Brass Legionnaire (The Steam Empire Chronicles)

by Ottalini, Daniel

  Chalbys and Fustus bundled Corbus onto the relative safety of the airship. Behind them, the last marine leapt onto the deck and rang a bell. The tone of the ship’s engines changed as it went buoyant and began gaining altitude.

  Below them, the Romans who had nearly reached them threw a volley of plumbatae at the rapidly retreating ship, but most of the metal bolts clanked off the bottom of the decking. One came close enough for Corbus to hear its passage before it rebounded off a nearby post and back into space, its warhead fizzling without exploding.

  Chalbys and Fustus remained beside Corbus as he stood on the deck, regardless of the assurances he had given them that he no longer wished to take on half the Roman army single-handed. All he could do now was watch as the Romans surrounded and overwhelmed his mother. His heart felt as though it was being ripped out of his chest.

  The figures on the landing platform shrank as the Midgard Flyer gained altitude. Claxons began to wail. Corbus was dimly aware of another airship approaching. His full attention remained on the fight. It was as if he was watching a tragic drama from the cheap seats; heart pounding, the young man could do nothing but watch and see what happened as the red-coated figures surrounded the brown-coated one.

  ~ * * * ~

  “Move forward! Quickly—we’ve got to reach that landing platform and destroy that airship!” Constantine ordered.

  His men continued to push against the solitary figure guarding the walkway. While they had managed to relieve the pressure on the small knot of surviving legionnaires, they had been unable to move past the rebel Amazon. Behind her, Constantine could see that Centurion Caesar had reestablished command and was moving to intercept the airship.

  Constantine pushed through the ranks of his men. They were hanging back, having seen the damage the woman’s double-ended spear could do, even to an armored man. Constantine’s feet slipped in blood and gore. At one point he was fairly certain that he had stepped upon a dead soldier, his arm sliced off. As he stepped into the front ranks, he lurched as his foot found another slick spot on the causeway. The stumble saved his life—the twirling figure’s steel sliced right over his helmet, chopping off his officer’s plume, the force of the glancing blow snapping the chinstrap on his helmet to rip it right off his head.

  Constantine sucked in a shaky breath, and exhaled in a gasp as he pulled his shield up in time to deflect another blow. I need to maneuver more! His memories of private dueling and combat instruction clamored to be used. Yet he was shoulder to shoulder with his men, unable to truly maneuver other than forward or backward. Forward it was. There was no going back.

  The ranks pressed forward under his shouted orders. The open space of the landing platform was less than ten yards away now. Taking a quick peek over his shield, Constantine saw that most of the enemy had boarded. A few men appeared to be watching the conflict with extreme interest. As the legionnaires advanced, two of the men grasped a third and began hauling him back to the ship, as crewmembers on the ship fired crossbows, dealing light damage as they harried the Imperial attack.

  The woman’s spear shattered the metal-wood composite shield of the man beside Constantine and thrust into his organs, killing him horribly in a split second. Seeing an opening, Constantine took it, stabbing out with his spatha and cutting her leg. A solid hit; Duel Master Vusentius would be proud, he thought as his sword came back with blood on the blade.

  Screaming in pain, the woman backed off a few steps to recover from the obviously painful wound. The startled legionnaires followed cautiously. As they chased her, the fire from the dirigible became more accurate. One legionnaire’s startled yell was quickly silenced as another crossbow bolt ripped out part of his neck.

  Straining, the airship lifted off, unwilling to allow the Imperials to get too close. Centurion Caesar ’s detachment peppered them with plumbata, even though the light missiles had little chance of harming such a vessel. The plain warheads sounded like rain on a tin roof as they bounced off the iron deck plating.

  The devilish woman finally turned in the middle of the landing platform to face her pursuers. Hatred burned in her eyes as she stared down the dozens of men surrounding her.

  Constantine looked around. “Julos! Get some men on those anti-airship weapons! I want that ship taken down, now!” he ordered. A squad peeled off and ran toward the large anti-air scorpions and ballistae.

  Shrieking her defiance, the woman charged at him. Guess that order upset her, his mind observed as he raised his shield and leapt forward to attack.

  His men formed a circle around the pair, shields facing in. They knew that Constantine was a solid warrior, but could he compare to this queen of death? They began to bang the flat of their blades against their scuta, inching closer, tightening the ring around Constantine and their opponent. Trapped, the Amazon grasped her spear tightly, and launched a rapid assault.

  Constantine felt his reflexes speed up; he saw her attacks coming. His blade moved almost before he commanded it to as he parried high, then low, then slammed his shield forward, knocking her off balance. She skipped back out of range again, her scythe-like speartip pushing back the encroaching ranks of legionnaires as it cracked shields and sliced open arms.

  She’s stalling for time. That airship, or someone on it, must be critical to her, for her to make a last stand defense. He paused in his attack, and heard no heavy artillery being fired. With a sinking feeling, he raised his voice. “Centurion! Why is there no artillery firing?”

  Centurion Caesar pushed to the edge of the circle. His armor was heavily banged up and he had several superficial wounds. “Sir!” he croaked. “All the artillery pieces have been sabotaged or destroyed. There’s no way for us to shoot it down from here. Klotus evidently managed to contact the Scioparto via the tower line, and it’s already moving to intercept.”

  The woman cast a look of such venom at Julius that he took a step back. She spoke for the first time. “I am Brimmas Amalia, Chieftess of the warrior tribes of the Teutonberg. My ancestors fought yours and killed many a Roman weakling. It is my pleasure to bring you all into the afterlife with me, Tribune.” Her mouth stretched in an evil smile as she prepared herself.

  Constantine considered her words. “After you,” he replied.

  Closing the space between them in an instant, they clashed again. Constantine got inside her guard, breaking her spear with a well-timed smash of his heavy scuta. Yes! his mind cried as he heard it snap, then her brief cry of despair. But the woman was crafty. She quickly disarmed Constantine with a sharp blow to his sword hand, using the broken haft of her weapon as a club.

  His hand stung and he was fairly certain that he had felt something go pop. A tendon perhaps, or maybe a bone was broken. He turned in time to catch the next attack on his shield. Amalia now wielded one piece of her broken weapon like a short stabbing spear, thrusting it out at Constantine as they circled each other, no doubt hoping the hooked end would catch the lip of his shield and yank it from his possession.

  From far overhead came the thrum of airship engines. The Romans cheered as the H.M.A.S. Scioparto shifted to engage the slow-moving Midgard Flyer.

  “Looks like your friends won’t be getting away after all. You’ve sacrificed yourself for nothing,” Constantine jeered in his most arrogant, imperial tone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Julius had drawn his sword and had nudged his neighbors farther away from him.

  “You’ll make good company in Hades, foolish Imperial. Prepare to die.” With that, Amalia threw herself forward again. Her first blow knocked Constantine’s shield aside and he felt it torn from his arm as he rolled to the left.

  “Centurion! Sword!” he shouted.

  Julius tossed him his sword, the deadly spatha turning in the air; Constantine caught its haft with his left hand and turned to face the chieftess, who was disentangling her weapon from the scuta.

  She smiled coldly, no doubt thinking that he was weakened, now that he was forced to use his left hand. She rushed in and knock
ed at his sword with less effort than he expected. Her mistake—but then, how could she know that Master Vusentius required all his pupils to learn to fight with both hands? He easily turned the blow away and dropped into a neat central slice.

  He looked up from one knee to see his handiwork. Amalia stumbled, looked down at the deep red gash that cut across her stomach, then fell backward.

  Constantine rose. As his men rushed in to congratulate him, he held up his hand to stop their inquiries and exultations, and kicked away her weapons. Then he knelt by her side.

  Her bloodstained lips twisted in a grimace. Then she worked her mouth for a moment and spat bloodied spittle in his face. “See you soon,” she croaked.

  He stood and looked around. “What could that mean?” he wondered aloud.

  Then he felt a gentle tremor, which grew to a shake, and then a roar as the wall beneath his feet lifted him off the ground. Farther to the south, parts of the wall were being launched into the city and the bay by a powerful blast. Huge columns of dirty gray water erupted from the wall and rushed to fill the city. Thick smoke rose into the sky, following rocketing debris.

  “Quick! Into the tower!” someone yelled, and the men raced toward the safety of the guard towers, rocks and water and sizzling hot fragments falling all around them. A particularly huge chunk of wall hurtled toward them and slammed into the walkway like a freight train. Constantine was thrown off his feet, and darkness took him.

  Epilogue

  From his bed in the governor’s lavish mansion, a convalescing Constantine stared up at the white mesh fabric draped over the bed at ceiling level, forming a translucent pavilion around his bed. Snapping to his senses, he sat up abruptly, then stopped just as abruptly as his stomach twisted, protesting such quick movement. He dropped sideways and was thankful to see a wastebin beside the bed as his breakfast made a U-turn in his gut.

  Several minutes later, he wiped his mouth and rolled back from the wastebin to carefully sit up. Pushing aside the gauze curtain, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and gingerly got to his feet, curiosity driving him to examine his hospital ward. He knew he’d been here for a week. He’d lost all memory of the events on the wall after this close combat duel with the warrior chieftess, Amalia, and had relied on visitors’ accounts to refresh it.

  He’d not been wearing his helmet when the explosion came, leaving his head unprotected during the aerial deluge produced by the massive explosion that ruptured the sea wall. Engineers examining the aftermath estimated that the explosives needed to rupture the sixty-foot thickness of the steel and stone wall must have been stored in a warehouse that touched the wall, and that the rebels had likely been drilling into the wall for months to place the explosives at its true center, already weakening it from the inside out—all part of a nefarious plot to destroy the very city the rebels had fought so hard to seize.

  “They might even have used acids or seawater on a targeted portion of the wall to weaken it. That would have taken weeks of planning, if not months,” one engineer had reported to him. That spoke of better planning and treason that ran much deeper than what anyone had suspected.

  Within seconds of the explosion, the Mar del Nort had come flooding into the city, wiping out the low-lying Sludge Bottom and reaching as far as the heavily damaged air terminal in the northern quadrant and the central plaza in the eastern part. Estimates of dead or missing were in the tens of thousands. Between the flood and the fighting, most of the city garrison and constabulary auxilia were dead or injured. The XIII Germania had become the enforcers of martial law until fresh auxilia forces arriving from the south and east could relieve them.

  Two figures approached Constantine as he turned back toward his bed. He smiled as Centurion Julius Caesar raised a hand in greeting; he should be smiling, Constantine thought, now that Legion Command Northwest had confirmed word of his brevet rank of centurion. Unfortunately the confirmation of rank had dumped weeks of overdue paperwork onto the newly minted centurion’s shoulders, as well. Constantine didn’t envy the young man that.

  Maria, the head nurse, scuttled behind the centurion, already fluttering her hands in agitation. The appearance of the junior officer always left Constantine in, as she put it, an especially challenging mood. Like many nurses, she considered her word to be law. Her patient would rest the proper amount of time prescribed by the doctors, or else.

  Julius was walking much faster than normal. Constantine knew that he did not like to disturb the men recuperating in the ranks of beds that stretched along the wall on either side of Constantine’s. Today, though, his boots click-click-clicked across the floor, forcing Maria, shorter by a head and a half, to nearly run to keep up.

  “You will not disturb my peace and quiet during non-visiting hours!” he heard her saying as they drew nearer.

  Constantine placed his hand on the bed frame to help alleviate a brief moment of dizziness. I must have taken a fairly substantial knock on the head, he thought for the umpteenth time. At least I didn’t lose all of my memory, as some men do. Imagine having to be taught how to be a legionnaire for a second time!

  He held up his hand to stop the nurse. “Now, Maria,” he said in a mollifying voice. “I’m sure that the centurion here had a good reason for interrupting your perfectly good midday nap.” He smiled his best smile.

  Flustered, the nurse backed away. She checked the large clock on the wall at the end of the ward. “Five minutes, then you’re out of here, regardless of how ‘important’ that paper is.” She waggled a finger at the pouch Julius’s waist, scowling, then turned and stomped back out of the ward. Constantine cringed. Julius looked apologetic.

  When the door punctuated Maria’s exit from the ward, Constantine observed, “That is one woman I would not like to be on the wrong side of.” He looked at Julius. “And yet I get the feeling I’ll still be suffering for your little invasion later tonight, when I get poked and prodded with needles at two a.m. What is so important that you broke multiple layers of rules and actually penetrated our vast and uncaring medical bureaucracy?”

  He was truly curious. In the short time he had known Julius as an officer, he had pegged him as a by-the-books centurion, especially since he hadn’t yet learned all the ins and outs of working the system. Not that I’ve been able to yet, but all I have to do is wave my Imperio signet coin in the air and it parts the sea like magic.

  Julius displayed a face-splitting grin. He leaned closer to the tribune to whisper conspiratorially, “We’ve got orders.”

  Constantine smiled as well, although it became a tad frozen by another short bout of dizziness. It had been happening less and less, thank the gods, but still often enough to really annoy him. “Excellent. I’ll be glad to get out of this hellhole.” At Julius’s stricken expression, he quirked an eyebrow. “What, Centurion? Just because it used to be a grand metropolis doesn’t mean it’s that way anymore. Maybe in a few years it will be again, when they’ve rebuilt the wall and purged the flooded areas. Until then, this city is a hellhole. A toxic, disease-ridden, soggy, smelly, and somehow still functioning, hellhole. We need to get out of here.”

  Julius sighed. “I suppose so, sir,” he mumbled.

  Constantine remembered the root of Julius’s sadness. “Have you found any trace of your family yet?” he asked in a softer voice.

  Julius shook his head. “I borrowed a few squads to comb the neighborhood. I found some things of theirs, but there were no bodies or survivors. I can’t tell if the destruction is from the explosion, the fighting, or the flood.” He spread his hands in frustration. “I’m not giving up hope, though. I can feel they are alive.” His voice hardened. “I want to deliver some painful vengeance on those who did this.”

  Constantine nodded. “Don’t give up hope. Besides, there is always retribution, as well.” Both men grinned. “So, are you going to tell me those orders, before Nurse-Empress Maria comes marching her way back into the ward to throw you out on your behind?”

  Julius reached
into his belt pouch and withdrew the sheaf of orders. He handed them over to the tribune. Constantine read them over, while Julius tried hard not to look as if he was attempting to read through the thin parchment.

  Constantine rolled up the orders and handed them back to the centurion. “Well, Centurion, before you go, I have a question.” Julius tried to hide his disappointment that the tribune was not going to share their orders. Constantine smiled. “Have you requisitioned your cold weather gear yet? ’Cause I think it’s about time we taught those fur-coated northern barbarian raiders a lesson: Don’t. Mess. With. Us.”

  Terminology

  Cohort – a company of Roman legionnaires. Cohorts from different legions tend to vary in size, with newly formed legions having the most consistent cohort size. In each legion there can be as many as thirty cohorts, with the first, or Prime, cohort being the most veteran, most talented, and composed of the most dangerous fighters in the entire legion.

  Demi-cohort – a partial cohort, consisting of anywhere between fifty and a hundred men.

  Denarius (denarii, plural) – the base unit of Roman money, roughly equivalent to a dollar.

  Galea – a Type L Imperial Italic Roman steel helmet with side cheek pieces, banded forehead piece, neck protector, and chinstrap. Generally mass-produced, it is rugged and can withstand several years of hard campaigning with minimum upkeep. It has been continuously updated since the early Imperial era, and additional technology, such as the high altitude goggles, has been added as necessary.

  Plumbata – a Roman throwing dart with a weighted metal tip. The average soldier carries several of them in the hollow of his shield. Some are tipped with an explosive warhead instead, creating a weapon similar to a grenade.