Advanced maneuver zone, Cisalpine Gaul — Week 14, Day Three
There was no warning.
At midday, while they finished their meal squatting in the dirt, Varro appeared — face like stone, voice like gravel.
"Full gear. March begins now.Duration: until someone breaks… or you prove you won't."
Atticus stood up first. He didn't say a word. Just tightened his belt.Sextus followed.
They didn't know where they were going. Only that something inside them would change before they returned.
They marched. Fully loaded: gladius, shield, pilum, rations, tools.They crossed wooded paths, open plains, rocky hills. The pace wasn't brutal… but it never stopped.
Every two hours, formation change.Every three, a drill: testudo, wedge, rotation.
By hour eight, the rain came.No one spoke.
By hour ten, they built a temporary palisade. Thirty minutes to raise it. Fifteen to tear it down.
"So you'll know what it costs to defend a camp," muttered one of the veterans assigned as evaluator.
Night brought no rest.
Guard shifts with burning eyes.Alarm drill in the third watch: "Enemy at the perimeter!"No one was there, of course. But they had to form. Fast. Fully equipped.
Sextus felt the pain in his back like an iron rod. Nerva vomited silently. Veturius's feet were bleeding from open blisters.But no one quit.
At hour twenty-seven, they were ordered to move in column to the river. Water to their knees. Clothes soaked. Still, they had to execute a flanking maneuver on uneven terrain.
At hour thirty, a soldier from another group collapsed.
"Don't touch him," ordered the evaluator."Maintain formation.We'll collect him later."
At hour thirty-six, the final order came:
"End of exercise."
But no one clapped. No one smiled.They just dropped to the ground like stones sinking into mud.
Varro approached, walking among them like through tombs, until he stopped before Sextus.
"You didn't give orders. You didn't speak. But no one from your group fell.That's leadership too."
Sextus didn't reply.He couldn't.
But deep inside, he knew something had died there.The recruit. The boy. The learner.
And something new had formed beneath the skin of iron:endurance. Silence. Legion.