The line of jetties attached to the north shore wharf district stood empty. They remained empty for returning military vessels. Twenty Neven ships, including the flagship of the Empire, arrived and docked. Their gangplanks extended and soldiers marched out onto the dock. The Legion soldiers formed up and marched toward the main street. However, from ten of the ships emerged fifty fully armoured men on armoured, muscular horses, and one hundred armed Holvelan men.
The horsemen formed up with a discipline that was comparable to the legion, holding their rank and file as they moved along the jetty. An impressive sight that was exactly as they appeared- a force very few units could withstand without significant defensive structures. Behind them came a rabble. Different coloured shields, mismatched combinations of mail, leather, lamellar and furs. Most shocking of all, a quarter of their number appeared to be women!
The onlookers marvelled at these barbarians. They were tall, and although they moved together, they did not appear to be a unit. Their hair was of different lengths and styles. It seemed to be a loose collection of individual fighters. Most notable were the two giants. One in black, the other in a white bearskin. Both men stood a full head taller than the next tallest man.
The armed men moved along the street that led away from the docks, heading to the main street that opened wide enough for four deci to march abreast. This wide thoroughfare led to the giant basilica that housed the Senate. Meanwhile, the horsemen moved right, travelling up a street perpendicular to the men on foot. Amongst the barbarians were two men with their hands tied behind their backs and sacks over their heads.
The legions, led by Marius Vinnicus, received cheers from the people as they marched along. They marched in loose formation with each man two arm’s lengths apart, as is proper for the army to demonstrate no aggressive intent. Many of the people now lining the streets believed they had already returned victorious… until they saw the armed barbarians following behind.
ᚲᚺᚱᛟᚾᛁᚲᛚᛖᛊᚱᛁᚾᚾ×ᛟᚱ×ᛟᚱᚾ
Shufi climbed the three-man high human pyramid. He carried with him three grappling hooks attached to his belt. He crested the roof of the building, and silently attached the hooks four feet apart. The rest of the men climbed onto the roof. All along the main street, Shufi’s people were getting into position. The men in his group crept forward behind their quarry. Lining the roof near the front of the building were fifteen archers. All along the main street, archers topped the buildings, and on all those buildings, death stalked them on silent feet.
He raised his hand and then chopped it down. His men surged forward, grabbing their prey and slicing their throats. Shufi’s men caught the archers lining the roof tops completely unaware. The archers had no time to react, believing that no one could know that they were up there. Within the space of five minutes, the high ground belonged to Shufi, his men taking up the weapons of their slain foes, awaiting the signal.
ᚲᚺᚱᛟᚾᛁᚲᛚᛖᛊᚱᛁᚾᚾ×ᛟᚱ×ᛟᚱᚾ
As the Holvelans moved along, they were looking everywhere. The large, rough-looking people were in awe of the everyday structures in Paqurineva. Further back in the column, Orn was doing much the same as his contemporaries, amazed at the Nevan architecture. This marvel of construction was one achievement that he admired about these alien people. He felt a gentle pressure on his right arm, and as he turned to see what it was, he found Briga smiling up at him, her arms holding onto his. Her floral scent and radiant warmth filled him with that sense of calm and joy that her mere presence brought. He smiled back at her. “Briga, do you think you could be a little less conspicuous? Like, maybe not glow, dry your face and lose the flowers?”
“Oh worry not, my love. They can’t see me… well, actually, that’s not accurate. They can see me, but I look more like Brigeeth.”
“You can do that?”
“Well, yes, it’s merely an illusion. But we have an unbreakable connection now. So you will always see me as I truly am.” Briga pouted as her voice went quiet. “Do you not like me as I am?”
“Yes, of course, I just…”
Still pouting, she looked up into his eyes. “But you want me to disguise myself. Do you prefer Brigeeth? Or maybe Flora, with her black hair?”
Orn blushed as he said, “Of course I don’t. That’s not what I meant.”
She tapped his nose as she laughed her musical laugh. “I know, dear. I’m only teasing.”
Orn looked at her with a wry smile and a hint of annoyance in his eyes. “If you try to play with my feelings, I will have to punish you.”
Briga adopted an exaggerated look of shock. “Oh? What would you do to me?”
“Spanking… and tickling. Lots of tickling.” Orn looked at her with a deadpan expression.
She giggled and smiled with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she gazed into his. “Promise?”
It was only when he accidentally collided with the man before him that he realised something was wrong. “Go to my mother and father.”
“Really Orn, I am a goddess! It’s hardly appropriate for…”
“Briga, you can’t intervene here.”
“You do realise I am immortal, don’t you?”
“Please, just go stand with my parents.”
She pouted and looked over her shoulder as she moved off. “We will discuss this later, oh love of mine. Count on it!”
He shook his head, as he watched the enigma gliding away with graceful steps, and then faced forward. Pushing through to the front of the Holvelans, he saw what had caused the delay.
On the road ahead of them, he could see the senate guard marched to block their path. This created even more confusion among the citizens because the senate guards were in tight formation, as though confronting an enemy. The large group ahead looked to be six hundred legion soldiers. These were different from the legionaries Orn had thus far seen. He could tell by the quality of their equipment and the colours they wore. They had a combination of blue and red, symbolising military units under the direct command of the civil government. The thing that stood out was their stance. This large force was in a close formation, weapons at the ready. Orn made his way through the legionaries until he stood beside Marius. “What is this about?”
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“This is, I am assuming, a countermeasure from those who oppose peace, and do not want us to reach the Senate.”
“Ah. Would you like me to clear them out of the way?”
Marius smiled at Orn with an arched eyebrow. “While I am curious to find out how you would achieve this, it is already taken care of…” He held a finger up to his lips and then held it to his ear, signalling for Orn to listen.
He felt it before he heard it. The ground beneath his feet began vibrating slightly. It increased as a rumbling sound started building into a cacophony of thundering hooves, clanking armour plates, and the battle cry of the Olsbachi knights. “OLSBACH, ARREECE ALEE!”
Sounds of the knights echoed back and forth among the streets and buildings, making it impossible to pinpoint the direction the sound was coming from. The legions blocking their path were looking around frantically to locate the source of the thunderous sound. Civilians fleeing out of the street in a sudden panic on the enemy legion’s left alerted them to the direction the sound came from, but it was too late. The wall of horses barrelling toward the flank of the senate guard sped up even further. Mere seconds before impact, their lance tips tilted forward from their upright position to level with their targets.
Like a giant wave crashing into a sandcastle, the forty knights did not even slow down. They crossed the main street as though nothing was in their path. The impact of the knights’ charge flung legionary bodies into the walls of nearby buildings. They were the lucky ones, as they had a chance to survive this encounter. The others, caught in the unstoppable landslide of man and beast, got impaled or trampled. In an instant, some thirty of their men were dead or wounded, a gaping hole ripped into their formation.
Marius’ voice boomed over the din. “LEGIONI, VANTA!” A loud cry erupted from Marius’ men as they surged forward into the now reforming enemy. Their front lines clashed with opposing shield walls, and the press had begun. The legion in front of them were well disciplined and held their ground.
As the legions surged forward, arrows started raining down from the rooves to either side of them. The Holvelan men and Orn’s family flinched instinctively. However, the arrows were falling among the enemy. The men in the senate guard felt severely pressed. Attacked from the front, men were dropping as they desperately tried to pull into testudo formation, with their flanks under the threat of being smashed by heavy cavalry at any moment. To their credit, they maintained discipline, despite all the advantages they believed they had had since evaporated.
As the shields of the rival lines pressed against each other, it had become a matter of attrition. Swords would stab over the top of the tower shields blindly, occasionally finding their mark, only for that fallen man to be dragged out of the way and replaced. It was a slow, inexorable meat grinder. The sound of swords clashing and shields thumping with a constant roar of men’s voices, punctuated by the occasional shrill screams of wounded or dying men, echoed through the streets. Thayn took the approach of letting the legions fight while ordering his soldiers to form a shield wall protecting Marius’ rear and flanks.
Vylder, Erik, and Ansen’s breathing started getting heavier, the low growls straining through their throats. Because of the battle noise, and the smell of fear and death, they finally lost control as their inner beast took them over. The two massive men and the large teenager surged forward. Pushing through the ranks of Marius’ centur, they burst into the formation of senate guards.
The senate guardsmen had never faced such fury in their career. Once the elite and the envy of all soldiers, years of politicking, nepotism and corruption had severely dulled their edge. While still disciplined, they had become soft. The three Haldermen tore a ragged hole in their ranks. Wherever the three swung their weapons, broken men and body parts would fly into their comrades, sapping their morale.
Venna and Orn raced after their family in the vain hope of stopping them, while Briga rolled her eyes and stomped her foot in frustration as her future mother-in-law and husband rushed from her to risk lives that are precious to her. Mother and son found themselves locked in the same struggle as the front rank of Marius’ men.
Orn focused, pulling air in from all around them, and condensed it in front of his shield. When the pressure building in front of him was threatening to shatter his shield, he released it in a tight blast, punching through the formation in front. He did it again and again, each time blasting straight lines through the enemy files.
While the Avdlaks and Ansen were causing the front end of the senate guard to collapse, the knights had looped around a block and slammed into the rear of the enemy, penetrating deeply into their formation. For men who weren’t flung out of the way, the knights’ lances impaled them or horses crushed them under a torrent of shod hooves, grinding them into the cobblestone street. The knights wheeled their mounts and withdrew, turning right on the next street. They intended to loop around again for another charge. However, this was unnecessary. Completely demoralised, the remaining enemy legionaries surrendered.
Briga and Gereld moved among the dying and the wounded, healing friend and foe alike. Unfortunately, they could do little for the victims of the trampling hooves. In this brief battle, the senate guard had lost a little over half their number, while Marius’ legion had lost seven men whose wounds sent their spirits to the next place before the battle had finished. With that obstacle now out of their way, they continued to the senate building.
ᚲᚺᚱᛟᚾᛁᚲᛚᛖᛊᚱᛁᚾᚾ×ᛟᚱ×ᛟᚱᚾ
As he watched from the shadow of the giant awning, held up by the colossal pillars at the front of the senate building, a smug smile slid across his face. Censor Scipio Calguri was not a man of any military note. However, he had great confidence that six hundred of the toughest, meanest, and most ruthless men in the empire would be more than a match for a single centur and a ragtag group of barbarians without their ships to give them an advantage.
Looking down on the street, pride swelled his chest as he watched those men, loyal to him and him alone, moving to crush once and for all that peasant upstart Marius. Just having that man’s name pass his throat made Scipio almost gag. Scipio came from the patrician class. Wealth and privilege are the mark of his ancestry. A name synonymous with the empire. Marius came through the ranks and came from nothing. Probably some backwater farm full of worthless chattel. Food for a hungry empire that needed fresh bodies to service the ambitions of their betters. Oh, how he loathed that man. Scipio thought to himself, as his smile broadened, ‘A peasant censor. How utterly offensive a notion, and yet, there he is. No matter, he won’t be for much longer.’
His smile slid from his face as he concentrated. ‘Was that thunder? There was not a cloud in the sky, so how could it be thunder?’ The rumbling in the distance was increasing in volume. Then he covered his eyes as he saw a flash of light from the sun gleaming off of something metallic. A veritable wall of steel ploughed through his beautiful legion, sending men flying, and then it was gone as suddenly as it came. He was in shock. Left wondering what that was. For a moment, he wondered if he had imagined it. His foot moved of its own accord down from the top step, as though moving that small amount forward would give him a better view.
Then he heard that wretched man’s voice, ordering his men to charge. Scipio’s composure began returning, when he saw the glint of the sun’s reflection again, this time coming from his right. They were closer this time, so he could make out what it was. ‘Armoured men on armoured horses? Curse that peasant bastard of a man!’
He watched in horror as the knights turned the corner and drove straight into the back of his men, as though a shark were ploughing through a school of fish. His face went pale as he stumbled back, tripping over the top stair and landing on his rump. A helpful senate functionary attempted to assist him to his feet. He reflexively brushed the man’s hands away. “Don’t touch me!”
The gambit was over. He needed to get to his home. It was time to unleash Malliphina. Scipio got to his feet and stumped down the front steps of the building as he made his way to his carriage.