The march to Lyon was awful. Manlius forced me to ride alongside him. Instead of enjoying the commodity of my carriage, I had to endure the annoying grunts of the Germans as they marched behind us. Roman soldiers sought to be disciplined and to follow their commanders, without doubt, not much could be expected from barbarians. I was surprised that Manlius managed to get those silly barbarians to march all the way to the city of Lyon without any rest.
"Anyone who stops, even if only for a brief second, will be flogged," He said. I did not understand the hurry, even if we reached the city tonight, we would not be in any position to stand in a fight.
"Sir, are we not going to wait for reinforcements?" I asked. My geography wasn't the best, but I could estimate that if we rested right now, it would take around half a day for our allies to link up with us. It made no sense to reach Lyon with less than half of our forces at hand.
Manlius grunted. "Don't worry, soon you will see."
When I was finally awake the following morning, every single muscle in my body was numb. Not only had I rode a horse for almost twelve hours, but once we arrived at the outskirts of Lyon Manlius forced us to set up a palisade around our encampment. The siege of Lyon had begun and our reinforcements were nowhere to be seen.
I carefully sneaked out of bed without Arya noticing and then got dressed. When I arrived at the commander's tent, I found him sporting his battle armor, Manlius was ready for battle. He once again offered to convert me to his apocalyptic cult, but I refused to fall for his tricks and convert to Christianity. I was a happy Pagan and if I were to die, I would die as one.
When the garrison from Milan and Marseille arrived, it did so with its commanders. Decimus 'the thief from Milan' and Argabast 'the Romanized goth' respectively. The entire allied army, numbering around a thousand troops, lined up outside of the city walls and as costume, before any hostile action was taken, a delegate was sent to request the formal surrender of the city. The poor fucker got pelted with arrows.
"Well, he is dead," Decimus said. "Bring the ladders forward."
"Hold on," Manlius said. "An upfront attack would not be prudent at a time like this."
"Argabast, what do you think?" Decimus said. "We outnumber the enemy five to one."
"Indeed, it should be an easy victory," Argabast replied. Manlius did nothing but grunt and protested the decision by retreating back to his quarters.
"Come on kid, don't listen to your old man, take your private retinue and join us on the assault," Decimus said. "The more men we have, the faster this farce will end."
Having ignored Manlius, around seventy percent of the allied forces charged upfront to the walls. I was among the first on the line for the slaughter. Our forces were mostly Germanic in nature and wore no armor. When I commanded my retinue at the front, dressed in my fancy armor, most of the Germans must've thought I was likely one of their commanders.
"Follow me!" I ordered. My retinue of swordmen following me, sword in hand, along with some of the Germans who heard my shout.
When I started climbing the ladder, I felt adrenaline rush all over my body. My armor and shield were heavy, and I had to climb the ladder with one hand holding the ladder and the other fully holding my shield. The enemy kept throwing stones and pebbles down at us. The attacks were unrelenting. I felt like my arm slowly bruised with each impact. But I was not going to give up, our other allies in the ladders closest to me were going to climb first if I didn't. Eventually, I climbed to the top, but I had no sword. I blocked most of the attacks with my huge ass shield.
"Master hold on"
"Fetch me my sword," I said. While briefly reaching downwards to my servant.
"Master, this is dangerous, let's retreat," He said.
"GIVE ME MY FUCKING SWO-"
I was suddenly shoved down the walls. I crashed on top of my servant who was at the top of the ladder, and then as we fell, he fell into the next man down below, this snowballed until everybody got dragged along with us and we hit the floor. In the confusion, I could feel as I was being dragged away from the battlefield. My entire view of vision was blurred. I saw as the men bolted, most of the Germans threw away their shields and swords. This allowed them to run rather fast since they carried no armor of their own. Then it happened. Likely what Manlius had feared the most. The enemy started pelting us furiously with their bows, as the men got annihilated by the sudden rediscovery of arrows in combat. The army disintegrated as the panic sent them into a full route.
When I woke up the following day, I was told that Manlius had taken the city by force. He was able to rally the remaining troops after he became the undisputed leader of the allied forces. This was a rather easy task since Decimus routed along with his troops, and Argabast was dead somewhere on the wall's floor.
A few days after the city was taken, a letter from Ravenna arrived. Recalling both Manlius and me back to Rome. We were to stop at Ravenna for a small celebration. On our way to Ravenna, I also received an interesting letter, only directed at me.