The Gathering Storm

Lions of the Thirteenth Legion: Book 2

By: John Call

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

LIONS OF THE THIRTEENTH Book Two: The Gathering Storm
The Danube has been crossed.
Emperor Trajan's legions have carried the war into Dacia — a kingdom of towering mountains, immense wealth, and formidable fortresses, defended by a people who believe death is only the doorway to another life. Rome expects another swift and victorious campaign.
Rome is wrong.
Lucius Corvus has survived his first season of war. No longer a raw recruit, he is made a decanus — and discovers that the reward for courage is responsibility: other men's lives now hang on his judgment as the Thirteenth marches toward the mountain pass of Tapae, where every hill must be taken one shield-length at a time, and where he learns exactly what that responsibility costs.
Marcus Ulpius Varro has changed, too. The idealistic young aristocrat who crossed the river to prove himself is now a broad-stripe tribune his commanders trust — and what they teach him is not how soldiers fight, but how an army lives. How roads are cut and bridges built; how grain and boots and nails are counted onto a thousand carts; how intelligence is bought and weighed; how a campaign is won, or lost, long before a sword is ever drawn. It is an education in power, and every lesson may be paid for in Roman lives.
And around the marching and the fighting, life goes on: shared meals beneath tiled roofs and rough bread around the campfires, households waiting for word from the north, friendships that deepen and quiet loves that begin even as the war grinds on. Ordinary people, building ordinary lives, in the shadow of an extraordinary war.
Then comes Tapae.
As the legions fight their way through the gateway to the Dacian heartland, Marcus and Lucius face an enemy unlike any Rome has met — for King Decebalus commands not scattered tribes but a nation: wealthy, resourceful, united by faith, and every bit as willing to die for its mountains as Rome is to take them.
Rich in authentic historical detail, The Gathering Storm recreates the daily life of Trajan's army with the same care it brings to its battles. From bustling frontier towns and officers' villas to legionary tents, military councils, mountain fortresses, and the thunder of the battlefield, this is an epic story of friendship, leadership, sacrifice, and one of the greatest military campaigns of the ancient world.
The pass will be forced. The campaign will be won.
But the war has only begun — and the storm is still gathering.