Fire in the East

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War is hell. Civil war is worse. This civil war was not going well. Nothing was going to plan. The invasion of Italy had ground to a halt.

The troops had suffered crossing the Alps before the spring sunshine had melted the snows in the passes. They had expected to be welcomed as liberators. They had been told that they only need set foot in Italy for everyone to come running, holding out olive branches, pushing forward their children, begging for mercy, falling at their feet.

It had not happened as they had hoped. They had come down from the mountains into an empty landscape. The inhabitants had fled, taking with them everything that they could move. Even the doors of their houses and temples were gone. The normally bustling plains were deserted. As the soldiers passed through the city of Emona the only living thing they found was a pack of wolves.

Now the army had been camped for over a month outside the walls of the north Italian city of Aquileia. The legions and auxiliaries were hungry, thirsty and tired. The hastily improvised supply chain had broken down. There was nothing to be had locally. What the citizens had not gathered within the walls, the soldiers themselves had wasted when they first arrived. There was no shelter. All the buildings in the suburbs had been torn down to provide materials for siege works. The river was polluted with the corpses of both sides.

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