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Monday, July 16

Grains of Sand - Part 5d: Castle in the Sand

Quintus was still trying to put out the flames around him when he suddenly couldn’t hear his own heartbeat. He saw something metallic flash out of the corner of his eye and ducked just in time to avoid being beheaded by a scimitar.

Quintus drew his own gladius. He parried blow after blow, but it took all his concentration. For one, he had only recently put out the flames on his tunic. For another, he couldn’t hear a thing. He was fighting in utter silence.

The legionnaire thrust his gladius at the woman’s head, but she batted it away with a wooden shield. She was dressed in leather armor—no match for Quintus’ lorica segmentata, but flexible enough to give her a slight advantage. Judging from her clumsy blows, she wasn’t a trained warrior.

If only he had his scutum and signum! He would never have let get so close.

The silence meant no prayers to Illiir. So then, bare steel was how they would finish their quarrel. [MORE]

Labels: arcanis

posted by Mike Tresca at 9:52 PM

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