Free Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale Page A

Hesperians had transformed the landscape around them. But reaping the new bounty would take time.
    “We march on,” Marcellinus said. “Let’s travel light and get this done. Their crops aren’t quite ready yet, anyway. Once we’ve taken their city, an organized harvest from these fields will feed us to bursting.”
    Corbulo looked relieved; he obviously had feared a delay in reaching their goal. As for Marcellinus, now suddenly freed from constant worry about running out of food, he felt positively giddy.
    The gamble was going to pay off. Once they’d harvested the corn, the Legion could overwinter here in relative comfort. He would even have time before winter to send an exploratory cohort or two to march on farther or lead it himself, maximizing their westward expansion. Even without gold, Hadrianus might be pleased at their annexation of so much land.
    All they had to do was take the city.
    “Give the orders that any redskin farmers who don’t flee are not to be harassed. From now on the corn is to be left undisturbed. We can come back for it at need.”
    “Four days I’ll give you,” said Leogild. “After that I’ll counsel a day or two to restock the wagons before going farther.”
    “Agreed,” the Praetor said.
    On they went. The stillness of the air was uncanny, and the utter absence of any breeze was stifling. Marcellinus rarely saw a face that wasnot dripping with sweat or passed a soldier who did not reek. Much more of this and the leather and wool would rot on their bodies.
    In Europa such an epic trek could have taken them from Urbs Roma almost as far as Parisi in Gaul, but in Europa the way would be well signed and the rivers already bridged. Nova Hesperia was a giant land with no roads at all aside from the one they were creating. This was going to be one hell of a province for a Roman legate to administer one day.
    To Marcellinus it felt as if the past weeks had carried the Legion on a long march through time. First, the poverty-racked fisher-gatherers of the Powhatani by the giant bay of the Chesapica, at the mercy of the tide and the berry plant. Next, the woodland husbandry of the Iroqua, savage to invaders but gentle to the land, cultivating their meadows, burning their undergrowth, shooting their deer. Now, here in the alluvial bottomlands of deepest Nova Hesperia, the Cahokiani farmed their fields and lived in stout wooden huts that represented a giant leap forward from the animal-skin tents and lean-to shacks on the coast. Such settled and well-ordered agriculture was essential to support the Great City they sought, and judging by the increasing size of the Cahokiani settlements they passed, that city must now be very close.
    Soon it would be time to fight.

“D amn it, man,” said the centurion Pollius Scapax. “If you’re not sure you’re within bow range, hold your fire.”
    “Yes, sir,” said the soldier thus chastened. “Thought I had him, sir.”
    “Arrows don’t grow on trees, you know.” An old Legion joke.
    “No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
    Their enemy was no longer invisible, yet the armed braves in the road ahead did not engage them; instead, they withdrew before the approaching Roman army. From a distance Marcellinus could see they were warriors in full regalia, feathers in their hair and javelins and bows in their hands. They looked very different from the earlier peoples. No one could confuse the Cahokiani with the fishing tribes of the shore, the flying tribes of the mountains, or the warrior bands of the woodlands. These were men of much grander aspect than the previous collections of natives.
    Never had Marcellinus seen men so practiced in running backward. Yet their appearance of retreat was obviously a ruse; they were luring the Romans toward a place where they would stand and do battle. Fair enough. Since Marcellinus could no longer safely send his scouts forward to locate the enemy for himself, he welcomed the assistance. Let the Cahokiani choose the battlefield;