Victory is in sight for Kivilaz and his Batavi army. The Roman army clings desperately to its remaining fortresses along the Rhine, its legions riven by dissent and mutiny, and once-loyal allies of Rome are beginning to imagine the unimaginable: freedom from the rulers who have dominated them since the time of Caesar. The four centurions - two Batavi and two Roman, men who were once comrades in arms - must find their destiny in a maze of loyalties and threats, as the blood tide of war ebbs and flows across Germania and Gaul. For Rome does not give up its territory lightly. And a new emperor knows that he cannot tolerate any threat to his undisputed power. It can only be a matter of time before Vespasian sends his legions north to exact the empire's retribution.

AD 69: The Rhine frontier has exploded into bloody rebellion, and four centurions who once fought in the same army find themselves on opposite sides of a vicious insurrection. The rebel leader Kivilaz and his Batavi rebels have humbled the Romans in a battle they should have won. The legions must now defend their northern stronghold, the Old Camp, from the enraged tribes of Germany, knowing that they cannot be relieved until the civil war raging to the south has been resolved. Can they defend the undermanned fortress against thousands of barbarian warriors intoxicated by a charismatic priestess's vision of victory?

The author of the bestselling Empire series begins a new epic set against a dark episode in the history of Imperial Rome: the revolt of the Batavi in the Year of the Four Emperors. AD 69: The Rhine frontier has exploded into bloody rebellion, and four centurions who once fought in the same army find themselves on opposite sides of a vicious insurrection. The rebel leader Kivilaz and his Batavi rebels have humbled the Romans in a battle they should have won. The legions must now defend their northern stronghold, the Old Camp, from the enraged tribes of Germany, knowing that they cannot be relieved until the civil war raging to the south has been resolved. Can they defend the undermanned fortress against thousands of barbarian warriors intoxicated by a charismatic priestess's vision of victory?

In the twelfth Empire novel, Marcus Aquila returns to Rome, for his final reckoning with the Emperor Commodus. After saving the Empire's richest province from a foreign army, Marcus and the men who protect him have been in hiding. Their lives will be forfeit if they are seen in Rome. But times have changed. Marcus's protector, the patrician legion commander Scaurus, has been summoned home by his mentor, a powerful senator who has decided he must act to save the empire from its debauched ruler's reign of terror. Rome is a hotbed of conspiracy and treachery: and the senator is not the only contender for power. The emperor himself plans to destroy those he mistrusts and no-one is safe. Marcus is assigned his own, unique role in the conspiracy. He will become a gladiator once more. But this time, his only opponent will be Commodus himself…

After saving the Empire's richest province from a foreign army, Marcus and the men who protect him have been in hiding. Their lives will be forfeit if they are seen in Rome. But times have changed. Marcus's protector, the patrician legion commander Scaurus, has been summoned home by his mentor, a powerful senator who has decided he must act to save the empire from its debauched ruler's reign of terror. Rome is a hotbed of conspiracy and treachery: and the senator is not the only contender for power. The emperor himself plans to destroy those he mistrusts and no-one is safe. Marcus is assigned his own, unique role in the conspiracy. He will become a gladiator once more. But this time, his only opponent will be Commodus himself . . .

Thrilling, authentic and action-packed, this novel introduces soldier hero Marcus Valerius: a centurion stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the second century during a revolt against the Roman Empire. Marcus Valerius Aquila has scarcely landed in Britannia when he has to run for his life - condemned to dishonorable death by power-crazed emperor Commodus. The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.

The Battle of the Lost Eagle saved Hadrian's Wall, but the new Roman governor of Britannia must stamp out the rebellion of the northern tribes or risk losing the province. Rampaging south with sword and flame under the command of their murderous chieftain Calgus, they have stretched his forces to the limit. For Marcus - now simply Centurion Corvus of the 1st Tungrian cohort - the campaign has become doubly dangerous. As reinforcements flood into Britannia he is surrounded by new officers with no reason to protect him from the emperor's henchmen. Death could result from a careless word as easily as from an enemy spear. Worse, one of them is close on his heels. While Marcus is training two centuries of Syrian archers to survive a barbarian charge and then take the fight back to their enemy, the new prefect of the 2nd Tungrians has discovered his secret. Only a miracle can save Marcus and the men who protect him from disgrace and death... Anthony Riches once again brings meticulous research together with brilliant storytelling to capture the authentic feel of what life was like for the Roman Army in a brutal war with a remorseless enemy.

The Romans have vanquished the rebel alliance; Calgus, Lord of the Northern Tribes, is the prisoner of the chieftains he once led. And the Roman leader has an audacious plan to capture Dinpaladyr, the barbarians' fortress of spears. Marcus Aquila - burning for revenge on an enemy that has killed one of his best friends - rides north with the Petriana cavalry. He believes his disguise as Centurion Corvus of the 2nd Tungrians is still holding. But he is just a few days ahead of two of the emperor's agents, sent from Rome to kill him. Pitiless assassins who know his real name, and too much about his friends.

Britannia has been subdued - and an epic new chapter in Marcus Valerius Aquila's life begins. Posted to the Second Tungrian auxiliary cohort's original home in Germania Inferior, Marcus finds a very different world from the turbulent British frontier - but one with its own dangers. Tungrorum, the center of a once-prosperous farming province, a city already brought low by the ravages of the eastern plague that has swept through the empire, is now threatened by an outbreak of brutally violent robbery. A bandit chieftain called Obduro, his identity always hidden behind an iron cavalry helmet, is robbing and killing with impunity. His sword - sharper, stronger and more deadly than any known to the Roman army - is the lethal symbol of his unstoppable power. And now he has moved beyond mere theft and threatens to destabilize the whole northern frontier of the empire...

Fresh from their victory in Germania, Marcus Aquila and the Tungrians have been sent to Dacia, on the north-eastern edge of the Roman Empire, with the mission to safeguard a major source of imperial power. The mines of Alburnus Major contain enough gold to pave the road to Rome. They would make a mighty prize for the marauding Sarmatae tribesmen who threaten the province, and the outnumbered auxiliaries are entrusted with their safety in the face of a barbarian invasion. Beset by both the Sarmatian horde and more subtle threats offered by men who should be their comrades, the Tungrians must also come to terms with the danger posed by a new and unexpected enemy. They will have to fight to the death to save the honour of the empire - and their own skins.

The Tungrian auxiliary cohorts return to Hadrian's Wall after their successful Dacian campaign, only to find Britannia in chaos. The legions are overstretched, struggling to man the forts of the northern frontier in the face of increasing barbarian resistance. The Tungrians are the only soldiers who can be sent into the northern wastes, far beyond the long abandoned wall built by Antoninus, where a lost symbol of imperial power of the Sixth Victorious Legion is reputed to await them. Protected by an impassable swamp and hidden in a fortress atop a high mountain, the eagle of the Sixth legion must be recovered if the legion is to survive. Marcus and his men must penetrate the heart of the enemy's strength, ghosting through a deadly wilderness patrolled by vicious huntresses before breaching the walls of the Fang, an all-but-impregnable fort, if they are to rescue the legion's venerated standard. If successful their escape will be twice as perilous, with the might of a barbarian tribe at their heels.

The seventh novel in Anthony Riches' acclaimed Empire sequence brings Marcus Aquila back to Rome, hunting the men who destroyed his family. But the revenge he craves may cost him and those around him dearly. The young centurion's urge to exact his own brutal justice upon the shadowy cabal of assassins who butchered his family means that he must face them on their own ground, risking his own death at their hands. A senator, a gang boss, a praetorian officer and, deadliest of all, champion gladiator Mortiferum - the Death Bringer - lie in wait. The knives are unsheathed, and ready for blood . . .

The Tungrians have no sooner returned to Rome than they find themselves tasked with a very different mission to their desperate exploits in Parthia. Ordered to cross the river Rhenus into barbarian Germany and capture a tribal priestess who may be the most dangerous person on the empire's northern border, they are soon subject to the machinations of an old enemy who will stop at nothing to sabotage their plans before they have even set foot on the river's eastern bank. But after their Roman enemy is neutralised they face a challenge greater still. With two of the Bructeri tribe's greatest treasures in their hands they must regain Roman territory by crossing the unforgiving wilderness that was the graveyard of Roman imperial strategy two hundred years before. And capture by the Bructeri's vengeful chieftain and his warband can only end in one way - a horrific sacrificial death on the tribe's altar of blood.

With his compelling Centurions trilogy complete, Anthony Riches returns to his bestselling Empire sequence of novels with his storytelling skills polished to perfection. Set in the second century AD, The Scorpion's Strike continues the story of Marcus Aquila's fight for justice for a family ripped asunder by imperial assassins. Still seeking revenge, Marcus finds himself thrown back into the heart of the chaos that is shaking the Roman Empire to its roots. Fresh from their close escape from imperial betrayal in the German forest, Marcus and the Tungrians are ordered to Gaul, where an outlaw called Maturnus is wreaking havoc. Havoc that may be more than mere banditry, as deserters and freed slaves flock to his cause: rebellion is in the air for the first time in a generation. And if escape from Rome's memories is a relief for the young centurion, he soon discovers that danger has followed him west to Gaul. The expedition is led by Praetorians whom he has every cause to hate. And to fear, if they should discover who he really is.

After saving the emperor's life in Rome, Marcus and his comrades have been sent across the sea to the wealthy, corrupt Greek metropolis of Aegyptus, Alexandria. An unknown enemy has slaughtered the garrison of the Empire's last outpost before its border with the mysterious kingdom of Kush. Caravans can no longer reach the crucial Red Sea port of Berenike, from which the riches of the East flow towards Rome. The Emperor's most trusted and most devious adviser has ordered Marcus's commander Scaurus and his trusted officers to the south. With orders that are tantamount to a suicide mission, and with only one slim hope of success. Can a small force of highly trained legionaries restore the Empire's power in this remote desert no-man's-land, when faced by the fanatical army of Kush's iron-fisted ruler?

Marcus Aquila and his allies spearhead a daring attack into enemy territory, as three generals claim to be the true Roman Emperor. A new civil war has begun: with the emperor Pertinax's murder Marcus and his protector Scaurus have escaped Rome, seeking sanctuary for their familia in the East. But they are soon pressed back into service by Septimus Severus, the ruthless commander who has seized the imperial capital and who holds the military balance of power over his two rivals. Niger, the would-be emperor in the East, is on the march with six legions, and Scaurus's legion is ordered to Thrace as a sacrificial advance guard, tasked with delaying them. Whatever the cost . . .