Day 307 - Iberius Story

Iberius Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Gaius knelt to pray. He always knelt and prayed the night before battle. He prayed for strength and courage and success on the field and in personal combat. It would be a day of blood. Gaius prayed his sword would be swift and strike effectively and that come nightfall he would still be alive.

He wasn’t scared. At least that was what he told himself.

The Iberians were beasts – monstrous amalgamations, half-man, half something entirely different. They were enormous, tall and strong. Their faces rigid and their features bloated and overgrown. Their muscles were twice that of a normal man. They were covered in dark, thick hair. They ran faster, moved quicker, and struck harder. They were hardly men at all. They were masterful creatures.

That was what everyone said anyway. Gaius didn’t know. He had never fought a full-blooded Iberian before. He was told that fighting them would be unlike any fighting he had ever done anywhere else in his life.

Gaius had fought men everywhere. The northern tribes were berserk with rage, and they were heathens who found no fear in facing their own death. They didn’t scare him. They bled like any other man. He had been to the south, across the sea, where the men were tall and dark and knew the power of the mystics. They didn’t scare him either. They too bled like any other man.

The Iberians would bleed. And they would die. He was sure of that. Even if they didn’t want to, he would make sure of it. Gaius always made sure to remind his enemies they were extremely mortal. No one liked being reminded of that, especially at the wrong end of a sword.

Gaius was sure there was some truth to the stories. There was always some truth to the stories. But weaker men who had failed must have embellished the stories to cover their own weaknesses. Gaius was not a weak man and had never needed to embellish anything. Not yet anyway.

The Iberians needed to kneel. They had never been known to kneel before, but that had to change. Their time had come. There were islands to the north and far northwest. The Iberians had colonies of their own there. There were tales and legends that the Iberians had come from the far west, across the great sea. Supposedly there were other lands there, and when the Iberians were done conquering all of them and had grown bored they had sailed across the sea until they had come here.

Gaius didn’t know about the legends. There were always legends of other lands – across the sea, below the sea, in the clouds. He had no desire to go exploring the great sea to the west, but he believed that some men could and that of course there could be other lands. He didn’t know if the Iberians had truly come from another land or not. There were mixed men in all the lands. In the icy lands to the northeast there were rugged men that seemed to have much in common with the Iberians. There was no way to know where they all could have come from or traveled to or from. But men were afraid of the dangers of the great sea. It made a powerful and intimidating story to claim that they had come from across it. There would always be men that were suddenly afraid just out of awe of that one feat.

Gaius was not so easily impressed. Many men could sail. Many men could hunt. Many men could kill. The Iberians were just men. He was sure of it. There were stories and there were legends and then there were myths and rumors. That was all they were. They were not Gods. They might be different from his sort of men and the sorts of men in the lands he had seen. But these Iberians were mortal all the same. Gaius had always been able to kill any of them when he put his mind to it. It might prove more difficult to kill an Iberian, but he was sure he could.

Gaius had plans of his own, plans to make legends regarding his own name, and he wasn’t going to let these men stand in his way. If he had his way, his name would be remembered alongside the Gods and in a thousand years no one would know if he had been man or mortal or real at all. But his name would still exist and carry on and hold weight. If he could win tomorrow then his name would always hold weight.

The winds whispered his name – Gaius Iberius. The Fates had their own plan for him. Tomorrow he would make it true. Tomorrow would be his judgment day. Tomorrow he would march into Iberia and come out a conqueror, a hero. Tomorrow. Tonight, he prayed.