(1 year ago… dawn)

“Come my boy!” Harold smiled and placed a large hand on Nathanial’s shoulder and guided the young man over towards the circle of hunters. There were eight of them, Nathan’s cousins, brothers, uncles and his father naturally, and today was the first he had been allowed to accompany them on a true hunt. They were going out to provide meat to smoke and cure for the coming winter, hides to keep the people warm against the biting cold that was coming. Nathanial couldn’t be prouder for today he became a full man in the eyes of the rest of the village.

He stood, his head slightly bowed as the oldest man in the village, a man called only the Bear-father by the others, led them in a silent prayer of thanks for the bounty, assuring that they took only from great need, and asking for protection for the men about to go to the hunt. He stood in mute silence as the old man tottered over towards the group, a bowl in one hand the other clutching a great staff. One arm was extended out to the staff, a clawed hand gripping it desperately to keep his bowed, gnarled body upright, a soft wheezing from his lungs from the effort of just walking. To be honest the man had always frightened Nathanial, and he still did. He smelled funny and always seemed to great pain. Men were not supposed to live so long… so long that their bodies failed them in this way… yet the Bear-father had, and so he was awarded great respect by the rest of the village.

The man stopped in front of Nathanial first, and dipped a single finger into the bowl, coming up with his thumb dripping with red viscous liquid and pressed it to his forehead smearing a small line. It was sticky, cold, and thick, and he could feel it running slightly down towards his eyebrows but he dared not wipe it away despite the disquiet it caused in the pit of his stomach. He knew what it was. It was blood, blood of the Bear itself. Feeling the eyes of the rest of the hunters, and the other villagers behind him Nathanial forced himself to swallow the bit of bile threatening to push it’s way up his throat and reached out taking the wooden bowl muttering the words of the prayer over it, echoing the priest line for line, and then lifted the bowl to his lips filling his mouth with the blood. He could feel it there, the salty bite of it, the previously unknown taste of it thick as he swallowed it. A single drop rolled its way down his smooth chin and he gasped and opened his eyes.

The Bear-father smiled nodding his approval and gripped Nathanial’s shoulder briefly before making his way over towards the next man in line and repeated the small ritual seven more times before the party was ready to depart. The village had been here as long as anyone remembered. Stories passed down said that the first who had come to Vale found a land of fertile land, where wildlife thrived having been driven from their previous homeland by barbarians from over the mountains. The story went that two bears, Ursa and Sira had left fish for the starving villages that first winter, and as the snow grew taller and higher and it seemed certain that all would perish from the cold, Ursa and Sira had sacrificed their lives, so that their meat and their fur might protect the people and see them threw until spring. They had survived, and now time later beyond remembering, they were strong still, and still they gave thanks to brother Bear who protected the village to this day.

It was time to depart. The hunters walked silently out of the village together into the woods. As the brother bear did not speak, neither would the hunters while they took the strength of the Bear into themselves on the hunt.

(afternoon)

Nathanial flexed his hand against the wooden shaft of his spear. He could feel the sun beating down on the back of his neck, and then the cooling effect of the shade as his crept forward with an almost painful slowness. They were spread out, in a carefully orchestrated pattern as time honored and tested as anything that they did in the village. It would happen in several stages, a group of hunters would wait upwind of the prey, and then a smaller group would rush out from upwind startling the animals towards the first group which would be waiting with nets, traps, or spears. Today Nathanial was in the second group, it would be his job to get as close as possible to the small group of deer feeding in the small clearing now just a few feet away in a patterned fashion. First his brother would leap up yelling driving them… if they bolted the wrong direction Nathanial would come at them screaming from this direction forcing them to run directly towards the rest of the hunters… where hopefully they would capture and fell at least one or two of the beasts.

His brother did his job without a hitch, charging out of the underbrush a split second after the first deer raised its head, obviously sensing something in the air. But that was when everything had gone tragically wrong. There was a bestial roar as the disturbed bear, obviously roused from a sleep, broke out of the brush as the deer scattered taking the hunters by surprise. Nathanial watched in horror as a clawed hand swept across his brother’s head taking off half his face and sending the large man through the air like a broken wooden doll. The other hunters rushed in hurling spears, firing arrows, trying to distract the bear so that they could get to his brother. Nathanial watched as another roar, a sound that seemed to echo down in his very soul, broke out from the beasts maw as the arrows and spears failed to pierce its thick fur and hide and it turned on the other hunters sending them scattering… falling back. He watched as his Father went down underneath the massive creature a snap of its jaws silencing his screams of fear and pain forever.

Something primal, bestial awoke within Nathanial, and the instinctive fear that had rooted him in the spot gave way to something darker. He charged out of the underbrush gripping his spear tightly as he rammed it home in the beast’s side. It let out a roar as hot fresh blood gushed onto him, the feel so different from the earlier smear that had been put on his forehead. Even the taste was different somehow, more real.. vital as it splashed over his mouth. The bear reared up, taking a swipe at Nathanial that broke his grip on the spear and send him sprawling into the grass and knocked the breath from him. The other hunters attacked the bear again, and Nathanial tried to get to his feet as he watched two of his cousins gutted like fish from a stream and his uncle laying crumbled like a toy, trampled to death by the beast. It was massive, the largest bear he’d ever seen or heard of. Surely it must be the very spirit of Ursa or Sira angered in some way by the people.

Nathanial forced himself back to his feet, his chest and side burning with a cold fire that seemed to suck the air right out of him… but he forced himself forward picking up a fallen spear and charged the beast again, his roar answering that of the bear as red dimmed his vision.

(Present Day.)

Nathanial sat before a fire, his spear clutched between his thighs as he attended to the point with his knife, honing it to a fine edge. The flickering light of the flames caught the pale scar tissue around his muscled shoulder, where the bear’s claw had mauled him that day. It was thick, livid even still, a year later, and the Bear-Father announced its pattern, so reminiscent of the bear’s roaring face, was a mark of special favor from the spirit of Ursa and Sira… as was his survival itself. Of the eight hunters four has been brought back to the village alive. Only Nathanial had survived the wounds.

He leaned forward, his lips puckering slightly as he blew the wooden shavings off into the fire watching them wither and crackle as they hit the flames. With the death of his father, and the nature of his survival, his people had hailed him as the leader of the village almost without decent. His first act, still barely able to use that arm, had been to lead another group into the woods to hunt the bear; for three days they had tracked it through the woods to no avail, it had vanished into the mists… protected seemingly by the God’s themselves. Nathanial had often gone hunting for it sense only seeing it again once, when man and beast had stared each other across an uncrossable ravine the scar on Nathanial’s shoulder and the one from his own spear in the beast’s side where no fur would grow on the bear seeming to link them. He had vowed to kill that bear, and one day he would, and bury its fur in the grave of his father.

Now he had sworn his village to follow the Pagi, overruling the Bear-Father’s objection. He did not believe the people of Vale should involve themselves in such affairs, seeming not to realize that events such as these could not be ignored. The Barbarians, always an ever present threat for the people even in their Spirit protected home, were being driven back, a united effort under a High King of sorts. There were still mixed feelings about it through the whole village, but Nathanial had been resolute, taking himself and half a dozen young men to answer the call to battle when it had been called.

Battles had been won and lost, blood spilt and shed. But ultimately the Gaul’s appeared to be finally gaining the upper hand, opening new lands for their growing population to cultivate. The march of civilization appeared unstoppable. It was anything but of course, and that was exactly the reason that Nathanial had brought these men here to fight. He had seen first hand how capricious the brother Bear could be and over and beyond that the people of Vale could either join the Gaul’s, embrace this change, or face the very real possibility of being consumed by it by one side or the other. No, Nathanial would take his chances this way… as he had done his entire life. Fighting.

“If you sharpen that spear any more Nat I’ll suspect you’re taking up needlecraft!”
One of the men, Elrik quipped silently around a bite of oats mixed with blood. It made a kind of gruel, it did not particularly taste good, but it was sustaining, fortifying. Nathanial smiled a bit and lowered his spear as he looked over to the man and nodded.

“Aye, perhaps I am Elrik, I plan to sew your mouth shut so that our enemies will no longer hear you coming!”

The group chuckled softly and went back to their meals as they watched Nathanial rise and walk off alone away from the fire leaving his spear behind, only his knife tucked underneath his belt. They were accustomed to this. He would kneel alone, away from the group and pray to Smertrios the god of War, and to the Brother Bear for protection for them all in the battle to come, and as they knew… for he did it every night since that day a year ago, renewed his vow to kill the Great Bear.

The fire had burned low and the others of the small war band had lapsed into sleep. Nathanial joined them, knowing he would need his rest for the contest to come.

“Aye, you’ve got the beast in you lad. Ye must learn to use it, or it will be the death of you…” the bear-father to Nathanial upon learning of his Oath to slay the Great Bear

Battle was chaos. It always had been, for as long back as the dawn of time whatever order or plans were put into place by those that called themselves leaders or generals they faded away to nothingness as soon as blood spilt onto the earth. Then it was just men, desperately fighting to survive against other men equally committed to their own survival, locked in a struggle that no longer seemed so important… though surely it must have once seemed so to bring then here… beside the instinctive need, want to draw one more breath.


Nathanial ducked just in time. He could feel the air against his cheek as the wooden shaft of the spear passed against his cheek, scratching its surface. Skin still smooth, he only shaved every couple of weeks, an that mostly because the dewy hair that grew in around his lip an jaw was more an embarrassment than because he truly needed it. He winched, as the tender flesh caught splinters, jagged pieces of wood forced off that column of wood spearing into his flesh that if directed another inch to the left would have passed right through his eye. Such was the margin of error in battle.

He brought his arm up fast trapping the spear against his scratched face and stepped forward his head then snapping forward a crunch heard loud to his years even over the impossible tumult of screams and crashing arms all around him that was the barbarian’s nose giving way beneath the hard flat plain of his forehead. Warm blood ran down his head, not his own, and Nathanial smiled at the yell of pain. He stepped forward his foot stepping between his opponents as he swung upward with the shaft of his own spear, catching his opponent in the middle forcing him back. The barbarian’s leg caught his own and he stumbled just enough, and as he let go of his weapon and tried to regain his balance Nathanial fell into a crouch driving his spear forward with murderous precision catching the man in the gut, the terrified pain filled shriek filling his ears, but did not penetrate the red-dimmed haze of battle that had descended upon him.

Nathanial claimed to not be able to remember a single moment of battle since that first desperate charge against the bear a year ago. It seemed as though another worked through him, shielded him from the reality of what he did and turned the young man into something else once the battle was joined. Together they moved as one, a form of focus, a lean strong body honed to agile perfection as he let go of his own spear and smoothly fell into a slow jog, his enemies now clutched in his hand as he rejoined his small war band attached to the Gaul army. The men of the Vale of the Bear still did not speak. Much like in the hunt the garish screams and bellows of challenge favored by so many were absent among them, they faced battle with emotionless stone faced silence, never speaking, never crying out… not even in death. It was said one barbarian survivor of a raiding party as though they were already dead.

Two of his men were down, dead, wounded, or dying there was no time to determine which as he lashed out again with his captured weapon, catching another barbarian spear just below the point deflecting it upwards over the shoulder of Elrik for whom it had been aimed. The two had known each other since childhood, born within days of one another and almost inseparable since. A bare week had prevented Elrik from joining Nathanial in that hunting party and even the Bear-Father had remarked that it seemed in the year since he had forever been trying to prove himself. As though not having been there when so many died was some mark of shame. It was disgraceful logic born of pain and so was never commented upon, merely endured and watched carefully to insure others were not brought down by the youth’s death wish. Nathanial intended to bring Elrik home to his family as he had not been able to his father and brothers. A dozen strong sons were in Elrik’s future if he had anything to say about it.

Nathanial followed the block smoothly forward, his forward movement forcing the barbarian to give a step or risk opening himself completely to another thrusting spear. Without speaking Elrik brought his spear up smoothly into the air and fell into a crouch rolling around behind Nathanial’s back bringing him around onto the barbarian’s flank and driving it deeply into his side. The man bellowed in agony and fell, a savage kick to the chest as he sank to his knees from Nathanial forcing him off Elrik’s spear. Another figure emerged, this one looking better, bellowing his challenge in a blood curdling scream that was answered in that same reactionless silence that had greeted so many enemies in the people’s past.

The two young men flowed forward as one, Elrick thrust met by a solid shield made of oak and stretched bull hide, Nathanial’s met with the swipe of a club. The two worked in tandem forcing the man ever backwards kept out of range of his powerful spiked club by the quick hard jabs of the spears, and the impassive young, blood smeared faces that seemed to slowly unnerve the warrior. The barbarian outweighed either of the young men by over a hundred pounds of solid muscle and was probably twice their age as well, age spent in hard fought battles and plunder and experience with his weapons. He pivoted to one side letting Elrik’s spear glance off his shield and then shoved it forward catching the young man flat in the face and chest to send him back to the earth stunned. He roared rearing back with his terrible club intending to dash out the youth’s brains and then let out a scream as Nathanial’s spear found purchase in his right thigh. Fresh red blood pumped hungrily from a nicked artery spurting into the green spring grass on the valley floor.

The club was redirected forcing Nathanial to leg go of his weapon and fall into a forward roll jarring his shoulder on the ground but escaping getting his head caved in by the mighty swing. He completed the roll coming back to his feet in time to be met by another charge from the warrior, the shield filling his vision as he was backed up forced to give ground by the superior size, weight and momentum of the larger warrior. He twisted managing to roll off the shield to one side and falling back to the earth using the slight down slope they were on to roll over several times putting distance between himself and the now enraged warrior. He let out another bellow of a challenge as Elrik was now on his feet, charging back at the barbarian spear in hand a solid ‘tonk tonk’ noise of his spear striking the wooden shield over and over reminded Nathanial of a woodpecker for one brief moment. He scrambled across the grass for his spear, laying where it had fallen when he had let go of it, the tip red with the barbarian’s blood and let his fingers curl reassuringly around it. He ignored the stiffness in his scared shoulder, refusing to give into the weakness from the earlier fall or the fact that the arm had never been completely as strong after the encounter with the bear. It was strong enough.

Elrik had backed the Barbarian up, but once more the savvy veteran of more battles and fights than either of these young men could yet fathom had the answer. He punched forward with his shield catching the spear before it could be fully extended and forced it upwards the spear passing harmlessly over his head and Elrik stretched out opening up the long swath of his torso. For Nathanial the world seemed to move in slow motion as he got to his feet, grass passing beneath him like a solid green blur as he ran, fast as his feet could carry him. Long limbs made strong by a life time of hard work and training spured by the limitless energy of youth had never failed him. Yet he was not fast enough to stop the swing of the club before it smashed into Elrik’s ribs. He fancied he could almost hear the ribs cracking even as far away as he was, for he could certainly see the chest turn concave for just a moment, the youths whole body bending around the blow and then spinning through the air to land several feet away. Blood exploded from the young man’s mouth as punctured lungs filled his chest cavity with blood… it would be minutes of agony yet before he died…

Nathanial did not scream. He did not yell, it was not their way. He hurled his spear his whole body coiling like a spring and then exploding forward propelling the projectile with rocket like precision as it flew through the air. The Barbarian laughed giving another roar, his shield coming up in plenty of time to block the shot, but his quiet confidence was shattered as the head of the spear punched clean through the thick wood and leather cutting into the flesh of his forearm effectively pinning the shield to it and he screamed. The Barbarian tried to lower the shield and then had his second shock as Nathanial had taken flight, leaping into the air the front of his knees pressed up against his chest and crashed into the shield, forcing it back into the Barbarian’s chest where a combination of pain and the terrific impact of the blow knocked him right over, air driven from his lungs. Then he stared upwards into blue eyes filled with limitless hate. He stared into the face of youthful death as blood mixed with this young man’s sweat dripped down on him. It was the last sight he would ever see, immortalized Nathanial’s knife slammed down into the soft vulnerable throat, a gargle and sputter of blood signaling the end of his fight and his life.

The day belonged to the Gauls. But the cost. The price. If this was war Nathanial saw no glory in it. Only blood, and filth, and death. Later that night, the battle long over, the four surviving men from the Vale knelt together around their small fire sending cries of pain, loss and sorrow into the air as they grieved for their dead. It went on long into the night and the next day when the camp was broken and the warband marched to the next battle, four men of dead stony silence rejoined the army…

It was two days after the warband had returned to Bretagne that the first warrior approached the men of Vale as they sat in their small circle. Conversation ceased as four heads turned as one to the interloper, but no words were spoken… he obviously had something to say or he wouldn’t have ventured here, the people had certainly made few enough attempts to interact with the rest of the war band. It was their way, their village was quite isolated and rarely did they see other people’s, it created a very tight knit insular community… one of the great reasons it had taken so much effort on Nathanial’s part to sway them to pledge themselves to the Gauls.

The warrior was large, easily outweighing any of the four men of Vale by thirty pounds of, from the look of it, hair and muscle primarily and was about an inch taller than Luc who was the tallest of those who still lived which put him almost head and shoulders taller than Nathanial himself who was only just now beginning to grow into the size he would one day possess. For most that would be something to be defensive about, however when one had learned to kill without passion or emotion making it a part of yourself… such frivolous fits of ego no longer seemed important; he knew his worth and needed not the judgment of others to verify it so.

“You are not Gaul! You are not wanted here!” The man snarled, his beard slightly matted, not yet having taken the time to truly wash the accumulated filth from the campaign from himself. The four men of Vale looked to each other without speaking and nodded, three turning away leaving Alan to speak to the large warrior. Nathanial allowed himself a small reserved smile, shared in secret with the other two as they squatted back down beside the fire and picked their weapons back up tending carefully to their upkeep as the did every evening.

“And ye are not a man but some kind of beast surely!” Alan said stepping up towards the warrior, a rather infuriating grin on his features. A long jagged scar flowed lividly across Alan’s chest. The scar was actually a momento from a less than happy former lover… however it did look battle earned, it had been a deep savage cut and the Bear-Father had been surprised the young man had survived.

The Gaul growled.

“Ack! It even growls… Nathanial I do think we have a spirit of Brother Bear trapped inside this brute. But who can tell with all that hair in the way? ‘tis purely a mystery…”

“Why you…” the big man reared back a meaty fist and took a swing at Alan who moved his head to the right fractionally allowing the blow to sail through the space where his head had been. In the same motion he stepped forward into the man’s instep and drove his hands hard into the warrior’s torso making him grunt and back up knocked off balance by the blow.

The big man caught his balance with impressive quickness and gave a roar as he launched himself back forward where once again he had but a moment to see Alan’s impassive silent face before he seemed to blur to the side at the last possible instant leaving his foot in the warrior’s path to catch upending the large man who fell with a startled shout into the sand. The other three men of Vale were on the Warrior in an instant holding him down while Alan lined up and took a running start before slamming his booted foot square into the big warriors right buttock drawing out a started bellow and making the warrior lurch forward carrying all three of the other men forward with him.

“That’s it! Now we’ve found a use for ye! You’re to be the warband’s newest ass!”

The other three men of Vale broke into laughter and rolled off the big warrior who bounded up, his face crimson with fury and sputtering his anger preventing him from even forming words as the four young men then stepped together side by side, their joviality suddenly gone. Nathanial reached into his belt removing the knife he kept there and tossed it into the dirt at the warrior’s feet and slid a second out of his boot and simply waited with an arched eyebrow. The big warrior looked confused for a moment and then glanced down at the knife and the color slowly began to drain out of his features.

“Never you think this is over!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it Brother Ass!” Alan called out to him as the man wandered away, eyes vowing vengeance as he glanced back over his shoulder.

Nathanial just shook his head a little bit and bent to retrieve his knife. “I think perhaps you might have overdone it just a touch Alan, don’t you think?”

“Do you want me to go apologize to him Chief? I’m sure that I could find a ripe apple to feed him somewhere around here….”

Again the four men shared a quiet laugh and returned to their labors. It was Luc who took up the conversation next. He was a quiet man for all of being one of the largest men in the village… and prone to deep thoughts which some mistook for being slow of wit.

“What think ye of these “Games”?”

Nathanial paused, his knife kicking free an abnormally large chunk of wood from the side of his spear before he paused.

“War is not something that should be played at.” He said with a big of a nod.

“You know that is not that which I am referring to…” Luc responded. Alan, and Trent the fourth surviving man of Vale were both quiet waiting to see how Nathanial would respond.

“That is not our way and you well know it Luc.”

“Aye,” he said with a nod, “I do, but… one sometimes does wonder my chief if YOU still remember it.”

Nathanial arched an eyebrow, ever so slightly and turned his gaze to each of the three men in turn to gauge their reaction to that statement and then nodded.

“Noted. Alan will stay with me here… Luc.. Trent.. return to Vale, leave on the morrow. You have earned your rest and a fresh war band should be raised from some of the hunters that were left behind this time.”

“What about me?” Protested Alan weakly. He had been the most eager… after dear departed Elrik, in his desire to come on this great adventure. Perhaps some of the eagerness had left him, spilled to ground much like the blood of their friends and cousins had spilt onto the earth in battle. He did not fool any of the three however, they knew he did not really want to return to the village… the others however both had young children at home, a fact which Nathanial well knew.

“You Alan?” Said Nathanial flashing him a quick wink as he leaned forward. “Why my brother we stay here to give Teutates his due from the blood of our enemies.”

Alan smiled and nodded.

“Of course, just so long as I get to stab something…”

“Aye,” Said Luc, “we all know how much he likes to…. Stab.”

The four men shared another laugh and passed around a skin of wine as the embers of the fire began to burn low.

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..."

The years had been by combinations cruel and kind to the Iberians. Tribes had rallied to the war chief and left, villages warred with each other over streams, hunting grounds, and even grazing land. These conflicts were as old as the Iberians themselves and it was not the War Chief's place to end them. There had been victims of this conflict, warriors of great potential had found their lives ended too early, and even the great Archon had fallen to death.

So it was that the leader of a small group of Northern villagers, heading south after barbarians drove them from their ancestral homeland came to be hailed as War Chief and Archon of the Iberian tribes. As the title's previous holder had discovered the tribal leaders of these villages would follow only the strength of a warrior they respected... and this had to be constantly earned. He ruled by no right, only by the strength of his arm and the power of his reputation. It had not proved an easy calling, for though his warriors were loyal and brave, they had been young and few in number. And so the decision had been made to blood them, to march north against a neighboring tribe, to let them temper their blades and their hearts with blood spilt on the battlefield.

New heroes had emerged from obscurity young, Shamis and Bathlor, covered in glory after long years of honing their craft to fine edges, stalwart orphan, ever a source of stoic silent support, and passionate Shayara whose blood covered visage struck horror in the hearts of her foes. Then there was Nathanial himself, his massive two handed weapon held almost like a staff tipped with a wickedly curved blade that hacked down warriors in his path with reckless abandon. Some might say that as Archon is place was no longer at the fore of the battle, but the years that had made him a warrior and leader, had also taught him otherwise.

His deep gray eyes looked up around the campfires hidden in a small valley between high hills a short distance from the battlefield where they had again clashed with their enemies. A fresh wound had parted the armor covering his leg and one of his warriors even now tended to it washing and binding it tightly. Even now when the wind blew just right the faint whiff of death could be almost tasted upon the air, it turned the stomach and took the mind back towards the latest clash between the warbands.

After their raid deep into the enemy territory they had ventured South themselves, away from the defensive fortifications they had used to avoid clashes. They were a lean, hungry looking lot to the Archon's eyes, much as the Iberians had been when he had been hailed ruler. What the future held for these people he did not know, but they had continued to mount a dogged resistance in the face of defeat, and thus their bravery had at least earned the Archon's respect.

Only time would tell what that would mean.

"Rouse the men at daybreak. We will pursue the enemy back to his den."

The tribesman nodded and left his Archon to find what rest he could.