Full Circle Chapter 23 First half tonight, rest tomorrow!

All throughout the long march south both armies played an intricate game of hide and go seek as one might see a child play. There was one big difference however: this was no game. People died during the skirmishes between both the Goths and Romans with death claiming both the innocent and the soldiers irregardless of who they might be.

The weather was hot and getting hotter the further south they went; the terrain rough and hard on the horses. It was a good place to hide and attack an unsuspecting group of soldiers who had been sent out to scout ahead of the approaching army. Darius put the terrain to good use hiding his men in the mountains or lying in wait for the Romans to come through a small pass before attacking.

The skirmishes were often brief but violent as blood spilled into the small streams and men fought and died upon their commander’s orders. Often Darius defied the odds and slipped away from the grasp of Stilicho before suffering any great loss of men, equipment and horses much to the Roman’s chagrin.

Stilicho had given him a nickname: Snake. And to his mind Darius was just that, a snake that needed to be wiped out forever providing he could catch him and destroy his army. He sighed as he looked around the stark yet beautiful landscape of Greece and remembering other battles that had been fought here, other men who had died, other losses of other general’s reputations and lives when they failed to win a great victory for Rome. Where did they go this time? he wondered as he shielded his eyes with one hand to look off into the distance. And how long would it take them to find them again? What he needed was an edge, an advantage to make sure that Darius would not slip away ever again without his knowing about where they intended to go and what their plans were.

He paced to and from, hands clasped behind his back as he thought. He knew that he needed someone to infiltrate their army, someone who would pass as a Goth—preferably someone with the fair hair many of the Goths seemed to possess. “Constantine!” he bellowed. “Assemble the men. I want to inspect them.”

Constantine’s brow knitted together in anger at the order; his mouth thinned while his eyes shot a killing blow if such a thing had been possible towards his co-commander. He jerked around the reins and went to assemble the men as he was ordered to do.

Alaric woke up, blinking and stared in the darkness towards his hand, which trembled violently. He rubbed at his eyes with his one good hand then sat up knowing what would be coming next. For some time he had experienced massive bouts of both dizziness and nausea that sickened him but in the time that they had been on the move towards Athens another symptom had arisen: seizures.

The tremors slowly crept up his arm as the muscles stiffened and cramped then followed across his shoulders until finally he fell to the earth and lay there as his body jerked violently in spasms and his eyes rolled back into his head so that only the whites showed. A small dribble of saliva dripped from one corner of his mouth and he grunted and uttered noises like a pig but he was unable to stop himself from doing it.

After a few minutes that seemed to have been stretched out into hours, his seizures slowed then ceased altogether and he lay gasping for breath. Never had he experienced such as one as this before and he hoped he never had to again. He shook his head to clear it but the dizziness and blurred vision remained with him.

Closing his eyes he reached out to feel around for the animal skin he used for a blanketand pulled it down upon him before curling up into a tight ball and drifting off to sleep. His last thoughts were bleary but he still knew of his goal: Athens.

And Athens was only a day's ride ahead--if they were lucky enough not to encounter Rome's armies one last time before reaching the city's gates.

That thought lulled him into a deep slumber which someone who saw him might have mistaken as one who might be a corpse. And in it's own way, it would have been a true assessment.

He was slowly dying.