Greeks and Romans: A Medieval Journey

Chapter 2 ~ The Battle

The taste of battle was in the air as the two Greeks drew their swords in opposition to the treacherous Romans that had tried to force them into slavery. As soon as they had drawn their swords, the Romans forgot all about their commander that was tied to the tree and drew theirs as well.
“Tell us about the ‘Special Way’, little girl,” one soldier snickered. “Or maybe you can get on your knees and pray that we won’t kill you.”
“Yeah,” the other soldier. “I bet you can’t even fight, can you? You’re just bluffing.”
“Why don’t you find out for yourself right now? I can best you in a fight any day,” retorted Kendra.
“Gladly, little girl,” the second soldier snorted.
“Do I have the honor of meeting the man I am about to humiliate, or do I have to face a stranger?”
“If you wish. My name is Sethon. Oh, and one more thing, will it be a joust, or a fight to the death?” he asked.
“A joust will do,” Kendra answered quickly, she didn’t like to kill if she didn’t have to. “When shall we start, Sethon?”
“Immediately.”
As soon as he had said this, Kendra had to raise her sword to deflect a hard blow heading towards her right shoulder. It missed her by inches, and the force of the blow sent her sprawling. Sethon, being an experienced fighter, took advantage of the opportunity. He threw a hard blow again at her shoulder and this time it found its mark. With her shoulder throbbing with pain, Kendra decided to disarm her opponent quickly before he could do any more damage. She found an opening, and bam! His sword went flying. Kendra then pointed the tip of her sword to Sethon’s throat.
He whimpered, “D-don’t kill me.”
“Shut up. Don’t try anything or you will regret it.”
He didn’t talk again. His partner tried to back up and escape into the trees, but seconds later found himself with his back to the very large tree where his commander was still tethered. Kendra handed off the new prisoner, Sethon, to her mother to guard, and faced this new threat.
Then, Kendra pointed the tip of her sword at Sethon’s partner’s throat. “Tell me your name or suffer the consequences. I can easily kill you right now, and you are at my mercy, so don’t test my patience by trying to disarm me. That is what your commander did, and look where it got him.”
“M-my name is Galloran,” the young man stammered reluctantly.
“Well then, Galloran, you, your general, and Sethon will join Heru in imprisonment. You will have to come with us wherever we go, and don’t try to escape. Any person who tries will immediately lose any respect I hold for you, as well as the chance to be freed. Do you understand?”
The two prisoners nodded in response, not daring to speak. Then, Kendra broke the silence and asked Laura, “Mother, will you please fetch the commander for me?”
“Sure. What do you think that Sethon will run off when I release the dagger-point from his throat?”
Before she could answer, Sethon tentatively said, “I can speak for both Galloran and myself when I say that we will not run off.” Galloran nodded his agreement.
“I thought I told you not to speak. Very well, I will hold you to your word, as I can run faster than most of the soldiers in the army and I don’t think you would leave your commander.” Kendra then motioned to her mother to go get the commander.
In around five minutes, Laura returned to the others. Heru was in front, he was shackled still and with an short sword to his back. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that his life was in danger, though.
Kendra looked him in the eye and said, “It seems we have a problem on our hands. Not only did you try to escape, but it is getting more likely every second that you alerted these soldiers to our position while I was conferring with my mother.”
At this, Sethon exclaimed, “He did not! We found this place by ourselves!”
“So you say. Do you have any proof of this?” She directed the question at all of the prisoners.
It was Galloran who, although hesitantly, replied, “Y-yes, we do. You can check what I say for yourselves, for I speak the truth. When we got here, we didn’t know that Commander Heru was here, if we did, we would have brought much larger forces to retrieve him. However, Sethon and... the general and I came alone. We can only give you our word. Other than that, we can do little to prove this.”
“Perhaps what you say is true, but I need to know if there is anything that could possibly let the army know we have your commander. Is there anything like that lying about?” Kendra asked.
“Not that I know of,” replied Sethon.
“Very well.” She looked down at the wounded general and asked, “Can you get up, general?”
Tentatively, he replied, “I—I think so.”
“Then do it,” Kendra said coldly.
With pain on his face, he tried and failed numerous times to get up. Eventually, Laura had to help him to his feet because Kendra wouldn’t. After a while, Kendra broke the silence by asking coldly, “What is your name, general?”
“My... my name is Octavius,” the general hesitantly replied.
“Well then, Octavius, while I investigate our situation, you will be leg cuffed, shackled, and taken to a secret place that only my mother and I know the location of with the others. It is where we keep our prisoners. Do you understand?” She directed the last question at all of them. “Oh, and I hope your arm wound doesn’t bother you too much because I don’t have any medicine on me at the moment, and won’t until we get to our little prison.” Kendra said this very coldly.
Octavius looked down at the ground, acknowledging his fate, and most of the prisoners nodded in understanding, but Sethon looked confused. “N-no offense, but why would you want to take Roman soldiers as prisoners before we tried to capture you? Why would you care?”
Kendra sighed, certainly this wasn’t going to end well. Either she would hurt Sethon, Heru, Octavius, and Galloran, or tell them important information. Now that she thought about it, she should have searched them before even speaking. Any one of them could have a letter saying they were captured and who captured them. All they would have to do is drop the letter, and the Roman army would rescue them.
After pondering it for a moment, Kendra decided that the safest course of action was to knock them senseless, tie their wrists together with rope, and then search them thoroughly.
“Look down at the ground,” Kendra ordered the prisoners. After they had complied, she did not wait for them to realize what was coming. Within the timespan of five seconds, all four men were laying on the ground, senseless, and Laura was staring at her in astonishment.
It was Kendra who broke the silence, “They might have a letter saying where they were or something on them, we can’t risk them finding out our secret... and telling everyone. How long do you think we have before they wake up?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d have to guess about half an hour.”
“Alright, we will have to move quickly to make it in time, but we can do it. Well... shall we begin?”
They both began searching the unconscious soldiers where they thought various objects could be hidden. After a few minutes, Laura and Kendra had a reasonably big pile of objects, food and whatnot, but no letter.
“I think we should let them keep the food, but why don’t we hold off the rest of the search until they wake up? At least then we can question them.”
Laura agreed and they bound the unbound prisoners with three pairs of shackles and legcuffs they had found in their search. It would work better than rope, Kendra thought to herself. Then, she and her mother took Sethon, Octavius, Heru, and Galloran to their secret hideout in the woods, and waited for them to wake up. It took about an hour for them to wake, which was longer than Kendra had expected. When Heru, Octavius, Sethon, and Galloran woke, they would have the surprise of their lives.