Dawn of a New Rome

Dawn after Cibalae carried the stench of iron, old blood, and the wet breath of the Pannonian plain. Pale light seeped into a world flattened by violence. The field was a mosaic of carnage: bodies twisted in their last contortions, shields shattered and painted with mud and gore, pila snapped or driven deep into the trampled turf. Where yesterday had ended in noise and fury, today began with the hush of consequence. Victory's cost lay in every frozen hand, every face half-buried in frostbitten grass.

The bugles that called the army from slumber sounded not triumph, but the stubborn duty of survival. Constantine walked through the waking camp, cuirass loose, helm slung beneath his arm. His steps took him through a gauntlet of dressing stations-canvas shelters reeking of vinegar and blood where the field medici worked. He saw everything: a legionary howling as a leg was sawn above the knee, a Gaul from Lugdunum blinking up at the emperor with a blood-muddied smile before falling limp, surgeons stitching wounds with coarse thread, then whispering prayers over men too far gone. Here were no illusions, no speeches. Constantine nodded to each, hiding the private chill that gnawed at his core. Yesterday he had gambled with men as if they were coins; this morning, he counted the change.

Near the wagon park, Metellus awaited him, wax tablet in hand, fingers still dusted with the white of old chalk. "Casualty reports," he said quietly. "We hold the plain, but at a quarter lost. Too many are crippled. Replacement drafts-" He stopped when Constantine's eye fixed him, reading every number.

Constantine made no reply. Numbers would not change with words.

The day's council met in a Pannonian barn, its roof half-smashed by shelling, rain pattering through holes. The air was cold, everyone stiff with fatigue. Metellus began, laying out the options. "We are bloodied but intact. Pannonia is yours by right of conquest. Licinius's losses are as steep-he will not gamble on another pitched field soon. Let the men rest, refit the broken centuries, conscript from the towns. Give them a winter to heal."

Crocus's voice ground across the table. "You give him a winter and he will bite out our throat by spring." He slammed a mailed fist down, making the ink jump. "Pursue now. Finish him before the wound scabs over."

The council split. Old Roman caution measured itself against the wild aggression of the Rhine. Valerius stood silent, eyes flicking between the factions, but Constantine needed no counsel. He traced a callused finger along the map, east from the battle plain toward the line of the Danube.

"We pursue," he said at last. His voice was soft, but final. Debate evaporated. "Licinius bleeds, but his retreat was no rout. He will call new cohorts from Thrace, draw on the gold of Asia, pull grain out of Egypt. Each hour we pause is an hour he stitches himself together. Sound the march."

Trumpets cut through drizzle, summoning the battered legions. Tents vanished, packs slung, men driven forward by the whip of command. Constantine's word was law, and the men-hungry, wounded, cursing-obeyed. They would obey so long as he moved, so long as he radiated that sense of inevitability. Victory, once seized, must be driven home like a stake in the heart.

The chase was grim and relentless. Licinius left destruction in his wake, turning every river and crossroads into an obstacle. At Viminacium they found the bridge over the Danube destroyed, timbers drifting in the swollen current. Constantine's engineers cut pine from the banks, lashed rafts, built a floating bridge as rain hammered down. Two days lost.

Naissus greeted them with ruin. The granaries were blackened husks, their grain already ash, the wells fouled with the bodies of slaughtered oxen. Constantine listened to Metellus's complaint-"Biscuit stores failing, horses on half rations"-and replied only, "We march faster." The pace increased. Twelve hours marching, four sleeping, again and again until boots bled and even centurions swore under their breath.

Valerius's scouts moved ahead in the haze, gathering rumor from frightened peasants, piecing together the flickering ghost-trail of Licinius's retreat. Always the enemy was one day ahead, his campfires visible at dusk on the next set of hills. No stragglers, no strife. Each night, Licinius let his own men see the fires of Constantine's army, a threat always looming, never close enough for comfort.

The column lengthened as exhaustion set in. Frost bit the air, rain soaked the ragged lines, and the men pressed on with stoic hatred. Faith in their emperor and the fear of failure combined to weld the battered remnants into something leaner and more dangerous. Even so, murmurs spread. The eastern emperor could not be caught-he was always the shadow just over the ridge.

It was near the border of Thrace, after an eighteen-mile forced march through sodden roads, that the march finally paused. Camp sprang up, fires hissing on wet wood. Rations were thin, tempers thinner. Into this malaise came a cluster of horsemen, a white banner trailing behind. Mestrianus, silver-haired, eyes sharp, bowed before Constantine in the lamplit tent.

"Imperator, my master Licinius honors your arms at Cibalae. He proposes an end to this-" He gestured at the muddy maps, the bloody reports. "Pannonia and Illyricum to you, Thrace and the East to him. Let Rome be ruled by two, not ruined by pride."

The officers murmured. It was a huge offer. Half the empire given away without another sword raised. Constantine's face did not change. He let the silence stretch until even the messenger's confidence faltered.

"I already possess what he offers," Constantine said at last, "and he expects to keep Egypt, Asia, and the coin of Nicomedia. These are not terms. They are the plea of a man desperate to buy time."

He pressed his finger to the map, east of the Bosporus. "My answer is this: every province west of Asia, no exceptions. He crosses into Anatolia, leaves Valens behind, or there will be no negotiation. Rome will not tolerate a counterfeit Caesar."

Mestrianus recoiled, caught off guard. "Augustus, this is-"

"The price of treachery," Constantine finished, voice cold as the river outside. "Return to your master. My legions move at dawn. If he yields, he keeps his life. If not, I cross into Thrace over the bodies of his last loyal men."

When the envoy was gone, Metellus let out a shaky breath. "Sire, the passes ahead are steep, Licinius's men will have the ground. Byzantium is walls and water. This will be a siege-"

"All obstacles," Constantine said, "are steps in the march to unity. He mistakes the pace of the campaign for weakness. We will show him what it means to be hunted by fate."

He dismissed them all, stepping outside as rain paused and the moon thrust through tattered clouds. Across the hills, the Western army sprawled in darkness, packs ready, weapons oiled. The battered host seemed both infinite and mortal-tired but moving, hungry but unstoppable.

Constantine gazed east, watching for the thin line of watchfires that marked Licinius's next camp. He felt, as he always did, the pulse of the future. So long as he moved, the empire's heart would keep beating.

"Run, Licinius," he said to the wind, the words dissipating in the cold. "Run to the Bosporus. When you can run no farther, you will learn whether the world belongs to the first emperor who reaches the strait, or the last one left alive on its far shore."

The bugle sounded the night's order. Constantine returned to his tent, charting the next day's pursuit, already living in the moment after the next battle-the one when the empire, at last, would be forced to choose its single sun.