Banks of the Arar — Dawn
There were no horns.No cries.Only a silent command: advance.
And the legionaries obeyed as one.In tight formation, shields pressed together, pila firm in their hands.Not a sound but breathing. Not a step out of rhythm.
Sextus felt even the air holding its breath.The mud beneath their feet didn't splash—it absorbed everything.Ahead, Atticus advanced, his face twisted not in fear, but in pure focus.To his left, Faustus swallowed hard. To his right, Veturius didn't blink.
The Tigurini camp was less than two hundred paces away.Asleep.Or pretending.It didn't matter.
Scaeva raised his gladius.The line halted.
The sun hadn't yet risen. But the light was already there.That moment between night and day, where everything turns gray.
Then the centurion lowered the blade.
Advance.
The first hundred paces were clean.At fifty, a dog barked.At thirty, a figure stood in the shadow of a tent.
And then, without a word, the spears flew.
The first Roman line hurled their pila. The impact was dry, brutal, followed by disordered screams—but not from the Romans.
The Tigurini were barely rising when the shields were already upon them.
Sextus entered a half-collapsed tent, gladius raised.An unarmed man tried to rise.He didn't make it.
The strike was clean.Sextus didn't have time to wonder if it was the first.
He only knew that it had begun.And that he couldn't stop.
The enemy camp became a maze of chaos.Men stumbling out in tunics, trying to flee.Overturned carts.Women screaming.Smoke beginning to rise between the tents.And above all, the metallic crash of clashing shields, agonized cries, and steady Roman footsteps.
The XIII did not shout.
They advanced.Like a black wave seeking no glory,only completion.
Sextus struck a second time. And a third.
When he finally looked up, everything around him was mud, blood, and the blank stare of Atticus, his face spattered red.
They looked at each other.Said nothing.
And then, without knowing why, Sextus kissed two fingers and touched them to his gladius.
He didn't know why.But Mars was watching.