The slaughter of Legate Galba's cohorts was a brutal, systematic lesson in the new realities of war. Maximus watched the death of the old Roman army from the rocky slopes of the valley, his heart a cold, hard knot of grief and grim purpose. There was no time to mourn. The tide of silent, black-armored warriors, having finished their work on the testudo, was now sweeping towards his own scattered forces.
"Break formation! Scatter into the rocks! Every man for himself! Find cover and fight in pairs! Vexillatio tactics! Now!"
His order, screamed with the full force of his command-honed lungs, was a heresy. It was anathema to every principle of Roman warfare. He was telling his legionaries to abandon the line, to abandon the cohort, to abandon the very discipline that was the bedrock of their strength. He was telling them to become the thing they despised: a disorganized band of skirmishers.
But his men, the veterans of the Tenth, had spent the past weeks grudgingly practicing the Emperor's strange, new doctrine. They had seen it humiliate Galba's cohorts on the training field. And now, they had just witnessed the horrific price of that same traditionalism in a real battle. They did not hesitate. The rigid formations of the Tenth Legion and the Norican cohorts dissolved. Men scrambled for the cover of the great, snow-dusted boulders and rocky crags that littered the valley, forming small, ad-hoc fire teams of two or three.
The battle transformed. It was no longer a set-piece engagement, but a hundred desperate, brutal little wars being fought all across the valley floor. A pair of legionaries would use a boulder for cover, darting out to make quick, stabbing attacks on a passing group of Silenti before retreating back into the shadows. A team of Norican scouts would lead a squad of the enemy on a chase through a narrow ravine, only to be met by a volley of crossbow bolts from another team hidden on the ridge above.
They were dying. They were outnumbered ten to one. But they were selling their lives dearly. Their chaotic, unpredictable movements, the very "barbarian" tactics Galba had so despised, were briefly confusing the Silenti's systematic, formation-based assault. The Conductor had studied the Roman legion, a predictable, orderly machine. It had not studied a Roman army that fought like a pack of wolves.
Maximus was no longer a general commanding a battle line; he was the alpha of a desperate wolf pack. He moved through the chaos, his gladius a blur, his voice a constant, reassuring roar, directing his small fire teams, pointing out targets, and fighting with the strength of ten men. His objective was no longer victory—that was impossible. His objective was survival. And at the heart of that objective was the boy.
He fought his way back toward the center of the valley, where the baggage train was being overrun. He saw the boy's litter, smashed and overturned. The eight powerful legionaries who had carried it lay dead around it, having formed a small, futile circle of shields. The boy, Lucilla's heir, his heir, was huddled behind the wreckage, his face pale with terror, but his eyes wide and alert, taking in the horror with a chilling, preternatural calm.
He was not alone. He was surrounded by his four Praetorian 'tutors,' Lucilla's personal killers, who were fighting back-to-back, their swordsmanship a display of deadly, beautiful precision. And standing near them, untouched by the chaos, was the priest, Decianus.
The priest was not fighting. He was simply standing, his hands clasped before him, a faint, beatific smile on his lips. And his eyes… his eyes were glowing with a soft, but undeniable, blue light, the same malevolent luminescence that had burned in the helm of the Guardian in the Carpathian caves. The low, resonant humming that filled the valley, the psychic power that fueled the Silenti amplifiers, was not just coming from the rocks. It was centered on him. He was not just a priest of the Silence. He was a Conduit, a human amplifier, a living nexus for the Conductor's power.
The suppressant Alex had created, the alchemical dart that was supposed to sever his connection, had done something else entirely. It had not cured him. It seemed to have supercharged him, turning him into a beacon for the enemy's power.
Maximus realized, with a sickening lurch, that he now had two, contradictory objectives. He had to survive. And he had to eliminate the enemy commander who was standing right in his midst. At the heart of it all was the boy, the linchpin of his entire, convoluted mission.
With a roar, Maximus charged toward the litter. The Praetorian tutors, seeing his approach, shifted their position. Their loyalty was to the boy, and in this chaos, they did not know if Maximus was friend or foe. Two of them turned, their swords raised, ready to defend their ward from Maximus.
A tense, insane standoff ensued in the heart of the swirling battle. Maximus, his legionaries, and Lucilla's Praetorians, facing each other down while the Silenti horde closed in around them.
"Fools!" Maximus bellowed over the din of battle. He pointed with his bloodied sword at the glowing priest. "The enemy is not me! It is him! He is the source of their power!"
The lead Praetorian, a hard-faced man named Cotta, sneered. "Our orders are to protect the boy. We trust no one."
"Then you will all die here!" Maximus roared back. "Your lady's son will be slaughtered, and your loyalty will be for nothing. You can die protecting him from me, or you can live by fighting with me against the true threat!"
He then did something no Roman general would ever do. He ignored the soldiers and spoke directly to the child. He looked past the Praetorians, at the small, terrified boy huddled behind the litter. He did not command him. He did not threaten him. He spoke to him as his adoptive father, as the man who had sworn to protect him.
"Gaius!" His voice was a paternal roar that cut through the fear. "Your mother sent you here to learn of war. Here is your first and most important lesson! A leader's greatest weapon is not his sword, but the unquestioning loyalty of his men! That priest serves a silent, alien god that wants us all dead! I serve your mother, your house, and your future! Who do you command these men to follow? The sorcerer who will see us all slaughtered, or the man who will see you live to greet the sun tomorrow?"
He was throwing the entire fate of the battle, of his mission, of his own life, onto the shoulders of a ten-year-old boy. He was asking him to choose between the dark, mystical power his mother was embracing, and the brutal, pragmatic survival offered by the man who was now his father.
The boy, Gaius, looked at the chaos around him. He looked at the eerily glowing priest, Decianus, who was smiling his cold, empty smile. He looked at the desperate, blood-splattered, but fiercely alive face of Maximus. In that moment, a flicker of his mother's ruthless, pragmatic intelligence ignited in his young eyes. He chose life.
"Protect the General!" the boy screamed, his voice high-pitched but filled with an unshakeable, inherited authority. "The priest is the enemy! Protect General Maximus!"
The four Praetorian tutors, their entire existence defined by their oath to protect and obey the boy, hesitated for a single, critical second. Their orders from Lucilla were to guard him. Their ward had just given them a new, superseding order. With a shared glance, they made their choice. They turned as one, their swords now aimed not at Maximus, but at the true threat.
"With the General!" Cotta roared.
Maximus had done it. He had turned Lucilla's own elite agents against her high priest by seizing the ultimate authority: the loyalty of her son. With his new, temporary, and utterly deadly allies at his side, he charged toward the glowing Conduit.
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