Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

December 22, 220 AD, Gallia.

Lucius walked the front line of the *Custodes* formation. He had ordered his men to take up positions at the narrowest bottleneck of the valley, a choke-point flanked by inclines that negated the Roman advantage of numbers.

The men had been standing in the cold for hours... Unlike the commanders of the Empire who directed battles from pavilions in the rear, Lucius paced behind the front rank of the phalanx. He wanted his men to see the scales of his armor. He needed them to know the Forge Master bled the same blood they did.

Stopping near the center of the line, Lucius noticed a pikeman shivering. The boy couldn’t have been older than eighteen, his knuckles white around the shaft of his weapon.

"Is the cold biting through the leather, soldier?" Lucius asked, stepping up beside him.

The boy jumped, terrified to be addressed by the Dominus.

He swallowed, his breath pluming in the air. "A bit, sire. I... I was a baker’s apprentice in the city. The ovens kept us warm. This is my first time out of the walls."

"A baker," Lucius mused. He looked at the veteran standing to the boy’s right. "And you?"

The veteran flashed a gap-toothed grin, holding his pike with one hand. "Fought in the fighting pits of Massilia, Dominus. Name is Felix. Spent ten years bleeding for patricians tossing copper coins. Now I bleed for silver."

"You bleed for yourself now, Felix," Lucius corrected.

He turned his attention back to the baker’s boy. "When the sun burns off this mist, you are going to see a wall of red cloaks. They are going to scream, and they are going to beat their swords against their shields to make you run. Do not look at their faces. Look at Felix’s shoulder. You hold your ground, you keep your pike level, and the man beside you will keep you alive. Understood?"

"Yes, Dominus." the boy whispered.

Before Lucius could offer another word, the ground beneath their boots began to vibrate.

Lucius’s demeanor vanished. He peered into the fog. A glimmer caught the light... the bronze eagle standard of a Roman century.

Lucius spun around, locking eyes with Valerius, who sat atop his warhorse twenty paces back. Lucius raised his fist and brought it down.

Valerius lifted a horn to his lips. A blast shattered the quiet of the valley.

The army moved as one.A thousand *Custodes* dropped to a knee, locking their shields into a wall of iron and oak.

The front three ranks lowered their pikes, transforming the valley floor into a forest of steel.

As the fog began to roll back, the horror of the Roman war machine revealed itself.

Marching toward them was the vanguard of Tribune Quintus’s army. Two thousand infantrymen, moving in lockstep. Their red cloaks hung in the air, and the density of their overlapping *scuta* shields made them look like an iron serpent.

They were expecting a disorganized mob of runaway slaves. Instead, they stopped fifty yards away, confronted by a phalanx that rivaled the armies of Macedon.

A Centurion at the front of the column barked a command.

The legionaries drew back their arms, preparing to unleash a volley of *pila* the javelins designed to break a shield wall before the charge.

"Artillery!" Lucius roared, drawing his spatha. "Fire!"

The ballista carts, positioned on the flanks of the pike square, unleashed their fury.

Dozens of steel bolts tore across the battlefield. The Roman shields, built to deflect glancing blows and arrows, were useless.

The bolts punched through the wood and leather, shattering the arms of the men holding them and impaling the legionaries in the second rank.

The Roman formation buckled, cries of agony tearing through the air as limbs were severed and chests were caved in.

But these were veterans of the Rhine... They did not break.

Stepping over their dead, the Centurions screamed for the charge. The Romans hurled their javelins and drew their gladii, sprinting across the mud to crash into the syndicate lines.

The javelins rained down, but the *Custodes*’ overlapping shields and scale armor held firm. Only a handful of men fell.

Then, the Roman vanguard smashed into the pike wall.

It was a slaughter...

The legionaries, armed with short swords designed for stabbing, couldn’t reach the men holding the pikes.

They were skewered on the shafts, their momentum driving the steel into their guts. The front ranks of the Roman army were pinned in place, dying on the ends of the poles.

"Grenadiers!" Valerius bellowed. "Clear the line!"

From the rear of the formation, Kallias’s troops stepped up onto firing stools.

They sparked their fuses, pulled back their slings, and hurled fifty clay pots in an arc over the heads of the *Custodes*.

The pots crashed into the center of the Roman vanguard.

For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. A Roman auxiliary cursed, kicking one of the shattered pots away.

Then, the compounds ignited.

Pillars of fire ripped through the Roman ranks. The shockwaves liquefied organs and shattered eardrums. Shrapnel of clay and slag tore through chainmail. Dozens of Roman veterans were blown to pieces, their limbs raining down on their comrades!

These men had fought barbarians, they had fought rival legions, but they had never fought a chemical explosion. Panic infected the surviving legionaries. The vanguard of the Seventh Legion shattered, breaking ranks and scrambling backward into the fog to escape the fires.

Lucius stood behind the pike wall, wiping a fleck of mud from his cheek. He watched the military force dissolve into a mob. The syndicate had barely lost a dozen men.

"Reform the line!" Valerius shouted. "Do not break formation to pursue! Let them run!"

Lucius sheathed his sword. He had proven his tactical doctrine. The combination of static pikes, ballista fire, and chemical explosives had dismantled the Roman charge.

But Lucius knew this was merely the opening gambit...

Quintus had brought ten thousand men, and only two thousand had been routed. The bulk of the Tribune’s army was still out there in the fog, regrouping.

As the smoke drifted up into the trees, a sound echoed from the distance. It came from miles behind Lucius’s position, rolling over the eastern ridges like a crack of thunder.

Lucius looked over his shoulder.

Quintus’s flanking force had reached the gates.

And Isolda had sprung the trap...

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