Heir of Aurelian

Sarus rode on horseback, along with several members of his tribe, who were Foederati of the Roman Army. They had ensured that they weren’t dressed in roman garb as they strode through the lands of the Gepids with anxious expressions on their faces. A warrior beneath Sarus’s command was quick to question the man’s sanity as he continued forward into hostile territory.

“Chief, pardon my prying, but I seem to remember the last time that you met with the Gepid King he tried to kill you. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

In response to this question, Sarus merely before responding to the man’s concerns with a voice filled with indignation. Not only had the Gepid King tried to kill him during their last encounter, he nearly succeeded in doing so, and he did not wish to be reminded of this fact.

“No, it’s not a good idea. In fact, we’ll be lucky if we live to tell the tale. But I’d rather work with this bastard than the fucking Huns! So quit your bitching and hurry up!”

Upon hearing this, what little hope his men had for survival vanished within their hearts, and only a sense of melancholy prevailed among the gothic warriors as they rode forward through hostile territory. It did not take long for a Gepid war band to spot the invaders into their lands, and by then it was already too late to escape.

The Gepids surrounded the Gothic Warband led by Sarus and pointed their spears in their general direction. If they took one step, they’d be skewered like pigs. Thus, Sarus sighed heavily before speaking to the army that gathered around him. The Gepids were a gothic people, thus; he spoke the same language as them while he bargained to meet with their King.

“Where is Athalaric? I want to speak with that fucking cunt this instant!”

After a few moments, a pale skinned and tall middle-aged man emerged from the crowd with a helmet on his head, and a spear in his hand. He glared at Sarus fiercely before spewing his retort.

“Oh, so I’m a cunt, am I? Funny, I seem to remember the last time you insulted me in such a way. I nearly took your life. So tell me, Sarus, why have you entered my lands? Do you wish to enter the afterlife that badly?”

Sarus returned the Gepid King’s fierce glare with an equally intimidating gaze. The two men stared in silence for several moments until finally Sarus spoke about his reason for visiting.

“I wish to gain your assistance in attacking one of my enemies?”

Athalaric immediately bellowed in laughter, and the moment after doing so, his army of men joined him. The man could hardly believe what he was hearing and was quick to respond to Sarus’s request with a spit on the face.

“Join you? Why the hell would I ever join you? We are mortal enemies, you and I! What makes you think I would ever fight by your side?”

Sarus slowly wiped the spit from his face. The fury in his blue eyes was enough to burn the entire earth to ashes. However, he forced himself to remain calm as he took a deep breath before informing the man of his target.

“You won’t join me, even if it means killing the Regent of the eastern roman emperor?”

The Gepids reacted with shock as they all began to speak among themselves. Even Athalaric was taken aback by this request. He did not expect that Sarus would ever make such a request of him, and because of this, he immediately became suspicious.

“You want me to attack the eastern roman regent? Are you mad? His armies are large enough to drown my entire kingdom. You think I would ever have a chance at claiming his head?”

In response to this, Sarus broke out into a fit of laughter. It would appear that the Gepids were poorly informed about the ongoing political intrigue within the borders of both roman empires. Now that he knew, he had the upper hand. Sarus became more confident as he made his stance perfectly clear with a proud boast.

“There is a new emperor in the west, someone who Yazdegerd deeply despises. Apparently the eastern roman empire has a blood feud with this man for overthrowing that idiot Honorius.  The two foolish bastards are meeting at the borders of your land in order to come to some form of peace agreement.

They have agreed to only bring a thousand men each in order to ensure that a battle does not occur. With your men, and mine, we will be able to ambush the two emperors and put an end to Rome once and for all! Imagine it, Athalaric, the Gepid King who slew the last two Roman emperors! The entire world will remember your name throughout history! What do you say? Are you interested?”

If Marcellus was here to hear such a thing, he would scoff. The truth of the matter was in his past life the names of the Gepid Kings from the 4th century AD all the way until after the Huns conquered them in the middle of the 5th Century AD were all lost to time. Modern scholars completely forgot Athalaric and his petty reign.

However, to the Gepid king, this was an interesting proposal, enough to make him seriously consider siding with Sarus. Luckily, he did not know the Gothic Chieftain had joined the Romans as Foederati and had fought among their ranks for many years now. Or else he would become paranoid about this being a plot to eliminate him.

After several moments of thinking, Athalaric broke out into mad laughter as he gazed upon Sarus and the Gothic Foederati before declaring his decision aloud for all to hear.

“Very well. I accept your request. Consider the bad blood between us dead and gone. I look forward to working alongside you, my Gothic friend.”

Upon hearing this, the Gothic Foederati all sighed in relief. It surprised even Sarus that he had managed to convince this mad bastard to side with him. Truly, it was up to the man’s mood, and how he felt at the exact moment they met. It was already a miracle that the Gepid archers did not fire upon Sarus and his host the moment they laid eyes on them.

After agreeing to work together to “eliminate the two emperors,” Sarus informed the Gepid king of his assassination plan. It was fairly simple, after the two parties had concluded their negotiations and went on their separate ways. The Gepids under the command of Athalaric would attack the Eastern Roman forces, and the Goths under Sarus’ command would attack the Western Roman forces.

In reality, Sarus would sit back and do nothing, while Athalaric did all the work. Then he planned to regroup with Marcellus’s one thousand Palatini and put an end to the Gepid horde once and for all. This was the real reason that Sarus had even mentioned the Gepids to Marcellus.

The Gothic chieftain planned to make use of the elite Roman soldiers to help him get rid of his heated rival. If Marcellus knew he was being used by his Imperial Legate to settle an old grudge, he would probably have Sarus flogged. However, he was blissfully unaware of this fact.

Though Sarus thought about genuinely teaming up with Athalaric and killing both Marcellus and Yazdegerd, he quickly put such an idea away. Marcellus had a bad habit of surviving near-death experiences, and Sarus knew if he were actually to betray the man, he would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable life, even if he fled to the farthest corners of Germania. Thus, he was happy to settle for the death of Athalaric and his horde of warriors.