The forest east of the Rhine was ancient and unforgiving — tall oaks and pines that had stood since before Rome was a village. Seigmer's detachment of twenty-four men (the best shots and the steadiest nerves) melted into it like shadows at midnight.
They moved in pairs, climbing into the lower branches of carefully chosen trees along the old trade road. Platforms of lashed branches and rope, invisible from below. Heavy crossbows wrapped in oiled hide, clay grenades tucked into padded pouches at their belts. No fires. No talking. Only hand signals Seigmer had drilled into them.
By dawn the Romans came.
Four hundred and seventy men in a long, disciplined column — red crests, oval shields, the silver aquila standard glinting at the head. The tribune rode near the front on a fine bay mare, flanked by his six centurions and the two standard bearers. Exactly as the scouts had reported.
Seigmer crouched on his platform thirty feet up, heavy crossbow spanned and resting on a forked branch. His voice was barely a whisper into the still air.
"Standards first. Then centurions. Grenades on my signal. No one fires until the column is fully inside the kill zone."
The men acknowledged with the crisp modern salute from their perches.
The Romans marched straight into the trap.
Thwack.
The first heavy quarrel left Eadric's crossbow like a thunderbolt. It took the lead standard bearer through the throat at two hundred paces. The man dropped without a sound; the aquila tilted wildly and crashed into the dirt.
Before the Romans could react, three more bolts flew from the canopy — two centurions, one through the eye-slit of a helmet, another through the gap between neck and shoulder. Blood sprayed across white tunics.
Shouts erupted. Horns blared. Shields snapped up in a ragged testudo.
Seigmer smiled coldly behind his tree trunk.
"Now."
Clay pots sailed down from the branches — twenty of them, fuses already lit by Seigmer's telekinesis from cover. He had guided each fuse with invisible fingers, perfect timing.
The first grenade hit the road in the middle of the column and exploded with a sharp CRACK. Smoke billowed. Iron scraps whined through the air. Three legionaries went down screaming — one clutching a shredded face, another with a jagged piece of pottery buried in his thigh. The blast was not massive, but the terror was. Men who had faced Goths and Huns flinched at the unnatural thunder.
A second grenade landed among the rear ranks. Another BOOM. Horses reared. A centurion's helmet spun away with a fresh dent and blood on the crest.
The Romans broke formation for three heartbeats — long enough for another volley of heavy bolts from the trees. Two more centurions dropped. One standard bearer tried to raise the fallen aquila; Eadric's second shot pinned his hand to the staff.
Panic rippled through the cohort like fire in dry grass.
"Ambush! Barbarians in the trees!"
Shields locked overhead, but the canopy was too thick for clear shots upward. Arrows flew blindly into the branches — one whistled past Seigmer's ear and buried itself in the trunk beside him. A splinter of wood sliced across his left forearm, drawing a thin line of blood. He ignored it. Minor. Acceptable.
"Grenades again," he signaled.
Another wave of clay pots. This time the explosions came closer together — overlapping thunder that made the road disappear in white smoke. A horse went mad and bolted, trampling two of its own riders. The tribune was shouting orders, voice hoarse, trying to rally his men, but the centurions who should have repeated his commands were dead or dying on the ground.
Seigmer picked his moment.
He dropped from his tree in a controlled fall, landing like a cat behind the chaos. Four of his best followed — Ingvar among them. They moved low, using the smoke as cover, crossbows slung, short swords and ropes ready.
The tribune had dismounted, sword out, trying to form a defensive knot around the fallen aquila. His face was pale beneath the helmet crest, eyes wide with disbelief.
Seigmer stepped out of the smoke ten paces away.
The tribune saw him — a young warrior in simple Germanic tunic and mail, blood on one arm, eyes cold as winter steel.
"Parley!" the tribune barked in accented Germanic, raising his sword. "I am Marcus Flavius Severus, tribune of the— "
Seigmer's fist cracked across his jaw. The man dropped like a sack of grain.
Ingvar was already there with the rope. They bound the tribune's wrists and ankles in seconds, gagged him with a strip of his own cloak, and dragged him into the trees.
The remaining Romans were still firing blindly into the canopy, shouting for their missing officers. Without the standards and centurions the cohort was a headless beast — men milling, yelling contradictory orders, some already breaking toward the rear.
Seigmer's men fired one final volley of ordinary crossbow bolts from the trees, then melted away.
No pursuit. The Romans were too disorganized to organize one.
The entire action had lasted less than six minutes.
They regrouped two miles deeper into the forest at a pre-chosen rally point. Seigmer's forearm stung, but the cut was shallow — a bandage from his kit stopped the bleeding in seconds. Not a single man lost. Not even a serious wound.
The tribune was conscious now, eyes blazing with fury and terror above the gag.
Seigmer crouched in front of him.
"You will tell us everything we need to know," he said quietly in perfect Latin. "Supply routes. Signal codes. The location of your next reinforcements. Or we will make the rest of your life very educational."
The tribune's eyes widened at the flawless Latin coming from a barbarian boy.
Seigmer stood and looked at his men.
They were staring at him with something close to religious awe.
"We have done what we came for," he said. "The cohort is softened. The Reik's glory charge will now meet a broken enemy. And we… we have the head."
Ingvar grinned, teeth white in the morning light. "The Reik will never forget this day."
Seigmer did not smile back.
No, he thought. The Reik will remember who gave him victory.
They melted back into the trees, carrying their prize.
Behind them, on the bloodied road, the Roman cohort milled in confusion, shouting for officers who would never answer again, while smoke from the strange thunder still drifted between the ancient oaks.
The war in his name had drawn its first real blood.
And Rome had just learned that the forest had teeth.