Ahead, the fog began to peel away from the forest edge, revealing a chaotic sea of furs and jagged steel. The northern tribes had come in numbers that would have made a lesser man’s blood turn to ice. A horn blasted, a low, mournful sound that echoed through the mountain passes, and the first wave of the horde began to roll forward. "Scuta!" Decimus roared.
The impact was a deafening symphony of wood splintering against metal. The barbarians threw themselves at the line with the fury of a winter gale, their axes biting into the thick leather and wood. But the wall did not buckle. From the narrow gaps between the shields, the short gladius blades flickered like the tongues of vipers—precise, lethal, and relentless. Shieldwall.v0.9.7.rar
The dawn light caught the bronze of Decimus’s helmet, casting a long, flickering shadow across the mud of the valley floor. Behind him, the men of the Tenth were a wall of breathing iron. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. The rhythmic thump of spear butts against the earth was the only heartbeat they shared. Ahead, the fog began to peel away from
