by R. W. Peake
Meanwhile, Ivomagus had summoned the civilian men into the square, where he gave them instructions, dividing them between men who would be responsible for watching for fire arrows, those who would be responsible for dragging wounded warriors to safety, and finally, townsmen who could handle a bow who would supplement the handful of archers that were available. All told, Ivomagus told me that we had a hundred thirty-eight trained warriors, and another fifty of the townspeople who could act as archers. We had agreed to meet at the square once we were done, and my last job was to physically lead the men of the working party who would be standing guard at the eastern gate and pointing to where I wanted them to stand on the makeshift parapet, then using one of the shields, demonstrated what was expected of them. I had anticipated that men who were supposedly experienced warriors would resent this foreign stranger treating them as if they were children, but they all seemed grateful, which if I am being honest, did not make me feel better. Once I was satisfied, I left them to find that Ivomagus was already in the square, along with about fifty of the warriors. While we had discussed our dispositions in general terms, nothing specific had been agreed upon, and seeing only fifty warriors worried me because I had been expecting at least seventy-five.
I expressed this to Ivomagus, and asked him, “Is this all? Where are the others?”
He flushed, my first indication I would not like it, confirmed when he looked away and said, “I left forty men at the camp.”
“Forty!” I believe I actually took a step backward. “But we said that it would only be fifteen men there!”
“I know!” He did not shout, exactly, but he was not being defiant either. Lowering his voice, he said miserably, “Centurion, believe me. I tried, but those twenty-five other men all have family inside the camp, and they refused to leave them behind.”
As soon as I heard him, I was certain he was telling the truth, if only because it sounded like something my men would at least try to do.
I thought a moment before asking him, “What would your brother do if that many men defied him?”
Ivomagus gave a laugh that held absolutely no humor, laced with the bitterness that I had observed was always there right underneath the surface.
Seeing I was expecting an answer, he began by saying, “I do not believe any man would dare to defy him. But,” he reflected, “he would probably pick out the most formidable of the group, the man with the greatest reputation, and then,” he smiled grimly, “he would beat them as close to death as he could get them.”
That, I thought, sounds like an excellent plan, but I also knew Ivomagus was not up to the task, so I was trying to think of a way to plant the idea in his mind to allow me to do it, when, from the eastern side of the town, a long, thin note of the Parisii version of the bucina sounded.
I have no idea whether this was a conscious choice by the commander of the Brigantes force; later, men would swear that they saw their King Diviciacus, but whatever the reason, they decided not to wait until it was fully dark before they advanced on Petuar. Because of the board-flat terrain, and the downstream stretch being barren of any kind of thick forest or foliage, they were spotted just as the sun was setting, marching at a leisurely but steady pace. Naturally, Ivomagus and I had raced to the eastern gate, and we watched them coming in the fading light, the upper edge of the sun dipping below the horizon when I guessed they were about a mile away.
“How many do you think there are, Centurion?” Ivomagus asked, still shading his eyes as if the sun was still up.
He tried to sound cool and collected for his men, which I appreciated, but the answer I gave was grim.
“I’d estimate that they have at least a hundred mounted men, several chariots, and maybe a bit less than a thousand men on foot, total. It’s hard to tell when they’re bunched like that,” I admitted.
“That,” he answered, “was my estimate as well.”
He fell silent then, and I sensed that the men who would be responsible for holding the gate, ten across with three men standing behind them and ready to replace each of them, were watching our exchange intently. Say something, you barbarian bastard, I silently urged him; these men need encouragement, not you looking as if you had just been sentenced to death!
Finally, I could bear it no longer, so I said loudly, knowing my tone was more important than the words, “Well, that just gives your boys more chances for glory, eh, Ivomagus?” I clapped him on the back, harder than necessary, which got his attention as I hoped, but when he spun to face me, his face expressing his indignant anger, I hissed, “Translate what I just said, you stupid bastard! These men need to hear their commander…now!”
To his credit, Ivomagus’ reaction was not to argue, a look of embarrassment replacing his expression of an instant before. He gave an almost imperceptible nod, but he was already speaking as he did so, his tone more or less matching mine. I heard my name mentioned, but he talked a bit longer than it would have taken to translate my words. Most importantly, once he was finished, the men around us let out a full-throated roar, some thrusting their spears into the air, others banging them against their shields, and I could tell the reaction was genuine and not simply done because that was expected.
As they were shouting, I asked Ivomagus, “What did you say?”
He looked embarrassed, but he answered, “Essentially the same thing you said. And,” he gave a slight smile, “I might have told them that you said to me that you would not want to be facing them, even with all of one of your Legions.”
I cannot say I liked it, but I did laugh as heartily as I could in a signal to the other men around us. Thus bolstered, the noise died down and Ivomagus and I returned our attention to the Brigantes, who were now more or less an indistinct shape still moving at the same slow but what I was certain was deliberate pace. They’re trying to build up the tension; the thought flashed into my mind, and as soon as it came, I was certain I was right.
I lowered my voice and told Ivomagus, “I think they’re trying to provoke us into doing something rash. And,” I turned back to watch for a moment, “I think they’re going to do something that will show us how badly we’re outnumbered.”
“Like what?” Ivomagus asked, though not in a skeptical manner, but all I could do was offer a frustrated shrug.
“I have no idea, but I think that we’ll be finding out soon enough.”
I was right, at least about finding out fairly quickly, and we also understood why the Brigantes were choosing to wait, because they obviously planned on using the darkness to their advantage in more than one way. This was made apparent when, at the sound of a horn that, to my ear, sounded almost identical to the one used by the Parisii, which worried me, along a line roughly corresponding to the eastern wall at intervals of what I guessed was fifty paces, fires were lit. Given how quickly they flared up, the Brigantes had to have brought wood and oil, or some other substance that accelerated the process. It was a striking and impressive display, because the men responsible for each fire had obviously been told to wait for the fire next to them to blaze up before igniting their own, creating a rippling effect, starting roughly in the middle of the track leading to the eastern gate that paralleled the river about fifty paces away. One by one, the fires blazed up, but it was the sight of what I quickly estimated to be about a hundred Brigantes warriors standing around each fire that caused me to offer a silent and bitter salute to whoever the bastard was who thought this up. It was a potent display of how outnumbered we were, certainly, but it also posed a practical challenge because with so many men around each fire, the Brigantes were demonstrating that anywhere they chose to begin the assault we would be outnumbered, and if we shifted men to defend that point, we would be weakening another even more. I was growing desperate for something positive that I could point out, and thanks to the light of the fires, once I made a careful examination of every group all the way down the length of the eastern wall, I thought I saw it.
“They don’t have any ladders,” I pointed
out to Ivomagus.
It should not have surprised me that his reaction was an indifferent shrug.
Seeing I was expecting some sort of response, he finally said, “I take it that is a good thing, Centurion.”
“It means,” I forced myself to be patient, “that they’re not going to be able to go over the wall, Ivomagus. They’re going to have to pick some of those weak spots and try to break through them. Now, it’s true that won’t be difficult given the nature of your wall,” I granted. “But they’re also going to have to do it with some of our men sticking a fucking spear in their face while they’re working.” This seemed to encourage Ivomagus, who nodded thoughtfully, returning his attention back to the Brigantes, but then he said nothing, and it was with the last shred of my self-control that I suggested, “Perhaps letting the men know this, it might raise their spirits a bit.”
To his credit, his immediate reaction was one of embarrassment, and he muttered, “Yes, of course. You are correct, Centurion.”
Raising his voice, he spoke in his native tongue while I watched not him but the men, trying to gauge Ivomagus’ effectiveness by their collective reaction. He swept his arm in an encompassing gesture, but I knew when he pointed out the lack of ladders by the looks of surprise, with the men standing on the parapet craning their necks to peer down the length of the wall, their eyes lingering on each fire and the Brigantes warriors clustered around them. Their reaction was not overwhelming, but I could see a few heads nodding, followed by their presumably relaying the information to the men who were behind the parapet and could not see. I was thinking about suggesting to Ivomagus that he mount his horse and relay this information to the men spread around the wall, but then the Brigantes took matters out of my hands.
One thing that was brought home to me during the fight for Petuar was something that my real father once told me.
“Never forget that our enemy has a say in everything we do,” he had told me during a meal we shared on what would turn out to be his last campaign. “We can make the best plan of attack possible, and it can be shredded faster than a whore can cut your purse strings by our enemy.”
That conversation was in my mind when, this time without any audible signal, the chariots came thundering out of the darkness, catching us completely by surprise. Those fires were a diversion, I thought; that cunnus wanted us looking at them while he brought those chariots up. I also realized that, Diviciacus presumably, had used the growing darkness to his advantage by keeping those chariots just beyond our range of vision, although they were fully visible now because there was a bouncing, swaying point of light above every one of them, the sign that a passenger was holding a torch. Not that it mattered in the moment, and once I had seen enough to determine they were heading more or less directly for the eastern gate, I looked to Ivomagus to give the order for the group of archers we had designated to support that gate to make ready. When he did not, I turned about and bellowed at the top of my lungs, nothing intelligible, but I wanted to get their attention, and I mimed drawing a bow then beckoned them with a gesture. They reacted quickly, but the chariots were now at a full gallop, and when I turned my attention back to beyond the gate, the leading chariot was close enough that I saw that it was carrying three men and not two.
“Is that unusual?” I asked Ivomagus. “To have three men?”
“It is not done that often,” he answered, never taking his eyes off the leading chariot, “but it is not unheard of.”
He was so intent on the chariot leading the charge that he did not even glance in my direction, prompting me to ask, “What’s special about that chariot? Why are you watching it?”
“I am,” he answered, but he never took his eyes off it, “trying to see if that is Diviciacus.”
Naturally, this turned my own attention to the leading chariot, but before I could get a good look at the three men, the driver suddenly veered away at such a sharp angle that the wheel closest to us lifted a couple of feet off the ground, yet his two passengers did not even reach for the wicker sides, and once again I could not help being impressed. Now the leading chariot was parallel to the wall, still running at a gallop, and while his initial turn had him about fifty paces from the wall, very quickly, he veered closer, so close that the man on his right could have reached out to touch the wall. That was when we found out what the torch was for, because as we watched in helpless surprise, the man holding the torch flung it, high up into the air so that it arced a few feet over the wall. Without exception, all heads turned to watch it tumbling end over end, and I held out the faint hope that the fire would be extinguished by the wind created, but while it began flickering, it stayed lit…and it just missed the thatched roof, striking the wattle and daub wall in a shower of sparks before bouncing off and landing in the muddy street along the outer wall, where it sputtered out. Our relief was short-lived, because the second chariot, following the first by about fifty paces, performed the exact same maneuver, and this man’s aim was true, striking about midway up the thatched roof.
This time, Ivomagus did not hesitate, turning and shouting down the muddy street to the townsmen whose task it was to extinguish the fires, and they reacted quickly enough, while I turned and bellowed, “Archers, loose! Loose, you bastards!”
I was certain that this would be useless, yet to my shock, the dozen men immediately did that very thing, drawing and pointing their arrows upward in one motion, hesitating for a fraction of a heartbeat, then loosing. Spinning about, I tried to track their flight, but it was too dark, although one of the chariots, the fourth in line, veered sharply, before the point where they had been turning, and thanks to the torchbearer, we saw that the driver was clutching one arm, the shaft of an arrow protruding from it. Unfortunately, it was not enough; we were unable to stop one of those fucking chariots, and while three or four of them missed their targets, by the time the last chariot had passed, a half-dozen buildings had their thatch burning in a line down the length of the town to the southern wall.
“You need to send someone down the street to check on those fires.” I did not bother trying to couch this as a suggestion, but to my surprise, Ivomagus simply gave a nod.
He alerted one of the men who were serving as couriers, the man leaping aboard his horse and going immediately to the canter, but my attention was drawn by a ragged chorus of shouts that brought my attention back to the Brigantes. The Parisii warrior next to me thrust his spear out, pointing down the wall, and I saw immediately why they were excited.
“Here they come!” I shouted to Ivomagus, who had been engaged in another conversation with the second of the couriers.
When he turned back, he saw and correctly interpreted my glance, saying, “I am sending Meriadoc to make a circuit of the walls to see if these dogs are attacking the other walls.”
I was impressed and embarrassed in equal measure, because it was an obvious thing to do that I should have thought of doing much sooner.
“Good,” was all I got out, then our attention was back on the Brigantes.
Fairly quickly, we determined that, while they had aligned themselves at regular intervals, they were forced to get closer to the wall in order to inspect it for spots to exploit because of the darkness. Any delay was good, because it would give us a chance to respond, but this was the moment Diviciacus chose to send his own archers within range. This became apparent by the hissing sound the missiles made as they flew past, although it was too late to do anything about it, but whether it was by chance or skill, the real warning came in the form of a strangled cry from behind us, and I spun about just in time to see one of the warriors on relief stagger backward, both hands clutching his throat, a shaft protruding from it. I did not waste any more time; his fate was in the hands of his gods, and we had bigger concerns.
“Shields up! Shields up!” I shouted, but this time, the men reacted on their own, those on the parapet placing their protection on the top of the wagon, while the men behind them raised theirs as they crouched down.
Ivomagus and I were forced to shelter behind the protection offered by others, and as strange as it sounds, this was the first moment I realized something.
“Do you have any chain mail that would fit me?” I asked him.
“No, Centurion,” he answered so quickly that I was suspicious, but he was not done. “I sent Tincommius to see if he could find something, but he could not. Do you want a shield?”
I only briefly considered it, then shook my head.
“I need a gladius, though.”
I saw the look of hesitation there, and I was opening my mouth to argue, but then he nodded.
“Very well,” he said.
Being careful to stay behind the protection of the shields, he called to the last of the couriers, Tincommius as it happened, shouted something, and Tincommius shouted back, but was leaping aboard his horse as he did so.