I looked at the wolves in human guise that ringed us round. There were Britons, Germans, and a flame haired Hibernian. There were Romans from Latinia and native-born Romans.

I glanced at the men who were my comrades. Battle, bloodshed, carnage.Īnd word would go to the emperor in his fine palace, among his nobles and women, that another expedition had disappeared among the hazy mountains of the mystic North. Marching over heather hills by day, hacking a crimson trail through blood-frenzied hordes, close camp at night, with snarling, gibbering beings that stole past the sentries to slay with silent dagger. Zeus, what a plan! Five hundred men, sent forth to hew a way through a land that swarmed with barbarians of another age. Thirty men! Thirty, the remnant of the troop of five hundred that had marched so arrogantly from Hadrian’s Wall.

Then for a moment they drew off and stood at a distance, gasping curses, blood from sword thrusts making strange patterns on their woad-painted skins. Yet they flung themselves naked to the fray with as fierce a valor as if they were clad in steel. One advantage we possessed: we were armored and our foes were not. Those blades were red, but corselets and helmets, too, were red.

Back to back we stood, shields lapped, blades at guard. On all sides they swarmed upon us, a hundred to thirty. “ Ailla! A-a-ailla!” rising on a steep pitch of sound from a hundred savage throats.

Bran mak morn