In the years since Nathanial had led his people South from Gaul to find yet another new homeland for them much had changed about him. Gone was the boyish smile, the little twinkle in the eye that bespoke of one always ready with a willing jape. In its place was the stony expression of a hardened warrior.

His days had be filled with drill, of teaching younger men how to fight... together and separately. Many of them were lost now some victims of that same training and others simply vanished into the wilderness that was still being carved out of the land of the various tribes that called themselves Iberian. Most were victims of inter-tribal warfare that only the call to war could ever truly stamp down... not even their fear of himself or August, the Archon of the Iberians could ever truly stop.

Now though that horn had sounded...

********

The sun set slowly behind Nathanial's back sending rays of dimming light that sparkled across the blood and sweat that covered his skin. His Rumphalia rested on the ground to one side of him, butt braced against the earth while blood and gore dripped off it. He looked south east, the direction the invaders had fled in and was content. They still held the passes to the rest of Iberian land, the invader would have to swing wide to continue their assault and they would have time to meet him head on and roust the local tribesmen once again.

It was against his grain to do this, he was aggressive by nature, yet he was above all a War Chief and his responsibility was to know the strengths of his men. They had not fought together much, there was very little sense yet of being a host, they were just a mass of warriors charging blindly and it showed. But they were learning... And with each day he knew they would learn still more, and the blows that fell from this war would strike them like hammers on a smith's anvil knocking away the imperfections and tempering them into the hardened force that could be made into something better.

Such was the way of the world.

He missed his friends, so many had been lost... Carlos, Juan, Rex... warriors he knew he could trust lost to the sands of time. Yet the skill of his wife was unquestioned, when the local tribesmen had broken, his warriors standing alone he had charged alongside her horse and together the enemy had been forced to leave the field.

Pity they had remained in good order.

A little hint of a smile cracked his face as his free hand wiped away blood that was caked into his blond beard.

"You know brother, I think you might be compensating waving that big thing around like that!"

Nathanial shifted looking over his shoulder the rough smile trying slightly sardonic as Luc and Alan lopped up the hill towards him. They were hunters of his own Tribe, which called the Brown Bear its totem, and had been his friends since boyhood. They were of the few families who had traveled south with him and were the leaders of the tribe in his absence. They had stood with him at his hand fasting and were always at his side when trouble struck.

"Compensating is it..." Nathanial said turning about and extending his right arm to clasp with Alan's own forearm in the Roman fashion, "You do like to wag your tongue..."

"And all the ladies love me for it...,"

"Perhaps that is because there is so little else about you that it is to their enjoyment!"

A laugh escaped the older and much taller Luc, and Alan looked stricken for a moment before the smile returned to his face.

"I yield, just don't hit ME with that damn thing you call a weapon."

Nathanial cocked an eyebrow for a moment and nodded his head in the direction of the fires where the rest of the Iberians were camping and the three walked together in that direction.

"Don't give me cause...," and then smiled again, "Come, let us join the rest for a well earned dinner."

"What are we eating?" Asked Luc.

"What else.... rabbit stew..."