WINTER 218 BC
In Cisalpine Gaul, a Carthaginian patrol is moving stealthily through thick woodland.
It’s led by Hanno, one of Hannibal’s young officers, and his second-in-command Mutt.
Famished and cold, they are making for a town full of the grain that they desperately need.
But the local Gauls cannot be trusted; and although defeated, the Romans still have patrols in the area.
With peril on every side and a deadly ambush ahead, there is no certainty that either Hanno or Mutt will survive …
This short story is set just before the opening of Hannibal: Fields of Blood.