Dawn of a New Rome

Dawn unfolded over the Pannonian plain, cold and red as a fresh wound. From his high saddle, Constantine surveyed the assembled might of Licinius. It was a spectacle designed to intimidate-cohorts drawn from the Danube, vexilla planted in dew-laden turf, bronze eagles blinking back the weak sun through river mist. To the east, a swath of marshland steamed as it thawed, threatening to swallow anything foolish enough to test its depths. To the west, the Fruska Gora's black shoulder rose impassible, its slopes more rumor than road. The corridor between-flat, featureless, unprotected-waited as the single avenue where the future would be forged or broken.

Within the emperor's tent, strategy shuddered on the edge of violence. Constantine's senior command gathered: Metellus, gaunt and ink-fingered; Crocus, his arms crossed in bullish defiance; Valerius, shoulders tense, listening for every new horn. Metellus stabbed chalk at the rough map pinned to the table. "No flank to turn. The marsh drowns cavalry, the ridge cannot take more than two at a breast. Licinius has chosen to force you head-on, Augustus."

Constantine's voice was cool. "He trusts Danubian blood, and the patience of the old legions. He thinks attrition and time belong to him." His eye lingered on the entrance of the tent, where the muted thunder of drums rolled closer. "But the day belongs to the side that turns seconds into fractures. We crack the line before he can seal it."

Crocus scowled. "Let me try the ridge, hunt out a goat path and come at his shoulder by noon."

Constantine's reply cut short any debate. "There are no goat paths for armies. Every boulder, every root, will trap us in single file. This is a contest of shields, not feints. If we hesitate, we die one by one."

He drew a finger along a hairline gap in Metellus's sketch-one faint break between rectangles. "We watch for the seam. When it opens, we do not hesitate. We drive the wedge, all weight at the hinge."

The orders moved like lightning. Horns blared, runners splashed through dew with signals. The host of the West formed in ordered centuries, shields raised, helms shining under the thin sun. Men marched, silent but for the rattle of armor and the occasional barked command, until the two armies pressed together at a distance so tight the air quivered with the certainty of coming violence.

A single trumpet blast tore the hush. With the sound, the armies surged forward. The opening shock had the density of geology-two masses slamming together, the energy caught in the press of flesh and iron. Pilum volley gave way to the ugly intimacy of gladius work. Boards rang, ribs cracked, breath steamed between gritted teeth. Each man could see the eyes of the man trying to kill him, and for a long, unbroken hour, no line gave way.

Javelins spent, the lines leaned into one another, a shoving, grinding mass. Blood and sweat pooled in the grass. Here and there the Danubian veterans shoved the Sixth Victrix back a step, only to be screamed forward again by their bellowing centurion. The sun climbed. The mist burned off. Where the lines met, the world narrowed to the width of a shield rim, and life became a question asked in the time between heartbeats.

Reports filtered back to Constantine. Losses mounted, then soared. "The line holds-barely," Metellus relayed, teeth clenched as he studied new notches on the casualty roster. "We bleed them, they bleed us. Reserves?" Constantine shook his head. "Wait. Not yet. The old fox wants to draw our strength, then break us."

All morning the battle stayed locked. Constantine rode behind the fighting, his presence a calm axis, visible to his men and to the enemy. Legionaries caught sight of the one-eyed helm and straightened, rallying around a will as implacable as steel. Here, in the mud, heroics mattered less than the grind of discipline, the ability to press forward when nothing remained but stubbornness.

As the sun moved toward its zenith, the ground between the armies became a soaked charnel house. Men fell by dozens, trampled into the muck. Everywhere Constantine looked, effort was repaid with agony. And always, Licinius kept his nerve, committing reinforcements just where the pressure threatened to break, husbanding his reserves for the moment he would counterattack.

Constantine's patience frayed as hours bled into afternoon. The center sagged under the weight of Danubian pressure; his men bent, then righted themselves by force of habit and pride. He saw men stumble, fall, then get up again out of sheer memory of orders. Yet neither side's courage or exhaustion would decide the day. Only a mistake, a hairline split, could break the stalemate.

That mistake finally came. Late in the afternoon, as the light turned from gold to harsh white, Constantine spied it: a legion of Licinius's right, battered after withstanding Crocus's latest charge, shifted in the line. There-a brief, yawning break, a human error born of fatigue. An officer turned away too soon, the replacement units arriving seconds behind. It was a breach so slight most would miss it. Constantine saw it as fate's invitation.

"My horse," he commanded, his voice absolute.

Metellus protested, but Constantine brushed him off with the icy certainty of a commander who has waited years for such a crack. "This victory will belong to the hand that takes the risk."

He rode for the Scholae Palatinae, his bodyguard cavalry already assembling at the crest of the ridge, armor gleaming, the golden windsocks of the dragons catching the breeze. Faces were grim, alert. Each man knew what was at stake.

"You know what must be done," Constantine called, sword raised so all could see. "The Empire waits behind that breach. Ride now, and history will ride with us!"

He wheeled, and the Scholae fell in, a thunderclap of hooves rolling over the broken ground. The cavalry wedge surged forward, parting the lines of infantry with the authority of iron. Legionaries gave way in awe or terror, the elite bodyguard sweeping through like a steel blade through flesh.

Ahead, the tired Danubians turned, shields angled, but exhaustion had already defeated them. The wedge hit with the force of an avalanche. Boards splintered, men reeled, and suddenly the breach yawned open, wide and hungry. Constantine led from the front, sword swinging, cloak darkened with mud and blood. His men followed, the wedge widening as more cavalry and then infantry poured through.

Panic spread in the eastern ranks. Reserves hurried to close the wound, but each new attempt was shattered by the relentless pressure. Constantine waved in the rested reserves of the Twentieth Valeria, their pila flashing, their shields forming the tip of the new advance. What had been a crack became a corridor, and then a canyon. The army of Licinius, battered and confused, tried to rally-too late.

Licinius himself gathered his guard in a rearguard square, holding off pursuit long enough to withdraw the fragments of his army. Night began to fall, the field flickering with torches and the red glow of burning standards. The enemy withdrew toward Sirmium, leaving thousands behind.

Constantine dismounted, boots sinking into red-soaked mud. He paused, head bowed over a Chi-Rho painted shield half-buried in the blood and earth. The price was plain: eight thousand dead on his side, ten thousand or more for Licinius. The flower of his army had perished for a crack in a line, a single moment seized.

Valerius limped to his side. "We have won, Augustus, but at terrible cost. Licinius retreats, wounded but not yet broken."

Constantine's voice was low but steel-hard. "He will not recover. Send word to every cohort: we pursue at dawn. Sleep in formation. Bury the dead where they fell. We will give Licinius no hour to rally."

He stood, mud running off his cloak, the sky above cold and clear. The empire's future balanced on the narrow margin of exhaustion and resolve. He had split the line, but the work was not done. Tomorrow would demand more-more blood, more courage, more iron certainty.

As he walked away from the carnage, torches flickered behind him, shadows stretching long across the field where an empire's fate had turned. He left footprints filled with dark water, the sound of the dying and the wounded echoing in his wake. Ahead, the firelight flickered on the banners of Rome's sole survivor, and Constantine steeled himself for the next blow. The gate was open. The final drive would be relentless.