Thought I'd offer this for possible review. The opening chapter to the second Decimus Julius Virilis novel I'm writing. The novel/series is about a 1st Century Roman detective who is somewhat of a cross between a Sherlock Holmes and a Jason Bourne character. But set in the intriguing times of Caesar Augustus' Rome.And really, if you're into History like I am, the era of Octavious Caesars's Rome was absolutely chock-full of intrigue and danger. Just built for these kinds of novels.
So here goes. Give it a try.
7 AD
On a hilltop overlooking a
mountain valley road
Death
comes in the deepest portion of the night. Suddenly and without warning. Especially here. Deep in enemy territory surrounded by sullen
mountains shrouded in dark forests underneath low lying carpets of icy fog. Unseen death stalks the careless. An arrow from out of the darkness. The sudden thud of a hurled javelin cracking
into one's lorica segmentata. The unexpected surge of a black figure rising
out of the darkness followed by the swift stroke of cold steel across yielding
flesh. In the night death comes sudden, swift and sure. Especially here, on this strangely quiet,
foreboding night in Dalmatia . The promise of death so near in the darkness it
was making the entire legion nervous and fidgety. He knew from his long experience soldiering what
fear could do to a legion. A legion
spooked and restless on the night before a possible battle contained all the
ingredients for disaster. Fear could
make a legion, led ineptly, to bend . .
. to yield ground . . . and
eventually to shatter like cheap
pottery thrown onto a cold stone floor.
Not
that the commander was inept. Inept was
a harsh descriptor. It connoted
incompetence and a casual disregard of assigned duties. Young would be a better
description. Inexperienced. Thrust into the command of a legion long
before he was ready for it. The young
Gaius Cornelius Sulla was just old enough to be elected into the Roman
Senate. Old enough, but contrary to
tradition and Roman law, the young Senator had never served in the army. Never held one of the minor political offices
which were normally prerequisites before running for a Senator's seat. Money, and his father's reputation, allowed
the boy to bypass mere formalities. He
was suitably impressed with the duties of being a legion commander. He wanted to prove to his father he was the
man and son his father wanted. It was
just that . . . well . . . the lad was but a boy. A boy given the commanded of Roman legion which
was sorely below nominal strength in manpower and finding itself hurled into
the depth of enemy territory without proper training and equipment.
Youth
untrained, and a legion improperly handled, were the ugly ingredients needed
for a recipe of unparalleled disaster.
Twenty-four
years serving in one legion or another had taught him what the end results of a
legion shattering like a piece of thin glass would be. A horror beyond description. The killing
would be endless. Roman soldiers
throwing down their shields and swords as they ran from the battlefield in a
mass panic only to be ridden down by the enemy's cavalry or assaulted by roving
bands of sword and axmen. Hacked to
pieces or ran through by fast riding cavalry, the memories his past burned
brightly in his mind. He knew if such a
debacle happened on the morrow there would be few, if any, survivors. Especially here in this mountainous country overran
with ravaging madmen filled with bloodlust and hate for anything Roman. That's why, throwing a heavy campaign cloak
over his shoulders as he stood near the warmth of a burning brazier, he
preferred inspecting the army's perimeter in person.
Stepping
out of his tent, pulling the heavy wool cloak tighter around his shoulders, he
took his time setting his bronze helm over his brow before reaching for his
officer's baton firmly clamped under his right armpit. On either side of his tent's entrance the two
legionnaires snapped to attention and saluted in perfect unison. Acknowledging their salutes with a wave of
his baton he eyed the camp to his right and left in silence and then turned his
attention to the nine legionnaires standing directly in front of him.
The
young decanus, or a contriburnium commander of eight men,
saluted smartly as the eight legionnaires behind him snapped to attention. One glance from his old eyes told him he and
his men had spent some time getting their armor cleaned and smartly
arrayed. The decanus was, at best, eighteen or nineteen years old. He, like his
men, were not much more than raw recruits swept up off the streets of
Brundisium and Rome and sent packing off to Dalmatia. Dalmatian tribesmen were in revolt . . . again.
And Roman authority . . . again . . . being
challenged. The decanus was so young
his beard was nonexistent. So frail of
bone he wondered how the Hades the lad stood upright in the sixty or more
pounds of standard legionnaire armor assigned to each man. Nevertheless, the lad was standing tall and
proud. His men looked smartly attired
and diligent. It didn't matter if the contriburnium was of the 7th cohort. The 7th being the cohort of the youngest,
most untrained soldiers.
Lads
beginning their long, arduous, and sometimes quite deadly learning phase of
becoming a professional soldier. In the
young eyes of these nine men he could see they were looking for some sign of
hope. Some gesture that they might
survive in what was, obviously, a desperate situation. And without a doubt it was a desperate
situation. Surrounded on three sides by
determined foes who vastly outnumbered them.
Intent on throwing off the yoke of Roman rule, the six or so main
Dalmatian tribes united and waged war on anything which hinted of imperial
power. This newly formed legion, Legio IX
Brundisi, was within their grasp. A
brand new legion, vastly undermanned, yet swept up into the fight because of
the threat of a foe so lose to the shores of Rome itself.
It
was a hodgepodge collection of veterans and raw recruits. And he, Decimus Julius Virilis, being third
in command, was the legion's Praefectus
Castorum. His main duty, of the many
assigned to him, was to throw this collection of madmen together and hone it
into a fighting machine as quickly as possible. A vastly important job given
only to a professional soldier who had come up through the ranks and had proven
himself to be both tough and enduring, as well as loyal and intelligent. A job
that never ended. He had ordered a contriburnium
from the 7th to be his personal escort tonight as he inspected the legion's
perimeter. Yes, a move fraught with
danger, perhaps. Especially so if the
rebels decided to assault the legion's defensively lines hidden behind the veil
of darkness.
In
all the world there was no fighting force as well trained, well organized, and
more victorious, that the seasoned professional legions of Rome. For almost four hundred years Roman legions
fought the armies of just about every foe in what would become, eventually,
modern Europe. Greeks, Etruscans,
Carthaginian, Egyptian, Spaniards, Parthians, Germans, Gauls. The list was endless. For four hundred years Rome’s steel had, by in
large, remained victorious. Yet four
hundred years of military dominance guaranteed one certainty. There would be no peace, no tranquility in an
empire forged from steel and strife.
There would always be someone, somewhere, ready to rise up and defy the
Roman yoke.
Eyeing
the darkness and low hanging clouds of fog surrounding the hilltop the legion
now commanded, Decimus could feel the weight of the coming battle resting on
his tired shoulders. It would be a
desperate fight. An unwanted fight. The legion was seriously undermanned. It was alone, deep in enemy territory, miles
away from the main Roman army under the command of Tiberius Caesar.
Caesar,
the adopted son of Caesar Augustus,
had been summoned by his father to return to Rome and take command of the ten
or so legions being assembled to fight the Dalmation rebellion. The general had been in the north, beyond the
Alps, fighting Gaul and Germanic tribes and trying to stabilize the northern
borders. But the Dalmation uprising, so
dangerously close to the Latin homelands, took priority. The rebelling tribes were directly east of
Rome. Just across the watery finger of
the narrow Adriatic Sea. A failure of
her legions now would directly threaten Rome itself. Therefore, her best general
had been summoned to take command of the legions assembled to put the rebellion
down.
Legio IVth Brundisi, had been hastily
recruited, marginally equipped, and shipped off Dalmatia before being properly
trained. The legion was a fifteen
hundred men short of a legion’s nominal 6,000 men strength. Without its cavalry contingent of 400 or more
horsemen, with each of the legion’s eight cohorts drastically undermanned,
their disastrous arrival in the Illyricum port of Naorna, was like a prophet’s
decree of looming defeat to come.
Fire
spread its ravenous hunger across the small fleet which escorted the legion’s
troopships to Narona. Dalmation spies
infiltrated the Roman held port and somehow set fire to all of the legion’s
troopships only moments after the last man of the legion had disembarked. The fires spread from ship to ship, lighting
up the harbor’s night with a terrifying display of light and smoke, and
continued to hungrily devour ships far into the next three days.
Bad
luck continued to haunt the IXth Brundisi
as they left Narona and marched into the depths of the rebel held territory. Leaving the port rebels began to attack the
rear and flanks of the columns of the marching legion with sudden, deadly
attacks of small units of bowmen who hit hard and just as swiftly faded back
into the forests before any counter attack could be organized. The continuous loss of one or two men with
each swift attack was telling. Untrained
recruits not used to the hardships of war sulked and stewed in their thoughts
when the legion finally made camp at night.
He
saw it in the men’s eyes. The lack of
sleep. The lack of trust in the legion’s
legate. All of it was combining to
create that deep set feeling of fear which, if allowed to grip the hearts of
all, was unquestionably a recipe for a disaster waiting to happen. It rested on his shoulders as the legion’s Praefactous Castorum, the legion’s most
experienced veteran, to train these men into a fighting unit.
Nodding
to the young decanus, Decimus set off
with a firm step to inspect the legion’s perimeter, not knowing that within
moments, an unimaginable disaster was soon to turn the dark Dalmation night
into the raging fires and billowing roar of a Grecian Hades nightmare.
