*Ghoul*

Siwon knelt as the stone hammered his right knee. The stricken limb deformed, and splinters of crushed bones protruded from the wound. The pain was unbearable.

“Commander! Behind you!”

The alarmed voice of his subordinates brought Siwon back from the heist of torment. By instinct, Siwon responded with ducked his head forward, missing a spear by an inch. Siwon quickly regained from his position and tried to stabilize his posture.

Siwon glanced around. Havoc everywhere. Soldiers fought and fell; blood splashed wetting the ground. They were losing this battle. Those ruthless salvagers army slaughtered the Romans one by one. They came very well prepared. Siwon and his troops were outnumbered. The Romans just couldn’t win this war.

Despair started to knock Siwon’s heart. Doubts, fears, and defeats shone in his army’s eyes. ‘God, help us. Show us some mercy.’ Siwon prayed silently.

Another attacker came from his side. The big burly man in bear fur hewed his big axe towards Siwon. The young commander held his shield blocking the assault. The impact of the heavy metal split his shield in two and thrown Siwon’s already battered body sprawling on the ground. With all his last strength, Siwon tried to get up and swung his sword toward the man.

However, the attack was too weak, there wasn’t any energy left in it. The men easily held out the sword and threw it away. Siwon left kneeling, bared and defenseless in front of his enemy. Another man approached them. The tall bear man bowed showing respect towards the new comer.

He was a middle age male, wearing bear’s head as his hat. His body covered with dried clay and blood. ‘He has to be their leader.’ Siwon thought. A shiny sword unsheathed and pointed at Siwon’s neck. Siwon noted, the sword was too crafty and nifty to be made by the salvagers. It must have been taken from the other Roman’s commander they defeated before him.

The leader started to gave speech in his mother tongue. The others responded him with shouting back. Even though Siwon didn’t understand a single word uttered by them, but he convinced, the salvagers were celebrating their victory upon the Romans. They looked rejoiced. Amongst the salvagers’ army, Siwon noticed, there were child, women, and even old folks, all of them equally battered and bathed in blood.

There was no way to get out of the situation. His subordinates mostly were sprawled lifeless on the ground while others already threw away their swords upon Siwon’s defeats.  

The Ghoul’s fortress had fall.

He had failed. For the first time in his life, the excellent young commander experienced the bitter taste of failure. Siwon fighting spirit ripped violently off him. He never felt so defeated before.

Siwon smiled, mocking himself. ‘So, this is how it feels.’

The surrounding started to fade. The opposing leader still giving out his speech of victory, but the sound of their celebration became further and distant. The dreadful scenery of ‘his’ fiasco blurred out.

Siwon didn’t even flinched when his remaining soldiers forced to line up beside him, kneeling in front of the salvagers. The cheer heightened as they started to count the Romans. Siwon knew, in minutes they will be man slaughtered one by one and their heads going to be chopped off their necks as token of victory by the salvagers.

Siwon’s life started to flash in his eyes. The blood from his wound streamed freely, however Siwon could barely felt the pain. His heart pounded in his ribcage and his vision pulsated, synchronized the heart. His eyes weren’t focused and breathing getting more difficult with each inhales. His childhood memory flooded his hazed mind.

When Siwon looked up, he wasn’t at the battle field anymore, in fact he was already home. In front of him, Siwon saw the beautiful garden of his house and his ever so graceful mother smiling warmly. In his small hand, he held a wooden sword and a small shield. He was panting back then.

“Siwon, focus,”

Siwon startled, he turned around facing the voice. He fastened his grip on his sword as he saw his father, the great commander Aquila. The smiling man also held a short wooden sword in his large hand. Siwon knew, he already came back to his childhood. He was 6 years old, practicing swordplay with his father.

“Don’t give up, my child,” his father said, still smiling to him, “You still have to take this,” the man flashed a small miniature of The Eagle in front of him, “from me. Come on, try again.”

Motivated by his father words, small Siwon lunched out and tried to hit his father again. The skillful man easily ducked the attack and pushed him to the ground.

“Come on, you can do this.”

Determined, Siwon greeted his teeth together and attacked again. “I’m going to take that from you father!”

His father’s smile widened. “That’s the spirit, my boy. You’re a Roman, and Roman never back away!”

*

After a while, Siwon found himself sprawling on the ground again. His father was good. No matter how hard he attacked him, the man would be able ducked or intercept him easily. The young Siwon pouted hugely, showing his dissatisfaction. “Father, this is not fair! Your’re too big!” he whined.   

His father knelt in front of him and smiled warmly. “Ah, my little Siwon,” the man reached out and ruffled his already messy hair, “In battle field, your opponent will never care if you’re too small, or too young or too old. They couldn’t care about that. They had been given a mission, which is to defeat you.”

Siwon nodded. “And you have to defeat them as well.”

Siwon looked at his father hand.

“Come on now boy, don’t give up. Fight until your last breath, so that you wouldn’t regret it later. On your feet now, Roman! You can do it.”

Siwon nodded. ‘Yes father, I’ll fight until my last breath.’

Slowly Siwon came back to his senses. The eerie battlefiled started to reappear. The reek of blood mixed with damp British soil welcomed Siwon's nose. The surrounding noise also celared up. Siwon looked around and saw a piece of broken shiled with a pointed end. It was big enough to wound or in a skill hand, to even kill a man.

'It'll do.' Siwon thought.

Silently, Siwon grabbed the new 'weapon' and held the sharp object tightly in his hand. Staggered, he started to get on his wounded limbs. His sloppy movement doesn’t go unnoticed by the salvagers. The cheering crowds started to point at his direction, making the leader or the salvagers stopped his celebration.

*

The look in the old man’s eyes shown disbelieved at Siwon’s action. In his eyes, Siwon was too battered to even stand. The man was amazed.

Shaky, Siwon mumbled under his breath, “I’m a Roman,”

The leader looked questioning at him. All the celebration stopped. The salvagers stepped closer to them, trying to hear the dying man’s words.

At this point, Siwon could his life was leaving him. His breaths literally hug by his throat, and his eyes could not focus anymore. In between the image of his hometown and the battlefield, Siwon grabbed his father hand and pulled himself on his feet. “Yes father, I won’t give up.”

With that, Siwon stood proudly on his feet and stabbed the leader’s neck with the piece of wood. The shocked man paralyzed as he was taken aback by the fast and bold action. Warm fresh blood splashed on Siwon face, and the leader started to fall. His head rested on Siwon’s broad shoulder. The man’s eyes round in aghast as life left him.

“I’m Roman! I’ll fight even in my death!” Siwon roared.

TBC***

Next, Siwon meets Eun