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"The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody."
--Titus Andronicus, ACT IV, Scene IV


In 281 BCE, the Greek city of Taranto assisted King Pyrrhus of Epirus in his conqest of the island of Corcyra, providing financial assistance to the hot-headed Epirote ruler who styled himself a second Alexandros. In return for this aide, the democrats of Taranto sought Epirote aid against the Romani, whom had recently completed their own conquests of the Samnites and Lucanians, on the very doorstep of Magna Graecia. Fearing future Roman expansion, and knowing they could not defeat the upstart city in battle, the Tarantines lured Pyrrhus into their scheme to do their fighting for them. With a bending of an ancient naval treaty, Taranto declared war on the Romans after rebuffing their envoys of negotiation. It is believed that Pyrrhus' true intentions were for Sicily, which he would use as a base to capture Carthage to finance his future wars against Macedonia. In any case, the Epirote king landed in Italia in 280 BC with 25,000 troops, many of them on loan from other Successor kings in hopes the firebrand would use them in Italy and not against themselves. He met the Roman army under Publius Laevinius on the Siris river near the Greek city of Heraclea, in what would become the first pitched engagement of the war that would send the city of seven hills onto the center stage of an international arena...


PRELUDE

Four days before the Ides of Quintilis
Near Pandosia, Lucania
473 Ab Urbe Condita

He awoke suddenly with sudden, terrifying awareness and crystal clarity. There was sudden rabid sqwaking as a huge crow startled and hopped back from him, dark feathers falling as it lept into the blinding brightness of the flaming sun high in the western sky. He was lying face-down on the cold, wet earth, and all around the sounds of hungry carrion birds calling to one another or flapping about restlessly. His eyes were focused but he could not see in the brightness of the setting sun, and as he tried to prop himself up he realized in sudden horror he could not feel his legs.

He was prostrate upon an cold carpet of churned and muddy grass, and could feel the frost on the wind as his hair ruffled in front of his eyes from it. His fingers were cold and numb, but he propped himself up tentatively. His head swam with blurred memories and stinging pain that rang like a blacksmith’s hammer on iron. Groaning, he managed to shield his eyes from the sun and look about furtively.

The dead lay everywhere.


Strewn about like rag dolls after some giant’s temper tantrum, bodies lie scattered across the plain, still and half-frozen, many lying atop others and some in macabre piles three-men deep. The mud was stained with dried blood except where the new fall had obscured it, and tatters of clothing, weapons, and battered coreslets and helms lied like so much flotsam here and there. The crows were feasting lazily, flapping about and fighting over scraps of cold flesh, calling to one another like bickering children. To his right some distance there was the largest mound of death, and there on a slanted pike-staff a tattered banner of crimson and gold was fluttering limply in the small, cold wind. Behind him loomed the corpse of a large chestnut mare, having thrown him before it fell.

He should be dead, but he was not.

He tried to call for help, but the word came out as a dry-mouthed croak that cracked before he could utter the word. His hands were stained blackish-red with dried blood, and he could now feel the swelling pain on his head where something had struck him. He pushed himself up further, shaking the dirt from his back, and with relief realized the feeling was slowly coming back to his legs.

Some in Rome later said a god had visited him that day amongst the dead, though he never claimed as much himself. Nearly seven thousand Roman men lay dead upon that field, and he yet lived, a pawn of Fortuna. And she was a fickle goddess indeed.

He remembered with a pang of iron in his head the crushing press of the battle, the roar of men and beasts and the din of metal crashing. There were screams and cries, and the sky had been thick with javelins and darts that fell like summer rain. One man dragged his comrade away from the line, pink slivers of intestines hanging from his bowels where an Epirote spear had gorged him. Another clutched his face where sprouted the shaft of a feathered arrow fired from an enemy he could not even see.

And then the elephants. The beasts were like boulders animated with a foul spirt, monstrous machines that marched carelessly into the line of hastati, flinging men aside like so much refuse. Some had been killed by the men in the towers mounted to the animal's hides, others gorged by their iron-sheathed tusks or stampeded to death underfoot. The Roman line had melted away like mist in the sunlight when Pyrrhus unleashed their charge, and what seemed a victory turned quickly into catastrophe and rout.

The wind howled as if to warn him, and he managed to turn himself over with an aching groan. With horror, he saw dark figures behind him--hooded men moving amongst the dead, each carrying a long staff and knives at their sides. They were scavengers or thieves, who had come to liberate the earthly treasures that had not been already taken by the victors of the battle. He tried to call at them for help, mumbled something incoherent instead and groaned as his head swam with dizziness and nausea and then finally collapsed again on his back, staring up into the sun-bright, flame-red sky.

“Dead?” one of the bandits asked, a tall, crow-faced man with deep-set dark eyes and a wisp of beard that hung to his chest.

“Soon enough,” replied the other, raising the hem of his robe and stooping beside him to rummage through the pouch tied to his belt.

“He lives yet though, look at his eyes. Is he wounded?” The bandit leaned on the staff like a walking cane as they looked him over. Overhead a crow called out, as if warning them to leave its prey be.

“I can see no wound, but the cold will kill him sure enough when night falls.” This one was dark of complexion, with a hawk-like nose, heavy brow, and a beard black as coals. Finding nothing of intrest in his belt pouch, he reached into the man’s tunic and there snapped the smaller pouch hanging from his neck.

"Volturn," the thief said, examining the tiny tablet he found within the pouch. "This one is Roman nobilitas," he fingered the tablet and held it to the sun. "You see?"

"Cornelli..you know it?" Volturn asked, shrugging.

"No, but someone will. Let's take him."

Suddenly the sound of a long, low horn came from the west, and the rogues looked at one another, a wordless caution exchanging between their eyes.

The dark-bearded one slowly rose, fingering the tailisman he had found within the pouch. He looked hard and long towards the mist-shrouded west from whence the horn came.“Let us be gone then,” he said at length, grabbing one of the Roman's arms to drag.