Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

Despite the strength of the riders, they were outnumbered. The Roman auxiliaries utilized encirclement tactics, hurling javelins from horseback and darting away before the broadswords could connect.

Amalric parried a thrust from a spear, driving the pommel of his sword into the rider’s face and sending the man tumbling into the mud.

As he wheeled his horse around, Amalric felt a wave of despair.

If King Geberic were here, the warlord would have never allowed their forces to be caught in such a bottleneck. Amalric cursed his pride.

"Form a wedge! Break their line to the trees!" Amalric roared.

The Goths tried to rally, but the Roman circle was tightening.

A dozen auxiliaries leveled their spears, preparing for a charge that would break the resistance.

Before the Roman cavalry could spur their mounts, the air shrieked.

Three steel bolts tore through the morning mist. They slammed into the auxiliary formation.

One bolt punched through the chest of a horse, sheared through the rider’s thigh, and impaled the man riding behind him, pinning both corpses to the earth.

The Roman charge collapsed in a mess of men and animals.

Amalric yanked on his reins, his eyes wide as he looked back down the valley road.

Marching up the ridge were the *Custodes*. At their flanks rolled the ballista carts, their crews winding the springs back into place for a second volley.

"Pikes! Present!" Wulfric’s roar carried over the battlefield.

Three hundred *Custodes* dropped to one knee, bracing the butts of their spears into the mud.

They created a wall of steel that stretched across the width of the road.

The surviving Roman auxiliaries, realizing they were caught between the Goths and an infantry force, panicked.

The captain blew a retreat on his whistle, attempting to wheel his cavalry around to flank the arrivals.

But Lucius had not come to negotiate a retreat... From behind the wall of pikes stepped fifty men carrying no armor or weapons.

These were Kallias’s grenadiers. Moving with precision, they ignited the fuses of clay pots using embers from braziers, hurled them into the air toward the cavalry, and ducked back behind the shields.

For a heartbeat, the clay pots arced through the sky.

Then, the valley erupted in hell.

The compounds detonated with a shockwave that lifted horses off their hooves. Flashes of fire and clouds of smoke swallowed the Roman ranks.

The trauma of the blasts shattered the eardrums of the auxiliaries, throwing their mounts into a frenzy. Shrapnel of clay and slag shredded through the armor of the survivors.

Amalric was thrown from his saddle by the shockwave, landing in the snow. His ears rang, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.

He scrambled to his knees, pushing his visor up, and stared at the carnage.

The vanguard... a force of three hundred soldiers that had been butchering his riders moments ago had been erased.

Bodies littered the snow... The auxiliaries who tried to charge the *Custodes* were skewered on the pikes, dying without swinging a sword.

The engagement lasted less than four minutes.

Amalric pushed himself to his feet, leaning on his broadsword. He looked at the lines of the *Custodes*. They hadn’t lost a man.

As the smoke began to clear, the ranks of the *Custodes* parted.

Riding through the center of the army was Lucius. Flanking him was Valerius, his face twisted into a scowl.

Amalric watched the Forge Master approach. The commander felt foolish in his pelts and chainmail. His pride had nearly gotten his vanguard slaughtered, and the man he had mutinied against had saved his life.

Lucius brought his warhorse to a halt a few paces from Amalric. The Roman looked down at the barbarian.

"Are you finished running, Amalric?" Lucius asked.

Amalric gritted his teeth, his grip tightening on his sword. He was a proud man, and apologizing to a Roman tasted like ash.

But the corpses of the auxiliaries surrounding his boots demanded humility...

Before Amalric could speak, Lucius reached into his belt and withdrew a scroll. He tossed it down into the snow at Amalric’s feet.

"My scouts pulled that off the body of a courier three hours ago," Lucius stated. "It outlines Tribune Quintus’s orders from his Legate. I suggest you read it."

Amalric frowned, keeping an eye on the ballista crews as he bent down and picked up the parchment. He broke the seal and scanned the script.

As his eyes ran over the words, his face drained of color, and his expression twisted into a mask of outrage.

"Exterminate the royal line?" Amalric breathed, looking up.

"Quintus is not marching to burn my state," Lucius clarified. "The Legate wants to ensure the tribes cannot retaliate when he marches on Rome. His orders are to butcher every barbarian inside my walls, track your King’s caravans back to the Rhine, and salt your lands. You thought you could run from this war, Amalric. But there is nowhere to run. Rome intends to wipe your people from the earth."

Amalric crushed the parchment in his fist, a tremor of fury shaking his frame.

He had been a fool... He had nearly abandoned the only man capable of stopping the genocide of his tribe.

"That Roman dog..." Amalric snarled, throwing the crumpled paper into the mud.

He looked back up at Lucius, the defiance gone from his eyes, replaced by clarity. Amalric drove the point of his broadsword into the earth and dropped to one knee, bowing his head before the Forge Master.

"I was a fool to doubt the fires of your forge, Dominus," Amalric declared. "My sword, my men, and my blood belong to you. Command us, and we will drown these legions in their arrogance."

Lucius looked down at the kneeling warlord. "Get on your horse, Amalric," Lucius commanded, pulling on his horse’s reins and turning his gaze south, toward the approaching storm.

...

The canvas of Governor Marcellus’s command pavilion snapped in the wind.

Pitched on a terrace overlooking the northern gates of Civitas Aurelia, the pavilion served as the nerve center for the provincial defense.

Marcellus stood over a map of Gaul, flanked by Praefectus Claudius and a handful of magistrates.

For days, they had been agonizing over the nightmares of a crumbling empire, trying to predict which rival Legate would cross their borders to seize the treasury.

The tent flap was thrust aside. A scout stumbled into the pavilion.

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