Child versus Child

There were no Dirty Hops over eighteen years old. It was a tribe comprised entirely of children, and that is why the Legion underestimated them. It should have occurred to the Legate that the tribe which had lived with the serpent for centuries would be more than prepared for battle.

In their first conflict the Legion was slaughtered by children wielding guns and tomahawks. The Dirty Hops attacked and ran, attacked the Legion on all sides, pushed them into a narrow canyon and slaughtered them all. It was a bloodbath. The Dirty Hops were vicious, they held nothing back. The Legion had no compunctions against slaughtering children, many of the Legionaries were children, but they had to catch the Dirty Hops before they could kill them. Only the youngest, quickest, and most agile made direct attacks. The older tribals held back, took their shots and then moved. They knew the terrain, they cornered the Legion by exploiting their fear of the serpent.

The Malpais Legate was impressed, as was Caesar. Though how impressed Caesar was didn't compare to how incensed he was that his mighty Legion had been repelled, no, humiliated by a tribe of children. The response had to be swift, decisive, and brutal. It had to make a statement. Any failure on the part of the Legion could not be allowed to stand, no matter how slight.

In truth the victory of the Dirty Hops had hardly been a victory at all. The legion lost perhaps fifty men, as they hadn't put much resources into subduing the tribe, underestimating a tribe of children. As few as twenty additional men may have turned the battle in the Legion's favor, despite the Dirty Hops unexpectedly smart tactics. It was the closest Caesar had ever come to defeat in the life of the Legion, though, so the response needed to be ten times greater. That was Caesar's logic. His logic told him that the only redress to this affront was to kill the serpent.

It wasn't known if the Dirty Hops worshiped the serpent, tolerated it, or were simply not strong enough to get rid of it, but it was assured that killing the beast would cow them into submission. As it turned out the Dirty Hops worshipped the serpent, feeding to it any Dirty Hop which had become 'too old,' but that hardly altered the plan.

The dead souls, more by merit of their nonconformity than their skill were on the front line of this operation. Their loss to the serpent would remove their slightly embarrassing position within the otherwise pure Legion, and so Mortuus Anima and his men were sent with the task of killing a snake so large it could swallow a man in a single gulp.

It killed three of his men, and every man in the contubernia supporting his. They fought with a full centuria, but it was obviously not going to be enough. The serpent was too big, too powerful, and a frontal assault wasn't going to be enough, no matter how many men they fed the beast. The Legate was more clever than that, even if only just.

The dead souls had been first into the hunting grounds of the serpent, howling and brandishing their weapons, the lust for blood driving them onwards with the fury of the Legion behind them. Though as the battle progressed they fell back, let more and more legionaries assault the serpent as they retreated. Yet the serpent followed them every step of the way. The Legate sent more and more men in yet they lost more and more ground. The battle began to turn, and it appeared that this would be the fall of the Legate.

It appeared this would be the Legate's last battle until a centurion, positioned above the serpent's hunting ground, fired an incinerator. The dead souls had been retreating, but had left behind them a trail of napalm. As the serpent had advanced it had covered itself in military-grade explosives. Before Mortuus turned tail and fled for his life he flung a full barrel into the serpent's maw.

The sky turned red. All were consumed, the earth, the sky, the serpent and the Legion. Every tribe for miles around fell in line. Mortuus always bore the mark on his back, where he was burned from the napalm he used to burn the serpent, the serpent and every other legionary that had fought alongside him.