‘She is right,’ Kleandrias approached, Cappa and Murco in tow.
‘We will forge a great victory here. And I will stand by you, Lysandra.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Cappa bristled. ‘We’re her bodyguards.’
‘That you are,’ Lysandra interrupted. She wanted no bickering while the enemy marched on them. ‘And Kleandrias is my dear friend. It would help me to have him at my side. Titus is ready?’ she asked Murco.
‘He’s trying to use up all the tallow for the want of something to do,’ Murco informed her. ‘Pacing up and down, shouting at a bunch of girls. He tried it with the archers . . . the Artemisians,’ he added. ‘But they told him to piss off, so he went back to haranguing the artillery.’
‘A prickly bunch,’ Kleandrias agreed.
‘I must head back to my own prickly bunch, brother,’ Deianara said to Kleandrias. ‘You should not take shit from the xenoi,’ she added, looking at Cappa and Murco.
‘Fuck off.’ Cappa made a little waving gesture as one would to a child.
Deianara shook her head and then donned her Corinthian helmet. At once, her pretty features were obscured in dark shadows and she seemed to become something more than she was, as if Athene imbued her with her strength. ‘Fight hard, Lysandra. I will see you soon. Cappa. Murco,’ the red crest on her helmet bobbed back and forth as she nodded at them.
‘Good luck,’ Murco said. ‘For a Greekling, you speak pretty good Latin.’
‘I am flattered you think so,’ Deianara said and made off with an over dramatic swirl of her red cloak.
Lysandra turned her eyes once more to the plain. The advance had stopped and it was clear the barbarians were readying themselves for the assault.
Mucius sniffed wondering if he was developing a cold. His back hurt and he was scared – and he knew his mind was making all the excuses that every man made before a big fight in case he faltered. Every man, apart from Settus it seemed.
‘Fuck them, Settus said. ‘I’ve seen far worse in Britannia – the blueskins were hard cases – as well you know it. I mean, yeah, there’s a lot of them, but at the end of the day, they’re just cunts,’ he went on. ‘Lysandra, a bunch of girl gladiators and a few fucking Greeks had ’em the other day, for fuck’s sake.’
‘You’re shitting yourself, aren’t you,’ Mucius said.
‘As if.’ Settus sneezed and rubbed his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Think I’m getting a cold, though.’
Mucius grinned. ‘Listen, Settus,’ he said. ‘I know we didn’t see eye to eye before, but you’re a good soldier. Your boys are tough. You did a good job.’
Settus regarded him, his hard brown eyes glittering. ‘Don’t talk like that, you twat,’ he said after a moment. ‘You’ll regret it when I’m taking the piss out of you at the caupona once we’ve stuck these cunts full of iron. And speaking of cunts . . . when this is over, you reckon we’ll be allowed to . . . you know . . . fraternise? Some of Lysandra’s lot are well tasty.’
‘I dunno,’ Mucius said, a little miffed that his words had gone over Settus’s head. ‘Maybe, but don’t keep saying ‘cunt’, would be my advice.’
‘You’re right,’ Settus nodded solemnly. He saluted. ‘I’d best get back to me men. Good luck, Primus.’
‘Good luck, Settus.’
Settus turned about and made off, his segmentata clattering gently with his gait; then he stopped and turned around. ‘Mucius.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks. For what you said. You know what I mean. First round’s on me, all right.’
Mucius nodded but did not reply. What needed to be said had been said.
Valerian was about to wrap his cloak around him as the chill wind kicked up, but he felt the eyes of the men on him and decided against it. He placed his palms on the wall, looking across the plain at the enemy. They were milling around, forming up, dismounting – a kind of organised chaos, but there was no mistaking their intent.
He looked down the line of battle: the Felix, Euaristos’s auxiliaries in the centre and then, holding the north, Lysandra’s Heronai with the red cloaked Spartans in the midst of them. A lot of bodies, he thought. But there were more on the other side of the wall. Many times more. His forces had the wall. The ditch. The artillery. The discipline.
But would all that be enough? As he had said to the commanders – they didn’t have to win, they just had to hold. Hold and hope that Iulianus won out and came to their aid. But that, he knew, was in the hands of the gods – all he could do was his duty.
Duty.
It seemed to Valerian that events had swept him along, taking his feet off the ground and bringing him back here to this gods- cursed country. He tried not to think of the past and, the truth of it was, that he had so much to do in command he had little time to dwell on such things.
But this place was a plague on his fortunes. Defeated here. Dishonoured and abused here, it had taken everything from him. And then he had met Pyrrha and hoped to build a new life with her; but she had died – at Lysandra’s hand – in the arena. He looked to the centre once again and he could see the Spartan, a scarlet splash in the grey of her troops; he could not bring himself to hate her. She had tried not to kill Pyrrha, begged her not to fight – it had been an accident.
That was the truth, but it didn’t alter the fact. Pyrrha was dead and Valerian had allowed fate to drive him back to Dacia for revenge. To regain his lost virtus. Or, probably to end up dead serving the Empire that had treated him so poorly.
‘You all right, mate – sir, I mean?’
Settus walked up to him, and he forced a smile. ‘Settus. You should be with the Tenth.’
‘Yeah, I know. Just wanted to ask if . . . you know . . . after this, the fraternisation ban will be lifted.’
Valerian regarded the former optio for a moment: it was clear that Settus had not come all the way from his century to ask that. He knew the little man and could read him well. The smile on his face reached his eyes. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘I doubt they’d be interested. They’re religious women.’
‘I’ll make believers out of them all right,’ Settus made an obscene gesture. Then he spoke, lower. ‘Listen. We got this far. We’ll go all the way. You were made for this sort of shit, Valerian. The blokes all trust you. I trust you. Get us through it, all right.’
The words lifted him. ‘All right.’
‘All right, then.’ Settus saluted. ‘When it’s over, I’ll see you at the caupona. First round’s on me. Good luck, mate.’
‘And to you, Settus.’
‘Don’t need it. Those cunts won’t kill me.’ Settus didn’t wait for a reply, simply turning on his heel and shoved his way through protesting legionaries back towards his own century.
‘Sir!’ A legionary shouted to him. ‘They’re on the move!’
And they were. The front line of the barbarian horde seemed to ripple and shift and then, slowly and deliberately, they began to walk towards the wall. No mad rush as he had heard happened at the narrow point. Behind the leading warriors came a number of horse soldiers and Valerian wondered what they were about. No cavalry could assault a wall – probably their chiefs, he reasoned.
They came on and, as they got closer, his men began to shout abuse, jeering the barbarians, daring them to attack them. One wag climbed onto the wall and bared his arse at the enemy before being dragged down by his optio and dressed down by his centurion.
Valerian looked to the rear and could feel Titus’s eyes on him. But it was too soon, they were not yet in range. He looked back to the field and the barbarians walked on. Back to Titus and a slight shake of the head. Then he heard it – a high-pitched scream from the barbarian ranks. Then another. Then the shrill whinny of a horse as it went over. He waved at Titus.
Moments later the first flight of arrows flew overhead and into the struggling ranks of warriors.
They found the daises then, he said to himself.
Sorina’s horse screamed
in pain and fell, toppling her to the ground. The animal kicked and thrashed about, forcing her to roll away as it whinnied in terror and uncomprehending agony. Around her, warriors and beasts were down, the men and women clutching their legs.
Sorina looked around and saw that the ground had been disturbed in many places; she scrabbled on a patch of dirt and withdrew a caltrop – a barbed metal spike embedded in a thick shank of wood. Once through flesh, the tip would lodge and be almost impossible to withdraw.
Then the arrows began to fall and the front line erupted into chaos. ‘Back!’ she shouted needlessly as people in their thousands were retreating away from the field. Some were leaping onto the wide, ditch-spanning gangplanks the horses were dragging, causing more disorder. ‘Back!’ She herself scrambled away. Amagê was reaching down and, with a leap, Sorina threw herself onto the back of the Clan Chief’s mount.
It was a rout without them having engaged the enemy, thousands of warriors fleeing and screaming at those behind to halt. The cries were soon cut short as volleys of arrows fell from the grey skies, silencing man, woman and beast.
‘Bastards!’ Amagê said as Sorina dismounted.
On the walls, the distant figures rippled – infantry falling back, archers taking their places. But no further volleys were forthcoming. ‘We’re at far range,’ Sorina said. ‘They won’t waste their arrows.’
‘Not yet,’ Amagê was grim. ‘We’ll have to clear the field. They think they will have easy targets.’ She was looking at the horses dragging the gangplanks, now being cut away by concerned riders.
‘Those things will be the saving of us,’ Sorina said.
‘Let us find some order here,’ Amagê turned her mouth down. ‘And clear the field.’
A warm glow of satisfaction spread through Valerian as the barbarian advance halted before it began. The first ranks were thrown into utter chaos, all plunging horses and falling warriors, pandemonium erupted within moments, compounded by a withering flight of arrows from Titus’s Artemisian Priestesses.
At his signal, they came forward, exchanging places with Euaristos’s mercenary auxiliaries at the front of the wall: no need to protect them now, they would shoot until they ran out of arrows or the barbarians got close enough to shoot back at them. As it was, the stall in the advance had bought more of what they needed most: time.
The men were celebrating the small victory, laughing and joking amongst themselves as the barbarians fell back in disarray. It was all to the good, he thought. The Felix had proved itself in the initial assault on Durostorum. The men that had survived now counted themselves rightly as veterans.
They watched their cowed enemies deciding what they were going to do next. Distant figures milled about for some time until, finally, there was forward movement on the front. Valerian squinted, trying to make out what was happening.
Columns of warriors were moving out in good order and it seemed to Valerian they were holding something aloft as they went. Titus had seen it too and, without a direct command, he ordered a volley, lofted in a high arc. The arrows, cheered by the men, rose and then fell. He could hear the distant sound of them impacting, but it was not the thud of iron into flesh, but rather a sharper sound, as though the barbs were hitting a target. And none of them pitched forward to roll in the dirt. Another volley followed with the same result.
‘Cease shooting!’ he barked. The barbarians had some sort of defence and, after a moment, he realised what they were about as the warriors put down their burdens and hoisted them forward. Makeshift wooden ‘walls’ sprouted up, held in place by the men behind it. They were not tall – but long enough, Valerian realised, to effectively bridge the ditch below.
The barbarians would use their gangplanks to protect themselves as they ridded the field of the daisies. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of sending men out to widen the ditch, but the risk was too great. The Felix, Heronai and mercenaries were safe where they were and getting large numbers of people in and out of the defences would be a time consuming task. And there were trees aplenty in Dacia – all the enemy needed to do would be to chop more wood if they saw his people at work. ‘Deflowering’ the field, however, would take time, and each moment that passed was precious to the defenders of Durostorum.
‘Legate!’ A female voice made him turn – one of the Artemisian Priestesses had been dispatched to him. She was tall and lithe, with a pretty nose and heavily oiled blonde hair tied in a queue at the top of her head. This was a fashion with these archers – they were different to the rest and liked to show it. ‘Centurion Titus requests orders. Are we to shoot or conserve?’ she asked.
‘Conserve,’ Valerian said at once. ‘We’ll have no idea if we’ve hit anything.’
‘With respect, sir, we can hit them. The goddess guides our shafts.’
‘Of course . . .?’
‘Breseis, sir.’
‘Tell me, Breseis. Does Artemis also provide fresh arrows for those that we lose?’ Breseis looked at him as though she was about to argue for a moment, but she held her tongue. ‘Conserve, if you please.’
She saluted and made off, ignoring the appreciative looks of the men close by. A good thing, Valerian thought, that the fraternisation order had been taken seriously. Otherwise there would have been more chaos behind the walls than beyond them.
It was taking hours and Sorina could see that, with each passing moment, Amagê was becoming more frustrated with the progress, even if she did not voice it. The army had retreated to a safe distance as the warriors out front, protected by the gangplanks, dug out the caltrops that the Romans had planted. They also had to refill the holes they left – each one could turn an ankle or break it. Every injured warrior took two more to carry them from the field.
The Romans were truly the masters of war. For all their progress, their art – stolen from the Greeks as Lysandra would have it, their science, their buildings and their laws, conflict was their greatest field of endeavour. It seemed to her that they were a race obsessed with finding easier ways to live and quicker ways to kill.
At last, Amagê spoke. ‘We will lose another day.’
‘But tomorrow, we will clear the field and the advance can continue.’
‘Tomorrow,’ she shook her head. ‘It is beginning to grate on me now, Sorina.’
Sorina touched her face. ‘There will be time for fighting soon enough,’ she said. ‘We will be within a hundred yards of them come the night. Tomorrow, we will be over the walls, and this will be over . . .’
There was a monumental crash and the screams of men as she spoke. She and Amagê turned in horror to see great boulders lofting from over the Roman walls. The rocks had been coated with pitch and set afire, tails of flame streaking from behind them like god- hurled things from the sky. They smashed into the gangplanks, splintering wood and bone and those that missed hit the ground making clods of earth explode around them. Some bounced towards the mass of warriors causing a ripple of panic but it was soon obvious that they didn’t have the range to cause harm to the main body.
Amagê was stunned and Sorina guessed that she had never seen this before – but even as the thought occurred to her, more burning rocks were flung skywards, plummeting towards the exposed men on the field. There must be many engines, she thought, many more than a legion would usually have. There was a shiver down her spine and she felt the laughter of the Morrighan, and knew in that moment that Lysandra’s hand was in this. Amagê had still not spoken, her slate grey eyes alive with desperation and panic. She didn’t know what to do.
‘We have to attack!’ Sorina said, shaking her.
‘But the caltrops . . .’
‘We’ll never clear the field under this! Amagê – order the advance, we have to risk it!’
‘Sorina! We cannot advance into the teeth of that! Thousands will die!’
‘And we run now, we lose – everything. The Romans will send more men and more and more . . . you’ve seen what they can do. Amagê, I don’t care about Decabalus
and his war now . . . but we can’t retreat. Even if Decabalus wins out there, he’ll have to face this army. We have to dig them out!’
‘But . . .’
Sorina was filled with purpose then. ‘Come with me, Amagê.’ She ripped her sword from its sheath and screamed a war cry. Without waiting to see if the Clan Chief followed, she ran towards the Roman wall and whatever dark fate the Morrighan held in store for her.
Alone barbarian broke from the milling throng and began running towards their lines. Moments later another followed, then another and soon the entire host was on the move.
Lysandra looked to her left to see the Artemisians rushing away from the walls – threading through the mass of auxiliaries that were trying to take their place. Shoddy, she thought to herself, but nobody could have foreseen that the barbarians would launch an attack so late in the day: not when the risk of injury from the Roman caltrops was so great and certainly not into a storm of artillery shot. But they were brave warriors.
Titus kept up an unmerciful rain of fire and death from the onagers at the rear; the sound of them, along with the ballistae and scorpions were a constant comfort, the ratcheting sound of the winches being pulled back, the bark of orders to loose and then the whump-crack of the projectiles being released.
It was murder, pure and simple. The barbarians fell screaming as their feet were pierced by the caltrops only to have the life smashed from them as the shot rained down. The stone spheres wreaked havoc, cutting bloody swathes through their ranks, blood and gore erupting from shattered bodies as they ploughed through.
In the centre of the defence, the auxiliaries formed up and soon the Artemisians added to the woes of the attackers, launching flight after flight into the milling throng. Yet for all of that, they came in such numbers. Lysandra could see them clearly – the vantage point of the wall gave her a much better view than of her previous battle. It was as though a packed-out Flavian amphitheatre had emptied onto this bloody field.
Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3) Page 41