Tales of Ancient Rome: Lions in the Valley Chapter 2 Continued

   "Lydia, I don't want you throwing your life away in a futile gesture for revenge by going alone against five or six men, like Talig saids. We've lost enough of our people already.  You're going to get him, Lydia, but I want you to do it in a way that keeps you alive.  No one here wants to be crying at your funeral, too.  We've cried enough!  You go get him, Lydia, but the only people going to die from now on are Aquitani, and not another one of us.  We'll work out a way for you to do it without throwing your life away.  No one else in this room is going to die because of this bastard."

    "If she can't fight as a Dimachaeri, what else can she do to get this guy," Salidia asked the trained warriors who were her bodyguards.

    Cetus: "If you're going to get him, I'll tell you the best way to get him, but it's not in the way Lydi's been trained.  Slip into the woods before he knows he's the hunted rather than the hunter, while he thinks we don't know about him.  Sneak up on him before he knows we're looking for him.  Then pick off one of them like he wants to do to us.  Get one of his men from a distance and then run.  <I>Whittle him down.  Pick his men off one by one, like he wants to do to us; and then when he's alone, we get him."

    Atus: "How is she going to do that?  She's a Dimachaeri.  She needs room to fight and enough time for the man to make a mistake that she can take advantage of.  If she comes across a group of them, how will she separate one man from the group and take the time she needs to fight?  And if she does that once, Vircingi will be prepared and he'll be sitting up in the woods waiting for her with all his men the next time."

    Titus: "Go after this man the way we did in the arena.  Never do the same thing twice.  Surprise him with something new every time you move.  We'll slice him down a man at a time, different each time, until we cut him down to size.  And when he's cut down to size, we get him."

    The big, blond Germanian, Atus, turned to Lydia: "I don't want you doing this all alone, girl.  No one here wants to see you get hurt.  I don't want you to throw your life away to make up for what happened."

    "Lydi, this man is going to be scouting us for weaknesses.  He has to do that if he's planning to attack us.  And there's a lot of territory for us to watch everywhere.  But if we make an intentional weakness, he'll find it and come back to scout it and plan his attack.  Instead of the whole country to watch, we'll know where he's coming.  We'll make an intentional weakness, and wait for his scouts to come to us.  I'm going to help you with his scouts, Lydia.  You can't set up an ambush in the woods alone, and I'm going to help you ambush his scouts.  That will help cut down the number of men for you."

    "We're going to help you, Lydia, with this man.  We're not going to let you do this alone," Atus said, leaning forward in his chair with his elbow resting across his leg and staring Lydia in the eyes, with a concerned expression on his face.  "None of us want to see you get hurt," he finished.

    He was worried about how badly Lydia felt about what happened.  He knew she felt terrible about the deaths and blamed herself.  He was worried she was going to do something stupid, something suicidal, that would get her killed.

    Atus's wife and oldest son had been killed, but it wasn't blame that filled his heart.  It was fear of losing another person that he loved.   

    Every man there spoke up to say they wanted to help her, which spoke to Lydia's heart.  It meant they still supported her and cared about her.  They might have blamed her for what happened.  Atus's comment had reminded everybody what was most important, that they loved and cared about one another, and the atmosphere in the room was charged with the realization that the feelings they had for each other was the most important thing.  Atus's comment set an example for all of them; all of them were reminded of how much they cared for each other because of what Atus said.  The conversation stopped for a few moments as emotion touched each of them.  None of the men broke Atus's statement into it's component parts or analyized it, but the emotion behind his statement was felt by all the men, and moved them all to the same place.

    Nevertheless, Lydia still felt responsible for what happened.  Finally she said, "I should be the one who goes after him, none of you.  Ever since my first day here, you have been my teachers, and I still need you to be my teachers now.  I need you to show me new ways to fight so I can do this.  You've shown me how to stand in front of one or two warriors who are coming at me and fight them in one on one combat.  You've taught me to be a Dimachaeri.  I don't know how to hunt down a group of warriors hiding in the woods."

    Lydia was incredibly fast, thanks to Talig's speed training.  (Talig used a system of training like contemporary Plyometric training, and the two systems of training produced the same results: explosive speed.)  As a Dimachaeri she would have been able to fight the Aquitani in single combat, and killed them.  IN ONE ON ONE COMBAT.  But to achieve that speed, Lydia had to fight without armor, whose weight slowed her down.  Armor was heavy.  An average shield weighed 30lbs. or 13.6KG.  Without the protection of body armor, Lydia was vulnerable to a strike in the side or back from a second, third, fourth.... person who might slash at her in a brawl.  Simply, Lydia was only fit for single combats, where her incredible speed allowed her to exploit mistakes her opponent made, while dodging any strikes her enemy made against her.  But six men would have been able to cut her to pieces without a chance of surviving, since she didn't use armor, if several attacked her at once.  Atus was right; she needed room to circle her opponent so she could dodge strikes he made against her, while she waited for him to make a mistake, giving her the opportunity to strike with her lightning fast speed.  When Lydia fought, it was always a scene of her circling around her opponent, dodging and twisting around to the sides when he came at her, but when he finally made a mistake, her arm would flash forward with an incredibly fast strike.

    Titus picked up Lydia's question on how to deal with the Aquitani, "Alright, you've got ideas on how to kill at least two of his men.  First, sneak up on him in the woods and surprise him before he knows we know about him.  You can't do that as a Dimachaeri.  We have to come up with a new fighting style to get them once you've found them.  And second, trap one of his scouts.  Lydia, we should help you with the ambush of his scouts, like Atus said.  It takes more than one person to set up an ambush in the woods.  People can slip through the woods all different directions, and you need several people to cover all the different ways that they might come."
    "We'll get one or two of his scouts.  That will leave four more of his men to get."

    Cetus: "Are we sure there are six all together?"

    Talig: "Selenius said he saw their chief, Vircingi, and five of his clan leaders, his pagi, when he first pulled up to the villa.  But yesterday, he saw a group of twenty or so take off when he first got to their valley; and when he was a quarter down the valley, he saw another big group take off toward the end.  That group had women and warriors; he guessed the wives of some of the clan leaders, the pagi.
    Some of his warriors must have stayed in the valley to watch over things when he attacked us, or he couldn't find all his men when he gathered them together.  Maybe some of his men were working outside his valley when he called his men together on short notice.  My guess is that he gathered together whatever warriors he could quickly find as fast as he could, and headed here.  There are probably more Aquitani around, men who were scattered around in far places when the call for his men went out, and they didn't learn about his call until after Vircingi left to come here.  Some guy out fishing who wondered where everybody went when he got back home to find the valley empty, or some other guy outside the valley buying horses when Vircingi gathered his men together.  So we don't know how many of his man were left behind in the valley and how many are left now.  Selenius said his men killed around sixty Aquitani men when they were going through the valley, so that shows Vircingi had men in addition to those they used to attack the villa.  And Selenius rides up and down among his men when they're in battle so who knows what else he missed."

    "And the valley is big, too big for him to see everything that was happening along the sides or back.  He said the valley was so wide, he had to stretch his men out in a wide skirmish line, and they only went towards buildings or other likely places where Aquitani might hide.  He said he was sorry he had left two cohorts behind to guard his redoubt instead of bringing them with him because the place was so big.  So who knows what he missed?"

    "He also believes there might be another clan leader because he found eight big villas instead of seven in the valley.  Maybe that was the guy out fishing while everybody else in the valley was putting on their armor.  So we don't know how many men Vircingi's got.  But we do know the five pagi who were with him owe him fealty, and they must be with him."

    Lucius: "So we'll figure a minimum of six, probably more, men.  If he can catch any of us alone that will be a problem.  But we can't spend all our time huddled in a group to protect ourselves from him."

    Presphene: "Instead of trying to pick off one of his scouts, we can try to trap all of them at once.  Set up an intentional weakness, let his scouts come in and scout us without hurting them.  Then let him sneak into the villa with all his men, and we spring on him.  We can hide in one of the buildings and jump out and trap him and all his men.  We'll get him and all his men at once, and that will be the end of our problem.  Like we did with the Phoenicians."

    Talig: "We might be able to get all his men doing that.   We'll do Presphene's idea first.  If we get them all, than she won't have to go into the woods.  I DON'T WANT HER GOING IN THE WOODS.  We'll do that one first, and if we don't get them all, we'll think of something else."

    Lydia: "Rufus is right, Tal.  He's going to sit up in the woods for a month or two waiting for us to get lax.  We'll have a trap set up with no foxes near the hen house.  I'm thinking the same as Cetus.  It's best I slip up there and get them before they realize they're being hunted.  Let me surprise them first before they know what we're doing."

    Turning to Presphene, she said, "And you can't try to lure them all into the villa to start.  Selenius said he saw two groups run off from the valley.  We don't know how many there are.  What if it's twenty, thirty, forty?  We've got you eight men now, and me and Salidia.  That's ten.  We have to scout them out first and find out how many there are before we try to lure them all into a trap."

    "You can't do this, Lydia!  I'll go after this man,  not you.   It's my place to do this!  You're just going to get yourself killed," Talig shouted.  He calmed down a little, after ventilating, and went on, "You know one on one combat.  You can't go up to one of six men and start a fight.  The others are going to surround you, and stick five holes in you while your fighting the first man."

    Talig was famous.  Many elders said he was the best Dimachaeri to ever fight in the Colosseum.  He had 34 kills in matched pairs, and had been awarded his freedom because of his great skill.  It was the reason Salidia hired the famous man as the Captain of her bodyguards.  And Talig did not want the young girl taking chances that could get her killed.

    Lydia: "I'll learn a different style of fighting.  You can fight as a Thracian, can't you?  I've seen you practicing the lance as a Hoplomachi, too.  I can do that too."
 
    Talig leaned over and took her hand.  "I just don't want you going, girl.  It's too dangerous.  And you can't just learn one of the styles of fighting that uses armor.  A full suit of armor like we men wear is too heavy for you.  It will slow you down too much to fight effectively."

    She looked at him, "I know, but he's just going to start hunting us, and he's going to start killing us.  We have to stop him first before he starts to kill more of us.  We've got to scout him out, and we should start to whittle him down as soon as we can."

    Salidia interrupted at this point, "Lydia and I both need armor.  We're both vulnerable without it.  Doesn't anyone know an armorer who can make light stuff for us?  There must be a way to make it.  Someone must be able to do it."  All the men just shook their heads negatively.  All that iron weighed a lot, and it took muscle just to lug it around and move fast in it.  When Salidia and Lydia put on armor for practice, the weight left them exhausted in short order, and it drastically cut down on their speed.  Both Lydia and Salidia used the <I>Dimachaeri</I> style of fighting just so they could avoid the exhausting weight of using heavy armor.  Salidia shook her head in disgust over the inability to solve the problem of finding armor that was light enough for her and Lydia to wear.

    Lydia picked up after the break in conversation, "It's best I go.  You men should stay and guard the women and children in case he surges down here again with all his men to get us like he did the first time.  You all fight with armor, and that protects you if several warriors try to cut at you at the same time.  I have to fight without armor so I can move fast.  I am only suited for one on one combat, where a second person won't unexpectedly come at my back.  I'm the one who would be least missed guarding the families because of the style of fighting I use and lack of armor.  And me going would be the best way to try to make up for the harm I've done.

    Titus: "She's right about that part, Tal.  I know you want to protect her and don't want her to go, but she is the best choice to scout out Vircingi.  You can put on armor and fight like a Thracian when you have to.  She has to fight without armor so she can move fast.  And for her to get some guy, she's got to circle him until a vulnerability shows up and then strike before he can block her.  How is she going to patiently circle just one guy, waiting for her chance to strike, if six men charge us at once?  It will be a brawl.  Any one of them who makes a half-assed slash at her back will get her.  Without armor, she'd stand out like a sore thumb for anyone around her that wants to take a swipe at her back or side in a swirling free for all.  Half the time, fights like that start with two people swinging swords at you, while someone else is standing around trying to decide where to go.  In a brawl, the Aquitani will see she has no armor and they'll be swarming on her like bees to honey.  She'd be the least useful person in a fight with six men and the one most likely to get hurt because she can't use armor and move fast at the same time.  And we owe it to the women and children to stay here and give them the best protection we can."

    "Besides, she has the best skills to move fast and scout, better than any of us.  Me, I 'clink' and 'clack' when I move around in my amour.  Her, she can be as quiet as a mouse when she moves.  First, let her try to slip into the woods, scout him and maybe pick off one of his men before they realize they're the quarry.  If there are a lot of them, we'll have to whittle them down.  (Continued)