“The gods have abandoned us,” Olbert said through clenched teeth. He had survived the previous day and had hoped to reunite with his friends Tabbo and Prince Klaes when this day was done. Instead, his doom bore down on him behind a wall of brightly painted shields. He gritted his teeth, limbered up his shoulders, and turned to meet his fate.
Dibbald could see little beyond the horde of men to his front. The fog was still thick, and although this impeded his situational awareness, he knew it hindered the Romans even more so. At least one entire legion was trapped on this side of the river. His men had been hammering the enemy lines for more than a day now. Cold, hunger, and extreme fatigue were breaking them, and the Frisian King knew it would be over soon enough. He dared to think, perhaps, it would not be in vain, that his nation just might achieve a real victory against the Roman army! As he pondered this, a messenger rode quickly towards him, shouting words in a panic that Dibbald could not understand over the noise of the battle.
“My King, we are undone!” the man shouted as he halted his horse next to him. The messenger was panting, sweat rolling down his face, eyes wide with terror.
“Calm yourself,” Dibbald replied. “What do you mean undone?” The messenger pointed over his shoulder towards the Frisian right flank, but all the King could see was fog and the massed formation of his advancing warriors.
“The Romans…I don’t know how, but they’ve flanked us…infantry and cavalry have smashed our right flank!”
“Impossible!” Lourens shouted. “It’s twenty miles upriver to the nearest ford. They can’t possibly have gone around in a day!”
“They have, and they attack us now,” the messenger said between gasps of breath.
As the King quickly tried to assess the situation, another messenger ran up on foot.
“Sire, the Romans have repaired one of the bridges! An entire legion has also assaulted the flank!”
Lourens looked to Dibbald, his face grim. Amke rushed to his side and grasped the bridle of his horse.
“Uncle, now is the time!” she pleaded. “Send the Daughters of Freyja into the fight! It is time we earned our right as protectors of the Segon Kings!”
Dibbald closed his eyes and swallowed. Without looking at his niece, he gave a slow nod. Amke gave an almost euphoric smile, released the reins, and rushed to her warriors.
“Daughters of Freyja!” she shouted, her hand axe raised high. “The time has come for us to earn our place in the history of our people! Now we must save our King and our nation. We can turn the tide of this battle by fighting beside our brothers in this, our people’s most desperate hour! With me!”
A cry like a host of screaming Medusas filled the air. Amke pointed her axe towards a cohort of legionaries that were bearing down on them. At last it was time; time for her to unleash all the pent up hurt, frustration, and fury that had been building up inside ever since the arrival of that abominable creature, Olennius. She cursed that he was not there to suffer what was coming to him; but then, soft magistrates hid behind the walls of the iron men that faced her now. She gave another cry and rushed towards her foe.
“Holy shit, they’ve got girls fighting for them!” a legionary shouted as he hefted his javelin to throwing position. These men were of the Fifth Legion’s Sixth Cohort, and they had yet to engage the enemy.
“A woman with an axe can kill you just as effectively as a man,” his Decanus warned him. “Stand ready to skewer these harlots!”
“Javelins ready!” the Centurion Pilus Prior shouted. The young soldier did not like the idea of killing women, but the faces of the howling mob racing towards him with weapons ready to strike unnerved him, enough that his morals would have to understand as he focused on a rather fetching young woman. The veins in her neck pulsed, her eyes filled with hatred.
So young, so beautiful, the soldier thought to himself. Such a waste!
“Front rank…throw!”
A terrible storm of javelins slammed into the ranks of Amke’s warriors. Girls and young women fell screaming in pain as their guts were torn through. She held her shield up high to deflect a javelin, only to have it puncture through. The weight knocked her shield into her face, the javelin stabbing her in the upper arm. She dropped her now useless shield and clutched her arm. The puncture was painful but not serious. Next to her, one of her sister’s head snapped back as a javelin ruptured her throat and tore out the back of her neck. Amke fought back a sob as the girl thrashed on the ground, clutching at her throat. Feeling terribly guilty, but knowing there was nothing else she could do; she reached down and wrenched the dying warrior’s shield from her twitching fingers.
“Forgive me, sister,” she pleaded quietly as she turned and faced her enemy once more, “but the living need the protection more than the dead.”
Volleys of javelins tore into her sisters as they continued to rush towards the Roman shield wall. Though less than a minute had passed since she first gave the order to charge, it felt like ages. The Daughters of Freyja were earning their place, though at a terrible price. Amke moved at a controlled jog, no longer running blindly.
“Rah!”
The battle cry shouted by the Romans as they unsheathed their gladii caused Amke to gulp. She now understood why King Adel had sued for peace against Drusus Nero! Sadly, her generation did not have the luxury of dealing with an amicable Roman at the head of this metal juggernaut. When she was but ten feet away, she hunkered down behind her shield and ran full tilt into the Roman line.
The legionary whose shield she collided with was much larger and stronger than she. Though he gave a short step back as they hit, Amke was knocked back several feet by the shock. Her warriors on either side were also trying to smash through the Roman shield wall. Most bounced harmlessly off, the shock and casualties they had suffered under the javelin storm had thinned their ranks and left them temporarily unable to mass their numbers against the Roman line. She swung her axe in frustration, banging against the bright red and yellow shield, whose metal boss was constantly punched in her face. Her attack was doing little more than aggravate the legionary she faced, still she tried to find an opening. Unawares, she was being forced back, as were her fellow warrior maidens. One lost her footing and fell onto her back. With lightening speed a legionary lunged down and stabbed her beneath the heart.
Her sorrow turning to rage, Amke lunged forward again, ramming her shield and shoulder into the legionary she sparred with. A gladius was thrust at her face, and it was only at the last second that she managed to avoid taking a sword through the eye. She stepped back and swung her axe again, where it deflected off the brass strip on the side. As she glanced behind her to make sure of her footing, she saw a knot in the ground, jutting up about two feet. A grin came to her face as she bounced back onto it. The legionaries then stopped, and the front rank suddenly tilted their shields parallel to their bodies and stepped back past the rank behind them. These men rushed forward, taking their place. A Roman cohort executing a passage-of-lines was an awesome, and yet terrible, sight. The legionaries they now faced were completely fresh.
Amke growled, and as the Romans continued their advance she gave a cry of rage and leapt high into the air, coming down on the inside edge of a legionary’s shield. The soldier was taken by surprise long enough for Amke to follow through with a hard downward smash of her axe. It was the perfect strike, placed right where the shoulder muscles ran into the neck. To Amke’s surprise, her ever-sharp axe simply bounced off the segmentata plates that protected his shoulders. The soldier then shoved her back with his shield, smashing her in the face with the metal boss. Her vision clouded, and she did not even feel the stabbing of his sword as it punctured her hip, gouging the muscles and bone.