Rome: Fury of the Legion

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Twelve hundred men marched in a long snaking column through the dark forests of the Belgae, a meandering river of dull helmets and glimmering spearpoints. The two Roman cohorts marched with a contingent of Gallic auxiliaries. They marched in silence, not from any order of their officers, but from the feeling engendered by the encroaching trees on either side of the narrow path. A haunting chill crept over any man who gazed on the dense woods, where yellow-eyed creatures stared back from the darkness, where unintelligible cries echoed from indiscernible sources, where druids dwelt, and men and beasts feared the night.

Far behind the column, a black stain loomed in the sky, a patch of smoke with no wind to carry it away. It hung above the trees as if to glower upon the tramping soldiers and remind them of what they had done. It marked the spot where a village had once stood and thrived for generations – a community of several dozen families with their own huts and fields, their own festivals, their own cares and wants, their own dreams.

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