Chapter Twenty Eight



A ripple effect had started in Kailen's men at the sound of the Roman's chants of "General! General! General!"

The Roman's moral was peaking and at the sight of their General riding into battle, the Britons hesitated. His reputation as a ruthless invader preceded him, and for him to be fighting on the front lines sent the British warriors into confusion.

The Romans pressed their advantage, forced the Britons back several steps and cut down any man or woman who wasn't quick enough. Pulling the wounded from the field was no longer an option, not unless they wanted to die in the process. The Romans gave them no choice but to leave them where they lay. Every man still able was called upon to hold the line. Hold. Hold. Hold. Hold!

Arrows could no longer be fired into the crowd in case they hit people on their own side as well as the enemy. Kailen screamed for the archers to take up their swords and join the fray. With a rumbling roar, they swept down the hill as one and slammed into the Roman ranks, forcing them to break and stagger.

Kailen was riding an incredible crest of pure adrenaline, his movements were fluid, almost instinctual as he stood shoulder to shoulder with his men. Everything was riding on this very day. He wasn't about to take any risky chances for their survival, one wrong move could cost them everything. But it wasn't himself that Kailen had to worry about.

It was Caratacus.

The man appeared again by his side, blood spattered across his face, making it look like a grotesque mask. His eyes, once so dead before, were now alight with the glow of blood lust. Kailen met those eyes and it chilled him to the bone. He was not himself. Whatever now possessed his friend and High King was not of this world.

Caratacus reached out and gripped Kailen's shoulder with a fierce cold grip. "Aquilla is here. He has finally taken to the field."

"I know." Kailen shouted back over the clash of metal. "I saw him." He tried to wriggle from his grip but it was useless.

The High King seemed to not have noticed Kailen's discomfort. He leaned closer. "This is our chance. We can not let him get away from us. He has to dies."

"And he will." Kailen assured him. "He won't escape us again. Not this time."

The light in Caratacus's eyes seemed to spark, his smile twisted. "Then let us take this fight to him. You and i leading our men to victory."

Kailen only felt dawning horror at these words. "We cannot. If we advance our line away from our fortifications, everything will be lost. The Romans will use their shield wall and massacre us."

Caratacus was not listening. "He wouldn't expect a direct assault on his position. He would be helpless against us."

It was Kailen's turn to grip the High King's shoulder with his powerful hand, hoping to shake some sense into the man. "Caratacus, no, don't do this. Give us more time, we'll have him, i prom-"

"The time is now!" Caratacus shook shook him off with a violent shrug. "I will have vengeance for my family. Their spirits cry out for Roman blood!"

He drew his sword over his head, rallying his warriors to him. Kailen could only stand there in stunned fury as he watched Caratacus and his men broke from their formation, shattering their stronghold and started to push forward.

Out in the open, out towards Aquilla, Out towards certain death and the death of the Silure tribe.

"What is he doing!" Bran yelled, alarm in his voice as he watched the breaking of their formation. "He's trying to kill us all!"

But there was nothing they could do. The Britons rallied to the call of their High King and with it, their advantage and certainty of victory over the Roman's.



~



The Silures had just made a tragic mistake. Pulling away from their fortifications and its funnelling effect on the Roman soldiers, they were now out in the open. The Histarii veterans feigned the act of pulling back and making it look like they were panicking, when in actual fact they were giving themselves room to manoeuvre, drawing their enemy out and towards their newly formed shield wall.

Caratacus didn't even catch on to the Roman tactics. He was too blinded by his own pursuit of vengeance. For all intents and purposes, they had walked right into what would be a bloodbath.

Verenus looked on from the vantage point of his horse, towards the back ranks of the Histarii. He should make his way to Aquilla's side, like the Commander had ordered him to.

He should, but he hadn't.

Instead, he watched the devastation the Roman shield wall could inflict on their enemies. The tribe didn't stand a chance. Each wave of the warriors were cut down, no one was shown mercy. The leader of the Silures gave an enraged howl and, impossible to believe, broke through the Roman line to make his way towards Aquilla.

Verenus couldn't believe what he was seeing. The man was like a thing possessed, no man could stand in his way and he was heading straight towards his Commander. Aquilla looked on with an unreadable expression, waiting to meet the Silure leader head on.

The Roman in Verenus snapped back to attention and he kicked his heels into the flank of the horse to spur it on to the Commander's side.

But he wasn't needed.

Aquilla slid from his horse with his bloody Gladius in hand, commanding his guard to step aside, to not interfere with what would happen, and met the tribesman with a powerdul thrust of his blade.

The skirmish didn't last long. The Silure had been fighting all day while Aquilla was relatively fresh faced. The Briton was spurred on by his rage but it also made him clumsy. He put too much energy into his swings at Aquilla's head. Aquilla met him stroke for stroke, using his momentum to unbalance the man and send him crashing to his knees in the dirt. Verenus reached him in time to see Aquilla land a killing blow to the kneeling man's neck.

The Silure crashed face first to the ground and the Romans roared their approval. The Commander still stood undefeated and winning the battle.



~



The Britons were now in utter disarray, the shock of seeing their High King cut down by the enemy's Commander making their resolve falter and for some to turn and flee the carnage.

Kailen's rage at Caratacus for his blatant refusal to listen to reason turned to grief as he watched his friend's body trampled and swallowed up in the ensuing struggle. This could not be happening. Everything they had done Everything they had done, everything that could have been done, was turning to ashes in his mouth.

"Hold the line!" Bran was bellowing. "If any of you so much as looks behind you i will cut you down myself!"

There wasn't much of a line left to hold after the carnage of Caratacus's desperate plight. If they had any hope of winning this battle, it wouldn't be through holding the line.

If there was any real hope to begin with.

Kailen met Bran's eyes and a calm fell over them, a calm that came with the acceptance of going with the only option left to them.

"I do not ask you to come with me," Kailen said to his sworn brother. "You can take the chance now and return to Elsa, to your children."

"I could never look them in the face if i did such a thing." Bran returned. "Besides, you don't have to ask me. I'm with you in death as i am in life."

Kailen nodded and turned to his other side where Vaughan watched them with bated breath. "Vaughan-"

"Do not ask me to run, Kailen. It is not our way. I'm not going to start now." He said fiercely.

"Then we are all fools." Kailen sighed.

"Speak for yourself." Lena snorted from behind them, the men turning to see her blow some of her hair out of her eyes.. "Let's get this over with."

"May the Gods have mercy." Kailen intoned and the others echoed his sentiments.

With that, they called up their remaining forces that was still left to them and they charged directly at Aquilla.

It was time to cut the head off the snake.



~



This is the part where stories made heroes, that songs are sung of the great last stand. Young boys and girls dream of this moment, imagining themselves as fearless giants in the death grip of tyrants.

But it was nothing like that.

Kailen's heart was threatening to break his ribs with how hard it was beating, his grip turning sweaty around the pommel of his sword. It was a hard slog, bloody and desperate. There was nothing glorious about the reality of war, of killing one man to live a little longer. It was kill or be killed and nothing heroic about it. But it was working.

It was like an endless eternity before they reached Aquilla and his personal guard. Ban got there first, his strength dealing death to the men who dared stand in his way of reaching the general. Kailen felt his heart lift at the sight and he fought his way to his friend's side, the others soon following in his wake.

Kailen had just killed a soldier when his when his instincts prickled in warning and he turned in time to block a blow from Aquilla himself.

"It's about time you came to me," Aquilla hissed as he pushed all of his weight behind his sword, causing Kailen to shift his legs to better hold his stance. "I was beginning to think you were all talk. Not that i would be surprised, given that you're nothing more than a Hill Man."

"You Romans" Kailen tutted with a deceptively calm voice. "Your always looking down from the lofty heights you set for yourselves."

"For good reason." Aquilla laughed. "We stand above the likes of you. Always."

Bran, Vaughan and Lena worked with the other Warriors to keep Aquillla's personal guard away from the fight, so they could fight uninterrupted. Kailen had to end this quickly.

They separated and began to circle each other like weary predators on the look out for any weaknesses in each other. They parried, slashed at each other, used force to knock each other off balance and started the dance all over again.

During the first blows, Val concentrated on his defense and let his muscles settle into the rhythm. After several minutes of attempting to get past Kailen's defenses, Aquilla lost his temper and began to batter at him as if to pound him into the ground. The Commander had expected a quick defeat and easy humiliation, not an equal opponent, and his simmering anger was now at boiling point.

There came a pained bellow and Kailen experienced the sinking sick feeling as he watched two Roman soldiers attack Bran, one managing to stab at Bran, carving into his sword arm. He shook them off but it looked like a deep wound.

"Bran!" Kailen called in panic.

"I've got him!" Vaughan called as he came to the big warrior's aid, fending the two soldiers off.

"Why won't you Silures took a hint and just die!" Aquilla roared, using the momentary distraction to swing wildly at Kailen's chest, all of his fighting style losing finesse for brutality.

Through the worry Kailen felt for Bran and his sword arm, It was in this moment that Kailen realised he could win this fight. He saw past the anger and found fear in Aquilla. Pure fear at the dawning knowledge that he was losing.

"Verenus!" Aquilla suddenly yelled. "To me! To your commander!"

Kailen experienced a sense of remembering the name and he noticed from the corner of his eye a centurion who looked vaguely familiar. Of course, the messenger...

Kailen's muscles readied for a two fronted assault but none came. The soldier, Verenus, only gripped his Gladius tighter in his hand and looked at Kailen. "Aurelia. Is she still alive."

Aquilla made an enraged noise. "What are you doing-"

"She is." Kailen said to Verenus. "She's well looked after and considers herself one of us willingly."

Vernus nodded. "Good. It better stay that way." His eyes flickered to Aquilla was obvious disdain. "There is nothing for her back home." He then turned his back on them, on the alert for any attack by a British warrior, but not actively fighting.

Kailen made a decision in that moment. "Lena," He called for the Shield Maiden. "Watch over the centurion. Make sure he comes to no harm."

Lena didn't even blink at the order to protect a Roman. "Yes, Kailen."

"Traitor!" Aquilla spat at Verenus.

Kailen's eyes flickered back to Aquilla with a grim smile. "Looks like it's just you an me, Roman."

Kailen pressed his advantage and slashed with a backhanded swing, and Aquilla was barely able to thrust his blade vertically and caught it before it cut him in half. Aquilla tried to return the action in kind but it was clumsy and Kailen blocked easily. He flicked his knife out across Aquilla's vulnerable underside of his knee, making the man cry out in pain and his leg crumble.

Kailen brought his sword down in an over head swing, which Aquilla was able to parry. Kailen kicked out with his leg to cripple Aquilla's other leg and he was now on his knees in front of Kailen.

Kailen thought it was a deserved position to take at the end of all things...

The fear eclipsed Aquilla's eyes as he stared up at Kailen. His hand came up as if to ward off anymore blows. "No, wait, we could come to terms!"

Kailen wasn't listening. "There will be no terms between us. None that i would take from you."

And with that, Kailen raise his sword and landed the killing blow, cutting off Aquilla's anguished scream.



~



In the distance a war horn blasted long into the air, the sound for a Roman retreat.





~

We have another chapter or two to go for this story, so keep watchig this space!



True History of the Silure Tribe:

The Silures fiercely resisted Roman conquest about AD 48, with the assistance of Caratacus, a military leader and prince of the Catuvellauni, who had fled from further east after his own tribe was defeated.

The legate Publius Ostorius Scapula spent several years campaigning against the Silures, who would not be subdued. They waged effective guerrilla warfare against the Roman forces to the point where Ostorius had announced that they posed such a danger that they should be either exterminated or transplanted.

Ostorius died with the Silures still unconquered and, after his death, they defeated the Second Legion (Which is where i have taken literary liscence with this story). It remains unclear whether the Silures were actually militarily defeated or simply agreed to come to terms, but Roman sources suggest rather opaquely that they were eventually subdued by Sextus Julius Frontinus in a series of campaigns ending about AD 78. The Roman Tacticus wrote of the Silures: non atrocitate, non clementia mutabatur– the tribe "was changed neither by cruelty nor by clemency".