watch them scramble over one another just to seem more important in the eyes of the only woman they’d seen in months and had grown to adore.
Completing nearly half of our trip around the trenches, we took a break in the small outpost. In the center were temporary troop quarters and a small dining area, and along the perimeter of the trench was a small rampart that ran around the perimeter of the camp with another ditch system on the other side for added protection. Helena and I climbed one of the walls, and rested our rifles along the railing.
I’d lost Helena’s P90 after failing to escape the Domus Augusti, and after Caligula came to see me that first day, I had feared that when she woke, she’d forget about our happy reunion and remember that I had lost her gun. Thankfully, Claudius had kept everything he’d confiscated from Santino and me in a room close to the one he was crucifying us in. It had been breached and cleared as well, and Helena and Wang had recovered their lost weapons. The only thing missing was Santino’s knife. He was still lamenting its loss.
But thank God we’d found Helena’s weapon. She might have hurt me.
She left her DSR-1 back in our tent, preferring the lighter weapon for our long patrols, so she pulled out a small monocular, and scouted the walls of Rome, looking for any sign or disturbance while I sighted through my scope. I frowned when I saw a small gate opening in the walls, and a small contingent of men rushing out in our direction. Maybe four hundred or so in total. Some rode horses, but most were running on foot, and none of them wore the armor, so I assumed they were civilians.
I flicked my safety off, and Helena and I opened fire on the oncoming men. They were close enough that I could have picked them off the walls had I the chance, but the defenders had learned that lesson early in the siege when Helena’s kill count reached four tribunes and ten centurions, all from the city’s Praetorian cohorts.
Just as we had done defending Caligula’s home, Helena fired single and precise shots, even with her smaller gun, while I fired in controlled bursts. The enemy had to cross around three hundred yards of open ground before they reached the outer ditch, and we made them pay for it. We must have shot more than a quarter of their strength before they finally reached our outpost. Immediately, Helena and I abandoned the ramparts to let the more experienced legionnaires handle the initial onslaught. We lobbed a few grenades into the intruders’ dense ranks just for good measure before jumping off the walls and into our trenches. When the grenades went off, twenty legionnaires cast their pila down into the enemy ranks, impaling only a handful here and there before the enemy got their acts together and started scaling our wall.
Initially, the men on the rampart held them off easily. It was only a matter of knocking over their ladders, and sending them falling the short distance to the ground, but when there were too many to handle, the ramparts were abandoned, and men started spilling into the trenches.
The two centuries of legionnaires, plus Helena and I, were equally matched in numbers with our enemy by now, but we were all professional soldiers, whereas they were glorified peasants. Organized, we stood shield to shield, waiting for them to waste themselves attacking us.
Wave after wave came at us, slashing, cutting, and stabbing only to be repelled. These men were amateurs, men with no military training, with nothing but a purpose driving their attacks, whatever that purpose may be.
By the time we cut the enemy’s number in half again, I lost Helena somewhere in the confusion, and I could only pray that she was all right. Cut off from my swim buddy, I found myself in the middle of a line of three legionnaires. So far I had only been involved in small skirmishes and I’d seen many men cut down, but had yet to bloody my sword.
With only seven enemy combatants remaining, they had no time for heroics. Hitting our line, I blocked and stabbed, and blocked even more, before I saw a clear opening for my first kill. An enemy was engaged with the legionnaire to my right, and had over extended himself, falling onto his shield. I saw the enemy’s exposed flank, and drove my sword up through the man’s armpit, driving it into his neck. Freeing my sword, a stream of blood spewed all over my clothes and face. No time to react, I saw one of the last men swinging his sword with both hands downwards, in an attempt to split me in two.
I gave him no such chance. I caught the slice on my shield, blocking and sweeping his sword away, giving me an open shot at his entire front side. I looked right in his eyes and he looked back, immediately realizing his mistake. Gazes still locked, I thrust my sword right through the man’s chest. I felt the blade slip through his ribs, and out his back. I’d hit him right in his heart, and he fell dead almost immediately, blood spurting from the wound and his mouth.
The last of the enemy slain, the surviving legionnaires bellowed a triumphant cry. They began checking the bodies, putting down any poor soul still left alive. It was a barbaric custom, but this was war, and definitely not one with any modern rules. Sanitation, food, medical supplies, guards, each of these things were at risk by harboring prisoners, and it would only hinder the siege. As immoral as it may have seemed, it was the only practical answer.
Only a few dozen of our men had died, while another twenty had sustained injuries. Our men would receive help, of course, and I did what I could with the limited medical kit I had on me. Tending to a legionnaire cut along his bicep, I applied a few butterfly bandages to the wound after wiping it with some anti-bacterial cream. Applying the last of the bandages, I was prematurely pulled away from the man by Helena, who grabbed my head and kissed me with a passion I hadn’t experienced in her in days, well… hours really. My reunion with her incited most of the men watching to boo and throw dirt at us. The legionnaires had grown accustomed to seeing us together back in the winter camp, but now that we were clearly together, they let their humorous disapproval show whenever they could.
Poor jealous bastards.
That was the first of our mini engagements, and the only one I had participated in. Everyone else in the squad had received a small taste for sword combat during the siege as well, and each came away admitting they hated it, but happy they got some experience. These engagements had me worried though because if Claudius could afford to waste troops in these completely ineffective counter attacks, how many men did he really have? The enemy was losing far more than we were, and it led me to wonder if Claudius had recruited a larger army than Galba had estimated.
As for Nero and Agrippina, I had no idea where they were, and frankly, couldn’t care less. A part of me wished the pair died in the initial artillery strike, but that seemed unfair. After all, young Nero was still technically innocent, and something as beautiful, albeit evilly beautiful, as Agrippina shouldn’t be wasted.
On the thirty seventh day of the siege, I awoke early around four in the morning, and was not feeling well. I’d slept all right, but it must have been that damn beef patty MRE I had again the previous evening that woke me.
I’ve sworn off the stuff since.
With my upset stomach groaning, I got up slowly so I didn’t disturb Helena. She was still fast asleep; the remnants of her clothing strewn about the tent after I’d aggressively removed them earlier. She looked perfect in the dim light from a dying glow stick that softly illuminated her body, so I retrieved my rifle as quietly as I could and left to wander through the trenches. It was still dark, and there were only a few sentries posted and awake. As I passed by them, they offered me friendly, but tired greetings, mostly paying me little attention. I continued on my morning walk until I found a nice spot to watch the sun rise in the East. Since high school, I made it a point to just sit and watch the sun rise whenever I could. My time in the military, and in the Roman army, granted me many opportunities to be awake during the time, but never any to just sit and enjoy.
It had been a beautiful dawn, followed by an even more stunning sunrise. I didn’t move until the entirety of the sun had cleared the horizon, and was floating just a few feet above the tree line, far in the distance. I could never figure out why I felt better after watching the daily event, I just knew that I did. It made me feel whole. I threw the sun a salute, and continued on my trek.
Along the way, I stopped at each fort, and used my rifle’s scope to check out the walls in case trouble was abrewing. At the last fort before my camp, I set my sights just above a gate’s entrance, and saw the last thing I thought I’d see. Agrippina was standing there, and oddly, she seemed to be looking right at me. There was no way she could have recognized me from the distance we were at, but I could have sworn she’d smiled at me.
I lowered my rifle, rubbed my eyes with my hands, and then the lenses of my scope with a rag. Raising my rifle again, I looked back at where I thought I had seen her only ten seconds earlier, but found nothing. Just an empty wall. I shuddered, finally realizing the odd contrasting similarities between Agrippina’s smile, and Helena’s eyes. Not a person in the world could either unnerve me or confuse me like those two women could. I went back
