Battle at Weser River 1.1

"For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”—Rudyard Kipling

Weser River, last week of November. 16 AD.

Gero, a drunken warrior, with a crudely tattooed spear on his back, trembled with relief as he emptied his bladder into the river.

He swigged from a gamey-smelling leather flask midstream to gulp the bitter liquor to burn his throat.

Suddenly—a prickling sensation crawled across his braided scalp.

‘Huh?’ he narrowed his eyes, his senses tingling.

‘Something’s off…’ he told himself, bowing his head a little as he gulped.

Something ominous.

‘I can feel it even from a mile away…’ he tried to sniff the air but—

‘Water… trees… animal shit… and campfire smoke.’

He wet his lips, the distinct taste of the liquor lingered at the tip of his tongue.

His guts screamed danger—the same instinct that earned him the nickname 'animal' in the tribe—as he puffed his chest out.

He huffed as he secured the flask back to his waist, as his own urine still continued to trickle to the water.

But his attention was suddenly caught by a subtle ripple disturbing the water just ahead of his stream.

He hesitated and tilted his head down some more.

His piss—or something else?

Then—out of the blue…

TAA-RAN-TAAAA!

A horn’s piercing call shattered the morning stillness.

It rolled across the lush plains like thunder, waking the world.

Gero froze, whipping his head backward to where he came from.

Still weeing—forcing himself to finish now—he strained his neck as far as he could, trying to peek back at the camp.

‘I shouldn’t have wandered so far just to piss, even if the chieftain said so.’

He had been ordered to do his business from far away, and now, he cursed that he obeyed.

‘Nobody would care anyway.’

He could make out some movements from where he was—

Shadows moved—a few warriors—mostly night watchers like him jolted awake as the horses whinnied at the sudden intrusive sound.

He clicked his tongue as he invoked a supernatural damnation for his lazy tribemates.

Gero, now fully sober, recognized the familiar blare of the horn as he harshly flicked the last remnants of his pee.

“The Romans!” he grunted.

“Verfluchte Hunde!" (Curse dogs!)

It had always been like this, ever since his own Cherusci tribe banded together with two others to wipe out a whole bunch of Roman soldiers in the Teutoburg Forest.

“They just never learn, do they?”

Just last night, they had roared with laughter over Rome’s probing.

“They’re weak,” Gero remembered himself saying by the campfire as they drank.

“Seven years had already passed and yet, this is all their revenge amounted to,” Baldur snickered in a deep timbre voice as they continued to mock the Romans.

“What could a petty squabble and few skirmishes do?” Volker, a scarred warrior with long black hair, joined in.

After that, they laughed and drank and drank until dawn came.

And now, unbothered by the new threat, he stretched his body, trying to rid the stiffness of his muscle before going back.

‘If anything, they are becoming annoying these days,’ he spat on the ground.

Then he bolted.

His bare feet and legs carried him fast and sure over the grassy path.

'I'm almost flying!'

The animal pelt on his waist, his only protection from the cold, flapped in the wind as he maneuvered his body, perfectly avoiding the trees and the thorny shrubs.

‘This is fun!’

Mirth twisted his dry lips upward as he slowed down his pace.

‘Lucky, the stones are blunt,’ he felt exhilarated, proud of his own stunt.

Now his chest swelled at the thought of killing a few infernal Romans himself.

'Time to send them home crying to their mothers... again—pft!'

"We are the proud Germanic tribe—fierce and untamed!” he grinned like a wolf excited at the sight of blood.

They led a brutal life and their survival was a daily war—one the pampered Romans could never comprehend, who lived in ease and amusement.

“The enemies are here!” he yelled at the top of his lungs even before he entered the camp.

The closer he got, the sharper the sounds—the frantic clatter of metal and hushed curses.

But he didn’t stop.

“The Romans are attacking!”

He sprinted past a few warriors that were already on their feet, around the dying embers of last night’s fires and scattered animal hides. 

“Get ready for battle!”

A dozen or so veteran warriors suddenly poured out of their tents, halting Gero in his tracks.

Their braided hair meticulously fell over tattooed cheeks and necks.

Sturdy tunics and heavy animal furs, fastened with intricate bronze and iron brooches, caught the morning light.

Some stumbled, others yawned, all moving with that unhurried grace.

Gero gulped as he shivered from the Autumn’s chill or from the veterans' aura, he had no idea.

‘Their presence is no joke!’

As the sun rose, casting a golden glow over the landscape, the whole camp remained blissfully unaware of the impending doom the horn’s call really meant as it slowly crept towards them.

Gero’s own tribe—along with the Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, and more, had set up camp near the deeper bends of the Weser River.

The location offered a fertile flat land, ringed by forested slopes, teeming with game and fish.

They sought rich lands to cultivate—provisions to help endure the harsh winter months ahead.

‘The chieftain said it's a strategic location! And he’s never been wrong!’ Gero thought, his pride for his leader swelling.

Because there was only one side where the Romans could attack—

‘In plain sight at that!’

And they already had skilled archers stationed there that could decimate any soldiers long before they reached their camp.

‘And that side is the slopes,’ he inflated his chest as he smugly believed that…

‘They wouldn’t be able to surprise us.’

But as soon as those thoughts left him—

“TA-RAN-TA!”

Another horn.

Short, abrupt, and closer.

The unmistakable sound of Roman Legions.

But it came from— 

“…the river?” Gero muttered, eyes widening in sudden confusion.

“Curses! The Romans have sailed up the river!” shouted Volker.

‘But that can’t be… right?’ his head snapped to the slope, where the horn first sounded.

‘They were supposed to come from the slopes!’ he thought, remembering how they had sneered—

“Half of them will fall before they even blink,” it was even Volker who said that.

‘But not from the river!’ Gero shook his head in disbelief as realization dawned on him.

He turned to his tribe warriors, they also had the same thought.

Silence engulfed them, then—

“This is an ambush!” he cried.

The panic in his voice hastened their movements.

The struggling and half-awake warriors scrambled to their feet.

‘Have we perhaps become too overconfident?’ Gero asked himself as he prepared for combat, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

Worn leather belts cinched steel swords and daggers in place.

Shields were gripped or slung onto backs.

Spears, javelins, and bows were hoisted in ready hands.

Now, those same warriors who had once rallied for a joint effort years ago stood ready to fight the same enemy once more.

THUD THUD THUD!

A deep, rhythmic pounding—a mixture of drumbeats and marching footsteps—resonated from behind the slopes.

The warriors’ heads lashed around, they still couldn't see the enemies.

The earth trembled beneath their feet.

“It’s their tactic to intimidate us,” Gero murmured, swallowing hard.

The Romans were creating an illusion—an army of a million men, stomping the ground in unison.

The Germanic warriors’ attention was now split.

The horn from the river.

And the thunderous march behind the slopes.

Panic set in.

“Where is the chieftain?” they shouted.

Then, the first Roman arrow arced silently out behind the trees, flying straight to Gero’s forehead.

A warning shot.

✦✦✦

INDEX FOR GERMAN AND OTHER WORDS THAT WERE MENTIONED:

Weser River—Second longest river in Northern Germany

Gero—means 'spear'

Verfluchte Hunde—cursed dogs/damned dogs

Teotuburg Forest—a forest in Germany

Baldur—means 'prince/lord'

Volker—means 'people's army'

Germanic tribe/warrior—Ancient German people

Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri—Germanic tribes

Roman Legions/soldiers—Roman Empire’s army, composed of 5,000-6,000 soldiers in one legion