Our Once Quiet Out-of-the-Way City

Chapter 1

The sun shined bright on that day – it always shined bright in his city, for his city was surely favoured by the gods. They were the most loyal; they prayed every day, made animal sacrifices every morning and made toasts to the gods every night when they dined. They were undoubtedly the ideal city for the gods – but if that was true then why weren't they warned about the attack?

Ross had been out in the fields, harvesting their latest crops when he'd heard the first scream. He had dropped his basket and ran to the sound. Before he had even turned the corner his ears were shocked by the noise of hundreds of shouts and cries. He had stopped dead in his tracks and ran in the other direction.

Despite what the rest of the town had thought, he was not stupid, he understood what was happening and knew that he would be of no help seeing as he had absolutely no military training or any skill in combat for that matter. Of course he could plough a field and harvest like the best of them, but he knew not how to fight. He would just get in the way.

He'd decided to leave it to the professionals and they'd certainly win then, he was sure. The gods clearly favoured them.

They did not.

He had hid in the forest just east of the village. He'd passed many in the streets, the old hobbling as fast as they could away from the danger, the young gearing up with wooden spears hastily crafted, the very young clinging to their sobbing mothers in fright. Ross stopped for them but the mothers had yelled and screamed for him to leave them be – he had tried to reason with them, to convince them to come with him, that he knew a safe place they could hide but they refused his help and had scampered off in the opposite direction. He had no choice but to leave.

It was hours later that the screaming and overall noise had died down. He was not sure whether he should go back to the village and see the carnage or if he should just flee further into the woods like a coward. He'd thought about it for only a moment before he'd decided to make his way back to the village.

He wished he had fled. He didn't want to see this. Didn't want to see the countless bodies of people he'd known strewn about the floor. He recognised the local baker and his wife lying next to each other, hands clasped in an eternal embrace. Further on, he was saddened upon seeing their 11 year old son with his own wooden spear sticking out of his chest. There were many more like this – he didn't keep count.

As he'd got closer to the town's centre he heard voices. Ross peaked around the street corner and saw three Roman soldiers.

One of them nudged the body of the town's blacksmith and frowned. "Why couldn't he have just surrendered and given them the swords? He could've smithed for us!" said one with black hair. A tall brunette stood next to him. "I dunno. Why didn't the entire town just surrender? They could've been hostages," he replied. A shorter brunette snorted. "What, all of them? Nah, only the useful ones would have been kept alive, maybe some of the young boys too if they hadn't tried to stick spears in us." The soldiers nodded sadly in agreement.

The tall brunette sighed and left the one with black hair's side. He stopped in front of a sword on the ground and stooped to pick it up. As he raised from the ground his eyes caught sight of Ross watching from the corner.

Ross expected him to shout and draw attention to him – but he did not. Instead he indicated with his head for him to leave, run away and to not look back. At least, that's what Ross assumed and ran away from the soldiers. He passed his house but decided against going in, not wanting to see the devastation that was clearly inside and ran back into the woods.

--

It had been two days since his once quiet and out of the way city had been attacked. During those two days he had lived in the woods, foraging for berries when he was hungry and sleeping in cold, damp caves when he needed to rest. It wasn't ideal, but it was surviving.