Chapter Text
His mother said he was too young for war. Ever since first stubble began to form on chin, Lydon had begged his parents to let him join his people's efforts against the Romans. But Lydon's mother had seen what war with Rome meant for Lusitania, for those left behind after the warriors were dead or captured: slaughter, pain, and bondage. She tried to keep her husband and all her children from plotting against Rome, but resentment was too great--it flowed through their veins and filled their lungs and pumped in their hearts. Generations of pain, of a vacancy in the heart where there should have been a feeling of home, of belonging, of roots, of history had made them restless; generations of displacement, of inherited memories of a home ripped from grasp had made them bitter; and generations of persistent Roman violence, of pillage, torture, war, slavery, and massacre kept all of it fresh in the mind, like a gaping wound forever chafed and raw. And all wounds, when not tended properly, will eventually fester.
"Lydon, don't use so much salt," said Lydon's father the night he returned from Tingis, "That's our last pallet and I know not when we will get more."
"Papa!" Lydon exclaimed with a grin. He set down the meat and met his father at the shed door with a tight embrace. His father patted his shoulders in return and smiled weakly. "We did not know when you would return, we were getting worried!"
"You speared yourself a fine buck, my boy," said his father proudly as he pointed at the carcass.
"Er... Lapon brought it..." Lydon said sheepishly. He dreaded the inevitable disappointment on his father's face, but he could not lie to him. His older brother Lapon had brought the buck over earlier that morning so that Lydon, their mother, and younger sisters Lepsia and Lorga would have food for the coming week. Lydon was, admittedly, terrible at hunting, and his mother preferred to keep him around the home anyway.
His father appeared to be on the cusp of an endeared reproach, but his mother interrupted him.
"A merchant comes from Conímbriga two days hence," said Lydon's mother as she gave her husband a peck on the cheek. She pushed past him to enter the shed with a basket of newly-spun yarn for the loom. "Perhaps we could trade him yarn for more salt."
Salt was just one of the necessities of life from which the Romans seemed to derive perverse joy in depriving the Lusitani. Used to preserve meat and other foodstuffs, salt was absolutely vital to rural households like that of Lydon's family, a fact which the Romans used starve the tribes of Iberia into submission when they could.
But while the Lusitani certainly had more than their fair share of suffering under the Romans, they were far from the only ones; all of "Hispania" had been violently subjugated by Rome at least once across history: Six generations back, Lydon's family had lived comfortable lives as merchants, poets, historians, and lawmakers in their urban home in coastal Turdetania. Then Cato came, capturing villages, massacring their inhabitants or degrading them into suicide, slaughtering warriors on field of battle, razing cities, eradicating tribes, looting the land and the people, and all the while bragging about it to feed his political career back in Rome. Now when Roman soldiers were not slaughtering them, Roman politicians were robbing them blind through taxes and policy changes and bureaucratic nonsense designed to keep Iberia vulnerable. For six generations, Lydon's family had struggled to survive in the Lusitanian wilderness, barely harvesting enough from the land through farming, foraging, and hunting to get by. Were it not for the traveling merchants who came from the regional capital Conímbriga, their home would not even be inhabitable during the cold months.
"Yes..." Paelys chose his next words carefully, wary of his wife's thinning patience with him, "We will replenish our stock, and that of Lapon. We should not see his young family deprived."
Lapon had married his childhood sweetheart Daina two summers past, and they had a little boy who was nearly six months old now. He had come by nearly every day while his father was in Tingis, bringing eggs from Daina's chickens, game captured in the many traps around his home, salt, and other necessities and sundries. Sometimes he would stay and help Lydon with chores, like when the fields had to be plowed and the job was too much for Lydon to tackle alone.
"But our family can be denied?" said Felma tersely.
"Felma-"
"Lydon, inside. Now. Your father and I are for words."
Both men knew what that meant. Lydon slipped past Paelys and jogged the few yards from the shed to the house.
The door to the stone cottage was wide open to let out what smoke didn't make it through the chimney, as well as to bring in fresh air. When Lydon passed through, Lepsia was checking the ox bones--also from Lapon--boiling in the massive cauldron in the hearth.
"Is Papa back?" she asked.
"He's in the shed...Mama wanted words..."
Lepsia grimaced out of pity for their father. "She has broken no words on him since his departure for Tingis... I've not seen her so angry before."
"She blames him for our hard times," said Lydon as he sat down on a bench at the kitchen table. Lorga, barely older than a toddler, climbed up into his lap.
They were silent for nearly a minute, the only sound being the bones bubbling and turning to broth in the pot, before Lepsia broke the silence to whisper, "Do you think we are for war?"
"Uncertain. Is that what Papa went to Tingis for?"
"Elmira down the road said that her uncle went to Tingis to seek out Sertorius. They want him to lead us in battle against the Romans."
Quintus Sertorius had been the Roman "propraetor" (whatever that was) of Iberia for a time, following his exile from Italia due to some kind of Roman political posturing. He governed for a year, until his political enemies in Rome sent reinforcements to Iberia and seized power for themselves. Completely ostracized by Rome and no remaining political allies to aid him, Sertorius and his most loyal followers--the Sertorians--fled south across the sea.
Sertorius was a mild leader who respected Iberians, went to great pains to understand them and learn about their cultures, integrated them and their ways into Hispanian society, executed his own soldiers if they unduly harmed the Iberians, and ensured his soldiers kept the peace with honor. In such a short time, he had earned Iberians' respect--and most notably, the elusive trust of the Lusitanians. His successors, of course, were just as bigoted and cruel as Cato and the like.
But Sertorius showed the Iberians that it was possible, at least for a time, to coexist with Rome if men like Sertorius could facilitate it. Anything was better than the current propraetor Fufidius and his gangs of rapists and thieves he called soldiers. When talk of war with Rome emerged, as it always did eventually, a group of Lusitani representatives took it upon themselves to seek out the exiled Sertorius...though to what end, most people could only conjecture.
"Maybe it is that of which they now speak..." Lydon pondered aloud.
They exchanged questioning glances and Lepsia covered the pot before they tiptoed out to the shed. They could easily hear their mother and they crouched around the corner from the shed door.
"-selfish asses! The sting of Roman lash wounds us all, yet it is only you men who clamor for war! You give no thought to what happens to us when you don't come back from battle, or if the Romans attack before you return home! You talk of dignity and pride and honor while you leave your wife and children to starve!"
"Lydon was here to care for and protect you, even Lapon was providing for you."
"Lydon is yet a boy, Paelys! Roman sword would have pierced his chest as easily as it would mine and the girls'!"
The words pierced Lydon's chest with a sword's vigor; he was not a small or weak man, but he was young and mild-mannered and smaller than many of the tribe's great warriors like his father. Men and women like Paelys and his comrades were the standard against which all people of their tribe compared themselves, as well as each other. Lydon was often the target of teasing by his peers and elders for not measuring up to his father and brother's statures. And though it was usually light-hearted enough, it always stung because beneath it was a deeper humiliation: Lydon had never gone to war. He had seen battle, certainly, and shed enemy blood in skirmishes with Roman patrols and rival tribes. Such was normal for people of the Iberian tribes even before Rome arrived. These instances were part of normal life in Lusitania, and most of Iberia. But a warrior only made his name upon true field of battle, a place to which Lydon had not had the privilege of being summoned by the tribe's leaders.
It was not that he lacked the skill: Paelys had taught his sons how to fight beginning in early childhood, and both of his sons were skilled warriors. Lapon was the only one of the two who had seen a true war, but it was Lydon who had proven himself the expert swordsman. What the younger brother lacked in true war experience, he made up for in tenacity, focus, and raw talent, honed to a level of skill even his father envied. Every morning before sunrise, during the heat of the day when chores were impossible, and every night after sunset, he practiced with any weapon he could get his hands on, on the farmstead or out in the forest. But due to his age, relatively slight frame, and soft manner, he had not been summoned to war when many of his peers had been. He had not shed blood on field of battle, had not claimed the life of a single enemy of his people or committed a single act of valor in open warfare. Though in years he was more or less a man, in the eyes of his people, he was still a boy.
"He is a man and needs to be treated as such," Paelys tried to affirm, "You weaken him with your fawning."
"You weaken him by not being here to be a father to him, always running around scheming and skirmishing against the Romans! How do you expect a boy to become a man when he has only me and the girls for company?"
"What would you have us do? Bow and kiss Roman sandals and wait for them to politely take leave?"
"I would have you do whatever it takes to provide for our family!"
"And what do you think I'm doing now?"
"Providing for your ego!" Felma sighed, "Paelys, you and the children are my only concern. I would not see you or them suffer needlessly through another pointless war. They need their father, Paelys, and I my husband."
"I do this for you, Felma, and for them," said Paelys softly, "Sertorius agrees to lead our forces against Rome. He will arrive in the coming days, and once we can restore him back to his rightful place, we will know peace."
"Until the Romans come back..." Felma paused a moment as though listening for something, then yelled, "Lydon, Lepsia, back in the house!"
The brother and sister (sisters, since Lorga was clinging to Lydon's back), scurried back to the cottage, assuming their previous stations as though they had never left.
They made smalltalk for a time, but eventually Lydon's gaze drifted to the huge oaken chest underneath the table.
"Think not of that!" Lepsia hissed, "Mama said she would skin you if you took Lydianus's falcata out without permission again!"
The falcata was a traditional weapon developed by the Iberians before the Romans invaded. It was an amalgamation of several unique features not seen anywhere else in the world: specially-tempered Iberian steel to form an exceptionally strong blade; a concave shape, with a downward-pointing angular curve on the top edge and a sloping curve on the bottom edge; a bone or bronzed-wood, semi-closed pommel fitted to the user's grip; and a weight that was heavy enough to hack and slash, but light enough to be sleek and maneuverable. Paired with a caetra, the large traditional Iberian circular shield with bright painting on its front, it could be used for careful stabbing, as well. Locals, traders, travelers, and even conquerors were all impressed with the weapon's utility, so much so that even the great Hannibal equipped his soldiers with them.
One of the earliest of these soldiers was Lydon's ancestor and namesake, Lydianus. Like Lydianus, many of Hannibal's first recruits were Iberians loyal to Carthage, as Lydon's ancestors were. Turdetania had close contact with Carthage, and many Turdetani families had Carthaginian heritage. After Lydianus returned home, the falcata was one of the only things with which he and his family managed to flee Cato's death squads for Lusitania. His family continued to care for it after his death, and even more than a hundred years later, the blade was still pristine. Lydon loved to gaze upon the sword, to study the nicks in the edge, the wearing on the pommel, the shiny surface of the blade itself. His mother, however, hated the way her husband's family revered the relic of a futile war, and forbade Lydon from handling it. But when war loomed on the horizon, he often found himself disobeying his mother to simply gaze upon it, to see the evidence of his family's warrior history and feel the warrior's blood thrum in his veins. He was tempted to break his mother's rule again, but Felma and Paelys returned to prepare evening meal before he could make the attempt.
When evening meal was finished and cleaned up, and the late-afternoon sun had set, Lydon approached Paelys as they finished the last chore of the day.
"Papa, can we train tonight?" he asked as they herded the goats back into their corral for the night. It was late autumn, and his parents liked to keep the livestock in the pen closest to the house, so they could get some residual heat from the hearth.
Even in the weak afterglow of the sun, Lydon could see his father beaming with pride. "It is almost dark," his father replied.
"The Romans favor the dark," Lydon reminded him, "like worms."
Paelys chuckled warmly and kissed the top of his son's head. "Find our swords and shields, my son, and we shall train."
Lydon grinned and sprinted the short distance back to the house, where his father's falcata and caetra rested on a hook near the loft--high enough that Lorga could not reach them but close enough to be retrieved if caught off-guard in the dead of night.
"And where do you think you go?" Felma demanded. Lydon ground to a halt as he retrieved his own falcata and shield from the high shelf by the front door.
"He wishes to train," Paelys intervened from the back door, "And...I would be a father to my son."
Felma considered this, then nodded her blessing. As she watched them make toward the woods, Paelys's frame for once relaxed and Lydon practically giddy as a pup, she managed a soft smile.
"Keep your wrist straight- Yes, just like that," Paelys instructed as Lydon charged at him, swinging his falcata with remarkable accuracy and power for one of his age. Lydon had mastered the falcata even before he was tall enough to reach Paelys's waist. A few summers past, with the help of his paternal grandmother, he rendered his own: a meticulously-polished, flawlessly-forged steel blade attached to a bone pommel carved in the shape of a horse's head. They had carried an oil lamp with them tonight, and as Lydon swung the curved blade, it caught the lamp's light like a shooting star.
"Has anyone-" Lydon grunted as he parried a direct strike from his father, "-ever wielded two at once?"
"Unlikely," Paelys replied as he had to fall to the ground and roll out of the way when Lydon lunged at him off a tree, "They are offensive weapons only. As you can see..." Paelys swung his longsword in a powerful downward slash. Lydon raised the falcata to block the blow, but was too strong and his sword too heavy for the falcata to fully absorb. He buckled beneath the strike, ducking to avoid being struck with his own blade as he lost control of it.
"Hold!" Lydon.
"Take pause, my son, this is only a drill; I will not let any harm come to you, but you must learn to master your weaknesses."
"Papa, listen," Lydon whispered. He dropped the rest of the distance to the ground and rested his ear upon it: in the shortening distance, he could hear and feel the rumble of horses' hooves. "Horses. Three to five."
Paelys resumed his combat stance and knelt behind a tree, pulling Lydon alongside him. Now the horses could be heard easily, drawing ever closer as father and son concealed themselves, either for protection or for ambush. But it was not an enemy who drew near.
"Daina!" Lydon cried out in relief and surprise.
Lapon's wife Daina clutched the midsection of Ortan, one of her brothers, as they drew nearer on horseback. They were accompanied by their brother Talius and sister Alia, all three of whom lived with their parents near Daina and Lapon's land.
"Daina, what has happened?" Paelys demanded. Even in the faint light of the straining moon, tears on Daina's cheeks and blood on her clothes could be seen.
"There is no time," said Talius, "We must see to your family!"
Lydon took Alia's outstretched hand and climbed atop the horse, while Paelys rode behind Talius, and the party took off down the trail, racing toward Lydon's family's farmstead.
"Tyril..." Daina sobbed her baby's name, barely holding on to the horse as Paelys took over the reins, "Lapon..."
"What about them? What has happened?!" Paelys pressed.
But Lydon knew. The Romans had ravaged their people too many times before for him not to recognize their work. His chest began to burn, his throat constricted, and his eyes filled with tears.
"We made to their home when we saw Romans approach," said Talius, "They...pressed Lapon about Quintus Sertorius's whereabouts..."
"It makes no sense!" Daina wept, "Lapon does not know the man, he is not for politics!"
"Where is he?" Paelys choked out. "Where is my son?!"
"Apologies, Paelys," said Ortan, "the Romans sought all the men of your family line...men and boys..."
"Not Tyril too..." Paelys tried to deny it, but it was a common Roman tactic: if a 'barbarian' man in Roman territory sows discord, all the men and boys (or sometimes the entirety) of his family are killed to stop the spread of rebellion, and send a message to the community.
"Lying fucks," Talius spat, "They said the babe would be spared if we told them where the other men of Lapon's heritage dwelled, but..."
"It is a blessing to find you here," said Alia, "The gods show day's first sign of mercy-"
Ortan's horse slid to a stop and the others followed. "Fuck..." Ortan whispered.
They had left the forest behind and now caught sight of Lydon's family's home just around a bend: the yard dotted by just under a dozen men in red capes, and the house and shed consumed by flames.
Alia patted Lydon's knee as he began to cry.
"No..." said Paelys.
"Apologies, Paelys," said Talius, "Apologies."
"We must go," said Alia.
"No," Paelys repeated more confidently, "Dismount and approach with caution. Have weapons drawn and follow my lead. The girls may yet live."
The party concealed their horses in a small gully and crouched to follow Paelys to the farmstead. They hid behind a range of boulders that acted as a property line, listening to the Roman soldiers speak in their ugly Latin tongue.
"Nothing," said one, "Just another Hispanian shithole. Not a fucking scrap of gold or silver."
"Fufidius said these lands were flooded with silver!" another protested.
"In the ground, you dumb fuck," yet another said, "And the silver mines are in the south, nowhere near here. Besides, we do not come out in dead of night for riches."
"Though it figures we get sent to the one dot on this latrine of a land with no fucking silver. The gods continue to shit upon us," complained another still.
"We must earn their favor by serving Rome, you impudent shits!" an authoritative voice yelled. Judging by the rim of dyed-red horse hair poking up over the fence, it was a centurion. "What of the occupants? Did you find the man and the boy?"
"No, sir, just the woman and two girls, all dead by her hand."
Tears blurred Lydon's vision beyond utility. The glow of the towering flames disappeared, and there was only a swirling blackness, clawing him inside and smothering him outside. He felt like he could be sick, but his muscles did not bother to contract.
"Fucking barbarians. Take note, men, these are the enemies of Rome: men who abandon their families to scheme against their rightful masters, and women so cowardly they would kill their own children and themselves so as not to serve the glory of Rome!"
Talius clutched Lydon before he could rush in to punish the Roman for his words. "You cannot win against them, we would all fall," he whispered in Lydon's ear.
"We must go, Paelys," Alia pressed.
Paelys said nothing, only nodded once and followed Ortan back toward the horses, tears silently streaming down his cheeks.
Talius pulled Lydon along behind him, but Lydon dug his heels in and tried to pull out of Talius's grasp. They were almost far enough from the farm to go unnoticed, when Lydon heard one of the Romans chuckle, "Well would you look at this!"
The party stopped, holding their breath as if the Romans would lose sight of them if they simply did not make a sound. But they did not appear to have been discovered at that moment, for as Lydon slowly pivoted on his heel to look at the commotion, he saw the soldiers were distracted by the charred remains of a chest: the chest with Lydianus's falcata, which the centurion ripped from the hand of the soldier who found it.
"You see, men," said the centurion, "When we stay to task, the gods are pleased. They send us sign of their favor."
Paelys motioned for them all to slowly back away, so as to keep eyes on the Romans but grow the distance between them.
"What is it, sir?"
"A barbarian weapon, unique to the ones who dwell in these lands. Beautiful piece, is it not?"
"Yes, sir," said the lesser men in unison.
"It is said the iron is harvested and then left in the ground for three years, so as to degrade any impurities before being turned to steel. They are remarkably hardy weapons, despite the smaller size. We will face many of these in battle, if Propraetor Luscus's predictions of war are to be believed. Take note of the shape, men..." The Centurion held the blade at a slight angle and turned it, the light of the now-dying flames lighting up the flawless surface as though it was a mirror.
Suddenly the Romans went silent, all staring down at the blade as though mesmerized by it, as Lydon had been all his life. At first he thought that was all it was, but the subtle hand movements of the centurion and the attempts by his soldiers to covertly surround the party gave away the truth.
"They see us!" Lydon whispered hoarsely.
"Run for the horses," Paelys said calmly, "Carefu-"
"Seize them!" the centurion roared before he blew the horn he had hanging on his belt. Lydon hoped the horn was just to direct everyone to attack, but it was probably to summon nearby reinforcements.
The party met the Roman attackers head-on as the scarlet-clad beasts roared and lunged at them, madly swinging their weak little gladii like inexperienced children trying to chop down trees. It was a simple thing to dispatch the first two who approached, but six still remained, not counting their leader. It was after they had killed the fourth Roman that Ortan suffered a blow to the gut.
"I will tend him, the rest of you, cover us," said Talius. Lydon, Alia, and Paelys moved into the correct formation, parrying constant Roman strikes.
"Keep him moving back as much as you can. We will carry him if we have to," said Paelys.
They made it a respectable distance in this manner, felling another two or three more Romans before the centurion joined the fray. When they were almost to the horses, Daina, who had stayed behind, hurled a small hand axe in Ortan's horse's saddlebag and hit one of the Romans in the nose, sending him down screaming in pain and choked with blood.
"Secure him," Paelys instructed Talius about Ortan, "We will cover you."
Talius and Daina managed to get Ortan atop his horse, Daina mounting the same steed and taking the reins. As another Roman fell, Talius helped Alia back upon her horse, then mounted his own and called for Paelys or Lydon to join him.
"Fucking barbarians!" the centurion howled as the last legionary fell, "May the gods see you suffer for the lives you have stolen!"
Paelys and Lydon grabbed the large shields of two fallen Romans and surrounded the centurion, tiring him with many harmless strikes before Paelys knocked him to his knees. Lydon pulled Lydianus's falcata off the Roman's belt and plunged it straight through his mouth.
"Well done," said Alia. She stuck out her hand and Lydon joined her on horseback.
"How did they discover us?" Paelys asked as he mounted Talus's horse.
"They must have seen our reflection in the blade..." Lydon mused.
He looked down at Lydianus's falcata now bound to his belt, still enrapt by its gleaming edges. Yet it looked different now: in the past it had an almost supernatural glow, thrumming with the blood of all the Romans who met their end upon it. Now it looked so very paltry, like a decrepit relic instead of a treasured family heirloom. So fantastic a weapon it was, and yet it could not save their family.
Nor could it kill much game to eat, or cut herbs to harvest over the next few days. The forests through which the need for concealment forced them to travel had little in the way of food and water this time of year, and even less medicinal herbs that could have saved Ortan's life; he died on the fourth day of their travels. When the survivors finally found a place to rest, in the home of one of Paelys's friends, they were half-dead from exhaustion. Their host provided them with meat, water, cots and blankets, and most importantly, information.
"Word carries that the Romans are coming here for Sertorius," said Paelys's friend Lonus, "They believe he has returned from exile to draw up an army."
"Who is it that comes?" Paelys asked.
"A few notable generals and their consul, Cotta. Clearly they take this seriously."
"Fuck," Talius mused.
"What else have you heard?" Paelys pressed.
"...There have been crucifixions in your village...of the men the Romans believed may be aiding Sertorius's return. Not only in your village, though."
"What do you mean?"
"They came to many of the local towns, seeking men of note and any man who traveled recently. They do not know who is working with Sertorius, so they target leaders and recent travelers. They interrogate the men and older boys, then kill all the males of the family and enslave the women and girls."
Perhaps it was a terrible thing to think, but Lydon could not help but feel a sense of relief for his family; if slavery was what awaited his mother and sisters, as his mother surely predicted, then they were better off gone from this world. It did not make the weight of their absence any lighter.
"The tribes will not look past such transgressions this time," said Lonus warily, "The surviving war chiefs and councils are to meet in the forest in secret two days hence. When Sertorius arrives, we are for war."
"And we shall bathe in Roman blood!" Alia snarled.
Paelys looked to Lydon, who looked back at him in silence. Finally Paelys sighed, "Yes. We shall."
They stayed with Lonus for many days, until word reached them that the surviving chieftains had formed an alliance, however temporary it may have been. After the leaders agreed to assemble their forces and set up a basecamp, it was only another week or so before Sertorius arrived. He had hoped to enter Iberia clandestinely, but the Romans knew he was coming. They waited for him and attacked as he entered the river Rherkēs, which the Romans called the Baetis, and a naval battle ensued. Sertorius and his forces won, and the consul Cotta's defeat was a grave humiliation to Rome.
"We are past recourse now," Talius mused when the news reached them.
"There is no recourse for what they have done," said Lydon.
"Lydon is right, this could only ever have led to war. One which we shall win," Alia affirmed.
"I only mean that they will not be so easily shaken now. In the past, affairs elsewhere have pulled their attention away from us, to our benefit. But after this, they will not stop until they destroy us."
"Or we destroy them," Alia quipped.
Talius nodded but broke no more words on the matter.
When the Sertorian forces assembled not too far from Lonus's village, they spent only a week in the camp before the time for battle arrived. It was enough time for everyone to receive their assignments: Lydon was in the heavy infantry of the Lusitani cohort, toward the back, with his father and Lonus just behind him and Alia at his side, and Talius was in the light infantry ahead several rows, in the frontline.
The week passed in a blur. When he was not drilling with his comrades, Lydon shadowed his father in strategic sessions. The battle plan was simple: the Sertorians were to secure the high ground, then the light infantry would engage the Romans upon the battlefield. When the Romans were tired from the fighting, the light infantry was to slowly lure them to the base of the hill with a feigned retreat. Then they would fall back behind the next wave as the heavy infantry charged down the hill, using caetras to knock the Romans down and hack or slash them as they passed. They would repeat this in waves until the Romans either retreated or all fell in battle.
On the day of the battle, they assembled in formation and awaited orders. Thousands of men (mostly men--the Sertorians were composed of many tribes and peoples, not all of whom permitted women in their ranks as the Lusitani did) howled and cheered, beating theirs swords against their shields or thumping their fists upon their chests in high spirits. Though Lydon could never hear Sertorius's words over the chaos, they rallied the men into near-frenzy. Either Sertorius's reputation as a poor speaker was ill-earned, or the men were frenzied to begin with. When the order was given for the first wave to march, all Lydon heard was the roar of the men near their leader. As though tethered like oxen to cart, the second wave began to run behind the first, but paused to 'wait for the first waves to meet and neutralize each other'.
They would wait for nearly half an hour before they received orders to press forward. The strategy largely worked, as Lydon himself could attest; he lost track of his kills after the first few minutes. His first Roman went down with a full-body strike with his caetra, knocking the combat-weary soldier down and then slashing once at his neck as he ran past. He could only assume that was the way he felled all the others; the pools of blood upon the grass and the bodies around them made his stomach churn, and his mind went blank rather than absorb the full extent of the carnage.
"It takes a true warrior to put the enemy in his sights and suspend all other thought, as predator upon prey," his father once told him and his brother when they were training. Before his father's return from Tingis, the words would have given him heart.
It was perhaps the ninth wave when the Sertorians' strategy backfired. They had charged down the hill and slain many Romans, over and over, with much success. The battle was all but won, the overwhelming majority of Roman forces lying dead in the grass. The Romans retreated as the Sertorians gave chase, pulling the latter away from the hill at their backs and toward the Roman camp upon the nearby plains. A few more Romans fell, mostly by slingshot. The remnants of their forces were virtually annihilated, with only a few particularly spry stragglers throwing off their weapons and nonessential armor to run faster.
"Wait, stop!" Alia called, socking Lydon in the chest as he collided with her outstretched arm, "Something is not right..."
Paelys and Lonus slid to a stop behind them. "What is wro-?"
"ROMANS!" a Lusitani cried out.
Lydon was on the cusp of a smart remark about the ones they just sent running with their tails between their legs, when he heard what sounded like a stampede behind them.
A mass of Romans, energetic and tidy, unlike those the Sertorians were chasing, flooded down the hill upon which Lydon and his cohorts had made their stand all day. The brunt of the Sertorian forces was gone, they had retreated when the Romans did. Those who remained to press for further Roman blood were now trapped between the out-flanking newcomers, as well as reinforcements from the original legions streaming out from the trees.
"We've been outflanked..." Paelys sighed.
"Retreat!" Lonus called, but it was meaningless: they were surrounded on the two longest sides by hordes of Romans, embarrassed from recent defeats and encouraged by the fact that they had successfully beaten the Sertorians at their own strategy. A few of Lydon's peers tried to break for the forests or cliffs on the sides of the battlefield, and perhaps some of them made an escape. But most were cut down from behind as they ran, or tumbled down cliffs to their deaths.
Lydon would not die that way. He would not let the last thing anyone in this world saw of him be his trembling back. If this was the end, he would stand by his comrades and fight until his body gave out. The Romans had parted him from too much of his family already, they would not take away even more. At least such was Lydon's resolve.
"Where did they come from?" Alia asked as the remaining forces pulled together in a defensive position, "Our camp is in their way."
It was not any longer, if the towers of smoke from where the Lusitani camp had been were any indication. Lydon did not volunteer this; Alia had lost Talius two waves past and now she was staring her own death in the face, she did not need more despair.
"Lydon," said Paelys as the reality of their plight spread through the Sertorian remnants, "make for the cliffs to the east. Alia, you too. We will give you time."
"No," said Lydon and Alia in unison.
"I will not run from them again," Lydon affirmed, "I will take down as many as I can before- before Mama and the girls call me to the afterlife."
Paelys smiled for the first time in many, many days, eyes glistening with love and pride. "You truly are the greatest man I have ever known."
"It has been an honor to fight at your side," said Lonus, "All of you."
"Which way to glory?" said Alia, "Take down the reinforcements first, or go straight for the newcomers?"
"Forward!" Paelys ordered those Sertorians still in formation, pointing with his falcata toward the original Roman forces, "Bleed them until their flesh is dry!"
"For Sertorius and for the homeland!" Alia called.
The remaining Sertorians roared triumphantly, running head-on at the approaching reinforcements. The Romans startled, clearly not having expected imminent death to rally the enemy stragglers.
The Sertorians tore them apart. Caetras slammed against them with a sickening thud, the fatigued Romans tripping over each other and falling to sword, spear, fist, boot, or even the edge of a shield bashing against skull. The reinforcements were devastated in less than a minute, and the newcomers howled with rage at the fall of their comrades.
"Forward!" Paelys yelled. The Sertorians ran at the enemy with all their strength, war cries, prayers, and jeers drowning out the angered Romans. They met like a storm, the booming thunder of shield upon shield and the lightning-flash of hundreds of blades in the light of the waning sun.
The Sertorians held their own for some time, but they were exhausted and outnumbered. Fatigue made them vulnerable to strikes, and one-by-one, they fell to the ground, never to rise. A Roman pilum grazed Lonus's arm, and the distraction from the blow was enough for another soldier's gladius to find his chest. He fell with a short grunt, falcata still in hand. Paelys cleaved the killer's head in a single strike.
The Romans were still falling faster than the Sertorians, but it did not make a difference. Soon there were only a few of the stragglers yet standing, spread out too far across the battlefield to be of any use to each other. The Romans surrounded Alia, Lydon, and Paelys, snarling and spitting at them like rabid dogs.
"Take them alive!" their centurion ordered, "The man who delivers killing blow will lose a month's wages!"
"I will see you soon, my friends," said Alia. She slid her falcata across her own throat, the life draining from her veins before her knees even hit the earth.
"Surrender, barbarians! Throw down your weapons and submit to the glory of Rome!"
"Fuck you and your glory!" Paelys roared in Latin, "Death to Rome!" He lunged at one of the Romans, whose spear pierced his chest.
"Papa!" Lydon sobbed.
"Jupiter's fucking cock!" the centurion griped, "At least capture the boy!"
Instinctively, Lydon ran to his father, but was stopped by a swift kick to the back of his knee. He fell upon his shield, swinging around with his falcata to hit any living thing in his path. He struck at least one, but another used his Roman scutum to bash Lydianus's falcata from Lydon's hand. It fell to the ground and the hundred-year-old blade was snapped beneath a dozen trampling Roman sandals. The Romans wrestled him back to the ground and put him in chains.
For the first time in his life, true fear seized Lydon's heart: not only was he facing Rome's fury head-on, he was completely alone.