The Lion of Africa

Hanno, his pulse racing, felt a burst of fury in his chest as he called out to the Romans cursing them. The Celts about him slapped him on the shoulders and back, laughing and showing their delight in his fiery words with hearty grins. Heat flooded him, blood rushing to his head, ringing there as his pulse went into overdrive. Trying to gain some sense of the madness that was overcoming him, he looked out at the Romans drawn up before them. Any doubt or fear had vanished. His heart thumped hard in his chest and he clenched his sword, calling out to the Romans, cursing them alongside the frenzied Celts.

Horns and trumpets blasted through the morning calm, mixing with the loud shouts of many dialects as the snow again turned to freezing rain and poured steadily upon the two opposing forces.

            A frightening silence soon fell over the snow-dusted landscape as the two armies faced one another, water dripping off them, the only sounds the thunder overhead, the occasional whinny and snort from a horse and raindrops striking the pools of water upon the soaked icy ground.

Hannibal, sitting in the saddle at the center of his line, took a deep breath of the chilled morning air, the smell of rain-soaked earth filling his nostrils. A feeling of calm and seeming peace came over him as he gazed out across the sparkling white meadow to the dark sodden forms that stood coughing in the Roman lines. There was little tension inside him as he placed his helmet on his head, turning his attention away from the field and looking toward the heavens.