Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

In an atrium within the fortified district of Civitas Aurelia.

Spurius, the Master of the Blacksmith Guilds, reclined on a dining couch. He was surrounded by four of the magistrates in the capital.

Spurius sat up as a scout, breathing heavily, entered the room. "Well?" Spurius demanded, setting his chalice aside. "Did the rabble breach the walls? Is the blast furnace in ashes?"

The scout leaned against a pillar to catch his breath. "It was a massacre, Master Spurius. The mob didn’t dent the gates. The House of Cassius... they have built war engines. Ballistas that fired steel bolts with enough force to punch through three men at once. And the walls... they poured boiling iron down the ladders. Our mercenaries broke in less than an hour."

The magistrates exchanged glances.

Ballistas were imperial siege weapons...

The idea of a patrician fielding a battery of them was horrifying.

"And the flanking maneuver?" Spurius pressed.

The scout shuddered. "Barbarians, Master. Cavalry emerged from the western tree line. They flew no Roman banners. They carried curved swords and trampled the mob into the mud. It was a slaughter. The survivors scattered."

Hearing the report, one of the magistrates, Drusus, stood up, his face pale. "Spurius, you assured us this mob would overwhelm them! Cassius has raised a private army! He is employing barbarian cavalry! If they march on the city—"

"Quiet, Drusus!" Spurius snapped. A smile spread across the Guild Master’s face. "If I wanted to win a siege, I would not have hired three thousand starving alley rats and drunk gladiators. I sent that mob to bleed, and they bled."

Spurius walked to a writing desk in the corner of the atrium. He picked up a wax seal.

"Do you not see the genius of this defeat, my friends?" Spurius explained, looking back at the magistrates. "Cassius deployed imperial siege engines and foreign cavalry against Roman citizens. He has committed treason."

Spurius handed the wax seal to Drusus. "Draft the letter to the Provincial Governor. State that the House of Cassius is funding a barbarian invasion from within Gaul. The Governor will have no choice but to deploy the Third Legion. The Emperor’s soldiers will march on Fundus Ferratus, execute Cassius and his son, and hand the iron mine and the blast furnace to the city for ’lawful administration’."

"I will draft the missive tonight," Drusus grinned. "The courier will ride for the capital before dawn."

...

Fundus Ferratus.

Leaving Valerius to manage the cleanup of the battlefield, Lucius hurried toward the master chambers of the villa.

He needed to check on Isolda and inform Cassius that they had mere days before a legion marched on their walls.

He pushed through the doors of his bedchamber. Isolda was pacing near the hearth, her eyes snapping to him as he entered.

"The horns stopped. I heard the screams," Isolda said. "Did the walls hold?"

"The walls held," Lucius confirmed. "Your brother’s cavalry broke their flank. It was a victory on the field."

Isolda let out a breath, the tension leaving her shoulders.

She stepped closer, and Lucius realized she was trembling.

Not from fear of the battle, but from the crash of sitting helpless in a room while the man she was bound to fought in the dark.

"You are covered in blood," Isolda murmured, reaching out to touch the sleeve of his tunic.

Lucius looked down. "It is not mine. The war engines... they were devastating."

The door to the bedchamber burst open.

Cassius stumbled into the room, his face devoid of color. The patriarch was clutching a piece of parchment, his breath coming in gasps.

"Lucius!" Cassius wheezed. "The scouts... the scouts found something in the dead!"

Lucius went on alert, his hand dropping to the hilt of his dagger. "What did they find, Father? Did Spurius send assassins in the confusion?"

"Worse!" Cassius cried, holding up the parchment. "They found a courier. A man crushed beneath a horse in the rear ranks. He was carrying a sealed missive from Tribune Gaius!"

Tribune Gaius.

The commander of the Third Legion who he had tried to sell the steel to before realizing the military would confiscate the forge.

Lucius snatched the parchment from his father’s hands. He broke the seal and scanned the Latin.

His mind went blank.

The letter was not addressed to Cassius or Lucius... It was addressed to Spurius.

*...The Legate has reviewed your generous ’donations’ to the treasury. We are aware of the siege weapons and the cavalry harbored at Fundus Ferratus. Your mob was a useful distraction. Do not attack again. I am marching two cohorts of the Third Legion from the northern encampment. We will arrive by midday tomorrow. The estate will be confiscated under martial law, and the Cassius bloodline will be eradicated for treason...*

Lucius stared at the parchment, his mind grinding to a halt.

He had been arrogant.

The Guild Master hadn’t sent a mob as a distraction; he had bought the Roman military weeks ago.

The Third Legion was marching to act as the hammer.

"Midday tomorrow," Lucius whispered.

He looked up. Two cohorts of the Third Legion. A thousand armored, disciplined soldiers, commanded by a veteran who knew what the blast furnace was worth.

His fifty Gothic cavalrymen and two hundred *Custodes* recruits would be annihilated...

"They are already on the road," Cassius sobbed, sinking to his knees. "We are dead. My greed has killed us all."

Lucius stood paralyzed, the parchment trembling in his hand.

He felt a hand close over his.

Isolda pried the parchment from his grip. She read the Latin, her expression hardening.

She turned to Lucius. "If the Roman Empire wants this forge, they will have to wade through a river of blood to take it."

Lucius looked at his bride. The pressure in his chest cracked, replaced by a clarity.

She was right... He had not crossed centuries to be executed by a Tribune.

He turned his back on his father and stormed toward the door.

"Valerius!" Lucius roared into the corridor. "Sound the alarm!"

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