The mud of Syria didn't just cling to boots; it tried to eat them.
It was a thick, clay-heavy sludge that sucked at every step. The Roman column had been bogged down for three days, ten miles outside Antioch.
"Heave!" a centurion screamed.
Fifty men strained against ropes, pulling a heavy ox-cart. The wheels were buried to the axle. The ox had collapsed hours ago, foaming at the mouth.
On the cart lay a massive, canvas-covered shape.
Crack.
The cart's wooden axle snapped. The bed tilted violently.
"Look out!"
The cargo shifted. The canvas tore. A black iron tube, ten feet long and thick as a tree trunk, slid off the wood.
It crushed a soldier's leg into pulp. His scream cut through the rain, sharp and terrible.
"Get it off him!" Marcus roared, sliding down the muddy embankment.
Men hesitated. They stared at the iron tube—the Dragon—like it was a cursed idol. They whispered that the black powder inside was demon dust.
"Move!" Narcissus bellowed.
The giant gladiator waded into the mud. He shoved the terrified soldiers aside. He bent his knees, braced his shoulder against the cold iron barrel, and lifted.
Muscles popped in his neck. Veins bulged like cords.
The barrel, weighing nearly a ton, shifted.
"Pull him out!" Narcissus gritted through clenched teeth.
Galen dragged the screaming soldier free. The leg was gone below the knee, flattened into the mud.
Narcissus dropped the cannon. It hit the sludge with a wet thud that shook the ground.
"It weighs less than your fear!" Narcissus shouted at the staring troops. "Load it onto the sledge! We march!"
TERRAIN STATUS: SATURATED.
ENEMY PROXIMITY: 2 KM.
WEATHER: CLEARING.
Marcus wiped mud from his eyes. The rain was stopping. The sun was breaking through the gray clouds.
And with the sun came the enemy.
They crested the ridge an hour later.
Below them, the valley floor was a sea of steel.
The Han-Parthian vanguard wasn't a horde. It was a machine.
Rows of heavy infantry stood perfectly still. They didn't carry round shields or wooden towers. They carried tall, rectangular shields reinforced with steel bands. They interlocked like scales.
Behind them, thousands of crossbowmen.
"Send the scouts," Marcus ordered Varus. "Test the range."
A unit of Roman light cavalry, Equites, spurred their horses down the slope. They moved fast, javelins ready.
"Watch," Marcus whispered, raising his telescope.
The enemy line didn't break. A drum beat sounded—a hollow, wooden tock-tock-tock.
The steel shields parted.
The crossbowmen stepped forward. They held strange, boxy weapons.
Thwack-thwack-thwack.
It wasn't a volley. It was a stream.
The repeating crossbows—Zhuge Nu—fired a bolt every two seconds. The sky turned black.
The cloud of steel bolts descended on the Roman scouts.
There was no time to raise shields. The bolts punched through leather armor, through horse flesh, through bone.
The scout unit didn't retreat. It was erased.
Men and horses collapsed in a tangled heap of screaming meat. The bolts were still coming, pinning the dead to the ground.
Varus lowered his telescope. His face was gray.
"That rate of fire," he whispered. "It's impossible. They don't reload. They just crank a lever."
"Industrialized death," Marcus said.
He turned to Galen. The physician was rubbing his ears, staring at the carnage.
"Bring up the Dragons," Marcus said.
They lined them up on the ridge.
Twelve iron cannons. They looked ugly, squat, and brutal.
The crews worked frantically. They poured bags of coarse black powder down the muzzles. They rammed it tight.
"Shot?" a gunner asked.
"Grapeshot," Marcus ordered.
They didn't load round iron balls. They loaded canvas bags filled with jagged rocks, scrap metal, and rusty nails.
This wasn't a sniper rifle. It was a shotgun for an army.
"They're moving," Narcissus warned.
Down in the valley, the enemy drum beat changed tempo. Tock. Tock. Tock.
The wall of steel shields began to march up the slope. They moved in perfect unison. A slow, inexorable tide of metal.
"Wait," Marcus said.
He watched them come. 400 yards. 300 yards.
"Caesar!" Galen hissed, holding the linstock—a stick with a burning slow-match. "They are in crossbow range!"
Bolts began to hiss around them, thudding into the mud.
"Wait!" Marcus roared.
He needed them close. He needed the spread to be lethal.
200 yards. He could see the faces of the Chinese infantry. They looked calm. Disciplined.
100 yards.
"Open the gates of hell," Marcus whispered.
"FIRE!"
Twelve linstocks touched twelve touchholes.
HISSSSS.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
The sound was unlike anything the ancient world had ever heard. It wasn't thunder. It was a crack that shattered the sky.
A massive cloud of white smoke erupted from the ridge, blinding the Roman gunners.
But they heard the impact.
It sounded like wet laundry being slapped against a rock. A thousand times over.
The grapeshot—thousands of jagged metal shards—tore through the air at the speed of sound.
It hit the Han shield wall.
The steel shields disintegrated. The men behind them disintegrated.
The smoke cleared slowly in the breeze.
Marcus looked down.
The front ten ranks of the enemy army were gone.
They weren't dead. They were shredded. Pink mist hung in the air. Limbs, armor, and wood lay scattered in a horrific, bloody confetti.
The horses behind the infantry line panicked. The smell of blood and the thunderous noise sent them into a frenzy. They trampled their own riders, breaking the formation.
"Reload!" Narcissus screamed, his ears ringing.
But there was a cost.
The third cannon in the line hadn't fired. It had exploded.
The cast iron barrel had flawed metallurgy. The pressure had blown the breech apart.
The gun crew lay around the smoking ruin of the cannon. They were dead, burned by the powder flash or killed by shrapnel from their own weapon.
Galen was on his knees, blood trickling from his ears. The overpressure had ruptured his eardrums.
Marcus looked at the enemy.
The Han army halted. They didn't run. They didn't scream.
A whistle blew.
The survivors stepped back. They stepped over the piles of meat that used to be their comrades. They reformed their lines.
They retreated down the slope in perfect order, shields raised against the next volley.
"They aren't running," Varus whispered, horrified. "Why aren't they running?"
Marcus watched them go.
"They aren't scared," Marcus said, his voice cold.
He looked at the shattered cannon.
"They just measured the range."