Julius surveyed the tent lines with curiosity, savoring the moment. He wondered which of the scurrying figures was the king, but he couldn’t be sure. As the sunlight lit the valley, doubt clawed at him for a moment. Even with the losses and desertions by the hundreds over the last few nights, it was still a huge expanse that made his own force look small in comparison. He bared his teeth slightly in anticipation, pressing his doubts aside and knowing he had their measure. Many of those tents were empty.

Every day of waiting had been an agony of indecision for Julius. Captured deserters told stories of plummeting morale and poor organization. He knew everything of their officers, their equipment, and their appetite for a battle. At first, he had been content with the idea of night attacks and tearing pieces from the army until Mithridates lost his nerve and ran straight into the legions coming from the coast. But the weeks had passed without a sign of the Greeks breaking camp or Roman support appearing on the horizon.

Around the beginning of the third week, Julius had faced the possibility that legions might not come before Mithridates snapped out of his defensive lethargy and began to think like a real commander. On that night, with the Greek sentries deserting in dozens and passing only feet from his own men unknowing, Julius started to make plans for a full attack.

Now the bulk of the Greek army were forming into wide blocks of ten deep, and Julius nodded grimly, remembering lessons from his old tutor. They would not be able to bring as many swords to bear as his own wide line, but the ten ranks would prevent a rout as the enemy that had been killing them forever in the dark faced them at last on the plain. He swallowed painfully as he scrutinized the terrain, waiting for the perfect moment to give the order. He saw a tall man leap astride a horse and gallop away and then hundreds of archers form into units. They would make the air black with arrows.

“A thousand of them,” he whispered to himself. His men had shields now, many of them stolen from the Greeks they had killed night after night. Even so, each successful flight would bring down a few, even as they linked the shields and sheltered under them.

“Sound the advance—quickly!” he snapped at the cornicen, who raised an old battered horn and blew the double note. The two cohorts stepped forward as one, thumping the Greek earth together. Julius glanced right and left and grinned savagely as he saw the veterans dress the line as they moved, almost without noticing it. No one lagged behind. The old men had hungered for the sort of attack they understood almost as much as Julius, and now their impatience could finally be released.