The Roman advance began at first light on the fifth day after the scouting clash.
Legatus Gaius Valerius Maximus did not march his full legion in one ponderous column. He sent two cohorts ahead as vanguard — one thousand six hundred heavy infantry supported by three hundred auxiliary cavalry and two hundred archers — to secure the high ground and probe the barbarian hold. The rest of Legio XIV Gemina followed in disciplined order: siege train, supply wagons, engineers, and the remaining cohorts ready to envelop or reinforce. Scouts rode wide on both flanks. Every man knew the orders: no prisoners until the boy was taken alive.
They moved east along the old trade road, then cut north through the hills toward Seigmer's Hold. By midday the vanguard had reached the first Roman picket line — the ridge where the scouts had been ambushed. They found seven bodies still lying where they fell, throats opened, eyes pecked by crows. No weapons taken. No signs of looting. Just silent, precise death.
Valerius received the report in his command tent and crushed the wax tablet in his fist.
"Forward," he said. "No delays. We reach the fort by dusk."
Inside Seigmer's Hold, the mood was not fear — it was focus.
Seigmer had known the legion would come. He had known it the moment the last scout escaped. So he had spent the intervening days turning every hour into preparation.
The two hundred and fifty men now wore a new rank structure.
He had created sergeants — ten in total, each responsible for ten men (a "decuria"). The original fifty provided the first sergeants — Ingvar, Eadric, and eight others who had proven themselves in the night raids. The new two hundred volunteers were divided among them. Each sergeant answered directly to Seigmer or one of his Tier-1 lieutenants. Orders were simple, repeated, and enforced without question.
"Ten men, one voice," Seigmer had told them. "One sergeant leads. One sergeant dies first if the line breaks."
The sergeants now wore a single black feather tied to the left shoulder — visible at a distance, a mark of authority the younger men already respected.
Defenses were layered.
Outer ditch: deepened to eight feet, bottom lined with sharpened stakes in overlapping rows — star-shaped at corners to create crossfire lanes. Inner ditch: shallower but filled with caltrops forged from Roman iron scrap. Ramparts: reinforced with earth and timber, scorpio mounted every twenty paces, crews drilled to reload in twenty heartbeats.
Powder traps were laid in the approach paths — shallow pits covered with thin branches and leaves, each containing a clay pot of black powder fused with slow-match. A single trip-wire or thrown torch would ignite them. Not enough to destroy a legion — but enough to shred the first ranks and sow panic.
Ambush plans were drawn on deerskin and memorized.
If the Romans assaulted directly: crossbow volleys from the walls, scorpio bolts targeting officers, powder traps detonated under the leading cohorts.
If they tried siege: night raids by the Tier-1 team to burn siege engines, kill engineers, poison wells.
If they encircled: the hold had two hidden sally ports and enough stored grain for three months. They would wait, bleed the Romans, and strike when hunger and sickness weakened them.
And now — the cannon.
The first bronze tube had survived the half-charge test. The smiths had cast three more, each slightly improved. Rifling remained crude — grooves uneven, but present. The guns were positioned on the eastern and southern ramparts: two per wall, low enough to fire canister over the ditch, high enough to sweep the approach road.
Seigmer stood beside the first cannon on the eastern wall, hand resting on the warm bronze.
He had loaded it himself: full charge this time — two pounds of powder, rammed tight. Canister shot: leather bag filled with nails, shards, pebbles. Fuse ready.
He looked at the sergeant commanding the gun crew — a young man named Thrain, barely eighteen, already steady under pressure.
"Fire on my word," Seigmer said.
Thrain nodded.
Seigmer lit the slow-match, stepped back behind the recoil line.
The fuse hissed.
Then —
BOOM.
The sound cracked across the valley like a god clearing his throat. The cannon leaped back against its ropes, carriage shuddering. Flame and smoke belched from the muzzle. The canister tore across the open ground in a widening cone, shredding the straw targets at eighty paces into confetti and splinters.
The crew cheered — low, fierce.
Seigmer inspected the barrel.
No cracks. No swelling. The rifling grooves had held.
"Adjust the elevation two fingers higher next shot," he said. "Double the canister load. We will need every scrap of metal we can throw."
He turned to the sergeant.
"You are responsible for this gun. If it fails, you fail. If it succeeds, you become legend."
Thrain saluted — crisp, modern, the way Seigmer had taught.
Seigmer looked west.
The legion was coming.
Gunpowder had escalated this war beyond anything his previous life had prepared him for. In his first existence, gunpowder had arrived in Europe centuries after Rome fell — slowly, clumsily, used by knights and mercenaries in sieges and field battles. Here, he had brought it forward four hundred years — into a world of iron swords and wooden shields.
He had not just changed the balance.
He had changed the rules.
And he felt no guilt.
Only clarity.
After this legion — after Valerius Maximus and his eight thousand — he would consolidate.
Concrete fortresses.
Star-shaped bastions.
Stone walls poured from lime and ash.
A network of strongpoints along the Rhine and deeper into Germania — the backbone of an empire that would not collapse in sixty years.
But first, survival.
First, this battle.
He looked at the black banner snapping above the rampart.
Then at the two hundred and fifty men training below — sergeants barking orders, decuria moving in perfect step.
He whispered to the wind:
"Come, Rome."
And the cannon beside him — still warm — seemed to answer in its own low, metallic voice.