A kunai flew by Quintus' face, inflicting a slight cut on the left cheek.
The general held his cheek tight with his hands and gasped in pain. The fifteen knights who were assigned as his bodyguards immediately came to cover him. The general wiped the blood coming out of the wound and looked around the battlefield, but couldn't see his attacker. This was the thing about these shinobi, they had great power but were too cowardly to face their foe head-on, or Quintus thought.
After half an hour of fighting, the enemy did an orderly retreat back down the hill. A brief moment of silence ensued, with both sides expecting each other to attack once again. But nothing happened, for a while. As the Roman soldiers nervously awaited the enemy's second assault, a bright energy that looked like lightning flew toward them at great speed. It took the life of one soldier in the front row, but the rest narrowly dodged the attack. The lightning went through the camp, killing one soldier, burning through tents, and finally disappearing after having burned a small hole on the opposite side of the palisade. The Roman soldiers had been informed about ninjutsu before but were nevertheless both amused and terrified.
Quintus glared around the camp and after a while whispered orders to the Primus Pilus. The latter went away ordering twenty soldiers to follow him. After a while, those twenty troops came back, with a leather bag on their backs that was connected to a metal pipe in their hands, whose ends were sculptured like the head of a dragon. The unit was also very heavily armored and wore metal face coverings. The unit made its way to the front gate of the camp, standing foremost among the front row.
During this time, the enemy also launched a second assault up the hill. This time accompanied by warriors who wore Kumo headbands on their foreheads, six in total. They advanced foremost among the enemy warriors, getting ever closer to the Romans with great speed. One could not see properly in the night, but this was soon resolved as another bolt of lightning came flying towards the Romans. The latter were prepared this time, and the lightning bolt missed its target. After that, a giant boulder came rolling towards the Romans, but they stopped it by immediately placing iron stakes at the front. The earthen boulder stopped, and because the hill was steep it started rolling backward on its users. The shinobi easily dodged it but some of the common warriors weren't so fortunate.
The shinobi quickly advanced towards their opponents, eager to engage in combat. But as soon as their outlines could be seen by the Romans in the dark, they disappeared. The Romans looked around in shock, but could not find them. Just then, one of the shinobi who covered his face with a mask and wore the Kumo chunin attire, appeared behind Quintus and attempted to stab him, but narrowly missed. And a second later, when the element of surprise was gone and the knights had noticed his presence, he was cut to pieces, given no chance of escape. The other five shinobi appeared from behind and tried performing some jutsu, but were prevented by the soldiers who rushed to engage with them in melee combat.
Fighting ensued inside the camp, and just then the common warriors outside also charged at the gates. They were once again filled with confidence, thinking that the chaos and fighting in the Roman camp meant the enemy commander had been killed. Shouting war cries, they advanced towards the gate, only to see the twenty soldiers with the odd bag and pipe carved like the head of a dragon. When the enemy soldiers were just about 20 meters away from the Romans, the twenty soldiers aimed the pipes at the front. They pulled a trigger where the Pipe connected with the bag, and flames shot out of the metal pipe, it truly looked like a dragon vomiting fire upon humans.
The flame went far, 'sticking' to many enemy warriors. The vanguard of the enemy force gave cries of horror and pain as they and their comrades' flesh melted because of the flames. Nothing could put out these flames, whether it was water or covering the fire with sand and dirt, it just kept on burning even on water. It even went right through the armor of the samurai, melting it as well as the flesh. The enemy warriors were in terror, and chaos erupted among their ranks as the warriors engulfed by the flames desperately tried to save themselves, giving horrific cries of pain and agony. While others were scared out of their wits, and pushed each other away to get back and avoid the flames. This single volley had caused chaos and disorder to erupt in the enemy ranks and broken their morale. It took the commanders of the army quite some time to reorganize their force and go for another assault. But it had given the twenty soldiers enough time to reload their weapons with the sticky black liquid.
The warriors gathered their courage and once again advanced uphill. But their repaired morale and will to fight was crushed again as the Romans launched another volley of flames, killing many this time as well. This time, the commanders could do nothing. The army was in total panic, they had lost more than half of their force to the fighting and those flames, and the samurai had forgotten about their honor code. The army did a disorderly retreat down the hill, and in the panic, many fell or were crushed to their deaths. After that, the army quickly vanished into the darkness of the night and did not return.
The Romans now directed their full attention towards the shinobi, three of whom were left and fiercely resisting. They were all talented but massively outnumbered by the Romans, who had them surrounded and striking from all sides. Two of the shinobi perished this way, and the third surrendered, falling unconscious due to blood loss soon after.
The next morning
The Romans rested and recovered after last night's attack. They had been able to fend off the attackers, but couldn't pursue them. That might count for much. But for now, the Romans were preparing for their march forward into enemy territory. Quintus was sitting in his tent, with the captured shinobi in front of him, hands and feet bound. He had recovered from his fatigue and was in the condition to talk.
"So, what is your name?" Quintus spoke to the shinobi while casually taking a sip from his glass, the shinobi looked amazed,
"You speak our language?" Quintus lightly chuckled and replied,
"Well, it is useful when communicating with deserters, bribing enemies, and general communication. By the way, answer the question, what is your name?"
"Taka." Quintus raised an eyebrow. Not because of the shinobi's name, but because of his voice. It sounded young, perhaps too young. His physique was also small, but not the same as some small and skinny men. He had tanned skin, blue eyes, and a short height. His face was covered with a mask. The shinobi had refused to take off his mask. Quintus approached him and took off the shinobi's mask.
Quintus looked very surprised, to see a boy of approximately age 13. Quintus asked the boy,
"Were you really? "told," to fight us?"
"Of course, that's what orders are." The boy seemed to be trying to act mature, but his childishness was visible in his manner and voice. Quintus rubbed his eyes in thought, then spoke with a stern face,
"Do you know anything, about what your village is going to do?" The boy flatly refused.
Quintus sighed and sat down in his seat. It would be a waste of time trying to persuade or, torture, this kid for information. He is just a newbie who probably doesn't know anything about his village's plans. But he couldn't be simply let go, as he might leak information about the Romans.
"Listen here kid," Quintus spoke,
"You know that you are in a hostage situation right?" The boy nodded with a stern face.
"You can't give any information useful to us, and we too can't simply let you go because you might leak information about us. So..."
The kid surprisingly didn't need further explanation, and his face saddened. He looked down at the floor, on the point of breaking down. Quintus pitied the boy. Your life ending just when it began, was a cruel thing. But this was reality, fate is in no man's control.
Quintus tossed his short sword over to the kid,
"You can either use this or jump down the steep, rocky hill, the choice is yours."
Saying this Quintus left the tent and was joined by the Primus Pilus who spoke,
"So, did you get any information out of him?" Quintus looked irritated and replied,
"Do you seriously expect a fucking kid to know about battle plans and the strategies of his village?' The Primus Pilus paused for a moment and then spoke,
"So, what do we do with him?" Quintus walked on and replied,
"I have given him two choices, ask him what he chose. There has been no sound from inside the tent, so it is probably the hill." The Primus Pilus nodded and began going towards the tent, but Quintus spoke again,
"By the way, what were the previous night's casualties?" The Primus Pilus stopped and looked back,
"We haven't properly counted sir, but it may roughly be 100 men on our side. Most of these casualties were because of the shinobi."
Quintus nodded and walked away. A few moments later, he heard some slight screams and sounds of struggling from the other side of the camp, then it all went silent. Quintus casually lit a cigarette and gazed away into the Horizon.
"Gods, I fucking hate this continent."
Author's notes
A note on Roman military structure
1. Limitanei border guards- These are lightly equipped soldiers tasked with monitoring and managing Rome's borders. Their main work is to delay any invasion until the main force could arrive. They are usually spearmen and archers.
2. Legions- The Roman legions were heavily armored troops that also received excellent training. There are three ranks in the legions, Hastatii, who are the newbies are always placed in the center. The Princeps and the Triarii, who are the veterans, are always placed on the flanks. The most basic unit in the legions is the Conterburnium, made up of 8 soldiers and sometimes 2 helpers. Followed by a century consisting of 80 men, and headed by a centurion who manages the finances, training, and equipment of his entire century. The Centurion is aided by an optio, who is his right-hand man and assistant, and many times soon to be promoted to a centurion himself. There are also others like the Librarii, educated legionaries who keep records of the legion and century, or the Signifer who holds the cohort's standard and also helps manage its finances.
Every legion is given a number that is determined by its strength, power, and effectiveness. For example, the I Italica legion is the strongest and made up of the best troops in Rome, while the XI Apollinaris legion is an average one. The same system applies to smaller units, for example, the first cohort in any legion is the best, while the first century in it is the best, and the first Conterburnium in that century consisted of the best 8 men.
A camp prefect manages the logistics of any legion, while different officers are tasked with regular training of the legionaries.
3. Knights- The knights in this fanfic are successors of the Clibanarii and Cataphractarii units of ancient Rome. Knights have their code of chivalry and are trained from childhood to fight. When these turn 14, they would usually be taken up by real knights as squires and train under them. These squires will even sometimes follow their master into battle, and become real knights when they are about 22-23 years old.
Knights form the core of Roman cavalry.
4. Auxiliaries- Auxiliaries are non-Roman warriors who enter Rome's service. These are exceptionally skilled in their traditional cultural methods of warfare. Some prominent Auxiliary units are Greek phalangites, the Varangian guard, and quite recently shinobi in the shinobi continent.
5. Artillery- Romans have very basic gunpowder weapons, like handguns and cannons. But they are experimenting. Moreover, traditional siege weapons like Catapults, Trebuchets, Mangonels, and Ballistae are also prominent.
6. Greek Fire- The flamethrower weapon in this chapter used Greek Fire. It is a flammable concoction of Naptha, sulfur, pitch, and molten Wax. Quick lime is also added at the last moment with the main ingredients to create a sticky, flammable substance that can burn for hours over anything, even water. These flamethrowers are deadly but have a short range.
7. Roman steel- Rome has very advanced methods of smelting steel unlike the shinobi continent, so Roman steel is very superior as compared to its shinobi counterpart. So much so that a locally-produced Shinobi blade may not even properly pierce Roman armor most of the time. Coupled with the fact that the Shinobi continent can't produce steel in bulk like the Romans to cover every soldier in armor.
8. Arcani- The Arcani is a secret Roman intelligence organization. The Arcani conducted sabotage, spying, and assassination missions with effectiveness. Although they don't come close to their shinobi counterparts in this, they can do the job most of the time.