Lannosea sat atop her mount and ran her sleeve across her forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat and leaving a smudge of soot as she examined the city walls. This close, the heat and smoke were almost more than she could bear. Her horse, a huge black mare known more for her strength than her disposition, shied away from the wall, wary of the flames that consumed it. The ballistae and catapults had certainly done their job, reducing huge sections of the outer wall to smoldering rubble. She and her fellow riders should have little trouble storming the city.
A long, low horn blast sounded behind her. She knew what that meant. The ballistae crews had nearly exhausted their ammunition, which meant it was time for the cavalry to get ready. She held her sword straight up in the air and shouted “Hail Iceni!” Every mounted soldier up and down the line returned the salute, raising their own swords in the air and shouting her words back to her. When the next horn blast came from the ballistae crews, indicating that the long range ammunition was gone, Lannosea lowered her sword and pointed it at the city.
As one, the line of mounted men rode forward, with Lannosea at its head. The creak of their saddles and the pounding of their horses’ hooves were soon drowned out by the noise from within the city. The screams of the injured and the dying overpowered the shouted orders from the town’s remaining defenders, and few of the soldiers on the wall looked like they knew what to do. Most of them stared at the approaching horsemen with a look of fear or resignation. By the look in their eyes, each of them knew they would not live to see the sunrise.
Lannosea could relate. The Iceni cavalry boasted over four thousand battle hardened warriors, each of them bearing multiple scars from one campaign or another. She doubted the Romans had that many legionaries in the entire city. Taking Londinium would be easy.
But she did not intend to come back.
Her mother knew. Lannosea saw it on the Queen’s face when she requested to lead the cavalry charge, and she’d given her consent. Had the queen known? Probably. The queen knew everything. Of course, Lannosea’s death would mean Heanua would one day be queen of the Iceni, but that would probably be for the best. Despite what her mother and suitors said, Lannosea had never really wanted to be queen. Too much responsibility. Her desires were far more mundane. A good husband and a quiet life filled with the laughter of children were more to her taste, but even that could not be now.
A flutter in her belly reminded her why she was doing this. The Roman bastard growing in her womb had ruined everything. Nero’s men had taken her maidenhood as well as her honor, and now they would get her life, as well. It didn’t seem fair, but she would not dishonor her entire family by birthing the bastard child of a Roman legionary. Her shame was hers alone, and she would wipe it away tonight by dying with honor. She could do that much, she knew.
“The Iceni do not fear death,” she whispered under her breath, reciting the mantra her father had taught her as a child. “Death comes for all.”
Fifty yards from the wall, her troops were hit by Londinium’s archers. Scores of arrows sailed through the night at the advancing Iceni, many of them carried small balls of flaming tar on their tips. Several dozen of her men and a score of horses went down under the deadly rain, but dozens more came forward to fill the gaps.
“The Iceni do not fear death. Death comes for all.” Even unborn Roman bastards.
She ordered a full charge and kicked her horse into a gallop. At full speed, the archers on the walls would have time for only one more barrage before Lannosea and her men crossed into the city. One would not be enough to kill her remaining soldiers, not even close. After that it would be over. The cavalry would soften up the remaining defenders, and then the infantry would march in and take care of the rest. The citizens, if any were left alive, might put up a fight, but they would not be able to stop the march of the Iceni. Soon they and their city would be ashes.
Tonight, Londinium would disappear from the maps of the world, and she would earn her place in history. The noble princess who gave everything for her people, they would call her. A hero’s demise in a noble cause. Perhaps they would write songs of her bravery once the war was over. And no one would ever have to know she sought death on purpose, or of the poison fruit in her belly.
The second volley of arrows was a bit more precise, and claimed the lives of over forty men and a score more horses. The man to her right, a noble son of the Iceni named Balwar, grunted and fell from his saddle, his hand wrapped around the vibrating shaft of an arrow that had buried itself in his chest. Still, Lannosea’s prediction that one more flight of arrows would not be enough to stop her troops proved accurate as her horse sailed over the remains of the eastern wall and charged into the fray, followed by four thousand seasoned warriors from her clan.
She swept her sword down and caught one legionary in the shoulder. With the speed of her horse behind the blow, she nearly severed the man’s head. He went down in a bloody, twitching heap, but another soon came up to take his place. Then another, and then several more.
Lannosea looked around the crumbled wall and realized that she and her mother had underestimated the size of the Roman garrison at Londinium. Instead of a few hundred battered legionaries, she and her men faced nearly a thousand of them, and more were coming. She spurred her horse toward a group of soldiers and ran one down while her horse trampled another, yet they still came.
In moments, the scene devolved into complete chaos. The Romans earned their blood, preventing the easy slaughter she had been expecting. Still, as she looked over the battle she knew the Iceni would easily overpower Nero’s men. The Romans were too few, and they had no supply lines and no way to get reinforcements. They were trapped in their city like rats on a burning ship, and this last, desperate attempt to fight back was just that. Desperate. They knew, as she did, that surrendering would do them no good.
Give them credit for that, at least, she thought. For all their faults, these men are not cowards.
Lannosea turned her horse around, intending to run back into the battle and cut down as many legionaries as she could before Roman steel found her flesh. Now that her decision had been made, she felt no qualms about charging into the thickest knot of Romans she could see. They scattered before her like leaves in the wind, yet her sword still managed to bite into them again and again.
After several minutes, she was exhausted, and splattered with the blood of her enemies, but no Roman sword had touched her. She did not want to make it easy for them, but still, this wouldn’t do. Someone in this blasted city had to be strong enough to kill her, otherwise her plan would fail.
She rode through another group of legionaries, singling out one who stood a head taller than most, and nearly cut him in half with a downward swipe of her sword. Her momentum carried her through the knot of people and a short way down the street. Now she was near the wall again, far away from the heaviest fighting. She stared back over the rubble at the advancing Iceni infantry. General Cyric marched at the head of the group. Her heart, which had been so tortured of late, swelled with pride at the sight of her people’s might and glory. This was it, the end of the city.
The infantry was the real strength of her army. Cavalry charges, while devastating, were not thorough enough to destroy an enemy. They could not go everywhere and root out enemies from their hiding places, but the infantry could storm in and flow into every nook and cranny the town had to offer, exposing every hiding place and every survivor. It would be like a black tide washing in from the sea to engulf the people of Londinium.
And good riddance to them.