"Tiberius, pay close attention," Manlius said. "This is what the Emperor calls peace."
As we rode through Pannonia, the Apocalyptic landscape only became ever more apparent.
"This is the rot," He said. "It first happens to humans then empires."
We passed through farms whose fields were filled by the wilderness.
"There are no more men to plow the fields, Tiberius," He said. "The army has taken every single one of them."
All the fields that we passed were either abandoned, or the crops were ruined. Once we reached the city, I wanted to vomit. The smell of shit, beggars, and piss roamed the air. Truly a province forsaken by the gods. The only people living in this piss poor region were soldiers and slaves who farmed the land.
The only significance of this deserted part of the world was that it served as Rome's emergency canary. Should Pannonia fall, then nothing would be able to stop a barbarian horde from marching on Rome itself, if Pannonia was well defended, then any invasion would either be defeated here or at least Rome would have enough time to pull legions from the other regions of the ever-shrinking empire.
Due to my military accomplishments and mostly through nepotism. I was promoted to officer. I was now in charge of fifty soldiers, among those my fifteen private swordsmen.
Manlius and I set up camp in the dying capital city of Pannonia, Aquincum. We were assigned to the living quarters of the western gate; the rest of the troops were assigned to the quarters of the eastern gate. Since accommodations were limited, only Manlius and a few other officers had the luxury to stay on an actual permanent residency. The rest of us had to set up tents around it.
Our assignment was simple, defend the city and patrol the north and south gate with a skeleton force. Since this was not a hard task, I could spend most of the day fooling around. Arya and I went from store to store to see what was worth buying, I bought her jam, she, for some odd reason loved it.
I then went to the local pub as Manlius suggested. The old man was having tea. I honored him and ordered tea too.
"Manlius, you look suspiciously happy," I said.
"I finally found it," He replied.
"Hmm?"
"Look," He said, then he reached for his pockets and showed me a few gold coins.
I just raised my eyebrows.
"You are too young to understand, but I finally finished my collection of Imperial coins," He said, "these coins are rather hard to come by."
"So even the devil has a hobby," I thought.
"Good for you sir," I replied. With not much effort.
"Boy, ever since Ravenna you been having this attitude of yours, soften up, maybe it's time to renounce your pagan ways," He said. I wanted to respond but then we were interrupted by a beautiful girl with delicate breasts, amber eyes, and her black hair well-groomed into a short ponytail.
"Good morning gentlemen," She said, with an uplifting smile. "What would a girl like me have to do to be invited to have a few drinks by two handsome men like you two."
"Sorry little missy, we are drinking tea," Manlius said. I was embarrassed, she wanted to drink with us, but we were drinking tea. It didn't help that Manlius outed us. Fuck, you silly old man always have to ruin things for me.
She stared at us with surprise. I was not going to allow this opportunity to go.
"Hey darling, what is a cute girl like yourself approaching soldiers like us?" I asked, "are you not afraid?"
"My older brother was a soldier," She said. "I am not afraid of them."
She looked down for a split of a second, she must've been uncomfortable, maybe she was lying.
"Interesting, maybe I've fought alongside him," I said. "What regiment did he serve?" If she was lying, Manlius would know.
"The 13th," She said. Her smile was gone.
"Oohhh, Manlius, where is that regiment located?" I asked. Manlius did not respond, instead, he looked at me as if he was going to murder me. Then he stood up. Reached for his coins and then gave a few to the girl who upon taking them bolted out.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"The 13th was annihilated and is the reason we were relocated here," He said.
I understood, upon finishing my tea, Manlius and I returned to the western camp. It was only around a ten-minute walk from the marketplace, which was also the city square.
Once at the camp, I had Arya give me a massage which ended with me pushing her down and making her moan "meow" through the night. It was a bad idea to leave all my other slaves back at Ravenna, but my sister insisted. While Arya laid naked on the bed, her tail just moved as the result of whatever dream she was having, she was completely useless. I walked out of the tent to fetch myself some water to take a bath.
The privileges of my office allowed me to order the legion's slaves to get water for me. On my way to inform them, I noticed that a man had been flogged to death. When I inquired about what happened, I was told that during tonight's card game, Manlius found out that this man had in his possession a considerable amount of money, way out of his pay grade, and not only that but the coins that he used to bet were of rather limited stock. Manlius had him flogged and said that any other soldier that stole from civilians would suffer the same faith.
"Fair," I said, then after having the slaves ready my bath, I enjoyed myself on the water and then went to sleep relaxed and clean. I didn't feel like putting anything on, I covered Arya's exposed breast with the bedsheet and sneaked underneath them, in order not to wake her up. Once I was comfortable, I could feel her cuddle with me, and I fell asleep.
"TIBERIUS, WAKE UP"
I responded with a grunt.
"TIBERIUS," She said, shaking me until I opened my eyes.
It was Arya, her cat ears looked sharper than usual, a sign that she was distressed.
"What?"
"The city has fallen," She said.
I jumped out of bed, "MY ARMOR"
"No, Tiberius, is too late"
"MY ARMOR"
She obliged and I ran out of the tent, the rest of the legion was sleeping. "WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK"
They were all too fucking drunk to notice, dammit. I ran towards the middle of the encampment, sword on hand, shouting to see if anyone would wake up. I ran into Metallus, the centurion on duty, he looked at me as if I was crazy.
"BLOW THE FUCKING HORN YOU IDIOT" I demanded.
"Sir, are you -"
"BLOW IT"
"What's the matter," He asked
"THE CITY IS UNDER ATTACK"
Metallus refused to blow the horn. I lunged towards him, he flinched back. "Are you out of your mind?" He asked.
Our little commotion attracted a few of the soldiers on duty.
"What's the matter?" They asked. They seemed ready to kick my ass. But then.
A horn was blown across the eastern side of the city. Once. The gate was under attack. Twice. The gate had fallen. Thrice. The commander has fallen. The veterans within the camp recognized the sound and woke up in a panic.
Metallus did not wait long to blow the horn. The entire camp lit up in a panic.
"TO ARMS" The centurion shouted.
The chaos came to an end when Manlius showed up.
"Separate into five cohorts of a hundred soldiers each," He said. The men were quick to listen. "Metallus and Tiberius are to take one of the cohorts and make their way through the city to relieve the eastern gate, make as much noise as possible. The rest of the cohorts are to follow me."
"Now, open the gate" Manlius ordered. It was madness, but I did not object.
"Speed is of the essence," He said, then disappeared into the darkness of the open field, along with four hundred men.
Metallus and I closed the gate and made our way to the eastern gate. We were not even half our way down towards the marketplace when we immediately were met by a marauding barbarian horde of around three hundred men.
"DO NOT BREAK FORMATION" Metallus said.
The streets were narrow enough, that five men could hold on the line. We pelted the fuckers with javelins and downed around thirty of them. Almost every hit landed on this crowded space. In more prosperous times, this would've been an easy victory for us, but only Romans held javelins, the rest of our forces were Germanic in nature.
We smashed against each other for a good minute, then they started pelting us with rocks.
"Do not falter" Metallus shouted.
We managed to hold on and push them back. But then. A giant of a man emerged among the Barbarians. He stood almost two meters tall and held a battle-ax the size of Arya.
"Duel me," He said. Then spoke in German. Something about how he would share the loot with the Germans if they surrendered.
Fuck, he was trying to get our own troops to betray us. I was about to step forward to accept the duel, but I reconsidered my life goals and allowed Metallus to beat me to it.
"MOVE I'll KILL THIS FUCK" As hard-pressed as we were, our lines allowed Metallus to move to the front. The two sides stepped back and allowed the two officers to have around six meters of space for their duel.
Metallus was wearing full armor and started the duel by attempting to prick the other fucker on the ribs. The giant just moved back and kicked Metallus back. It looked like that hurt, but Metallus did not give up. Using his shield effectively, he blocked a few powerful blows. The advantage was his, Romans were hard to kill. I kept cheering for Metallus until with one hit, his brains got splattered on the floor. As all our men dropped their swords, I was clever enough to be among the fist to bolted into the alley.