The scorching sun bore down on the marching column, heat dancing over the dusty road in wavering ripples. Titus Servianus shifted the rough strap of his freshly issued shield, already stiff and cutting into his shoulder. Sweat trailed down his spine, mingling with the layers of dust and grime that clung to him after so many days on this relentless march north. All around him, men and wagons stretched out in a long, unsteady procession—a weary tide edging ever closer to despair.

  Two weeks of hurried training in Rome had offered little insight into the reality that awaited them. The force, fourteen thousand strong, was mostly levies like Titus: farmers torn from their fields, laborers pulled from the wharves, artisans wrenched from their workshops. None had received enough time to make a proper farewell to the lives they had known. Their gear was a jigsaw of odds and ends—pieced-together shields braced with leftover metal plates, poorly sized helmets threatening to slip over their eyes, spears of different lengths that bristled at ragged angles. Here and there, a Palatini moved with disciplined ease, armor gleaming in the sun to recall glories long faded. Towering Gothic auxiliaries, hired for coin and reputation, marched with calm resignation. Their sturdy mail and heavy axes underscored how pitifully under-equipped many in the ranks truly were.

  Behind Titus trudged the wagon where his family kept pace among the camp followers. Claudia, his wife, balanced a pile of mended tunics meant for sale, her hands reddened from continuous washing and sewing; fatigue etched itself into the tight lines around her mouth. Their eldest, Gaius, bore an armful of firewood for the cooking fires that would dot the camp by evening. Secunda clutched a small basket of herbs she had gathered along the roadside, her fingers tinted green. Even Felix, too small to truly grasp the upheaval, had been entrusted with a wooden pail, filling it whenever they passed a usable stream. Titus’s chest pinched as he watched them. He had insisted they remain close to the army, believing that it would shield them better than the chaos festering back in Rome. Now, in the haze of summer, seeing his children so gaunt and Claudia’s thin-lipped determination, he couldn’t help but wonder whether that choice had been a grave error.

  The road itself, once laid with the impeccable engineering of Rome’s golden days, had fallen into disrepair. Deep hollows and jagged stones turned each mile into a trial. At half-flooded ravines, soldiers were forced to wade or cobble together makeshift bridges from felled trees. Every delay grated on already-frayed nerves, and quarrels erupted almost daily: men brawling over lumps of bread or misplaced items, raw anger flaring up from the tinder of exhaustion. The Palatini, responsible for preserving some semblance of order, wore the strain openly—harsh words, short tempers, drawn swords held just shy of actual bloodshed.

  The sun’s relentless glare pressed down on them as if a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil. Dust churned up by thousands of feet clung to sweaty skin, clogging throats and rubbing eyes raw. Water rations felt woefully insufficient, and more than once Titus saw soldiers nearly come to blows at the supply wagons, snarling accusations of theft or hoarding. Provisions, too, were stretched thin. Hard bread quickly went stale, rations of dried meat crawled with weevils, and meager attempts at foraging returned little more than the occasional rabbit or a handful of berries. Hunger racked Titus, and one glance at the sunken features of those marching beside him confirmed he was not alone.

  Morale had cracked like the roads beneath them. Whispers of why they marched against some boy in Ravenna stirred resentment—families were being left to starve in Rome, so why shed blood for a cause many barely understood? Desertions became so common that by dawn, a handful more men always seemed to have vanished. None could say exactly how many. The officers gave up tallying after the first dozen.

  By dusk, they pitched camp near a half-dry riverbed that gave only trickles of water. Titus collapsed onto a scrap of ground beside Claudia and the children. She pressed a rough chunk of bread into his hand, her eyes dull with fatigue. “You look worse every day,” she said flatly, not quite meeting his gaze. “How long can anyone last like this?”

  He tore the bread with effort, swallowing dust along with each bite. “We push on till Ravenna,” he managed after a pause, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. “That’s what they say.”

  Claudia’s laugh cut sharply. “And if Ravenna doesn’t have food for us? If we’ve marched all this way just to starve somewhere else?” He had no answer. They sank into a silence haunted by the low crackle of far-off fires and the muted chatter of men stripping off their armor to sleep on the hard ground. Titus eased onto his back, staring through the thin smoke at a sky flecked with distant stars. His body ached from the ceaseless grind of marching, yet his mind refused him rest. A thousand little sounds merged into an unsettling lullaby: coughs from neighboring tents, children’s quiet cries, the shuffling of the newly conscripted pacing restlessly under a moon that revealed nothing of the battles yet to come.

  When Titus woke up in the morning he glanced at the adjacent tent where a group of militia men crouched, passing a wineskin between them. Their voices were low, but Titus caught snippets of conversation: jokes about the old roads, curses about the meager rations, and, every so often, the faintest hint of something new: hope. He strained to listen.

  “…Pavia fell in days, they say… Odoacer’s cavalry unstoppable…”

  “…But that’s good for us, right? Means Orestes is on the run…”

  “…Aye, if Odoacer corners him, Ravenna’ll be easy pickings. And we’ll swoop in behind Crassus to claim the city…”

  Titus could almost feel the shift in the men’s spirits as they whispered about Odoacer capturing Pavia. Word had trickled down through the ranks earlier that evening: Odoacer had moved faster than anyone expected, besieging and taking the city within a few days. Paulus, Orestes’s own brother, had reportedly been executed when the walls fell. Now Orestes was in retreat, fleeing south, presumably to Ravenna. The news had stirred something in the army—an odd sense of encouragement. If Orestes’s forces were already battered, then perhaps Romulus’s defenses in Ravenna wouldn’t stand long against Crassus and Odoacer combined.

  “Better him than us,” muttered one of the militia men near Titus. “If Orestes can’t defend Pavia, he can’t defend Ravenna.”

  Titus shivered despite the warmth, uncertain whether Orestes’s defeat should bring relief or dread. The man was father to Romulus, the so-called boy emperor. If Orestes fell, what fate awaited Ravenna—and everyone else caught in the power struggle?

  He rose stiffly, crossing to Claudia. She greeted him with a weary smile, handing him a small wooden bowl of watery stew. He sipped it, grimacing at how the few lumps of boiled grain and shriveled vegetables tasted only marginally better than nothing. At least it was hot.

  “Is it true?” she asked quietly, meeting his eyes. “Odoacer took Pavia?”

  He nodded. “Seems so. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  Claudia let out a breath, a mixture of relief and trepidation flickering across her face. “Then we’ll keep going.” She forced a grim smile. “No choice, right?”

  “No choice,” Titus echoed.

  The day began before dawn, officers rousing the camp with sharp shouts. Camp followers bustled about, packing tents, loading wagons. Claudia and Gaius gathered their meager possessions, while Secunda clung to Titus’s leg, still half-asleep. He gently coaxed her to the wagon. By the time the first light grazed the eastern horizon, the army was on the march once more.

  They moved along a narrower road now, the fields on either side left to weeds or half-harvested crops. Sometimes they’d pass a burnt-out farmstead—raided by bandits, or perhaps deserted by families who’d fled. Titus’s boots grew heavier with each mile, the scorching sun rising behind them. Yet around him, he sensed a faint but unmistakable momentum. Conversations from the day before carried forward: if Odoacer had secured Pavia, he must be pressing Orestes, chasing him ever closer to Ravenna. And if Odoacer pinned Orestes down, Crassus’s men might not face much resistance at the city’s gates.

  “Rumor is,” muttered a veteran at Titus’s side, “that once Odoacer cracks open Ravenna, Crassus’ll just waltz in. We’ll have it easy.”

  Another soldier snorted. “Sure, if you call marching all day in this damn heat ‘easy.’ But I’ll take easy city-fighting over open battle. I’d rather not meet Orestes’s cavalry in a field.”

  The column trudged on, wagon wheels creaking. At midday, the cloudless sky offered no mercy, and the sweltering heat weighed on them like a heavy cloak. Men shielded their eyes with forearms, tongues dry from thirst. Water grew scarcer; some supply wagons had been forced to detour to find a serviceable well. Fights over dwindling water skins flared up and had to be broken apart by the Palatini. The sense of a growing chance at victory warred with the harsh reality of the march.

  Still, when the day’s haul of miles finally ended, the soldiers pitched camp with a touch more vigor, half-formed jokes floating around about how Orestes might flee right out of Italy altogether, leaving Ravenna to crumble. The pall of hopelessness that once permeated their ranks showed cracks now, replaced by a raw, desperate optimism.

  Titus settled his family near a trickle of a stream that someone declared safe enough to refill canteens. Claudia cleaned a ragged tunic in the cloudy water, and Flavius set off to gather what little firewood he could find. Secunda clung to Titus’s hand, watching the bustle of soldiers erecting tents and stoking fires. Nearby, a group of mercenaries lounged, ignoring the stench of unwashed bodies, discussing in low tones how swiftly they might plunder Ravenna’s wealth. It wasn’t a comforting sound.

  As he lay down that night, Titus found his mind drifting again to Odoacer and Pavia. If one city could fall so quickly, who was to say Ravenna would be any different? Part of him hoped it would be. Let the city’s defenses fail fast—less bloodshed for everyone. But another part, a distant sense of loyalty to the empire as he once dreamed it, felt sour at the idea of a barbarian securing the final victory. The conflicting thoughts gnawed at him until sleep finally claimed him.

  When morning came, rumor spread of more news gleaned from passing scouts: Orestes was indeed retreating, battered but not destroyed, still heading for Ravenna. The men took the news as confirmation that they traveled in the right direction—on the path to possible plunder and a seat at Crassus’s side. In the hush before the day’s march began, Titus caught glimpses of hardened smiles, men bracing themselves for the final push with something like courage.

  Even so, the march remained a punishing slog: roads in disrepair, supplies stretched thin, discipline fraying in the brutal heat. Some nights, watchmen reported more deserters, including a handful of mercenaries who decided they’d had enough. Others pressed on, too deep in Crassus’s debt or too fearful of Odoacer to think of fleeing. The columns advanced, battered but relentless, following the half-whispered promise that victory was just one more day’s march away.

  The day’s march ended at the frayed edges of Ravenna’s sprawling marshlands, where the ground began to turn soft beneath the army’s weary feet. Titus could taste the damp in the air, a clinging humidity that promised little relief from the heat. The officers called a halt, and the soldiers let out a collective sigh of exhaustion as they collapsed onto what passed for solid ground. The camp followers, including Titus’s family, fanned out to find patches of relatively dry land for their makeshift shelters. Claudia murmured anxiously about mosquitoes and foul-smelling water, but at this point, there was no better place to stop.

  In the thinning light of late afternoon, the marshes stretched ominously ahead, their reeds and stagnant ponds glinting in the sunset. A hush settled over the camp, as though everyone felt the weight of what lay beyond. They were close—too close, some might say—to Ravenna. Yet no sign of Odoacer’s men had appeared. Scouts returned with cautious reports: no cavalry sightings, no ambushes waiting in the shallows. It seemed they were free to make their final approach unopposed.

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  Titus helped his children set up a flimsy lean-to of ragged cloth and scavenged wood. Flavius gathered a few sticks for cooking, while Secunda clutched the leftover bread as though it were a precious gem. Felix, too young to share his siblings’ solemnity, curled up against Claudia’s side, drifting to sleep almost at once. Titus envied the boy’s innocence.

  He stared into the water’s edge, swirling with green scum and drifting insects, then looked back over the mass of tents and flickering torches. Somewhere in that sea of canvas, officers were discussing tomorrow’s move. Crassus would likely want them to continue at first light, push through the marshes, and close the distance to Ravenna by midday. And then? Titus felt the knot in his stomach tighten. Then came the confrontation with whatever defenses Romulus mustered behind the city walls. Or perhaps Odoacer would appear first, finishing the job he’d started with Pavia.

  Night fell in a slow, suffocating press of humidity. The camp eventually settled into a weary quiet broken only by the occasional cough, the rustle of restless sleepers, and the lazy buzz of insects. Titus lay down beside Claudia and the children, feeling the damp earth soak through his threadbare cloak. His eyelids drooped heavily, lulled by exhaustion. Despite the fear that gnawed at him, sleep came quickly.

  It did not last.

  A jolt woke him—soft at first, like a faint ripple of alarm passing through the camp. He blinked, trying to orient himself. Dim torchlight flickered on the edge of his vision, and he heard low shouts, too urgent to be mere arguments. Claudia shifted beside him, half-awake. Gaius sat up, eyes wide.

  Then came the clash of steel.

  Titus’s heart lurched. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing for his spear. Around him, shadowy figures dashed between tents, their voices raised in panic or command—he couldn’t tell which. A scream punctured the night, sharp as a dagger. Someone yelled, “Attack! They’re here!”

  “Stay with the children!” Titus hissed at Claudia, thrusting the spear into her hand before he even realized what he was doing. Panic flared in her eyes, but she nodded, pulling the children close.

  Stumbling forward, Titus nearly tripped over another soldier sprawled on the ground. By the wavering torchlight, he saw the man’s face contorted in pain, a crimson patch spreading on his tunic. Blood. Titus recoiled, bile rising in his throat. He’d never seen a battlefield casualty before. Now he had no choice: this was real.

  Firelight danced madly across tents and wagons, casting grotesque shadows. Figures darted through the smoke—some wearing the ragged gear of his own side, others in darker tunics, lighter on their feet, crossbows or swords in hand. It took Titus a moment to realize they were under a night raid, a sudden, brutal strike. The swirling chaos made it impossible to distinguish friend from foe. Everywhere was shouting, the snap of bowstrings, the thud of bolts hitting flesh or wood.

  “Form up! Form up!” an officer bellowed somewhere behind the haze. But how could they form lines in this murk, this confusion?

  Titus clutched his shield to his chest, scanning for an enemy. His heart hammered painfully, vision narrowing to the flicker of shadows just ahead. Another man rushed past him, shrieking in terror, before tumbling face-first as a bolt sprouted from his back. The soldier’s body twitched once, then went still. Titus nearly dropped his shield from the shock.

  A dark shape lunged at him. Instinct seized Titus; he raised his shield, feeling a jarring impact as metal met wood. The force sent him staggering back. He swung wildly with his spear, connecting with something soft—a gasp of pain. The figure recoiled. In the half-light, Titus glimpsed a young man’s wide, fearful eyes before the figure vanished into the confusion.

  “Regroup!” Someone else cried, but the order was swallowed by the roar of flames catching on a nearby wagon. Fire leaped hungrily across the canvas, bathing the immediate area in a hellish glow. It illuminated soldiers locked in frantic melee, crossbow bolts slicing overhead, the wounded crawling through the mud.

  More torches ignited across the camp as pockets of defenders tried to shed light on the attackers. Titus glimpsed a band of men in partial armor—clearly not from Crassus’s main force—maneuvering with surprising discipline, cutting down disoriented levies with precise strikes. Romulus’s men, Titus realized in a sickening wave of clarity. Ravenna’s defenders had launched a bold nighttime raid, gambling on confusion and panic to decimate the unprepared besiegers.

  Stumbling forward, Titus heard a pained cry from his left. One of the militia he recognized lay pinned under a dead horse, desperately reaching out. Titus lurched to help, only to reel back at the whistle of an arrow. It thudded into the horse’s flank, quivering. Breath ragged, Titus turned away, tears burning his eyes. He couldn’t do anything, not amid this madness.

  Chaos reigned. Men shouted for reinforcements, for water, for mercy. Some scattered into the marsh edges, disappearing into tall reeds, hoping to escape the carnage. Others huddled around what few officers they could find, forming pockets of resistance. Gradually, pockets of Palatini and mercenaries began to rally near the center, pushing back with shield and spear. They pelted the raiders with arrows from shaky lines, forcing the attackers to withdraw in places. But the damage was done.

  Titus found himself crouched behind an overturned cart, panting. His shield shook in his grip, sweat and grime mingling on his face. He couldn’t even piece together how long the attack had raged. A minute? An hour?

  A shout rose from the east side of camp: “They’re falling back! They’re pulling away!”

  Sure enough, the dark figures began to melt into the gloom, some tossing torches behind them to set yet more wagons aflame, covering their retreat. Pockets of Crassus’s men gave chase, but in the flickering darkness, it was impossible to maintain formation. A few more screams cut the air as final clashes erupted, then died away.

  Just as swiftly as it began, the night raid ended. The camp was left choked with smoke, scattered flames, and the moans of the wounded. Titus forced himself to his feet, heart pounding like a war drum. He stumbled over bodies—only a handful from Romulus’s raiding party, but more wearing the rough kit of Crassus’s levies. A pall of despair settled over the survivors, illuminated by the ghastly glow of smoldering wagons.

  “Claudia,” Titus breathed, terror twisting his gut. He sprinted back through the disorder, nearly toppling when his foot snagged a corpse’s outstretched arm. Finally, he found their wagon, half scorched, but still upright. Claudia crouched beside it, wide-eyed but alive, hugging the children close. Relief flooded through him. He collapsed onto his knees, breath hitching.

  “Are you hurt?” he gasped.

  Claudia shook her head, eyes shining with tears. “No… we huddled low. Some men ran by… fighting… but they ignored us.”

  Titus swallowed hard, pulling her and the children into a trembling embrace. The smell of smoke and iron hung thick, a testament to the savage reality of war. Around them, the sky began to lighten with approaching dawn—exposing the full extent of the carnage that the dark had only hinted at. Fires crackled, picking out silhouettes of bodies on the ground, broken equipment strewn everywhere.

  He could hear officers barking orders to regroup, to gather the wounded, to extinguish the flames before they consumed more supplies. A swirl of confusion persisted: how many had they lost? Did they kill or capture any of the raiders? Where would Romulus’s next strike fall?

  But for Titus, all that mattered in that moment was that his family had survived. He pressed his forehead to Claudia’s, fighting the sting of tears. The night’s horror made one thing painfully clear: the path to Ravenna would be neither quick nor bloodless. And the boy emperor, whoever he truly was, would not wait meekly behind his walls. The war had begun in earnest, and Titus felt the icy dread that it would only grow worse from here.

  Titus barely slept, expecting more raids at any moment. The officers seemed to share his fears, ordering the men to march in tight formation each morning with weapons always at hand. It slowed them to a grueling crawl, as each broken bridge or potholed road forced the column to maneuver like a wary beast sniffing for predators in the dark. Every glance over his shoulder reminded Titus of the night’s horror: the half-burned wagons, the screams echoing in his mind. Yet there was no turning back. Crassus pushed them onward, north and then east, assured by his lieutenants that lay in pressing forward, not cowering.

  That alliance with Odoacer, however, brought its own rumors. Word spread that he lingered at Pavia, citing “heavy casualties” as the reason he needed time to reorganize. The men whispered and worried. If Odoacer was truly unstoppable, why this delay? Some said he wanted to be certain of Crassus’s strength before committing again. Others believed he was letting Crassus’s force bleed itself dry on the march. None of it reassured Titus. All he knew was that Odoacer’s cavalry was not rushing to join them, and each day without that reinforcement made the march feel more exposed.

  Meanwhile, supplies dwindled. Water barrels turned up half-empty, and the bread rations got thinner. The night raid had scattered or destroyed a good part of what little they had stored. More than once, Titus watched hungry men leer at the wagons of camp followers, eyeing any private stash of food. Camp discipline held the worst impulses at bay, but only barely. When an officer discovered a theft or heard of yet another fistfight, punishments were harsh and immediate—floggings that left a grim hush over the assembly.

  Desertions climbed with each dawn. It started with a few or a dozen slipping away, but soon it seemed every morning brought an entire tent left empty. They no longer bothered to conceal missing armor or kit; the deserting men simply walked off under cover of night, scattering into farmland or marsh. Titus’s neighbor in the ranks, an older man named Rufus, spat in disgust each time. “Crassus can’t keep a damned hold on us. No wonder Romulus’s men are hitting us—our lines are as hollow as a rotten beam.” Yet Rufus marched on, stoically, perhaps clinging to the hope of coin or the promise of farmland that had been dangled before them all.

  They continued onward, the days bleeding together in relentless heat. Titus’s shield strap carved into a permanent groove on his shoulder. Claudia, though exhausted, found the strength to walk beside him each noon, passing him a cup of watered wine she’d bartered from a sympathetic mercenary. Gaius, still a boy but thrust into the role of forager, combed the weedy ditches for anything remotely edible. Secunda and Felix pressed closer to their mother, eyes wide whenever an argument or brawl flared nearby.

  As if to confirm the column’s vulnerability, officers instructed them to be ever-readied for another ambush: at dawn, at dusk, by day or under moonlight. Everyone braced themselves each time an unexpected rustle came from the roadside brush or when an unfamiliar shape flitted across a distant ridge. Paranoia gnawed at morale as much as hunger did. They marched fully armored—though half of it was patchwork—and with spears clutched in sweating hands. Skirmish lines formed whenever the terrain grew too tight. The army’s progress slowed to a near standstill.

  By the fifth day after the raid, they had advanced only a handful of miles. And still no sign of Odoacer’s foederati troops coming to reinforce them. Grumbling turned to mutinous mutterings: “Why are we out here alone? Isn’t Odoacer our ally? Let him take the front lines!” But the officers hushed such talk, reminding them of Crassus’s promise—and of the punishments doled out to any who dared sow doubt.

  That evening, a messenger—a lean cavalry scout—arrived from Pavia. Titus heard the distant trumpet that marked the arrival of an official dispatch. A stir of excitement rippled through the camp as rumor took on immediate fervor: Odoacer might finally be on the move. Men paused in their chores, craning necks for news of relief or reinforcements. But as the officers gathered around the messenger, their expressions fell. A short time later, word drifted through the rows of tents and wagons: Odoacer was indeed reorganizing, but he had decided to remain at Pavia a while longer—“to ensure the security of the region,” he claimed. In plain words, no cavalry was marching to Crassus’s aid any time soon.

  A heavy gloom settled among the men, deeper than before. Titus heard curses directed at Odoacer’s name. “He’s leaving us to starve out here, waiting for Romulus to pick us off,” growled one mercenary. Another spat, “He’s no ally. He’s just waiting to see who wins, and then he’ll swoop in and take the spoils.” The officers said nothing to contradict these accusations.

  That same night, more deserted. Titus woke up to find Rufus gone, too. The older man had left behind a battered helmet and a single line scratched into the dirt: “Better a coward than a corpse.” Titus stared at it, feeling an uneasy pang. He understood that choice but couldn’t bring himself to make it. Not with Claudia, Gaius, Secunda, and Felix relying on him to keep them safe. Safer among the army—so he still tried to believe—than wandering alone in a land turned hostile.

  When morning broke, the march resumed its grim progress. The roads deteriorated further, becoming little more than tracks hemmed by tangled brush. Broken stones jutted at angles that threatened wagon wheels. The officers, perhaps hoping to avoid another night ambush like before, pressed the column to keep marching well past the usual stopping time. Weary limbs and hollow bellies be damned—they wouldn’t give Romulus’s raiders another easy chance.

  Titus stumbled along in the dusty twilight, sweat-caked hair plastered to his forehead. Claudia trudged at his side, her expression pinched and unreadable. Little Felix dozed in the wagon, cradled in a nest of blankets. Gaius carried a nearly empty waterskin. Secunda nursed a scuffed knee from a tumble hours before, her tears long since dried. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the very ground pulled them down.

  Yet, despite everything—exhaustion, hunger, desertions—Crassus’s army pressed on. Deep within Titus’s heart, he sensed a kind of fatalistic momentum. They had come too far to turn back. Ahead lay Ravenna, with Romulus and his walls. Behind them lay famine, disorder, the fraying husk of Rome. They had pinned their hopes on this campaign and on Odoacer’s belated alliance. However bleak and uncertain, it was their only thread to grasp.

  So, as the ragged column trudged under a sky dyed with the last embers of sunset, Titus did what nearly everyone else did: he bowed his head, forced his legs to keep moving, and prayed that tomorrow might bring something—anything—better than tonight.