Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat I

Part One: The Night

It was a lonely post, and boring too, Larcius thought as he saluted with a clenched fist to his breast as the men stationed for first watch took their places on the wall. He waited while the men took their places and nodded as their sergeant got them arranged in their places and he trusted the man to maintain the watchfulness of the men under his command.
Larcius moved down the wooden stairs and each stepped creaked under his weight, he stood half a head taller than most men, was muscled from a life of constant training and action and was weighed down by his full armour and weapons.
They had spent the last month building the fort, it was an attempt to expand the boundaries of the empire's Pannonian border. Located fifteen miles from the city and fort at Aquincum this fort was surrounded by a heavy forest and many Slavic villages. The villages populations were made up of Serbs and Croats, barbarians who were mostly passive unless their land was taken away, this unlike the Germanic tribes who oft invaded in large parties and fought pitched battles with legions of Roman soldiers. Larcius had once served on that border but a misjudgment in battle had landed him halfway across the empire to a province who had but one stationed legion.
For the last hundred years the Slavic tribes of this region had been pounded into subservience and most were content with moving away from the ever expanding border of the empire.
Larcius moved towards his quarters, tonight he would sit alone and write his weekly report to be taken to the Legate of the II Adiutrix legion. It was in the Legate's lavish office where he was told he was to take a band of misfits and auxiliaries 15 miles from the border and establish a fort for future occupation. He would have five centuries under his command, one and a half cavalry and three and a half foot. With this he would routinely patrol the surrounding area and protect the fort while it was constructed by the army of workers who would accompany them.
And so far they had far exceeded their original expectations. By the first week he had surveyed the walls and they were almost completely in place with a ditch dug around the entire perimeter and by the third week oversaw the erecting of the barracks, stables, officer's quarters and the mess hall. They were now into their sixth week and all the men were beginning to dull with the routine of inaction. He had sent the cavarly on a patrol east to west this morning and they ought to return within the next two hours before nightfall.
He passed some men and continued on without socializing or inspecting their work if they were not off-duty. He was nither in the mood for banter or criticism. His friend and lieutenant Ruffus was approaching with a broad smile on his face.
"Larcius old friend, please tell me you aren't going to turn me down for a game of dice," he moved in closer and lowered his voice, "we need to talk, now. In private."
The words made it an order but the tone of his voice was something different, Larcius could sense a nervousness and fear in his lieutenants voice. Fear was not a typical tone to hear from Ruffus and as such it threw Larcius off kilter.
"I would never dream of it Ruffus," Larcius responded as they stepped into his quarters and closed the door behind them. His quarter's was a small hut constructed of wood with just two small rooms. He moved into the open bedroom and began to remove his armour and weapons.
"Speak Ruffus," was all he said and he removed his helmet and began working on the buckles of his chestplate.
Ruffus was looking out of one of the windows and removed his own helmet, placing it on the spartan table and pulled back a chair to sit on. He ran his hand through his dark hair and moved down to scratch the beginnings of the beard that had started to grow in the last couple days. Larcius' own head was completely shaven and he paused after removing the chestplate to look out the doorway of his bedroom at his old friend.
Looking up Ruffus managed an odd smile and got up again and looked out the window.
"I overheard a few of my men talking while they worked today. They spoke of a dark evil from long ago, of an affliction that makes men look dead but somehow they are still alive. They said they have seen omen's that do not bode well for us. I know what you're thinking but these are men who I know have fought and killed men before, this is not the idle chatter of adolescent boys. It rattled me the way they spoke of these creatures."
"Ruffus they are superstitous and the stories you have heard warrent no merit or concern. Why should you be so affected? We are not going to be attacked by invincible creatures from hell, I ought to send you up on the wall for the night watch for bringing such talk to me as though we are about to have a mutiny on our hands," Larcuis retorted. Completely shed of his armour, save for his thick leather kilt he removed his dirty, sweaty tunic and grabbed a new one from his clothing chest.
"Wine?" he asked as he walked past Ruffus and grabed a wineskin from a seperate chest and without waiting for an answer placed two glasses on the table.
"Please. I don't know how to respond to you Larcius. You know me not to be a fright or a gossip but the way the men spoke..." Ruffus said no further as he raised the glass to his lips and took a very long sip.
Looking down at the table in front of him Larcius thought for a moment more before speaking again. His intial reaction had been disbelief, now he was bordering on anger.
"Perhaps it has been too long a day and the work too mundane. Tonight we shall dine with the men and perhaps their spirits shall be lifted," he said biting back the sharp words he thought of unleashing upon his old friend.
"Very good sir," was all Ruffus said in reply.

That night most of the men, save for the one and a half centuries who were either on guard or would take up the other half of the night watch ate and drank their rations of salted pork and wine together. There was a forced labour to the conversation for those men who were Serbs or Croats which was about half the men. These men had primarily served as auxilaries to the II Adiutrix and were easily replaced amoung the population of Aquincum. When it reached three hours after sundown and the night began to take on a slight chill most men had already found their bunks. Ruffus was no where to be seen and Larcius left the party of officers to continue their conversation of women and feats of valor to check in with the stable master.
He could not recall during their dinner nor after hearing the cavalry come back from patrol. The stable master was an old Slav by the name of Dragan. He entered the larger of the two stables where Dragan had actually made his home only to find it abandoned. It was a bright night, the moon nearly full and he strained his eyes trying to pierce the darkness.
"No one is going to come back Commander," Dragan said, the voice coming from the darkest corner of the stable.
"Who do you speak of Dragan? I have come to inquire after the cavalry, you have received no word from Fronto?" Larcius asked, speaking of the lieutenant of his cavalry detachment.
"No sir, nor do I suspect we will. There have been bad omen's of late, first the men found a dead hawk outside the gate this morning," Dragan spoke softly.
"Surely you don't expect me to be bothered with this," Larcius said, a little more than frustrated, as he turned to leave Dragan spoke again.
"The bird was an albino, this is a very bad sign amoung my people. Also the carpenters hauled in a dead tree today, this tree was black, black as the darkest night I have ever seen. There has been other signs, death is descending upon this place."
"So we are all to die then? Am I to wake up tomorrow in the underworld? Shall I pack some coins with which to bring the ferryman?" This was said with more than a little sarcasm.
"No. What I meant was the dead descend upon us. The living dead. The only way to kill such a creature is decapitation. Cut the legs out from under it and it will pull itself along the ground towards you. It's the biting that turns you. A bite will turn a man in under an hour into one of those things. I saw one once, when I was a very young boy. A man, or what we thought was a man, came into our village. He had vicious bite marks on his arms and shoulders and barely had the strength to walk let alone wield the bloody sword he carried. He spoke of a terror that wiped out his family, slow moving but relentless, pressing and ever pressing against the gates until they broke. He thought he had made it safe from his village but ran into a group not a mile from our town. He had tried to kill the wretched beasts but was taken from behind. He warned us off, warned us they were coming. He had my father cut his head from his shoulders without flinching or any fear. He feared becoming one of them more than certain death. That Commander Larcius is what decends upon us." Dragan was shaking and his eyes were closed, reliving his story.
"Dragan that story may work to prevent your children from running away but it will not keep me awake this night. You are lucky no one is around, I would have to have you punished if you spoke in such a way in front of the men. I am to be notified immediatly upon the return of our cavalry, they have obviously camped for the night and will return in the morrow." Larcius turned and stalked off to his quarters, fuming with frustration over the sudden superstition that the men seemed to have adopted because of the number of times the wind blew and the colouring of dead plants and animals.
He stepped into his dark quarters and by memory took the five paces to his bedside and removed his clothing and was in his bed sleeping within minutes.