The Roxolan Princess

The Roxolan Princess

  Short Story by Gabriel Szeitz

  Published by Blacklight Design®

  © Copyright 2012 Gabriel Szeitz

  This current edition was conceived for free distribution and can be shared unrestricted for how long it is distributed as whole and the reader is not obliged to pay for the copy or download.

  The text or parts of the text cannot be used in other purposes except free reading without the written accept of the author.

  Also by Gabriel Szeitz:

  Carol (A deniable novel)

  Content:

  Geta Barba

  The Queen

  The White Owl

  Glossary

  The Author

  Genesis

  *

  "So bad weather," the Centurion complains.

  The men are starving. From Ala Quinta Porolissensis are a few scattered remnants. They had to eat the horses. The Legion is well disciplined, but the Barbarians are different. They are brave, no doubt about it. The Daci are daemons in fight. They slash the enemy smiling and so they die.

  "Decurion, who's in command?"

  "Geta Barba, Centurion."

  The Centurion didn't talk much. The silence is a virtue. The men from Latium don't talk. That's for Greeks to do. Latini fight and celebrate their Gods. Geta Barba is in command of what is left from Ala Quinta. A barbarian. An ugly hirsute barbarian, the best horseman they have.

  *

  When the General died, Barba was there. The proud guardsmen died one by one, throwing themselves in front of the treacherous spears. Their square iron shields were too heavy. The Roxolans attacked in gallop, throwing the short spears from close range, then ran back, reloaded and attacked again. They drove the horses in circle and kept launching projectile after projectile, aiming for the high ground, for the commanding officers. An iron tipped pillum, thrown at the horse's speed was as devastating as a ballista spear. It could shatter a wooden shield as easy as a catapult and yet skew the soldier like a pigeon.

  Geta was far away, at the other end of the battlefield. He and his horsemen were chasing the slingers. Easy equipped, they were fast as deer. The slingers launched their projectiles from the edge of the forest. When the cavalry approached, the Roxolans ran between the trees, hiding in the forest. The thick bushes made the advance of the horses nearly impossible. A horseman without speed is a bird without wings. Geta understood the danger and ordered his men to retreat in open space. They lost a few, but the enemy artillery line was broken.

  Geta knew well this forest fight. At home, his kin fought the same war. The emperor Domitianus almost died in there. His humiliated army escaped over Donaris in a chaotic rush. The peace treaty was a shame for the Romans. The two legions were decimated and Ala Secunda Thracica disbanded in dishonor. About the Cohors Tertia Britannica it was no sign: the archers perished all together in the woods. But that was long ago, when Barba had a home.

  Geta ordered an easy fan of cavalry along the forest line. That should be enough to keep the light artillery at distance. If the Roxolan slingers couldn’t join in compact formation, their projectiles rendered inefficient.

  "Zapyrion, bring the fire!" he ordered.

  The Dacus foamed his small fast horse to the Legion's camp. The engineers had built there a wooden cabin. The precious Greek fire was stored inside, in clay jugs. While his men spread along the forest line, Geta took the main body of his Ala and ordered wing formation. Zapyrion came back at the utmost speed, the pin in the horse’s mouth bloodied.

  "Share the jugs! Burn the forest!" Geta shouted, turning his horse. He positioned himself in the tip of the wing. "Fast my braves! We can die only once."

  The cavalry formation speeded to the middle of the battlefield. One flank was secured. Somehow, the heavy Roxolan infantry managed to find a weakness in the Roman dispositive. The Legion was separated of its commanding officer. The General was forced toward the other side of the battlefield, while the Roman infantry was pinned down with terrible battle axe blows. The loss of men was heavy, and their advance stalled. The guard and the General were drifting further away. Geta has seen the white hot point and led his galloping fury right in the middle of the Roxolan, surprising them from the back. The ram horns festooned helmets flew rolling on the ground. Launched at full speed against the infantrymen, the horses were crashing bodies in piles. The boar and mutton pelts soaked in blood. The Roxolans were not kittens either. With demented courage, they enter under the Daci horses and cut the bellies open.

  Geta's horse collapsed with the intestines aground. The horse screamed too. The agony shrieks sounded all over the battlefield. Roaring like a wounded bear, Geta hit the Roxolan with his curved sword. The bronze rattled against the bronze, sword against axe. Again and again, Geta attacked. The loss of his horse blinded him with red fury. The sword broke. He continued the assault with his fists. Without shield, he was faster than the Roxolan. He was panting and spitting blood: when fell off the horse, his lips splintered. The Roxolan responded with a crushing blow, but he cannot match Geta's agility. Nobody could. Catching him off balance, Barba steps laterally, grabbed the enemy's wooden shield, and forced it in a circular move. The Roxolan's arm was stuck in the holding straps. He cannot liberate it, and the limb broke with a creaking sound, from the shoulder’s articulation. The Barbarian howled first in pain, then in terror. Geta carried his crippled body to the horse's carcass. Despite the cold air, dark blood gushed from the horse's guts. His horse guts. Geta blew the enemy's helmet with a vicious kick. Grabbing him from the back of the head, he buried the Roxolan's face in the streaming blood. The horse's hoofs were still trembling spasmodically. So did the Barbarian's limbs. Roxolan and horse died together in a hoax of guts and oozing blood.

  Seeing his general in great danger, Geta didn’t hesitated. The sweat ran in his eyes in stinging streams. He tore the open the leather strip and flung the helmet. A dead man doesn’t need a helmet, he thought. His braves had been killed almost to the last. From one hundred and fifty proud nobles sons were still standing maybe forty. He collected a spear. A heavy one, used against cavalry. He balanced the weapon and threw it. The barbed iron mauled. His target collapsed. He armed a shield and a battle axe, attacking blindly, mourning his horse. He hit with the shield and with the axe. Upon the circumstances, he hit with his head, his elbows, his knees, his shoulders and his heels. Barba’s advance was a path paved with broken necks and shattered teeth. He got hurt several times, superficially. His blood mixed with the Roxolan blood all over his chest.

  “He’s possessed,” the Centurion said. He knew about that. Homer spoke about it also, but the Centurion had seen it on the battlefield. The God of War descended upon Geta. He was unstoppable. Each single blow he unleashed was deadly. The enemy’s projectiles were missing him as he moved like the wing of death. No man could stand his fury. That rush finished always with the soldier dead, the Centurion knew. When Mars will retire, as subtly as he came, the man will be, too exhausted to live. The Roxolans drifted back, and then ran for their life. The General had a couple guards left: two Decuriones. Their red plums over the shiny helmets were blown by the cold wind.

  And there she came. Out of the mist, a light two wheels chariot was eating distance in huge gulps. Moving at lightning speed over the snow, she drove her horses: a pack of four black stallions with svelte legs. She tensed the bow. The arrow flew whistling and one Decurion died, blood splashed from his neck. The black horses galloped ahead. Their silver battle masks shone in front of the blinded eyes. The bow’s string tensed. The arrow flew. Straight in the eye. The last Decurion collapsed, facing the gray sky. The horses ran. The General stood alone, his heavy purple cloak moving slightly. He stood straight in face of death.

 
“Braves! Charge!”

  Geta organized together his few standing braves, those left behind by the forest line. Their horses were chewing bloody foam. In the right, Bardanes’ stallion stumbled in its knees. Geta Barba bent over his horse neck. The wind whistled at his bare ears. Daci charged. The chariot turned in a tight circle. At the legs of the archer Queen, a wolf stood guard, snarling its teeth. The eyes were red blood and golden amber. A Priestess of the Wild. He pushed the horse even faster. Barba had killed bears with bare hands before. Turning the bow over the left shoulder, the Queen unleashed a last arrow. The chariot stumbled, the black horses were steaming. The chest of his horse was by Queen’s back. Barba almost could grab her luxuriant reddish hair. The grey wolf has bitten the air, and then the horse. The blood ran free over the snow. He flung the axe and he missed. The bronze hit the neck of the leading black horse and the chariot went running even faster. His horse was an open wound, the neck’s skin torn by the guarding wolf. He had to stop.

  The Romans won, but they paid dearly. The last arrow Queen aimed hurt the general in his shoulder. It wasn’t critical, they thought. Few good horses were left. The Legion was crushed and almost all the officers were dead. Their helmets’ plums made good targets. His Ala ceased to exist. One hundred twenty of his men he drove to death. Barba kneeled and howled. He was mourning his braves. The warriors don’t cry: they’re cursing God. He grabbed a bow and unleashed arrows to the sky:

  “Zamolxis! Give back my sons! Give back my braves!” he ordered his God.

  The General was watching incredulous. This man has killed heaps of Roxolans today. He saved a Legion commander’s life. And now he wanted to fight his God.

  “Mars, give me one thousand men like this: I’ll conquer the world,” the General mumbled to his own god. He had fought in Britannia, in Gallia and in Africa. He had won land from treacherous Germans in North bush by bush and tree by tree. He had paid every hill he conquered with Roman blood. He had seen warriors before. But not like this.

  “Barba!” he called the Geta.

  “General!”

  “They fought bravely, Barba! They’re banqueting with Mars right now.”

  “They did. They were my sons. The noblest of my kin.”

  “And you, Barba, you won the day for us.”

  “Don’t insult me, General. From all my men, I was the worst.”

  “That’s not the truth. You won today.”

  “Count your fingers, General.”

  “They’re ten.”

  “And if until tonight your fingers will be cut but two? How do you clench your fists to fight?”

  The General clenched his fists in the same night, in excruciating pain. The Queen’s arrow was poisoned. Before the sunrise he died. They burned his body in its purple cloak.

  “Another one who goes to Mars.”

  “So had to be. Your doctors are fools,” Geta said to Centurion, who took the command of the crushed Legion.

  “We have no physicians left, Barba. I cared the wounds. How could I know it was a poisoned arrow?”

  “You couldn’t, true. She’s a Priestess of the Wild, Centurion. She will summon all the beasts against us. You, Romans, you have to learn.”