The slate sky darkened as thousands of black arrows arched high before dropping into the legions’ ranks, the low moan of their flight through the cold air sounding like death’s call.

The Krîll spearhead had shifted north.  As Aetius pulled his forces west off the Severn River below Viroconium, the weight of the Krîll army swung north until over fifty thousand Krîll warriors were concentrated and aimed at the gap between the Dee and Upper Severn Rivers.  General Aetius, unable to draw more forces from his southern flank along the Wye River or coastline because of the steady fighting that had reignited with this early thaw, had only been able to send Ambrosius in command of the remaining Rapax Legion as well as his original Briton cohorts to help stop what was developing into a major Krîll assault.  If they broke through Ambrosius and Maelgwn’s forces, the Welsh underbelly would be exposed and soon torn to pieces by flying squadrons of Krîll cavalry.  After that, they would all be dead before the snow was fully melted.

“Ambrosius,” Maelgwn turned in his saddle to speak to his co-commander, “What do you make of their force?”

“That’s heavy infantry formed up behind their archers.  Thirty, maybe forty thousand.  They’ll begin to push through the archers’ lines soon.  We’ve got another ten thousand cavalry on each flank.  They’re just waiting until we’re locked up in the middle with their heavies.”

“Well,” Maelgwn said, “our archers will pile them up when they try to swing around our flanks.  And the snow has the caltrop fields well covered.  Let them try.  They’ll be wither deep in horseflesh before they cross five hundred paces.”

“Aye.  It’s the center’s got me worried.”  Ambrosius frowned.  “With this amount of archery falling around our heads, they’ll move in close before it stops.  If they’ve a warlock in their midst, our own bowmen will find it hard to get to him.”

Both men fell silent, turning the problem over in their heads.  They sat their mounts upon a low, now mud and slush covered hill no more than thirty paces behind their center’s lines.  A gusty breeze tugged at Ambrosius’ scarlet general’s cloak, whipping it behind him like a signal pennant.  The red crest of his helmet rippled in sinuous waves.  Maelgwn’s crest was a long length of black horse tail and it danced and settled, danced and settled with the wind.  Underneath a thick over-tunic of bear fur, scale mail shown dull gray.

“Form a company of your archers right here, across this hillock’s summit,” Ambrosius said.  “Their yew bows will reach the Krîll lines once they advance and engage. With this added height their arrows will go a good two hundred or more paces past our lines.  Most importantly, they’ll be able to see any warlock trying to send their bloody balls of fire our way.”

Maelgwn turned to a courier and gave an order before turning back to Ambrosius.  “Good thought.  It’s done.”

“Here they come.”  Ambrosius pointed towards the front.

The Krîll infantry was beginning to advance, stepping out from between the lines of archers in a steady shuffle behind their oval shields.  And still the sky wept arrows like a dark curtain across the Briton lines.

“This will be a bloody day,” Maelgwn growled and tightened his helmet’s chin strap.

Primi Ordines Flavianus of the First Cohort, Second Rapax Legion crouched behind his scutum watching the Krîll infantry lines begin to close the distance between the two armies.  The shield of the legionary behind him covered his head, its bottom edge resting over his own scutum’s brass rimmed top.  The covering scutum’s curved surface left a narrow window through which Flavianus could watch the enemy.  Until they got closer, within fifty paces, watch was all he or any of his fellow first-liners could do.  The constant tattoo of arrows striking the covering shields made it sure death to do aught but hold them high and wait for the lethal rain to end.  This was nothing new for the Rapax legions.  It wasn’t even unnerving any longer.  For seven years and along half the length of the empire Flavianus and his fellow legionaries had fought the Krîll toe to toe, gladius to longsword, pilum to spear, life for life.  Every major engagement started with the sky filling with black arrows until the Krîll lines drew near.  Then the legions would uncover and launch their pila.  Finally, the two would draw steel and the killing turned intimate.  The larger strategies and tactics of the battle were left to the legates.  For Flavianus and his cohort – for all the cohorts – the world narrowed to a blind, instinctual fight to live, one enemy at a time.

“All right boys!”  The Centurion bellowed.  “Scuta down!  Pila ready!  Eagle and standard high!  Let ‘em know it’s the Second Rapax they face!”

Spear Leader Drögnadric glanced to his left, then his right, checking his spear’s ranks as they reformed after advancing through the archers’ formations.  He could hear the steady thrum and buzz of their arrows as the black shafts were methodically released in wave after deadly wave.  Every battle started like this.  And almost every battle ended with the enemy beaten and retreating, their bodies littered across the battlefield like so much meat for the carrion birds.  But it was what always happened when Drögnadric and his spear drew close to the Roman’s shield wall, too close for the archers to continue releasing, that had his guts in a knot.  Then their shields would lower and a rain of deadly spears would fill the air before dropping into his ranks.  The fucking things were usually weighted with lead collars and drove through shield and flesh with devastating power.  Even if one only struck your shield, its thin iron shank would pierce the shield and then bend, forcing you to drop your shield or try and haul it around with a fucking two pace length of ash and bent iron hung up in it.

And now that he and his spear were clear of the archers, Drögnadric saw that they faced their old nemesis.  That red standard with the large black II had faced off against his War Chief since almost the first days when they had poured out of the shaman’s terrifying tunnel onto this world, so alike and yet so alien to their own.  Gods above and below but that was one experience none of them wanted to taste again.  Better to die by one of the short gutters these warriors favored than go through that tunnel again.  Damnable necromancers and their ilk.  Handy with their spells, but given his choice, the Spear Leader preferred steel against steel, his and his men’s skill against theirs.  Even the island’s women fought like enraged rock panthers.  Now that had been a true shock!  They’d crossed the water to wipe out this last nest of Rômmäns and their allies, and found themselves fighting women who were as good at killing as their men.  Better, if what happened to old Strâgeor were the measure of it.  Ha!  The look on his face when that twig of a bitch lifted his head from his shoulders with an axe as tall as she was.

The sudden quiet snapped Drögnadric out of his reverie.  The last flight of arrows had passed overhead and now the steady tramp of boots across frozen ground was a bass rumble felt in his bones as much as heard.

“Shields up!” the Spear Leader bellowed to his left and right.  “Shields high and ready!”

He could see the enemy’s shields plainly now, looking like spiny dogs, black arrows by the score jutting from them.  A horn sounded and as one the shields were lowered and brought to face his advancing spear.  There were forty paces separating the two lines, then thirty, then twenty-five, twenty . . . Gods above, here it comes.  “Shields!”

Flavianus watched with satisfaction as his cohort released two hundred and sixty-three pila into the air in a graceful arc that would wreck red ruin at its end.  Once, years ago, five hundred javelins would have spoken for the cohort.  Even as far back as three winters ago, with their first hard clash since retreating across the water, the First Cohort had been able to muster near four hundred legionaries.  The next years had been hard fought and costly, but for all that, the cohort was as tempered as the best steel, veterans all.

“Scuta up!”  Flavianus’ voice cut through the frigid air in a plume fog.  “Gladia at the ready!”

A series of horns sounded up and down the legion’s lines.

“Advance at the double!  SECOND RAPAX!”

“RAPAX!” the First Cohort answered in a harsh cry and surged towards the pila entangled lines of the enemy.  For all the damage the Roman heavy javelins inflicted, the Krîll were every bit as disciplined and battle-tested as their opponents this day.  The two armies met with a great clash of shields.  Swords rose and fell; shields pushed and shoved seeking to overbalance the enemy; axes hacked and maces crushed; and bodies crumbled under the onslaught as blood turned the snow pink and then red until all was a slippery, crimson slush of mud and gore.

Twenty paces to his front and a little to the left, Flavianus found what he was looking for.  A tall warrior in scale armor swinging a double handed great sword in controlled and deadly swipes, his helmet sporting a crest of black feathers marked him as the leader of the opposing company.

The centurion jerked a pilum free from the twisted corpse, took two quick, shuffling steps and released it straight at the Krîll.  With a skill and speed that shocked the grizzled veteran, the scaled warrior brought his sword up and around in a sharp arc that laid the blade’s side against the pilum’s iron shank deflecting it in a shower of sparks.  His grin was visible below his helm’s nasal as he locked his gaze on Flavianus and advanced, long red blade held low and to the side.  Flavianus grunted and stepped over a body to meet the challenge.  You might have screwed the goat this time, Flavi.  But fuck it, it’s a fine day to die.  He returned the grin with one of his own.  A fine day indeed.

Instinct, or the god’s own luck, caused Drögnadric to glance to his left just as the Roman drew back and threw his spear.  Lightning reflexes honed over years of fighting – and surviving – saved him, sending the missile glancing off the flat of his blade.  An exultant rage – part fury, part fear – coursed through his veins.  He grinned when he saw the Roman’s disbelief.  Aye, dog-fucker, you should have seen me die.  But not this day.  Lowering his sword, the Krîll spear leader took a challenging step towards the Roman and was satisfied to see it met as the warrior readied his battered shield and lightly stepped over a death-stilled Krîll from Drögnadric’s own spear.

Ten paces separated the two when Drögnadric felt the sudden nauseating pressure, like having his entrails squeezed in some great vise, and then the mephitic stench of corruption assaulted his senses.  He gagged violently even as he cursed the warlock whose spell brushed past him in a sizzling fury of virulent destruction.

When he looked up again, wiping the bile from his chin with the rough leather of his gauntlet, Drögnadric spat in disgust.  Where once his opponent had stood, shield ready and shortsword eager, nothing remained.  At least nothing to suggest that a living being, or beings, had just stood where now a blackened pathway of charred rubble lay.  Lambent blue flames danced across what could have been a skull here, a ribcage there, a shattered and smoking helm still further along the path of annihilation.

Spinning around, the Spear Leader swept his eyes along the spell’s path until he found the warlock, standing alone not twenty paces behind him.  Fool!  Too soon.  “Our swords would have cut a way,” he growled even as he searched for a discarded shield.  Krîll or Roman, he didn’t give a fiddler’s damn.  Just let me find a fucking shield.

No sooner than he swung the pilum pierced shield of a luckless spearman up and crouched low behind its oval rim than a high-pitched cry rang out behind him.  He didn’t have to look.  He’d heard the arrows falling, the buzz of their passage just over his head.  Several yellow shafts had landed to his left, stuck quivering into the scorched and steaming ground.  Of the warlock, a dozen arrows fixed his still form to the ground.