VII
Excubiae
‘Vanguard’
The world was deathly still. It was unnatural.
It seemed that the frost, a remnant from the previous night's plunging temperature, had frozen the entirety of Caledonia's fields and forest ferns. The grass and bracken cracked softly beneath the men's feet and the horses' hooves. Water trickled in the river to the left, the occasional reed twitching where it plumbed the cold black depths.
As he rode, his sword drawn, Lucius Metellus Anguis thought for a moment that even as he shivered beneath his wolf-pelt cloak, he would have liked to pause and take in the still beauty about him. It had been days since his last offering to Apollo, Venus, and Epona. However, he knew that a moment's lapse could get them all killed, the horsemen and legionaries who followed him int
