The raiders descended like a mounted storm, figures wrapped in striped pelts of exotic beasts—gray and black, as if they'd skinned ice tigers—giving them the appearance of colossal felines under the fractured afternoon light. From their finely wrought helmets protruded long fangs, real or forged, accentuating their animalistic and lethal silhouette. But beneath the barbaric appearance lay a meticulously crafted war machine: they wore beautifully riveted mail and flexible metal segment armor that gleamed with a dull, almost ceremonial tone. Their helmets consisted of multiple pieces, assembled with artisanal precision, designs as complex as they were beautiful.
And their horses... were no ordinary beasts. They were fierce, intelligent, and moved with unnatural grace, almost as if dancing with death. They advanced and retreated as one body, encircling the column like wolves cornering deer.
The darts they launched whistled like wind knives. Upon impact, many pierced through the Latins' shields with such force they embedded into the wood of the arm, shattering bones and burying themselves in the chests of those who held them. Some soldiers fell with eyes wide open, no time to comprehend they were already dead.
The Ostrogoths, attempting to counterattack from the rear, soon realized their bows were little more than toys compared to the raiders' firepower. Their arrows fell short, erratic, lacking precision or strength. What was once pride turned to impotence: they were being slaughtered by the same tactics their ancestors had used to destroy Roman legions centuries ago. A bitter irony: now they were Rome, and Rome was losing.
Drusar saw it all with a mix of horror, fury, and something akin to understanding. History, that cruel vixen, was laughing in his face. At his feet, Aldric lay motionless with a dart lodged in his skull. The horse that had accompanied him through so many campaigns had died beside him, its throat slit by a precise projectile. And Drusar, covered in shadows, blood, and silence, remained standing. Unharmed. Alone.
As if death, by whim or mockery, had spared him once more.
The raiders, after sowing initial chaos with their volleys of darts, maneuvered with near-inhuman precision. Instead of charging the front, they split into two columns that snaked along the flanks like war serpents. They deliberately avoided the more disciplined and compact Latin levy, concentrating their relentless fire on the Ostrogoth cavalry, still disorganized and reeling from the surprise.
The projectiles rained down in a rhythmic, terrifying cadence. One by one, the Ostrogoth horses fell, howling, bolting, throwing their riders into blood-stained mud. The men, stunned, tried to regroup, but it was useless: every counterattack attempt was met with an agile retreat from the raiders, who wheeled like mirages on their mounts, firing more arrows before vanishing like shadows into the hills.
In less than a quarter hour, the proud Ostrogoth cavalry had been reduced to fewer than a hundred riders, most wounded or without usable mounts. And then, with the same speed they'd appeared, the raiders turned north. They withdrew with discipline, without shouting victory, without even quickening their pace. As if it had all been a rehearsal or a warning.
The Latin contingent, meanwhile, had remained virtually unscathed. Their formation, tight and obedient under Marco's command, hadn't been a priority target. Perhaps by strategy. Perhaps out of respect for the standard they flew.
From the front line, Marco watched with a tense face and his arm still raised, waiting for a frontal charge that never came. The standard fluttered strongly: it was white, with a golden papal cross... but at its center, still intact, the Roman imperial eagle spread its wings. An ancient symbol for a world that no longer knew whom to obey.
Drusar, covered in others' blood and ash, raised his gaze and saw him: Marco, small upon his mount, the wind whipping his cloak, his expression grave, like a statue's. Not one step back. Not a hint of doubt.
And for the first time, Drusar didn't know whether he felt contempt, admiration... or fear.
The next morning, the sky was clear, cloudless, but with that dull hue that follows a sleepless night. Inside a narrow tent, barely lit by morning light seeping through the seams, Marco stood before a polished copper mirror held by a young servant who avoided looking directly into his eyes. Beside him, another aide offered a gleaming razor, sharpened by Marco himself during the night, between watch shifts and silent prayers as he kept vigil over the feverish sleep of the great Ingomer, who lay wrapped in soaked blankets, unconscious and commandless.
Marco lifted the blade, took a deep breath, and without hesitation began shaving his head. The dark, short hair fell in clumps onto the dusty tent floor. The priestly tonsure, which until then had marked him as a man of faith, a servant of God before man, disappeared with each stroke. There was no room for passive faith in times like these. No more words, no more counsel. It was time to command, and to command with sword in hand.
One of the aides entered just as the last lock fell.
—My lord... the morning report —he said, giving a slight bow before reading—: Most of your men, the Roman levy... remain intact. They've set up camp without incident. Some are wounded, but morale is high. They seem... proud. Even the lowliest among them. The scum, the thieves from Subura, the beggars from Trastevere, the former grain haulers from the Tiber... yesterday they were soldiers.
Marco said nothing. He wiped the blade with a cloth and looked at himself one last time in the mirror, now with his skull completely bare. No trace of clergy remained in his figure. Only discipline, steel, and an incandescent gleam in his eyes.
—And the Ostrogoths? —he asked without turning.
The aide hesitated.
—They're... broken, my lord. What remains of their cavalry refuses to obey anyone but Hrodulf, but even he gives no clear orders. And Ingomer... everyone has seen him. Prostrate. And rumors still circulate.
Marco frowned.
—What rumors?
—They speak of drums in the night. And chanting. Some say that peasant levy we faced at Anagnia wasn't the idolaters' true legion. That it was all a trap, bait. According to reports, we've spent months believing that was their main force... but now whispers say the true legion was marching through the northern hills. They took Fluentia and Pallanum in silence, and now... now they advance toward Fortium.
Marco closed his eyes for a moment. The deception had been masterful. Not only had they exposed the Ostrogoths to total attrition, but they'd also sown discord among the remnants of the combined army. And worst of all: Fortium was poorly defended, its garrison reduced by the very movements he'd approved weeks ago.
—Prepare my horse. And send messengers to Hrodulf. Tell him that from today onward, I command until Ingomer rises. If he does.
The aide hesitated.
—And if he refuses?
Marco took his sword, heavy and simple, and buckled it at his waist as if he'd done so all his life.
—Then let him return to his camp, bury his dead... and pray.
He exited the tent with firm steps, his head gleaming in the sun, his gaze fixed northward. He was no longer a priest. No longer a prefect. Now he was the only one among living and dead willing to make decisions.
And Fortium... Fortium's hours were numbered.
The tent was silent, faintly scented with incense and medicinal ointments. Outside, the army regrouped amid the remnants of defeat, but inside, Marco dressed in solitude.
Before him, on a wooden screen with gilded edges, hung the outfit Amalasuntha had commissioned for him. A formal Ostrogoth ensemble, but designed for war: a segmented lorica, finely fitted over a black linen tunic, completed by greaves carved in dark silver and a surcoat of leather dyed with imperial pigments. It was the best money could buy for a knight who needed to appear invincible. Every buckle was wrought with motifs of wolves and Gothic spirals, every rivet shone with sobriety.
Marco donned it in silence, piece by piece, like one preparing for a ritual of transformation. With each movement, his gaze returned to Ingomer's inert body, stretched on an improvised litter across the tent.
The giant still breathed. Barely. His chest rose and fell irregularly, and his face, once stony and haughty, now seemed that of an old man ravaged by time. Any other man would have died days ago, bled out on that field of spears and ash. But Ingomer lived on. By sheer will. By rage. Or by a woman's love.
Marco thought of Amalasuntha.
The aunt many called cold as marble, distant as tragedy's queens. Not to Marco. He knew her warmth, her body, her way of speaking to the poor when she thought no one listened. And though he'd first approached her with a mix of calculation and desire—to use her power, her wealth, her lineage—he'd ended up learning to love her. Not just in bed, but in her contradictions. In her sincere vanity, her justified pride, her private laughter when she believed no one deserved it.
Ingomer was her favorite. Marco knew this. He'd seen it in her eyes, in her tone when she named him. The warrior uncle. The one who'd been more father than brother to Amalasuntha's dead mother. The one who deserved to die in heroic battle, not rotting under filthy bandages.
Marco remembered when, amid the fray, he'd carefully opened Ingomer's abdomen, under rain and fire. Remembered his own hands sewing Ingomer's entrails with horsehair thread and a fragment of campaign needle. He'd done it with a prayer on his lips and a steadiness he hadn't known he possessed. He'd done it because no one else could. He'd done it because the world couldn't lose Ingomer that day. And because Amalasuntha wouldn't have borne it.
Now, as he took the helmet—a piece wrought with silver filigree and a crest of black horsehair, like a shadow's mane—Marco looked at himself in the mirror. He placed it slowly, like one performing a ceremonial act. No trace of the priest remained.
It was like a symbolic death. That of a man of faith, yes... but a broken faith, used, worn thin. The faith that had driven him to help beggars, teach poor children to read, promise justice from the pulpit... but that had also led him to kneel before powerful women, stay silent in the face of injustices, dirty his hands to uphold a broken system.
That man died today.
The one emerging was a warrior. One who still remembered whom to fight for. Who still knew whom to love, even if that woman was proud, manipulative, beautiful and dark as night. Amalasuntha.
She had made him this. And he accepted it.
Marco closed the helmet. The metal creaked with a ceremonial sound. The figure in the mirror was neither priest nor noble, but a commander.
And out there, the enemy was already marching toward Fortium.