Empire of the Legions: Bridge to War (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798242206922)

In the marble heart of Rome, the Senate argues over treaties and tribute. Across the Danube, King Decebalus re-arms and fortifies, daring the empire to pay again for peace. Emperor Trajan chooses a different answer: total war-and a bridge that will carry Rome into the mountains.

Legate Marcus Aelius Severus is given command of the Thirteenth Legion and a mandate that allows no retreat. At his side marches Tiberius Claudius Crispus, a young patrician tribune hungry for glory and unprepared for what glory costs. And in the ranks, Primus Pilus Rufus keeps the legion alive the only way he knows how: with hard discipline, harder choices, and loyalty to the standards above all.

As Apollodorus of Damascus drives piles into the Danube and turns math into victory, Dacian raids strike in darkness and fire. When the bridge is finally consecrated, the legions cross into a land of scorched farms and black forests, where ambush and terrain threaten to unmake Roman certainty. The campaign becomes a battle of adaptation-mixed scouting, hard roads, improvised tactics-until Rome meets Decebalus' main stand at the killing ground of the Pass of Tapae.

Empire of the Legions: Book I - Bridge to War is the opening volume of a sweeping historical epic of discipline, engineering, and conquest-where the empire's glory is built one stake, one ditch, and one bloody mile at a time.