“Dismissed,” one of the spearmen snapped. “We’ve orders to take the eagle out of Sarmizegetusa back to camp.”

I squinted at the man in the lion skin. “Since when does the aquilifer carry a Dacian shield?”

“Lost mine,” he said gruffly.

“They’ll dock your pay for it,” I warned, and stepped aside as they tramped past. Behind us, the guards who had stood watch about the solar disc had mostly scattered in search of their own beds. “Put the eagle to bed gentle, now. She’s worked well for us today.”

“It has,” one of the spearmen said over his shoulder, and that was when I loosed my javelin at him.

It clattered on his shoulder with a soft chiming sound, quite different from the sound steel made on a Roman breastplate. Mail, not Roman plates; the round shield instead of rectangular; and when the spearman turned on me with a snarl I could see the long hair spilling out from under his helmet, long hair no centurion would ever have tolerated on any man under his command.

“Dacians!” I bellowed at the retreating guards, who had just let a trio of enemies walk off with their bloody eagle, and threw myself at the first spearman.

He met me with a howl, javelin arcing at my face, and I brought up my shield. I heard a dull clang as the spearhead glanced off my shield boss, and spared a quick glance back toward the solar disc. A dozen guards had circled the eagle there, but they’d gone quickly enough in search of whores and wine—only two had heard my shout and turned back. Two, unsheathing swords with shouts as the other two Dacians spun to meet them. Three of us against three of them, and a Roman legionary was worth two of any Dacian rebel—Hell’s gates, I was even starting to sound like my centurion now!

The javelin came jabbing at me again, and I hunched behind my shield. My gladius moved around its edge in short jabbing strokes, and I had a crazily clear memory of Emperor Trajan circling me in a torchlit garden and saying, The point beats the edge, boy, the point beats the edge!

The javelin’s head struck my shield and stuck there. I gave the shield a savage twist, ripping the haft out of his hand, and he tore an ax from his belt and whipped it about in a short vicious arc that should have ended somewhere between my ears. It chopped a bite from my shield instead, numbing my arm. Behind me I could hear a bubbling shriek, and I saw that the Dacian in the lion skin had buried his own ax in the head of a fair-haired legionary. He’d run to help me so quickly, he hadn’t had time to relace his helmet…