Marcus walked out of the ruins looking like a dead man walking.
His armor was black with soot. His face was a mask of dried mud and horse blood. His lips were cracked fissures.
Fifty yards away, Valerius Celsus sat on his white stallion like a statue carved from marble.
The enemy general was spotless. His silver breastplate caught the sun. His red cloak hung perfectly still in the heat. He didn't look like he was in a war; he looked like he was posing for a coin.
But it was the jug in his hand that drew every eye.
It was unglazed clay, porous and sweating. Beads of condensation rolled down the side, dripping onto the dry earth.
Drip. Drip.
Behind Marcus, forty thousand men watched those drops fall. The sound was imaginary, but they felt it. It was torture.
Marcus stopped ten paces away. Narcissus stood beside him, a towering shadow of grime and violence, his hand white-knuckled on his axe.
"Marcus," Valerius said. He smiled. It wasn't a cruel smile. It was worse. It was pitying. "You look tired."
"I'm still standing," Marcus rasped. "Which is more than I can say for your tunnel rats."
Valerius chuckled softly. He uncorked the jug. The sound of the stopper pulling free was crisp.
He lifted the vessel. He didn't drink.
He tilted it.
Crystal clear water poured out in a sparkling stream. It hit the dust. The dry ground hissed as it drank greedily.
A groan rippled through the Roman lines behind Marcus. It was a sound of physical pain.
"Stop it," Marcus growled.
"Why?" Valerius asked, his voice projecting effortlessly. He wasn't speaking to Marcus. He was speaking to the army. "Water is abundant, Marcus. The river flows just two miles from here. My men are bathing in it. My horses are drinking their fill."
He poured more. A puddle formed. Mud.
"Why are your men dying of thirst, Caesar? Because of gravity? Or because of vanity?"
Valerius looked past Marcus, locking eyes with the starving soldiers on the ridge.
"Romans!" Valerius shouted. "I am not a barbarian. I am a student of Rome! I do not wish to kill you. I wish to save you from a madman!"
He pointed the mouth of the jug at Marcus.
"He burned your food! He collapsed your water! He fed you the blood of your own horses! He is not a god. He is a disease!"
Valerius paused, letting the words sink in.
"I offer a trade!"
The silence in the valley was absolute.
"One life for forty thousand!" Valerius bellowed. "Give me Marcus Aurelius! Bind him! Deliver him to me! And my carts will bring water within the hour! You will live! You will go home!"
The offer hung in the hot air like a guillotine blade.
Marcus felt the shift behind him.
It wasn't a mutiny yet. But it was the seed of one. Men who had been ready to die for him ten minutes ago were now looking at the water spilling into the dirt. They were doing the math.
One man. Just one man.
Narcissus stepped closer to Marcus, his axe rising slightly. He sensed it too. The wolves were circling.
Marcus looked at Valerius. The young general's face was serene. He had won. He had checkmated the Emperor without drawing a sword.
He thinks he understands power, the Ghost whispered. Show him.
Marcus didn't argue. He didn't plead with his men.
He laughed.
It started as a dry wheeze and grew into a full-throated, mocking roar. It echoed off the canyon walls, maniacal and terrifying.
Valerius frowned. His horse sidestepped nervously.
"You think you are Rome?" Marcus shouted, stepping forward. "You are a boy reading a book! You talk of philosophy while you poison the earth with chemicals! You talk of mercy while you hide behind thirst!"
Marcus drew his sword. The steel sang.
"You want me?" Marcus spread his arms wide. "I am here! Come and take me!"
He turned his back on Valerius. He faced his own army.
"Look at him!" Marcus screamed at his men. "He offers you water because he is afraid to offer you steel! He knows that even thirsty, even starving, you are the legions of Rome! He is terrified of you!"
He pointed his sword back at Valerius without looking.
"He wants you to do his killing for him because he is too weak to do it himself! Will you be his slaves? Or will you take the river from his cold, dead hands?"
SYSTEM ALERT.
MORALE SHIFT DETECTED.
FEAR OF EMPEROR > THIRST.
LOYALTY RESTORED.
A roar went up from the fort. It was angry. It was hateful. But the hate wasn't directed at Marcus anymore. It was directed at the man spilling the water.
Valerius's smile vanished.
The philosopher had miscalculated. He had assumed men were rational actors. He forgot that starving men are beasts. And beasts follow the alpha, not the negotiator.
"You are a glitch," Valerius said cold, his voice losing its theatrical projection. "Galen was right. You are a pathogen."
Valerius raised his left hand.
On the ridge behind him, sunlight glinted off metal. Archers.
They had been hiding in the brush.
"Kill him," Valerius ordered.
Narcissus moved to shield Marcus.
But Marcus didn't cower. The Ghost of Commodus took the wheel.
The muscle memory was faster than thought. Marcus didn't dive for cover. He spun around, pivoting on his heel.
He threw his sword.
It was a desperate, stupid throw. At thirty paces, a gladius is a clumsy projectile.
But the Ghost didn't miss.
The blade didn't hit Valerius. It hit his horse.
The gladius buried itself deep in the stallion's chest. The animal shrieked—a sound of pure agony—and reared violently.
Valerius, the perfect rider, was thrown.
He hit the dust hard. His helmet rolled away. The jug of water flew from his hand and shattered on a rock.
"Protect the General!" a voice screamed from the enemy lines.
Arrows hissed through the air.
"Down!" Narcissus tackled Marcus, covering him with his massive body.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Arrows slammed into the dirt around them. One bounced off Narcissus's pauldron.
But Marcus was laughing into the dirt.
He peered out from under Narcissus's arm.
Valerius was scrambling backward in the mud. His pristine armor was covered in dust. He looked terrified. He looked small.
The god had bled.
"Pull back!" the enemy commanders shouted.
Valerius's bodyguards rushed forward, dragging their stunned leader away. They retreated.
"They're running!" Crixus shouted from the wall. "The cowards are running!"
A cheer erupted from the fort. It was ragged, but it was real.
Marcus pushed Narcissus off and sat up. He was shaking. The adrenaline was fading, leaving him dizzy.
He looked at the spot where Valerius had fallen.
Something lay in the dirt.
It wasn't a weapon. It was a leather tube. A scroll case. Valerius had dropped it when he fell.
"Crixus!" Marcus rasped. "Get that case!"
"It's in range of their archers!" Narcissus warned.
"Get it!"
Crixus didn't hesitate. The gladiator sprinted out into the open ground. An arrow whistled past his leg. He didn't stop. He scooped up the leather tube and zigzagged back to the perimeter.
He collapsed at Marcus's feet, handing over the prize.
Marcus's hands trembled as he uncapped the tube.
He pulled out the parchment. It was high-quality vellum, sealed with red wax.
The seal was familiar.
Marcus froze.
It was a lion's head. The seal of the Emperor. His seal. The one he had given to Marcia before he left Rome.
But the wax wasn't red because of dye.
It was red because it was mixed with blood. A fingerprint was smudged into it.
"Caesar?" Narcissus asked, his voice low.
Marcus broke the seal. He unrolled the scroll.
It wasn't a letter from Marcia. It was a report about her.
TO: VALERIUS CELSUS, COMMANDER OF THE NORTH.
FROM: ORESTES, PREFECT OF THE CITY.
REPORT ON THE PACIFICATION OF ROME.
Marcus's eyes scanned the text. The words hit him like physical blows.
...The Praetorian Guard has been secured. The Senate has capitulated.
...The grain riots were quelled by the deployment of the Urban Cohorts.
...The 'Cult of the Merciful' has been liquidated. The temple burned.
And at the bottom:
TARGET: MARCIA AURELIA.
STATUS: CAPTURED.
CURRENT LOCATION: MAMERTINE PRISON, CELL 4.
NOTE: SHE RESISTED. THE RING WAS RECOVERED FROM HER SEVERED FINGER.
Marcus stopped breathing.
He looked at the bottom of the tube. Something rattled.
He tipped it over.
A ring fell into his palm.
It was gold. Heavy. The lion's head seal.
It was caked in dried, dark blood.
ANALYSIS INITIATED.
JARVIS didn't need to tell him. He knew.
DNA MATCH: MARCIA AURELIA.
PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL IN MAMERTINE PRISON: 12%.
The world tilted on its axis.
Valerius hadn't just come to taunt him. He had come to deliver the news.
While Marcus was fighting for a hill in the middle of nowhere, the war was already over. Rome had fallen. Marcia was mutilated and in chains.
He wasn't the Emperor anymore. He was just a rebel leader with a dying army.
Marcus clutched the bloody ring in his fist until the gold cut into his skin.
"Caesar?" Varus asked, stepping closer. "What does it say? Is it terms of surrender?"
Marcus looked up. His eyes were dry. There were no tears left in his dehydrated body. There was only a cold, black void.
"No," Marcus whispered.
He stood up. He looked at the charcoal water dripping slowly into the bucket.
"It says we have nothing left to lose."
He turned to his generals.
"Drink the water. Rest for one hour."
He looked north, toward the retreating enemy.
"Tonight, we don't defend the walls. Tonight, we attack."
"Attack?" Narcissus blinked. "We can barely stand!"
"Exactly," Marcus said, slipping the bloody ring onto his pinky finger. "Dead men don't need rest."