Night marches are perilous without a torch or stars.
Skipio and his scouts ride ahead of the legions until the roar of wind-swept trees replaces the drum of infantry boots. It is lonely work, and anxiety consumes the hours. No one speaks, not even to their horse, because listening is paramount.
Upon landfall, Planus drew Fortuna’s lot, enabling him and his horsemen to stroll behind the columns, minding provisions carts and the camp servants. Titus, however, holds Fortuna’s love, for he and his archers avoid this march entirely by guarding the beachhead.
Reeds confront their small procession, its insects and amphibians cavorting so desperately that they drown out his thundering heart. Water awaits within this bushy-topped stretch, yet entering foreign wetlands invites death.
Skipio orders Actus to ride its length, and while awaiting his return, Luna’s ears twitch with concern. Named for the quarter-moon patch between her eyes, she shines white like the mountain peaks back home and often visits his dreams as memories. He still fondly sees her racing alongside the cart that took him to school in Mediolanum as a teen.
Actus returns with word that the reedbed runs too long to march around.
No longer avoidable, Skipio and his men dismount. The deafening toad song stops the moment their swords hack the first reed. A snake darts past his boot, amping his stress and steeling his nerves.
Looking back at the narrow path, he finds Luna fidgeting anxiously; they’re not alone, but is it a predator or enemy that watches in the dark?
“River sign,” shouts a man.
“Praise Occasio,” cries Skipio. “If I take another step in this muck, I’ll open a vein.”
Chuckles resound from the unseen as Skipio yells, ‘Light up.’ A burning arrow soars into the darkness, presenting the finder’s location.
Without warning, flames rain down from the black. Hundreds of birds take to the wing in a chaotic departure that blinds. An arrow strikes one of his men, its steaming metal tip wet with blood as it juts out the man’s neck.
Skipio pulls down his mask and raises his shield. Horses cry, their agitation a beacon for him to follow. Several perilous moments later, he’s free of the reeds and finds the three men left behind with the horses.
Headless, armless, and without legs, a trio of bloody torsos stands like starter logs, and within this gruesome tent sits a pile of amputated kindling.
A warrior charges from the dark, painted blue from nose to tits. She wields a flaming club as if born to it, striking a legionnaire dead with one blow. Her shrills prove a harbinger of what’s coming, and Skipio sidesteps the blazing strike and follows through with a sword thrust, cutting into her flesh and striking the bone under her shoulder.
Another enemy appears without a howl and jabs the fiery end of her spear at his mask. Its glossy surface takes the heat, warming his nose as he closes his eyes against its light. The flame retreats when his blade finds purchase with her neck.
More come, some in pairs, and all fall, bathing Skipio in their blood.
The horses gallop past, their Roman reigns in the hands of a walking skeleton. It stands upon Luna’s back as if she were its chariot, its head aflame with frightful orbs in the eye holes of a wooden owl mask.
Skipio stalks toward the rushing beasts and finds no apparition but a man with white bones painted upon a lean body. He maps every portion of the thing, committing to memory his sinewy body and thick lifeless cock.
Fiery arrows pluck the ground around his boots as Actus emerges with two blue skins on his heels. Brittonic mavens bleed from the reeds, pushing Skipio and Actus to stand with their backs together and fight on all fronts.
Blades swing an eternity before the legions break through the trees. Vitus leads the charge and dismounts with a sword drawn. Gaius Trebonius follows, his footmen forming an attack line across the burning reeds.
Dozens of natives cut through the smoke, more men among them this time, forcing the Romans to pair off in a backs-together stance. Metal clangs against metal as the ringing in Skipio’s ears becomes a dull humming.
Pre-dawn’s light reveals a river within the burning reeds. The enemy gathers on higher ground, their numbers hurling rocks and spears amidst teeming arrows that lessen when the sun peeks on the horizon.
Skipio lends his round shield to the infantry’s four-sided buffers and joins their blind march toward the embankment. Water treads his knees as they gain position under the safety of their awning. Arrows pelt their surface, poking through with their fiery tips until leather arm straps burn hot.
Driven to his knees, Skipio commands the men to hold steady and await the archers. His breath nearly fails when a familiar horn blares. He and the men brace themselves while Roman arrows whip overhead.
The first body falls onto Skipio’s shield, driving him into the mud. Another onslaught of bolts sails past them, burying them in corpses. Unable to take any more weight, Skipio sheds his burning shield. Lips together tight, he drives his mask into the water, cooling its metal before it burns his face.
Planus and his engineers appear with rafts of tied-together tree branches and hastily drop them atop the smoking reeds, discarded shields, and burning corpses.
The footmen advance with Skipio joining in their ranks. Actus enters the fray and tosses him another sword. He protects their position with double-handed combat until the momentum shifts, the ultimate goal in an adversarial match.
They swarm the grassy ridge until the sandy crag gives under their boots. They scramble over the enemy’s shallow barriers, carrying grunts, growls, and groans with the gnashing of teeth. No man employs a shield inside the enemy trench where there is only murder, mayhem, and malice.
Horns call for retreat, none of them Roman.
A tempest clears the smoke and dampens death’s rancid perfume. Behind the morning sun looms an angry blue sky—a storm whose mightiest moments still rock the coast. Blood drips from his mask, and entrails blot his sword; he thinks only of Luna.
Long after their enemy vanishes into the trees, Skipio walks the stretch of grassland where horses await Dis Pater to take their ghostly reigns. Fellow cavalrymen wander in a daze, some already beside their equine comrades and sobbing as a father might for a dead child.
Skipio thanks Minerva for sparing Luna.
A paternal hand finds the back of his neck.
“Is she here?” Vitus stands there, his bald head slick with sweat and his shirt stained with blood.
Skipio’s lips turn down as he fights the tears.
“I do not see her,”
“Vitus,” comes the winded voice of Caesar.
Hair retreating like his fathers, their illustrious leader is well into his forties, yet fit as any man younger. Skipio and Vitus come to attention, but the exhausted Caesar waves off such formalities.
“We’ve got a problem,” he declares.
Skipio pivots his attention between them.
“We are victorious this day,”
“Yes,” Caesar nods, catching his breath. “And we’ll camp here because of that victory,”
“We should pursue,” Skipio presses. “Their chariots fled into those woods,”
Caesar’s head swings. “Woods, we do not know,”
“I mapped this land last year,” Vitus reminds him.
“That’s our problem, old friend,” Caesar says. “Your cart is raided,”
“My maps?” asks Vitus.
“All taken,” says Caesar. “Along with your private letters,”
Vitus pushes out a sigh. “How in Juno’s tits did that happen?”
“According to your clerk,” says Caesar. “Hades ransacked the cart until he found the maps.”
Skipio turns to them. “He’s no Lord of Death. He’s a man.”
“You saw this painted Gaul?” asks Vitus.
“He took Luna and a couple of other horses.” Skipio frowns. “He wears a burning wicker crown under an owl’s face,”
Caesar and Vitus exchange soulful looks.
“Another druid owl with a crown of fire,” says Vitus. “An Owl Prince?”
Caesar frowns. “There’s no royalty among the druids,”
“How would he know where the maps are stored?” Skipio wonders.
“Because he’s clever enough to know a camp slave from a free man,” says Vitus. “Greek is the language of the world, my boy.”
“Someone marked our carts in Greek,” Caesar nods. “That owl took every last scroll before burning four carts of grain,”
“Wiley fucker,” Skipio growls. “He’s got Luna!”
Downriver, weary men wash the blood from their bodies while servants of the wealthiest scrub their masters’ armor and tunics.
Across the river, Skipio finds his friends pitching their tents.
Castor sets his eagle eye on the horizon.
“That storm’s from the sea,”
“If it’s damaged any ships,” says Planus. “We’ll be forced to return.”
“We must keep going.” Castor turns to Skipio. “I’ll ask your father if I can scout,”
“They’re not far from here,” Skipio agrees and points. “Chariots fled through those trees, so there’s an escape path. Get to it. I give the order.”
“How now.” Planus tosses tent spikes at him. “Castor’s your father’s footman,”
“My father is blind at the moment,” says Skipio, planting the spikes. “That death-painted druid took his maps,”
Castor throws the tent clothes down in anger.
“That owl-masked bastard that burned our grain?”
Skipio shakes the folds from it. “He also took Luna.”
It takes little effort to erect the tent they’ll share, and when done, a mass of flocking geese blackens the sky. Shouts draw attention to an approaching horseman—Terentius Drusus Valerian, there by order of his superior Titus.
The trio arrives as Drusus addresses the gathering of legates. After glancing at Castor, the young man informs Caesar that a storm tore through a sizable portion of the offshore fleet. Vitus teases Drusus about bringing the storm with him, and the young man apologizes.
“That’s it then,” says Caesar. “We return to the beach,”
The legati agree, including Vitus.
“Imperator, they’re not far from here,” Skipio addresses Caesar. “Let me lead a contingent—”
“—And if you find them?” asks Gaius Trebonius, another of his father’s contemporaries whose hairline retreats like the tides.
“When we find them, Legatus,” Skipio answers. “We’ll burn their camp to ashes,”
“In the pouring rain?” Vitus asks, hand to the sky.
Distant thunder rumbles as if Jove repeats his question.
“Please,” Skipio begs. “If we find nothing by sundown, we’ll rejoin the march back,”
Castor stands behind him, as does Drusus.
“What say you, optio?” Caesar asks his cousin’s youngest.
Planus folds his arms before answering.
“I see no harm in it,” he eyes Skipio. “But no horses,”
Skipio stares at him as if betrayed.
“Fifty swords,” Planus raises a finger. “And yes, I’ll join you.”
A smile spreads across Skipio’s face.
“You’ll do no such thing, Planus,” says Caesar. “Even if our Skipio catches them unawares, I cannot afford to lose such a talented tongue in a skirmish with the defeated.”
“Let me lead the contingent,” Skipio pleads. “I’m expendable,”
Vitus goes wide-eyed.
Caesar, however, regards his friend’s tall son and finds him the only man among them who doesn’t jump when thunder claps hard enough to shake the ground.
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