I remember the year was 9a.d., Augustus was Caeser, and Rome lay at rest. I would soon change all of that.
My name was Hermann, I and my younger brother Segimerus were German chief tans of the Alemanni tribe, but I was also a Roman. I was educated in Rome, had roman citizenship, was a noble knight, and had commanded German auxiliaries for Rome in a previous war, no one ever questioned my loyalty to Rome.
Most of the tribes were upset at the heavy taxes that Rome laid upon us for the war in the Balkans. Segimerus and I were able to keep them in control, I told them to wait, we would bide our time, and take vengance when the time was right. I never imagined that it would come to pass so soon.
I had been to see the Provincical Governor, General Varus. He was a good friend, we had eaten together, hunted together, and talked for long hours of our peoples. I had just gotten married to a beautiful woman named Fabiola, she was so beautiful, a sweet dream. She had icy blue eyes, long bJack wavy hair, lar~e breasts and perfect hips, and she loved me, more than anything she loved me. When I rode back home Segimerus stopped me outside the village and told me that there had been a raid, that Roman soldiers had come looking for weapons and had killed many of our people, and they had killed Fabiola.
I was crushed. I was crying so hard that I fell off my horse twice while riding back to the village. When I saw her I couldtnt believe what I was seeing, they had cut her nipples off  and her head, and they cut her stomach open, and there in her womb, was a tiny person. She had been with child. I cried for hours, and did my best to make her presentable for the grave, and I buried her the next day in the shade of a sacred tree.
I knew what the Romans were looking for, there had been rumors of my people buying and storing weapons, and food.That scared the Romans. Though I was a friend to Varus and the Romans, and a Roman myself, I was a German first. The rumors were true, we had been buying weapons and food and we buried our food and weapons in the shade of sacred trees, under the protection of Odin. The Romans would raid and kill indescriminately because they never knew who it was they fought, they didn1t know that we too had a military order. The Romans had taken all I had, and all I ever would have, and it was time for me to take from them.
Segimerus and I got together with the other chieftansand laid our plans. We planned to stage an uprising.
Word to to General Varus, via myself and Segimerus, that many of the outlying villages needed protection for caravans coming from Gaul. Varus trusted us and sent~troops to many villages, the last thing he wanted was tribal warfare.
My people had the buried weapons distributed among them. One of the most sacred things to the heart of a Roman were the Imperial Eagles of Rome. Each regiment carried them, and we planned to take them.
Next, while we were still with Varus, word came from the eastemmost part of the province that a tax collecter and his staff were killed. Varus, ever the Roman we counted on him to be, gathered the rest of his men to go punish the uprising..
Varus did not know what had happened to Fabiola, which was good, had he known he wouldn't have trusted us. Still, when he asked how my beautiful wife was I almost killed him right then, but I wanted so much more than his head, so I waited. It took a week to be ready to move and supply so many men, and we spent the entire time with Varus telling him that our people would be no trouble, that it was an isolated incident, that when he arrived that they would have all the taxes and more ready for his tribute, we told him many lies that week.
We rode with him for the first few days, still telling him that he had nothing to worry about. It was obvious that he believed us because he never put out an advanced guard or flank guards. He let the whole column stretch out and become disorganized. On the third morning we left him, we told him if he needed any help to send word and we would form up our men and join him. The last thing I did was hug him, I had my hands on his shoulders holding from me at arms distance, I looked him in his eyes and told him that I would see him again soon.
That night we lit a signal fire it was a sign for the men in the villages to kill the Roman soldiers that Varus had sent to them.Varus had no idea what had happened because there were no survivors.
We rode hard and fast up the forest trail for two days to where our men were waiting to ambush the Romans.It took Varus much longer to reach us because he had to move fallen trees, and move his supply carts across swift streams. On the third day of waiting Odin blessed us with rain. It was a hard soaking rain, and it was exactly what we needed, with the rain I knew that the shields would be too heavy to use, and it would be too wet for the archers to use their bows,and the track would be too wet for them to move fast. This was going to be a slaughter.
I ordered carts to be set up and used as roadblocks every quater mile, and their wheels to be broken so they would sink into the mud and become unmoveable. They could run, but only a quater mile at a time.
On the fourth day we saw them. The column was spread out even farther due to the muddy track. We waited though and finally a smoke signal went up, and we fell on them from all side in hand to hand combat. We wore no clothes, only war paint, and our screams terrified them. The men in front of the column tried to move the roadblocks and we cut them down, the men in the back of the column were afraid of being killed and abandonded their carts as I knew they would.
The lead regiment, the 19th, were able to break through and only lost a few hundred men in the process, they even held on to their supply carts. They formed up on a nearby hill to wait on the other two regiments. I knew that Varus was with them, the coward!
I threw myself into the fighting, I was crazy, I killed everything I saw. I kept screaming "Come for me you Roman dogs, come for me". I was so crazy that I killed one of my own men, that stopped me momentarily, but I remembered what they had done to Fabiola and I jumped on the nearest Roman. I never saw the man I accidently killed again, I never knew who he was.
I wasn't so crazy that I forgot what we needed to do to win.We had broken up the other two regiments, and the Romans had split up into units of one and two hundred, with foreward, flank, and rear guards. The flank guards weren't able to move fast because of the thick forest, and we were able to cut them away from the units and kill them. We were able to inflict heavy losses on the foreward guards at the roadblocks, and we constantly hit the rear guards we killed several thousand that day.
That night all the Romans formed up on that hill. I looked at myself that evening and I was covered in blood, my long blond hair was red and stiff with it,and it was all Roman blood. I had bathed in the Romans blood and stoll it wasn't enough to wash away the pain of what they did to my wife and child. Our men split up all the supplies and weapons they found in the supply carts, and all the other goods, armor, money, and jewelery they found. I didn't want any, I wanted only two things, I wanted my wife back, and since I couldn't have her I wanted to kill Romans.
That night many of us who understood listened to the Romans as they called roll. I smiled for the first time since Fabiola died when I heard the panic in Varus  vioce as he realized that a third of his men were gone.
We slept in shifts, but we didn't allow them any rest, we kept harassing them and killed any Roman who strayed too far from their camp. They tried to send out scouts to find the quickest way out, but we killed everyone they sent.
Varus stayed on open ground all of the second day, and kept his men in tight forrnation.We were only able to !~ill three or four hundred that day. I was patient though, another storm was on the horizon, and I knew Varus would have to go back to the forest trail soon ar he would get lost.
On the third day at dawn it began to rain again. About 3/4 of our men went ahead knowing Varus had to enter the forest again. The rest of us stayed behind to harass his rear, and to make sure he couldn't turn back. As soon as he entered the forest we fell upon him yet again.
I wanted Varus, I plunged inti the Romans with about forty men on either side of me. As I fought and killed, I called out Varust name.Toward the front I saw him standing on a cart and I called to him, he looked at me, and when he recognized me I could see the suprise on his face. More Romans fell upon us and we were forced back, but I screamed that I was coming for him. I was sure that he heard me.
Varus decided to leave his carts and supplies and make a mad dash up the trail to a fortified position, but we gave him no rest. Again I pushed to get to Varus. I was crazed, I saw my brother fallat the hands of a Roman and I kept going. I never saw my brother's face again. I didn't even think in terms of losing my brother, it didn't matter to me at that time, the only thing that mattered was killing Romans.
We fought until it was dark ,and I again heard the Romans take roll, and when I realized that only about a quater of their entire troops remained, I knew that the next day was Varus' last. Jt pleased me to know that we had killed thousands of Romans that day.
I laughed out loud when I heard Varus making plans for a mad dash to the troops he had sent ahead to protect the caravans. The damn fool had no idea that they were all dead.
That night I thought of my brother, I would miss him, but he had died a warriors death. It is everyman' 5 wish to die that way, and I knew he was in Valhalla. It was just one more thing that the Romans had taken from me. That night, sitting alone watching the campfires of the Romans I vowed to my brother and to Odin that I would die killing Romans.
It was still raining at dawn, and the Romans were ready. I think that most of them knew they were going to die that day, the only sound was the rain falling down.

Before they could even move down thw trail, we attacked from all sides. The Romans fought bravely and fiercely that day, and many strong men on both side died that day. We fought and fought, antil about midday we broke through, I saw Varus, and he looked at me, I watched in horror as he laid the hilt of his sword on the ground and jumped on it. I fought for four days to get my hands on Varus and he cheated me, he died a cowards death.
I was angry, I began to go wild, striking and killing, but the Romans began to fall on their swords as Varus did, they committed suacide by the hundreds. I ran towards the Eagles, and captured the Eagles of the 19th, and 25th regiments, we had yet to get the Eagles of the 26th regiment.
There was a group of about three hundred Romans who held the Eagles of the 26th, and they formed a tight circle and began a hard charge back the way they  had come. We could have easily killed them all, but I didn't want to, I only wanted the Eagles, and I wanted to let some survivors out to tellof what we had done.
We followed them for four days back down the trail to the sight of the original ainbush. We never let then sleep, and when they stopped at night we threw pieces of dead Romans at them to eat. They ate them. Some of them had gone mad and their own men had to kill them. Still I did not let them sleep, and I decided that the next day that we would take the Eagles.
I waited until dusk on the next day and led a charge straight through the middle of them. We split off about half of them and attacked the group with the Eagles. We let the other group run down the trail. After we killed the group with the Eagles, we followed the toher group, taunting them, waving the Eagles at them, forming up in strict parade march.
There was over a hundred men in that group, and over the next few days we picked them off until, by the time we reached their fort, there were only about 50 men left. Roughly 18,000 men went into the forest, and only 50 came out.
The Romans hadn't had a defeat like that in hundreds of years ( I should know, I have also been a Roman), and this defeat came because of a woman. I wasn't done though, we let those 50 or so men live so they could tell Rome what had happened. I went back into the forest to hunt down survivors. We found dozens of them and burnt them in wicker baskets as sacrifices to Odin. When I was in the forest, I again made my vow to Odin that I would die  killing Romans. This time it was bonded with my own blood.
There were a few scattered fortresses across the province, and we stormed them all, killing all Romans that we found. Only one fortress gave any resistance, the fortress of Varus that we let 50 survivors get to. They burnt many of my men with boiling water that tried to scale the wall.
I heard that fiberius himself was coming to try and hold tile bridges so that we wouldn't storm down into Italy itself  I decided to leave a small force to contend with the fortress and go to the bridge. I knew that once the Romans knew that there was only a small force surrounding the fortress that they would run for the bridge... and they did.
I knew that there were women and children in that fortress, and I gave orders that no woman or child was to live. After all, the little Romans grew up to be big Romans. The fact was though that those men had survived the forest, and I wanted them to survive. I wanted them to tell all of Rome of the massacre in the forest, of all the dead lying in the muddy road, of us in possession if the Imperial Eagles. I wanted them to hurt like I hurt.
We let the survivors get to the bridge, minus the women and children, it was only held by a small garrison, but I decided to wait until Tiberius got there to fight for it.
I knew that I would die in the next attack, and I longed for it. I had killed so many Romans, but it didn~t make the pain in my heart go away, it didn~t bring back Fabiola, my child, or Segimerus. All those dead Romans, and nothing was better. Oh, I still wanted to kill Romans, I wanted them to feel the same pain that I felt, I wanted to hurt them as they had hurt me. But at the same time, I knew that it didn1t matter how many Romans I killed, this pain, this burning ache was never going to go away. All the dead Romans in the world wouldntt fill the hole in my heart.
Two days later Tiberius arrived with thousands of more Romans. I decided to attack the tired troops before they could even make camp. I led the charge as we streamed across the bridge at the suprised Romans.They capped us off so that we couldntt get all of our men across the bridge and spread out. Those of us already across had two choices, to fight or flee back across the bridge. I know Wnnt b~ppened, happened in an instant,but the ironient seer~ed so slow.I glanced behind me, and I saw all but a few men run back over the bridge. The Romans were standing there ready, there was only about 40 of us but they were giving us a chance to get back across the bridge.
I remembered my oath to Odin, and I saw my brother going down at the hands of a Roman, and Fabiola's smiling face, laughing as I held her, then I saw her after the Romans were done with her and tears welled up in my eyes.
All was silent, no one said anything, no one moved.I looked at the Romans, and they at me, and I screamed from deep inside. I saw the Romans flinch, and I raised my sword and charged. We all charged. We fought hard. I had just killed my third man when a sword entered my side. It was like a punch knocking the wind out of me,but my hands went numb and I dropped my sword. I fell to my knees, th~n my back, I saw Romans standing above me, but beyond me I saw the sky, there was a storm coming. The last thing I remember was saying my womans name. I had fulfilled my vow...

                        Anthony Ehlers    1998