I am called many names, my birth name is Wulfger, but I am also named Pêrakos by the Greeks and...” his mouth drew wide across his face as he paused in thought, “...my name from the Sarmatian horsemen would be unintelligible to you. Probably best that you do not know it, for it would confuse things.”

Passing him my water-skin, and allowing him to take a drink, I continued to urge him into telling me more. This he did with little reluctance, and for that I was thankful.

“I was there when you Romans came into our lands, stabbing at everything with your short swords and paying little attention to any men of yours who died or was wounded. I was, and always have been, a teacher of the falx, and I tried to stop the incursion with all my might. In the end I was spared, so that I may teach Roman warriors how to fight against my peoples weapon. So the story goes, until I and these others in the valley heard of a call for native fighters wanted in Germania by some important Roman. Now, as fate and the Gods would have it, we are here to fight for you, though we are few in number.”

Next I, thinking to learn as much about the man as I could, implored him to divulge to me how he became acquainted with my grandfather. This, again, was a simple question for him to answer.

“Your grandfather was part of a trading party representing the Rhatacense, I was very young at the time and, as I recall, Thiacus was only reaching manhood by that time as well. That was before he went off and joined the Romans. Really, I know as much about him as you, but he understands our customs and language and therefore counts as a valuable ally.”

It was beyond question that I wished to know more about my grandfathers past, for I had never sincerely asked the elderly Dacian, but at that second I had the opportunity to ask a native of a people I had never even heard of so many things. This I did, with all the enthusiasm of a young boy at his fathers feet.

We whiled away the afternoon hours in deep conversation, my mind filling with knowledge of these truthfully unique people and their way of life. It began, Wulfger recited to me, when the original Bastarnae tribes had shifted from their homelands in Germania and out past the Carpathian mountains to where the main body of the tribe now lived under the Roman yoke.

What was also recognised was that that first band of Bastarnae, which could literally mean 'band of tribes', then separated into different branches of the same tree. The largest, from which Wulfger hailed, retained their tribal name and had some breeding between their own people and the Sarmatians, something the bulky warrior was reticent to admit at first. The second, smaller, branch, were known as the Peucini by outsiders, after the isle near the delta of the Danuvius, and after years of living near and around the waters of that great river had become firm river-folk, their tribe spread even unto the borders of Moesia Inferior.

Those of the chief tribe were torn between an unchanging lifestyle and a migratory way of living, more like their horse-borne neighbours than their Dacian cousins or their Bosporan Greek neighbours. Still, for all this the Bastarnae were quite distrustful of horses and, aside from using them to pull wagons and the like, they rarely made use of them and never on the battlefield.

The Dacian and Germanic ways of war had captured their souls though, and into these they poured themselves, like water down the throat of a man wandering the desert.

They adopted the tools of their western relatives, the falx and the Dacians, being known even more than the Dacii themselves for their wielding of the curved weapon. So much so that, compared to my falx, the one which Wulfger bore was a thing of majestic beauty, crafted by the finest metal workers of his clan to need very little sharpening and to strike into the enemy like an arch of gleaming steel lightning thrown from the heavens.

About seven in ten of all the tribes men were warriors, the others being farmers, and not including the women, children, infirm or slaves, these people no less than fanatical about their religion and the weapon which, to them, stood like a talisman or an emblem of such. To them, the falx was their life, their soul, and they would die with it and be buried with it, or so I was told.

**********

By the time I ceased causing my jaw to ache, and that of my teacher, I was almost fully refreshed from my earlier excursions and prepared for whatever was to be thrown at me.

“You really think so?” Came the mocking reply when I informed Wulfger, “we see shall see, Thrace-spawn, we shall see.”

Both of us stood, taking defensive stances, our short duel to be won by whomever drew first blood. He was here to teach me after all, not take off my head.

“The Dacians are fond of striking downward, two-handed, from above the head, like so,” he raised his falx high above his head and bought it down in a chopping motion, like a woodsman splitting a log in two, “this takes both strength and swiftness. As you will know, if the other man is a Roman, he will hit you with his shield and impale you when he gets close enough. What this weapon truly gives you is distance and an aura of unpredictability, your enemy maybe not having faced such a weapon in battle before.”

I watched him loosen himself up then, his muscles rippling like waves as he stretched his shoulders and planted his feet lightly where he stood. Slowly, but getting quicker with every second, he began to swing his falx from over one shoulder and then the other, both hands clutching the haft which slid smoothly through his palms, the blade reflecting what light was still left as he moved with deceptive speed toward me.

My first instinct was to move away as quickly as possible, that falx still tracing a pattern in the air as it came toward me, my hands tightening on my own weapon and my body beginning to shake slightly.

“Defend yourself, Roman!”

As quickly as he had began, the falx whipped out and, I am certain, have taken off my head had I not jerked backwards. The next strike came in quick succession, the wooden haft slamming up into my lower jaw and causing me to bite my tongue, the taste of blood filling my mouth as I gazed up to see Wulfger standing over me.

“Not bad, but you need practise, again.”

This time I attacked, my jaw still aching and my tongue still numbed, slicing toward his collar-bone with a diagonal stroke, only for him to pivot inside of my strike and connect his elbow with my nose. As one of my hands went to my nose, my eyes watering, a leg wrapped about my own and I was bodily tripped and thrown once more into the moistened dirt.

“The falx is a weapon of the entire body, if you get close enough to a legionnaire for him to stab you then you will still need to defend yourself. We shall also trade at wrestling, you and I, and I shall show you techniques without a weapon.”

Picking myself off of the floor, I would have continued, but I was interrupted by the snorting of a horse.

“Praetor Laenas, German forces amass still in the east, and if we are to take away their advantage then Praetor Geminus suggests we must move north-east against the weakened Cimbri, Teutones and their allies.”

Just my luck, a messenger from my senatorial subordinate, giving me orders now, who in Hades did he think he was?! The worst part was that he was right!

“Wulfger, please gather a few hundred of your warriors and prepare to leave. You, messenger boy, tell my good friend that he may leave whenever he wishes. May the Gods be with him.”


- B. M. Laenas

[Boustrophedon]

Tremendous update again! I did seem to detect a few spelling mistakes, but maybe that's my mind playing tricks on me at such a late hour +rep obviously

[McScottish]

First Impressions And Final Meetings, Part II – Summer 633 A.U.C to Winter 633 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wulfger proceeded to gather near four-hundred of the youngest and healthiest Bastarnae, the cream of the Bastarnae youth, unbloodied in battle and with all the vigour of prize hunting hounds ready to tear the throat from their prey. Each runt looked much like the next, tall in height and broad of build, muscular and athletic bodies that any prize wrestler of pugilist would be proud of, carrying their family falxes with pride and chanting war-songs as they marched.

Even the many Germani that I had gathered from within my lands and formed into irregular cohorts, Chatti, Ubii, Usipetes, Mattiaci and others, seemed more than wary of these new arrivals. When I asked Optio Odalric, son of the Mattiaci, he told me that he and his tribal fellows found these newcomers into their midst to be strange and foreign and some even admitted that they were afeared of them. Berengar was the only one who stared them down, showing no sign of fear as they marched by, bristling though like some form of threatened mammal and even going so far as to bare his teeth at the black-faced and well-composed youths.

I will not lie, the sight of so many Germani tribesmen, some part of the others mortal enemies, gathered together in so many hundreds to fight for a man who was foreign but treated them as his comitatus, made my chest swell with pride. Countless of the assembled came from the Chatti tribe itself, a lot of them having been wandering warriors who had returned home after I took over as chieftain, this long-standing tradition of Chatti warriors fighting for the coin of others having gone undisturbed by myself or my leadership I might add, whilst those of the Ubii, Usipetes and Mattiaci came because of obligations of allegiance and submission. There were even a near imperceptible number of Cheruscan, Batavian and Frisii, all having seen me as a stronger leader than their former lords and readily pledged themselves to me.

This...this was what I was truly working for, following the plan of the Gods, to unite these divided and fractured peoples into one solid mass that could resist any who sought to attack them or impose their will upon them. My grandfather told me that this is exactly what both the Gauls and Dacians had done, but something which the Germani had always been just too divided to attempt, whether because of blood-feuds, treachery or any number of reasons. Now they followed me, Borbrentas, chosen of the Gods.

Anyway, as the summer suns came upon us and the snows melted, my training with Wulfger progressing steadily as the months passed and the seasons changed, many new and flourishing activities were taking place. For example, auxiliary/numeri forts were being built along the newest borders of my kingdom, Subulo was having trouble with the Chauci and attempting to quell riots in their lands, and a man named Gnaeus Popillius Laenas came to see me.

This Laenas, an emissary and diplomat by occupation, and a man of high standing, was a distant blood-relative of the very man from which my grandfather had taken his name. He came with interesting tidings, the very Nepos who had attempted to molest my grandfather while he was a centurion had recently died of a nasty plague spreading through Baikor in Hispania and decimating the ranks of the Legio V Alaudae. That night we feasted, all of us, my wife-to-be sitting upon my lap and sharing with me frequent kisses and displays of passion and Gnaeus regaling us with tales of the Roman Empire and developments therein.

It is unfortunate to say that the empire he described to us seemed one of stagnation, little progress, but also one of stability and peace. Publius Augustus was getting on in years, his son looking toward the throne with the backing of a Praetorian prefectus, and the Bosporan Greeks ceasing Odessos on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus. He also bought a message from the last of the purest Maximus line, a message which I had been waiting for...

“Polymestor had bid me inform you that all is going as planned, and that the merchant has agreed to sell you his supplies when the time comes,” recited the obviously confused envoy, “of course I have no idea what he meant, but he told me it was urgent.”

“My thanks to you, brave and noble Gnaeus. Now, there is something else I would ask of you, should you choose to accept it.”

What I asked him to do, and that he did accept, was to travel north into the lands of the Cimbri with offers of gold if they would join my cause. I knew for a certainty that their tribal levies were severely weak, most having been killed in previous wars, their chiefs and noblemen greedy and as decadent as any Roman senator, they were an easy target and by the middle of summer the Cimbri of the north had become my allies. Unfortunately the southern Cimbri were lead by a recently elevated noble, an idealist who refused to accept my supremacy, therefore forces were dispatched to rip away the carrot and give them a bloody big stick instead.

With my forces assembled, Germans, Bastarnae and Gauls all, not a Roman citizen amongst them unless you counted myself, the centurions leading them and my grandfather, we proceeded to make good my promise to Alfsuind in that I would annihilate him. Unlike the other tribes I had faced before, each possessing a central site of trade or worship et cetera, the Suebi were a confederation of clans and tribes connected by a relative culture and dialect and would take years to fully stamp into the ground once I had finished with their foremost representative.

Nonetheless, with the help of my personal agent, I was able to find the location of Alfsuind and begin my march toward the settlement immediately. It was there that we would meet in battle, there that I would besiege him, break down his walls and piss on his severed head for ever thinking that he could resist my rule. Oh he may have been a great warrior in his prime, ferocious and awe inspiring, but his time was over and I was better.

Gnaeus was sent to offer our wealth to the Rugii, to keep them from assisting my German friend, and by the time summer was nearing its end we were within sight of the walls of 'Swebaztheutha' and preparing siege machines to break down the wall.

There would be no dawn...for Alfsuind.


- B. M. Laenas

[Yeepeep]

Masterfully written, McScottish! I just finished the Gotland chapter and decided its a good time to chime in and give some well-deserved rep!

Admittedly, it was a tad confusing in the beginning (in particular the Romans in the middle of the Baltic Sea) as it felt rather different from the Legacy but soon I started really enjoying this on its own right. Borbentas, to me at least, feels easier to associate with so far as he doesn't sound like the uber-warrior his grandpa was. Looking forward to whatever you decide to do with the poor lad who has so much to look up to!

edit: darn it, need to spread some rep first

edit edit: hm, still can't rep. I thought you only have to wait a day or two?

[McScottish]

Onto Them! – Winter 633 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Blessed summer removed itself from thought and sight, making way for frigid winter and landscapes of ice, the lands of Suebia being vast in there expanse and it taking many weeks to traverse unfamiliar regions until finally coming to encircle the settlement that was our reason for being in such a place. This carried on for further weeks, my forces becoming accustomed to long periods of inactivity, volunteers making themselves known to be selected to hunt and feed our large contingent with some regularity.

The day that I had had enough, our siege equipment ready and my men like rabid hounds baying at the hare, I amassed the army before the walls of Swebaztheutha. As they stood in the bleak turf before the walls, out of range of ambitious huntsmen, I rode forward on my horse, carrying my falx with me and dressed only in a pair of trousers, only identified amongst my men by my wearing of a Roman helmet and crest.

I pressed my horse forward until I was within hearing of those on the inner side of the wall, and shouted what I hoped would cause their surrender. Earlier in the season Gnaeus had built an alliance with the Rugii to the north-east, and I hoped for a similarly bloodless solution to my Gods-given claim here.

“Alfsuind,” came my raised voice, proud and strong above the sounds of nature all around, “come forth, O' craven Suebian wretch, and take what I shall give, the deathly kiss of my steel to your flesh and an ending to any thoughts of violence I hold against this town. Be warned, Alfsuind, for I keep my men only under mine own command so long as is needed. Should we be forced, we barbaric few, to enter your city with violence and thoughts of rapine, then your daughters shall be dragged forth and set upon in the most heinous of ways, mothers tearing their hair and beating their breast, silver-haired folk smashed against clay and wattle or stone until their blood stains the streets. Babies, the young and meek, shall be spitted upon blades, and all such atrocities shall rightfully be the product of your hands alone. Yield, or the Gods as my witness it shall be so.”

Minutes passed, and I dared to hope, my horse restless beneath me and its hooves striking the earth to dig forth great furrows from it, before the answer of the heartless German was given unto me. What message or token of his disrespect and opposition did he send to me, I hear you ask, dear reader, and I shall tell you now that it was none-other than a bodiless head, flung over the wooden palisade by a strong German arm, to land in a ragged heap before me.

The head of a simple soldier, and an Insubrian at that, it may have been, but I loved my warriors like brothers and relatives of the blood, and that red essence which does fill our bodies did boil and rise like bile within me, so much so that I withdrew to the safety of my own army and dragged forward three fully bound but still defiant Cheruscan prisoners. Without so much as ritual, I had the holy men travelling with my army cut out their hearts, cut off their heads and then dangle their bodies from some nearby trees before disembowelling them in order to feed the crows.

“Listen now, all of you. Alfsuind has refused to surrender, and so I give you free rights to the town, you may plunder and pillage as you will, any enemy warriors are to be put to death and any women that are no despoiled are to be gathered and sent away as slaves, children with them, those who are too young or too old shall share the same fate as their fighting men. To battle!”

**********

Patiently I waited, as groups of Volcae went before us and and formed breaches in the palisade, a cheer rising from those who watched, my falx sturdy in my hands and Wulfger smiling beside me. As if ordered on by an unspoken command, those of us who had remained stationary now loped toward the splintered sections of wall where the Gauls were already shedding the first of the enemy blood.

What proceeded from this advance was a battle of mettle and grit that would last most of the day, like the hoplitai battles of Greece as two sides shoved one another until the other broke and fled.

Geminus and the cavalry that accompanied us, Treverii and Aeduean Gauls, were commanded by myself to remain outside the walls of the city until called for. This had two reasons, the first being a purely military one where they may act as a reserve force if needed, the second being one of more political motivation. In Germanic society it is survival of the strongest, the comitatus of a noble or chieftain being kept together only if their leader was stronger than both they and his competitors. How must it have looked to my men when Geminus came to me baring the heads of two enemy leaders, and myself having killed three men of no real significance.

No, he would remain where he was, the glory would be mine.

So it was that the enemy, tall and ferocious Germani clad both in roughly crafted mail, and indeed some clad in nothing but the body the Gods gave them, stalled us in the embryonic phase of our assault and there kept us until both sides were drenched in sweat, blood, piss and grime. In the right-flank breach, next to the open gateway, a group of truly terrible warriors held back my own Germans and groups of the Bastarnae, inflicting upon them horrendous casualties and the bodies only increasing as time moved on. When the sight of so much carnage became too much for me, benevolence forcing my hand, I called for Geminus and his cavalry to break the back of these savage German nobles.

When the enemy lost their nerve, as well they should, I gathered all the Bastarnae, blown and exhausted, about me and prepared to assail the strongest enemy position with them alone.

In hindsight it was a foolish plan, but it achieved what it had to.

Leading them on, waving my falx over my head, we rushed up a hill toward the central marketplace of the Suebian settlement. On we ran, our hearts pounding and heads hurting, cold sweat covering my own body from head-to-toe, the falx only getting heavier in my hand and my breathe coming in ragged bursts. At long last we reached the top of the hill and gazed down what can only be described as a 'corridor' to the marketplace, buildings and wooden fences hemming in the approach.

Waiting for us at the end of this passageway were warriors clad in the pelts of the wolf, each in their later years but with the bodies of young men half their age, each one carrying a brace of javelins and a long iron sword, and behind them more foolish, or braved, Germans wrapped in only winter cloaks.

Before all these, half way between us and the market square, was Alfsuind and his retinue of mounted warriors. Each nobleman was tall, bearing himself with the pride of his lineage, tall helmets bearing feathers and crests on their heads and broad shields at their sides, spears held in one hand and a sword at their hip.

As one, the Bastarnae and I began to beat our chests and gnash our teeth in preparation of the fight, the Bastarnae believing that death connects them to their Gods and immortality and so possessing no fear of it. What I was to witness only moments later made me never doubt such a claim again, for I was observer and participant in the charge that made me believe.

We could not move before Alfsuind, intent on dying well I imagine, charged himself and his own comitatus straight toward us. I shoved past others until I stood in the front ranks of the mass, deliberately putting myself in a position to strike at the Marcommanic warrior-king once he came close enough.

That moment, the one I had dreamed of, came sooner than I would have imagined, Alfsuind soon rearing up before me and my falx lashing out to bite deep into his leg that was nearest to me and leaving it dangling by a thread of skin. As the Germanic leader toppled from his steed, his legs no longer balanced enough to give him purchase, I hurried over to where he fell amongst the tussling combatants and knelt down upon his chest. The look in his eyes, the resentment, respect and realisation of everything and who I was shall never be forgotten by me.

Laying aside my falx for a moment, drawing out my sica slow enough for him to know that I was, I beat him across the jaw with my fist and swung down my elbow to break through the bone of his nose. I came remember the feeling of grinning, as I gripped his long silver mane tightly in one fist, my sica drawing a circle about the mass of hair, and yelling to the Gods when his hair and scalp both came away from his head. Not yet finished, I tossed that aside and moved close enough to ram my forehead into the face of the one-legged chieftain, bringing my sica up shortly afterwards and tearing it across his throat.

Covered in blood, and looking like a daemon from the Underworld, I rose to my feet and placed the head in the hands of a young tribesman, ordering him to run to the rear and make sure the head was kept safe. This he did, and because of my order he was not party to what happened next.

With our blood up and weapons crimson we were not to be stopped, or so we thought, noticing the wolf-pelted warriors coming forward and making our way toward them. It was too late to notice them cocking back their arms for a throw of their iron-tipped missiles, realising too late and paying the price. One by one, men began to drop dead as these javelins fell upon us, no man or boy of the Bastarnae taking a single step backward but throwing themselves rather into the path of these shafts.

More and more hampered our onrushing horse of falx wielding maniacs, and then it happened to me.

At first I did not even realise I was struck, such was the endurance of my will, but gradually I turned my head and noticed the four foot shaft protruding from between my breast and arm, and below the bone of my shoulder on the left side. Reaching one hand over the shoulder, I felt for an iron head but found none, meaning that the metal tip of the weapon had embedded itself in my flesh and would need to be cut out.

Out of nowhere, and without warning, my world turned black as night, something solid, hard and likely made of wood impacting on the front my helmet and causing my ears to ring.

The last thing I remember was tearing my helmet off and turning about to see my face meeting the oncoming and unfeeling metal of a hexagonal shield boss.

Then there was nothing.

**********

I woke inside one of the settlements smaller buildings, a homestead by the looks of it, the smell of burning wood and the feminine screams from outside telling me that the battle had been won and my promise to Alfsuind was being kept.

“Praetor,” came the voice of Geminus from the dim interior, “we have removed the javelin and you will have nasty scar to be proud of, but we won the battle, sir.”

When my eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, my own meeting those of my friend, I noticed a subtle change in him. Though I did not see it at the time, I came later to realise that he had seen too much bloodshed, rape and abuse for a man of his upbringing and was in fact going slightly mad even then. A story for a different page, I think.

“Wulfger, where is Wulfger?”

The Bastarnae chief had been standing beside my bed, and answered as such, causing me to flinch slightly at his close proximity. When I looked at him I saw a slight grimace on his face, “we have but a handful of young warriors left,” he told me in a rather matter-of-fact tone, “they are men now, and their brothers have gone to the Gods,” this last statement seemed tinged with a slight note of what I believed to be happiness.

“They died well?” I inquired, “yes...they died like men, and shall be greeted as such in the afterlife. Not one a coward, and each worthy of song and remembrance.”

“Your Germans, sir, I regret were rather badly mauled,” chimed the African from his dark corner of the room, the surgeon and his attendants long gone by then, “at least eight hundred men dead or dying, and most of them from the Chatti or allied contingents of Germani filling the ranks of your German cohorts.”

My head spun slightly as I nodded at the news, my nostrils now certain that things were burning, wood, thatch, and human flesh.

At that moment a head appeared through the door, a top-knot and smooth shaven one at that, Wulfger bellowing at the young Bastarnae in his own tongue. Apparently the man was dragging an unconscious woman behind him and was trying to find a private place to violate her, before selling her to the slavers that always followed a victorious army.

Once he was gone, the Bastarnae falx-master disappearing into the streets after him, I looked once more to Geminus and winced a smile.

“My friend, I cannot carry on the campaign in my condition and shall retire back to Chattium once order has been restored,” a coughing fit caught me unawares but I soon recovered, “gather forces about you enough to penetrate the forests of Marcomanni lands so that, when the summer sun comes and the snows melt, you may be ready to bring those fools too under my dominion.”

My thoughts turned to other things before he had even saluted and left, which he thankfully did without delayed goodbyes or unnecessary emotion.

In the coming years, I had already decided, I would form the basis for a monarchy of all Germania and place upon them a system not too dissimilar than that of the empire, bringing in veteran soldiers from over the border to train and lead tribal contingents in my name.

Chatti, Cheruscan, Suebi and soon Marcomanni would all bow to me and go wherever I would command, not just for me but for the ideal of a united nation under the Gods which would rival Roma in her power and show the world that Germania was not simply a place of dark forests, old mystics and crazed frothing barbarians, but a place to fear for even greater reasons than those.

An administration would be needed, puppet leaders to control the tribes, Romans to be the power behind the thrones or lead, as I do, as one of them. If not a Roman, then a foreigner willing to do so at least. Taxation would also be needed to fill royal coffers, light and little at first, but heavier once command of these wild tribes and their people was certain.

Vast lands I now commanded, with various vying factions, peoples and remote settlements that likely did not even know of me. All this would need to change, and change it would.

I had been given this land and her peoples by the Gods, and I would not be denied.



- B. M. Laenas

[McScottish]

Onward, To The Future... – Summer 634 A.U.C to Summer 635 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the year 634 Ab Urbe Condita, Publius Caesar became the father of a young son named Decimus Rutilius Calvus, Calvus being the family name of Publius and his father of course. To the casual observer of politics this may not seem such a grand occasion, it was simply the birth of a young man of purple-coloured lineage. To those of education and knowledge, however, it was clear that such an event would be occasion for slight panic in the higher echelons of the Roman Empire and its royal house.

Titus, formerly Caesar, still ruled independently but under the orders of Publius in the eastern provinces with Armenia at his doorstep. Two Praetorian Prefects held sway over the elite units of Roma and influence with both the older and younger Publius. Publius Augustus, the Gods bless him, was entering the twilight years of his life and was soon expected to meet his ancestors in the Afterlife, his son becoming Augustus and so on. On the other hand, Marcus Fabius Maximus, the last of the Maximus line that stretched from the earliest days of the Res Publica, continued to reside in the Eternal City and was a living threat to Imperial power, but who was likely to become Caesar when Publius the Elder eventually died.

Now that Publius Caesar had a natural heir of his own, once the boy grew to manhood he would assume the mantle of Caesar from Maximus, but would this young man, of such proud and noble lineage, ever accept such a thing?

Then there was myself, though I wish not to overplay my importance, as I ruled over a loose-knit confederation of tribes and clans spread the width and length of all Germania. By the winter of that year, twenty-nine years of age if I was a day, I had already created councils of nobles or monarchs to rule over the Germani in my name. Of course, these councils and tribal kings were all simply pawns and like unto the fingers of my hand, yet all controlled by the mind that gave them wealth and autonomy and a greater way of life.

Each tribe had also been given a number of experienced Roman soldiers, whether ex-legionaries, auxiliaries or disgruntled centurions, both to train the forces of those tribes and to keep an eye on those I considered to be my allies. Hadufuns, and those tribes loyal to him, I did not even question...but the others, the Cherusci, Cimbrii and Rugii or the Batavians, these tribes I had left under the leadership of their own people, who conclusively answered to me, I was not so certain of.

It was also in this winter that Geminus began the siege of 'Hultaz Marcomannoz', the religious and political centre of the Marcomanni people, some rumours saying that they took their tribal name from a Roman who deserted and founded the tribe. After all the things I had seen and learnt in my near three decades of life, such a theory was not as hard to swallow as one might think.

The summer of the following year, 635 Ab Urbe Condita, was without reserve the greatest of my life, my wife giving birth to not one, but two beautiful children. A son and a daughter, both born at a time when my grandfather was alive to see them, his face lighting up at the sight of them as I had never seen it do since I had arrived at his villa as a small boy myself.

“They are well-favoured,” he murmured, his voice choked slightly, as he looked down at them held in my unmarried brides arms, “blessings from the Gods and a continuation of your bloodline.”

“Borbrentas...” Alina had never looked so radiant, her hair shining and the mingling smell of sweat and blood somehow arousing to me, her eyes flashing upward to look at me standing over her and the sweetest smile parting her lips, “we should name them now, and marry soon after.”

I took a knee beside her bed then, placing my hand on her warm leg and nodding my head, “we shall, my love, we shall be married and our children shall grow to be strong and brave.”

We called the boy-child Answin, meaning God friend, and the girl-child would be called Leutgard, or people enclosure, showing that one was connected to the Gods and the other was a defender of her people and those closest to her. Both children possessed eyes of the most piercing blue, almost otherworldly in their colour, whilst our daughter had the black hair of her mother and my son the more brown hair of his father.

It is hard to express to you, reader, just how content I was to stay within Chattium and raise my children when there was so much to be done across the vast tracks of land that I now had under my control. Yet, for all that, I remained by my loves side and helped as much as I could to make her life easier, until she was able to look after the pair by herself once more and I was freed to go about the business of running an expansive kingdom.

That same summer I received news of the world beyond my self-confined borders, a messenger from Publius Augustus congratulating me on my victories in the name of the Roman Empire and, due to my own questioning of the middle-aged Thracian, answering all further questions I asked of him.

Publius Caesar had bestowed province-wide citizenship on all free men of Dacia and the outlying lands thereof under Roman charge, already beginning to raise Dacian auxiliary cohorts and even going so far as to form treaties with nearby Sarmatian tribes who would give men to fight in the armies of Roma in return for peace.

Depending on how you viewed this, from a narrow or wide perspective, such a move by an Imperial heir could be taken in a positive or negative way.

In every other region of the Roman Empire, east and west, Publius the Elder initiated a reform of the Roman army. Here and there he disbanded entire cohorts, placing the legions in permanent basing behind the frontiers and leaving defence of aforementioned limes to the auxilia.

It was because of this that I managed to acquire so many new trainers-of-men and eyes and ears into my service, even allowing the Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis to make the Batavian settlement of Bagacum their new base of operations. This both lifted any suspicion that Publius might have of me going against the will of Roma and made sure that the Batavian people would follow my orders to the letter, or have a legion shoved up their backsides.

This was also the year that Geminus won more glory for himself, taking Hultaz Marcomannoz and enslaving its people, Marcomanni slaves soon becoming a common commodity at the markets of other tribes. Including, I might add, the group of Suebian tribes who had only recently been ruled over by one of that ilk, but who now enjoyed the benefits a united and purpose-driven kingdom could supply.

Geminus, however, was becoming both too famous and too maddened it was said, Wulfger even complaining to me personally of how the Romano-African Praetor threw men against men like stones into the ocean or how he charged headlong into a seemingly hopeless situation without the slightest regard for him self or his retinue. This was something I would have to deal with before long.

Now, now only Eburodunum, a former Boii stronghold and now gathering place of all further Germanic resistance, was the only thing that stood in my way to complete domination of Germania and the peoples therein. It was made known to me that a group of forest-dwelling Germans still occupied the lands of the Venedae/Venedii but this territory lay outside of my kingdom and so did not overly concern me.

Nonetheless, in time they too would call me...master.

So it was that a call shook the land, a call-to-arms of the greatest and most renowned warriors in my service, to march with me to Eburodunum and crush what German opposition still remained to me.

The beginning of the end.



- B. M. Laenas

[Boustrophedon]

Do you have a clone who writes updates when you are otherwise occupied? love it though!