The red dots on the screen weren't just data. They were death.
Marcus stared at the glowing execution order in the darkness of his command tent. Forty thousand men. The Fourth and Tenth Legions. The pride of the northern army. They weren't marching to save him. They were marching to crush him.
He had marched seven thousand loyal men straight into a kill box.
"Titus!" Marcus roared, his voice cracking with the sheer, terrified urgency of the moment. "Get the centurions! Now!"
Moments later, the command tent was crowded with confused, sleep-rumpled officers. Titus stood at their head, his face a mask of stoic discipline, but his eyes betrayed his worry.
Marcus didn't use the laptop. He couldn't explain the magic box to these men. He grabbed a piece of charcoal and slashed violent red lines across the physical map spread on the table.
"We are betrayed," he announced, the words landing like hammer blows. "The Fourth and the Tenth have turned. They are not digging in at Ravenna. They are force-marching south. They will be here by dawn."
A stunned silence filled the tent.
"Impossible," a senior centurion named Valens spat, stepping forward. "I served with the Tenth in Gaul. They are loyal Romans! We have received no scouts, no reports of movement!"
"The scouts are dead!" Marcus shouted, slamming his hand onto the table. He leaned in, his eyes wide and wild, channeling every ounce of the 'madness' they all feared. "I know because I see it! The gods whisper in the dark, Valens! Do you question them?"
He pointed a trembling finger at the mouth of the valley they were camped in. "Their vanguard is one hour out. Cavalry and light infantry. If we are still on this valley floor when the sun rises, we will be slaughtered in our bedrolls."
The officers looked at each other, then at Titus. They were terrified. Not of the enemy, but of their Emperor. Was this a divine vision? or the final snap of a broken mind? To retreat based on a dream was cowardice. To stay and be wrong was death.
Titus looked at the map, then at Marcus's face. He saw the sweat beading on the Emperor's forehead, the raw, desperate conviction in his eyes.
He made his choice.
"Sound the retreat," Titus commanded, his voice steady as rock. "Leave the heavy wagons. Douse the torches. We head for the high ground. The Etruscan ruins on the ridge."
"Prefect, this is madness—" Valens began.
"This is an order!" Titus barked. "Move!"
The camp dissolved into controlled chaos.
It was a nightmare march. Rain began to fall, turning the valley floor into a slick, sucking mud pit that grabbed at boots and hooves. There were no torches. Five thousand men moved in blindness, guided only by the whispered curses of their sergeants and the fear breathing down their necks.
Wagons bogged down in the mud were abandoned, their precious cargo left behind. Men stumbled and fell, dragged back to their feet by comrades. The sound of the army was a low, terrifying rumble, the sound of a beast trying to hold its breath while it ran for its life.
Marcus rode at the rear, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Please be right, he prayed to a God he didn't believe in. Please let the machine be right.
They reached the ridge just as the first gray light of dawn began to bleed into the sky. The men were exhausted, covered in mud, shivering in the cold rain. They looked down into the valley they had just fled.
The mist swirled over the abandoned campsite. The empty tents stood like ghosts in the gloom.
Then, the ground shook.
From the north end of the valley, a dark tide poured in. Thousands of horsemen. The thunder of their hooves echoed off the valley walls.
Torches flared to life, hundreds of them. Flaming arrows arced through the morning mist, beautiful and deadly streaks of orange fire. They rained down on the empty tents, setting the canvas ablaze.
The ambush Marcus had foreseen unfolded with terrifying precision. The traitor cavalry swept through the camp, swords slashing at empty bedrolls, spears piercing the abandoned wagons.
It was a massacre of ghosts.
On the ridge, the silence was absolute. Valens, the centurion who had doubted, went pale beneath his grime. Titus lowered his helmet, watching the fires burn below.
He turned to Marcus. There was a new look in his eyes. It wasn't just respect. It was fear.
It hadn't been madness. It had been omniscience.
"The gods are with us," Titus whispered, making the sign of the eagle.
Marcus sat on his horse, shivering in his wet cloak. He had saved them. He had proven his divinity. But as he looked at the burning valley, he felt more isolated than ever. They saw a god. He saw the cold, hard data of a machine that viewed them all as expendable variables.
He turned his horse and rode back toward the baggage train.
Galen was there. The physician was chained to the back of a supply wagon, forced to walk through the mud. He was battered, soaked, and shivering violently, his white beard matted with filth.
A young soldier was guarding him, prodding him forward with the butt of a spear.
Galen looked up as Marcus approached. His eyes were still defiant, but there was a crack in his composure. He had seen the fires below.
"You run like a coward, Commodus," Galen rasped, his voice thin. "You know you are beaten. Valerius is inevitable."
Marcus leaned down from his saddle, his face a mask of cold fury. He pointed a gloved hand at the burning valley floor.
"Look," Marcus hissed. "Look at your 'inevitable' future."
Galen turned his head. He saw the traitor cavalry hacking apart the abandoned supplies. He saw the wanton destruction.
"Your 'rational' republic just tried to massacre seven thousand fellow Romans in their sleep," Marcus said, his voice dripping with venom. "They didn't offer terms. They didn't ask for surrender. They came to butcher us in the dark. Is that the cure you wanted, doctor? Is that the surgical precision of your new world?"
Galen stared at the fire. For the first time, doubt flickered in his eyes. This wasn't the clean, honorable war he had imagined. This was messy. Brutal. Valerius was off-script.
"War is… messy," Galen muttered, but the conviction was gone.
"This isn't war," Marcus said, turning his horse away. "It's murder. And you helped them load the weapon."
They reached the Etruscan ruins on the high ridge by mid-morning. It was a defensible position, ringed by ancient, crumbling stone walls. They were safe for the moment.
But they were trapped.
Forty thousand men blocked the road south. Valerius's main force was closing in from the north. They were an island in a sea of enemies.
Marcus was in his makeshift command tent, staring at the laptop screen. The red dots were encircling them. JARVIS was running simulations, each one ending in a probability of 0% survival.
Suddenly, a ping echoed in his mind.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION.
Marcus looked up, expecting a radio signal, a glitch. But the flap of his tent was thrown open.
Titus stood there. "Caesar. A rider approaches the gate. Under a flag of truce."
"An emissary from Varus?" Marcus asked, standing up.
"No, Caesar," Titus said, a strange look on his face. "It is… one of ours. It is Narcissus."
Marcus rushed out of the tent. He ran to the crumbled stone archway that served as the camp's gate.
A single wagon train was winding its way up the muddy path to the ridge. At its head rode Narcissus. The giant gladiator was covered in mud and dried blood, but he was grinning like a wolf who had just raided the sheepfold.
Behind him lumbered twenty heavy, canvas-covered wagons.
Marcus stared. Narcissus was supposed to be in Rome, hunting the conspiracy. Why was he here? And what was in the wagons?
Narcissus reined in his horse and vaulted to the ground. He bowed low, but his eyes danced with a terrifying, manic energy.
"Caesar!" he boomed. "I bring gifts from the capital!"
"Narcissus," Marcus breathed. "You made it. But… what is this?"
Narcissus walked to the first wagon and ripped back the canvas.
It was filled to the brim with silver denarii. The stolen payroll of the traitor legions. Enough wealth to buy a kingdom.
"The sinews of war," Narcissus laughed.
But then he walked to the second wagon. His grin faded into something darker, something cruel.
"And," he said softly, "I also brought leverage."
He pulled back the canvas.
Inside, huddled together in the dark, terrified and weeping, were women and children. Dozens of them. They wore the fine silks of the nobility.
Marcus felt the blood drain from his face.
"The families," Narcissus whispered, his voice a cold caress. "The wives and sons of General Varus and his senior staff. I plucked them from their villas on the way north."
He looked at Marcus, waiting for praise.
"We hold their hearts in our hands, Caesar. They won't attack while their blood is in our camp."
Marcus looked at the weeping children. He looked at his loyal gladiator, who had just committed a monstrous crime to save him.
The kill box had just become a hostage crisis. And Marcus was the kidnapper.