Agrippa shouted a command, and the men of the Roman army marched forward around the rim of the crater in perfect formation, though their feet slipped and dislodged boulders at the crater’s edge. A man fell screaming into space, tumbling into the dark and sinking beneath the lake’s waters, weighed down by his armor.

The others of his line maintained their spacing. Their shields were raised to form a wall of metal before them.

Cleopatra merely raised her hands, and the sounds of her animals, heretofore silenced, ripped through the air. There was no line, and this was no normal battle formation.

Instead, the Romans were faced with a mass of beasts, sleek and rough, fanged and tremendous. The lions and tigers roared, and gathered themselves into shining masses of violence, and the Romans felt their bodies liquefy in fear. What sort of war was this? They were not bestiarii. They had not been trained to fight animals, and their commander had not warned them that this would be the case. Still, they stayed in their lines. They looked neither to the left nor to the right. They kept their positions. They marched forward, their heads protected by their shields, hiding their fear. As long as they kept to their lines, nothing could touch them. They were warriors.

Several men whispered prayers.

The elephant, fled from an arena, trumpeted and reared onto its hind legs, silhouetted against the starry sky. A tremendous bear rose over the crest of the hill, looking into the midst of the army with dark, intelligent eyes. It tossed its head and bellowed, each fang as long as a finger.

A leopard, lean and bloodthirsty, lifted its lip and snarled as it came.

The queen marched toward the Roman line, her animals following her, their bodies moving as though powered by a single soul. Her eyes glowed with an unearthly light, and from his position, Augustus watched her, raging. What right had she to bring animals against him?

Augustus nodded at Agrippa.

“Archers!” shouted the general.

The archers, positioned behind the infantry, pulled their bows from their backs and fit the special silver-tipped arrows into them. Each man had been provided with a rich quiver full.

“Fool,” said Cleopatra quietly, as if to herself.

“Fire!” shouted Agrippa.

The men moved to draw back their bowstrings, but then stared at them, bewildered at the lack of tension in the strings, some sort of sabotage of their weaponry.

A rat leapt out of a Roman arrow case. Another. Soon, a swarm of rats covered the ground, and each of the Roman archers stood appalled, their gnawed bowstrings in their fingers, their bows useless.

The rats seethed about Roman feet, climbing Roman bodies, biting and scratching, and the Romans were, for a moment, in total disarray, their archers incapacitated.

“Infantry!” Agrippa screamed, signaling the lines.

“Kill them,” Cleopatra whispered, and every animal on the battlefield heard her command.

Her cats, leopards, lions, and tigers, drew back on their haunches and leapt over the shields and into the legionaries, claws shredding the unprepared men, teeth rending their flesh. No shield could save them. A tiger died, impaled on a short sword, and as it fell, its body crushed the astonished soldier who had slain it.