Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

December 22, 220 AD, Civitas Aurelia & Fundus Ferratus, Gallia.

The doors of the praetorium in Civitas Aurelia swung open, admitting a blast of wind into the hall.

Governor Marcellus stood beside a hearth, surrounded by his magistrates and the Guild Master, Spurius. The province was in a state of mobilization.

With the Emperor dead and rival Legates carving up the Mediterranean, Marcellus had issued a decree: every patrician estate in Gaul was to surrender half its grain reserves and a tithe of silver to fund the city’s defense.

Two watchmen dragged a chest across the floor, leaving streaks of mud in their wake.

"The tribute from Fundus Ferratus, Governor," the captain of the watch announced, bowing. "The carriage driver dropped it at the city gates and fled back toward the eastern ridges."

Marcellus raised a brow, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "So, the Forge Master bends the knee. He realizes that a few parlor tricks with a ballista cannot protect him from the authority of Rome during a civil war."

The Governor gestured to Spurius. "Open it, Guild Master. Let us see how much silver the boy has bled from his mine to beg for our protection."

Spurius hurried forward, unlatching the clasps and throwing open the lid.

The smile vanished from Spurius’s face, replaced by a look of confusion.

There was no silver. There were no minted denarii or stacks of grain.

The chest was filled with chunks of iron slag... the waste scraped from the bottom of a smelting crucible.

Resting on top of the garbage was a sheet of paper.

Spurius picked up the letter with a trembling hand, his face flushing.

"It is a mockery..." the Guild Master hissed.

"Read it," Marcellus commanded.

Spurius cleared his throat, reading Lucius’s script aloud for the hall.

*"To Governor Marcellus,*

*It is with a heavy heart that I must decline your invitation to fund the provincial garrison. The frost has been cruel to my farmers, and our carts are mired in the mud. I cannot spare the manpower or the coin to transport grain to your tables. As a token of our loyalty, please accept this chest of our estate’s output. We find it suitable for the caliber of men guarding Civitas Aurelia. I shall pray for your health in the coming storms.*

*Forever a servant of industry,*

*Lucius Cassius."*

Magistrate Drusus let out a scoff. "The boy is a lunatic! He is mocking the crown while the empire is tearing itself apart!"

"He intends to sit behind his walls and play at being a king while we bleed to secure the borders," Spurius snarled, kicking the chest so hard a chunk of slag spilled onto the marble. "Governor, give me two cohorts of the city watch. I will drag him out of his villa by his hair!"

Marcellus stared at the spilled slag for a moment. Then, a laugh echoed from his chest.

"Let the boy rot in his mud," Marcellus sneered, turning his back on the chest. "He is a coward, hiding behind a palisade because he knows he cannot survive a war. Prefect Fabius informed me yesterday that Lucius sold him five hundred of his steel cavalry swords. Do you understand what that means, Spurius?"

The Guild Master blinked, his rage stalling. "He sold his weapons?"

"He liquidated his armory for silver," Marcellus stated. "He sold the only military-grade steel he possessed to the legions because he knows his militia of street rats couldn’t hold a sword if they tried. They are likely guarding that estate with sticks and farming scythes. I will not waste a soldier marching into the hills to fight a terrified boy."

The Governor walked back to his map of the province, his eyes scanning the northern river crossings.

"The threat comes from the rival Legates maneuvering in the north. We march the garrison to secure the trade ports tomorrow. Once I have allied with whoever seizes the imperial throne, I will march back here with an army of veterans, rip the gates off Fundus Ferratus, and crucify Lucius Cassius on his own blast furnace."

The magistrates nodded in agreement... Lucius was an annoyance, but he was isolated, disarmed, and irrelevant to the game of emperors.

They were oblivious to the scribe standing in the shadows near the archival shelves.

Cassian was an archivist in the Governor’s praetorium, a man whose hands were stained with ink and whose loyalty was tethered to the highest bidder.

Months ago, Aulus had purchased Cassian’s allegiance with a bribe of silver and the promise of a seat on the Syndicate Council.

Cassian kept his head bowed, organizing a stack of incoming dispatches from the northern frontier.

Hidden beneath a pile of reports was a sealed scroll bearing the wax eagle of Legate Rufinus... the commander of the northern armies.

Cassian had broken the seal in the light of the archives hours before the Governor’s meeting.

The contents of that scroll had stopped his heart.

It was a notification that Tribune Quintus Fabius was marching south with a vexillation of ten thousand heavy infantry.

Their target was target was Fundus Ferratus. And they were moving with forced-march speed.

Cassian knew Lucius was preparing to launch a surprise attack on the city in a month. But Tribune Quintus was not a month away.

According to the courier’s timestamp, the legionaries were less than forty-eight hours from breaching the valley of the forge.

As the magistrates continued to mock Lucius’s tribute, Cassian slipped a copy of the dispatch into his tunic.

He bowed to the room, murmuring an excuse about fetching ink, and melted into the corridors of the palace.

Cassian walked out of the praetorium, disappearing into the slums of the lower city. He navigated the alleyways until he reached a tavern reeking of sour wine and unwashed bodies.

Sitting in the corner of the tavern was a massive man wearing furs, nursing a cup of ale.

It was one of Hagen the Bear’s smugglers, embedded in the city to distribute the iron *falxes* to the underclass.

Cassian slid into the booth opposite the barbarian. H slid the folded parchment across the wood.

The smuggler glanced at the terror in the scribe’s eyes, took the parchment, and vanished out the back door into the night.

...

Lucius was standing in the center of the command tent pitched, surrounded by Valerius, Decimus, and Wulfric.

Spread across a table was a map of Civitas Aurelia’s street layout. They were calculating the blast radiuses of Kallias’s clay explosives against the city’s gates.

"If we detonate three charges simultaneously at the hinges," Lucius explained, tapping the map, "the integrity of the archway will collapse. Wulfric’s pikemen can push through the rubble before the city watch realizes the gates are gone."

Before Valerius could nod in agreement, the flap of the command tent was thrown open.

Isolda stepped inside, her face paler than Lucius had seen it.

The composure of the princess had fractured... She held a crumpled piece of paper in her hand.

"A runner arrived from the city," Isolda said, her voice tight. "One of Hagen’s smugglers ran two horses to death to get this up the ridge."

Lucius felt the temperature in the tent plummet. He took the paper from his wife, smoothing it out on the table over the map of the city.

Valerius leaned over to read the Latin scrawl. The commander’s face drained of color.

"By the gods..." Valerius breathed, stepping back as if the paper itself were made of fire.

"Ten thousand heavy infantry," Lucius read aloud, his voice quiet. "Commanded by Tribune Quintus. Marching under the banner of Legate Rufinus."

"Quintus?" Isolda asked, recognizing the name from Lucius’s stories of his past. "Your friend?"

"He was a friend when we were boys," Lucius said, his jaw clenching. "Now he is the executioner of the Third Legion."

Wulfric slammed a fist onto the table, splintering the edge. "Ten thousand Roman veterans! We have a thousand men! Even with the explosive clay, they will crush us under their weight! We must abandon the valley. We can load the gold into the carts and flee into the forests!"

"No," Lucius snapped.

"Dominus, be reasonable!" Valerius pleaded. "They outnumber us ten to one. We cannot hold the palisade against that mass!"

Lucius stared at the map of the valley.

Valerius was right... A static defense against ten thousand Romans was a death sentence.

The timber walls would splinter, the gates would fall, and the syndicate would be slaughtered.

Lucius looked up.

"Valerius is right. We cannot hold the walls," Lucius declared, rolling up the map of the city and tossing it aside. "So we will not be behind them."

The three commanders and Isolda stared at him in silence.

Lucius drew his spatha, slamming the point of the blade into the center of the table.

"Wake the men. Load the ballistas onto the carriages. Pack every ounce of Kallias’s explosive clay into the wagons," Lucius commanded. "We march at first light."

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