Chapter 4: Preparation for the Siege of Lonely Light

34 Years Before Aegon's Conquest

Lucius Cornelius Scipio POV

Lucius looked upon the shore of the beach which his forces had claimed as their own. His legion had finished the construction of the castra upon the rocky shore. While it lacked the stone fortifications of normal encampments the wooden walls and buildings would serve its purpose. The castra was one built for temporary usage as he did not plan for his men to be stationed here for long. The island's defensive fortification atop the hill would be more ideal as a base of operations.

He knew his forces could storm the fortifications of the fort and overrun the defenders with ease. He could estimate that at most the enemy force had a few hundred defenders or even less. The island, while abundant in sea life could support the local population. The native population of the island did not have numbers to hold off his troops for long. It would just be a matter of time of throwing enough bodies at the enemy walls. Yet he was hesitant to throw away Roman lives to take something as small as the stone walled keep ahead of him. The scouting ships had not returned yet, so he did not know if there was more land or islands besides where they were currently. At the moment there were 2,000 legionnaires along with 400 auxiliary units that could be used for an offensive operation.

Some scouts had returned early from surveying the island. The island seemed to be mostly barren of any vegetation or fauna. The island itself seemed to just be a large rock formation jutting out from the sea. The scouts had also reported a carved path in the stone leading up from the shore to the keep. This would make taking the keep harder as his forces would be open to enemy counterattacks and projectile fire as they traversed the carved pathway. It would also be difficult to move any siege engines towards the walls as the pathway was only wide enough for three men across.

There were some options on how to get around the enemy advantages. He could have his men construct ladders instead of the preferred siege towers, though it would use up most of their already dwindling raw materials. There was also the option of utilizing the architecti and fabri to construct tunnels so they could begin to sap under the walls. While a tried-and-true method Lucius did not want to implement this strategy as it depending on his forces successfully establishing siege lines. The terrain of the island did not allow such an action to be performed due to the limited land available and the vulnerability his forces would be under.

The ideal option would be if they could find a weak point to exploit or even some passage into the keep which he could send some forces to take the keep within. Lucius would need to be cautious of any action taken as while they were viable it would leave his troops vulnerable to retaliation by the enemy. The safest course of action he could think of was to establish a series of outposts along the route to the keep. He could station troops in fortified positions while having lookout points before he decided on how to siege the enemy.

He would need to order some of his men to secure the passes along the route as it would give his men an advantage over his enemies. Lucius could remember the disaster of Teutoburg Forest and refused for something similar to happen to his men. While luckily there was no Arminius under his command he could still not take the risk of his enemies attacking his troops piecemeal when they did decide to start to besiege the keep.

Before they could even set out with the plans they would still need to make some headway in understating the strange language of these new peoples. Lucius got up from his chair as he moved to leave his command tent. As he walked through the linen flaps of his tent his gaze overlooked the construction of the castra. He could see legionnaires walking around as they moved to finish putting the tents up and other facilities up.

Lucius would always find it amusing that every soldier was set to complete their tasks as everything accomplished would benefit the whole legion. He could compare the efficiency of his men working to that of bees. All of them would work to fulfill their separate tasks yet every worker would do so for the benefit of the hive. He grew proud to see his men working with such gusto. Lucius knew with Roman ingenuity and determination they would see the keep become theirs.

Freed Thrall Encampment

The progress of learning the language of these barbicans was not progressing as well as the Centurian would have liked. While he would never regret setting them free he wished the task of overseeing them and trying to decipher their language was given to another. They did not have the luxury of having any learned man or scholar amongst their ranks to make the task easier. He could only sigh as he felt this would be a slow-going process.

None of his men had an inkling of what the language sounded like though some had guessed it could be some form of Germanic or even Briton language. The Centurion was uncertain as all they could do was guess. The language did not sound like any Germanic or even Latin-based language he had ever heard. The only way they seemed to have any progress was resorting to using sticks to draw into the sand of the beach.

The Centurion looked over the growing length of the former slaves as they tried to convey what they were saying. From what he could gather from their pictures was that they came from the castle atop the hill. He could still remember the less than accurate description of the stone-walled fortress and the many pictures of people around it in the sand. While they now knew were they came from it was still hard to figure out why these people were enslaved. The former slaves had continued to draw what looked like ships surrounded by water in the sand. He could not figure out if that meant the people in this land sailed or they were taken to the ships.

His gut told him it was probably the latter as it made more sense to himself than the freed peoples to be seafaring people. The condition of their starved forms helped support his thoughts. The people had endured harsh conditions as all the people in the legions before they were freed. The sunken eyes which were once dull grew into a spark of hope as the Romans distributed food and water to the freed people. While it was hard to understand them he would see them protected.

A stray thought of his turned to that of Spartacus. While their ancestors had thrived on slavery and slave labor they faced their own rebellions and uprisings from the slaves. One of the most famous was that of Spartacus. They were once formers slaves who have now freed slaves themselves. He wondered if Spartacus had felt such hope upon freeing his fellow slaves against the Republic. His heart warmed at looking at their hopeful gazes. While it would be a momentous task of learning this new language he would see it done as it could help them with their brethren and hopefully they may be able to free more of them.

Roman Encampment

Lucius had returned to his tent after ordering two parties to secure the passage to the keep. He had ordered each party of two hundred men to secure the passage about halfway between their camp and the fortress itself. If he had more forces he would have ordered more men to this task, but he had some of the men start preparing the creation of siege ladders along with a crude battering ram.

The ram itself would be smaller than what he wanted but it would be about the width of two men which would be just enough width for it to fit and move along the stone passage. He had ordered for it to be a covered ram as he knew the ram would be targeted mostly by the defenders. The protective walls which could be assembled when the siege lines were made. He would see them be used to nullify enemy archer fire for both his troops along with providing some protection to the few ballista they had. He had also ordered for boarding grappling hooks from the ships be brought to hopefully be used on the walls of the enemy keep. While he doubted they would be effective in daylight he had thought of having some lightly armored men scale the walls and hopefully take an unguarded part of the enemies' walls during the night.

He had still not heard from his scouting ships yet, but he could assume that this could be an island chain. It would not be unusual for the islands to be spaced apart by a long distance. Lucius could only hope that his forces returned as they could help him with the upcoming siege. His archers had also reported to seeing some black birds leaving the fortress atop the hill. Some of the Sagittarii had even managed to shoot one done. The bird looked to be a raven and while not fatally wounded as they had clipped the wings. There was a scroll tied to the bird's leg. Lucius had ordered the bird to stay in his tent as it recovered. The raven seemed surprisingly intelligent as it seemed to deem the Lucius to be nonhostile. The raven was currently hoping around his tent as he looked upon the message. He could not make sense of this strange words as they seemed to be unintelligent able, but it did show him that the natives had a written language. It seemed these barbicans may be partially civilized.

Three-Eyed Raven

The Three-Eyed Raven could only stare in disbelief at the new development that was occurring in the Iron Islands. The Raven could not have guessed that there could be a new people coming to Westeros and never from the West. In all of its existence it had never seen this occur even when Brandon the Shipwright set sail on his failed voyage to the west.

The Raven was too shocked as they had failed to see this occur in the weirwoods. They had seen the coming of the Dragonlords though that was still some decades away. These new people were not in their visions. The Three-Eyed Raven did not know what to make of this. As on one hand it could send visions and even influence what Ironborn could see these new people slaughtered. Though in their gut it told themselves to wait. They were currently looking through the eyes of the raven inside the people's leader. They could see the calculating look upon the young man's face though it seemed to lighten as the man smiled at the raven which looked upon it.

They could see the young man move closer to them and see the seeds which were in the young person's hand. It seemed they were not found out as the man let the raven start to eat from their hand. The Three-Eyed Raven would leave these people alone for now as it needed to look into the weirwoods to hopefully see what these people may do.

Architecti: Roman engineers who would be in charge of engineering units

Fabri: Roman craftsmen who would be apart of an engineering unit

Battle of Teutoburg Forrest: The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster, took place at modern Kalkriese from September 8–11, 9 AD, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus. The alliance was led by Arminius, a Germanic officer of Varus's auxilia. Arminius was educated in the ways of Roman military education. Due to this he was able to predict the Roman response and helped him separate and slaughter all forces under Varus. The Battle of Teutoburg Forrest resulted in the cease of Roman expansion under Augustus.

Arminius: Arminius was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who is best known for commanding an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, in which three Roman legions under the command of general Publius Quinctilius Varus were destroyed. His victory at Teutoburg Forest would precipitate the Roman Empire's permanent strategic withdrawal from Germania Magna.

Common Tongue: Language spoken by the Westerossi on the western continent of Westeros. It is thought that the language is similar to English as the language was brought over by the Andals during the Andal Invasion.

Spartacus: Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

Serville Wars: Between 135 and 71 BC, the Roman Republic was shaken by three separate large-scale slave uprisings known as the Servile Wars. The first two of these occurred on the island of Sicily. The third war, which was much larger in scale, and is probably the best-known, was led by the insurgent gladiator Spartacus.

Three-Eyed Raven: The Three-Eyed Raven is a greenseer who has the power to gaze into the future and passed through the weirwoods. The beings' real name and history is unknown. The being changes host when the body of its current one is about to expire. It is a servant of the Old Gods and has gained the help of the Children of the Forest.

Brandon the Shipwright: King Brandon was known as Brandon the Shipwright due to his love of the sea. Thousands of years before Aegon's Conquest, King Brandon attempted to sail across the Sunset Sea, but was never seen again. His tomb in the crypts of Winterfell is empty. His son burned the remaining ships in his grief and is thus known as King Brandon the Burner. His son's actions would see the rising naval power of the North never recover and leave its western coast undefended.

Author's Note: So currently I have stated that under Lucius's generalship he would have a full legion to command along with the accompanying auxiliary forces. With his forces available he would be able to conquer a few of the Iron Islands due to the lack of land and naval forces of the Ironborn. Though that could change as while most are stationed in the Riverlands they could be recalled and used to crush the Romans. I have two trains of thought on how Lucius could increase his manpower. I plan on him recruiting the thralls and freeing them. They would have the option of joining his army and after a period of time serving in the legions they could gain citizenship. This would help increase the available soldiers he could call upon. The downside is it would take time to properly train and equip them. There will also be the language barrier which would take time to address. I had another idea alongside the recruitment and freeing of the thralls. It would be that another legion would find its way to Lucius. At most it would be another legion which could bolster his forces to just over 9,000 to 10,000 troops. The Romans would not be too overpowered as they would still be outnumbered by the Ironborn though it would allow them a better chance at succeeding in their campaign. I think I can make both ideas work though I am going to put it up to a poll. The poll will be on my profile and if anyone has issues voting just leave a review or PM me. I wanted to include a little teaser of the Three-Eyed Raven as this is a new development it had never seen prior to the Roman's landing at Lonely Light. I thought it would be interesting to include as it spices up the story and will be expanded in the next chapter.