Heir of Aurelian

The situation within the Sassanid Empire continued to devolve after the bloody dispute between Narseh and Bahram. Well, over a dozen people had died in the search of the missing Princess, and the result was an outright declaration of war between her two brothers.

Naturally, the other candidates for the King of Kings took advantage of this, and begun using their influence to isolate their two rivals. Persian politics was a brutal, and bloody affair, and as a result, more and more men desiring the throne appeared out of the woodworks. Doing everything in their power to eliminate the other contenders.

Powerful nobleman, with no legitimate claim to the throne, began fabricating evidence that they were the rightful heir, all while Shapur assembled his forces, in a preparation to seize the throne once his two brothers had killed themselves while fighting over a woman. A woman who just so happened to be their sister.

While Narseh had secured the allegiance of Vandal Mercenaries, Bahram had done the same. However, his troops came from the far east, and in truth, the man did not know just how battle tested they were compared to his brother’s forces.

Thus, Ctesiphon had become a crossroads between the East and West as all sorts of factions began to scheme for their puppets to take the vacant throne of Persia. Thus, Mitra sulked in her brother’s villa as she recorded the ongoing changes in her hometown while silently reporting them to her bosses in Rome.

The Persian beauty gazed out the window and witnessed something peculiar happening in the streets below. A group of Vandal mercenaries were in a heated argument with a band of Serican soldiers of fortune. The two sides were coming close to blows, as they both knew who each other worked for.

Wanting to avoid the spilling of blood in the streets of Ctesiphon. Mitra rushed out of her brother’s villa to interfere before things went too far. The two sides could not be any more opposite. The vandals were large, muscular, and tall Germanic men, with fair skin and light hair. They were dressed in mail armor and spanganhelms.

Whereas the Serican troops were much smaller, and slimmer, coming from the Western Jin Dynasty, they wore lamellar armor which covered their torso, shoulders, and waist. Despite the overwhelming difference in size between these two groups of men, the Sericans were not the slightest bit intimidated, trusting in their own martial prowess, they considered anyone who was not of Han descent to be a filthy barbarian, these large and brutish white-skinned men included.

It immediately became apparent when Mitra arrived on the scene that neither of these two groups could effectively communicate other than a few rude gestures and the tone of their voice, which was naturally a shouting competition.

Ultimately, the Persian princess was forced to step forward, and condemn her own troops, as she got up in the face of the largest Germanic warrior and shouted at him in latin, which fortunately he understood.

“What do you think you are doing? This is in the middle of the street. There is a time and a place to spill blood, and it is not here! I don’t care what these yellow fuckers said to you, now is not the time for violence!”

“I don’t take orders from you, little girl, and this motherfucker has to pay for raising his tone with me!”

Frustrated at being tossed aside like a common whore, Mitra quickly climbed to her feet and dusted off her silk dress before walking off in a fit.

“Fine, kill each other. See if I give a damn!”

Just when the two parties were about to unsheathe their blades, a loud and gruff voice called out to them. The voice belonged to none other than Braulio, who was the commander of the Vandal warband.

“What in the hell do you bastards think you are doing? Tossing our employer aside as if she is some common whore? If the little girl says that you are to stand down, then you stand down. Do you understand me?”

The large Vandal snorted in disdain as he heard this, but ultimately obeyed his chieftain’s orders. This caused the Serican commander to make a crass remark in his native tongue, which could easily be distinguished from the inflection in his tone.

Perhaps the large Vandal warrior’s intuition was great, or maybe he was just imagining things. However, for whatever reason, he assumed that he was called a coward, and such an insult to his honor could only result in one of the two men’s deaths. With this in mind, he unsheathed his sword and pointed it towards the chest of the Serican commander.

The Serican mercenaries responded by pulling out their own blades. However, as the Vandal spoke, he motioned towards himself, and the enemy commander, that he wanted a one-on-one fight, a duel of honor so to speak. Somehow the small Asian man understood the large barbarian’s words, and thus moved aside into an empty section of the street where the two bands of mercenaries, along with those else who were nearby, gathered to watch the fight unfold.

With both their blades drawn, the two men charged at each other, where the large vandal warrior immediately responded to the Serican commander’s attack with a push kick. The sheer length and size of his legs, along with the momentum which was gathered from the movement of his hips, threw the Serican mercenary onto the floor. Where he was covered in dirt.

Upon seeing this, the Vandal war-band broke out into fits of laughter, while the Sericans scowled in discontent. The large vandal warrior motioned towards his own men for a spear, which one of them obliged. Once in hand, he hurled the spear through the air and down towards his stunned opponent’s neck, skewering him in place.

Blood spewed from the Serican commander’s open wound, as his eyes gazed in disbelief towards the heavens. Meanwhile, the Vandal warriors were clanging their swords against their shields, and howling like a wolf pack as they saw how easily the enemy commander was killed in single combat. As for the rest of the Serican mercenaries. They unsheathed their blades and charged towards the unsuspecting barbarians in an attempt to avenge their fallen commander. With this, a riot had begun, and fresh blood flowed through the streets.