The march to the capital was a storm given form.
Nearly seventy thousand legionaries, steel-bound and iron-disciplined, advanced across the breadth of Francia like a tide no wall could hold back.
Their standards rose above the roads like crimson suns, each glimmering eagle a promise of the empire's reach.
Behind them trailed a thousand wagons laden with timber, stone, and supplies, along with engineers, siege masters, and smiths who might shape a fortress from bare earth if commanded.
The auxilia followed too — Germanian horse with their fur-lined cloaks, spearmen from Greecia, slingers from the rocky coasts Achae.
They were not legion, but they carried Rome's shadow, and their presence swelled the army's count to a number the Francian capital had never seen arrayed before it.
When the host crested the last ridgeline and the city came into view, a murmur rippled through the ranks.
