The Gaming Outpost

I was on a mag-lev train, in a turret for a 160 millimeter tank cannon which had been crudely joined to said train.  The operator had left for the loo, I thought after drinking too much potato vodka.

And then the intercom crackled.

"Turret Two!" A pause ‘TURRET TWO! Wake up, shoot, we’ve got a beastie on your right."

I paused, and with a sinking feeling looked down at my control board.

A big black "2" confirmed my fears. 

So, I stuck my head out the under hatch, and heard snores.  A quick peek, and the turret operator was sleeping off his good vodka on a train bench.  The sweet sound of his snores let me know that waking wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

So, I studied the controls. They were simple and straightforward, although the shoot button was on the left side.  Good Russian engineering–geniuses designing weapons for idiots.  They built their weapons to be tough, cheap, and to make it so even a clueless peasant could not mangle up the job.

I spun the turret to my right, with a bit of an overspin, and then corrected. Only trees filled my periscope, and I wondered how I would ever find the beastie in that.

"Two, you moron. Your other right."  The exzaggerated patience was in Russian, of course, but I’ve known that language for at least two hundred years, so I was good.

I spun the gun turret with a whine, and a grate to my left.  A field of clear snow was being disturbed by a large, muscled, but still gangly figure with some coat of netting or something on it.  It looked big.  I lined it up, but then paused.

How did I know it deserved to die?  The only person I’d met so far had been a drunken Russian gun operator.  For all I knew that could be an American commando in a ghillie suit out there ….trying to board the train…which was going over a hundred miles per hour.

I looked back.  The creature was gaining on us.  So I fired to miss.  Still, it dodged. I’m not sure how since I fired a shell that went several times the speed of sound. 

It bounced to its feet, and came back at the train with even greater speed.  Suddenly, I closed in on the face.  That face did not look human.  It looked bestial with carnivorous teeth, and a tongue flappng in the breeze, and an overcoat of long fur.

So I centered my shot, and took it.  This time, its dodge was slower, and my shell landed close enough to see it cartwheel across the sky.  As the train sped away, I saw it rise to its feet, and shake its fist at me.  But clearly it could not pursue.

And then I sat there for a second trying to piece things together which was a mistake. A minute later, I heard a rapping on the metal hatch door in my floor.

"Open up. Now. Come out with hands empty, or we toss in grenade."

Oops.  In the two minutes I’d been thinking, they had gone to check on why their man was acting weird, and seen him asleep, and realized they did not know who was up there.

I considered my options while some more yelling went on.

Finally, I opened up the hatch, and let them drag me out, and dump me on the hard floor like a sack of gravel. Three soldiers stood about me,  too close, and I judged I could if need be, take them despite their veterans’s eyes.

"Come. You will see Captain. Maybe he let me toss you off train. Bounce many times." The man with several gold stars on his collar said this.

Great.

We walked up the train, for five more cars, and then entered a warmer, and pleasantly decorated train car.  Here a huge silver samovar puffed out steam and the scent of black tea, and over there a giant map of Eurasia competed for my interest with a map of a train loop.

"Sardic." I noted one of the names on it.

"Left there five days ago. Now who are you?" The Captain of the train had four gold stars on his collar.  He was a short man with thinning brown hair that looked like it was regularly pulled at in frustration.

His smile had some slight warmth, and humor to it which was more than I deserved.

"Ah, well, you can call me Tadeusz, and as to who I am, that would be hard to explain. Could you fill me in on…"  I waved a hand at the map of Eurasia with its unfamiliar political designations.

"Why don’t you know that?" He said with cutting insight. Ah, me.  I shrugged in my head.  It probably wouldn’t hurt if I told him something of myself.

"Imagine me as an amnesia victim with some strange tools, who just dropped in.  I don’t mean you any harm." Not yet, anyways.  I was still loyal to America, after all.  It remained to be seen what this world’s politics were like.  Of course, I’d been to one world where America had been unsettled, and Germany and Russia had been on the fifteenth year of World War Two, and it had been fought with zombies.  My life is weird I know.

"Ah. Verser. Scriff." He shot these two words out, and even my centuries of experience did not keep the tell-tale surprise off my face.  He laughed.

"Let him go."  After I was released, the Captain waved me to an overstuffed couch which I would be hard put to jump out of anyways.

"Well Tadeusz Verser Man, you’re no doubt wondering where, and when you are."

"And how you know." I asked leaning forward.

"You’re in Siberia, aboard the Mary Pipov Express, a nuclear fuelled mag-lev.  We serve the Secret Cities Route. Secret Cities are the places where the old Commuist government went about developing research in very high security.  Now that the Soviet of all the Russias has collapsed after the Spasm War into the Greater Russian Empire, we’re pretty much ignored out here."

"How ignored?" I asked sensing something below the surface.  The XO’s snort of disdain, and the looks of despair among the troopers answered my question.

"One of the Secret Cities dealt with Scriff.  Now my degrees are in Fission, and Xenobiology, but still this is fascinating stuff.  Thing is, they kept having people vanish.  Now, they wondered, and so they checked around.  Another SC, in violation of protocol told them they’d been having anonomalous gravity readings.  Planet Earth was getting lighter in chunks of 60-100 kilograms at a time.  A quick comparison, and it was verified. Somehow the scriff made people leave Earth.  More studies were planned, but then Vladimir arrived at the Secret City.  He talked of nonsense, about a Second World War being fought with Zombies and Trolls.  And he mentioned the name of a guy who had made him a verser–Tadeusz.  But when after a lot of effort, he got a squished flat insect to integrate, and walk about for our cameras, well, that was a bombshell.  After that, we believed him. Unfortunately, the effort was so hard that he ‘versed out’."

"It might have been a botch." I murmured.  Because I didn’t think you could reanimate the dead in this world.  But sometimes freaky things happen where the rules get tossed out the window.  Usually, you don’t survive the experience, but I have to admit one of my fondest memories was seeing a young student try to summon a wind elemental, and instead cause a rain of blue-tinted candy popcorn to cover the entire UCLA campus.  That took some quick explaining by the local secret magic guilds, and they took away my license as a teacher for a year after that, too.  But that was a world where the fey and the magi and the spirits of nature hid in a world supposedly ruled by Technology.  That was not this world, and so I needed to focus, and get my head back into the game.

"I believe I know him. Let me ask you another question, what did I shoot at?"

"There’s another city that was making an ape-wolf supercommando. They escaped and rampaged.  Now they breed in the hills, and eat well anything, even each other." The XO said bleakly.

"Why doesn’t the central government…?"

"They have concerns closer to home." The Captain said.

"All right. Then we organize a hunter group. It will be hard. Have to build some very strong, but small forts, but it can be done."

The Captain shook his head.

"No, nyet. I mean, you’re right.  But if we do that, we would embarrass the central government.  After all, we’re not really supposed to be working this line.  They would call it ‘vigilante action’ or ‘plotting a rebellion’ and cut our lines, and squash us."

"But then, what are you supposed to do?" I asked perplexed.

"Do?" One of the soldiers laughed blackly. "Why, we’re supposed to die quietly so as to not cause a disturbance in the sleep of our betters."

I looked about, and saw the same hopeless look of men doomed to die for stupid reasons.  It reminded me of my home where the sometimes police would rather you died, then did something so uncouth as to defend yourself with a gun, and thus make them look bad.  They would come down ten times harder on any perceived vigilantism than the crack house with the automatic weapons in plain view that had driven the homeowner to desperation.

"That so, Captain?"

"Da. We keep running. Buying perhaps another year, maybe two. The Chinese raid us. The monsters eat. Russian bueraucrats come to demand favors we can ill afford to ‘forestall shutting us down’ and dooming all the Secret Cities to death in the cold since our Emerald nuclear fuel is the only thing that keeps them going.  And me, I keep hoping that the horse will learn to sing."

"Ah." I said. I couldn’t sing well, but I had more than a few tricks up my sleeves, and if it came to that…I’d killed Stalin in one timeline, and Mao Tse-Tung in another.

I woke, the memory of that last bite, the gaping jaw of the male lion closing on my throat while its mates dragged on my legs causing an unconscious lurch upward.  My hand found my throat, and even as I knew, but my body was unsure of, I found my skin smooth, unmarked, and ready for any new form of abuse I chose to subject it to in this universe.

The metal grating under me vibrated at a frequency only attainable by a very hard working human pumping a machine, or by a machine.  This plus the fine regular gridwork let me conclude I was in a world with some technical sophistication.

Reasoning done, I jumped to my feet, and slipped into my pocket the dagger I had been given to defend myself with in the gladiatorial arena of the last world.  Because that metal floor was c-c-cold.  In the darkness, I felt about, hoping I did not find something inimical, and then my fingers hit a switch.

With a prayer, I flipped it.  Light flooded the small chamber of metal and glass I stood in.  It was some sort of passage between other areas, and sealed off.  I wondered why, but the sight of dangling electrical lines explained much.

The Cyrillic alphabet on the wall resolved to "Have papers ready for inspection."  which was a problem since I did not have any papers.

Looking for more information, I turned about, and looked out the glass window.  A frozen, snow-covered landscape hurtled past.  Dark forrests of dense pine, and covering snow gave way to pasture land covered chest-high with snow, and from thence back to pine.

Great.  I was in Siberia if this world’s geography parralled the design of my home world, which while probable was not certain.  And, by the smoothness and speed of the ride on the tracks, I would say we were on a magnetic levitation train.  Anything more advanced would have ceramic walls, instead of  metal walls.  The great Rennaissance of the early 22nd led to vast new technologies, and wars, of course.  But in those timelines, the wars were over pure beach sand as it was the integral component of walls stronger than steel, and far cheaper, and of transport systems whose math boggled my mind.  Possiblility Drives made my mind hurt.  Anything that moves because it could move, maybe just makes me want to whine like a confused puppy dog.

The train was going to fast for me to survive a jump, and so I turned off the light, and slipt out.  When I want to be, I am dreadfully silent.  So while, a railroad car doesn’t offer the best cover, I made it up four cars toward what I hoped was the front motive power force before I saw a curious hatch in the roof of a car.

This hatch was reinforced on all sides by steel I-beams which seemed utterly unreasonable.  So I slipped up the steps even as someone headed my way.  But, it was no problem.

I spun the hatch open, and after a quick peek, clambered inside.  All of this was Just-in-time to avoid the oncoming crew.

The hatch led me into a tank turret with what looked like an active 160 mm bore cannon cradled on the roof a passenger train car.  I had little time to further examine things as the rightful user came up the metal steps, and spun the door open.

He groused, and complained about his captain, and the stupid test procedures even as he retrieved a bottle of potato Vodka from a slot near his left hand.  He set about fighting off the bone-numbing child in the turret with the traditional means.  Meanwhile, I hid crunched up uncomfortably behind his chair.

Finally, an hour and a half later, he staggered out of his chair, and headed off to ….

Female screams woke me from the bothersome dreams that always accompany a transition to a new universe.  I lay under an olive tree with bright blue sky beyond, but I was on my feet and with my gladius out with rattlesnake quickness.  I compromised between my need for speed, and stealth with an irregular dart and run taught by the experts at Laouxing Academy for Young Princes over a hundred years ago, and in a universe far removed from this one, I hoped since we had not parted on the best of terms.

I went up to the crest of a rocky hill, dotted with huge boulders, and in the lee side of one flipped my head up to see a small hut by a stream.  Men in armor who had left the road which went down the center of the broad vale, and rein-dropped their warhorses in place were dragging a huge man out of the hut.  Meanwhile, two woman, a young girl and a matron were yelling at them with fear and anger reaching me clear up a hundred yards away.

Seeing, I had some time, I started to walk in the manner that Roger’s Rangers called Drifting Smoke.  It had worked a charm while sneaking up on Mohawk raiders set to burn out a settler, and these men in their bright bronze plate, and horsehair crested helmets had way less situational awareness than the typical Mohawk warrior.

So it was without surprise that I crossed the field of hundreds of small blocks, and came up behind a willow tree just twenty feet from the house with no one there the wiser.  Perhaps the dog might have seen me, but its blood laid spilt out on the soil, and its carcass was already food for the ants.  I turned, and saw a troop of horsemen in similar armor, twenty strong gallop past on the road.

The woman shouted as their man, a huge shaggy fellow was put upon the back of a horse, and tied their with hemp rope.

"No, please, leave us Lucius." The matron cried.  "He is our only support."

"Too bad, Rome needs him more."  The lead soldier grunted, as he made ready to turn his horse.

"He is simple, ever after a knock in the head from a fall while he was drunk."  The daughter stepped forward from around the mother, and dropped her shawl to her shoulders.  I paused, she was good-looking.

"Then what good is he too you?"  The soldier replied with a too-friendly smile.

"He knows his job, even if he remembers not his name. But let me ask what good is he too you? He cannot fight with sword.  He wouldn’t know how to hold it."  The daughter continued standing her ground as the soldier rode closer, and the mother tried to get her daughter to retreat into the house.

"Sir, there is no time." One of the others said, and the leader of the squad cursed him by several of the gods of Rome and the monsters as well.  But he acquiesced, and turned his horse.

"Then he will catch a sword in his gut, and spare a better man."  He tossed off cruelly, and I felt rage kindle in my soul. 

Even as the two women collapsed against each other, and the simpleton stared at them with uncomprehending grief, I stepped out from behnd the tree, and sliced the ropes that held the huge man to the horse.  He slid off, and I slapped him on the rear with the flat of my blade sending him scurrying to his wife and daughter.

"You cur! How dare you interfere with this?"

"I’m me." I said with a small smile at the four men.  It took them a second to process the arrogance, or perhaps it was my gutter Latin instead of their elegant speech. And then with cursing they drew their swords, and began to maneuver their horses to press me in.  I carefully did not look upwards to the tree branch dangling over my head.  Instead, I stood my ground with a bored expression.

The biggest danger was that I was not used to fighting men on horseback, and a warhorse is quite the dangerous beast.  Most of my swordsmanship focused on speed, and quick strikes, and parries man against man, or man against bear, man against killer robot….

"Halt." I heard the voice of command but twenty feet behind me, and then became aware of the sound of many horses’ hooves.  I sighed for I had become a victim of the loss of SA, situational awareness.  I had focused too much on the men in front of me.

So, I slowly turned about, not wanting to let my fear show.  There stood a full troop of horse, twenty strong, and each with splendid armor, and the man in the middle front wore completely plain and serviceable armor except for the gold leaf crown on his head.

Me, I’ve been a ruler.  It has its points, especially when you get to help people, but its true what they say about crowns.  They’re bad hats that let the rain in.

"What means this?"

The squad leader quickly filled in his version of what happened, which was close enough to the truth that I shrugged.

"The blacksmith is a simpleton, lord, it seemed inappropriate not to intervene."

"Caesar." He replied, correcting me. I shrugged, and I saw his face turn a brighter pink.

"You know I could have you crucified for this."

"Not before I kill you." I replied off-handedly flipping my gladius end for end in my hand.  A gasp greeted my threat, and then a general surge forward which was stopped by a raised hand from Caesar.

You have to give the guy that.  He had his troops disciplined.

"You look Germanic, but you don’t dress like a Goth."

"No, I’m probably more of an Angle and a Viking." I said contenting myself with obscurity.

"A Northman." Caesar said meditatively, and I grunted, granting him another point.

"You wish to save this peasant? Then take his place.  Fight for me."

"I don’t fight for slavemasters, and for people who execute children." I said with studied calm as I tried to reach past the need to kill to arrive at the No-Mind state.  I had little doubt I could kill Caesar. It would not be as he expected.  No mad rush for me, but instead, a quick spring into the tree, and then a thown gladius would pierce his throat, or a femoral artery depending on how he placed his shield.

"You drive a hard bargain, Northman.  What do you think will happen to the village down the road when the Goth’s arrive.  The lucky will be stabbed in the heart."

"So you’re losing, eh?"

"Yes, curse you, we’re being driven back along this road. We’ll have to hole up with the main force a day back at the fortified town until I can beat these louts back into warriors.  I did not know this army was made of peasant clods, and effete senators whelps, and just a sprinkling of real soldiers to teach them how to march. "

I looked up at him, and saw the fear in his face.  He was not totally sure he could hold the town.  And in the volatile world of the Empire, losing a battle might mean another general tried to grasp the purple, and started a civil war.

"So why waste so much time on me?"

He sighed. "I had a dream last night. Hermes came to me.  He said he had sent me ‘a servant of the Hebrew God’ who would make my enemies scream."

"I don’t work for Hermes." I spoke slowly and thoughtfully, in truth, now I shuddered.  Getting the Roman gods mad at you was not the way to a happy life even if you are a quasi-immortal verser.  Thankfully, they were not as viciously inventive as the Greek gods, but still, one of my chief rules as a verser was ‘don’t anger the gods without a really good reason.’ 

He said nothing, and waited.  It was up to me.  What price did I want to help save an Empire where seventy percent of the adult males in its capital were slaves?  And this was not the relatively gentle slavery of the American South which for all its occasional cruelties never came close the the madness that was Imperial Rome.

"This Jew-loving Northman has nothing. Lets just kill him…" One of the officers spoke to his master, and suddenly I felt the trickle of an idea working its way through my brain like water dripping down a window, joining into a larger stream.

"Jew, or Jubilee." I looked up and smiled. "I claim Jubilee."

They stared blankly at me, and then one of the officers in back spoke up.

"The Jews have this custom, every fiftieth year, I believe, they release all their slaves, and turn back land to its original owners."

There was protest, and mocking laughter, and then Caesar held up his hand. Again, absolute silence except for the hunting cry of a hawk as it circled above.

"I’m sorry, Northman, its too much.  Rome needs her slaves.  Besides, the Senatorial…"

"Caesar." I interrupted him which astonished one and all.  But its something I’m good at. "Are not these Senatorial classes that you are so tender of their feelings one of the chief problems of the realm?  And do you not hire men from foreign lands to fight for you, thus leaving yourself vulnerable.  Make a condition of any slave who is fit, he must join the legions.  Then you can send home the mercenaries, and fight with men loyal to Rome."

"Its a good thought. Defeat the Goths, and I will think on it more." Caesar said, and spurred away with the troop, and the four tagging along behind.

I wasted a few minutes getting thanked, but it was used for planning.  First I reached inside, and tried to pull out my telekinesis…perhaps if I tipped over the mountain, which I’d never done before onto the pass at the  head of the vale…but nothing.  So I began to pray, and while I felt peace and the assurance that I was where I was supposed to be, no angels, no flaming chariots, no bolts of fire from the sky came.  Feeling a bit panicky, I continued on weaving my fingers together, and spoke one of the thousand names of fire…again nothing.

No psi in this world, barely enough magic to hear God’s voice in my heart, or for Caesar to see Hermes in his dreams, and while I am a skillful swordsman, I was not eager to tackle an entire army. 

With a feeling of foreboding, I pulled out my plasma cannon from the backpack duffel bag.  It sat inert, and I groaned.  I wasn’t surprised since the technology around here had to be pretty low, but still despair gripped me hard.

 Toast, I was toast.  Worse, so were these nice people here.

I paused, perhaps that was my mission?  Perhaps God had sent me here just to save this family, and no other.  Sometimes such things happened.  And so I bowed my head, and prayed, and got a definite "No."  At this time, I started begging God, because I really was starting to feel out of clue here.  What was I to do?

And then I saw at first dozens, and then hundreds of men in full flight pour into the valley’s head.  They were auxilliaries, and legionairres, and wagon teams, and members of what might be called the Soldier Friendship Society, and they all ran with utmost terror.

And then I felt the pressure on my soul.

"Go to them. There’s your army."  It was not in words, nor in feelings, although a feeling was a part of it.  It was Pure Idea spoken slowly and with great emphases so that the Dull-witted, that would be me, could catch on.

I’m afraid I laughed. 

"God, that would take a miracle."

And then in rebuke, my mind filled with images of angels, and fire from heaven, and the sky splitting open to reveal Heaven and its King, and I felt ashamed.  For I served a miracle-working God, but…but I had never seen this kind of miracle.  I wasn’t the man to lead like this.

I don’t like authority except as exercised in a rather laissez-faire manner.  How was I to make war with an army that was already panicked?  Perhaps another man might have gone out there, and started killing deserters left and right, but I could not.

So it was in doubt that I went forth.  A stampeding horse came past me, and without thinking about it, I grabbed for the empty saddle, and swung myself into it.  I kept on, having enough faith to move forward, but feeling despair in my heart.

I was not the man for this job.

And so, full of woe, I came out to the road, in front of the fleeing horde of nearly a thousand which was followed by a cloud of dust, and at the top of the vale, the first of the pursuers came with swords long and sharp, glittering in the sunlight, except where they were stained with Roman blood.

"God?"

And I raised my hand, palm out as the broken army came up to me.  And with surprise on their own faces, they halted.  Perhaps, you say, it was not a miracle.  I had already accepted my death, and so I was preternaturally calm.  And I am an imposing figure, especially to this lot where the tallest were about five foot eight inches tall, whereas I broke six foot with ease.  And I stood there like Caesar, and acted like Caesar so perhaps it was not surprising that they stopped.

But then again, a ravaging horde of Goths advanced at full gallop but five hundred yards away.

"My friends, I am going to offer you Joshua’s choice.  If any man or women is afraid, I don’t want them in my army.  I want you to go on, flee to your home."

There was a sudden moment like the oxgen had left the vale, and then sparks of laughter.  Perhaps my manner quelled that.  I do have a Look that has convinced many very dangerous men to step back.

"I want every man and woman to make up their own mind.  However, Caesar has promised…"

"Promised what? The lies of Caesar are well-known.  The Senators enrich themselves on our blood, they raise our taxes to pay for their war, and they get the loot."

I smiled weakly.

"I have little to offer. I asked Caesar to give the slaves a freedom every fifty years, a Jubilee. He said he would think on it if I won."

"You were gypped." The same man, near the front, said with a kindly scorn.

I shrugged.

"Perhaps so."

The moment lenthgened.  And then they began to stream past me.  I felt certain I would be left alone standing there, a moron, and with tears in my eyes, I bowed my head.  And then I heard a grunt to my right.

Looking up, I wiped my eyes, and saw a full hundred still standing in a line drawn up on both sides of me with sixty to one side, and forty on the left.

"If you run, you die." Then man who had spoke to me said apologetically like he was ashamed of being a hero.  After all, being a hero was for the gullible fools.  And that is how I saw Rome falling.  No one believed it worth defending, no sacrifice was to be made, no patriotism, instead look out for yourself, and get what you can get.  Spending your life to save another was the act of a man determined to find himself made a mockery of by the minstrels.

Which just goes to show that cowards don’t know very much.  Still, in this instance, I had to agree with them.  For the Visigothian horde filled the end of the valley.  Nearly two thousand horse against my ten legionaires, eighty auxilliary, and ten girls.

They drew up about a hundred yards away, and stared at us in utter astonishment.  Then they began to laugh, rolling back and forth on their horses in uncontrollable humor.

"Gather swords. Spears, shields, and horse. Every other man, go and gather.  All the women."  I bent down and issued my orders urgently because some of my lot didn’t even have weapons.

I feared that I was breaking Joshua’s example.  For I felt certain he would have sent those without weapons home as they were not sharp, not aware…and then with sinking feeling I felt a pressure on my spirit.

And I stood in my saddle, and pointed to each man who had not a weapon, twenty of them.

I brought them to me by words, and then with words ordered them to leave.

"This is no shame, but I only want the keenest the brightest swords in my war."  They stared at me, and a few protested, but then they left.  And the ones that were still there nodded in approval.

"We’re all dead anyways. Might as well spare a few.  Besides, those lot are brave, but not too sharp, if you know what I mean."

I looked at him, and then at every one of the eighty strong troop left, and I knew, but better than he knew. I could see my lot, they were wolves.  Each one had a different expression on his face, each one an individual, but in each one I could see something of the same mold.  They all had an eagerness to close with sword, and they all stood ready on their feet with the kind of pouncing energy and ready balance of a great cat.

"We’re not dead." I said, and then shouted it so all could hear. "We’re not dead.  The Lord of Hosts rides with us."

And it was then that an idea came to me.  It was not my idea, so I shall not take the credit for it.  However, I remembered that the Chinese had come to gunpowder rather early, at least in my home timeline.

And so I turned and walked in front of the line.

"Men and women. We fight for freedom. We fight because we like to fight. That is all my speech. I’m not a great orator. Sorry. My plan is simple. Let me out in front twenty yards, and do exactly as I do."

I nodded, and they nodded back, each man and woman on his horse (for this was late date enough that the legions were horse), and then I spun and charged.

I yelled out my warcry for the day, the cry of a hunting hawk, and came toward the startled line which was trying to get into order to receive us.  I saw much pushing and shoving since there were so few of us, that each man wanted the right to kill us, and there were so few to go around.

Perhaps, I could dent that morale.

I unshipped my duffel bag, and pulled out my Uzi even as I closed with the center of the line.  And with it in hand, it spat fire, and unfolding honeycomb darts which slashed through bronze and steel and leather and flesh like it was not there.

I fired it dry, and then dropped the bag and the gun on top of the bag. And then following my strike as the Visigoths stood aghast at this horror came in the flying of javelins.  Each one was flung at a gallop, and perhaps of the eighty that were struck in the giant target of the army which was indeed bigger than a barn, perhaps ten put their shields up in time to save themselves.

Seventy more fell following the fifty I had slain.  And worse, the fifty that fell to the Chinese invention of gunpowder were the champions and bodyguard of the tribal chieftain, their king. 

And so with malice aforethought, I sprang from my horse, slapping it viciously as it went past.  Maddened it plunged into the army wreaking more havoc while I ran to the right as fast as I could.

Behind me, the others did as I had asked.  I had not given them details for I feared that in thinking about it, they would have seen the obvious flaw in the plan.

We had to run horizontally the length of the enemies’ left flank, about a hundred fifty yards before we reached his edge while he was free to attack us.  So I ran as swiftly as I could encumbered only with shield and gladius, and a Red Army jacket with kevlar inlays.

And so it was that I reached the field of small blocks, and to my surprise, so did all of the rest.  One came limping in at the last, but still the enemy did not go after him.

We had thrown the enemy into such confusion, slaying their king, and behaving so oddly and precipitously that they knew not what to do.

And so I had one of the women blow the lone trumpet we had, and we attacked.  We hit them on the left edge of their flank with a line thirty wide and nearly three deep.  They had a line perhaps five wide, and disorganized, and still dazed.

So we made a great slaughter, as sword parried too slow sword, and as my wolves made a meal of the less certain men who faced them.  Heraclitus is supposed to have said that a great number of men should not be on the battlefield, perhaps even eighty of a hundred should not.  And some were even worse, like my smith, and those, if I could I spared by a quick sword stroke with the flat of my blade to the back of their head.  But I saw confused men with little understanding die, and indeed war is a cruelty.

But the bodies fell in our path, and the ground was slippery with blood, and our arms tired.  And the enemy began to awake from his stupor, and his greater numbers began to tell.  The line suddenly widened to meet our line in full, and I saw beyond it, scurrying groups of men, clots being drivnn by whip and by sword that would outflank us, and surround us, and inevitably kill us all.

So I held forth my gladius like a pistol, by its cross-guard, and made a noise with my lips like a child would imitating an automatic gun.

They fell back a pace, and two.

"Run." I said, and we did.  We sprinted to the field of small blocks under the shadow of the ridgeline I had first came over as horse and temporarily dismounted dragoons tangled up in themselves, trying to get at us.  Oh, they wanted us so badly, frustration ruled their world, and we were their tormentors.

"Halt!" I yelled, and my brave men and women, now seventy strong froze, and spun about, putting up their shields of their own accord. The horse charged us, and then came into the field, and it was a pitiful thing.  Legs snapped on the horses, and screams pierced the air, and men catapulted off to their sudden stop.  Those who still moved, were quickly dealt with by the women who each carried a small dagger suited to finishing off the helpless.

An officer on the opposing side screamed at his men to stop their futile charge into the rocks for we stood back from the edge about twenty yards.  Finally, he got them under control, and then tightly he nodded at me.

I recognized him as Roman trained.  Rome was having problems.  Its soldiers deserting, and helping the enemy become more efficient.  As I saw him arrange his forces, I wondered if I had made a mistake killing the king.

The King would have been wanting to fight in the Old Way.  But the King and most of his close kin and bodyguards were dead.  So, now it looked like a Roman-trained soldier had found his way into overall "command".

Of course, as he tried to arrange his fellow tribesmen, I saw his difficulties.  Everyone wanted the honor of killing us, and that need superseded good tactics for many of them.  Still, once he gutted with a flashing strike of his sword one of his loudest opponents, things settled down over there.

This whole reorganziation took about an hour, and in that time, the daughter from the hut came to us with buckets of water, and bread and cheese, and what few rags she had which we used to bind our wounds.

I took this time to preach to them for about ten minutes of my faith.  And then I spent the rest of the time cracking jokes, and trying to deduce the best tactics for us to survive, and to save the village down the vale.

We sent her back with our thanks as a triple line of two hundred per each line drew up about fifty feet away from us.

"You may surrender with honor."  The new ‘king’ called out to us.  Various rude suggestions came back from my side until I stilled them.

"Be noble, my men.  I know you are wolves, but you are the chosen instrument of the Most High as well."  And then I grinned at my men, and hollered back. "Did you say you wanted to surrender to us?"

It took about five minutes of yelling back and forth while I pretended not to be able to properly understand him until he caught the fact that I was making fun of him.  Instead of getting mad, which I had hoped for, instead, he stopped, and nodded coolly.  I began to sweat.  This one would not be easily shaken from his course.

And then the javelins arced through the sky to thunder into our raised shields.  I heard a cry, and then another, but that was it.  And then another swishing noise, and this time I heard a splintering noise as a shield broke followed by a gargling noise of a man choking on his own blood.  I hoped that he had been one of the number that had chosen Life.

And this was where it hurt me most for I wondered if by my actions I sent men unready for the judgement to their Maker.  But, I held faith even when I did not understand the ways of the Most High.  Even for such as I, there were mysteries that gnawed at one’s soul.  Even though I had seen things unimaginable, and learned secrets coveted by wise men, still, there were questions that tried my heart.

And then another launch came even as I knew what was happening.  I could hear it, and do nothing about it.  The enemy was advancing under cover of the javelins.  It was on foot, and he was being cautious because no one wishes to be hit in the back by hiw own side’s javelin, its not exactly heroic, after all.

The last launch battered us.  Perhaps ten men fell gravely wounded, and I felt a splinter pierce my arm.  And then with a yell, they were upon us.

The enemy were huge men, each a would-be hero, but my men did not blink.  They went from hiding behind their shields to suddenly gutting the enemy with a diving gladius without pause or thought.  They advanced into the face of the larger barbarians, and again the swords flashed out.  the formation was looser than a true Roman legionairres formation, but it did much the same work.

A line of legionairres is like a line of sewing machines. Your shield protects you, and the right side of the man next to you.  Your piercing sword goes out, and back in, and out again like a plunging up and down sewing machine.  Its very mechanical, and doesn’t require much thought which means its faster since no one has to take the time to think of a plan.

But, the barbarians were strong, and they knew this strategy, and they carried great long swords.  Their wish was to shatter the line at a point, and break up that mechanical perfection (a term loosely used in regards to my untrained men) by putting their own bodies in it like putting mollasses into the gears of a sewing machine.

Which is where I and the women came in.  I stood in reserve, and when a break occured, I dashed to it, snapped my blade in someone’s face, and then sliced open their stomach.

When the break got more severe, the women came into play.  I dazzled them in their faces as the first five broke my line, and others piled up behind them all to eager to exploit the break, and then suddenly they fell screeching.  My ladies had ducked in unawares, and sliced hamstrings with joyous abandon.

And the line closed for the third time.

We fought on, and I took to in my spare moments grabbing javelins and hurling them with a fearful accuracy into the faces of the enemies, and right over the shoulders of my men.

Finally, they died mostly, and the few who were left fled in shame.

We had driven them to the edge of the field of small blocks, and I ordered us to pull back while my arms trembled, and my lungs burned.  The great horde of the enemy still sat there and watched us.  Dazed perhaps, or perhaps infused with a sense of honor to let us regain our breath and our position before they came to kill us.

The front part of the field held perhaps two hundred of them, and forty of us.  I had forty left, and they all looked battered and worn.  Not one did not have a wound, and most had several.  But while some looked to be the sort that would need medical attention eventually, none fell to the ground.

Heraclitus had spoken of the last ten of the hundred.  Nine of them are good soldiers, but the one is the one that redeems them all.  And that is what my eighty were, and better yet.  I had now veterans of this fight, the toughest of the toughest of the tough.  These were that sub-type of usually man, but sometimes woman that is warrior-born, and now they had bonded in blood.  But even that was not enough to explain what was happening here.  No, here, was a miracle in operation.

In truth, I was not as them, a warrior.  But hundreds of years of experience tended to make up for that deficit nicely.

We waited.  Soon it would be over for me in this world.  Perhaps Caesar might free a few slaves in my honor.  Maybe.  But soon, they would send the great mass of their force, and just crush us under the overwhelming tide of fresh troops in numbers that exceeded ours by more than a hundred to one.

After all, they still had fifteen hundred, at least, troops.

Or perhaps, they would just bombard us with javelin until we all fell, or were forced to make a death or glory charge.

And then the Roman trained soldier rode forth to parley, and as he motioned me forward, I went.

"You’ve fought extremely well.  Superhumanly so your side has fought."

"The Most High stands with us."

"I thought as much.  I didn’t know which of the gods held your hands, but it seemed clear that such was the case."

He paused. And I waited, not rude really, but just too tired to do anything.  He tried to hand me a drink, but I refused since my men couldn’t share as well.

He nodded, and thought for a time.

"Very well, I don’t want the wrath of your god on my tribe. I shall make you an offer. Send forth a champion.  You win, and we go back out of this vale.  You lose, and you all surrender to us to be made valued slaves of high status with silver torcs about your necks."

I looked at it in my head, and thought.  It did have an advantage to him.  It kept him from killing a couple more hundred of his tribe by getting us.

"I can circle you now that you’ve killed my detractors, and rain javelins down on you until you all die."

I paused.  He had a definite point.  I looked up into his gray, and almost sympathetic eyes as he sat astride his horse.

"Right then. Ten minutes."

We shook on it, and I walked back explaining the deal to them.

On the other side, I saw the legionairre former that I had just talked to make ready.  This made me pause.  He had to have seen my fighting skill.  There was as far as I knew no one I had seen that I could not best.  I had expected them to pull out of the hat some tested champion of great renown whom I had missed in my initial attack.  Instead, he went to what he had to know was his certain death.

I stared at the ground, and again I felt a pressure on my soul.

"I can’t go."  I hated the words.  The sound of them condemned me as a coward.  And then thirty seconds passed until one and then another volunteered themselves.

"No." I said, and began to walk where I knew not.  My feet found themselves travelling, and I came to the hut where all this had begun.  And there I saw the great, shaggy man, and he looked up at me.

In his eyes, I saw fear, and acceptance.

"I go."

The women came out, and saw me leading away the man by the hand.  And they began to scream at me, and to beat at me with their fists, and I was greatful no weapon was close to hand for they would surely have done me a violence.

And as they wept, I left them behind, and walked with my simpleton champion up to the camp of the enemy, and into its center.  My troop sat still in their field of blocks, but with a good view of events.

Inside my heart, I cried, and wept, and begged, but the pressure on my soul sat there. 

"Why?" I moaned.  I could kill  this man, send the tribe home, and all would be well.  Why must I sacrifice this poor man who probably didn’t even understand what was going on?  My tears only fell harder as he patted me on the shoulder, trying to comfort me, his murderer.

And so I came to the center, a circle of cleared space surrounded by fifteen hundred tribesmen, and saw the legionairre ready in shining Roman armor.

"Put your manservant to the side." He said, not unkindly.

"He’s not." I said, choking on my tears.

"He’s not what?"  And in his voice was distaste for my tears of fear or so he supposed.

"He’s my champion!" I roared out, flinging my head up, and the vale echoed to my cry.  A hunting bird keened overhead, and other than that there was silence.

"Surely you jest."

"I am commanded." I said.

"But." He walked up to the blacksmith who was armed with a ten-pound sledge, and waved his sword near him.  The smith tried to fend it off, but it was clear he was fatally slow.  But the smith advanced on the other, who unlike me was not tired from hours of fighting, and so the legionairre king danced back out of his way.

The smith followed him doggedly.

"This is murder." The legionairre cried.

I didn’t exactly agree, but I understood how the man felt.  He wanted a fair fight, an honorable combat.  I’m not so much into that as some, but I can understand  and respect it.

"He’s defending his valley." I found myself saying. "First Caesar would have taken him and he would have died on a sword point wielded by that man." I spun my hand and pointed at one chieftain who stood at the circle’s edge.  "And then my servant rescued him, but even still, your tribe would have burnt this vale, and killed all that live herein.  And so this man…" I pointed to another.  "He would have killed him by running him down with a horse even as he watched his home burn.  And now it falls to you legionairre, will you kill him?  Or will you let him depart in peace, and make of this valley a haven where your people may trade with the Romans, and grow rich from the bounty?"

The words poured out of my lips, but I wasn’t exactly in control of them.  I could have stopped at any time, but that would have been really unwise.

And then the legiionairre threw back his head, and screamed at the heavens as he threw down his sword into the dirt.

"All right, you win!"

And so was the prophecy of Hermes validated, and the tribe of the Visigoths left the vale.  In later years, peace was made, and the vale became an important trade route between the Visigoth and the Romans.

But, I knew this not, for when I came to Caesar to ask him about the slaves, he rebuffed me.

"No, I cannot." He said in his great hall with a fearful look at some senators standing nearby.

"Know this, O Caesar, I shall give peace to that vale, but in the day that the smith dies, so shall peace die.  In that year shall your enemies rise, and they shall not be pacified until you give them tribute, even unto that chair you sit upon."

At this point,  I stopped my prophecy, and Caesar stood up screaming, his face blood-red.  I got to see what the inside of a Roman dungeon looks like, and shortly thereafter I got to fight several dozen different types of wild animals for the amusement of the populace.

I did well, but they started withholding food and water, and then they sent a pack of lions at me.

Kitty chow was my fate.  At least in that universe.