Unknown Armies - Holiday in Caledonia Playtest 2 Part 4

The rest of the mercenaries arrived with Drusus the next day. There were ten of them, a mix of Latins and Britons and Saxons. The Veterans quartered them in the horreum because it was the biggest building that could be enclosed with a door and heated with a fire. The women of the colony didn't trust the strange men to sleep in the same houses as their children, even if their leader was a member of the family. That leader, Drusus, sat in council with the other Veterans in his father Rusticus' house. Together they planned the raid on the Horned Ladies. The colony didn't have enough food for everyone for the whole winter. They needed to steal some cattle.

 

But first they needed to talk about the mercenaries. Drusus had established rules for the company that he enforced with lethal violence. They fought for the winning side and they didn't steal from one another. The men would leave the families alone as long as he and Seaxneat were there. As long as the men didn't get really drunk he could control them. Rusticus figured his son had a problem with alcohol. The Veterans discussed emergency plans and how they were going to manage ten extra colonists. Vita served them pickled asparagus and casually opened a window, dumping a load of snow on someone outside who cursed in a Germanic language. Valerian invited Seaxneat inside, if he wanted to be part of the battle planning that was fine. Somewhere outside the house, Vectica laughed at her owner/husband, who threw a snowball at her. They wrestled in the snow while the Veterans and the Captain of the mercenaries went over the battle plan.

 

The problem was they didn't know where the Horned Ladies were. They had maybe fifteen, sixteen combat effectives (depending on if you counted the maimed Martial, the slave Thracius and the older children) to split between defending the camp and raiding the barbarians. Any more than a maniple of soldiers would be impossible to conceal. They were confident the barbarians had observed the mercenaries' arrival, they had someone on the cliff in the forest to the west. They settled on a two man mounted scouting party. They'd ride to the west and see if the Horned Ladies were camped in the woods. If they weren't there, they must be encamped to the north in the mountains. According to their wives, those were the likely spots for a Pictish war camp. Either way, they'd report back and the main raiding party would set out to do some real damage.

 

 

Seaxneat came inside, leading his wife on a gold chain made from looted jewelry. It was supposed to symbolize his control over her but it was made of gold so it would just break if he yanked it too hard. The Veterans admonished Seaxneat that, while he was welcome at the war council, his untrustworthy slave was not. He told her to leave and she picked up a log from the fire, smoldering at one end, to carry with her for warmth. Incensed at the pilfering from her hearth, Vita struck the Horned Lady. Vectica dropped the log, which started a small house fire that the Veterans rushed to stomp out while Seaxneat instinctively reached for his clip-pointed blade to defend his wife. Drusus restored order, yelling at Vectica to leave, Seaxneat to keep his knife in its holster, and Vita to please not hit Seaxneat's wife. The Saxon was like a brother to him and that made his wife Vita's daughter in law.

 

Rusticus was a natural pick for a mounted reconnaissance mission. Drusus was the obvious second man for a father and son expedition, but after some discussion they selected Valerian for the job. Rusticus was the best horseman but Valerian was most adept at moving unseen. They took the colony's draft horse and Drusus' donated his fat little mount. They admonished their children to be good and stay away from the mercenaries. Saturnia came out of her house covered in woad, like she'd been eating it. She pressed blue handprints to the horses and to the men. She spoke to Shining Mars and Crucified Man and Storm King and Three Mothers.

 

Don't let us lose

Don't let them die

Don't let us lose

Don't let them die 

 

Then they left. Out through the gate and around the colony where the animals grazed in the snow. West toward the cliff. There was no way to go unobserved so they elected to move fast instead. Which proved easy for Rusticus, a Gothic horse lord from a tribe where boys learned to ride before they learned to walk. Less so for Valerian. In the reeking metropolis of his youth, there were gangs who fought on horseback, riding fast and tossing projectiles at their victims before retreating. He wasn't one of them.

 

 

Back at the Colony, Tarquin and his Phrygian slave Thracius malted grain to make beer. They loaded peat into the oven and cooked the cereals to partially open them so they could be used for brewing. Drusus didn't want his men getting wasted but there were necessities a man couldn't live without. By this point the mercenary Captain and his Saxon lieutenant had clouted the men out of the horreum to help with various agricultural tasks. Fellogild the Saxon and Varro the Roman came over to "help". Varro sexually harrassed Thracius, who slapped his hand. Tarquin let him off with a warning. His gladius still worked, and so did his gladius. He contemplated selling Thracius to the mercenaries like they did with Vectica. He told himself that's what a paterfamilias in charge of a commercial enterprise did, still entertaining fantasies of trade routes and a resurrected commercial empire.

 

Martial came out of his house, living wood leg thicker than when last the Veterans saw him. He led a spring lamb and carried the bronze knife from Tarquin's dream. Tarquin asked what he was doing and the freedman ignored him. He held the animal, which had no cause to fear him. Only associated humans with companionship and play and food. He slashed its throat and it died. Heather grew where the blood splashed in the mud, steaming before it froze and died. Varro freaked out and ran away. Tarquin told Fellogild he didn't see shit, then went to help his comrade. Martial realized where he was and what he just did and fell to the ground covered in blood. He had no memory of killing the animal but told Tarquin he needed to catch the blood. With oats it would make good sausage. The blood could be salvaged. Thracius helped Martial back into the house for Saturnia to shout at in Pictish. Tarquin cleaned the animal and shouted at Saturnia to come help clean and dress the lamb. She told him to make his catamite do it.

 

The scouts reached the forest. They found a hidden place to leave the horses where they wouldn't be shredded by the wind or buried in snow. They searched the undergrowth but found only footprints leading up to the cliff. No cows or horses or people. They had climbed the cliff before. It was within a day's walk of the colony, after all. The footprints led up the trail and they followed them, though they had no indication it was still occupied. Rusticus almost slipped and fell. The path was frozen and it was a long way down. The cliff was shaped like a stone man, lots of landforms were. This one had a rock formation at the top like a face, trapped in a scream. Someone painted red ochre on it. Valerian wiped the paint away. Rusticus spotted a rider, a painted barbarian atop a small, fat horse riding hard across the moor. North toward the mountains.

 

Fuck. What was he going to tell his son? 

 

Tarquin went to Valerian's house to get curing salt for the lamb. He noticed Valerian's teenage daughter Aurora by the grate that allowed the frozen river to flow into the perimeter. Her health was improving after the fire, which was good. What was she looking at? Aurora lied, badly. She found a frog in the ice. Was it still alive in there? Could they eat it? Tarquin crouched to look. He saw no frog, which didn't surprise him. Through the grate, outside the perimeter wall, he saw a discarded fascinus. A protective amulet shaped like a cock and balls, worn by the children of the Colony to protect them from Peg Leg and other evil spirits. Someone dropped it in the mud. Tarquin asked who was out there. Aurora told him she hadn't picked a name for the frog yet. Someone's boot went squelch in the mud, and the perpetrator swore in a Germanic tongue before realizing that he'd given his position away. 

 

Tarquin climbed up the firestep to look over the palisade. The Saxon warrior Theogar took off running, fell down in the snow because his trousers fell around his ankles, picked them up and continued running into the field. Rusticus' daughter Paula sat in the mud and sulked, cloak soaked with mud and snow as though she'd been rolling on the ground. He told her to come inside the perimeter. She would only come inside if he promised not to tell her dad. He asked if she was going to stay out there all day. She said she was.

Tarquin found Vita and told her the score: one of the mercenaries just fucked her daughter. Vita grabbed her husband's two handed ax and headed for the gate. The Veteran managed to talk her down. She should wait for her husband to get back, then together they'd take the matter to Drusus and see how he handled it. He needed a chance to prove that he was ready to discipline his men, whether that meant beheading Theogar or forcing him into a spatha wedding. 

 

Then he went to ask Saturnia what the fuck was going on with Martial. Saturnia told him that the thing inside Martial was forcing him to reenact his victory over the bear. The triumph of man over nature. There was no telling what would happen next, she hadn't advanced to that stage of the mysteries and even Ayr, the leader of the tribe, had never killed a God before. Out the corner of his eye, Tarquin saw Aurora help Paula over the perimeter wall and back into the settlement.

The scouts came back sans one horse. Drusus wasn't happy about the loss of his mount but relished the opportunity to roast his father, who had beaten him on several occasions for similar losses when he was a child. On the bright side, they knew where the Horned Ladies were now. The mountains to the north. 

 

Tarquin told Rusticus that a mercenary fucked his daughter and was hiding somewhere in the fields outside the colony. Rusticus' wife Vita confirmed this. They talked it over as a family. It was an offense against the hospitality they offered the newcomers. But if the soldier could be gently coerced to do the right thing and marry her, they wouldn't have to worry about her running away to join the hill tribes. But then, if they just let him marry her that was going to send the wrong message to the other mercenaries: fuck our kids and be rewarded. So they'd cut off some of his fingers or something. Nothing that would affect his ability to fuck or fight, but something that would hurt. But they had to give Drusus a chance to settle the debt first. On paper he was in command of these idiots. He needed to be confronted with the lapse in discipline under his leadership and offered an opportunity to correct the insult to his family by one of his subordinates. 

 

So they told their son that his henchman fucked his sister, and Drusus immediately took the family ax out into the field and tried to kill Theogar. Paula ran out and begged her brother not to kill him, and the pissed off Captain shoved her aside. Outside the Colony he picked up the Saxon's trail. The guy sprang up out of the snow and ran for it. The mercenaries stood on the parapet and watched their commander chase their brother in arms. They were divided. Some felt that Theogar had it coming, fucking the boss' sister like that. Some felt it was a violation of the group's rules. Paula wasn't Drusus' property, she belonged to his father, and anyway she was at that age where she needed a man anyway. The Roman members of the company suggested that, under the old law, Drusus ought to irrumate the offender for his transgression against his family honor, not behead him. Seaxneat told them to shut the fuck up in front of the clients. 

 

 

The mercenaries silently laid wagers on how far Theogar would get. They had nothing constructive to spend their gold on and bet obscene sums on trivial things. Paula shouted at Theogar to run. Drusus chased him but he had put on his panoply in anticipation of getting to do a cattle raid against the Horned Ladies, while the Saxon was dressed only in his winter clothes. The offender outran his outraged commander and Drusus almost threw the family ax in a last ditch attempt to hit him.  

  

Theogar got away. Drusus came back inside the fence and told his men that, to move faster, they'd be raiding the Horned Ladies without their armor. That at least got a laugh out of them. He talked it over with his dad, who suggested letting Theogar live and marry his sister. Drusus felt dumb saying it, but after some coaxing he admitted that he wanted to decimate his unit because it would make him feel like a real centurion. He'd order the guys to club the Saxon to death and for a moment it would be like he was back in the Legion, instead of this ragged outfit that he had dragged into his parents' house to cause problem. Rusticus told his son that hunting Theogar would delay the operation against the Horned Ladies, but letting him escape risked him being captured by the enemy (or turning himself in voluntarily) and giving up information.

 

Drusus shouted to his men that he had bad news. They had disgraced the legion and now they were being decimated. They needed to draw lots and unfortunately he could already tell them who got the short one. It was time for them to go out into the field, hunt Theogar down and beat him to death. The men grumbled, because it was a lot less fun than watching their Captain do it. He shouted at the mercenaries and, like someone cast a spell on them, they took to the task with genuine enthusiasm.

Valerian talked with his kids. His sons wanted to go with him to raid the Horned Ladies. It hurt him bad that they still wanted to adventure with him after they got injured because of him. Lucanus by fire and Pompey by friendly fire. He told them to stay home and protect the camp against raiders. Thracius passed out small daggers of knapped flint and cloth to all the boys and girls of the colony. In a closed society of only a few people they had never needed to fear assault by a strange man who viewed them as easy prey. They never learned what it was like. The battle plan was to leave some of the mercenaries behind in the camp, and the Phrygian slave feared the kids wouldn't know what to do if they tried something.

 

Tarquin talked to his wife Maeve about Martial. He was worried that the freedman was going insane and might do something violent. The Pictish woman didn't tell her husband what she really wanted to say, and she didn't nag him. She asked what he wanted her to do about it. He couldn't think of anything, he was just worried about his wife and their daughter Lucretia. She could tell his mind was elsewhere, still entertaining grand fantasies about trade routes and functioning roads and a resurgent Roman civilization far from the chaos in the south. She asked why he wasn't taking Thracius with him to raid the Horned Ladies. Surely he'd prefer to have his fucktoy along for the ride. Because, said her husband, I want someone I trust here to protect you and the kids from mercenaries and barbarians and power mad Godmen in trance states. This, she had to admit, was a genuine sacrifice on his part.