The Eternal City Burns
“Aaaagh!” [Thud!] “...” [Slice! Thunk—]
The Eternal City blazed for three days. Eight hundred years. That was how long had passed since this city had last been plundered by barbarians. For eight full centuries, Rome had pushed back the barbarians, suppressed them, captured them, killed them, and turned them into Romans. But now, after those eight hundred years, it had bared its softest underbelly once more to the hands of the barbarians.
“Next. Marcus Atilius Regulus.”
“W-wait! Magister Militum!Magister Militum! Just a moment!”
“Crime: the merciless slaughter of the families of legionaries who fought for Emperor Theodosius, who fought for Honorius and Arcadius, who lived for Rome.”
“It was all that bastard Olympius! He orchestrated everything! All I did was reluctantly go along with it! Please. Magister Militum, Alaricus! Please!”
“Kill him.”
“No! No!” [Thud!] “N—” [Thud!] “...” [Slice!—Roll—]
The Gothic warriors’ hands were merciless. They didn’t even lay the victims flat or properly force them to their knees; instead, they swung their dull blades as if hacking away, chopping crudely. The swords had been deliberately dulled. Proof of that lay in Marcus Atilius Regulus’s face—not cleanly severed, but torn away in agony, twisted in pain and terror.
The acrid stench of blood, the reek of death, filled the old Roman Senate building. It was right here that Olympius and the other decrepit leaders of Rome’s Senate had decided to execute the families of the Gothic warriors. Tens of thousands of them. They spared no one—men, women, children. In truth, those victims had all been warriors under Stilicho’s command and their families. They had fled their chaotic eastern homeland, where every season brought war, seeking peace in the name of the Lord, striving to set foot in the safest, most beautiful empire under heaven.
Though Stilicho and Alaricus had been enemies, and their warriors had crossed spears and swords, perhaps the two groups had been all too similar. Alaricus respected and understood Stilicho. What Stilicho thought in return? Who knew. He’d died before anyone could ask.
After Stilicho’s death, to purge his “barbarian” subordinates, Rome’s Senate decided to slaughter their families first. And now those “barbarian” warriors, under Alaricus’s command, were exacting revenge.
“Next. Quintus Fabius Severianus.”
“...Let me go! I’ll walk myself!”
“Crime: the murder of tens of thousands of Roman citizens and families of legionaries.”
“Pah! How are they Romans? Like you, Alaricus—”
“Kill him.” [Thud!] “Gah!” [Thud! Thud! Crunch—Crack—]
Surveying the gruesome scene, Alaricus finally rose from the Senate podium. The former masters of this place now lay headless or crushed, bleeding out in death. And this was the end—the limit of the plunder and vengeance Alaricus had permitted his warriors.
He had strictly ordered them not to touch sacred spaces like the churches of Sanctus Petrus (Saint Peter) and Sanctus Paulus (Saint Paul), where the faithful had fled. The permitted looting was confined to this vast city’s Senate building and the surrounding mansions of high nobles.
Alaricus held no real grudge against the people of this city. His hatred reached only as high as Theodosius—and now Honorius and Olympius.
Perhaps there was a touch of tribute to his long-dead rival, Stilicho, who had perished too soon.
“Leave the bodies here. Loot the mansions of those killed here thoroughly, but no other areas.”
“Yes, Magister Militum Alaricus.”
“We are not the barbarians they call us. We are Goths, but remember—we are soldiers of Rome. We’re here to claim our due, not to destroy this land like savages. Violence justified by rage has its limits. Christus watches.”
“We’ll keep it in mind, Dominus Alaricus. That said, I have a message to relay.”
“What is it?”
“Here.”
Did they not know they’d all die by the sword anyway? That must be why they slaughtered our Gothic brothers’ families so brutally and left them in the fields.
No one met Alaricus’s heavy gaze, laden with that lingering resentment. His adjutant, reporting at his side, gestured toward the back. No scroll or herald approached—instead, a woman of evident noble grace stepped forward slowly.
“...”
“...”
The space, moments ago filled with the groans of the dying, now held only deathly silence. The lingering blood scent was the sole reminder of the slain. Before that trembling sight stood a woman striving to remain composed, and Alaricus knew her name all too well.
“Domina Galla Placidia.”
“...Dominus Alaricus.”
In her slow bow, he saw Theodosius. Memories surfaced: fighting barbarians on the Danube frontier, charging bravely against traitors in those glorious days. Overall, the daughter had inherited her father’s handsome features intact. But those eyes—soft, unlike his—must have come from her mother.
Galla Placidia: daughter of Theodosius, half-sister to Honorius. Once betrothed to Stilicho’s son. How could Alaricus not know that face…
“I regret what happened to Eucherius, though it’s late in coming.”
“...”
Stilicho had died a traitor. His son Eucherius met a similar fate at Honorius’s hands. How had the world come to this? Theodosius, do you know the successor you entrusted your legacy to died by your son’s hand? Do you know your daughter lost her protector and fiancé in an instant because of it? Do you know she’s ended up in my hands as a result?
Dead men know nothing.
“Olympius. Do you know where that rat is?”
“...I heard he’s in Ravenna.”
“The vermin slipped away without a trace.”
Or perhaps he’d been hiding by Honorius’s side in Ravenna from the start.
“...”
“...”
His officers’ gazes burned toward Ravenna, but conquering the worn-out Rome was one thing—assaulting Ravenna another entirely. There, the empire’s last elite legions still stood vigilant. And striking Honorius directly would not sit well with far-off Constantinople. Theodosius’s heirs might squabble among themselves, but threaten one throne—east or west—and they banded together. The Eastern Theodosius II wouldn’t sit idle unless he toppled Honorius himself. No one else could touch him.
Ravenna was off-limits.
“No harm will come to you. I can’t treat Emperor Theodosius’s daughter that way. So be a good guest in my custody.”
“...I shall, Magister Militum. Thank you for your kindness.”
Gazing longer might summon the buried grudges against Theodosius one by one, so Alaricus waved her away. A fine hostage she’d make. Though he doubted Honorius would bat an eye for his half-sister. If he had any familial feeling, he wouldn’t have butchered her fiancé so cruelly.
This mad house. This mad empire.
“We move once the looting ends. Prepare.”
“Yes! Magister Militum! Where to?”
“Sicilia.”
“...I’ll relay it clearly!”
Using Italy’s southern island as a foothold, they’d head to Africa beyond. If Ravenna’s Honorius and Constantinople’s Theodosius II kept ignoring Alaricus himself—if this vast Roman land had no room for the Gothic warriors who’d bled for the empire—then Alaricus would seize it himself.
“The escaped senators and their houses. Don’t they own vast lands in Africa?”
Let’s strip them bare and see if they still dare ignore me. Starve them all to death while we’re at it.
With a final glance at the headless corpses, Alaricus exited the grand Senate building. Smoke and screams rose only from the Senate district as he beheld the terror-stricken Eternal City one last time.
“From this day, even eternity ends. Hannibal, I’ve done what you could not.”
Under a sky choked with flame and smoke, Alaricus’s red cloak billowed in the wind.
Rumors flew faster than arrows. As Alaricus and his Gothic warriors marched south through Italy, commandeering ships, word of the Eternal City’s fall had crossed Italy to Greece, Gaul, Hispania, Aegyptus—and finally Britannia.
“Huff! Huff! Heave!”
The exhausted messenger crested Avalonia’s low hill, underwent several identity checks, and reached the settlement’s heart. Londinium might once have been this land’s core, but now this was Britannia’s true center.
Beside a vast lake shimmering with mystical green light stood a grand estate: expansive gardens, a round table at the center. Too luxurious for common folk, yet somehow modest for nobility. But what did it matter? The figures seated at that table—and the man in the tallest, broadest chair—eclipsed all else.
“M-Magister Militum!”
“Good work getting here. Take this first.” [Whoosh—]
He caught the flying object: a dagger with a water-drop pommel. Dominus Artorius’s dagger! The messenger barely kept his eyes from bulging, cradling it with trembling hands.
“Th-thank you! Magister Militum!”
“That’s not for worship—it’s for using. Make good use of it. Now, are all those street rumors true? What did Merlinus say?”
“Y-yes! Magister Militum…! Rome, the Eternal City, has burned in Alaricus’s hands!”
The messenger bowed deeply after his frantic report, unable to meet the spark in Artorius’s eyes.
“...That Rome, truly burned.”
“Here’s Prefectus Merlinus’s detailed report…!”
“Ah, yes. Thanks. Messenger, withdraw and rest.”
“Yes! Magister Militum!”
Bowing, he backed away, stealing a final glance at the world’s mightiest hero. Around the grim-faced Artorius sat Domina Guinevere, Comes Eturnus, Lot, Beduerus, Galbaginus, Caius, and more—the powers moving Britannia. All fixed on Artorius.
Oddly, their gazes seemed less pained by Rome’s sack than watchful of his reaction.