S. Turney - Hades' Gate

The Command Staff:

Gaius Julius Caesar: Politician, general and governor.

Aulus Ingenuus: Commander of Caesars Praetorian Cohort.

Quintus Atius Varus: Commander of the Cavalry.

Quintus Titurius Sabinus: Lieutenant of Caesar.

Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta: Lieutenant of Caesar

Titus Labienus: Lieutenant of Caesar.

Gnaeus Vinicius Priscus: Former primus pilus of the Tenth, now camp prefect of the army.

Seventh Legion:

Quintus Tullius Cicero: Legate and brother of the great orator.

Lucius Fabius: Senior centurion

Tullus Furius: Primus pilus

Eighth Legion:

Decimus Brutus: Legate and favourite of Caesars family.

Titus Balventius: Primus pilus amp; veteran of several terms.

Ninth Legion:

Publius Sulpicius Rufus: Young Legate of the Ninth.

Grattius: primus pilus, once in sole command of the Ninth.

Tenth Legion:

Servius Fabricius Carbo: Primus Pilus.

Atenos: Centurion and chief training officer, former Gaulish mercenary

Petrosidius: Chief Signifer of the first cohort.

Eleventh Legion:

Aulus Crispus: Legate, former civil servant in Rome.

Quintus Velanius: Senior Tribune.

Titus Silius: Junior Tribune.

Felix: Primus Pilus, accounted an unlucky man.

Twelfth Legion:

Publius Sextius Baculus: Primus pilus. A distinguished veteran.

Thirteenth Legion:

Lucius Roscius: Legate and native of Illyricum.

Fourteenth Legion:

Lucius Munatius Plancus: Legate

Titus Pullo: Primus Pilus

Lucius Vorenum: Senior centurion

Other characters:

Marcus Falerius Fronto: Former legate of the Tenth.

Quintus Balbus: Former Legate of the Eighth, now retired. Close friend of Fronto.

Servius Galba: Former Legate of Twelfth. Now Praetor in Rome.

Faleria the elder: Mother of Fronto and matriarch of the Falerii.

Faleria the younger: sister of Fronto.

Corvinia: Wife of Balbus.

Lucilia: Elder daughter of Balbus amp; betrothed of Fronto.

Balbina: Younger daughter of Balbus.

Galronus: Belgic officer, commanding Caesar's auxiliary cavalry.

Publius Clodius Pulcher: Powerful man in Rome, client of Caesar and conspirator.

Paetus: Former officer, presumed dead, but fled to Rome.

Cold toes in sodden boots heaved wearily through the deep snow, long soaked trousers clinging to the young man's shins as he stumbled and staggered, one hand on the hilt of the eating knife that was his only armament, the other gripping the pouch on the thong around his neck. A trail of footprints betrayed his passage, but better that than a trail of blood. Silently silence was a prerequisite of the hunted the young man cursed his decision to travel without a sword. When two heavily armed bodyguards travelled with you, where was the need?

Botovios was no warrior, though, anyway. He had been chosen by the ageing Druid of Durocatalauno as an initiate into the ancient and sacred ways; chosen for his mind, his subtlety and his honour. But that had been before the Romans came; before Caesar came. Little could he have seen four years ago that instead of reading the Greek scrolls old Obaldos kept in his house he would be running for his life in the all-consuming blizzard, pursued by dogged legionaries and gripping the hope of all Gaul tightly to his chest.

It had been an uneventful ride from the Matrona River the river of the Protecting Goddess all the way deep into the territory of the Belgae, and Botovios and his two escorts had felt as though their journey was all but complete once they entered the great dark and comforting confines of the forest of Arduenna. But the ancient Goddess that sheltered the people of the Treveri tribe seemed not to be extending her gifts to the young adept and his guards.

The first he had realised that something was wrong had been when the rope suddenly tautened across the forest trail, unhorsing him and sending him onto his back in the two-foot-deep snow, knocking the wind and the sense from him.

By the time he had struggled out of the white grave that had claimed him and peered through the thick, drifting flakes trying to take stock of what had happened, his horse had gone, charging off down the trail ahead, screaming with the pain of some unseen wound.

Spinning round, he had desperately sought his companions.

"Tarvos? Icorix?"

But as his vision resolved the shapes through the snow, he knew they wouldn't answer. The shapes of thrashing horse's legs rose above the white blanket that covered the world, attesting the violent and crippling wounding of the poor noble beasts. The bulky, heavy shape of Tarvos he could just make out, the big, bull-like warrior clutching his throat with both hands as a jet of dark liquid sprayed out to melt the snow. Icorix was in similar trouble, staggering backwards through the snow, gripping the shaft of the pilum that jutted from his chest, the point faintly visible as a needle projecting from between his shoulder blades.

Both were as good as dead already.

Panic had gripped Botovios then: panic on so many levels. Panic that he was alone and virtually unarmed. Panic that unless he could flee to somewhere safe he was almost certainly about to die. Panic that his vital message would not get through to the chieftains gathered at Trebeto. Panic that that very message would find its way into the hands of the beast-spawn, whore-son that was Caesar of the Romans.

Panic.

Botovios had fled, but not before he had seen the shapes of two armoured nightmares emerging from the treelines, growing as they closed on the scene like demons from some childhood tale.

Everything was eerily silent in the blizzard. The only sound was the gentle flutter of the flakes falling around him, the occasional creak of a groaning branch sagging under the weight of the snow and the rhythmic crunch of his soaked boots in the calf-deep drifts.

Winter had not been kind to northern Gaul and the lands of the Belgae, and the snowfall had been disastrous to many. Here in the hills and endless woodland of Arduenna's forest even the trees had not managed to save the ground from its white shroud, such had been the regularity and severity of the snowfall. Botovios had ducked beneath the boughs of the forest proper as he had moved off the open track, hoping that the going would be easier but if anything it was more dangerous. The snow was perhaps a foot shallower beneath the branches than in the open, but it concealed the myriad dangers of tangled thorns, fallen branches and animal warrens.