> ‘In war, the first casualty is truth’
>
> Aeschylus,
>
> In Agamemnon
>
> Around 500 BC
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Decanus Lucas Kato
The month of harvest
Part II
-Nothing of note transpired-
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Battle of Kas
Second Day,
The Dwarf Mines unfinished Road & South Pines Front
A face full of cack, Kato thought eyeing the Issir Ranger popping his head in and out of the branches, the cut tree blocking their advance. A legionnaire groaned five meters from him, arrow lodged in his thigh and bleeding on the wet ground. The poor man had minutes to live, unless they moved him.
Moving him could also kill him.
Fuck.
“Daft bloody job,” Opius Papus murmured stooping next to him behind his Legion shield. “Darn stupid cunts hidin’ in ‘em trees. Who does that but thugs ‘n hoodlums? Fuckin’ hoodlums!”
“Somebody’s got to get it done,” Kato replied, chancing a glance over his shield. “Clean the forest out.”
“What for?”
“The Legatus orders,” Kato said, but it didn’t stop his friend from probing it further.
“Did he give a reason for it?”
“Why would he?”
Papus grimaced and crooked his mouth. “Daft bloody job,” he repeated, his eyes stilled on the moaning soldier bleeding out next to him.
“KATO MOVE YER MEN!” came Centurion Gata’s furious order from the distant trees to their left. Gata being ever subtle and strategic.
“Al’ight lads,” Kato said, seeing the Issir Ranger checking on them, probably his bow aimed and secure behind his fallen tree trunk. “We push ‘em.”
“Come on Kato,” Salle a Nord Legionnaire complained. “What’s the point? We have them pinned.”
“Orders be orders Salle,” Kato growled. “Stop cowerin’ like cunts and march at ‘em! Raise shields!”
“Rank got into yer head, is that it?” Adam Mede grunted from his other side. “Gold in yer purse and meat in yer belly.”
“We ate from the same pot Mede!” Kato blasted him for his second point, since the pay for a Decanus was double what the soldiers were getting. “Why am I even talking wit you? And in the bloody open! Fuck’s sake, now they know what we’ll do!”
“It’s not that difficult to figure it out Decanus,” Osteler, another Nord griped. “Right ye cunts?” This he yelled at the hidden about ten-fifteen meters from them Issirs.
“Better keep yer head down pretty!” An Issir Ranger yelled.
“Who ye call pretty?” Came the legionnaire’s affronted response.
“Who ye call cunt?” The Issir Ranger replied. “It’s even more insulting!”
“Aye, it bloody is!” Another of his hidden mates yelled, sort of revealing himself.
“No it isn’t!” That was Papus always eager to argue stuff and sift through semantics. “Ye smell like cack is the more insulting term.”
“Ayup!” Esteler agreed.
For crying out loud. “CHARGE AT ‘EM YE DARN FUCKS!” Kato roared cutting through the nonsensical back and forth afore they wasted the day away.
You leave a grunt to plan the menu, you have cack for dinner.
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Kato run towards the cut down huge pine tree, his shield raised to avoid getting an arrow in the face. The shield caught one, the steel tip breaking and part of the shaft bouncing off of his helm. He ducked instinctively, tripped over his feet, reached the trunk with too much momentum and went over it.
He banged his knees hard, shield pushed out smacking a Ranger on the head, as they both ended up rolling on the wet ground amidst pine needles and rotting forest greenery. Kato grunted, tried to remove his shield to get to his opponent, but the man kept shifting about not letting him.
Another popped out to his right, grimaced showing a couple of gold teeth and went for his sword. Kato tried to free his left arm, but the Issir under him kept holding on to it and pinning him down for his approaching friend.
“Aahh!” Kato growled trying to free himself, his eyes gawking at the onrushing Issir Ranger. He pulled and heaved frantically, got his arm out of the leather straps and turned to defend himself just as the man arrived. The Issir swung with his sword, but Kato put his blade on it. He did it in a clumsy hurried manner and the Ranger sent his blade flying to the side, numbing his fingers.
Harlot sucks cock wit the teeth.
“Uah!” The Issir cried out, too excited to utter something intelligible and Kato dived on him, before he could slash at him again. He hugged him by the waist, got an elbow right at the left ear that numbed that side of his face, then a pommel at the back of his helm that made his other ear ring something fierce. The Ranger snarled in his face and Kato lowered his head some and gave it a try. Once and he flattened the man’s nose, warm blood splashing him in the face. Twice and he heard a crack under the banging of their helms. Thrice and the Ranger’s skull gave, a bone protruding out of his cut forehead as the man went down, his eyes turned to the white.
Kato stumbled away, his head hurting, ears ringing and jaw not working. He made a couple of steps grunting in pain, found his sword half-buried in the mud and stooped to pick it up. A boot caught him on the shoulder and span him around, trees, canopy and the sun above all blurring into a putrid green and yellow. He slashed blind as he twirled, sandals slipping in the mud, caught someone that snarled in pain and then he came face to face with a painted man, orange and white hair caught in a braid. An eye black, the other the color of jade.
The half-breed had a long shafted axe in his hand and swung at him with a cackle. Kato dodged the fatal swing, more luck than skill involved, twitching his left knee in the process. He groaned and cursed, snot clogging his nose, mud and blood on his face and the half-breed rushed him again. Kato blocked the axe, grinding his teeth and scrunching his face in the effort. The Issir freak got a thin dagger out of his waist, made to stab him in the eye with it, but Kato grabbed at the blade with his left hand. The blade turned, ripping through his flesh and almost severed his ring finger as it retreated, covered in blood.
Kato pulled away groaning, chaos unfolding all around him, with the legionnaires clashing with cornered Rangers and an Issir rushed him from his blind side. He turned on instinct, hearing a branch snapping, but the Issir got skewered through the neck and lost all momentum, the arrow entering from below his right ear and exiting a couple of fingers under the left. Kato slashed at the stumbling Ranger ruining his stunned face down the middle, heard a bellowing Papus charging at the half-breed and twisted around, breathing heavy and barely standing upright to help him.
Papus shoved the weirdly painted man away, everything under the eyes a bright white and then kicked his knee breaking it. The half-breed stumbled back, dropped his axe and went for a shortsword he had on his waistband. An arrow whistled over his friend’s helm, smacked the Issir on the shoulder and Papus stepped forward to finish him off.
The half-breed grunted and stood up despite his injuries, parried the blade aside, flipped the shorter sword in his hand upside down and plunged it in Papus thigh.
“NAAH GODS DARN YE!” Kato growled and rushed him, downing his sword to severe the half-breed’s arm. The Issir let go of his sword saving it and an injured Papus stumbled to his knees, the blood spraying out of his leg. Kato slashed at the retreating half-breed and he tried to block it with the dagger, but his wrist snapped the wrong way when the blades made contact, bones crackling over the ruckus of hard fighting. He lost the blade and Kato advanced on him furious, but the Issir jumped away despite having a bad knee.
“You fucking cunt,” Kato snapped at him and glanced at his injured friend. It looks bad, he thought and turned to carry him away from the fight. Given that they were fighting amidst the trees and bushes, it was difficult to judge where the battlefield ended.
Kato realized he couldn’t see any Issir Rangers standing upright. Only wild-eyed weary and injured legionnaires. A couple of Kaeso’s boys also had started appearing out of the woods.
“How is it?” He asked a gnarling Papus that was trying to stem the flow of gore spreading, pressing both hands on the nasty wound.
“Ain’t lookin’ good Luc,” his friend grunted, teeth rattling. “Don’t like this mate,” the big man added scared.
Shite in the wine.
“Let me get a Dottore,” Kato mumbled knowing there was no one at the near and getting that sword out didn’t seem like a good idea in the first place. Leaving it in of course also appearing far from the healthier option.
“GIVE IT UP BAS!” Kaeso bellowed stepping out from behind a couple of trees twenty meters away, slotting his bow over his shoulder. “Yer boys are fucked.”
“Ah, it makes little difference,” Bas Crull -apparently- rustled with an unsettling grimace. “Yer boys are fucked too.”
“What for?” Papus muttered fading away and Kato stared at him with desperate eyes, his bleeding hand forgotten and that dangling finger an afterthought.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say and Papus nodded, watching his blood spilling down and turning to mud.
“Fuckin’ hoodlums,” his friend whispered and he was gone.
Never to visit Asturia again.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
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“Bring them in the open,” A worn out Kaeso ordered sucking at the inside of his mouth, the scar on his face contorting. Six Issirs had been captured, too injured to fight along with the wounded Bas Crull and were brought with kicks and threats to the small opening that had served as their camp amidst the trees.
Kaeso stared around him, found Kato watching them near the body of Papus and grunted.
“Decanus gather yer men, you be marching out of the forest soon,” the Centurion told him and wiped his face with a hand. “Give me that.”
Kato approached him scowling at the smirking half-breed and gave up the shortsword he’d gotten out of his friend’s leg. Darn thing was sharp as a razor and double edged.
“What about our dead sire?” Kato asked hoarsely, still shaken and numb with what had just transpired.
“They are gone,” Bas replied, eyeing him. “You lads have sided with a lawless ruffian that serves false gods. All of you are doomed.”
Kaeso smacked his lips and stared at his own Rangers watching the exchange. About a dozen of them had fought with Kato’s First Maniple, after hunting the Issirs out of their hiding places.
“Ye think yer not?” Kato grunted, his anger focusing on the enemy Rangers leader. “Last I checked you’ve lost again half-breed.”
Bas grimaced and stepped forward. He was a medium height, wiry man, but still taller when compared to Kato’s stouter and shorter frame.
“You speak of forms and flesh, yet you know nothing peasant,” he sneered, clenching his painted jaw. “I be walking this Realm long after you’ve rotted away alike yer friend.”
Kato unsheathed his sword and glared at him detested. Kaeso standing across from him and closer to the Issir shrugged his shoulders, slotted the shortsword in his harness and stooping picked up the long shafted axe Bas had dropped earlier.
Bas raised an orange brow staring at the fuming Decanus, the color strange on his black skin there, since the only part of his face not covered with white paint was his forehead and eyes.
“Decanus, he’s a lord,” Mede warned him and Kato grimaced, remembering the Legatus orders.
“I’m aware soldier,” Kato hissed, grinding his teeth and Bas started laughing.
“You know nothing,” the half-breed taunted. “If you did, all of you would’ve turned around and fought the bloody tiger afore he does any more damage.”
“Haha,” Mede chuckled. “Yer a fool milord. Everyone has lost people to yer thugs, if ye pardon me language.”
Bas glared at him and shifted weight from his bad knee with a grimace of pain. He was still holding his broken wrist. “Death is not the end soldier,” he admonished the legionnaire. “Pray to the Painted God and yer departed shall return unto you!”
What?
“Bullshit,” Mede snorted. “Yer lying.”
Bas smirked. “Yet in yer heart, you know I’m not—” that was as far as he’d managed to get out before his head snapped violently left, cheek touching his shoulder. The blade that had come down had half-chopped it off, blood spraying Kato and Mede, the torrent a meter long and Kaeso that had been the culprit for the violent attack grunted unhappy. He made a step forward, put a boot on the thrashing Bas that had dropped to his knees and dislodged the axe to try again. The Issirs cried out horrified at the unjustified violence, with some pushing against the Rangers, but Kaeso paused momentarily to stare at his men, his eyes cold.
“Kill them all,” the Centurion ordered callously and taking a step back this time, he swung that nasty axe again and decapitated Bas properly.
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“Get yer men out of the forest Decanus,” Kaeso rustled eyeing him three minutes later. “Nothing to see here.”
“What about…?” Kato asked still shocked at the savagery he’d witnessed.
“They fought to the last man,” an unruffled Kaeso explained to him. “Everyone here,” he said raising his voice addressing mainly the remaining legionnaires standing behind Kato. “A witness to the same fact. These fanatics died protecting their unnamed leader,” he turned his eyes on the pale-faced Kato again. “The Legatus needs not be apprised of the minutiae Decanus. This is also part of yer job.”
Kato nodded and glanced at the slaughtered Issirs, then at the corpse of Papus. The skin on his friend’s face ashen and strange like wax.
“What about the dead sir?” He queried.
“We’ll burn them Decanus, worry about rejoining yer Cohort,” Kaeso assured him. “My men will handle this.”
“What if they ask about Lord Bas?”
Kaeso grimaced that grotesque scar showing the stiches still under his skin.
“Bas was never here,” he replied hoarsely. “He died months back in our camp.”
Kato stood back unsure, not because of the concocted tale, but because for a moment he thought Kaeso was being serious.
Which was weird given all that had transpired.
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Centurion Gata was livid seeing him exiting the last part of the thick vegetation. The return trip gloomy, partly due to the groaning injured men they carried back and partly to the memory of the dead they have left behind to be burned alongside the Issirs. The smoke of the funeral pyres now visible deep inside the forest’s gorges.
Then again this was the Centurion’s favorite expression.
“Kato what is this?” Gata barked over the murmuring of the Centuries lined up behind him. “Did you get lost in them trees ye darn turd?”
“We were wit Centurion Kaeso sir,” Kato reported, his legs burning and the noon sun making the armour burning his skin through his drenched tunic. “Cleaning up the last of ‘em cunts.”
“Ah, well then…” the Centurion grunted with a grimace. “I don’t suppose ye expect to rest up now, hmm?”
“The men are worn out—”
Gata didn’t allow him to get another word in. Ramirus standing rested on his horse watching the exchange with interest.
“As is my patience Decanus,” Gata said with a weary sigh. “Mangas and Testius shall march after us and your Maniple will follow after fifteen minutes with Capito’s Century. We need to get moving.”
We’ve been moving for a day, Kato thought sourly.
“Aye sire,” Kato replied and saluted. He turned around and glared at the weary men. “Ten minutes rest ye cunts!” The Decanus barked, his voice hoarse from all the yelling. “Have some water, piss it out, grab a bite and that’s it. No time for any kind of stupid stuff! Osteler I’m lookin’ at ye son!”
“No funny stuff Decanus, got it!” The legionnaire retorted only his helm showing behind his taller partner in crime.
“Why ten minutes?” Mede argued with a scowl from the other side of their line and Kato casted him a warning stare.
“Ye think I’m givin’ ye too much time Mede?” He grunted and the legionnaire showed him his teeth in the pretense of a smile.
“I was merely applaudin’ yer generosity Decanus!” Mede yelled with fake enthusiasm.
“Think nothin’ of it,” Kato mocked him with an evil smirk. “You’ve just wasted a minute. Don’t be a stupid turd, sit yer arse down Mede.”
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Ramirus approached him half-way through the short respite, Kato in the process of washing his swollen bleeding feet. He offered him a flask with sweet-tasting wine and Kato proceeded to gulp down its contents, keeping his guard around the clean-cut shifty scribe.
Allegedly.
Everyone suspected Ramirus was the Legatus ear in the ranks.
“Where’s Kaeso?” The young man asked smiling the kind of pleasant smile ye expect from a whore, but is unsettling on a man, unless he’s dabbling as one.
Which in Kato’s view was equally disturbing.
“Ahm,” he stalled thinking it through.
“You mentioned being with him,” Ramirus helped him.
Darn snake, looking to get me tripped up.
“I was. Fightin’… a nasty affair,” he croaked, the wine almost drowning him. Kato coughed a couple of times to clear his pipes.
“Hmm, we need to work on this.”
We do?
“He stayed behind?” Ramirus asked him.
“Burning the dead,” Kato replied. “We lost people.”
“Ah, of course,” Ramirus said and nodded. “Someone close this time?”
What the fuck? Kato glared at him.
“My friend,” he grunted. “Everyone is one in the unit I suppose.”
“Indeed they are. We all are. You have the names?”
“Mede has the tags,” Kato replied with a grimace.
“Ah. I shall write them down Decanus,” Ramirus said. “I told you the other time, we shall honor them.”
“Uhm. What for?”
“Excuse me?” Ramirus asked, a little surprised.
“What Papus wanted to know,” Kato elucidated. “My friend.”
“Ah, aye I see,” Ramirus said. “You realize the Legatus will win today right? With the Crulls broken, no army can challenge him up here and the Nords on his back are allies. A stable foothold to catch his breath. Are ye following me Decanus?”
“Catch his breath aye,” Kato repeated nodding.
“The Realm is in turmoil, but the Legatus has support. This mean nothing in a vacuum, but built its myth enough and then it becomes something more. We are the guardians of that myth Decanus. The army and its people are part of this. Everyone will be rewarded in the end, if he succeeds. There’s no end date, even after he’s gone the myth shall rule, as long as the army survives.”
“What does Papus get?”
“His name on a wall, forever remembered and revered by men other than you, flocking at the recruiting centers,” Ramirus replied. “I’m not joking, this is how you create a myth.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Kato said, looking at the empty flask.
“Kingdoms get torn apart because lords have their own ambitions,” Ramirus elucidated. “In the Legion every different part works for the good of the unit. Every soldier, every officer is bound to it, no questions asked. We do what needs to be done. We were kept apart from politics for too long, as some believed the army shouldn’t partake in public life.”
“Lucius will be king, he won’t be with the army forever,” Kato argued and Ramirus stood back, a pleased smile on his face.
“I disagree, the army shall be with him and he’s a part of us now. Governor Tutor is still an army man, as is Governor Macrinus,” Ramirus said and got slowly on his feet. “A Legion’s officer looks to the good of the Legion first, other titles be damned Decanus. You and Papus wanted to get back in to the fold, my friend, I’m here to tell you that you are. We look after our own.”
“Right,” Kato said and got up himself unsure about half of what the man had just said. “About Kaeso—”
Ramirus stopped him raising his hand and glanced around for anyone listening in.
“I have your report Decanus,” he replied smiling thinly. “Nothing of note transpired. You should get your men moving.”
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Three hours later with the sun turning into an orange disk on the sky Kato reached the mouth and found the struggle there had almost finished. The First Cohort had slashed through the Crull force guarding the rear and killed them to a man. Seeing the slain laid one next to the other, Kato wasn’t certain it was much of a fight.
“What now Decanus?” Mede asked him and Kato stared at him wearily.
“We follow the standard legionnaire,” he rustled. “There’s fighting to be done in the valley.”
“They got nowhere to go sir,” Mede said, looking at the Centuries forming to march down the slope and trap the Issirs still fighting against the Cohorts into a death vise.
“I reckon they don’t,” Kato agreed and wiped his brow with his bandaged hand, the pain on his finger persistent.
“Think they’ll surrender?”
Kato grimaced and let out a weary sigh.
“KATO GET YER MEN IN LINE!” Centurion Gata barked seeing them loitering. “Fuck’s sake, we’re the First bloody Century Decanus. We are supposed to move at the front!”
Mede shook his helmed head and run back into formation, the men checking their gear, metal clanging, blades ringing and shields getting secured for marching. The legionnaire gave him a reassuring nod and Kato crooked his mouth, cleared his throat once and bellowed at the top of his tired lungs.
“FIRST MANIPLE MOVE TO FRONT!”
“SECOND MOVING!”
“THIRD MOVING!”
“FOURTH MOVING!”
“FIRST CENTURY IN FULL MARCH!” Gata roared.
“SECOND CENTURY FULL MARCH!” Testius barked after him, followed by Mangas and Capito, until the whole Cohort was on the move.
Like parts of a metallic beast the gleaming red rows of armoured legionnaires started moving in step, hobnailed boots thudding at the ground and rolled down the Mountain Pass slopes headed for the distant battlefield before the walls of Kas.