The high sun casts a glow over the sea, and from the haze comes a shadow, then five, and then ten. Soon, the indistinguishable becomes too many ships to count.
“The Roman wolves paddle through the storm,” says Aedan.
Their driver grunts softly, but then he’s a short oaf with more muscles than thoughts. Begat, however, a crone older than dirt, thinks enough for two.
“Ships can’t crawl over land,” she declares.
“They don’t need to.” Aedan squats on a rock and studies the fleas nesting in her oily hair. “The sea could swallow them, and they’d still shit hungry horses and blood-thirsty soldiers to shore.”
Their bulky driver marches to his chariot. “There’s too many of them!”
“That one will die first, I reckon,” says Begat.
“One of many to greet Dumnorix before we do,” Aedan sneers.
Laughter fills the space between them.
“You a strange one, Owl King.” Her breath reeks of shellfish. “But the strange ones always survive,”
Refugees from the continent proved Ostin correct: Mandubracius allied with the Romans. Those fresh from the fight assured the rash Cassibelanus that the defeated Dumnorix had hidden ships and was biding his time until the invaders set sail to sabotage their crossing.
The Roman’s arrival confirmed that Dumnorix had died without his ships.
Aedan wears his father’s robes and stands astride the chariot’s horses, one bare foot upon each of their backs. The driver gawks at his exposed ass with curiosity and disgust. Most men don’t mind Aedan’s gaunt body after tasting his hole—it’s his soul they find unpalatable.
Wind aids their journey to the hilltop fort. The horse’s breaths become shallow as they charge the tall plank gate. The double doors part as they arrive, coming back together quickly as they pass.
The horses stop in familiar surroundings, and that’s when old Begat darts into the shadows to tell her truths. Aedan backflips off the beasts’ backs and cartwheels past newcomers, shining their swords in the sun.
He finds his mother in the largest roundhouse, whispering to her brother at his tray table full of sand. Taran, his uncle and alleged blood father acts as arch-druid of this settlement. He details plans in the sand with his fingers while Ciniod gushes over him.
They turn Aedan’s stomach enough to eagerly announce the Roman arrival before the charioteer can formulate the words. Truth is a wicked stew, and he enjoys serving it.
“They got more ships than the sea got fish,” the charioteer utters.
“Seven hundred and ninety-three fly Roman colors.” Aedan hops onto the table and curls his toes around its hedging. “Three, fly Treberoi colors,”
Ciniod gasps. “Indutiomarus sails with Rome?”
“Cingetorix rules now.” Cassibelanus enters like a bad smell.
The warlord’s voice booms even in open spaces, and his thin lips curl at the edges under a curtain of thick brown hair. His jowls are clean-shaven, as is his head—and that hairless noggin is the only thing Aedan finds remotely attractive.
“So he has no choice but to sail,” he grins at Aedan.
He tolerates the breeder-king because there’s always an entourage of delicious warriors around him, and today’s bouquet contains a strapping fox-haired sort with a ruddy chest in need of a blade bath.
The redhead steals glances at him, but Aedan stares boldly back and finds a face that screams of someone barely weaned from his mother’s tits.
“If the wolves are here,” Taran declares. “Then Dumnorix is dead.”
The young man whispers to Cassibelanus.
“Why would the leader of the Treberoi fight alongside his enemy?”
“Their families are under the knife, so they fight,” Aedan says, eyes roaming the young man’s freckled arms. “If they flee or revolt, their kin die.”
“It’s called being a hostage.” Cassibelanus intentionally comes between them and slaps Aedan on the back—it’s not a touch he savors. “Look at you perched up here at face level. I bet you weigh no more than an owl,”
Kelr, the manlet, regards Aedan with interest.
“Go get your mother, boy,” Cassibelanus orders, then stalks his way to Ciniod. He sweeps her into his bearish arms as the manlet exits. “You’re looking well for a widow,”
“I’ve been worse,” she bears her blackened teeth and titters like a girl never bled. “Put me down, you fool,”
“My words are true even if foolish.” Cassibelanus sets her down. “You’re still beautiful,”
“Still clever with words, I see,” she flirts back.
Aedan retches loudly, enough to make Taran regard him with alarm.
“Enough of that,” she snarls at her son, familiar with his antics.
“How can you carouse,” Aedan demands calmly. “When my father remains undigested by the Gods?”
“We’ve bigger concerns,” says Cassibelanus.
Aedan agrees. “Nearly eight hundred concerns as we speak.”
Cassibelanus turns thoughtful, then vexed.
“You remember Imanuentius’s cattle?” Aedan asks him. “Before you killed him, he owned six hundred heads. Eight hundred is more than that.”
The skin on the warlord’s arms becomes like that of a plucked goose.
“Taran,” comes the birdlike voice of Avalin the Catuweluni.
A sixth child and only daughter of the man who calls Cassibelanus his heir, she floats in like a butterfly and embraces the lanky Taran.
“Aedan,” she smothers him with kisses when she sees him and tousles his hair, much like she did when he toddled. “You’re so grown,”
Chunky and perfumed, the honey-haired Avalin mothers every child, no matter their nature. If the Romans brought children, she would love them as her own.
“My son tells me the wolves are back.” Her bright brown eyes find Taran before noticing Ciniod. “Chinny, remember the first time we saw them? How we joined our men and fathers on the cliffs?”
“I’ll never forget,” his mother forces a subservient smile.
Avalin commands many, relying on Cassibelanus, a man she has raised since he was a pup, to keep them in line. Childless most of her days, the Gods saw fit to award her with a son long after her bleeding became irregular.
“Are we ready for them?” she asks no one in particular.
“We’ll set out before sunrise and attack their beachhead,” says Taran.
“Is that wise?” Cassibelanus wonders.
No, it isn’t.
“They’ll not be waiting for you,” Aedan says, jumping to his feet. “They’ll march the bulk of their forces through the night and find this place,”
Taran frowns. “They don’t know this land,”
“Don’t bet against it,” Aedan counters. “It’s not their first visit,”
“I’m aware,” Taran reminds. “I faced them on and off, this island,”
“You faced them,” Aedan counters. “And lost your face,”
Avalin lowers her eyes, and Cassibelanus grins.
“You would have me send fighters in the night?” Taran goads. “Their torches targets in the trees?”
“I would have you dispatch the night hunters to set traps along the widest swaths of the wood,” says Aedan. “Romans march four by four on known roads and three by three over natural paths.”
All eyes find him.
“I read my father’s letters,” he tells the man. “Your frontal assaults failed on the continent, and they’ll fail here,”
“I know this land,” Taran tempers his rage. “I’ve killed for it,”
“And I’ve killed to see its future,” he says. “All I ask is that you plan a contingency for when your morning beach attack fails.”
“That’s a fair request,” Cassibelanus interjects. “Fortify a nearby river,”
Taran nods, then scowls at Aedan. “We’ll gather at the Avona.”
“It’s too close,” Aedan says quickly.
Taran scowls at him, earning a gentle pat on the hand from Ciniod.
“I was thinking farther north,” Cassibelanus steps to the table.
Taran gives his head a shake. “They’ll not cross the Avona,”
“Oh, but they will,” Aedan says. “And our dead will be their bridge.”
Avalin gasps. “Is that what you saw, Owl?”
“He saw nothing,” Taran exclaims. “Bloodlust clouded any divination.”
Aedan stares blankly at Taran.
“We’ll hold half the force east of the wood,” the man decides. “If the wolves manage to cross the Avona, we’ll fight them in the grass—”
“-Romans are strongest on an open field,” Aedan counters.
Taran taunts, “Faced many Romans, have you?”
“You’ve done so and learned nothing,” Aedan speaks without emotion. “They’ve bested you time and again in free-range skirmishes on the continent, and here you are, humping the same leg, like an addle-brained dog.”
Cassibelanus comes between him and the enraged Taran.
“What do you suggest, Owl?”
“He’s not Fintan’s successor,” Taran shouts.
Aedan speaks into the silence.
“Send an emissary to open talks,”
“You’d have us invite them for some mutton?” Cassibelanus asks, eliciting laughter from his entourage.
“This Avona is too close.” Aedan jabs a finger into the sand where the eastern grasslands run alongside the river, drawing a line to the stone representing their location. “Their horsemen will follow your retreat and burn this place to the ground,”
“Get out,” Taran growls until Ciniod steps to him. “I tolerate him because of his father, but no more,”
“I thought you were my father,” Aedan mocks.
Cassibelanus lowers his head as Avalin inserts herself between Ciniod and Taran, taking the long-faced druid’s big ears in her hands.
“He lost his father, and you lost your…” she moves from him and gently touches Aedan’s cheek. “Let’s speak on this when your tempers have settled.”
Aedan retreats from her touch as Taran’s sour regard tickles his back.
“The boy lacks his father’s temperament,” he hears him say.
Cassibelanus hums. “Yet wields his father’s cunning.”
Outside, he lingers near the thatched door and listens as the warlord tells them his plans to return north.
Taran sounds hurt.
“You won’t fight with us at the Avona?”
“We will fight at the Tamesa,” says Cassibelanus. “By then, I’ll have gathered the numbers needed to face Rome.”
Taran’s voice wavers. “Are you of this thought?”
“I wish for no fight at all,” Avalin placates with a lover’s promise. “But if there’s to be a confrontation, we shall have it on our home shores at the Tamesa.”
“I stand with my brother here,” says Ciniod.
Aedan frowns at her bid for Cassibelanus’s attention. She hopes he begs her to accompany him north or at least provide her with a detail of guards, the former proof that he’s not ready to share her bed. It’s not out of respect for Fintan; no, it’s because he enjoys young juicy cunts to those that require warm grease.
Kelr’s breath tickles his neck. “I saw you at the ceremony, Owl King.”
Aedan regards him without a word.
“My mother is right,” Kelr’s thin lips twist. “Your eyes are darker than the new moon sky,”
Aedan dips his head and sniffs the young man.
“Can you see yourself in them?”
“No,” Kelr shakes his head. “Am I supposed to?”
Without warning, Aedan shoves him.
Kelr manages to keep his footing, but his cheeks burn all the same. He grasps Aedan’s narrow upper arms and throws him to the ground, his face a perfect mixture of upset and irritation.
Aedan bites his lower lip, opens his legs, and bucks his hips in excitement.
The manlet, however, blinks with a protective hand cradling his gut.
Bored with his indecision, the limber Aedan rolls backward to standing.
“When you’re ready to be a man, come find me.”
Kelr’s treads catch his heels. “Why did you push me?”
Aedan climbs the water well and perches upon the bucket brace.
“I hit you. You beat me. We fuck.”
“That’s insane,” says Kelr. “Why would I beat you?”
Aedan’s dark eyes gleam. “A punch to the face feels good.”
Kelr swallows hard. “You like that?”
“I like that,” Aedan parrots, then softens. “I like you,”
They stare each other down for several moments.
“I can try,” says Kelr, unsure. “If that’s what you like,”
Aedan backflips and lands on his feet.
“I need a man that does, not a boy who tries.”
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