But there had been over ten thousand of them at the outset. If hundreds were lost in the approach, there remained thousands to press the final assault on the walls. Ladders banged against the parapets, ropes and hooks were flung over them and the Marcomanni began to force the issue hand to hand. They had massed at the foot of the walls waiting their turn to climb. Arrows and sling bullets continued to crash into them but now they were no longer sprinting, they could hold up their shields for some protection. Still, Corvo’s men took a fatal harvest.
The defenders snatched up the axes spread along the walkways and hacked through ropes If men were already climbing, they fell back among trampling feet or onto spear points in the ditch below. Shields and helmets rose up over the parapet, as the fiercest warriors scrambled up ladders or reached the top of their knotted ropes before they were slashed through. The first were quickly dealt with but as more and more followed, they began to gain footholds on the walkways. Knots of desperately struggling men fought to the death, the attackers trying to break out and give room for more of their comrades to join them, the defenders to hold them and force them back. Men fell to axes, to spears, to swords but the onslaught was unceasing. Walkways became slick with blood and faeces; bodies lay ready to trip a man and to fall was death. Additional centuries were sent up from the reserves. The hours passed but neither side could gain a decisive advantage. Then everything changed.
The rain which Titus had predicted fell in torrents from a black sky vivid with lightning and deafening with thunderclaps. It became impossible for the Marcomanni to grip their slippery ropes and ladder rungs. The pressure on the Romans gradually decreased until there was no living enemy left within their walls. They leaned forward and hurled stones and javelins down at the packed faces in the ditch.
A Marcomanni horn blew a call and they fell back, in tens and scores at first, then in hundreds as they raced each other out of missile range. The archers’ wet bowstrings stretched and were useless but the weather made no difference to the slingers nor, in the short term, to the scorpions and ballistas. The enemy disappeared from sight into the grey sheets of rain.
The Romans had lost two hundred and thirty men, the Marcomanni nearly eight hundred but most significantly, only fifty mounted chieftains out of the over two hundred who had started out rode back to their lines. The mathematics could not be denied. Provided they had the will to keep coming, the attackers were going to win this war of attrition.
The corpses were dumped unceremoniously over the walls to lie sprawled and twisted in the ditch below waiting for the rain to wash them clean of their blood and filth. The legionaries who had not been in action were sent out with hooks on poles to drag the corpses out and pile them up in a hideous rampart thirty paces back from the base of the walls. The next time the Marcomanni attacked, and no-one doubted there would be a next time, they would have to advance over the rotting bodies of their own men. Every re-usable weapon and piece of ammunition was collected and brought back within the walls.
Unceasing rain fell for the rest of the day. Both sides used the respite the weather had given them to lick their wounds and ponder on their future tactics.
Chapter 9
Otto jogged or walked beside Djinn for the rest of the afternoon. He was saving his horse for tomorrow. As evening fell, with showers from the remains of the heavy storm downstream, he found a secure place with a rivulet running nearby to rest for the night. Man and beast both drank their fill. Otto remembered he had not eaten since before he set-out and instantly felt wolfishly hungry. He tore at his bread and dried meat, washed down with cups of water from the stream and fed Djinn a good half of the crushed grain he carried. He found a spot without too many protruding roots and lay down wrapped in his cloak. He intended to rest for a while and then be up and about before dawn but his exertions caught up with his weary body and he slept right through the night without stirring. He was woken by Djinn pushing him with his velvety muzzle and breathing his sweet breath into his face. The sun was well up. Otto came to his feet annoyed with himself. There were preparations to make and time was rushing past.
He pulled off his mail shirt, panicking for a moment when it jammed over his head but he struggled free and laid it to one side along with his shield and helmet. He ate the last of his dried meat and gave the remaining half-loaf to Djinn. He hoped that reducing the weight he must carry would help the stallion in the effort he was going to be asked to make over the next two days. He saddled and bridled him and mounted up with his grey cloak over his subarmalis and his leather skull cap on his head. He carried only the spear he had taken from the man he had killed on the road and the remaining two pounds of grain.
“You need to give me all the stamina and will that you have, my friend,” he told Djinn and guided him into a mile-eating canter towards the north and east.
It was still raining heavily in the area of The Second Lucan camp. This was a relief to the Romans who felt confident that the Marcomanni would not make another attempt in these conditions. However, they kept a strong presence on the walkways.
“Helmund has come against us in two dawn raids on our northern and eastern walls and one daytime mass-assault. It seems we can do him severe damage only during his advance. Once at close quarters, our men are roughly handled. The question is, when and where he will come next time,” Quadratus said.
“His strategy is to shift the point and scale of each attack to keep us unsettled,” commented Tertius.
Quadratus nodded. “Correct, and he is succeeding more than we expected. Boxer, can you do something extra with the artillery to keep him at bay?”
“Sorry, sir,” Lucius replied. “My men and I are maximising the effectiveness of our batteries. In the absence of additional ballistas and scorpions, we can do no more. The arrow supply is troubling, even with those we have been able to retrieve, though we have not reached a critical point.”
“What about sling bullets?”
Lucius smiled smugly, “The pebbles we weighed and graded, sir; you may remember you remarked on it at the time? We have plenty of them to make up for any short-fall in lead bullets, sir.”
“An “I told you so” attitude is inappropriate at the best of times, Boxer…and these are not the best of times,” Quadratus responded with a brief smile.
“Below three thousand men we can no longer man our walls. We are not there yet but casualties are mounting…” Tertius said.
“If Otto…” Soranus began to interrupt but the legate rounded on him angrily.
“Tribune Rufus Soranus, let me hear no further talk along those lines. It is the men within these walls that must find answers to our predicament. We cannot allow ourselves merely to hang on in the vague hope of help and support; doing so will weaken our resolve. I will hear no more of it. Now Tertius, I take your earlier point but for the moment we can adequately defend ourselves. To that end, I want the walls and gates manned as at present but in addition, two cohorts fully armed on standby on the parade ground day and night. They can rotate every four hours.”
“Permission to begin to train new men in the use of our artillery pieces, sir; in case of casualties among the experienced operators?” Lucius asked.
“See to it,” Quadratus ordered. “And if the day comes when we can no longer man our walls…”
“Then we set fire to our camp and all its supplies and march down on the bastards. Even if we don’t win, and I’m not saying we won’t, we’ll do ‘em so much damage they wont be an army anymore, just a rabble of survivors,” Titus Attius told them all with certainty.
Otto rode for an hour and jogged beside his trotting horse for fifteen minutes then remounted and rode again for another hour repeating the process until noon. He stopped, unsaddled Djinn, dried his back with his cloak as best he could and let him roll in the grass. Then, after a break to allow him to graze, drink and digest, he buckled on the saddle and off they went again. On they journeyed, hour after hour; ten miles for every hour Otto rode and half of that fo
r every hour he jogged beside his horse. Spiteful showers of rain fell on them. The sun came out and dried them only for them to be soaked again. Late in the afternoon a cold north-easterly breeze began to blow in their faces, chilling if it had not been for the sweat of their running bodies. They splashed through steams and muddy puddles splattering themselves but barely slowing their onward rush.
Deep into the gloaming, Otto jumped down to rest Djinn again but staggered, his knees buckled under him and he sank to the ground. His legs were too fatigued to bear his weight any longer. He stayed down for a few minutes then painfully got to his feet and dragged himself and Djinn into cover. He attended to the horse and laid down to sleep. All night long agonising cramps in his calf muscles jolted him awake. He was relieved to see the dawn.
The same drying breeze blew the storm away from the Roman camp. The temperature dropped and it grew even colder as night drew on. The stars shone dimly through the screen of the last of the dispersing hazy clouds overhead. There was no moon. Sentries re-wrapped their scarves about their necks and huddled deeper into their cloaks, stamping their chilly feet. The camp was at an uneasy rest. Two cohorts stood at the ready in the centre of the parade ground, their collective breath sending up wisps of white steam to vanish in the air above their heads. At midnight, shouted orders, stamping feet, the clash of weapons and jingling armour signalled the changeover. Two cohorts stood down and two replaced them. This was repeated at four in the morning by which time it was almost frosty. A heavy dew fell on helmets and armour and began to penetrate cloaks making them sodden and heavy.
Shortly after the changing of the guard, a sentry over the Porta Decumana reported he had heard an ox bellow to the south. Officers went up over the gate and listened but the sound was not repeated. A few weeks ago, he would have been told off for imagining things and been made the butt of his mates’ jokes but now, anything at all out of the ordinary, no matter how trivial, was unsettling. Torches were thrown down but nothing could be seen. Tertius Fuscus was the officer of the watch. When he was informed, he came to the gate and looked out into the darkness. While he was making up his mind what action to take, the Marcomanni took the decision out of his hands.
A rumbling, growing louder, drumming over the bridge that crossed the stream signalled a big square mass hurtling towards the gate. It was one of the enemy’s wagons which had become a feature of the landscape, parked down by the river for days on end. They had harnessed teams of oxen to it as soon as night fell and hauled it in a half circle to the south west. They unhitched the oxen, turned it and forty men had pushed it as fast as they could over the bridge to slam into the Porta Decumana. The tailgate had been removed. It was loaded with brush-wood faggots soaked in turpentine. The sharp smell rose up to the men standing over the gate.
“Alarm! Alarm! Tertius shouted, then. “Open up!”
As his voice rang out, the sound of men hurrying away was heard outside and the first fire arrow flared out of the night.
Tertius shouted down to his men standing by.
“Advance and form-up to cover the gate. You other men, rakes and buckets of water.”
He ran down the steps from the walkway and drew his sword
More fire arrows followed and the wagon burst into flames. As both leaves of the gate were dragged aside, blazing, sizzling bundles of sticks fell off the back making an inferno in the open gateway. Tertius stood by watching and shouting encouragement as soldiers ran up, raked a bundle out of the fire and doused it with water. It was not quick but a better way of firefighting than trying to deal with the entire incendiary mass at one go. The wagon had left a narrow strip between it and the gateposts on one side. Thirty warriors erupted out of the stream and hurtled towards it.
They were all the sworn companions of chieftains who had ridden their horses into the last battle and died. Honour called on them for vengeance; they would be disgraced forever if they returned alive without it. They had crawled up in darkness and hidden in the frigid water under the bridge waiting for their chance. They had been prepared to endure until the gate burned down but the Romans had opened it. One of them saw, shouted to the others and they came. Screaming, faces distorted with hatred, beards and braids sending cascades of water into the air as they ran with only one aim in their hearts; bloody carnage.
The soldiers trying to extinguish the fire and the ranks standing by to defend the gap could not see beyond the brilliant flames. The heat had driven the sentries back along the wall on either side. One of them saw the enemy rush and shouted down but his voice was drowned by the crackle of the fire.
The first warrior ran through the gap straight at Tertius who had been trained in fencing by some of the best masters-at-arms in Rome. However, their lessons had not included defence against a berserker in his battle-fury. The tribune raised his sword in the classical defensive parry but it had not been designed to stop a war-axe. His arm was forward of his body, slightly bent with the stubby sword hilt just above his head. He caught the full force of the axe handle on his blade. The shock ran down to his feet and his right arm jumped out of the shoulder joint. The axe continued on its trajectory but much of the impetus had been absorbed so that when it struck his helmet, it sheered off the crest and dented it but did not chop through the metal. Senior Tribune Tertius Fuscus hit the ground like a felled tree. His opponent stood over his unconscious body and raised his axe for the killing blow. It never came. He was pierced through by two javelins thrown from above and crashed down on top of him.
More had come through. They set about the legionaries who were holding rakes and buckets, hacking them down. One rake-man caught a burning faggot up and flipped it into an enemy face, setting fire to his beard before running behind the shield wall of the advancing defenders. But the Marcomanni could only get through the gap in twos and threes at the most. They were cut to pieces as they ran into the solid ranks of the legionaries. When the last one fell and no more appeared to be arriving, the senior centurion took decisive action.
“First four centuries out past that wagon and fall-in to defend the bridge. If those mad fuckers got in so can more of ‘em.”
They extinguished the fire within an hour. The four centuries guarding the bridge withdrew in tight formation into the camp and the Porta Decumana was closed. They dragged the wagon inside. The carpenters could take a look at it in the morning to see if it was salvageable. The enemy dead had been stripped of their ornaments and weapons before they were tossed over the walls. Tertius was in the care of the medical officer.
A ring of anxious faces surrounded him in the lamplight of his operating room. Tertius had been put on his side on the ground with two orderlies holding him tightly, although he was still unconscious. The medical officer had hold of his right arm which he had pulled out straight.
“You might want to look away gentlemen,” he said and rotated the arm with a quick flick. There was a crunching sound. Tertius moaned and was silent again. “Better to get his arm back into its hole while he’s still out, damn painful business,” the doctor said, glancing with satisfaction at the horrified looks on the officers’ faces. There was something about re-positioning a dislocation that made men wince, even if they were used to blood and skin all over the walls.
The orderlies lifted Tertius onto a cot and the medical officer felt the edges of the raised, black welt on the top of his head. He could feel no movement of bone under his fingers nor hear any crepitation, which signified the skull was not fractured.
“Rise him up,” he ordered.
They lifted the wounded man so that he was half sitting and some feathers were burned under his nose.
He coughed and opened his eyes.
“Greeting senior tribune,” the doctor said with a smile. “Who is that officer over there?” he asked pointing at Quadratus.
“Legate Puppilus Quaratus,” came the mumbled reply.
“Near enough. Time to rest.” He administered a weak dose of poppy juice. “Shave the area of the contusion on his
head, very gently mind. Wash it with vinegar and apply some honey. If it oozes a little blood, so much the better. Stay with him until he wakes naturally and call me if he begins to snort as he’s breathing or vomits,” he told his assistants then turned to the legate. “It seems highly likely the Senior Tribune Fuscus will live. It will be two or three days before he is fully back to his senses and a month until his right arm is useable. He will require a sling and daily massage, sir.”
“But he will make a full recovery, doctor?” Quadratus asked anxiously.
He shrugged. “Impossible to say with a head wound sir. I knew a man who seemed to be absolutely well except that he could no longer remember his family, otherwise, just fine….”
The brief incursion had cost eleven men’s lives and temporarily disabled the legion’s second in command; a result Helmund would have thought worth his own losses, had he known.
Otto welcomed the day after his uncomfortable night. He got gingerly to his feet and bent his knees to test his legs. The muscles felt tight but the rest had done him some good. He gave Djinn the last of the fodder and climbed into the saddle. Yesterday’s routine was repeated; ride at the canter, then dismount, jog while his horse trotted then remount, again and again. At noon, they stopped by a wide stream running into the Rhine. Djinn grazed and rolled. Otto sat with his back against a tree and massaged his legs. When they were ready to continue, he manged to crawl up onto his horse’s back. Too soon it was time for him to dismount and go on foot. After a few minutes he knew that he could no longer keep pace with the trotting horse. He pulled him to a halt and spoke into his ear.
“Djinn, my brave friend, I no longer have the strength to run. You must carry me all the way now, if you can.”
He led him to a fallen tree and used it as a mounting block. They travelled through the afternoon at that same easy canter which suited Djinn so well. For hours he went on like some exquisite machine, the bellows of his lungs pumping air onto the inward fires of his strength and reserves of energy as if he would never tire. When the sun broke out after yet another cold, heavy shower, Otto could see their shadow dancing in front of his right shoulder, showing they were heading in the right direction. The shadow lengthened as the sun sank and evening began to draw on. Gradually, Djinn’s head started to rise and fall like a rocking horse. He began to fight for each gasping breath. When Otto reckoned within an hour it would be too dark to go on, he felt that ominous tremor run through the great stallion’s frame. Djinn had reached the end of his powers. Otto could force him on for perhaps, another ten or fifteen miles but that would destroy the animal. He pulled him to a halt, climbed out of the saddle and stroked Djinn’s ears.
Knight of Rome Part II Page 13