Echoes of Germania (Tales of Ancient Worlds Book 1)

by H. B. Ashman

  “This time it is different. I can feel it, Marcus. I can feel my end nearing.”

  “You have been saying that for years as well. The gods have not released you from your duty to Rome yet.”

  Augustus frowned as his body tensed. “This is the war the senate has been hoping for to finally restore their beloved republic once more. With the East in turmoil and the Jews rising again, Pannonia will be my downfall. I was foolish to send Marius to Germania to wipe Lucius’s arse.”

  “You were trading one rebellion for another. If you ask me, it was wise to crush the barbarians first. I see nothing but trouble and pain for Rome in those savage lands, more so than anywhere else.”

  Augustus turned his head to meet Marcus’s eyes. “In Germania? We have advanced all the way to Vetera. How much longer can a band of savage tribes possibly withstand the might of Rome?”

  Marcus wet his lips. “I think it was more than swamps and rain that made our glorious Caesar turn to conquer Gaul instead of Germania.”

  Augustus’s eyes glazed over. He was deep in thought. Marcus stopped his horse. Augustus followed suit, the guards halting as well.

  “My Augustus,” Marcus said, locking his gaze with the mighty ruler, who was also his friend. “Marius will restore the peace in Illyricum. It will take more than one rebellion and a summer of battles and sweet tongues, but we will restore the peace our Agrippa fought for. I know my son. It is his duty to Rome, to you, and to me, and he will fulfill it or die trying.”

  Augustus looked at Marcus for a long while before a faint smile crept onto his face. “When I sent Marius to Illyricum, it was a decision of my heart . . . my instincts. Livia was against it, and yet it might turn out to be one of the few good decisions I have made of late.” Augustus looked down at the reins in his hands. Marcus knew exactly what he was referring to: the forced marriage between Livia’s son, Tiberius, and Augustus’s only child, Julia. It had turned into a wildfire, with Tiberius running after his first wife, crying like a child, and Julia cheating on Tiberius in public to humiliate him. Now they were both exiled. To this day, Augustus’s grandsons, Gaius and Julius, blamed Tiberius and Livia for the loss of their mother, Julia.

  Marcus rode up closer to Augustus. “The gods put us on many roads. In the end, all of them lead to our glorious Rome.” Marcus gestured to the scene around him: the mighty temples and buildings, with pillars reaching for the sky, the buzzing markets, and the crowd that had formed to cheer on their First Citizen.

  Augustus smiled faintly, then opened his mouth to say something when a rider approached. He was stopped by the guards before they realized that it was Lucius Calpurnius Piso Pontifex, known to Rome as Caesoninus, one of Augustus’s most trusted advisors. Caesoninus was as loyal and honorable as they came.

  The guards made way as Caesoninus urged his horse past.

  “My Augustus, Marcus,” the tall, slender general greeted them both. “I have just heard. What a disgrace to us all. I can ride out today with two legions from Gaul. We will bury the rebels next to their ancestors’ skulls.” He was an old man, but he sounded young and ruthless.

  Augustus shook his head. “I thank you, my friend. I sleep well knowing Rome still harbors great men like you, but Marius is already marching to the rebellion—one legion with him, the other stationed in Salona.”

  “Marius? I thought he was in Germania.”

  Marcus nodded. “He was, but our Augustus has moved him back to Illyricum to aid Lucius Ahenobarbus.”

  Caesoninus was a man who had swung a sword before he could walk. He knew the ways of war as much as the strategies behind it. However, his confused look was justified. The whole situation was a mess. Marius should have never left for Germania, Lucius should have never left for Pannonia, and Marius should have never marched to Lugdunum. If this rebellion turned into a full-blown war, Marius would be blamed as much as Lucius.

  “We have one of our finest at the front,” Augustus said. “I am confident Rome will shine its light on the Pannonian tribes once more.”

  Caesoninus nodded. “Marius is a true son of Rome and one of our military’s finest. He will be victorious. I have no doubt.”

  “Let us head to the palace to send a messenger to Marius and Lucius.” Augustus sent his horse into a trot. The horse’s hooves clanged against the stone road as Caesoninus and the guards followed him. But Marcus remained motionless for a moment longer, watching them split the cheering crowd that had gathered to catch a glimpse of its First Citizen.

  Unlike many Roman generals or senators, Marcus was neither foolish nor prideful enough to think that these savage tribes were less dangerous simply because they didn’t build shimmering temples of white marble. He had fought in Illyricum with Agrippa. The tribes there were brave, their leaders cunning. They did not value their freedom like the wild Germanics did, but they were loyal to their cause nonetheless. It had not surprised him that Lucius had been defeated. He was clever, and yet his ambition and arrogance were his downfall as much on the battlefield as in the games of Rome. But Germania I was one of the strongest legions in Rome. The rebels must have been incredibly formidable.

  For the first time in his life, Marcus worried that Marius might lose. Unless he had the gods on his side, he was in need of the most genius military strategy Illyricum had ever seen.

  Amalia stood a few feet away from one of the fires and high up on a rock to oversee the insanity in front of her. The fires surrounding the building site were enormous, some several feet high and wide. Red light flickered like headlights onto the rocks and trees surrounding them. The long shadows of hundreds of men frantically cutting and pulling trees out of the dense mountain forest was a sight like no other. Nonstop shouting echoed through the mountain passes as every soul in the cavalry, including the horses, had been turned into manic machines. Trees creaked and swayed as leaves were shed like molting feathers. The sounds of axes against wood thundered through the air.

  “Remarkable,” Amalia mumbled, shaking her head in awe. The adaptability of a Roman legion was astonishing. These men in front of her were as much builders as they were soldiers. Every single one of them knew how to use axes, saws, drills, chisels, and files. Much to Amalia’s amazement and tremendous relief, most of the tools they were carrying to build their forts were similar to the tools that would be used thousands of years later in her own time. Their saws and axes had not changed in design or material at all.

  Amalia looked up at the sky. It was early in the morning but still dark. They had been working through the night—hour after hour, minute after minute, not stopping once. This was phase one of Operation Please Hold: gather all the materials. Phase two would have to start after sunrise: the actual construction of the bridge.

  She noticed a group of men helping several horses pull a gigantic log. It had already been stripped of all its branches, its trunk smooth. The men were dragging it to the canyon to join the other logs ready for construction. Amalia rushed over to them.

  “This is too long. It’s at least seven meters. It has to be five!” she said. They couldn’t afford any mistakes. There was absolutely no time for any missteps like these.

  The men ignored her and continued on. A few glared at her, and one of them even spat on the ground at her feet. She searched the camp for Arminius, who was nowhere in sight. But not far from her was Germanicus. He was helping soldiers tear apart carts, pull out nails, and throw them into a huge pile.

  “Germanicus!” Amalia shouted. He looked up and met her gaze. Without wasting another second, he hastened over. Nobody dared walk or stroll. The pace of the operation was rush, run, haste, fast. The goal to stay alive.

  “What is it?” Germanicus asked, wiping a bloody hand on his dusty crimson cloak.

  Amalia looked down at his palm. “Was that from a nail?” She pointed at his bleeding hand.

  “It is nothing,” Germanicus insisted, wiping his hand dry once more.

  “You shouldn’t wipe it on your dirty cloak.”

 
; “What?” Germanicus wrinkled his forehead.

  “Your wound. You will get an infection if you get dirt into it.”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy and smiled. “Are you a healer now too?”

  Amalia looked at the young man in front of her. He was a teenager still. In her own time, he would have spent his days with video games and social media. But here, in a world of swords and honor, he was a soldier—son of Drusus the Great, she was told.

  “Would it sadden you if I were to fall ill, Amalia of the Weber?” His grin widened. Damn, was he flirting with her? She rolled her eyes.

  “Tell these men that this log is too long. I said five meters, but this looks like seven. Tell them to use the markers I put into the floor. We have to be exact, not guess, or the bridge will collapse with us on it.”

  Germanicus nodded, still faintly grinning at her, then faced the group of soldiers.

  “You heard what she said. Go look at the markers and trim this log to the correct size!”

  “Ave Tribune!” the men shouted enthusiastically, and turned the log on the spot to follow his command. Amalia sighed. Sexism at its finest.

  Amalia watched them as they carried the log over to the rocks and sticks she had hammered into the ground for the men to use as a measuring tool. By no means was this anything impressive or accurate. After it turned out that the meter and foot were things of the future, and that Romans were measuring in cubit, pace, and countless other measurements alien to her, Amalia literally used her own height to replicate the base for a meter. Any twenty-first-century engineer would have a heart attack at her makeshift measurement station, but what was she supposed to do?

  “Woman!” Pollo, the legion’s builder, yelled at Amalia as he rushed out of the woods. Behind him was a buzz of activity, trees shaking and falling as if the forest were possessed. His white tunic was stained dark from the fires, and the green cloak draped over his shoulders was covered in dirt. His skinny, rat-nosed face looked pale and exhausted.

  “I looked over your drawings again, and I am telling you once more, we don’t need the station of the bridge to be so high.” He waved a sheet of thin wood, one of the several materials Romans used as paper, with her drawings in front of her face. “We are losing a lot of time preparing the big logs for the foundation of the two stations.” He shot his arm into the direction of the enormous woodpiles near the canyon. “The sun will rise soon, and we haven’t even started to prepare the boards for the bridge deck.”

  Amalia pushed his hand out of her face. “Pollo, I can’t keep arguing with you about this! Here.” She ripped the drawing out of his hand and held it inches away from his eyes. “The four foundation logs of each station need to be five meters long. One meter drilled into the ground for anchorage, the rest sticking out.” Amalia pointed onto at the five-by-two-meter rectangular stations, one on each side of the canyon. “You see this? It needs to be in the ground.” She tapped the foundation logs. “If we go shorter than five meters, the ropes that connect the two stations will pull the foundations into the canyon. Like this.” Amalia pulled her finger from the center of the bridge drawings all the way down and off the wood sheet.

  Pollo looked at the drawing again. He narrowed his eyes and pinched his lips. So did Amalia. It was a terrible design. It looked like a suspension bridge had a child with a playground. The bridge had eight columns drilled into the ground that would form two stations of four logs on each side of the canyon. Each station would have support beams nailed into it in a cross pattern. Three ropes would be twisted and glued together with a glue made of bitumen, bark pitch, and animal grease—Rome’s surprisingly useful super glue. From there, it got super flimsy. The two main lines connecting the bridge’s foundations would have ropes with logs attached to them. These logs had holes drilled into the middle to run another rope through—again, like playground swings. On top of these swings they would nail boards for the deck so the horses would have a straight surface to walk on. It was the worst construction she had ever seen. Not because it looked as primitive as it was, but all the calculations she ran consisted of basic math drawn with a stick into dirt. No wind resistance, no exact weight measurements—there was not time for accuracy and safety.

  Amalia felt a migraine pulsate through her head. She rubbed her temples as hard as she could, staring at her own drawing.

  Pollo shook his head, then threw his arms up into the air. “Even with the help of the gods, we will never finish this death trap by tonight!”

  Amalia sighed. She had been fighting with Pollo all night over one thing or another. Not that she had faith in her own construction, but this man’s knowledge stopped at building ditches and military fortifications. Arminius said that Rome had the best builders in the world, and Amalia believed it—those marvelous temples and theaters didn’t build themselves. But such skillful craftsmen wouldn’t be found in a legion.

  “Do as I say,” Amalia snapped, slapping the drawing against his chest. She walked away to the sound of Pollo’s cussing and huffing. She was long overdue to check in on Arminius. He was in charge of making the rope and testing its breaking strength, one of the most vital elements of Operation Please Hold as she called it in her head.

  She found him on the mountain road. He had two groups of horses tied to a long, thick rope, each pulling in the opposite direction as if they were playing tug-of-war. Soldiers were pulling at the horses’ reins to urge them against the force of the opposite group. The rope creaked as both sides strained against each other.

  Arminius lifted his hand and shouted: “Haaaaaaaalt!”

  The soldiers brought the horses to a stop. The rope slowly lost tension and lowered to the ground. Amalia stepped closer, a rush of excitement dancing inside her.

  “It held!” She smiled for the first time in hours.

  Arminius nodded cheerfully. “It did.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Don’t thank your god too soon.”

  “Why?” Amalia asked.

  “Because we ran out of rope.”

  “What?” She swallowed a wave of panic.

  “We have enough for the two main ropes on top of the bridge and maybe for half of those swinging logs of yours, but no more than that.”

  Amalia threw her head into her hands, shaking it wildly. “That’s it! We’re done. The whole thing is ruined. Marius and his legion will get slaughtered, you’ll be asked to fall on your sword, and I’ll be crucified!”

  “Not asked,” he clarified. “Augustus will expect me to fall on my sword.” He said it so casually, like he was talking about the weather.

  “How can you be so calm right now, Arminius?” Amalia glared at him, furious. But Arminius was still in good spirits, his handsome face carefree and relaxed. She turned and kicked a rock. It launched off the path and disappeared somewhere in the woods. “I’m done here. I can run far enough to have a few days of quiet before they find and kill me.” She stomped off, feeling hot all over. But Arminius stepped in front of her and gently grabbed her upper arm. The warmth of his grip drove even more heat into her face.

  “Amalia, calm yourself. I have already found the solution to the problem.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Oh yeah?” Her chin tilted upward. “Speak then.”

  “It’s pretty simple. I thought maybe you would think of it.”

  Amalia wanted to throw him on the ground right here and now. Arminius let go of her, as if he’d read her mind, but not without one last smirk. This guy is unbelievable.

  “Leather,” he said, as his face grew serious. “We will use leather from the tents. I have already instructed the men to twist and glue it together like rope. It actually holds up—”

  “Better than the rope!” Amalia interrupted him, her voice bubbly.

  “You approve then?” He tilted his head.

  “Approve? You’re a genius!” She hopped toward him, lifting her arms as if she were about to hug him. But then she froze and lowered her arms again. Her gaze dropped to the
ground. He was still her captor, and she a slave. She felt Arminius’s eyes on her as her body tensed again. She stepped backward.

  “It’s almost time,” she said, looking at the sky. The first rays of light speared the night. “We should round up the men, leave only a few to gather whatever wood we still need. We have to start the actual constitution of the stations and deck.”

  Arminius stared at her for a moment longer, then turned on his heel. “Gather the men!” he shouted into the forest.

  The centurions picked up the command and echoed it even louder. “Gather the men!” they roared, as the manic ant pile of workers stopped what they were doing and came running from the depths of the forest to the heights of the rocks. In the chaos of soldiers, Amalia’s gaze found Belli, the Iberian cavalry commander. He was standing at the edge of the woods. His arms were stretched wide, and he was mumbling to himself as if praying. His suntanned skin and black hair looked even darker in the shadows of the fading night. His cunning eyes were even sharper, reflecting the glitter of the fires. His lips moved in a fast, rhythmic chant. Suddenly, his eyes found hers. She tore away from his piercing stare and let her gaze wander off to a small pile of corpses and horses next to him. Their bodies were drenched in blood and dirt. One dead man’s head was bashed in as if something big had fallen onto it. Parts of his brain were hanging out. Amalia jerked around as her hand shot up to her mouth. She felt sick to her stomach.

  “The dead from building this bridge,” Belli said as he approached her from behind. It would have startled her had she not felt so sick. A painful knot formed in her throat, one she couldn’t swallow down.

  “So many?” she whispered, her hand still clinging to her mouth. She could barely speak.

  “We work too fast to be safe. The number of dead will rise today,” Belli said in an emotionless tone. “I pray to the gods that your bridge will be completed in time, and hold. Our legate will walk into battle this evening. Without your bridge, this pile will turn to thousands.” He waited for a moment, as if giving her the chance to say something, but her voice was lost.