Dragon Queen: Hadrian’s Wall
By
Geltab
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Geltab on Smashwords
Dragon Queen: Hadrian’s Wall
Copyright © 2012 by Geltab
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Dragon Queen: Hadrian’s Wall
The Roman Empire of the Antonine period during the rule of Emperor Hadrian in the year 121AD, the borders of the empire had been fixed by 117AD stretching from Britain to Babylon. When the Emperor Hadrian was touring his empire on the isle of Britain due to Celts from the unconquered northern portion of the island harassing Romanized society to the south Hadrian decided to erect a great wall over fifty miles long across Britain from coast to coast effectively sealing off the barbarians. This wall was to cut across vast and ancient woodland that would be chopped down and cleared to make way for the new wall. In small cottages and stone homes along this route there lay a village of Gauls that was to be demolished and the inhabitants relocated for the construction.
Eiren was a shepherd’s daughter who had come of age, years ago she was violated by Roman soldiers and has remained with her parents due to the fact she can no longer bear children. She would remain single and care for her aging parents while assuming the duties of their small homestead. Now all was to be destroyed, removed because some man thousands of miles away wants it to be so. Eiren couldn’t accept it, since her long now lost youthful days when she was soft and fair that had been taken through rape until now when she was hard from years of isolation tending to the animals and living outdoors in the harsh wilderness, she no longer even felt the bite of the cold northern winds on her face.
You won’t find her story in the accounts of Tacitus, Plutarch or Suetonius. The story of Eiren the Dragon Queen was considered too dangerous to be remembered. Any magic not of a Roman God too strong was considered blasphemy. The Dragon Queen who started as a young woman named Eiren is such a bane that not even the Romans who recorded both the terrifying Hannibal in the second Punic War and the mighty Spartacus in the Servile Wars would record her story, for she brought such dark magic and power against them Hadrian decided after losing so many legions never to venture into the north past his wall again and to erase the name of Eiren from Roman history. He had been made to understand it is better to forget the heathens in the frozen north and continue strengthening and Romanizing the provinces of Gaul. It took the emperor long, hard losses to come to this conclusion for it is not the Roman way to give in to an enemy no matter how bad the loss.
This account of Eiren the Dragon Queen and how she personally stopped the legions of Rome who destroyed her family farm and home with their construction of Hadrian’s Wall, a farm passed down among generations now gone, is only told here. Eiren couldn’t stop the construction of the wall, they were pushed out and the entire village forcibly relocated. Though they only had to move a few miles north Eiren vowed revenge on the Roman dogs, those who had violated the women of the land and killed the men for so many years. Her people were closely tied to the land and forest the Romans had destroyed to build Hadrian’s Wall. The Romans still desired war and kept pushing north even after the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, it is a historical lie that the expansion stopped, if anything the Romans felt safer performing northern excursions due to the wall they could now safely retreat behind.
Eiren was one woman, alone in a family with no sons of her own, no daughters, no husband and now no land. She decided it was time for drastic measures as the Romans had begun making further gains against a northern tribe to the west. If nothing was done all would be lost. Eiren resolved to leave this thatch hastily built on their retreat north, they lived there now as constructing a stone or completely wooden home takes much more time and all local materials were exhausted when building the wall.
Legends told that if one could navigate and survive their way as far north as possible, just to the edge of the land itself there was said to live a group of witches inside a magical sphere that had come from neighboring Hibernia who possessed and ancient and dark magic capable of transforming those it chose from a simple human into a God.
Packing a sheepskin bag with her only extra pair of clothes, four crab apples with bread and a pig bladder of water mixed with wine she set out to the north. She made a tearful goodbye with her parents who wholeheartedly supported her attempt, they knew this was no kind of life and the Romans would come anyway. It may take time but they are like locusts with their expansion, they consume all land. Her mother had made a very warm jacket of wool that she gifted her with before she set out on her adventure, one last token of love before a mission of hate.
Eiren left just as the sun was rising and walking north through the green and craggy highlands the further she walked the more she felt like she was going uphill. She would hike until her body would take no more and if there was no inn or residence to ask for sleep she would just sleep under the stars. Eiren kept her head and face concealed and kept hunched over as much as she could carrying a walking stick sure that no one would attempt to rape or rob an unarmed old beggar. For four days and nights she walked seeing no other human for conversation or companionship or to be scared of, bedding down one night Eiren decided to build a fire as every night further north seemed to get progressively colder.
After about an hour there was a nice fire roaring when she heard a rustle in a bush next to her before she could think three men jumped out and into the light of the campfire, they were painted bright green and wore only pants to the knee, carrying a bow of the same color. They were uniformly bald, standing in a row in front of the fire Eiren jumped up realizing she had no weapon but her walking stick. Looking at them she noticed they were all identical, they looked exactly the same.