Death by Greek Fire (Decimus Julius Virilis Book 1)

Book summary

In Death by Greek Fire, veteran soldier Decimus Julius Virilis faces a deadly mission in Dalmatia, where his untrained legion falls into a lethal ambush. Tasked by Tiberius Caesar to uncover the mastermind behind the plot, Decimus must navigate treachery to prevent civil war in the Roman Empire.

Excerpt from Death by Greek Fire

Death comes in the deepest portion of the night. Suddenly and without warning. Especially here. Deep in enemy territory surrounded by sullen mountains shrouded in dark forests underneath low-lying carpets of icy fog. Unseen death stalks the careless. An arrow from out of the darkness. The sudden thud of a hurled javelin cracking into one's lorica segmentata. The unexpected surge of a black figure rising out of the darkness followed by the swift stroke of cold steel across yielding flesh. In the night death comes sudden, swift and sure.

Especially here, on this strangely quiet, foreboding night in Dalmatia. The promise of death so near in the darkness, it was making the entire legion nervous and fidgety. He knew from his long experience soldiering what fear could do to a legion. A legion spooked and restless on the night before a possible battle contained all the ingredients for disaster. Fear could make a legion, led ineptly, to bend. To yield ground. And eventually to shatter like cheap pottery thrown onto a cold stone floor.

Not that the commander was inept. Inept was a harsh descriptor. Inept connoted incompetence and a casual disregard of assigned duties. Young would be a better description. Inexperienced. Thrust into the command of a legion long before he was ready for it. The young Gaius Cornelius Sulla was just old enough to be elected into the Roman Senate. Old enough, but contrary to tradition and Roman law, the young Senator had never served in the army. Never held one of the minor political offices which were normally prerequisites before running for a Senator's seat. Money, and his father's reputation, allowed the boy to bypass mere formalities. He was suitably impressed with the duties of being a legion commander. He wanted to prove to his father he was the man and son his father wanted. It was just that … well … the lad was but a boy. A boy given the command of a Roman legion which was sorely below nominal strength in manpower and finding itself hurled into the depth of enemy territory without proper training and equipment.

Youth untrained, and a legion improperly handled, were the ugly ingredients needed for a recipe of unparalleled disaster.

Twenty plus years serving in one legion or another had painted for him, on several occasions, what the end results of a legion shattering like a piece of thin glass would be. A horror beyond description. The killing would be endless. Roman soldiers throwing down their shields and swords as they ran from the battlefield in a mass panic only to be ridden down by the enemy's cavalry or assaulted by roving bands of sword and axmen. Hacked to pieces or ran through by fast riding cavalry, the memories of his past burned brightly in his mind. He knew if such a debacle happened on the morrow there would be few, if any, survivors. Especially here in this mountainous country overran with ravaging madmen filled with bloodlust and hate for anything Roman. That's why, throwing a heavy campaign cloak over his shoulders as he stood near the warmth of a burning brazier, he preferred inspecting the army's perimeter in person.

Stepping out of his tent, pulling the heavy wool cloak tighter around his shoulders, he took his time setting his bronze helm over his brow before reaching for his officer's baton firmly clamped under his right armpit. On either side of his tent's entrance, the two legionnaires snapped to attention and saluted in perfect unison. Acknowledging their salutes with a wave of his baton, he eyed the camp to his right and left in silence, then turned his attention to the nine legionnaires standing directly in front of him.

The young decanus, or a contriburnium commander of eight men, saluted smartly as the eight legionnaires behind him snapped to attention. One glance from his old eyes told him he and his men had spent some time getting their armor cleaned and smartly arrayed. The decanus was, at best, eighteen or nineteen years old. He, like his men, were not much more than raw recruits swept up off the streets of Brundisium and Rome and sent packing off to Dalmatia. Dalmatian tribesmen were in revolt. Again. And Roman authority, again, being challenged. The decanus was so young his beard was nonexistent. So frail of bone he wondered how in Hades the lad stood upright in the thirty or more pounds of standard legionnaire armor assigned to each man. Nevertheless, the lad was standing tall and proud. His men looked smartly attired and diligent. It didn't matter if the contriburnium was of the 7th cohort. The 7th being the cohort of the youngest, most untrained soldiers.

Lads beginning their long, arduous, and sometimes quite deadly learning phase of becoming a professional soldier. In the young eyes of these nine men, he could see they were looking for some sign of hope. Some gesture that they might survive in what was, obviously, a desperate situation. And without a doubt it was a desperate situation. Surrounded on three sides by determined foes who vastly outnumbered them. Intent on throwing off the yoke of Roman rule, the six or so main Dalmatian tribes united and waged war on anything which hinted of imperial power. This newly formed legion, Legio IX Brundisi, was within their grasp. A new legion, vastly undermanned, yet swept up into the fight because of the threat of a foe so close to the shores of Rome itself.

It was a hodgepodge collection of veterans and raw recruits. And he, Decimus Julius Virilis, being third in command, was the legion's Praefectus Castoreum. His main duty, of the many assigned to him, was to throw this collection of madmen together and hone it into a fighting machine as quickly as possible. A vastly important job given only to a professional soldier who had come up through the ranks and had proven himself to be both tough and enduring, as well as loyal and intelligent. A job that never ended. He had ordered a contriburnium from the 7th to be his personal escort tonight as he inspected the legion's perimeter. Yes, a move fraught with danger, perhaps. Especially so if the rebels decided to assault the legion's defensive lines hidden behind the veil of darkness.

In all the world there was no fighting force as well trained, well organized, and more victorious, than that of the seasoned professional legions of Rome. For almost four hundred years Roman legions fought the armies of just about every foe in what would become, eventually, modern Europe. Greeks, Etruscans, Carthaginian, Egyptian, Spaniards, Parthians, Germans, Gauls. The list was endless. For four hundred years Rome’s steel had, by in large, remained victorious. Yet four hundred years of military dominance guaranteed one certainty. There would be no peace, no tranquility in an empire forged from steel and strife. There would always be someone, somewhere, ready to rise up and defy the Roman yoke.

Eyeing the darkness and low hanging clouds of fog surrounding the hilltop the legion now commanded, Decimus could feel the weight of the coming battle resting on his tired shoulders. It would be a desperate fight. An unwanted fight. The legion was seriously undermanned. It was alone, deep in enemy territory, miles away from the main Roman army under the command of Tiberius Caesar.

Caesar, the adopted son of Caesar Augustus, had been summoned by his father to return to Rome and take command of the ten or so legions being assembled to fight the Dalmatian rebellion. The general had been in the north, beyond the Alps, fighting Gaul and Germanic tribes and trying to stabilize the northern borders. But the Dalmatian uprising, so dangerously close to the Latin homelands, took priority. The rebelling tribes were directly east of Rome—just across the watery finger of the narrow Adriatic Sea. A failure of her legions now would directly threaten Rome itself. Therefore, her best general was summoned to take command of the legions assembled to put the rebellion down.

Legio IXth Brundisi had been hastily recruited, marginally equipped, and shipped off to Dalmatia before being properly trained. The legion was almost two thousand men short of a legion’s nominal six thousand men strength. Without its cavalry contingent of four hundred or more horsemen, with each of the legion’s eight cohorts drastically undermanned, their disastrous arrival in the Illyricum port of Asa was like a prophet’s decree of looming defeat to come.