V – The Stour Reeds

The roar of wind-swept trees overcomes the drum of infantry boots. Night marches are perilous without a torch or stars. It is lonely work, and anxiety consumes the hours. No one speaks, not even to their horse.

Skipio leads his scouting party ahead of the legions, and after a time, they find a marsh obstructing their path. Inside this wall of towering reeds and foxtail stalks, insects and amphibians cavort so wildly that they drown out his thundering heart. Water lies somewhere within the swaying bobtails, and entering a foreign wetland invites death.

Actus rides off to measure its length, and after several moments, the wind dies and an acrid smell invades. Skipio signals with a raised fist for his men to pull down their metal masks, each tucked within the crowns of their helmets. Distant clopping draws near and reveals Actus. Out of breath, he notices their masks and quickly lowers his before shaking his head without a word; the marsh runs too long to march around.

Skipio and Actus dismount, as do three others, their horses left in the care of the scouting group’s youngest, a Gallic youth not yet twenty. The five line up with a liberal distance between them, and together, they enter the reeds.

The deafening toad song stops the moment their swords hack at the first brush. A snake darts past Skipio’s boot, delivering a much-needed jolt of fear. A quick glance behind him reveals the narrow path he’s cut, and at its end stands Luna, her anxious fidgeting reveals they’re not alone.

“River sign,” yells one of his Gauls, who sends a burning arrow into the darkness to reveal his location.

“Praise Occasio,” Skipio says. “If I take another step in this muck, I’ll open a vein.”

Chuckles resound from his unseen comrades.

Without warning, balls of flame rain down from the black.

Birds take to the wing in a chaotic departure that blinds everyman where they stand. One stumbles into Skipio’s path, blood dripping from his silver mask and an arrow’s steaming metal tip jutting out the other side of his neck.

Skipio helps the man down before raising his shield. He retreats through the chaos with his head protected. Horses cry out, their agitation a beacon that leads him out of the reeds. Outside the thicket, he finds the youth left behind with the horses. Headless, armless, and without legs, his armor plated torso stands like a starter log atop a gruesome nest of amputated kindling.

From the dark comes a native warrior, her naked body painted blue from nose to tits. She wields a flaming club as if born to it, striking one of his Gallic men dead with one blow. Skipio sidesteps her blazing attack and, with a forward sword thrust, cuts into her under the shoulder, cleaving bone. Another painted enemy appears without the courtesy of howling. She jabs the fiery tip of her spear at his mask, its glossy metal warming his nose. Her scorching flame burns his eyes, but when it retreats, his blade finds purchase with her neck.

More women come, some in pairs, and all fall after Skipio pulls out his secondary spatha and begins shredding limbs and cutting necks with both arms swinging. One of his men crawls over the grass, a leg missing below the knee. Two blue-shaded women leap upon him, their short blades jabbing with maniacal ferocity.

Amidst the bedlam, Skipio turns toward the rumbling of horse steps. Their horses charge past, Dis Pater, holding their reins. His head ablaze, the emaciated God of Death stands upon Luna’s back as if she were his chariot box. Skipio, unafraid, strides into their path to find no god.

The druid’s lifeless eyes regard Skipio through the holes of a wooden owl mask as he steers the horses around him. Firelight exposed white bones drawn upon coal skin.

Actus rushes from the marsh with two blue skins on his heels. He and Skipio come together, back to cack, as the deadly Brittonic mavens surround them. Metal clangs against metal until it becomes a dull ring in their ears.

Skipio fears his arms tiring, until the bellow of a legion’s horn fills the night sky. The first column appears, their frontmen quickly breaking ranks with swords in hand.

Vitus dismounts with spatha drawn as Gaius Trebonius sends his footmen to follow. The attack line forms across the burning reeds just as throngs of paint-heavy men cut through the smoke. The running Romans caught in the melee pair off in a backs-together stance while the legions form a wider column. Spears out and shields up, they advance on the fight, carefully allowing their free-standing brothers to retreat between them.

Unable to push back the Roman line, the painted natives flee into the marsh, defended by fiery arrows that rain down to halt their enemy’s pursuit. Pre-dawn light reveals a river beyond the smoke. The natives gather on higher ground, single file, along the opposite bank. They hurl rocks and javelins amidst waves of flaming arrows.

Skipio lends his round shield to the infantrymen’s four-sided buffers, marching with them blindly toward the embankment. Arrows pelt their shields, the fiery tips poking through and scorching leather arm straps. Water treads his knees as they advance under the safety of the shields.

A familiar horn rings out, and Mars be praised, it is Titus and his archers. Skipio and the infantry crouch low and brace themselves for the fury that comes. Like low-flying osprey, Roman arrows whip overhead and send the first dead Britons down onto Roman shields. Another onslaught sails over them, bringing more falling corpses that drive Skipio into the mud.

Sunlight floods the horizon, and the rain of flaming arrows lightens. Skipio sheds his charred, burning shield, unloading the dead onto the reeds around him. Eyes shut and lips together tight, he drives his head into the slimy shallows, cooling the metal mask before it burns his face.

Planus and his engineers push into the marsh with rafts of hastily tied-together tree branches on their shoulders. They drop the panels atop the smoking reeds, covering the mass of discarded shields and burning corpses. Quickly, the footmen advance over the planks, with Actus among them. He tosses Skipio another sword so he can protect their position with his renowned double-handed skills.

The momentum shifts as Roman soldiers pile onto the grassy ridge, buckling the sandy crag beneath it. They swarm over the enemy’s barrier of cut-sharp reeds and spill into the dugout trench with grunts, growls, and gnashing teeth.

No one employs a shield in these narrows, where murder and malice rule and the foul stench of split entrails overtakes the coppery stink of loose blood. A rainless gale clears the smoke and dampens death’s rancid perfume. Metal striking metal dies as distant horns call for retreat—none of them Roman.

Behind the morning sun looms an angry blue sky—a storm whose mightiest flashes rock the coast. Blood coats Skipio’s mask and helmet, entrails blot his sword, but the only thing on his mind is his mare, Luna.

Long after the natives vanish into the trees, Skipio walks the grassland stretch where horses await Consus to take up their ghostly reins. Cavalrymen wander in a daze, some sit beside their fallen equines, sobbing as a father might for his dead child. Unable to locate Luna, he gives thanks to Neptune for sparing her.

A paternal hand finds the back of his neck. Vitus, his bald head slick with sweat and tunic stained with blood, asks after the horse. Skipio’s lips turn down as he fights the tears.

“I do not see her.”

“Minerva watches over her,” his father says. “As she watches over you,”

The winded voice of their commander-in-chief calls Vitus’s name. Well into his forties, the illustrious Caesar remains as fit as a man half his years, though his fine blond hair retreats more with each passing battle. Skipio and his father come to attention, but the exhausted general waves off such formalities.

“We’ve got a problem, friend,” says Caesar.

Skipio pivots his attention between them.

“We are victorious this day,” he says.

“Yes,” Caesar nods, catching his breath. “And we’ll camp here because of that,”

“We should pursue,” he urges. “Their chariots fled into those woods,”

Caesar’s head swings. “Woods, we do not know,”

“Father mapped this land last year,” he argues.

“Yes, and that’s our problem,” Caesar then smiles at Vitus. “Your cart is razed.”

“My maps?” asks Vitus.

“All taken,” says Caesar. “Along with your private letters,”

Vitus grins through his anger.

“How in Juno’s tits did that happen?”

“According to your clerk,” says Caesar. “Dis Pater ransacked the cart before burning it to ashes.”

“He’s no Lord of Death,” Skipio tells them. “He’s a man,”

“Another painted druid,” muses Caesar.

“He took Luna and our horses,” Skipio says. “He wears a burning wicker crown above an owl’s face,”

Caesar and Vitus exchange soulful looks.

“Another owl with a crown of fire,” Vitus says.

Skipio wonders, “How did he know where the maps were stored?”

“Because he’s clever enough to know a camp slave from a free man.” Vitus spits in frustration. “Greek is the language of the world, my boy,”

“Someone marked our carts in Greek,” Caesar nods. “And that owl took every last scroll before burning four carts of grain,”

“Wiley fucker also got Luna!” Skipio storms away from them without a salute. Neither man calls after him, knowing best when to let a stormy heart settle.

Downriver, weary men wash blood from their bodies while the wealthiest servants scrub their master’s armor and tunics. Several steps from shore, Skipio finds his friends pitching tents for their superiors.

Castor studies the angry blue sky.

“This storm’s from the sea,” he says.

“If it’s damaged any ships,” Planus says. “We’ll be forced back to the coast.”

“We must keep going,” Skipio says, joining them.

Castor turns, “I’ll ask your father if I can scout.”

“They’re not far from here.” Skipio takes the tent from him and points at the woods. “Chariots fled through those trees, so there’s an escape path.”

“How now?” Planus tosses tent spikes at young Castor. “Junius is your father’s footman this week.”

“I give the order,” Skipio asserts.

Planus warns as Castor makes to depart.

“Speak with Servius Legate first.”

“My father is blind,” says Skipio, planting the spikes. “That death-painted druid took his maps,”

Planus tosses down the tent clothes. “The same owl-masked bastard that burned our grain?”

Skipio collects the canvas and shakes out its folds.

“He also took Luna.”

“It is good that they revere horses,” Planus says softly.

“Thank Neptune for that,” Castor mumbles.

“Epona is her name here,” says Planus. “She watches over all horses, from battlefield to farm.”

“They’ve far more goddesses than we do,” Castor says.

“Yes,” Planus eyes the woods. “Perhaps that’s why their women are so damned fierce,”

Shade overtakes their position as a flock of geese blackens the sky. Not since coming to this island has Skipio seen so many geese and waterfowl.

Shouts draw his attention to a horseman racing toward his father and Caesar on the hill. The trio arrives as Terentius Drusus Valerian addresses the gathering of legates and their general. He glances warmly at Castor before informing Caesar that the storm tore through a sizable portion of the offshore fleet.

“That’s it then,” says Caesar. “We return to the beach,”

The gathering legates agree, including Vitus.

“Imperator,” Skipio steps in and addresses Caesar. “The retreating faction isn’t far from here. Let me lead a contingent—”

“And if you find them?” asks Gaius Trebonius, another of his father’s contemporaries with an extinct hairline.

“When we find them, Legatus,” Skipio assures by looking him in the eyes. “We’ll burn their camp to ashes,”

“In the pouring rain?” Vitus wonders, hand up at the darkening sky. Thunder rumbles with an intense flash of light as if Jove repeats Vitus’s question.

“Please,” Skipio begs Caesar. “If we find nothing by sundown, we’ll rejoin the march back.”

“What say you, optio?” Caesar asks his cousin’s youngest.

Planus folds his arms before answering. “I see no harm in it.” He looks at Skipio. “But no horses,”

Skipio looks back at him, betrayed.

“Fifty swords,” Planus raises a finger at his smiling friend. “And yes, I’ll join you.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Caesar verdicts. “Even if our Skipio catches them unawares, I cannot afford to lose such a talented tongue in a skirmish with the defeated.”

Planus uncrosses his arms and pouts.

“Let me lead the contingent,” Skipio begs. “I’m expendable,”

Vitus goes wide-eyed.

“What in Mars’s balls gives you that notion?”

Caesar considers Skipio after he proves the only man among them who doesn’t jump when thunder booms strong enough to shake the ground beneath them.

“Please, Imperator,” he asks again. “Let’s weaken their position now so we can repair our fleet in peace,”

Caesar regards his old friend Vitus before announcing his decision.