Chapter 139: The General’s Report
The wind that swept down from the Carpathian Mountains carried the promise of an early winter. It snapped at the eagle standards of the Fourteenth Legion and whipped at the flaps of the command tent, a ceaseless, mournful sound that frayed the nerves. Inside, General Gaius Maximus stood before his campaign table, the sprawling map of the Danubian provinces a familiar, orderly world of Roman forts and barbarian territories. It was a world he understood, a world of clear lines and clear enemies. The small, tightly rolled scroll of parchment in his hand, however, belonged to a different world entirely—one of shadows, zealotry, and a kind of madness he could not comprehend.
The carrier pigeon that had brought it had arrived half-dead from exhaustion, a small, feathered hero that had flown relentlessly from the heart of the Norican Alps. Maximus had unfastened the message himself, his calloused fingers surprisingly gentle. He recognized the bird as one of the best from the personal stock of his scout, Valerius. Its presence alone signified a report of the highest importance.
He had unrolled the thin parchment and read. And then he had read it again, a cold knot tightening in the pit of his stomach.
Valerius's report was not emotional. It contained no outrage, no embellishment. It was a soldier's report, its language brutally concise and factual, and that was what made it so profoundly, sickeningly horrifying. It was a precise, chronological accounting of a day's work.
0700 hours: Devota cohort broke camp, followed trail southwest.
0800 hours: Arrived at unnamed village, coordinates attached.
0815 hours: Centurion Pullo initiated contact with village elders. Verbal exchange observed, content unknown.
0825 hours: Hostilities commenced following physical altercation initiated by one legionary against one villager, resulting in injury to said legionary.
0840 hours: All resistance neutralized. All villagers, estimated seventy-three souls, were put to the sword. Confirmed count includes nineteen women and twelve children.
0900 hours: Centurion Pullo led cohort in a victory prayer over the bodies before ordering the village to be razed.