The command tent was lit by oil lamps, thick with maps, tablets, dust, and sweat. The murmur of the night barely slipped through the canvas. Inside, Julius Caesar stood in silence, staring at the terrain laid out before him.
"Labienus. Fonteius. Trebonius. I need your full attention," he said, without raising his voice.
The men fell silent instantly. Outside, the legions either slept or pretended to.
"Ariovistus has set his camp on the hill. He has the advantage of ground, but not of spirit. I saw it today. He expects us to hesitate, to remain behind our palisades."
He tapped the map with the tip of his hasta.
"Tomorrow we march in triple formation. The veteran legions will cover the flanks. But the strike... the strike will come from here." He touched the center. "From the Thirteenth Legion."
A moment of silence followed.
"The Thirteenth?" Fonteius asked, not hiding his surprise. "They're still young."
"Exactly," Caesar replied. "Because they haven't yet learned fear. Because they carry the fire of Bibracte in their blood. Because when the Germans fled, they fled from them. Not from the veterans. From the new lions of Rome."
Labienus nodded solemnly.
"And if the center falls?"
"Then Rome falls with it," Caesar said, with a dry smile. "But it won't fall."
He turned to one of the messengers and said:
"Spread the word among the centurions of the Thirteenth. Let them prepare. They will be the hammer. And if they bleed tomorrow, let them bleed knowing they carry the weight of Rome in their swords."
The order shot out like lightning into the darkness.
That night, under a pale moon, the Thirteenth Legion slept, unaware that come dawn, they would not merely fight, but would be the spearhead of the Republic's fate.