Marcel, legatus legionis, raises his hand high in the air, signaling the remains of his marching legion to a sudden stop. They listen to the sounds of the forest, buzzing insects and observing birds, eyes tracing every shuffle up birch, splitting to every ruffle in a bush.
“Shieldwall!” Marcel's voice echoes, metal wanes, and synchronously, a formation is struck.
Marcel looks down at his scraped iron greaves, a snake slithers under his legs, afar, a panther leaps up a tree, hunting a monkey. Dacius, primus pilus, shoulder-to-shoulder, mutters Visigoths. Marcel's blue eyes glow, and he sees ahead of them, a horde of barbarians ready to pounce. He turns his head, and sees barbarians at his flank. He looks behind, taller than the rest, they're surrounded.
“What are they waiting for?” Marcel asks.
“For us to break ranks and blame it on a paranoid mind.” Dacius replies.
“No. They know who I am. What I've come for. Rome will be complete again.”
“On your order, then. Commander.”
“Stay in formation.” Marcel walks three steps yonder. His position is filled immediately, behind him a row of rectangular shields marked with the red wolf howling to the silver moon.
“Wildmen of the forest. I did not take you for cowards. Show yourself!”
Commander Marcel hears a laugh of a woman, only shown to him. His eyes glow once more – the silhouettes of barbarians have gone, replacing them is a cackling witch, black robes flowing as she levitates underneath an old, ancient walnut tree.
“She is far from here. And yet she watches. Why is that?” Marcel says, and then whips to his men, their eyes searching for death, channeling Mars, The God of War, baring a flaming gladius as he looks over the children of Rome. “Marching formation!”
Felix, a freed gladiator turned praetorian guard, arrives at Marcel's side.
“Where are they?”
“They are not. This forest is cursed.”
“What do you mean?”
“A witch looms overhead, casting illusions upon our vision.”
“Does she fight for the Visigoth's?”
“No-one wars for land claimed by Pluto. We must move quickly.”
The nights comes sooner than expected.
“I should have trusted our scouts. Not even the most decorated of wild-men could sneak upon the Legion of the Red Wolf.” Commander Marcel stands confident at the center of a forming encampment constructed in the thickest of wood. Men sharpen the edges of freshly chopped trees, erecting razor-edged barricades, ready to be defended from bears and savage alike. Legionaries clash swords in practice, clanking against shields and gauntlets scarred by a hundred battles.
“Rome will conquer the world, for its people mimic the Gods, Hispania to Serica.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Some Romans happen to be imbued by them.” Dacius says, a bandage tightly wrapped around his forearm turns red with blood. “And some drink too much mead.”
“Which are you, then?”
“Neither savage nor god. I fight for you, son of Hercules.”
“My father was a meek man who died of botulism.” Marcel feels the late gust rattle against his platemail. “We march from dawn to midnight. I advise you get rest – tomorrow brings grave danger, and will require all your faculties.”
“I imagine more than witches' illusions await us?”
“Even Jupiter cannot see into thicket warped by corruption.”
“Then may we hope Vulcan guides our steel.”
Commander Marcel turns to Dacius, and realizes he's no longer with him.
Soldiers patrol the perimeter, lit by torches. Marcel lays in a tent no different than the others. Despite most of the legion falling into rest, there remains a lively number that choose to stay awake.
Gnaeus, a centurion, sits center of a campfire encircled by seven men.
“We've lost thousands of legionary since our march from Rome began. Thirty-six hundred withered away to two cohorts, eight-hundred well enough for battle, on the precipice of clashing with an army fifty thousand strong, in competition with the wilderness and her spawn to string us atop every tree-branch, disemboweled, weapons and armor scavenged to be pointed at our own kin.”
Sergius, a young legionary and protégé of Gnaeus, grinds his gladius with a whetstone.
“Wherever you go, father, I will follow.”
Dominic, an older veteran cuffed with white hairs and a balding head, groans.
“If Marcel walks off a cliff to enjoy the rapids below, we will soon join him.”
Gnaeus about to respond, is suddenly silenced by the screeching of coyotes, he's heard them many times before, but these are more ravenous and rabid than starving hyenas feeding on a fresh kill.
“Those don't sound like coyotes.” Sergius stops sharpening his gladius. “Father?”
“Commander Marcel explicitly stated-” Dominic is interrupted by a screaming scout erupting from the tree-line. They search for slits between the barricades to see – blood spilling down his mouth, his skin peeled – it's a wonder the man is even living.
“Sound the horns!”
Dacius is running tent-to-tent, awakening those deep in slumber.
Felix is already within Legatus Marcel's quarters, a band of praetorian surrounding the tent.
Gnaeus is at the gate, pulling in bodies from those on patrol silently mutilated, mandibles ripped from skulls, eyes hanging by the wire, legs severed at the knees, bite-marks too long and jagged to be human. “This isn't the work of man.” His voice trembles, looking to his left-right, the signs of their foolish mistake is clear. “We're camped between the nests of lycanthropes.”
“What is?” Sergius asks.
“Half-man. Half wolf. King Lycaon's punishment from the Gods.”
Dacius, primus pilus, is followed by the loyal remnants of the first cohort to the front, where a bulwark of legionaries lead by Gnaeus have already formed a shield-wall.
And then – there was silence.
Commander Marcel, wielding the spear of Bellerophan, ponders the mutilated legionaries who've been dragged to an empty tent, far from eyes their wounds may demoralize.
“There may be valuables in the Lycanthrope dens that would see us great rewards. These ...hybrids... enjoy collecting valuables of jewels and shimmering types, blades and pendants." Those around him look at him with veiled expressions, masking anger at his callousness. “I will give this thought in my lonesome, in the mean-time, prepare two-hundred hands for battle. Who knows what treasures will be disseminated among our finest? My collection of items enchanted by the blessed is near-unfurling from my trove. I ask for no-more rewards. I seek you all gain yours."
Marcel is walking to his tent.
“It is out of my place” Felix says “but if you may allow me to speak on the matters of moral.”
“I am not a tyrant, speak harshly.”
“The legion. What is left of it. After tonight – cannot take any more senseless casualties.”
“They are senseless?” Marcel says, with an inkling of reactionary anger.
“Many legionaries serve and retire without seeing a single half-man in the wild, let alone fight with these .. creatures.”
“We are of the Red Wolf. We bare its insignia. If we cannot slay Lycanthrope with ease – we do not deserve what is painted on our shields, on our banners.”
Marcel enters his tent. Felix stands steadfast at guard, an expression of worry breaks through his stoic demeanor.