7 AD
Dalmatia
The Fires of Hades
Whatever it was which made him pause and turn his head to look, he would never be able to say. But he did. And it possibly saved his life. He came to a halt on a slight rise of dirt, surrounded by his escorts, his mind intent on keeping his men ever alert. The night was a thick envelope of dark and oddly silent to the ear. Not even a breath of cool mountain air stirred in the thick blackness. In the darkness, just below the hill, the ground opened into a wide space of flat valley floor. Meandering down the middle of the valley was a road which ran from Asa on the coastline deep into the Dalmatian interior. On both sides of the valley were high, forest covered mountains. Rugged forested mountains pockmarked with the burning pinpricks of hundreds of campfi
