The Rising Flood

Author's Note: The original inspiration for this piece of historical fiction was the Barbarian Invasion expansion to Rome: Total War, where the player can play, among other factions, the Saxons, along with the world created by A.A. Attanasio in his retelling of the Arturian legend. Fascinated by the concept of a group of people who defined the history of Britain through invasion at the very end of the Roman Empire, I was inspired to write a story. This piece on a Saxon raid of Britannia in the late fourth century is the result. The links spread across this document are to source materials that aided me in making (hopefully correct) decisions about facts and names.

Aedelstan watched with grim satisfaction as he slammed the blade of his sword down, impaling the chest of the Roman comitatensis with a satisfying crunch. The dead soldier gurgled a bit as Aedelstan pulled out his sword and looked around at the devastation his war band had caused. Dead Romans lay everywhere – the small garrison, their women and children, shopkeepers and a few farmers who had sought shelter from the coming Saxon storm. Fires set by looters burned rooftops and slowly turned houses into pyres. It was a good victory and a satisfying conclusion to the month-long raid.

Surnamed The Clever by his warriors for his almost miraculous ability to detect and set ambushes, Aedelstan was also both brutal and ambitious. The second son of a Saxon tribal chief, Aedelstan was by age 22 eager to prove himself as a leader of men; a conqueror from the old stories. The raid was his idea, although he claimed inspiration from the gods; from Woden, father of wisdom, Tiw, lord of war and Saxnot, the first of the Saxon people.

Traveling in a group of almost 300 men, Aedelstan's warriors had set out in three boats from Jutland for the coast of Britannia, intent on murder, rape and pillage. Called pirates by their Roman victims, whose leaders had built a series of forts called the Litoris Saxonici, the Saxon Shore Forts, in an effort to blunt attacks from the sea, Aedelstan's men were all young, unattached men without land or much wealth – generally enough to afford only leather armor, wooden shield and the mix of bows, spears and swords that made up their equipment – living at the fringe of society, who could exist because of the opportunities for plunder readily available in the weakening Roman empire to the west and south. Ferocious, undisciplined and driven by the twin desires of personal ambition and religious furor, these men, organized into Keels – named after the number of men it took to launch and sail a raiding boat – would fight well under good leadership, be merciless in their assault and be more than a match for most light-armed soldiers, making them excellent raiders. They also tended to throw themselves heedlessly against the breaking wall of groups of more disciplined, professional soldiers and run when things got too tough. A good leader did as much to keep them out of the wrong battle as bring them to the right one.

Now the men were fewer by a good many than they had been when they left Jutland months ago, but their morale was high, the haul of plunder satisfying and Aedelstan was happy. He thought back to the start, the landing, the beginning of the glory...

The ships came in with the tide, bumping up against the rocks on the shore, the men piling out slightly seasick, glad to be ashore after a week at sea in open boats. The wind blew down the wet sands in gusts like a brick wall, flapping canvas, pushing birds, twisting like a physical element. Stowing the single sail and pulling the boats up on the sand, Aedelstan, standing on a rock, ordered his men to grab weapons and gear, then felt the inspiration for a speech come to him: something to remind these men of their sworn duty to him and to their gods; something to remind them that all was not high winds and rough seas.

"Men, you know why we've come here. Honor, glory, plunder – all these things are pleasing to the gods and all we will find here! Two miles to the north lies the first of a chain of villages, the homes of our enemies, those cursed of the gods: Romans. Riches – of both the golden and womanly variety – await those of us strong enough to take them. Follow my commands, be strong and quick and the Romans will not know what hit them, won't organize their pitiful soldiers... won't have a chance to organize. Now, go, fight with honor and may the gods of our ancestors see you to victory!"

A cheer, the rattling of spears on shields as three hundred throats rose in a war cry to Tiw and the Saxons stormed up the sand, over the tide line and into the woods on the shore. The wind blew, ripping over the sands.

The village was empty as the men approached, the inhabitants hiding in the forest, forewarned of the invasion and scared of the approach of those their priests called the demons of the waves. Foiled in the chance for blood, worried that the villagers would make their way to the nearest fortress and alert the garrison, Aedelstan ordered half of his men to loot the village and fire the houses.

"The rest of us follow the trail of those worms. If we can catch up to them before they alert the garrison, it'll save us a lot of trouble later. Any man who can't catch a group of sniveling Roman peasants deserves to have his balls cut off and take his place with the women in the kitchen...if they'll have him."

Roaring with laughter, the men broke up into groups and fanned out into the forest, looking for tracks. Watching them spread out, Aedelstan took one more look back at the village, the flames spreading quickly from the bases of wooden huts, climbing up walls, licking edges of thatch roofs. Men were standing around, chatting, laughing, watching the fires grow, digging through the loot plucked from the doomed homes. Suddenly, a commotion: an old woman, hiding under a house, ran out into the packed dirt in the center of the village, screaming, her hair on fire. As she ran into one of the groups of soldiers, a man hucked his spear into her chest and she fell to the ground, clutching at her chest. A momentary pause as all watched her claw futilely for life and then they returned to watching the flames take the village. Aedelstan turned and followed his men into the forest.

They found the main body of peasants about an hour later. One of the groups of soldiers found a glade half a mile into the forest and alerted Aedelstan, who gathered his forces. Inside the glade, clearly the former site of a Celtic shrine, the peasants from the village had gathered in prayer around a stone cross under the direction of a priest. The Saxons stepped into the clearing, swords and axes raised, expecting some sort of reaction; a fight, flight in terror, cries for mercy, anything. But instead, only the ringing, clear Latin prayers of the priest that echoed off the trees and the kneeling peasants, waiting for salvation. Aedelstan growled in frustration:

"It's clear they expect their nailed god to save them. Such foolishness deserves only death."

As one, the men charged into the glade, crying praises to Oden and Tiw as they killed every last man, woman and child.

Later, after the shrine and its supplicants were nothing more than a smoking ruin, Aedelstan gathered runners and sent them in the direction of his advance scouts, with orders for them to return to the boats to help load up the loot and depart. He looked around the clearing and smiled. It was true the Britons died without honor, like goats or sheep under the knife of a butcher and not like warriors, like Saxons. This submission was their choice. For his part, he knew he had brought no shame from the gods or on his family name for this day's events. "Men," he cried out, catching the attention of all in the clearing, "you have all done well this day and I know that the gods smile down upon us. It is time to return to the ships and prepare for departure; tomorrow is a new day and a new group of British weaklings demands to feel your swords against their necks, your caress on the skins of their womenfolk and your fingers running through their possessions. It would not do to disappoint them!" Cheering, the Saxons grabbed their war gear and left the clearing to the carrion birds.

"Grab your gear, men!" Aedelstan shouted at the groups of warriors scattered around the burning village, talking or poking through bodies for hidden wealth. "This den of dogs has yielded all of its pitiful fruit and we have half a day's march back to shore and then on to home!" The men were quick to respond to the commands, motivated more by the possibility of returning home, Aedelstan knew, than their respect for his authority. Many of those who returned from a successful raid would have enough loot to purchase several hides of land and start a farm; many more would drink away their newfound wealth in the taverns and either die in drunken brawls or return to raid again. However they lived, though, they would do honor to their gods. Not like those useless Roman soldiers...

It was now about a week since the Saxons had landed in Britain. Sailing up the coast away from the garrison at the fort of Garrianonum, Aedelstan and his men had easily overwhelmed another village, taking the inhabitants by surprise as they slept. Now the fires from burning huts and fishing boats smoldered against the horizon as Aedelstan and his men marched inland, following a Roman road inland, where scouts had heard rumors of other villages to despoil. Men from the vanguard spotted the rising dust of a pair of runners coming down the road, returning with a report.

"What's the news?"
"Trouble, my lord: a large group of Roman horseman, coming through the forest about two miles ahead. They appear to be alerted to our presence in the area."
"Where are the rest of the men?"
"They're still in the woods, observing the enemy, as you ordered."
"Good. We will need to get under the cover of the trees quickly." "My lord, the trees are cleared from the side of the road for a bowshot's distance."
"No matter – the trees will still work in our favor." Aedelstan turned to his four lieutenants, who commanded groups of roughly 75 men. "Split up and move quickly into the forest on both sides of the road – I want the men divided equally. We'll be setting a trap as soon as the men are in position."

The horsemen appeared about ten minutes after the Saxons were safely in the forest. They were a part of the Roman system of cavalry recruitment, called auxilia ("help"), that had existed since the days of the Roman Republic: men from the tribal nations of the steppes, where a child learned to ride before he could walk, organized into military units and put under the command of Roman officers for service all over the empire. In military formations, the tactic of the infantry-centric Roman army had been to put the cavalry on the left and right sides of the infantry, on the alae ("wings"). Besides lending itself to the naming of the layout of the army, an ala also became a battalion of 120 horsemen, under the command of a prefect.

Although the men stationed at Garrianonum, home of this particular ala, were of Greek origin and had spent time on campaigning in Holland, they were equipped much like their colleagues across Europe, the Middle East and Africa: riding mid-sized horses and perched on horned, stirrup-less saddles, wearing scale armor and a helmet for protection and armed with two hastae (spears) for charges and a spatha (cavalry sword) for close combat. Roman military theory generally employed auxilia cavalry in lighter duties like scouting, infantry screening and chasing down routing foes; they were also useful as a quick response force to the invasions that had plagued all corners of the Empire for many, many years. While the Roman auxilia cavalry, even those of the late Empire, were a far cry from the heavy cavalry of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in terms of striking power, in controlled environments, auxilia typically fared well against barbarian infantries in pitched battles.

Their commander, Appius Lucius Dexippus, knew a pitched battle wasn't likely to happen. A large group of that Saxon scum had been operating in the area on a raid for the past week, but so far their commander had been smart enough to take his boats at the first sign of real soldiers and Appius had no doubt he would continue to do so. At age 35, Appius was getting old and he felt it. Too many raiders now looted these shores where two generations ago they would have never dared tread and Appius felt the disapproval of the generations of his fathers who had served the Empire as soldiers for what he knew was failure to keep Roman lands safe.

And yet he wondered if the steadily rising flood of barbarian invasions in Britannia and elsewhere was his generation's failure as Romans, or a sign from the gods that a great change was coming over the order of the world. Appius was a soldier and like most Roman soldiers, followed the faith of Deus Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun, rather than Christianity. The cyclical nature of the universe was as natural to him as the rising and setting of the sun each day and he knew that one day, as the gods willed, a power would eclipse even Rome – although he was far too wise to ever voice these thoughts aloud. Even as he rode his patrols, knowing he could do almost nothing more than scare invaders away for a few months at most, he did so with the knowledge that his way of life was doomed and that one day, these raiders would come in greater force – and come to stay. He faced his fate, but faced it with the courage of despair that sometimes made him reckless.

Today, with the smoke of yet another burning village rising above the trees he had taken his ala out with the faint hope of catching the invaders by surprise and repaying some of their mischief with interest. Rounding a bend, he saw a group of the Saxons standing in the road, looking almost insolent as they chatted in their mangled tongue. 'That's odd,' Appius thought. Usually the raiders didn't come so far inland. Although the Saxons drew their weapons as the Romans approached, they didn't appear particularly surprised – also odd. No matter to Appius; there were only about 50 Saxons and he had a good 50 yards to build up a charge. One good shock and the curs would run, living just long enough for his men to hunt them down like dogs. Drawing his sword, he ordered his men into a trot.

Forty yards, thirty yards, twenty yards...the auxilia had brought their horses to a gallop and now, spearheads gleaming in the afternoon sun, thundered down on the waiting Saxons. Appius was pleased to see men quickly melting away from the main body like a melting ball of snow, fear in their eyes. "Run, you sons of whores," he yelled, "you'll see your ends soon enough." The horsemen lowered their spearheads into the killing position, preparing to strike the final blow.

A flash out in the corner of his eye and Appius guessed the trick, far too late to pull up the charge. Helpless, he watched the much larger body of Saxon infantry charge out of the woods around him and cut into his men even as they attempted to wheel to face this new threat. The smart ones broke through the weaker body of men along the road before attempting to regroup and Appius thundered through to join them. He would have to act quickly to prevent a rout.

Even with the upper hand granted by the ambush, Aedelstan could see that things were not going as well as he wanted: a block of the Romans had regrouped on the far side of his men and charged back into the fray, hitting his men in the flank. Even as the Saxons swarmed over solitary groups of auxilia caught in the initial rush, the group of rallied horsemen crushed the Saxon's left flank, overwhelming opposition and killing many. For a moment the left flank quivered visibly, as each Saxon fought the panic rising from his belly and momentarily weighed the choice between fighting to defend his fellows or run to save his own skin. To their credit, most of the men chose to stay and those who broke found themselves pinned between the flashing spathae of the Romans on one side and their more resolute comrades on the other with nowhere to run. The line held, but Aedelstan knew he'd need to do something quickly before his men had another opportunity to run.

Pushing his way to the edge of the fray, Aedelstan shouted over the clamor of battle: "Men! We must turn to face the enemy! Push towards the Roman dogs and show them that horses will not protect them from the wrath of the Saxon! For Tiw and Saxnot!" Enough Saxons heard to make his command effective and soon the tide of infantry turned the left flank into a front, meeting the auxilia head on. It was the start of a rally, but Aedelstan saw that the Roman officer was no fool: he kept his men close together, forming enough of a screen to allow the Romans to prepare another charge that would most likely send Aedelstan's men into a rout. Aedelstan felt the spirits of the ancient gods fill him, energizing his soul with battle fury even as they showed him what he must do to save his raiders. Lifting his sword high in the air, he screamed the battle cries of his father's house and charged directly at the Roman officer.

Appius never saw the hit coming; one minute he was waving a group of his men back so they could start a new charge while the rest held the Saxon line, the next he was struggling to remain mounted as a man charged headlong into his horse, using his shield like a battering ram. Appius flailed around wildly with his sword, but could not focus on both hitting his adversary and remaining mounted. When he felt the Saxon's arm wrap around his leg, pulling him towards the ground, he knew his life was over, though basic instinct kept him fighting for survival. When Aedelstan's fist smashed into Appius's face before dragging him down for the killing blow, the Saxon saw only acceptance in the dying Roman's eyes.

With a scream of triumph, Aedelstan clawed his way onto the Roman officer's horse, holding on for dear life as the frightened animal reared. Appius's death had only taken a few seconds and when the auxilia saw the enemy's leader atop their own leader's horse, their shock and dismay was palpable. As the Saxons surged forward, inspired by Aedelstan's courage, the remaining horsemen quickly turned and broke into the woods in a full panic. Their enemy, fueled by the uncontrollable blood lust of battle, gave chase. Only a few Romans would live to return to their barracks that evening.

Unfortunately, Aedelstan reflected, as he packed saddlebags onto a captured mule, the glory of that battle was as fleeting as sun, washed out by the rains that covered the area for the next few weeks. Although the Saxons were successful in defeating the horsemen from Garrianonum, the larger garrison of the fort at Branodunum proved a more dogged foe, chasing his men around away from potential targets across the countryside and inspiring resistance among the British peasants. Resistance like in that wretched collection of hovels that vomited forth the witch...

'What was it about this wretched country that inspired the gods to favor it with such frequent rain,' Aedelstan wondered. He knew back home on the other side of the windy Channel there was rain aplenty, that knowledge was cold comfort as Thunor, god of thunder, had brought almost nothing but driving rain and heavy winds for the past week, souring the Saxon warchief's mood and leaving him to wonder if he had offended the gods. Today the storms had calmed to a steady drizzle but the cutting edge of the cold wind sliced through Aedelstan's cloak. He knew the unseasonable weather was a sign that the raid would need to end soon and in truth, Aedelstan did not mind; laden down with the prizes of war, his men were starting to grow anxious to go home. The Saxon war chief only wished it would stop raining.

Besides the weather, there was another reason why Aedelstan was angry: the latest casualties of his raid had put up a strong resistance, causing a few casualties themselves before the Saxons finally claimed victory. To the Saxon leader's mind, it was unconceivable; how could Roman peasant trash have stood up to his warriors, let alone kill any of them. Although he held the Romans in contempt, a Saxon warrior expected Woden to send death by the hands of a Roman soldier and some, exiled as punishment for crimes against society, even relished the idea. But these farmers were not even former Roman soldiers...it was a disgrace. Brooding, the train of Aedelstan's thoughts ran along what he would say later in the day when his men burned the pyres of their comrades as he watched a group of his men rape a captured woman near one of the few remaining huts.

Suddenly he noticed an old woman with a shock of wild white hair jump out from the dirt of a vegetable garden near the hut and run screeching towards the group of men. Crying out in alarm, Aedelstan saw the old woman brandish a large knife as she leaped on one of the rapists, knocking him to the ground with the knife buried in his chest. She did not stop stabbing her unfortunate victim until one of the other Saxons pulled her off, pinning her arms to her sides. Aedelstan ran over to the hut and pulled the woman up by her hair, bellowing in rage before throwing her to the ground.

His foot on her throat, Aedelstan screamed at her, "Who are you? Who do you think you are? Filthy wretch! I'll see you dead for killing one of my men!" "Curse you," she screeched back at him. "God will strike you down for your evil! Get away from me, satanic one, for the Son of God is my light and my savior, my rock and my shield..."

Horrified, Aedelstan watched her eyes roll back into her head as her prayers for deliverance continued and felt his rage grow white-hot. He turned to the men, now gathered around watching the old woman uneasily. Within the circle of warriors, the rape victim still lay on the ground, crying softly to herself. "Take her," Aedelstan indicated the young woman, "and this old bag of bones here and nail them to the sides of that hut. If these Christians," he spat on the prostrate form beneath him, "believe so strongly in living like their god, there's no reason why they shouldn't die like him, too. Crucify them and make sure that hut does not catch fire with the others. I want them to think a long time on what it means to kill a Saxon."

Murmuring as the rain began to fall harder, groups of men grabbed the two women and marched them over to the side of the hut, the younger woman now pleading hysterically for mercy, the older one calling on God to save them and strike the evil down. Lifting up the old woman by the throat, Aedelstan held her against the side of the hut and stared directly into her eyes as she spit and screamed curses, while his men drove wooden spikes into her spread arms and legs with the hilts of their swords and those of her younger companion in death. The two victims secured, the Saxons morosely boarded their boats in the driving rain. Aedelstan could still hear the screams from the village and he knew that every warrior was thinking the exact same thing: a witch had just cursed their voyage.

'How long,' Aedelstan thought, as he led his men back down the wooded path that led to the shore and then home. 'How long were we cursed before the gods decided to favor us with riches yet again?' For almost two weeks after crucifying the two women, storms blew the waters of the Channel into an impassable froth, while on land Roman soldiers actively hunted the Saxon raiders in force. The Saxon warchief suspected that despite the sacrifices he ordered made to the gods, the witch's curse had only ended in the past few days, as the weather cleared and scouts found the last victim of their raid: a small, fortified town in a clearing on some wooded upland overlooking a long plain running towards the west.

Rather than trying to face the Roman garrison of the town head on, possibly with disastrous results, Aedelstan had opted for a ruse, trusting that the numerous omens that spoke of the gods' displeasure were incorrect. Marching up to the town at night, the Saxons would encircle as much of the clearing a possible, trusting that where humanity had not cleared roads the woods would be too thick to pass through, making the siege complete.

Incredibly, the plan worked so well that the Saxons managed to capture a group of peasants on their way to market at dawn. As the sun rose, the morning light revealed to the horrified citizens of the town the bodies of ten farmers spiked to trees – and a hundred armed Saxons grinning viciously and screaming for blood.

Although Aedelstan would never know, the success of his raid had bred new fear among the Roman establishment: the comes, or count, of the Litoris Saxonici found himself forced to divide his garrisons among as many defensible strongholds as possible, with the hope that the presence of Roman soldiers would scare the Saxons away. Following this new strategy, the comes had sent a century (about 80 men) of comitatenses, the mobile shock troops of the late empire, to this town two weeks ago as defense.

Now, after two weeks of watchful idleness, it was time for action. The centurion of the comitatenses, already spooked by the sudden appearance of his foes and angered by the desecrated bodies of the dead farmers, opted to leave the safety of his walls and face the enemy head on.

At first, the Roman officer's initiative seemed justified: his men threw a volley of javelins into their foes to stagger them and then charged headlong. The Saxons buckled under the sudden dual weight of casualties and the shock of the heavily armored men slamming into their line, gladii slashing and stabbing through the light Saxon armor. Tasting victory, the centurion raised his sword and let out a war cry that died in his throat as he looked behind him and saw to his horror that Saxons were streaming from the woods all around the town and charging his position. Too late to reform his men who now faced an enemy given heart by reinforcements, he hoped he could survive long enough to stem the tide of destruction.

Fifteen minutes later, Aedelstan the Clever found himself killing one of the last comitatensis with his sword as his men poured through the walls of their final prize, singing songs of victory, destruction and praise to their gods for delivering the town of its defenses. He had led his men as the heroes of old; now he was going home.