AN: I wrote this chapter a while ago and have adapted it for the current circumstance, let me know if it doesn't make sense. Also, I've finally restarted UV2, now in my sig. I am continually amused at the attention a rewrite of a year's dead fic has. Rest assured, I'm still interested in this fic, and intend to continue it at least until the death of Ra.
Igor had been rather surprised with the speech. He had realised during this extended mission that Vladimir was far more political than he had though, as he now assumed all SG officers were. He had been thinking up till now that this was for reasons of safety, and to prevent important positions from being politically volatile. Evidently he could not have been more wrong, as Vladimir spoke well, and from the heart. Vladimir the man may have been a pleasant and intelligent person, but Durov the soldier's heart burned with fervour.
The speech had been a triumph; the men had loved it. Igor had also seen the romans paying attention. The Regimental troops had been jumping up and down and shouting, and some of them had broken into song. The Stargate personnel were rather more reserved, but still waved their black berets vigorously and cheered.
As they waited, Igor reflected upon the line of low hills that seemed to mark the boundary between the civilised and uncivilised worlds. The ruins of forts and towns as they marched put Igor in mind not of the devastation of the Great Patriotic War, but rather of the Gates of Alexander, which the great king had built, according to legend, to keep the barbarians out of his kingdom. Beyond, along a rough road, stretched a line of mountains that crossed the horizon, and in the centre a pass to the Beastlands and Vulcan's dominion.
Vulcan's army was rather less dramatic.
After Ilya had shot and killed the Minotaur they'd left the body to be abandoned somewhere. Igor supposed Ilya couldn't be blamed for doing his job. He was a sniper after all. He had wished at the time that Ilya had been able to retrieve the Minotaur's magical staff, and it seemed he'd been granted his wish, with the aerial officer, Mikhailov, having seen it and brought it back from the chaos of the battlefield. The Minotaur's corpse however seemed to have been lost in the confusion, which was a cause for some concern. Presumably it lay somewhere in the chaos of the bestial army's path, and hopefully it could be found after the battle and studied. Igor had requested Vladimir give him an escort and a vehicle to circle around the enemy army and look over their tracks to try to find anything of use, but had been denied, on the grounds of military expediency.
Ivan the Beastman had regarded the developments with remarkable stoicism, and Igor had made some observations in his notebook: The 'Beasts' that the mission bought back looked more like apes than goblins or trolls. They were also almost exactly as Igor had predicted, having only two fingers and a smaller vestigial talon, and were stronger and more durable than humans. He was almost certain now that Vulcan's apparent weakness was a result of poor quality servants, lacking the manual dexterity and mental acuity to properly progress.
The war beasts seemed to serve as crude mounts for the chiefs of the bestial society, with the largest being the mount of the Minotaur. Igor had compared some illustrations in paleontological journals and had decided that the animals were not indricotheriums after all, having some minor but crucial differences to the primeval creature. He had questioned the romans regarding them and had learnt that like ancient Carthage, the beasts had been used as battle mounts, as well as creatures for labour, however that their breading stock of the war breed had been expended in a previous battle a generation ago.
Igor had been rather disappointed; he was looking forward to riding into battle on one.
Now however, everyone was standing around on the hill, the Regiment in advance of, and slightly below the roman fortified camp at the top of the hill. The disarrayed enemy army was approaching, strung out over several kilometres.
"Their vanguard is slowing down." Said Vladimir, looking through his binoculars.
"They will rally before attacking; our histories speak of this." Replied Thurius, "In the fourth year of Marcus Augustus, the Year of Victory, the Emperor emptied the fields of men and called out all the alae and socii, leading them to battle. They cut through the enemy in seven days of battle, and took Vulcan's temple. Marcus Augustus fell in the retreat, but the celestial artefacts were brought back to the city."
Igor wondered how much of the story was exaggeration. In his experience many classical writers were prone to such things, and though he was not a military man, he doubted anyone could fight for a week without rest. He also considered the engineering skill that must have been necessary to even transport the Stargate the kilometres back to the city, but then many classical cultures had been known for their great accomplishments. After all, Tyre had been an island before Alexander had turned it into a peninsula.
As the soldiers spoke the enemy drew themselves up as Thurius had indicated, but for the life of him Igor could see little of use through his own binoculars. A large dust cloud obscured their view of the rear of the enemy army, and despite their height on the hill they could see very little but a dark teeming mass about two kilometres away.
"Enemy elements within one kilometre sir!" announced a soldier, Petrenko, Igor thought, the radio operator from SG-2.
The Colonel held his microphone up, "Forward units! Estimate distance and density of enemy centre!" he barked.
Igor did not hear the reply or the scouts of or Mikhailov in his plane, but the mood was very tense, the hilts of the roman swords and of the Soviet rifles gripped by all the men.
The command came abruptly, like a shot breaking the dawn, or the crash of a fallen hero. A shot heard not just on Elysium, but in the committees of the Union, and, in time, the palaces and harems of the Goa'uld. A shot heard through the galaxy and beyond.
"Fire!"