The Big 8-0-0

This is my 800^th post. I figured, in honor of the eight hundredth piece of crap that I've churned out to suck up slices of internet pie, I should do a rant.

If you are friends with me on the Book of Faces, then you will know that I recently got the disheartening news that I was once again turned down by a publisher. Ho hum. It's old hat at this point.

However, there was something particularly grating about this one.

I had decided to try my hand at one of these small, independent e-publishers. Since the market place is beginning to see a pretty wide array of e-readers as well as a moderate uptick in sales of electronically-published books, I figured this could be a good way to stay apace with technology and get myself into the hot little hands of teenagers everywhere!

*ahem* Sorry about that.

My wife had found this particular publisher for me. She knew someone who had published with them, so I thought I'd give them a go. Plus, you know, make the missus happy. *wiggles eyebrows*

*ahem* Sorry about that.

I prepared everything I needed as per the guidelines on their website. As they instructed, I submitted, waited patiently for word from them, and then got kicked in the teeth grundle. The reasoning for them to turn me down? Here, I'll let them explain it, cutting and pasting directly from the rejection letter they sent me:

To be completely frank with you, I believe The Boar War is too commercial a manuscript for a small independent publisher

I'm sorry? It's too commercial? What do you mean by that? Do you think that it's "too good" or "too mainstream" for your small publishing company? You're afraid that it would have "too much success?" Um. Okay.

At this point, I wasn't feeling so bad. And then I continued reading:

The story seems to be perfectly positioned as a middle-grade YA fantasy, in the same niche as the recent Guardians of Ga'Hoole.

Recent? Just because Hollywood made a shitty movie based loosely on the story does not make it "recent". The last book in the series was published two fucking years ago and the series itself was started in 2003. Yeah, that's fucking recent. That's real fucking recent. I guess if it falls within the current epoch, that shit's recent.

Also, just because a story features animals as characters does not mean it is exactly like another story with animals as characters. That's like saying Hamlet and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are the same fucking book because they both have Scandinavians in them. Or, better yet, claiming How to Train Your Dragon is the same story as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I mean, they have "dragon" right there in the titles, and they feature Swedes, more or less, and--the real kicker--they're both written on paper!

I do hyperbole so well...

After this, the real fucking slap in the face arrived. Please note that the following was written after the text of the email had changed fonts. That's real fucking professional, too, by the way. Let me be the first to point out that recently movable text was developed so that your documents did not look fucking shitty and like a third grader put them together. Maybe you should look into it, or even try the recent development of word processing programs that allow you to highlight a block of text and make it uniform with the click of a button.

Anyway, this is the line that really filled my veins with rage-ahol:

consider submitting your work to YA agents and perhaps to publishers like Peachtree and Scholastic.

This tells me that the asshole who wrote my rejection letter did not read a fucking word of my submission. They read the cover letter and the synopsis (maybe), and that was it. I can tell this because here is what happens in the first fifty pages I sent them:

• The bloody and meticulous slaughter of an important character
• An attempted rape on the main character of my story
• Implied sexuality between two of the first characters we meet
  
• Violent murders of those same two characters
• The main character's pet killed in cold blood and for sport
• Liberal use of the word "bitch" to describe one of the dead characters and the main character as she escaped the threat
• A bloody fight between a herd of deer and a pack of wolves
• A somewhat graphic description of the wounds sustained by one of the deer characters

Now, you tell me that this is something that is going to be targeted straight for middle school readers. In a recent development, rape is somewhat of a taboo in children's literature.

Oh, and by the way, fuckers, the main characters of the story--as clearly outlined in the submission summary and the synopsis--are humans, not a bunch of fucking owls. Yes, the animals are characters, but they are not the characters. This story is more like the fucking recent political story Animal Farm than motherfucking Guardians of Gahoole. Dammit, I want to skull fuck you stupid cockwaffles.

The final nail in the fuck-you coffin, also in the "hey, we're a fucking joke of a company" vein, was how I was told that I've used "highly-repetitive language" and where my "prose could flow more smoothly." On their website, they implore potential authors to avoid "thesaurus abuse" and not to worry if things seem "choppy" or "rough". These things "can be fixed later."

So, while I was originally kind of sad, I think I'm just mad. Mad, and relieved that I won't be working with these hacks. Sure, this might seem like sour grapes, and perhaps a little of it is. However, when you tell someone that their story is too commercial and then suggest the wrong places for the story to go and slap it all in a form email that is poorly formatted and, by the way, repetitive, then you open yourself to some criticism of your own.

In that light, fuck you, electronic publisher. My too commercial manuscript and I will go find someone who actually gives a damn about potential new authors. And, more importantly, someone who has their shit together.

Pro Glōriā Rōmae: Veniunt

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

4. Veniunt

At the forest's edge, I looked back at the massacre upon the hill. The creatures--spirits, shades...whatever they were--had finished their grisly task and had been alerted to our flight. However, the witch's spell must not have extended beyond the trees. As I stood, watching, I drew my blade to try and frighten back the black shapes. I backed slowly under the shaded edges of the trees, holding the iron blade of my sword aloft, hoping that it would hold back the demons that chased us.

To my surprise, the spirits simply dissipated as they reached the edge of the trees. Like smoke wafting away from a campfire, the dark shapes broke apart and drifted upon the breeze. The entirety of the mass of dark shadows came hurtling toward the edge of the forest, but each fell into wispy vapors and passed away on the wind, their howls hanging in the air like the glare of the sun one sees after he stares into the sky and then closes his eyes.

Eventually, the world grew silent once more. My fellows had fled deeper into the forest, seeking the shelter promised by the trees. Transfixed, I watched the end of the battle that had raged atop the hill. Now, I stood alone.

Across the meadow, still standing in the middle of the road, the woman remained. Her eyes were no longer trained on the hilltop where the army--my army--had attempted to build their fortifications. Now, she looked at the place where my companions and I had disappeared into the trees; truth be told, though I was hidden beneath the shadows of the canopy above, I knew she was staring directly at me.

Without another word, she let her staff fall to the ground. It fell, the impact silenced by the distance. Raising her arms, the voluminous sleeves of her cloak flapped in the gentle breeze so that she looked like some tall, upright winged creature. I gasped as I watched her torso shift and change. Her form shrieked an otherworldly sound and the cloak was lifted by the wind and carried away. Where she had stood for so long, silent and still, she was now transformed into something that was a mixture of a woman and a large, black bird.

Again, the creature shrieked, and, flapping ebony wings, she flew directly toward the forest.

At last, I turned. I carried my sword clenched tightly in my fist as I stumbled and staggered across the leafy ground, the unseen fingers of low branches clawing at my face and upper torso as I fled into the depths of the woods. Roots, hidden by both the deepening shadows of the evening and the thick layer of leaves on the forest floor, conspired to trip me as the branches above raked at me. Somewhere above the canopy of the forest, I sensed more than anything the flapping of massive black wings, as if some enormous bird of prey was circling overhead preparing to swoop down and pluck me from the forest floor. Above all, I heard the screeching of that foul beast from hell, and it spurred me forward.

I do not know how long I ran, nor in what direction. I simply fled. I felt my life depended upon it. It might very well have depended on it.

Eventually--I do not know when--the shrieking stopped. I did not sense the massive wings flapping; I did not feel as if I was being hunted. Exhausted, I tried to push myself forward. I succeeded in taking a few more staggering steps before another hidden root wrapped itself around my boot and I pitched forward. My sword was jarred from my hand and spun into the leaf litter somewhere ahead of me. Face first, I collapsed onto the side of a knoll, gasping for breath, tears leaking unbidden from my eyes. I could taste the loam and the rot of the forest floor and the thick leaf litter into which I had tumbled, but I did not care. I only wanted to rest a moment before fleeing once again. I would run all the way back to civilization if I had to. I only wanted to be away from this godless land.

"Licinus?" a voice asked, timid in the darkness. For a second, I thought I had imagined it, until it called once more, a bit more assertive this time.

"Lupercus?" I asked, barely recognizing the dark mass that huddled next to a tree ahead of me.

"It is I, Lupercus," he stated. "The others are with me, as well." He stepped forward and his features resolved themselves slightly from the shadow.

I pulled back, reviled and terrorized, rolling onto my back and pushing at the soft, moist soil with the heels of my boots. For the briefest of moments, I thought that it was another creature. After allowing my head to clear, I recognized Lupercus, though his face was scratched and a bloody trail, now dried, marked his forehead, down his temple, and around his eye.

"Sorry, old friend," I apologized as he helped me to my feet, "I have seen more this day than most men see in their lives. I am a bit on edge."

Lupercus nodded silently and then bid me to follow. We stomped through the leaves and wove our way between the low branches until we came upon the other three squatting around a small clearing in the forest. Above, a circle of ruddy, gray-streaked clouds could be seen between the tops of the surrounding trees. Nothing moved, except for the clouds scudding by. The heavens grew darker as the hidden sun disappeared and night continued to fall.

None of us spoke; the others simply looked up when Lupercus and I joined them in the clearing. I knelt down next to the bough of a great oak and allowed myself to sink back against it. The bark was rough, the tree hard, but I relaxed into it. Lupercus suddenly loomed over me.

"Your sword, commander," he said. Without another word, he offered me the hilt of the weapon.

I accepted it from him, gratefully, and laid it across my lap. The iron of the blade glinted, despite the low light. I thought of the lives that I could have saved with it--the lives that I could have saved--and suddenly all the emotions that I had endured over the previous few hours welled within me and washed me away.

I felt tears upon my cheeks and I sobbed gently. As I wept, I heard the other men, as well, releasing their emotions. Glad that the darkness hid my shame, I buried my face in my hands and allowed the emotions carry me with them until darkness and sleep took me.

I woke several hours later. The darkness of the night was complete, though the clouds were beginning to break overhead. I heard something and sensed movement in the darkness. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and what I saw caused my heart to leap into my chest.

A great, shadowy creature loomed before me, different from the creatures that had attacked on the hilltop. This one was more substantial, more real. It's face--what I could see of it--was pale and sleek not disfigured as the other monsters had been on the hillside.

It was aware of me watching it, and as I began to sit up, it turned, dropping something into the leaf litter below. My eyes looked at the thing it had dropped and I gasped as the lifeless eyes of Hilarius looked back at me.

Hilarius' face was completely white, as if the blood had drained from it. His mouth opened slackly, and I noticed a splash of blood at his throat. Terrified, I looked up at the monster which stood over him, looming even larger, more menacingly now. It made a sound that was a mixture of hissing and growling, and it flashed blood-stained white teeth as it opened its twisted maw.

The creature lunged toward me, apparently unsatisfied with having feasted upon Hilarius. My fingers groped in the darkness for any sort of weapon to use to fend it off when they found the hilt of the sword that Lupercus had returned to me earlier in the day. I held the blade forward, the tip pointed at the creature's foul heart...though I do not know whether it had a heart or not.

The monster stopped and stared at me with soulless, yellow eyes and half-snarled, half-hissed once more. It held its arms aloft, much like the woman had done earlier in the day, and swept itself away in a flurry of shadow. I looked at the space where it had been moments before, but it was gone. There was no sign it had ever been there. It was as if it had not even disturbed the leaves and litter on the forest floor, either coming to the camp or slipping away.

With the creature gone, I rediscovered my courage. I moved over to where Hilarius lay--or, more aptly--where Hilarius' body was left. I touched the mass on his neck and felt the sticky circle of blood that the creature left. Hilarius was not breathing; there was no pulse beneath my touch.

I hurried to the positions of the other three men in our crude camp, rousing them from where they slept. None of the others had seen the creature, but when I showed them the wounds on Hilarius' neck and the blood, they nodded.

"We should leave," I instructed. "There is nothing else we can do for Hilarius now. I fear that the creature might return."

Lupercus nodded, but Agorix protested. "Where are we to go?" he pressed.

"We need to make our way back to the civilized world," I instructed, "We need to warn the others of the evil that is in this land." I looked to the trees, at the surrounding shadow. "I do not know if even Traianus can tame this land," I admitted. Suddenly realizing what I had said, I looked at the others. Instead of outrage, I saw sage nods of agreement.

"Let us be gone," I said, "and may the gods protect Hilarius now."

We trooped off through the forest, picking our way carefully through the night.
That was three nights ago.

We wandered, lost, through the labyrinth of trees. We would rest when possible during the day, sleeping fitfully in turns. We tried to find sustenance in the forest, and there were some fresh shoots and plants that we were able to eat. The first day, Lupercus killed a squirrel and we roasted it over a low fire. We cut the beast into quarters and devoured it. After that, game was difficult to find.
At night, we would watch the shadows carefully. Again, we would draw lots for guard duty while the others slept shallowly and without dreams. Those who remained awake would watch for any other demon of the forest and raise the alarm if something moved from out of the shadows.

It did no good.

The creature returned that night and claimed Herculius while he was on guard duty with Lupercus. Lupercus raised a cry, but it was too late. The beast already had sunk its fangs into Herculius' neck, and I awoke just in time to watch the last vestiges of life flicker in his eyes and go out.

I have seen many men die in my lifetime; watching Herculius' death will remain with me until my final days.

We fled again, pressing south, away from the monster, away from the carnage on the hilltop, away from the witch woman. Again, that night, we waited, watching for the creature. Again, it came, silent and lethal. Agorix was the victim this time. The creature swept in from the shadows, grabbed Agorix by the throat, and flung him into the darkness. We heard a small struggle, and then there was silence.

Lupercus turned to me.

"It is toying with us," he said. I agreed. I felt powerless, however.

"We need to get away," I returned. It was all I could offer. Lupercus nodded, and we were off once more.

Through the day and into the night we hurried away, though we could now feel the eyes of the creature upon us. As the gloaming began to fall across the forest, a sense of helplessness set in. Together, we found the sturdiest oak tree we could find and made our meager camp near it.

"I will take the first watch," Lupercus offered, "though I am exhausted."

"No, my friend," I offered, but Lupercus held up a silencing hand.

"If I am to die this day, I will do it on my feet," he responded. Nodding, I unsheathed my sword and handed the hilt to him.

"Take this, then," I instructed. "They fear the iron." Lupercus nodded, and I sat at the base of the tree, shaking, though the air was warm and I was covered in sweat. I leaned my head back against the rough bark of the tree's trunk and waited. I would watch, too.

But, my eyes drifted shut.

I was awakened by the clatter of my sword hitting the ground. I turned and found Lupercus in its grip, his eyes already dim and dead, blood dribbling from the creature's mouth.

"Monster!" I screamed, grabbing my sword and swinging it at the creature that held my the lifeless form of my friend in its grip. The monster retreated, and I continued swinging my blade at it in a frenzied, desperate attempt to injure it. When the monster had moved beyond the length of my wild swinging, it swept itself into the shadows once more.

With tears on my cheeks, I shouted wordless challenges into the depths of the forest. My voice echoed throughout the tree-lined hills. No sound returned, but I could feel the darkness gathering around me. My turn was next.

I fled. It was all I could do. I was not proud. I was angered to leave my friend there. I knew, though, that I had to get back to civilization. So, I ran.

Throughout the night, I staggered between the trees, shouting as my anger and frustration overwhelmed me time and again. As the dawn broke over the land, I collapsed into a heap and slept where I fell. Finally, sometime around midday, I awoke once more and pressed on. I knew the creatures of the darkness could not follow me as easily during the daylight.

However, the sun inexorably moved toward the western horizon, and I knew my time was limited. This time, however, I grabbed as many stout branches as I could find. I sat beneath the spreading canopy of another oak and sharpened the sticks into stakes. When the light of the day failed me, I pressed my back against a tree and shouted my defiance once more toward the forest. This time, a sort of malicious sentience pressed back. It was silent, but it was an acknowledgment of my challenge, and a willingness to take it up.

My name is Gaius Flavius Licinus. I am a Legate in the glorious army of Rome, serving under the command of the wise and just Emperor Traianus. If you are reading this, then I am most likely already dead. I have written these words as a warning to those who would follow. This is a diseased land, a cursed land. It cries out for the civilizing hand of Rome, and yet I do not know if Rome can civilize it.

With my back pressed to the sturdy trunk of a tree, I await my enemies. I know they lurk in the shadows; I know that they want me dead. I will fight them to the death. I will fight them to honor my fallen comrades. I will fight them to honor my fallen men. I will fight them for the glory of Rome.

Veniunt.

They are coming, and I am ready for them.

Pro Glōriā Rōmae: Striga

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

3. Striga

"Who?" I asked, "Who is coming?"

The old man would not respond with any further detail. He simply kept babbling on about some nameless group identified only with the vague "they". Frustrated with the one-eyed bastard, I turned and gazed out over the flat ground stretching between the hill and the road where the woman stood. She gazed back at our position. She made no move but stood, watching. For a long period, she simply gazed at the hilltop where the army was garrisoned behind the fortifications that we had thus far erected.

Her face was hidden by the distance and the deepening shadows of the evening, but I could see that she wore voluminous robes. A hood was pulled over her head, hiding what appeared to be dark hair and hiding her features further. Her gown was a plain, black homespun fabric bearing no marking or decoration. She carried nothing but a long, gnarled staff, though unlike the old man, I did not think that she needed it to move from one place to another.

I suddenly got the feeling that her arrival and the old man's babbling about some unknown, unnamed "they" were related. Turning, I meant to press the old man further about the identity he cunningly avoided as well as the identity of the woman on the road in front of the fortified hilltop.

The old man was not there.

"Where did he go?" I asked the two men who were supposed to guard him.
Neither of the men could answer; both of them looked about as if they could simply summon him into being with their gaze. However, no sign that the old man had been sitting by the fire moments earlier could be found. The only markings indicating that he had been there was a word scratched in the hard-packed earth near the fire's side: "Striga"

I swore lightly under my breath.

"Find him," I ordered the men. I turned to one of my commanders, Lupercus, the man who had slit the Dacian scout's throat.

"Ready the men. I do not like the feel of the air. Something is amiss." I cast my eyes to where the riderless horses were being brought through the front fortifications to a paddock that had been built inside the perimeter of the palisade, though neither palisade nor paddock had been yet completed. "An ill omen, the return of those horses without their riders."

Lupercus, ever faithful, nodded curtly without a word, but turned and began organizing men to defend the hilltop. Fires were blazing to life around the inside of the walls and torches were being lit atop them. The gloom of the approaching storm and the lowering of the hidden sun were enough to cast a late day shadow across the land. I returned to the point where I could hold my vigil on the woman.

She remained on the road, watching the fortification, her eyes hidden within the gloom of her hood and the deepening shadows of the afternoon. Behind me, I could hear the men preparing for battle. My commanders were trooping up and down the lines, barking orders, arranging the men in a manner most defensible.

Without warning, the woman raised her arms, slowly, until they were held above her head. The staff that she carried was held aloft, the head of the staff above her own head. Hushed conversations could be heard behind me as the men discussed what it was that the woman was doing. I motioned them to silence with a brief wave of my hand, but it was to little avail. The men still spoke in whispers back and forth, trying to discern what it was that the woman was doing.

The wind suddenly changed directions and carried with it brief snippets of a high, lilting voice chanting in a lyrical fashion. Any words--any pieces of words--were lost in the gusts and the distance, and I did not recognize anything that the woman was chanting. My heart pounded within my chest and I found it difficult to swallow; it was almost as if my body involuntarily tensed, preparing itself for battle.

Suddenly, she swung the staff down, the butt of the stick striking the ground and sending gouts of blue lightning in all directions. The flash was brief, but intense. After the suddenly flurry of activity, she remained motionless, her gaze still fixed on the fortified hilltop.

"We've been cursed," Lupercus offered, the words barely audible.

"Superstition," I said, halfheartedly, yet with an edge of annoyance. "The men don't need to be any further on edge. Hold your tongue until--"

From the south, there suddenly came the long, moaning sound of an immense warhorn sounding from behind the black canopy of the trees. All heads turned as one to face the forest, and half the men raised their shields as if preparing for an incoming salvo of arrows. Many of the men began waving their fingers in the air, trying to ward off hexes and curses. The woman remained on the road, always watching.

"See what you've done," I said to Lupercus. I was prepared to upbraid him further when someone shouted. It was a warning, almost wordless, and yet it was enough to draw everyone's attention toward the forest's edge.

"The forest is coming toward us!" someone else screamed. I watched as a line of dark shapes moved forward from the tree line. Rank upon rank moved, slowly but surely, away from the sheltering edges of the woods and toward the woman who stood before us. She was alone no more.

The shadows resolved themselves into shapes that were vaguely human. From the distance, it was difficult to discern their features, but they had the look of fighting men. At least, it appeared that they wore some sort of battle dress. Hundreds and hundreds of these things moved from the forest's edge, transforming themselves from amorphous shadows into the shades of dead men, spirits of ancient battles.

"Striga," I said softly, looking upon the woman who had come to stand before the hill and to summon forth this host from beyond the grave.

"Prepare for battle!" I roared, reaching to find my own weapons and shield. "To arms, men. The enemy is upon us!"

"What of the old man?" someone questioned, and I realized that I had completely forgotten about the guest-turned-prisoner who had given the warning that this woman was a harbinger of something far worse than what we had faced in the forest a few days earlier.

"Forget him!" I shouted, "The real enemy is before us! To arms! Prepare the lines! To arms!"

The orders were echoed up and down the lines. As I strapped a helmet on my head, I returned my gaze to the road before the hillside. There, hundreds of dark creatures had amassed around the woman; more continued streaming from the forest. Even if it was possible to tell where one beast ended and another began, I could not have begun to count how many of the dark forms stood before us. My heart pounded within my chest.

The woman raised her staff once more--a shining beacon of humanity amidst the shadowy horde of death surrounding her--and allowed it to crack loudly upon the road's surface. If more pyrotechnics flew from the end of the staff, I could not see them. With an otherworldly howling, the host began to move forward, their progress toward the hillside as slow and inexorable as their movement from the forest's edge.

"Prepare yourselves!" I shouted, hoping to lend the men at least a bit of courage that I, myself, suddenly was lacking. "Remember men! You are Rome's finest warriors! Nothing can stand in our way." I wish that I could have believed my own words.


Without any other warning, the host suddenly broke and began flying toward the hilltop fortifications. The creatures loped easily up the side of the hill. I drew my blade, holding it aloft to signal the men to charge, but it was almost too late. The shadowy host hit us, and wherever they went, death was quick to follow.

As they poured onto the top of the hill and around what meager fortifications we had been able to erect in the weeks we had been here, I was able to get a good look at the enemy. They were hideous. I wish I could summon words that could describe them, but they fail me, even now. What I once thought were the spirits of dead men I swiftly learned were twisted, grotesque abominations that may have, at one point, been somewhat human in shape. That, however, was where the similarities ended.

They had huge, misshapen, foul faces from which sprouted horns and knobs and antlers and any other variance of protuberance. Some had huge tusks, like boars; others simply had dagger-like teeth. Their bodies were as misshapen as their faces, but they moved at such a speed that it was difficult to tell if they all had similar bodies or not. They seemed to flow from one place to another, as if they were crafted of something that wasn't quite solid, but not yet liquid either.

Of all their features, however, it was their eyes that were the most haunting, the most frightening. Big and orb-like, they seemed to glow with an internal, ghastly light. As they would attack, they would blink, slowly and surely, and the eyes would disappear for a moment so that something of pure shadow, something crafted of pure hatred and evil, as upon you and then it was gone. Their eyes would open again, glowing afresh, and they would move on to their next target.

Worst of all, however, was how ineffective our weapons were against the putrid beasts. Our spears and javelins simply passed through them. The shields did nothing to hold them at bay. Not even the armor donned by the infantry was of any service. Within seconds, hundreds of men were dead upon the ground, they bodies rent open in innumerable, ghastly fashion. Most of them died with their features frozen in the shapes of permanent, silent screams.

As one creature came toward me, I did what I could and swung my sword at it, cleaving a large gap across its chest. Another fell victim to my blade as I fended off a sweep of a mighty arm ending in a handful of dagger-like claws. I held the sword before me, and the creatures actually shied away from it.

"Iron!" I screamed. The cold, blue blade before me was the only thing that the creatures feared. "Iron!" I yelled to the men behind me. "Use your blades! They fear iron!"

It was, I must say, too little, too late. By the time my warning was passed along the lines, we were overwhelmed. Half of the army was dead or dying. The lines were broken and men were breaking into small bands trying to fend off the enemy, or to fall to their knees and pray for a leniency that the creatures did not know.

"Licinus!" a voice called to me. It was Lupercus. In his wake, Agorix and Hilarius and another man, Herculius, trailed. "Licinus, the day is lost! We must flee or else be slaughtered like sheep!"

I simply nodded, looking upon the rout as it unfolded before me. "We must sound a retreat!"

"There is no time!" It was Agorix who spoke this time. "When the men see you fleeing, they will know not to stand and fight any longer."

Again, I nodded. While I held my blade, the creatures seemed to melt away, holding back to avoid the deadly touch of the cold, blue steel.

"Let us be gone!" I offered, though it shamed me.

"But where?"

I turned and looked to the one place that I dreaded going more than anywhere else.

"The trees will slow them. We can gather there, hide until her summoned demons have gone, and regroup." I looked to the other four men, hoping that they had a better solution.

Lupercus nodded. "Lead the way," he said, "and I will follow."

I nodded in return, and without a further word, I bolted. I wished that I had readied a horse, but there was no time now. I could hear the screams of the steeds in their paddock being slaughtered as quickly and efficiently as had my men. I dared not look back as I ran.

I could hear the unearthly howls of the creatures as they realized that we fled and the screams that they offered as they gave chase. Still, I did not dare look back. The sounds of their pursuit was enough to spur me forward, though fear tried to force me to turn from the forest's edge.

Above all, however, I heard a soft, lilting, lyrical laughter chasing us to the forest's edge and beyond.

Pro Glōriā Rōmae: Senex

Chapter 1

2. Senex

The following morning, we broke the camp and marched away from the site of the battle. The scouts had reported a wider, more open hilltop that we might use to build a camp and from which we could scout and easily defend the country for miles around. I immediately wanted to claim the place in the name of Rome and the wise and just Emperor Traianus.

The hill that the scouts found was outside of the forest. Wide and with a flat top, it overlooked a broad valley. The brown ribbon of a road ran through the valley's floor, and the vantage from the top of the hill allowed one to view the entirety of the road from where it emerged from the forest's dark edge until it curved out of sight several leagues to the north and west. In the distance, the dark, implacable faces of the mountains overlooked the entire valley like stoic, ancient gods watching the course of history pass before them.

We immediately established a camp upon the crown of the hill. As soon as camp had been established, we began to build fortifications upon the top of the hill. In addition to drawing out the attackers from the Dacian cities, we were to help establish supply lines for the assault on the capital and feeder cities by the larger force that the Emperor Traianus would be dispatching across the Danubius soon.

The men, well-trained and disciplined, immediately began breaking into companies. Some of the men dug ditches, both for defense and for foundations for a palisade that would help secure the camp and the top of the hill. Others moved down the road and into the forest where they began felling trees. Others were preparing the lumber that had been harvested and still others were firing it and moving it into position. By evening, the beginning of a crude fortification had been erected.

In the morning, I dispatched scouts to explore the wider valley. I sent a handful of messengers back to where we had crossed the Danubius to give word of our victory and to send the news that we would be securing the valley and preparing the course for the supply lines for the army. I requested another small force be dispatched to help secure the route we had already crossed so that the Dacians could not move in behind us and sever our ties with the civilized world.

I also dispatched small infantry units to ensure the security of the valley. We had not killed all of the Dacians that had attacked us two days earlier, and if they regrouped they could perhaps muster an attack against our position before we were completely fortified.

Occasionally, merchants would be seen on the roads. We would stop them, searching their wagons to ensure that they were not harboring soldiers. If they were compliant, if they did not argue or try to hinder us, we would let them go. Most of them were poor farmers moving some shriveled vegetables or fruits to some unknown market in a nearby village that we had not come across in our explorations.

However, if they argued with us...it was the final thing they ever did.

More rare than the merchants were the riders that would sometimes try to gallop past our position. Those who were not cut down with arrows were ridden down. If they fought, they were killed, but those who were subdued were brought back to the camp as prisoners. As we were not a large force, the prisoners would be questioned and then put to death, far away from the camp so that their shades would not cling to the area and haunt us.

From time to time, the infantry units or the scouts would come across small bands of soldiers that they would battle. Any surviving enemy units were captured and brought back to the camp where they were questioned and dispatched in the same way as the riders.

Every day our soldiers would range further afield from our position, scouting and mapping the area. Every day they would return with more reports of soldiers being seen further away from our encampment, but there were no details of major army units in the area. We had taken and secured the area; it was as good as Roman.

Nearly two weeks after we had claimed the hilltop and had captured the valley and secured it, a most curious thing occurred. The morning was clear and bright. I was standing atop the hill, surveying the land around and the work that had been completed on the fortifications. Everything seemed to be progressing easily and well: two wide ditches had been dug around the base of the hill to slow attacking enemies, the walls were slowly but surely being built, and the hillside itself was being staked. The archers were restocking their supply of arrows that had been spent during the battle within the woods.

That is when I spied a single figure upon the road emerging from the woods and slowly, yet surely, moving toward us. I sent three men on horseback and, within seconds, they had surrounded the figure. It seemed that they spoke briefly before turning and returning to the hill. The figure walked, albeit slowly, amongst the soldiers. They picked their way up the hillside, and I could see that the figure was a man.

As he approached, I saw that he was old. Perhaps old does not describe him. He looked as ancient as the hills that surrounded us. Snowy white hair hung around his shoulders, emerging from beneath the brim of a wide, black hat. Above his mouth was an equally wispy, equally white moustache. He walked with a slight stoop and an even slighter limp, balancing himself on a long, gnarled staff. When he smiled--which was often, as he wore a simple sort of grin on his face at all times--he revealed that he had few teeth, and those that he did have were broken and discolored. A terrible odor poured from his mouth as he neared, and it was all I could not to rear back and away from him.

More disconcerting, however, were his eyes. One of them--his right one--was milky and useless, cataracted over with an opaque covering so that iris looked little different from the rest of his eye. His left one, however, was clear and piercingly blue, the color of the sky on a cold winter's day. There was a deep, almost unsettling sentience about it that did not quit align itself with the vapid grin writ upon the man's face nor on the stooped, halting manner in which he walked and carried himself. I did not trust him for a moment, and yet, I could not bring myself to order the man's execution.

He babbled in the incomprehensible manner of barbarians, with speech that was rough and grating on the ears. I disliked it immediately upon hearing it and asked him--time and again--if he spoke a more civilized language, like Greek or Latin or, if nothing else, something that resembled the sputterings of the Germanic tribes I had faced while serving with the wise and just Traianus.

The old man offered a wide smile and then began speaking in something that resembled a crude, provincial form of Latin. He told to us that he was a journeyman, wandering from town to town in the region. He was able to describe the area around the camp in generalities rather than specifics. Though it was not valuable information from a military standpoint, it was still information that could be useful. For that reason, along with the fact that I pitied this half-blind, stooped creature well into its dotage, I allowed him to live and accepted him as, officially, a guest within the camp. In truth, I assigned two guards to him at all times, ready to slit his throat if he showed even a hint of malice or subordination.

In the evenings, before I returned to my quarters to sleep, I would sit at the fire with some of the commanders of my army. They would report on what they had found in their forays into the countryside that day--any enemy soldiers seen, any skirmishes fought, any people moving along any of the roads in the area. When my men were done, the old man--I never learned his name--would babble on, talking of local legends and stories. He would reveal more of the countryside in his simple, vulgar manner, and I often found his stories, if not captivating, at least mildly interesting. The entertainment value alone was worth what we paid him in food and shelter.

Despite the fact that I tried to speak a more true, more noble version of our native language, the old man would still click his tongue in the roof of his mouth and rock back and forth, his good eye closed, when reports of fighting came in through the patrols. I would watch the old man and he would fix me first with his senile smile followed by the piercing iciness of his blue eye. While his smile grew wider as I watched him, the joy never crept into his stare. I began to think that the man knew more than he was showing. Still, I did not have the heart to kill such a pitiful creature.

Three days after the old man was captured, I dispatched a group of scouts to the south. They were instructed to ride through the forest we had just marched through weeks earlier. None of the messengers I had dispatched back to Roman lands had returned, and I wanted to know what had happened to them and if we could be expecting reinforcements.

The day had started out well enough. The morning temperatures were cool but not cold, the skies were clear and blue. The sun shone brilliantly down upon the valley. To the west, the dark mountains continued to sit, dark and brooding, upon the horizon. On our right, the southern forest was dark and foreboding, a massive green-black sea stretching out to some indeterminate ending. The horsemen rode into the tree line; I watched as they disappeared into the forest and went back to attending to our daily tasks.

After the sun came to its zenith, low clouds scudded in from the south. They were flat and whitish gray and promised a change in the weather. I felt my mouth curl into a sneer as I watched them moving in. Most likely, it would rain during the night. Almost as if the thought summoned it, a chill began to descend in the air.

The old man sat by the fire and chuckled.

As the clouds formed into a more solid bank and overtook most of the sky, six horses suddenly appeared at the edge of the forest and walked, riderless, toward the encampment. Recognizing the beasts, I sent men to gather them. I stood and watched as they corralled the listless creatures and brought them back toward the camp. There was not a sign of the riders who had departed on the backs of those steeds.

The old man continued to chuckle, mostly to himself, as he sat by the fire. The vapid grin on his face suddenly looked less simple and more demonic.

I had turned to question why the old man was laughing when someone raised a cry of warning in the camp. I turned to see a woman on the road, alone. She emerged from the edge of the forest, which now looked dark and menacing--more menacing than earlier when the sun's light was fully upon it.

The old man laughed now. Instead of a dull, drumming chuckle, he laughed with a throaty cackle. The smile on his face, combined with his cold, glaring left eye seemed far more menacing.

"What?" I asked, ready to strike this vile creature down. "What is it that makes you laugh so, old man?"

"Veniunt," he said, his mouth open wide as he did so. "Veniunt, young soldier. They are coming."