Tales of Ancient Rome: Salidia and Lydia Chapter 7 & 8

                                                    Chapter 6 Continued

That was a fortuitous turn of events. She looked again at the young girl who was now leaning against Andeocene's leg, listening to the men talk as Andeocene stroked her hair. Salidia now started to think about the Little Lion as a fighter

 

They were talking about strange animals they had seen. Cetus was telling them about the giant black fire breathing fish he had seen at sea. He was telling them about a pod of them that surrounded his ship, and then passed the ship by. They were longer than the ship, and rose up and down in the water, coming to the surface at the top. And when one was along side the ship and came to the top, he had seen a hole open up in it heads, and a giant plume of smoke and hot steam rushed out, to the sound of, "Wisshhhs."

Too shy to speak in front of the group, Lydia whispered to Andeocene, "What's a lion?" He repeated the question to the group.

All the men were recruited in Rome, so they knew what a lion was and they knew where the question came from. Presphene got up, and stalked toward the girl, hunched over, moving his arms as if walking on them, imitating a lion. "It's a giant, ferocious cat that weighs as much as three men and stands as high as a man's waist, and it can pick a man up like a cat grabs a mouse and run away with him to eat him all up." Andeocene held the girl's shoulder: "Don't scare the girl, Pressie."

Lydia looked up at Andeocene, "Are there really such animals, giant cats? And they hunt men?" Andeocene nodded, "yes," to her, "Yes, ferocious animals that hunt men, and even a man with a shield and lance is very lucky to survive an attack."

Presphene started to stalk toward the girl again, wanting to pick up the joke again and continue it, but Andeocene shook his head, "no," not wanting to scare the shy girl too much.

 

 

 

 

                                                          Chapter 7

                                                 Their Souls to Keep

 

On the 12th. day they got a Goth who cursed them from the beginning to the end of the session in the torture room. When he returned the second time, they cut off his ear, and he pulled at his straps and wrenched his body about the lattice, shouting, "You fucking cunts, I'll kill you when I get loose." Very seriously, without any agitation, Salidia caught Lydia's eye. She pointed at Lydia, and then with dramatic, exaggerated movements, snapped her hand around to point at the Goth, using the hand gesture to direct Lydia over to the Goth. Salidia stepped to the right, vacating the spot to give Lydia access to the position. Lydia was standing on the left watching Salidia with the Goth. When Salidia pointed to him, Lydia went to stand in front of the Goth, and came to a stop an arm's distance away from the man. Lydia stood in front of the Goth very calmly and seriously starring at him for a few moments before she did anything.  Very seriously she said, "This is for my mother," and as fast as she could for that time in her life, she snapped her arm up and slashed her knife across his throat.

It appeared as if he tried to grab his throat from the way his wrist and fingers bent in and pointed toward his throat, and from the way he tried to pull his arms in toward himself, although he was tied to the lattice.His eyes went wide in shock, and then fear as he realized he couldn't break free to grab his throat. He tried to pull his arms in more frantically, and then his body started to spasm. His head slumped to his chest and his eyes visibly dimmed and gazed over, and his whole body relaxed. He wet himself. Lydia would later learn that no matter who they were or what they were doing, they always stopped fighting and grabbed for their throat the moment the throat was cut.

When Lydia cut the carotid, blood surged out, spraying more that half a body length. Lydia didn't try to dodge it or move away. She just stood there, letting it wash over her, instead watching the Goth very seriously. Except for Talig's murderer who she would kill years from now, it was the most important man she ever killed. Behind him, as he died, she could see her village and her parents.

There were sixteen who were killed between the second and third round of torture, most grouped toward the end. It seems they were the ones who fought the Roman guards the hardest when they were chained up at the Roman camp, so they were the last to be put in irons, and they were the last to be put into the stable, filling up it's back.

Lydia killed them all. How she killed them was always basically the same, except for the names of the people she mentioned when she killed them. That became Lydia's style, her preference, when she was sure she was faster than the person she faced. It was exactly how she killed Talig's murderer. Except then she walked over to Salidia and knelt down beside her, and the two women hugged each other and wept.

Lydia was Mars, the taker of men's lives.   Lydia was one of the Furies..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  Chapter 8

                                                           Diana and her Cat

 

Lydia began to changed after her first kill, little by little with each man she killed. First it was the look in her face and how she watched what went on around her. Then around eight months into her training with Talig, when she first started to get very fast because of Talig's speed training, how she positioned herself around people changed. As her training increased, she became stronger, more lithe, more agile, more nimble. By the 11th. month how she moved around a room or people was noticeably different than the girl Salidia first met, or other people in general for that matter. By the close of the year she had developed a style which would mark her for the rest of her life.

Not with Salidia or Talig or the men. With them she became warmer, more affectionate, more demonstrative, more playful. With her little group she would run from one to the other, hugging, touching, giving kisses on the cheek. The men all grumbled, and they all loved her because of it. She became a glue that pulled the whole group closer together, uniting parts that would not have come together without her. Her vivacious and affectionate personality enlivened the whole group. The men talked among themselves when they were in a group; they laughed and joked with each other when Lydia was part of the group. They became the family she missed, mother, father, uncles, and when the men finally brought their families up from Rome (which was Lydia's suggestion to Salidia), aunts and nieces and nephews.

A very good analogy would be a lioness playing with cubs in the pride, but stealth incarnate stalking prey outside the pride. But a lioness only describes her eyes, not her body. The eyes looked like she was stalking prey: concentration. But her body moved with a lightness on her feet that no lion ever had. She always seemed to be on the balls of her feet, her legs centered underneath her, as if she were prepared to spring forward, lunge. When she focused on someone not in her group, like a merchant or tradesman, she would orient her body toward them as if prepared to strike. When Salidia or Talig talked to someone not in the group, Lydia tended to circle from left to right around Salidia or Talig and then back again, over and over, always oriented toward whoever Salidia or Talig talked to For lack of a better analogy, like a lion pacing back and forth in an old style cage.

To Lydia, the world was always a dangerous place filled with people who would hurt you, like the men on the farm where she had lived or the Goths, ready to rip you from your home and cause you pain; and the only safe place was with her little group who loved her, and who she loved. To Lydia, every stranger could be a Goth, there to hurt her or her family.

How Lydia moved around didn't apply when she decided to strike, like killing one of the Goths. When she decided to strike she would pause first. She had a tell. To those who didn't know her, she seemed like a lithe young women, who couldn't stay still and who always stared at people straight in their eye. To the men who trained with her and saw her speed develop over the past year, Lydia seem always dangerous when she moved, and deadly when she paused. At a year, Lydia was faster than any of the men except Talig, and they knew she would have been dangerous to them in other circumstances.

When Lydia was in the torture room, Salidia would tend to stand in front of the slave, and Lydia would circle from left to right around Salidia, and that characterized the two women wherever they went: Salidia standing and talking, Lydia circling in the background. Salidia always thought of the first time in the torture room with Lydia. Salidia tortured the Goth and Lydia stood on the side watching, but she flew in a rage at the Goth when he seemed to recover. Salidia saw the same girl she had seen that first day, standing still then striking, only today the affects of training were added on top of stand then strike: agility, nimbleness and Talig's emphasis on springing forward to strike. Lydia was the same girl, but now she added on the physical prowess to kill that Talig taught her, and her actions reflected these physical skills.

Typical of how the two women were with each other was something that happened around thirteen months after Lydia started training. On a nice spring day, Salidia needed oil, and she wanted cloth from the market. Because of the wonderful change from the dreary weather of winter, she decided to walk, and she headed to town with three of the men and two pack horses. (And Lydia, of course, because she always went wherever Salidia was.) Coming from the other direction was a local Cimbri chieftain, mounted, his son who was a young man of eighteen, and four vassals.

When they drew abreast, the chieftain continued straight down the middle of the road (expecting all to yield to his exalted high Majesty, forcing Salidia and Lydia to the side of the road. As the chieftain pulled across from Salidia he said, "Roman slut, let a Chieftain pass." The Cimbri may have assumed Salidia was a commoner because she was afoot and not well dressed, among a group who appeared to treat each other casually, possibly a group of slaves on a mission for a master. The moment Lydia heard what the Cimbri said, she stepped out into the road and walked toward the boy. Typical of her, she came to a stop in front of him and stared into his eyes a moment. The moment Lydia stopped in front of the young man, everybody with Lydia knew what was going to happen next.

She struck from a standing position without bothering to spring, and then turned to face the chieftain. The vassals behind saw the young women, who didn't seem frightening to them, step in front of the young man, the young man blocked their view of the girl for a moment, and then the young man fell, revealing the young women's back as she now faced forward toward the chieftain. There was a moment of puzzlement on their part as they tried to understand what had just happened. Salidia's men used that moment to their advantage, knowing that they would need to use their swords the moment Lydia walked into the road.

The chieftain noticed the young women step onto the road, and he watched her move in front of his son. He saw the blood gush out of his son's throat and the woman calmly turn to him. He bellowed a roar, and swung off the horse to charge her. He was forty, and looked like he hadn't fought in the last ten yrs., and Lydia didn't think of him as a challenge as he lumbered heavily toward her. Her first choice move was always the strike to the throat and then spinning off to the side and back. She withheld the strike, just spun off to the side and back. She did strike the back of his leg as she pivoted around, and he was so slow she had time to jerk up on the knife after it was in him, leaving a palm width gash in the back of his leg. When the men saw she didn't do her typical strike to the throat, they knew she was playing with him. He was now crippled, facing someone faster than himself, and that meant he was a dead man. He knew he was a dead man, too; you could see it in his eyes. He stood unsteady on one leg, afraid of what was going to happen next. Lydia walked backwards until she was to the side and behind Salidia.

And the picture then was the picture that would typify Salidia and Lydia for the rest of their lives. The man on one side, Salidia facing him, and Lydia to the side and behind Salidia. Whenever the men thought of the two women, that's how they pictured them. Salidia in front, Lydia to her side, and back.

Salidia watched Lydia and her men clear the road of Cimbri for her, leaving the Chieftain standing alone, and she waited for Lydia to return to her place beside her.

Lydia had become Salidia's attack dog, and she just delivered up to her Mistress the man, crippled, who insulted her. To the men who trained with Lydia and knew her speed, they knew Lydia was more deadly than any mastiff.

Salidia finished off the Cimbri who insulted her. The strike and slide to the side was Salidia's favorite too. (It was Lydia's favorite, and it was Salidia's favorite --- because it was Talig's favorite and he taught them.) Salidia was easily faster than the man and she could simply strike without him being fast enough to block her, and then pivoted to his back His left leg was crippled and she could have done "ballet pirouettes" to his left and been safe. But it's just "nice", comfortable, to know where the sword is.

(When very fast people train, they develop "set" pieces of three-four-five steps coordinated into one flowing whole, which they practice over and over again to become even faster, which they can execute without thinking.  When they initiate one of these integrated moves, they don't want a left or right arm of their opponent to unexpectedly appear in their line of travel because their momentum will carry them into it. So they like their opponent to indicate whether they'll strike with their left or right arm; then the fast person moves to the clear side. It was the technique used by Bruce Lee, and it is known as "Defensive Counter-punching." They are "counter-punchers", a skill reserved for the very fast. They wait for the other person to move first, and then counter with a strike to the open side, and because of their greater speed they beat their opponent to the punch. They never throw the first punch; they always land the first punch. They watch, wait, and then explode into movement.)

Salidia walked straight at the chieftain, with her arms simply at her sides, which was meant to provoke and entice him into making a move. The woman slowly walking towards the man with her arms at her side was not a calm scene; it was like watching a mouse trap that was about to snap close. When she got close, he raised his sword up overhead, intending to strike down at her. With the swords line of travel established, she exploded up to the throat before he could completely raise the sword, and flew to her right behind him. In a flash, the woman was behind him, and he stood with the sword raised in the air and a hole in his throat. The two women stood one in front of him and one behind him; he clutched his throat a few moments, and fell.

It was an execution, not a fight, from beginning to end.

They left the men and their possessions in the road, and went on. The six men would be found in the road with no witnesses as to what happened.