This is a story a little different from other fantasy stories. Most stories are placed in the medieval times or future. Why not place a story in ancient times of Rome or Greece? This story is inspired by the history of Rome about 300BC, so long before Gaius Julius Caesar, when Rome was still a republic and no empire. Enjoy...
Note: All characters are over 18 in the story
----
Since the early childhood my father sent me to military training. He is a man of the Legion and I was very proud when he was promoted to be a praetorian of the senate.
The praetorians are the elite guard of the senate's officials like the consuls or legates. It was a high honor for us plebeians to reach such a position. With this promotion my father was able to send me to the arcane military academy.
I was arcane gifted, but usually only patricians are allowed to enter the academy. I got arcane affinity from my mother's blood. She was a Celtic witch that met my father during his time in the Gaul territory of the Venetians.
The story of their first meeting was always very inspiring for me and I cannot think about this story often enough. My father the legionary Lucius Marcius Censorius was already some years in the army when he was assigned to the third legion.
The Centurion sent his team out scouting for the Etruscan troops in the mountain passes east of the Etruscan capitol Arretium. After days of watching they found an Etruscan slaves transport with four slaves and seven guards on the way to Arretium.
His Decurion decided to attack the guards, because they were low in numbers if the slaves are not fighting for them. They set a quick ambush and according to the memory he was killing two of the guards. When they killed the guards the slaves used the incoming chaos to escape into the woods.
The Decurion decided to not follow the escaped slaves, because there is no way to keep slaves on a scouting mission. While they started to remove the dead bodies from the pass street the enemy's backup showed up.
For the Decurion it was known that this is the end of his complete squad if he is not sacrificing some men that the other can retreat. He chooses Lucius and another man to keep the enemies busy while the rest of the squad is escaping and reporting to the garrison.
The enemies came to them and the two legionaries fought. The incoming arrows were blocked by the legion shields so the enemy was coming for melee. Lucius could kill three of them before he got a critical hit in the chest area. When he was down the other man was running into the woods. The enemies were chasing the man and they left the legionary to die on the street.
With her witch magic the escaping witch could use a spell that made her not relevant in others minds if the enemy was looking at her. So after the enemy left for chasing the other legionary she pulled the wounded body of Lucius into the bushes.
The witch was aware of the situation she was in. Her spell is only for some minutes working or maybe half an hour if she concentrates on her fear.
This man was her only way to get out of the Etruscan territory without being enslaved once more. The magic of witches is based on emotions so the more she likes somebody the more the healing spell will be effective. The opposite is for spells which harm the target. To heal she needed to put some of her power in a body liquid which needs to go directly into the wound.