> Where I’m laid down, there they shall lay next to me.
>
> And people will acknowledge it
>
> and pay their respects upon entering that hallowed ground.
>
> Here he is, the stone shall say, Lucius and his legionnaires.
>
>
>
>
>
> -
>
> Legatus Lucius Alden
>
> Speaking to the surviving legionnaires,
>
> after the Battle of the Mouth, outside the Kas Burg.
>
> Late first month of summer 190 NC
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Legatus Lucius Alden
Out of the funeral pyre
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The Sovya Carl swung his double-edged sword in a wide arc, almost lopping Lucius head off. The Legatus jerked to the right side, mouth all gluey and breathing putrid smoke, parried the return away, but tripped himself up on a half-burned black corpse and missed his opening. The armoured Carl grunted, pleased at Luthos’ intervention and made to shove his sword into his ribs, but Layton came out of the heavy smokes, raised a trunk-like leg and gave him a casual-looking kick. The hardwood sole of the hulking man’s leather boot thudded into the Carl’s chest, ripped his breath out and rammed him brutally onto the burning wall of the Castrum, the sword tumbling from his clasping hand, bleeding down his eyes and twisted mouth.
Goodness gracious.
Lucius shook his helmed head and pushed forward. The last knight turned around, saw them cutting down his friends, cursed the gods and hurriedly galloped back down the slope to bring help. Three hundred meters from the Mouth another small group of men-at-arms appeared and paused to examine the waning down scrap. Lucius stepped away from the burning walls of the camp and tried to locate Decurion Long amidst the chaos. The ground peppered with dead, broken weapons and severed body parts. Everything sinking in the bloody mud.
Kato came up to him bringing another much taller legionnaire in toe.
“Ah,” The tall legionnaire said seeing the Legatus, much like his friend had done earlier and Lucius remembered them at last.
Pappus and Kato.
“Ayup,” Replied his shifty-looking friend that weird toothy smile on his face.
“Find the Decurion, Pappus,” Lucius ordered the bigger gawking soldier. “We have to regroup and try to break out Agricola, afore Lord Lennox is informed we’ve won the scrap here and sends reinforcements.”
The legionnaire saluted and trotted away energetically. Kato wrapped a bloody cloth around the wound on his leg and then tried to snap his finger back, but failed. The bone was broken. He howled in pain, but kept most of it in, clenching his teeth. Lucius sighed and gave him a linen hankie to use as bandage.
“Gratitude sire,” Kato said accepting it and they both turned to watch Layton returning, heavy boots thudding, after he realized the enemy force had been defeated both inside and outside the Castrum. The towering Nord grinned seeing their awed gaze and Lucius gave him a nod of approval for helping him earlier. Hearing Decurion Long’s riders gathering up with cries and whistles, Lucius looked about found a warspear and took it.
“We need to move fast, Lord Lennox isn’t a fool,” Lucius repeated eyeing Lesia’s Shield dispatching a rider to pull men from the vise that was slowly strangling out the Century. Agricola had formed his men into a large square at some point, but the Duchy’s Carls had whittled them down slowly, the square ever shrinking.
“The big guy could take him out sire,” Kato offered, the swollen part of his head bigger.
“Name’s Layton small soldier,” The Nord corrected him with a frown.
Lucius stared at the distant Lesia’s entourage debating their next move unsure. “With what Kato?”
“Yer spear sire,” He replied.
What?
Lucius stared at the hulking Layton and then at the heavily bandaged legionnaire. “That’s easily three hundred meters and this ain’t a javelin,” He said through his teeth. “You’re justifiably confused soldier, why… you’re hurt of course.”
“He hurled his waraxe fifty meters to kill that knight sire,” Kato said evenly. “Thing weighs a ton.”
Pulverize more like, he thought with a shiver, seeing the legionnaire’s point.
Layton snorted and tended his spade-like callused hand. Lucius frowned unsure but gave him the spear he’d just picked up. Had Lucius believed Layton could have harmed the Lord Shield from that distance, he might have not gone through with Kato’s crazy suggestion out of respect for the old man.
He would have also lost the battle.
> The story surrounding the Duke of Cediorum’s untimely demise in the ‘Battle of the Mouth’ borders the absurd. The elderly Duke, Lord Lennox was sixty, sustained a freak injury by a wayward spear, whilst arguing with one of Sir William Redmond’s adjutants. Given the distance involved from any meaningful action and the fact the fight had concentrated at that time at the other edge of the Mouth -where the remnants of the First Century were defending themselves surrounded- most scholars dismiss it. The official story pushed that the Duke led his knights on a charge on Lucius’ forces and was killed in action.
>
> Most witnesses of the event though, both Northmen and Lorians, tell of a different tale. Sir Ottelo Zaro who was the closest surviving officer and a couple of Legionnaires serving with the First Century swear the Duke was injured by ‘Hulking’ Layton. The spear hurled from the top of the slope, the distance just over three hundred meters. It went through Lord Lennox’s thigh severing the femoral artery, shattered the bone and skewered his horse from the left side, afore exiting out the right.
>
> Bent but intact.
>
> The Duke of Cediorum collapsed and despite superhuman efforts to revive him, the famed old general perished. His injury confused the Carls under him and paralyzed his knights, who blamed Sir William for contributing to the Lord Shield’s fate. By the time Sir William –fighting at the northern part of the battlefield- assumed command of the situation almost an hour had gone by. Agricola had been killed by then, along with three quarters of his force and officers, but the Carls had suffered devastating losses after the repeated attacks. Sir William pulled half his force from the frontlines –about a hundred Carls- to deal with Lucius’ meagre and haphazardly gathered group of soldiers. A mix of cavalry, Logan’s warriors and the few legionnaires with Layton.
>
> Sir William led his quavering men up the gentle slope, as the news that Lucius was present had spread to the exhausted First Century’s soldiers, almost as fast as those of Lord Lennox’s grave injury had to the Duchy’s Carls. Renewing the hopes of the first, damping the spirits of the latter. The Duke’s heir wanted to salvage his honor and avenge his sister, but when he reached Lucius pitiful force, he saw that Centurion Sula’s legionnaires had arrived marching non-stop since morning.
>
> Evening the numbers.
“FIRE JAVELINS!” Sula barked and the first row of legionnaires stepped forward and hurled their lethal projectiles at once. All thirty of them fell on the charging Carls and all but broke them. “Second line! Loose!” A Decanus barked and another thirty javelins ripped through the reeling attacking Carls three seconds later.
“SHIELDS!” Sula boomed, as Lucius accepted the reins from Decurion Long and jumped on a fresh horse. The sound of men clashing not ten meters away horrendous and otherworldly. Blades clanged on shields and helmets, axes thudded on armour. Men yelled and cursed. The shrieks of agony coming right after.
“FORWARD! Up and at ‘em lads!” Sula barked not wanting to let the broken Carls disengage and retreat back towards their friends.
“Follow me,” Lucius ordered Long and his riders. He galloped down the slope in an arc, behind the retreating enemy lines and the following after them wall of legionnaires. Lucius was going to charge everyone with him on the Carls blocking Agricola’s force and break them out, or die trying.
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The Northman got Lucius’ lance through his back, the shaft breaking a foot in and was hurled to the ground face first. His horse pushed another aside, whilst he tossed the broken part away. Lucius kicked out viciously with a hobnailed boot next, catching the head of a warrior and felt his nose crunch flat against it. The man went down, but two more turned around seeing their friends battered and shoved aside by horses, their lines reeling and rushed Lucius with curses.
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Lucius downed his longsword obliquely lopping the first one’s head off, raised it anew changing his grip mid-air, knees turning his horse to keep the other warrior at bay, afore cutting him savagely across the chest. The blade opening up the rings on his chainmail like it was made out of parchment, the cutting angle seamless. The Carl coughed up blood, a hand clasping the grotesque wound on his chest to try and keep his ruined lungs in, the other traveling in the air -severed by the Legatus’ swift follow up slash- still holding at his blade.
Lucius turned his neighing horse around, the chaos engulfing everyone be it friend of foe. A rider got skewered through the neck and then toppled dead from his mount, a Carl getting literally chopped to pieces by an icy-eyed solemn Logan.
The Duchy’s men managed to hold up for about four minutes getting assaulted from both sides and Lucius admired them for that. Then they broke and turned to get away from the sharpened blades and steel tips that were butchering them. With one side of the surrounded Century freed –the westernmost side of their square- every Legionnaire there turned to reinforce their friends still fighting to keep the Carls out.
“DECURION!” Lucius barked, his voice hoarse. “PULL THE HORSES BACK!”
He moved his away from the thick of the fight, waving his hands and yelling orders to get as many riders with him as he possibly could. This smaller group of about fifteen, Lucius led about twenty meters away and speaking hastily, but in a loud clear manner, explained to them that they were to follow him.
Gripa who had a nasty cut on his face bellow his right eye tossed him another spear and Lucius caught it.
“Riders on me! After me lads!” Lucius yelled and started galloping around the flanks of the embattled Century wanting to reach behind the Carls still holding them pinned mostly due to their difference in numbers.
Lucius turned his head to the south, saw the Knights and aides around the unresponsive Lord Lennox desperately carrying him away and trying to load him on a carriage that had just arrived. Some pulling at their hairs, or covering their mouths grief stricken and shocked. With a grimace Lucius looked to the west, Sula’s red plum dancing as he walked briskly to the side of the gleaming and force marching legionnaires coming down the slope, the Carls utterly broken and running for their lives in front of them.
A tired but resolute Lucius sucked a cavernous breath in, cold northern air filling his lungs despite them being at the start of summer, a bloodied hard-faced Decurion Long reaching him in the meantime. Seeing he’d gathered everyone he possibly could for the next task, the Legatus gave the order for the last charge of the battle.
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Lucius raised his hand, leather underside of his gauntlet covered in gore and his sword arm heavy. The blood had dried up and turned into a cracking dark gelatin-like material on his joints, mixed with soot and dirt.
Decurion Long turned on his saddle, the lanky officer much in the same condition. The Legionnaires that had survived the ordeal looking shell-shocked and strangely serene. Most of them had collapsed on their shields, but for those sporting serious injuries. Dead soldiers laying frozen next to them, before them and behind their lines. Some of the dead turning into bloated corpses after two days in the cold sun. Friends and foes all garbled together, sometimes hugging as if consoling each other and that same eerie stillness with the occasional moan, or cry of agony, breaking it.
Desolation.
Mayhem.
Lucius sheathed his sword after cleaning the blade with a cloth Gripa tossed him. His aide still bleeding down his face. He had some water from a flask and then passed it around to the nearest legionnaires not expecting it back. Small things, Galio had told him back at the Gorge. The amount of carnage packed in so small a battlefield staggering and mocking the old officer’s words.
This is no small thing you’re asking of them.
The Carls had retreated towards Kas utterly broken, losing as many men running away as they’d lost in the fight. Lucius turned his horse around and started down the slope followed by Gripa, the Nord Decurion Long and some of his remaining cavalry. Not even a third of them had made it, but they had smashed the Duchy’s already reeling forces that were unable to recover after they’d lost their commanders.
Lucius had found Sir William's mangled corpse near the end of the fight, the young knight had been trampled under the hooves of Long’s riders, probably those that hadn’t followed Lucius in his maneuver at the final stages of the battle. He looked for his sword saddened, Lucius had last seen him as a boy, but couldn’t find it so he cut his family pendant from his neck. The familiar standing black bear engraved on the round medal and his house’s words.
Deeds not words.
You think you’ve won husband? Macia hissed, the memory bitter.
That this is over?
Ah, you foolish kid. She didn’t deserve any god darn loyalty.
Lucius grimaced and locked eyes with Kato, the legionnaire still alive and sporting even more jewelry on him than before. The man showed him his teeth in understanding, misjudging his intentions.
“I’ll send it to his father,” Lucius explained, his face darkening.
“It’s good gold dis milord,” Kato argued. “Pity it goes to waste.”
Lucius had grunted and turned away.
He’d reached the flat opening amidst the two forests, the pines dominating the south portion extending for miles. The road ahead reached Kas less than a day away on horse, three on foot. It turned right again and up another incline to enter a different set of mountains, after Bloody Ridge.
The Lesia knight standing rigid on his horse greeted him with a curt nod, his face cover open, an unknown man of Lucius’ age behind it. Lucius spotted the twin Mallets of Dokamna carved on his plate cuirass, the four men-at-arms gathered around the carriage grim-faced and silent, watching them both.
“I’m Lucius Alden,” He said stopping his horse a couple of meters away. “I came to pay my respects to the old Marshal.”
“I’m Ottelo Zaro,” The Knight replied with a grimace. “The Marshal is indisposed, I’m afraid.”
“You can leave unopposed. Take him back to his family,” Lucius told him solemnly. “You have my word Sir Zaro.”
“Much appreciated,” Zaro grunted in his heavy Lesia accent and stood back on his horse. “You have won the field…”
“Legatus is fine,” Lucius said to help him out.
“The day’s yours Legatus.”
“I don’t wish to fight Lesia, Sir Zaro,” Lucius said looking at him. The Knight shrugged his shoulders.
“Then you should have stayed in the north Legatus,” He replied sternly. “You’ve brought this on yourself, I reckon.”
“So did you, my good knight,” Lucius retorted and Zaro nodded once yielding.
“Aye, it is what it is.”
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Two hours later the legionnaires murmured seeing him approach in the light of the huge funeral pyre’s flames. Beyond the mouth and the still smoking Castrum the lights of the first carriages had started to appear, followed by Sula’s other half of his Century. Lucius grimaced and pushed his horse closer to the worn out men resting. Agricola’s body had been recovered, the task of finding the dead a difficult ordeal, but a necessary one. Even the injured had helped, the casualties atrocious. They worked diligently into the encroaching cold night and placed everyone next to the other. Together in life, brothers in war, it was only fitting to depart this Realm together.
Ever in company, he thought.
Little things.
“They were not alone,” Lucius said, his hoarse voice ever rising and stood up straighter on his saddle so that he could see as many of the gathered men as he could. The light of the corpses burning, creating sinister shades of red, black and anything in between. It distorted the faces of those listening to him talk. It shrouded injuries small and big, hid their ranks and station, until only the shape of their bodies remained encased in the Legion’s armour and same style boots. “They shall never be,” He continued. “Be it they were orphans, widowers, rich or poor, or running from the law. They shall never be forgotten. The time and place they fell shall be carved out in stone! This I vow afore you and all the Gods, Old and New! They shall become a part of me and I shall become a part of them and every one of you! For we shall bring their memory and ultimate sacrifice back with us. We shan’t leave them buried in the mud! Build a monument we shall, a house and a palace, so we can all be in their company again, when our time comes!”
His strained voice rising even more Lucius pressed on, his throat hurting and the men listening to him enthralled. “Where I’m laid down, there they shall lay next to me. And people will acknowledge it and pay their respects upon entering that hallowed ground. Here he is, the stone shall say, Lucius and his legionnaires. But afore that we’ll win and what is owed unto Lucius henceforth, SHALL ALSO BE DUE TO YE!”
The Legionnaires roared at his words, those standing nearest reaching to touch him and Lucius gulped down moved, but not pulling away. He waited for them to calm down some and then added his voice breaking a bit at the end. “Hold this moment, lock it in your hearts legionnaires. Savor it. Rest tonight knowing that one day in the future, people coming to deal with me, shall have to answer to you all as well. I’ll make sure of it.”
> The remaining Carls retreated to Kas, but learning of the Legion’s arrival two days later, an exodus followed towards Kadrek. Those loyal to the Duke left taking their families with them and Lucius allowed them to escape. The elders of the Burg and those opting to stay with their homes asked the Legatus for assurances he won’t allow the Jarl to take control of the city fearing reprisals for the war of seventy three. Lucius assured them that he wouldn’t give the Jarl any more land he hadn’t won. In the days following the two dramatic battles at the Gorge and the Mouth, Lucius had realized he needed to find a base to operate from.
>
> So the Legatus took Kas for himself and turned it into a free city.
>
> The two battles had a huge cost in men for the Crulls, damaged the Third Legion, but was a devastating blow for the Duchy that lacked quality men and Sir William had squandered away a good chunk of the Duke’s trained forces, managing to lose Kas in the process. Whilst the Duke mourned the loss of his son and heir, this hardened him even more in the months to come.
>
> The shock and grief that had grasped King Davenport’s court though can’t be overstated. The King was a very close friend to the old Marshal that is true, but he had a great fondness for his late sister Queen Vacia and Lucius’ mother. It is rumored he wasn’t kin on acting against the Legatus that had taken over Kas in the meantime and was working on replenishing his force.
>
> The old Marshal’s grieving daughter Queen Saskia went berserk seeing his inaction and asked her cousin the ‘Iron Baroness’ of Ballard to plead her case in court. The stern, unmarried Lady Lila traveled to Armium and admonished the King publicly, reminding him Lord Lennox had never baulked at any command the king and his father afore had given him and he’d never shied away from duty, be it for danger, or decorum. ‘He did what was necessary’, the solemn Baroness added probably drawing from her own experience, ‘however distasteful, to preserve this king’s honor.’
>
> ‘Would this king,” Lady Lila had asked a huffing and puffing King Davidson. “Not allow Lord Lennox the same courtesy?”
>
> Several prominent people were lost in this smaller scale battle. Amongst them Sir William Redmond, the Duke’s heir and younger brother of Lucius late first wife Macia. The esteemed Lord Miles Lennox, Duke of Cediorum of course was the most notable loss, along with Sir Mario Testa, son of the Baron of Andatelia.
>
> Three quarters of the vaunted First Century’s (1C1CH3L) legionnaires fell near Kas. Amongst them the decorated for bravery at the Battle of Krakenfort earlier that year Centurion Paulus Agricola and Primus Pilus of the Third Legion. One hundred and forty seven officers and soldiers accompany him today on the Wall of the Fallen in Elysium Fort. The first whole unit (First Century numbered two hundred Legionnaires plus officers after Lucius reforms earlier that year) earning a gold Phalera for each of its members and the second to receive a gold distinct standard (after Sula’s First -1C2CH3L), the citation reading ‘exceptional heroism against overwhelming odds’.
>
> But it wouldn’t be the last.