Chapter 1: 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

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Weser River, the last week of November. 16 AD.

Gero—neither man nor boy, but now a proud, drunken warrior with a huge, roughly tattooed spear running down his back—shuddered with relief as he emptied his bladder into the river.

He swigged from a gamey-smelling leather flask midstream, letting the bitter liquor burn down his throat.

“Ahh!” he exclaimed.

“Woo!”

Just like a wolf.

Just how the chieftain of his tribe did it.

Suddenly—a prickling sensation crawled over Gero’s braided scalp.

‘Huh? Huh?’

His eyes narrowed, senses tingling.

‘Something’s off…’ he told himself, bowing his head a little as he took another bitter gulp.

Something ominous.

‘I can feel it even from a long way off…’

He sniffed the air, but all he caught was—

“Water… trees… animal shit… and campfire smoke.”

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

His guts screamed danger—the same feral instinct that earned him his nickname 'the wild boar' in his tribe.

He puffed his chest out a little, a physical challenge to the unseen threat as he waited for it to come true.

But there was none.

With a loud, off-tune whistle, he calmly secured the flask back at his waist, his own urine still trickling into the water, uninterrupted.

Then—movement.

There was a subtle ripple disturbing the water just ahead of his stream.

He hesitated, leaning forward, tilting his head down further, his face alight with boyish uncertainty breaking through his bravado.

Was that his piss doing that—or something else?

Then—out of the blue…

TAA-RAN-TAAAA!

A horn’s piercing call shattered the dawn’s stillness, just as the first pale light bled into the sky.

It rolled across the lush plains like thunder, snapping the world awake.

Gero froze, whipping his head back toward the camp.

Still weeing—now forcing himself to finish—he craned his neck as far as he could to get a better view.

‘I shouldn’t have wandered this far just to piss,’ he bit his lip.

He’d been told to do his business of relieving himself elsewhere, lest he foul the water, and now he cursed himself for actually obeying.

“My piss will still drift down there anyway…” he grumbled.

“It’s not like anybody would care.”

Shadows stirred in the distance—a few young warriors—mostly night watchers like Gero himself.

They jolted awake as the horses whinnied at the sudden intrusive sound.

Gero clicked his tongue, invoking a supernatural damnation for his lazy tribemates.

Now half sober, he recognized the familiar blare of the horn as he harshly flicked the last remnants of his pee.

“The Romans!” he grunted, then knelt, washing his hands in the freezing water.

He spat on the ground as he stood.

“They call themselves the Roman legions, don’t they? Pshaw! They never learn.”

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

“ Verfluchte Hunde! " (Curse dogs!)

Just last night they’d roared with laughter over Rome’s pathetic little attempts at picking fights…

“They’re weak.”

Gero remembered himself saying by the campfire, liquor in hand, sitting and eyeing the stars overhead.

Baldur had grunted his agreement beside him, gulping down his own drink—like a fish—mouthful after mouthful from a stolen Roman flask they’d raided themselves only a week prior.

“Ahhh!” Baldur had burped, then snickered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Seven years have already passed, and yet this is all their revenge has amounted to,” his voice boomed.

The deep timbre of his voice rumbled with laughter before he drank some more.

“What can a petty squabble and a few skirmishes do?” Volker had chimed in his own opinion as he sat down—long haired, scarred face, and already half-drunk.

He toppled backward off his seat.

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

And now, unbothered by the new threat, Gero stretched, trying to rid the stiffness out of his muscles before heading back.

‘If anything,’ he thought as he made a loud gurgling sound in his throat, then he spat, not caring where it landed.

He then ran his tongue over his teeth, pulling a face as he looked down.

Hands on his waist—arms akimbo—he wiped each foot on the soft grass, getting himself ready to run.

“They’re becoming annoying these days.”

After spitting those words in the wind—he bolted.

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

Gero’s uncontrollable laughter echoed through the woods.

“Pft—Ha!”

'I'm almost flying!'

The animal pelt around his waist, his only protection from the cold, flapped wildly behind him as he darted between waist-high thorny shrubs and trees with effortless precision.

The biting air stung his exposed skin, but exhilaration simmered in his veins.

‘This is so much fun!’

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

‘Lucky, the stones are blunt,’ he thought, intoxicated and proud of his own stunt.

‘Just like a real warrior should be!’

At that moment, 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 shouted to no one, grinning like a wolf drunk by the mere thought of blood.

Gero and his tribe led a brutal life, and their survival was a daily war—one the pampered Romans, resting in their beds, soft and full of roses, could never understand.

He let out a long, wild howl.

“Awoo!”

The sound cut through the trees, snapping every head in camp toward him.

“The enemies!” Gero yelled at the top of his lungs even before he reached the camp’s entrance.

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

But he didn’t stop running.

“The Roman dogs are here!”

He sprinted past a few groggy warriors who were already on their feet—some scrambling, some cursing at him, others fumbling for their weapons.

“Get ready for battle!” he warned them.

Smoke from last night’s firepits still curled lazily upward.

Animal hides lay scattered across the ground.

Then Gero skidded to a halt.

A dozen veteran warriors burst out of one of the big tents.

Their meticulously braided hair fell over tattooed cheeks and necks.

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

Some yawned.

Others stretched.

All moved with that unhurried grace of men who’d seen far too many battles to be impressed by mere panic.

One warrior’s piercing gaze locked onto Gero, making the young night watcher swallow his own spit.

He averted his eyes.

A freezing shiver stabbed down his spine—whether from the autumn’s chill or the veterans' sheer aura, Gero had no idea.

‘Their presence truly is no joke!’

As the sun finally decided to rise from its deep slumber, its golden glow spilled slowly across the landscape.

Yet, the whole camp remained blissfully unaware of the impending doom the horn’s call really meant for them—creeping closer with every passing heartbeat.

Gero’s own tribe—along with the Marsi , Chatti , Bructeri —had made camp along the deeper bends of the Weser River , where the water teemed with fish and the banks shelved gently into fertile soil.

With the river at their backs, their tents faced wide, flat grasslands—open and empty—ending only at distant forested slopes where mist embraced the trees, rising against the horizon.

It was rich with game and wild fruit.

Perfect for stockpiling provisions for the coming harsh winter months ahead.

‘The chieftain said our camp is a… a s-strategeec location—’ Gero reminded himself, trying to imitate the way his chieftain pronounced his words.

A surge of pride—and blind confidence in his leader—made him stand a little taller amid the veterans joking and laughing quietly among themselves.

‘—and he’s never been wrong!’

The reasoning was simple.

The chieftain had repeated it often enough for even the younger warriors to memorize.

“The only logical route for a Roman assault is from the far-off slopes.”

That was what their chieftain always said while looking at a hand drawn map.

And there, along the treeline before the grasslands, hidden among the thick underbrush of prickly shrubs and the high branches of the trees, the tribe’s young archers lay in wait—for training and for defense—keeping constant watch.

“The leader chooses the ones with eyes sharp as hawks… the kind who can spot a deer from a mile off,” Gero muttered to himself.

He squinted, scanning the silent trees in the distance with a pinch of envy.

“Are they awake yet?”

But the trees remained motionless.

“If the enemies manage to set foot on the grassland, it's their fault. Hmph!”

He turned around—though not before kicking a loose stone on the ground with all his might.

It rolled and rolled until it hit someone’s feet—one of the scary veteran warriors.

“Ngh! Who threw the stone?”

An angry voice roared.

‘Oops.’

Gero acted like it wasn’t him as he whistled, looking anywhere but the angry warrior.

If the Romans ever crossed the open grasslands—breaking through the treelines' defenses—they’d have no cover, nowhere to hide.

But then again, neither would Gero’s tribe.

He silently scoffed.

‘But they’d be pincushions before they could even get too close.’

Swiveling around, he cast a glance at the camp’s entrance, where the most skilled archers stood guard—veteran hunters whose eyes could pierce the morning mist and shoot an ant clean between the eyes.

‘They'd have to be complete idiots to try to attack us head on,’ Gero thought proudly.

As for the river at the back of the camp?

‘A natural, impassable shield.’

To Gero—and to every man in the tribe—that river was a wall.

‘They’d be seen the moment they could even step into the water. Wide open. We’d shoot them down like—’

He faltered.

His heartbeat skipped.

Something in his gut twisted.

Words of warning from old Hanno when he was still alive—one of the tribe’s elders—suddenly crept in and slithered like a snake into Gero’s mind… uninvited.

“You think the Romans fear a river?” old Hanno had said, disbelief thick in his voice.

Then, as always, the elder would spit—

“Ptooey—!”

—mutter nonsense to someone only he could see, then he would stop, glare menacingly at young Gero and the others, and yell—

“They could build bridges over the Rhine!”

And afterward, as if none of that transpired, old Hanno would wave his gnarled hands and shoo them away.

Gero forced a snort at the memory, but a sliver of doubt stuck like a thorn.

What if the Romans did find a way across?

His head whipped—almost against his will—toward the riverbank.

“Do they even know how to swim?” he whispered to himself.

‘No no no!’

Too deep.

Too wide.

Too damn cold.

His teeth chattered, remembering the time he slipped in and nearly froze his balls off.

“Nope. Nobody’s swimming across that—not in that armor. Not alive at least.”

But another thought festered him like a wound.

‘What if the Romans had already taken up position on the opposite bank, concealed behind the trees?’ he asked himself as his feet began to take a single step toward the river.

What if arrows suddenly started raining down at this very moment over their camp?

“We’ll be sitting ducks…” he muttered.

He shook his head sharply, as if the negative thoughts were just flies.

“No.”

Enough!

The chieftain’s plan was solid.

Foolproof.

He squared his shoulders, chest rising with confidence, as he let out a shaky laugh.

“Besides,” he said aloud.

“The Romans are weak and stupid.”

Gero smugly believed that with all his heart.

‘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 the Roman Legions.

But it came from—

“Curses! The enemy has sailed up the river!” shouted Volker, his scarred face twisting, making it almost grotesque.

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

“But that can’t be…”

His head snapped toward the slope, where the first horn had sounded.

‘They were supposed to come from there… right?’

He swallowed the words down.

‘Not from the river…’ Gero shook his head in disbelief as realization dawned on him.

“Hic…”

He instantly sobered.

“Hic…”

Beaded sweat started to decorate his forehead, nose and neck.

“Half of them will fall before they could even blink,” Volker’s drunken words from last night echoed in his mind.

Like it was making fun of him—of everything he believed in.

‘Half? What half?’ he thought, unable to voice it out loud.

‘They already surrounded us from all sides!’

Gero turned to the veteran warriors, seeking comfort.

But they also had the same conclusion.

Silence engulfed them, then—

“This is an ambush!” Gero cried.

The tone 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 out leather belts cinched steel swords and daggers in place.

Shields were gripped or slung onto tattooed backs.

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

Now, those same warriors who had once rallied for a joint effort in Teutoburg Forest years ago stood next to Gero who was too young to participate back then—young and old—they were all 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 trees from the slopes.

Gero and the warriors’ heads lashed around, but still, no enemy appeared.

The earth trembled beneath their feet.

“It’s their tactic to intimidate us,” Gero murmured, recalling old stories from the campfire as he held his breath.

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

Gero and his tribesmates’ attention was now split.

The horn from the river.

And the thunderous march from the slopes.

Their heads spun between the two threats.

Panic clawed at them like a hungry predator that got denied of his meal.

“What are the archers doing in the treeline?!”