PROLOGUE
Down on the lower west side of the subura is an old district by the name of __________. There, the streets are narrow, and the tenements huddle close, looming over the passers-by. Most of the second and higher stories are wooden, and fires are frequent. Walking is at a fast pace and eyes are averted from others passed on the dirty pavements. Next to one particularly old (insulae – Check roman name of apartment buildings), nestled at the junction of three streets, is the first Crocodile’s Tail built in Rome. A spacious but ramshackle barn of a building, the Tail sees much traffic but few fights – A fragile, uneasy, yet seldom broken state of truce holds sway, and its booths are crowded with whisperers and dealers of opposite sides, all engaging in the unspoken agreement that here lies neutral territory. Also frequenting this place is the local (Community Police group – check roman name). Composed largely of old soldiers returned home from foreign wars and far-flung places of random terror, the (name of this group – ask Mike) congregate to drink away their pensions, and await a call to action in defence of their neighbourhood.

On one particular day, at a particular table, a group of particular veterans are engaged in the time honoured tradition of drinking themselves into insensibility while swapping stories of valourous deeds, glorious battles, and humourous pranks on superior officers. Of this particular group, one particular veteran, a hoary individual, with a single bleary eye, a stump of a left leg unfettered from its peg for easy scratching, and a liver-spotted hand clasped tightly around a wooden mug of watered wine, is about to give forth. He raises his head, sways a little, waves an unsteady arm across to the table to command what little attention remains amongst the besotted derelicts around him, and launches forth his tale. Bleary eyes focus upon him as he begins with the immortal line uttered by old soldiers everywhere embarking upon an embroidered tale of suicidal heroism,
“I shit you not, there I was…”

THE BATTLE OF CHAERFYRD
..stuck in the middle of the third cohort of my legion, advancing on a forest populated by nasty insane blue bastards, all waving axes and frothing at the mouth from behind emplaced fortifications, and damn me if the Imperator hadn’t given the order for us to assault that impregnable death-making shithole of a british fort. On foot. After three days of forced march and five previous pitched battles. OK, so it wasn’t the first time I’d faced them that week, or even the second, but it was the first time I saw them dug in. I was still operating mainly on information gleaned from my Centurion, Publius Machinus at that point. Centurion Machinus had been part of the original force the previous year and he had nothing but horror stories to tell. With nothing better to do on the journey over other than being sea-sick over the edge, we’d listened to that sadistic veteran tell us gory details of what we would face.

He had taken great pleasure in describing the different ways our predecessors had been gutted.
“Long wicked and curved blades, they have,” he had ground out, “and they swing up back handed in a single stroke – diagonal-like, from hip to gizzard.” In the chopping foam flecked sea it seemed like hours he spent describing the entrails that sprung forth “like yer stomach giving birth ter pink saussies,” or the “crazy eyed look they gives yer as they fall under yer blade, foaming and biting, never stopping.”

He wound us up bad till we were tense as new bowstrings, and we hadn’t even set foot on soil yet. We came in over the sea expecting mad blue death waiting for us when we landed. He told us how when he landed, the british had attacked right away. He spun horrors out of the stormy air, of chariots descending upon the tired and water-logged troops as they tried to drag the boats up on to the beach. He delighted in visceral tales of floating blood and savage attacks. When they tried to land the british were already waiting, lined up in their chariots, and as soon as the first soldiers splashed overboard into waist-deep water, they charged. Thank the gods we didn’t face that. A line of screaming devilry riding two apiece on horse-drawn platforms attached by a long pole, with scythes on the wheels. They came rampaging down the beach and slammed into the first wave of invaders. The scythes carved through bone and sinew, laying men down screaming into the wash, there to drown because everyone else was too busy to pull them out. The british slewed their chariots around and pulled back some feet, before the second of each pair would jump off and lay about himself with the huge lumps of soft metal they called swords. Their weapons were made of iron or bronze too malleable to hold an edge, but they were hug and heavy fuck-off lumps that would smash you down into the surf, or stove in your head, leaving your brains leaking out from the sides of your helmet, a dent in the top too deep to keep your brains in.

“crazy fuckers,” Machinus called them, and it scared us bad to hear.
All your training days you spend fighting in order and discipline, learning to control your fight and rage, learning to watch your brothers’ backs, and take it serious and slow. When you see a centurion shudder and huddle from fear, it shakes you, makes you doubt your training to see you through; makes you think you should have learned to be a little crazy too.

I say all this so you know what was through our minds. Three days, five battles, and still we were waiting for the moment that showed us the terror we feared, and we thought this was it. We couldn’t believe our luck, you see. When we showed up to the beach, the whole place was empty. The bastards had run. We had seen them before sunset the previous day, as the coast had hoved into view. They had stood on top of the cliffs, lined in a row and silhouetted behind by the western sun. Thousands of them, all along the cliff-tops. An army waiting for us, waiting to slaughter us in the froth and sand, fast-wheeling death and savagery lined up and tense for the outlet, when we would be at our most vulnerable. You could see the sun shining on their spears and knives, on their shields and armor, on their horses barding, and you just knew your fate waited in their hands. I’d have given anything at that moment to have sacrificed more to Neptune before we left, but it was too late now. The three chickens and the scrawny under-fed goat I bought from that fucking rapacious usurer of a gaul on the coast before we left would have to do.
We watched them all afternoon, watched them as the sun set behind them, a numberless parade of shadows, coloured only by the nightmare memories of our officers, standing row after row on the cliffs that drew nearer, ever nearer, as Machinus told us of all the ways they would kill us when we arrived.

When the sun set, Rufinis, a small buck-toothed legionnary in our Decate, tried to break out the wheat and hard-tack, but none of us were interested. Three of us had been puking regularly ever since we left Gaul, and Quintus Marinus managed to hit the rowlock on the front port side. The bitter stench of his dark bread breakfast had carried with us most of the day, just to add to our misery. The roiling sea, the cold spray, and the gathered clouds all combined with our Centurion’s tales to create an atmosphere devoid of appetite. So we hunched throughout the night, trying to sleep but kept awake by the bucking of the boat, the smell of puke, and the horrific stories of our own personal demon, hunched spider-like in his cloak at the aft of the boat. You always hear of soldiers being carried to battle in great glorious triremes, but let me tell you sonny-jim, when we went to Britain, we were shoved into whatever misbegotten whelp of a fishing vessel the legion could lay its hands on. We sweated through the cold nightmare of that midnight trip in a flat-bottomed scull with sides barely high enough to shelter our hips for the wind-whipped waves.