The Family Man

Chapter 19

50 BC

Marcius Thracius rose slightly, his eyes breaking over the boulder that hid him from view. The valley floor was silent. A slight haze had developed in the predawn hour. He smiled as he absently stroked his beard. The small Gallic tribe rested peacefully in their thick homes of rock and mud. They had no reason to suspect that half a cohort of Roman's finest had surrounded their village. A sane leader would have waited for the spring thaw. Marcius was ambitious, which for a centurion, meant insane. He could almost smell a promotion to Primus Pilus.

These Gauls had made a vital miscalculation. They had decided not to accept Roman rule, unlike their brethren. They ignored their loss in Alesia and pretended destiny still lay in their hands. Ignorant barbarian thinking. Marcius raised his hand and spun his finger in the air. A portion of his force moved quickly to cut off any possible retreat on the downslope side. He watched as they moved silently across the frozen stream ignoring the ankle deep snow. Well trained Romans with vengeance on their minds.

Caesar himself had sent the dictate. Marcius had jumped at the chance to lead the foray. Attacking a Roman estate, land gifted by Caesar, was the tribe's mistake. A conquered people should know their place. Slaughtering a family favored by Caesar himself was the last miscalculation the tribe would ever make. Now all of Gaul would learn a hard lesson.

Marcius took a step forward, steadying himself with his hands. Footing was difficult in places where the trees failed to shelter the ground from the snow. Another hand signal and his main force moved to the treeline, not fifty paces from the first dwelling. Structures of rudimental rock walls held in place with mud plaster. An arms thickness of thatch topped the roofs. He smiled and looked to the north. The archers were in place, small torches lit.

Marcius nodded to his bannerman. The banner rose from the ground, then dropped swiftly. A moment later, the pre-dawn sky brightened as fifty archers let loose a wave of burning arrows, the tar on the tips guaranteeing they would survive a little snow. Three flights were launched. The third brought the first sounds of alarm. Another nod, the banner swinging from side to side, and the death of the tribe began in a hundred Roman war cries.

Not a soul was to survive. Not men, not women, not children, and not livestock. Everything was to be eradicated. A message for those who seek to thwart the will of Rome. A message from Caesar himself.

The first screams were for the fires; the next were for the blades that opened bellies of the victims who tried to escape their hovels. Marcius lead his troops from the front, never asking more than he was willing to give. A naked bear of a man ran from his home brandishing an ax, spouting some guttural curse. Marcius easily dodged the mighty swing and plunged his gladius into the man's stomach. Two more blades punchered either side, Roman's don't do solo. The ax dropped. Marcius withdrew his blade. The man fell into the trodden snow, and a red pool of his life began forming. His soldiers yelled their small victory and ran forth, slaying a child that the beast must have fathered.

Chaos ruled. The clan woke to fire and death, never having a chance to die like men. It wasn't war. It was a planned execution. At first, Marcius moved with purpose, flanked by his soldiers, cutting down anyone not wearing Roman red. Near the end, he slowed. Some had chosen to die screaming in flames, others to run into swords. The children huddled and waited crying as the swords came to them. What once sounded like curses hidden in a foul barbarian tongue, now changed to pleading. There was no mercy given.

"They pray," Atticus said, his blade dripping the same dark red as Marcius'. "They're asking their god for swift passage to paradise." Atticus spoke the language or at least he professed too. A young girl child screamed as two swords ended her life. She had pressed herself against her burning house, a short distance from what was left of her mother.