V – The Stour Reeds

Night marches are treacherous without torch or stars. It is solitary work, and anxiety devours the hours. The hiss of wind-swept trees overpowers the cadence of infantry boots. No one utters a word, not even to their horses.

Skipio leads his scouts ahead of the legions.

Over a mile ahead, they meet a barricade of towering reeds and foxtails. Insects and amphibians cavort so wildly that their clamor drowns out his pounding heart. Amid the bobtails lurks water, and entering unfamiliar wetland courts death.

His second-in-command, a fellow provincial named Actus Ursius, comes alongside him. Actus, the son of a merchant famed for his eastern travels, has narrow eyes and a mother of Sinaean ancestors’ two subjects left unspoken if one values their jaw.

A nod from Skipio sends Actus off to measure the wetlands’ length.

Moments later, acrid wind fills the space. Skipio signals with a raised fist for his men to lower the metal masks from their helmets. Distant hoofbeats approach and reveal Actus. Breathless, he notices their masks and quickly dons his before shaking his head; the marsh stretches too far to march around.

Skipio and Actus dismount, joined by three others, while the scouting group’s youngest tend to their horses.

An agitated Luna jerks her head, pulling the teen off balance.

“That’s enough,” Skipio whispers, nearly without a voice. “You’re in good hands and have nothing to fear.”

Luna turns away from the young Gaul, kicking dirt onto his legs with her back hoof. Skipio grips one of Luna’s braided mane buns and presses his forehead to hers.

“I know he’s young,” he whispers. “But so were you once.”

Unhappy at being left behind, she snorts in rebellion until her master’s steely green eyes silently command her to settle.

The legionnaires line up with liberal distance between them, glancing at each other before stepping forward. Together, they enter the reeds, and the deafening toad song stops when they begin hacking at the brush with their gladii. As the group presses on, a snake darts past Skipio’s boot, delivering a much-needed jolt of fear.

A glance down the path he’s cut reveals Luna, her fidgeting warning him they’re not alone.

“River sign!” yells one Gaul, firing a burning arrow into the dark to reveal his position.

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

His unseen comrades chuckle.

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

Nightbirds take to the wing in a chaotic departure, blinding the armored interlopers.

A man stumbles into Skipio’s path, a steaming metal tip protruding from his neck. The chin of his golden mask is slick with darkness as he chokes on his words, all of them meaningless in that moment. Skipio helps the dying man down into the reeds before raising his shield. He retreats through the fiery chaos, his shield up, blinding him.

Horses cry, their agitation a beacon that leads Skipio out of the reeds.

Beyond the thicket, he finds his youthful horse-minder. Headless, armless, and without legs, his breast-plated torso stands like a starter log atop a gruesome nest of amputated kindling.

A native warrior charges him from the darkness, her naked body blue from nose to tits. She wields a flaming club as if born to it, striking one of his men dead with one blow.

Skipio sidesteps her blazing attack. He thrusts his sword upward, cutting into her clavicle and cleaving bone. Her deathly howl comes on the foulest breath as another painted enemy appears. She jabs the fiery tip of her spear at his mask, warming its glossy metal.

Skipio’s eyes water against the blistering heat and he lashes out blindly, his blade finding her belly. More women close in with shrieks that freeze his soul. Skipio pulls out his secondary gladius. Both arms swinging, he shreds limbs and slices necks. He nearly trips over one of his men, who crawls over the grass, a leg missing below the knee. Two blue-skin girls leap upon him, their short blades jabbing with maniacal ferocity.

Amidst the chaos, Skipio pivots toward thundering hooves.

Roman horses charge from the darkness, Dis Pater, his head aflame, grips their reins while standing astride Luna’s back with grave poise.

Skipio strides fearlessly into their path and finds no god, only a lanky druid with lifeless eyes that mark Skipio through the holes of a wooden owl mask. The druid swiftly guides the horses around him, thick cock swinging while the white skeleton painted upon his coal-dark skin glows in the firelight.

Actus bursts from the marsh, a gang of blue on his heels. He joins Skipio, their backs pressed together as the mavens circle them. Metal clashes and the sound rings endlessly in their ears until a familiar horn breaks the night.

The first Roman column appears, the men in front quickly raising their swords and rushing when painted natives begin bleeding from the reeds.

Vitus dismounts and draws his spatha, while Gaius Trebonius orders his footmen to advance.

Britannia’s clubs and swords are blunt like their battle howls, but Roman footmen charge without fear onto the skirmish line, pairing off with their backs together.

The second row of legionaries stand shoulder to shoulder, forming a front that becomes unmeasurable. Spears out and shields up, they advance, absorbing their gallant fighters as they close in on the skirmish line. Outnumbered by this Roman wall, the natives scurry into the marsh, setting off another storm of arrows.

Pre-dawn light exposes the river, where the natives mass on higher ground. Rocks and javelins join the barrage of deadly bolts that confront the Roman advance.

Skipio adds his round shield to the long squares carried by the infantry. He joins their march toward the embankment, water lapping at his knees as they cross the river. Arrows pelt his shield, their fiery tips breaking through and searing his leather arm straps.

A cry rises above the tumult, and praise be to Mars, it is Titus and his archers.

The armor-clad invaders crouch low and brace themselves. Like low-flying osprey, Roman arrows sail overhead, sending the first dead down onto their shields. Another onslaught of bolts fires past, and this attack drops enough corpses to drive Skipio’s knees into the mud.

Sunlight floods the horizon, and the wave of enemy arrows thins. Skipio sheds his burning shield, but its heat clings to his mask. With eyes shut and lips pressed tight, he plunges his head into the murky shallows. He rises, steam wrapping its golden veneer.

Planus and his engineers push into the marsh with rafts of tied-together tree branches on their shoulders. They drop these panels atop the smoking reeds, covering the pile of arrow-ridden shields and burning corpses.

Actus leads the footmen across this new bridge, tossing Skipio another gladius. They rush the grassy ridge, buckling the sandy crag beneath it. They swarm over sharpened 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 overtake the coppery stink of loose blood.

A bloody canvas of blue skin and red cloth takes form when a gale clears the smoke, but no amount of wind can dampen death’s rancid perfume. The relentless chaos ebbs as distant horns call for retreat.

An angry blue sky encroaches on the sun, a coming storm that still rumbles faintly with flashes from the coast. Blood coats Skipio’s mask, but the only thing on his mind is Luna.

After the natives vanish into the trees, he crosses the grassland where dead horses await Vanth to take their ghostly reins. Flies thicken the air, forming a second skin upon their gaping wounds. Cavalry men pace in a daze among spindly limbs and cut-off hooves, some kneel beside their fallen equines, sobbing as a father might for his dead child.

Unable to find his mare, Skipio thanks Mars for sparing her. A paternal hand rests on his neck; his father sweating in a blood-stained tunic.

Skipio’s lips turn down. “I do not see her.”

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

The commander-in-chief calls out to them, voice winded as he strides through the battered clearing. In his forties, the illustrious Gaius Julius Caesar’s fine blond hair recedes with each new battle. Skipio and his father snap to attention. Caesar, noticing their fatigue, stops short and lifts a hand, gesturing for them to stand at ease.

“There’s a problem,” Caesar tells Vitus.

Skipio shifts his attention. “We are victorious this day.”

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

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

Caesar’s head swings. “Strange woods we do not know.”

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

“That’s the problem if you let me speak,” Caesar snaps.

“Forgive me, Imperator,” Skipio says, head down.

Caesar speaks to Vitus. “Your cart was razed.”

“My maps?” asks his father.

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

Vitus grins through his anger.

“How in Juno’s tits did that happen?”

“Your clerk says Dis Pater ransacked it, then burned it.”

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

“Another painted druid,” says Caesar.

Skipio adds, “He took Luna and the horses. He wears a burning wicker crown over 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,” says Caesar.

Vitus spits in frustration. “Greek is the language of the world, my boy, and that druid knows it.”

“Someone marked the carts in Greek.” says Caesar, nodding. “The owl took every scroll and burned our grain.”

“Wily fucker also got Luna!” Skipio storms away from them without a salute. Neither Vitus nor Caesar calls after him, knowing best when to let a stormy heart settle.

**

Downriver, weary men wash off blood as servants scrub their masters’ armor. Steps from shore, Skipio finds his friends pitching tents for their superiors.

Castor studies the darkening sky. “This storm’s from the sea.”

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

Skipio joins them. “We must pursue those who fled.”

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

“They’re not far from here,” Skipio says, taking the tent from Castor and pointing at the woods.

Planus tosses tent spikes at young Castor, then steps into Skipio and says, “Junius is your father’s footman, not yours.”

“I give the order,” Skipio asserts. “Go, Castor.”

Planus warns Castor as he makes to leave, “Speak with Servius Legate first.”

Castor nods before jogging away.

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

Planus throws down the tent cloths. “The same owl-masked bastard who burned our grain?”

Skipio collects the canvas and shakes out its folds.

“He also took Luna.”

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

“I saw no proof of that,” Skipio mumbles.

“Druids here honor Epona, just as the common Gaul does on the continent.” Planus then adds. “Any man who kills a horse in battle will fall by her hand, or be taken down by a druid.”

Skipio takes comfort in such a notion.

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

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

A massive flock of geese blackens the sky, providing shade from an already darkening sky that overtakes them for several moments. Skipio hasn’t seen such numbers since coming to this island and smiles with thoughts of Titus pestering the cook for fire-roasted goose.

Shouts draw his attention to a horseman racing through the ranks. He and Planus abandon the tents and jog to the hill where Castor stands among the Legates and Imperator Caesar. The horse slows on approach, its rider dismounting to join them; Terentius Drusus Valerian glances warmly at Castor before turning to Caesar.

A storm has torn through a sizable part of the offshore fleet.

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

The legates agree, including Vitus.

“Imperator, let me pursue the retreating faction,” Skipio says. “I’ll lead a contingent—”

“And if you catch them?” Gaius Trebonius asks.

“When we do, Legatus, their camp burns,” Skipio replies.

“In the pouring rain?” Vitus asks.

Thunder rumbles with a flash of light, as if Jove repeats his father’s question.

“Please, if we find nothing by sundown, we’ll return,” Skipio pleads.

Caesar looks to Planus. “What do you think?”

Planus folds his arms. “I see no harm in it,” he says, cavalierly. “But no horses.”

Skipio stares at him, betrayed.

“Fifty swords,” Planus adds, grinning. “And I’ll join you.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Caesar says, unwilling to explain to his favorite cousin that he sent her son to die. “Even if Servius the Younger catches them, I can’t lose a talented engineer in a skirmish with the defeated.”

Planus sighs, arms dropping.

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

Vitus’s bald head whips around. “What in Mars’s balls gives you that notion?”

Thunder booms, shaking the ground beneath them. Caesar notices the others flinch, while Skipio stands unfazed.

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