Brennus stood at the head of his army in this southern forest. He was not among the towering trees familiar to the Urzoth, more overgrown bushes trimmed into a tree-like shape by ground dwelling animals that feasted on the lower branches.

His Urzoth had existed in a time and place frought with perpetual conflict with their eastern neighbors, the Alans. They had often warred amongst themselves before Brennus united the villages. They did not, however, know war as they would soon experience it. But they were strong men, and desperate.

Brennus did not permit himself to consider a different course for his people. He knew once set in a direction, his Urzoth Kingdom held no capacity to suddenly stop and reverse course. If he did permit himself to doubt, he knew he would not attack the city. He would know it was an insurmountable task. But Brennus had chosen to attack Adrianople then sail for freedom and safety across the Philip Sea, and so he would move forward. Always forward.

Otto was not at his side. Brennus had given him charge over another column to the north of the city, poised to attack the walled city's gates.

He breathed the cold, early morning air deep into his lungs. What a difference, he thought. Only a day before they had been sweating on their march and now they shivered. Storm clouds blocked the sunrise and promised rain. Brennus took another breath then nodded to this new man next to him. He couldn't think of his name.

"Ruahaaa!" The man yelled, and the Urzoth sprinted from the trees, clad in stolen steel for the first time in many of their lives. They ran for the wall ready to draw arrows and toss grappling ropes to the top to scale the massive walls. Brennus led the charge.

The early hour, as Brennus had planned, meant either less guards or possibly a change of guards atop the walls, and the forest served to mask their numbers. As they ran arrows began to whistle from the barely visible men atop Adrianople's walls, only to stick harmlessly in the ground. A few Urzoth picked the arrows up and shot back. Their attempts bounced off the stone walls and once again fell.

The first men gave their best efforts to throw the grappling hooks, but none reached the top. Brennus felt a strange sticky substance falling from the walls, then saw the orange glow of a torch in the darkness."Fire! Run!" Brennus turned to run, slipping in the oily tar he pushed the men behind him back. Not everyone heard their king. The torch landed on them and dozens of Urzoth screamed as they burst into flames. The horror terrified Brennus, but the war had been started at Fort Annius, his home in the Tuculli would soon be overrun with an even greater threat than these Novissime, and his only hope for the survival of his people lay on the other side of Adrianople's walls.

The rain began to fall in concert with the sun brightening the battlefield. The fire seemed so much smaller in the new morning light. The next round of Urzoth threw their hooks up the walls, this time a good half of them found their hold while another round of Urzoth archers, more experienced hunters as Brennus planned, took aim at the top of the wall.

The Urzoth began to climb. A Novissime at the top sliced a rope, sending an Urzoth to the ground. Not a high enough fall to kill the man, but his screams could be heard over the whole battlefield. The Urzoth archers loosed their arrows at the top of the wall, sending the Novissime ducking back.

Brennus saw his chance, he ran for a rope hanging from the top, determined to take the wall. He could see a few of his men had made it to the top

Finally.

But as Brennus reached for the rope the man who had first climbed it came crashing on top of him. Followed by another. Then more. He thought the walls might be too much for his inexperienced army. Brennus was out of ideas.

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***

He was out of sight of the first wave of the battle with his own column, but Otto could hear the screams.

The gates will be easy enough to take, they are wood and his men had their axes. As simple as harvesting linden trees in the Tuculli. Otto prowled the tree line beating the chest of the men who would charge with him. He heard a creaking from the city. The gates were being raised. He knew they heard the screams as well.

Perhaps they made it over the walls after all, he thought, but to the pleasant surprise of Otto and all the Urzoth, silver armored, purple cloaked horsemen came pouring out of Adrianople's gates followed by a seemingly endless stream of steel armored Legion soldiers.

"The armor looks better when it fits." Otto slapped the protruding belly of an Urzoth soldier who had to pass on the steel raiment and wore only an ill-fitting pair of greaves that did not reach the tops of his boots. The man gave Otto a hardy laugh.

"Good! We can just get to it then!" Otto shouted to his men, raising his ax and bringing it down with a thunderous roar to signal the charge.

The treeline of the small section of forest the Urzoth stood in laid on the west side of a wide main road. The road was rocky dirt lined with large stones and stretched as far north as the eye could see. The forest had been cut back to leave a clear stump filled stretch between its trees and the City's walls. The silver armored horsemen whipped from the gate and turned from the road on to this stretch of land. Otto knew they were heading for Brennus.

The horses had come full speed out of the gate. They moved much slower, navigating the stumps and thick mud created by the now driving rain.

In no time Otto's column was on the silver and purple clad riders. Otto leaped off a stump, propelling his massive frame into one of them, knocking the man off his horse. He had led a small portion of his men, just less than one hundred, to meet the forty horsemen. They were the first wave meant to assault the city's gate, while the rest waited in the trees.

The riders' advantage of being horsed against the axe wielding Urzoth was quickly negated as the men were knocked off their mounts or flung to the ground by the panicked animals themselves.

Behind the first wave of silver riders came foot soldiers marching in tight formations, eight men wide and deep with shields raised and long pikes protruding up, forward and from both sides.

Otto saw the enemy making their way toward the blood and rain soaked battlefield and called to his men, "On me!" His booming call was echoed by the men closer to him as the first wave of Otto's attacking force retreated and pulled in tight.

The Urzoth faced the enemy and retreated at the same pace that the Novissime shells moved toward them. "Now!" Otto called to the remaining Urzoth.

Otto had pulled the enemy far enough that the second wave of Urzoth attacked the formations from behind, breaking them up until each man fought for himself. These Novissime soldiers, armored in steel rather than silver and with no colorful cloaks, were not as easily defeated as the fancy horsemen had been. Urzoth and Novissime alike fell around Otto.

As tactics continued to give way to individual combat the outnumbered Novissime received the worst of the fight. Urzoth victory came even more swift, though, as Brennus and what remained of his column joined the battle. Ineffective arrows from the top of the walls struck the mud with no more than a handful doing notable damage to the Urzoth. Just as many hit the Legion. As the Novissime numbers dwindled, Otto and Brennus led a force to Adrianople's gate, only to find it closed, and more disappointingly made of iron.

The Urzoth with the belly gave the bars a mighty blow with his axe. He hacked with no effect until an arrow shot from inside the gate lodged itself in his belly. He gripped the arrow and turned toward Otto and Brennus. Another struck his side. Another hit his neck and he fell to the ground, lifeless.

"To the trees!" The Urzoth king roared.

The rain turned to ice, then back to rain, deadening the awful stench of the bodies. The Urzoth had not lost more than fifty men. They had left no Novissime outside the gates, be it the steel clad foot soldier of the legion or the silver armored, purple cloaked horseman alive. Still, they had failed. They limped away from the city through the twisted foreign trees, without a plan.

Otto walked beside his king in silence. Brennus patted his oldest friend on the back, it was all the acknowledgment Otto needed.