The Adventures of a Roman legionnaire

Chapter 4

  I should've known it was gonna be a bad day when it started raining. As I slipped and slided through the mud, my clothes cold and sticky from the rain, I thought about my house in Rome and sitting around the fireplace with Livia. That only put me in a worse mood.
    After a few hours of marching we were approaching a small border settlement when a man appeared on the horizon. His clothes were ragged and torn, and he had a large cut on his face.
"Help!" He screamed. "The ostrogths are looting the village! They're killing everyone!"
   "Finally!" Romulus yelled. "Some action! Let's go men! We have some people to save!"
   "Forward! Into BATTLE!" I shouted at my men. We lined up our men in battle lines. Cohorts 3,4, and 5 (me) would attack from the front, while cohorts 1 (Gauis) and 4 (Romulus) would flank around.
   As I marched into the town, the heat hit me so hard I almost fell down. Everything was on fire. Everything. The houses, the schools, the marketplace, the town hall. Everything. We could see where some of the townsfolk had made their stand. There was a barricade in the center of town. It was ringed by the bodies of men in rusty armor with blunt swords. For every twenty  of them you would see the body of a barbarian.
  Romulus picked up the charred remnants of a children's toy. He yelled , "Barbadian slime!" As he threw the toy against a building.
  I heard faint crying and went to investigate. I found a small boy no older than 3. He was lying next to what had once been his mother. I picked him up and took him to the legion's doctor. He assured the boy that everything would be all right and began checking him for injuries.
   Romulus stormed over mad as ever.
    "Damnit Juvian, this is what we're here to stop!"
     "I know Romulus. I know."
     "It's just so hard to come out here and see what little impact we're having. Knowing that maybe if we were a little quicker we could've stopped this." He looked like he was about to cry.
   I tired to comfort him, but it just came out sounding weak and I knew he was still upset. We wandered around the town for awhile and then left.
   A few hours later when we were setting up base camp the doctor came over. He had the boy I found in the wreckage with him. He explained that the kid didn't have any parents and that I should take him because I found him. We argued a little but eventually I agreed. I set the boy to rest and wondered what kind of environment this was to raise a child.