The Great Game

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The men of the Tenth Gemina Legion stomped through the crisp undergrowth, their boots scraping and catching on brambles, grateful that the snow was scarce due to the thickness of the forest canopy even at this time of the year. On the open ground, where the battle had been fought, a thick white blanket had lain with virginal purity until the four legions of Rome had consecrated it with blood.

Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus cursed as his foot caught a hidden tree root and he almost fell flat on his face. His remaining five tent-mates grinned at his near-accident and he felt himself flush slightly, the reddening of his cheeks partially hidden by the ruddy tint brought on by the bone-chilling cold, and partially of the mud and blood spattered across his face.

‘Bastard forest’ he grumbled, raising yet more smiles.

The terrain here beyond the borders of Pannonia was nothing like the lands around the family holdings near Tarraco. Back home the trees were charming, the floor beneath them a comfortable carpet of brown needles. Here they stretched up forever like yawning demons and curled their toes into traps, hiding endless menaces, most of which were poisonous or carnivorous.

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