Chapter 107: The Iron Marines

An axe cleaved through the breastplate and ribcage of a Roman auxiliary.

The impact lifted the man off his feet, pinning him against the cavern wall.

He managed a gasp before the axe was wrenched free, dropping his body to the floor.

The man wielding the axe was a steel-clad vanguard of the *Classis Ferrea*.

He wiped the gore from the blade against his forearm and stepped deeper into the darkness of the cave.

The Iron Marines of the Syndicate were built for this brand of warfare...

Traditional Roman infantry relied on tight formations, interlocking shields, and the stabbing motion of the *gladius*.

In the uneven tunnels of the caves, those tactics were useless. A shield wall could not form in a passage barely four feet wide.

The Marines, however, were equipped and trained for close-quarters brutalism.

Armed with shortened boarding axes and lead-weighted nets, they moved through the darkness like apex predators.

Over the last forty-five minutes, the four thousand Iron Marines had dismantled the Roman garrison.

Operating in ten-man squads, they advanced through the tunnels, dropping the pontoon barges they carried to block the chokepoints, trapping the imperial soldiers in dead-end caverns.

When a Roman squad was cornered, the Marines hacked them to pieces in the dark.

The imperial garrison were being hunted in tunnels by silent giants wearing expressionless iron faceplates.

The morale of the defenders shattered. Dozens of Roman auxiliaries threw down their weapons and begged for mercy.

The Iron Marines did not take prisoners. Lucius had mandated the eradication of the supply depot; prisoners required food and oversight that Captain Carbo could not spare.

Every surrendered Roman was executed with an axe strike to the base of the skull.

Deep within the cavern network, Valerius’s senior lieutenant, a veteran named Kaelus, raised an iron gauntlet, signaling his squad to halt.

The Marines froze, blending into the shadows of the walls. Kaelus tilted his head, listening over the dripping of the cavern ceiling.

Kaelus narrowed his eyes beneath his faceplate.

The intelligence reports from Isolda’s operatives had indicated a garrison of light infantry holding the depot.

Using hand signals, Kaelus ordered his squad to melt into the rocky alcoves flanking the tunnel mouth.

A hundred yards down the passage, marched three centuries of the Praetorian Guard.

They wore steel *lorica segmentata* and carried rectangular *scuta* shields.

These were the bodyguards of the eastern Prefects, deployed to ensure the security of the grain shipments.

They had remained within the lower vaults, waiting for the attackers to funnel down into their chokepoint.

Leading the Praetorians was a Tribune named Lucius Domitius.

"Hold the line at the salt-shelf," Domitius commanded. "When they hit the shields, push them back into the water and drown them."

Beside him, a Centurion named Quintus frowned, staring into the tunnel ahead.

"Tribune," Quintus warned. "The screams from the upper levels stopped ten minutes ago. The rebels are already down here."

Domitius scoffed, resting his hand on the hilt of his spatha. "Do not be a coward, Quintus. It is a mob of dockworkers and miners. They overwhelmed the light infantry with numbers, but they will shatter against Praetorian steel."

Quintus did not look convinced.

He had served on the northern frontiers; he knew that silence in the dark was more dangerous than screaming.

"Lock shields!" Quintus roared.

The Praetorians executed the maneuver.

They drew their *gladii*, waiting for the charge of the rebel mob.

Kaelus watched the Praetorians form their wall from the shadows of his alcove.

He didn’t order a charge. He knew that throwing his men against a locked Praetorian shield wall in a narrow tunnel was suicide. The *scuta* would deflect the boarding axes, and the Roman swords would gut his Marines in the crush.

Instead, Kaelus reached to his belt and unhooked a spherical object wrapped in boiled leather.

It was a fist-sized charge of Kallias’s chemical clay, fitted with a fuse.

Kaelus struck a flint. He lit the fuse.

Kaelus hurled the explosive sphere over the top of the Roman shield wall, bouncing it off the low cavern ceiling so it dropped precisely into the center of the Praetorian formation.

Tribune Domitius blinked, looking down at the smoking sphere that had landed at his feet.

"What in Jupiter’s name is—"

*BOOM!*

The explosive clay detonated with a roar that shook the bedrock of the cavern.

In the confined space of the tunnel, the explosion was devastating...

The shockwave had nowhere to vent. It ripped through the Praetorian formation, shattering eardrums, rupturing internal organs, and throwing armored men through the air.

Before the smoke could clear, Kaelus drew his boarding axe and roared the command.

"Iron!"

The Iron Marines surged from the shadows, charging into the remnants of the Praetorian Guard.

It was a massacre... The surviving Romans, their ears bleeding and their equilibrium shattered by the blast, could barely stand, let alone raise their swords to defend themselves.

Centurion Quintus managed to block a downward strike with his shattered shield, thrusting his *gladius* toward a Marine’s chest.

But the blade sparked against the steel breastplate...

The Marine stepped into the thrust, bringing the iron pommel of his axe crashing down into Quintus’s face, crushing his jaw and dropping the veteran.

Tribune Domitius was scrambling backward on his hands and knees, trying to crawl away from the slaughter.

Kaelus stepped over a dying Praetorian. He reached down, grabbing the Tribune by the gold clasps of his cloak, and hauled him to his feet.

"Wait!" Domitius screamed. "I am a patrician of the Domitii house! I am worth fifty thousand *aurei* in ransom! You cannot kill me!"

Kaelus stared at the Roman through the slits of his faceplate.

He drove the spike on the back of his boarding axe through the Tribune’s breastplate, piercing his heart.

Domitius gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head, and went limp.

Kaelus ripped the axe free, letting the Tribune’s body collapse into the water.

He turned to the rest of his squad, who were executing the last of the wounded Praetorians in the dark.

"Secure the lower vaults,"

"Find the grain reserves, and set the pitch fires. Leave nothing but ash for Rufinus."