Anna stood on a rocky outcrop and gazed down at the little farmstead on the edge of the gravel strand. It wasn't much, just two wood and thatch cottages with a collection of smaller outbuildings scattered nearby, and a sizeable garden in the gateyard. A flock of small, shaggy goats cropped the scraggly grass under the watchful eyes of an even shaggier wolfhound in a pen tucked under a nearby stand of trees, and rows of crops stretched out behind it. It was a simple, even meager place. It might not have looked like much to worldly eyes like hers, but to her it was more precious than the finest marble palaces in Rome. It was her home.

It had been twelve winters since she came home. Twelve years of learning a new culture, a new language, a new way of life. Yes, it was more primitive than she was accustomed to, and a lot colder, but her heart was so warm it didn't bother her in the slightest. He was there, as was the family they had made. They were together, so it was home.

He was her husband, her Kristoff, and he was currently in the gateyard sparring with their two eldest children. 11-year-old Valeria and 10-year-old Gydda both wielded short-bladed wooden practice swords, and both struggled fiercely to fend off their father's longer-bladed rudis. It didn't help that their 8-year-old brother Agdarius laughed whenever their father scored a hit. Valeria stayed focused on her 'foe,' but Gydda couldn't take the ribbing and decided to chase after her younger brother instead. Realizing she was on her own, Valeria switched tactics and went on the offensive.

She stabbed and sliced at her father, the clack of their wooden blades sharp in the crisp morning air. Kristoff stepped back out of her range, so she pressed forward. Valeria held her practice blade loosely in her hands, darting it at his arms and chest with whip-like speed. He parried her attacks with a grin, and took a swing at her shoulder, rudis parallel to the ground. She dropped to one knee and flicked her wrist, landing a solid hit against his thigh just as he reversed his slash and brought his blade down to rest against the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

"Better!" he grinned, praising his eldest. "You did much better that time than the last."

"But you still got me, Poppa," she pouted.

"Aye, but you got me too," he hugged her to his side, ruffling her pale blond hair. "Don't stay crouched so long next time. It leaves you vulnerable in close quarters."

"Your daughter fights like you do," the dark-haired woman standing beside Anna murmured. Suqi held one of her twins on her hip while Anna cradled the other.

"Valeria's managed to blend her father's training and my own to make her own style," Anna replied, gazing fondly down at her family below. "She's a lot like her namesake, my sister."

"While Gydda is a lot like you," Suqi smirked. Anna grinned at her second child, who bellowed words no ten-year-old should know as she chased her brother, the late spring sun glinting off their coppery red hair.

"Your husband is a bad influence on her vocabulary," Anna remarked.

"My husband is a bad influence on a lot of people," Suqi agreed.

"I can hear you, y'know," Sven groused from where he sat with his 6-year-old daughter Sigrun and Anna's 6-year-old son Sigard. Both children were born on the same day and were as close as siblings. Olaf sat between the children, and they were teaching him a game involving making intricate patterns between their fingers with a length of string.

Both women laughed. Suqi walked over and ruffled Sven's shaggy brown curls. His pout melted into a lovesick grin as he gazed up at his wife. Though they hadn't been married as long as Kristoff and Anna have (Suqi led him on quite the merry chase before she turned the tables and hunted him down), they still felt young and very much in love. Not that Anna and Kristoff were any different. Gydda was quite vocal in her complaints that her parents embarrassed her with their own antics.

Anna smiled softly at her friends, then turned her gaze back down to the farmstead below. Kristoff had Gydda in one arm and Agdarius in the other. A tolerant smile lessened the impact of his otherwise stern demeanor as he likely scolded them yet again about focus and appropriate behavior.

Anna frowned. Something wasn't quite right about the scene before her. Everything looked normal enough: the blue-gray waters of the fjord lapped at the gravel strand. The wind rustled the tops of the crops in the gateyard garden. The ravens called out to each other from the treetops, but then they went silent. The goats were agitated and clustered to one side of their pen, and the underbrush near them moved counter to the wind.

Anna pressed her fingers to her lips and let out two piercing whistles. Kristoff dropped the two children and they bolted for the main house, Valeria close at their heels. Anna drew her siccae and pointed to the goat pen. Kristoff nodded, dropped his rudis and drew the long-bladed spathea he wore on his back. He put himself between the house and the pen, eyes alert.

Sigard and Sigrun hurried over and took the twins from Anna and Suqi, then ran down to the house with Olaf trailing behind them. Anna sprinted down the outcrop, followed closely by Sven and his axe. Suqi grabbed her short-limbed bow and a handful of arrows from her belt quiver. She stayed up top but crouched down so as not to be outlined by the sky.

The ravens exploded from the trees a moment before a band of bearded men rushed out of the underbrush, weapons poised to strike.

"SIX!" Suqi called out, loosing three arrows in rapid succession. Two buried themselves in the lead raider's chest while the third took him in the groin. He fell and rolled in the dirt while the rest scattered, weaving as they ran, making themselves more difficult targets from a distance.

Kristoff roared as he ran, drawing the attention of a black-bearded brute. He deflected the dull-bladed axe slashing at his shoulders and sheared the raider's arm off at the elbow. He didn't get a chance to scream, as Kristoff's next slash nearly severed the raider's head.

Anna darted forward, her long-bladed siccae held low. A scarred raider barreled toward her, seax held high behind him and round shield thrust forward. He tried to plow Anna under, but wasn't expecting her to move so quickly. She sidestepped his lumbering attack and slashed at his legs, severing his hamstrings. He screamed, but kept slashing at her. She jumped to avoid the blade, but landed clumsily. She stumbled back a few steps before regaining her balance, but her foe was in no condition to take advantage of her slip. She stepped forward and plunged her right sica into his back, slipping it between his ribs, and he died choking on his own blood.

One raider ignored the warriors and instead ran towards the main house. He tore through the gate and made it halfway through the gateyard before the snarling growl of the wolfhound distracted him. He turned to face the huge dog, and Sven's axe sprouted from his back. The raider fell in the dirt twitching, his spine severed. The wolfhound rushed forward and clamped down on his throat with powerful jaws, finishing the job.

The last two raiders went for what they assumed was the smaller, weaker, easier target. Anna moved quickly to make them regret their final mistake. She rushed the leader, flicking her blades at his exposed face and arms like the tongues of a nest of vipers. He ignored the blood weeping from a score of cuts and slashed at her flank. She blocked the strike, but its brute force knocked her back on her heels. Her stumble let the second raider circle wide around her, and they pressed hard, forcing her to abandon her attack and switch to a desperate defensive stance.

Kristoff barreled towards her at a dead run, but the raiders were quickly herding her away from him. Strike after overhand strike, pounding with their seaxes on her upturned blades as if they were a fencepost, driving her back until she tripped over the corpse of the raider she slayed moments before.

He was too far away. He saw her fall. Saw the blade rise up one last time. Saw it descend on her.

And then an arrow blossomed from the raider's throat. Anna scrambled to her feet and darted to the side, letting him tumble stiffly to the ground next to his fallen companion. Anna twisted, keeping the last raider in front of her, but he wasn't looking at her. He took one look at Kristoff rushing toward him and he turned tail and fled.

"That's right, filius de choeros foedus!" Anna brandished her bloody siccae and shouted at his retreating back. "Run back to your masters and tell them this land is no easy mark!"

Suqi stalked down the hill, arrow nocked and ready, scanning the area for hidden foes. She and Sven joined Kristoff and Anna as they watched the last raider disappear back into the woods.

Once the raider was long gone, Kristoff stormed over to Anna. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Defending our home," Anna replied calmly, cleaning her blades on the cloak of a fallen raider before returning them to the sheaths strapped low on her back.

Sven and Suqi glanced at each other, then walked towards the house to check on Olaf and the children.

"There were only six of them, Aeris. There was no need to put yourself at risk!"

"With so few there was no need to risk you or the others getting hurt needlessly."

Kristoff cocked an eyebrow at her, and she had the decency to blush. He wrapped his long arms around her and kissed her forehead. She tried to glare at him, but her expression turned sheepish. "Haven't we had this argument before?" he murmured against her skin.

"Hmmm," she relaxed in his embrace. "At least four times."

His palm curved protectively along the swell of her belly. "And at least a dozen times during each of those times?"

"Maybe."

"Anna," he sighed.

"Maybe more?"

"Definitely more," he chuckled, then turned serious. "I worry about you, Love."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"And I wish you wouldn't put yourself in harm's way when you're with child."

"Do you really think I can go five more moons without lifting a blade?"

"A man can dream, can't he?" Kristoff joked, pulling her tightly into his embrace. He joked to hide his worry, his fear. He held her close and tried to banish the sight of the raider's seax descending toward her.

He could feel the nightmares lining up in his mind.


"Six fully-armed men with the element of surprise and you couldn't take out one pitiful farmstead!?"

"They had help, m'Lord! There was an archer, and one woman who fought like a rabid wolf and spoke a foreign tongue!"

"I wanted plunder from this raid, Borg, not excuses."

"What does 'fee-lee-us' even mean? Sounds like urk-!" a hand at his throat cut him off.

"What did you say?"

Borg choked and gagged, fighting for breath as the hand squeezed. He nearly pissed himself when the hand picked him up off the ground. Kicking and squealing like a stuck pig, he barely squeaked out the answer his master demanded before the hand crushed his windpipe. He was thrown to the ground with a snarl where he cowered and gasped for breath, rubbing at his nearly ruined throat.

His master loomed over him, fists clenched, shoulders bunched and heaving with a seething rage that centered on one word spat from clenched teeth:

"Romans…"