The man trotted away to retrieve his sword, and Bellacon turned to Lissa. ‘This is it. Death or glory, as they say. All for the majesty of empire, and of the emperor.’
‘And for the future peace of a tribe, an island and a whole region. There is more at stake here than your imperial pride.’
‘Thank you. That helps,’ he replied in tones dripping with irony.
He turned and waved over the artillery captain who stood nearby, squinting into the distance. ‘Give me an opinion. Are we going to make a dent on those earth banks?’
The man ruminated for a moment, running his tongue across his teeth. ‘Anything is possible, with the gods’ help, sir…’
‘But?’
‘But I cannot see it happening. At least, not today.’
Bellacon nodded. He’d thought as much. ‘Sadly, today is all we have.’ Well, that was a guess, in truth – a conservative estimate they’d come up with the previous day. The prince had been sure that it would take the queen’s closest allies two to three days to muster and travel to Steinvic, which would probably give them tomorrow as well.
And even then that was only the local tribes. The furthest ones would take days longer, and the snow-bound northern people weeks, even, if they’d been summoned. But Bellacon had been insistent that they could rely upon just having the one day. He could not risk the queen’s reinforcements turning up and the whole game changing when she realised she had adequate manpower to simply swamp her enemy.
‘If we cannot reduce those ramparts before the sun starts to descend, then we shall have to commit with things as they are. It will please Cantex, since he waits on us now.’ Bellacon huffed. ‘I don’t suppose you can be of help?’ he prompted Lissa.
‘No more than I have been.’
‘Right.’ The tribune straightened and rolled his shoulders. ‘Alright, if we’re going to do this, we’d better get started. Three more shots from each catapult, and try and angle them to take down as many stretches of upper parapet that remain between the destroyed sections as possible. Let’s give our boys as easy an access as we can. And have the bolt throwers continue to loose until the last possible moment.’
The artillery officer nodded and hurried off to give the orders.
‘Fuscus?’ A captain paced across and saluted in response to his name being called.
‘Sir.’
‘Get the reserves moving. The faggots and bales are stacked ready.’
‘Sir.’
The man ran off, and Bellacon turned to Lissa. ‘Look, there are things that need to be said... and some that maybe don’t yet. You belonged to Volentius, but he’s gone and you don’t belong to me. You’re free, and not a man in this army will stop you. I give you my word on that.’
He fished in his belt pouch and produced a small document, wrapped around with a ribbon and sealed in wax. ‘This is my authorisation for you to go anywhere and requisition anything. A cart. A horse. Food. If this all goes wrong and the queen is triumphant, then you will be in as much danger as all of us. Go back to your people and live in peace.’
Lissa shook her head and held her hand out flat, refusing the document. ‘You will take Steinvic. I have seen it, and I know it for the truth.’
‘Well just in case, for my peace of mind, take the paper.’
There was a pause, and the woman nodded, grasping the document, their fingers brushing for a tiny moment and sending a frisson of... something, through the tribune. Bellacon smiled weakly. ‘I do trust you, but I like to be certain. I don’t want you hurt.’
‘Watch yourself, Tribune Lucius Bellacon. I want you back.’
And to add yet another level of confusion to his day, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek before turning and walking away. He paused for a moment, blinking, then turned just in time to catch the smirks of the officers around him before their expressions became serious once more.
‘Alright. This is what they call “all or nothing”. I’ve committed the reserves to join the push at the front. The cavalry can be of little use here but they will keep us apprised of any changes and will effectively seal the other sides of Steinvic tight. In half an hour I expect the only human beings on this hillside to be artillerists, medics and the wounded. Every man goes in, and that includes officers. Every sword might count, and the men always fight better when they know their commander shares their peril.’
He gestured to the groom nearby who brought Elusa, his dappled grey, over.
He pulled himself up into the saddle, feeling that tingle of excited nervousness that always preceded combat. All or nothing. There was no need for senior officers to risk themselves in the fighting, but this was the last chance. The last day. If they didn’t take Steinvic today, then the queen’s army would amass and they would have lost. At best he would scuttle off back to Velutio with his tail between his legs and a feeble few survivors at his heels. No, every man went in today.
Settling himself, he reached down and drew his long, straight cavalry blade. The steel gleamed blue in the light and he savoured its glittering beauty, its clean, keen edge. Soon it would be covered in unmentionable material. His gaze slid across the slopes in response to calls from the horns of regimental musicians. The reserves were moving forward.
This was it.
The catapults loosed their final shots and then fell silent. The bolt throwers continued to crack out missiles, but he could see the artillerists preparing to halt their barrage too. Once the men were close to the defences, there was too much danger of the artillery hitting their own.
Another call blared out across the field, and was answered by the horns of each unit in the waiting army. In a beautifully choreographed motion, the legions shuffled into narrower columns, leaving spaces between them all the way from the rear lines to the front. Into these spaces moved the reserves, in neat columns but moving at double time.
Poor bastards. They had been allocated the safest position in the army, at the back waiting to plug gaps or fill in for destroyed units. But no man would be held in reserve today, and they had gone from that safe position to the most dangerous one, at the very forefront of the attack.
Each of the soldiers had discarded their spear and their shield, their blades still sheathed at their sides. Instead, each man carried – some struggling badly – a small bale of straw or a faggot of sticks. Individually, the burdens were small and unimpressive, but it was surprising how much a thousand such armfuls could change a fight.
Cantex waved at the other officers. ‘To your places, gentlemen. No retreat today.’
And with that, he urged Elusa on down the slope towards the waiting legions.
The battle of Steinvic began a moment later. The reserves with their burdens ran out from the front lines of the legions, pelting over the open ground towards the ramparts. The bolt throwers behind them fell silent, the barrage ended. As they ran, the reserves’ formation becoming more ragged and unimportant as they closed on their target, the enemy reappeared on the rampart top.
Hundreds of natives who had clearly been waiting for the bolt throwers to halt, roared into view atop the grassy mounds, above the remaining stretches of stone rampart or on the ruined, pockmarked earth banks. And more than half of them bore spears, some sort of light, smaller javelin, bows or slings.
The enemy barrage began as the first soldier approached the ditch.
From horseback, as he closed on the front ranks, Bellacon could see the rubble that had collapsed into the ditch, broken away from the walls by the catapults. It far from filled the ditch, but it certainly did some of the job. The first soldier reached the edge and cast his bundle of sticks into the open maw of the ditch, then stiffened as an arrow punched into his chest and fell, following his burden into the hole.
The second man threw his bale of straw and turned, running for safety, only to be struck on the back of the head by a heavy sling stone, his body falling limp, to trip one of his compatriots, who in turn struggled upright to retake his faggot only to receive an ar
row in the eye instead.
The imperial auxiliaries were in position now and, at a command, a cloud of black shafts rose into the morning sky, the air thrumming with taut bowstrings returning to shape as the arrow storm fell across the rampart. Natives died all along the line, but others appeared from inside Steinvic just as rapidly, bolstering the walls now that they knew the true attack was coming.
Native arrows and stones began to fall among the imperial archers, felling them in small pockets. The auxiliaries answered with a second volley, and another cloud of barbed death arced over the grass and fell among the defenders.
While the bulk of the Albantes contended with the imperial archers, a few of their number continued to concentrate on the reserves with their sticks and straw. Mostly spears, which could not hope to reach as far back as the archers, the missiles went about their grisly business.
A soldier with a bundle of sticks reached the edge and raised his hands to cast his burden out as far as he could. A spear punched into his chest and continued through him to jam into the turf behind, leaving him pinned upright to the edge of the ditch. His sticks fell from spasming fingers and tumbled into the ditch as he hung, limp on the shaft.
For all the men they were losing to enemy missiles, the archers had done the job. Despite the number of Albantes they were felling with each volley, the most important effect was to draw the attention of the enemy. This they had achieved, and so more and more of the reserves were casting filler into the ditch, turning, and escaping with their lives.
Bellacon felt for them as they pounded back up the gentle slope, through the gaps in the legions, only to be given a second bundle and sent forward again. It would be hard enough to face that once, let alone twice, and yet the men, without complaint, turned, panting and sweating, and ran back with another bundle.
Bellacon sat astride his horse and watched, his mouth dry. Archers were dying. The reserves were dying. The enemy were losing men on the rampart in droves, but their numbers were constantly replenished. But the ditch was filling. Gradually, slowly, the walls were becoming reachable.
A new type of movement caught his attention and he glanced up at the walls. Wicker screens were being brought up from the inside, of the sort designed to protect men from arrows.
But this was no simple defensive measure, and Bellacon shuddered as he saw that ten naked figures had been bound, spread-eagled, to the outer faces of the wicker shields. Some had slightly darker skin than others, though they were all fairly pale, but there seemed little doubt that they were the men Cantex had left to fight in the noble compound of Steinvic. Only six of the figures moved, the other four already dead, but those six were writhing in panic.
The bastards.
The imperial archers stopped releasing their missiles, and the enemy whooped with delight as their focus once more fell upon the reserves filling the ditch. Soldiers died, and Cantex ground his teeth.
‘Tribune,’ he bellowed towards the archers, ‘get your men loosing their arrows!’
He couldn’t see the auxiliary tribune in the press, but the man clearly heard him, as his commands were bellowed out and repeated. The archers began to send arrows up at the rampart once more. There was a collective aura of unhappiness emanating from the missile troops as inevitably a few of their arrows thudded into the imperial captives, eliciting screams of agony.
The more thoughtful among them began to aim for the naked figures, and arrows punched into the hearts and necks of the pinned men, ending their torment swiftly. As the captives fell motionless, dead, the archers returned to their general barrage. The wicker screens were helping protect the enemy now, though, and the return missiles were falling among the archers and causing a great deal of damage.
Bellacon continued to watch until one of the surviving reserves reached the top of the slope only to discover that they were now out of sticks and straw. His elation at the end of his ordeal was short-lived as he and his friends were, instead, sent to collect their spears and shields and fall in at the rear of the legions.
Less than half the reserves had made it through. Hundreds of bodies lined the ditch and lay scattered across the grass between the defences and the legions. As the last of the reserves pulled back and gathered his equipment, more horn calls blared out, and the gaps in the legions closed, the men returning to their ordered lines.
‘Give the signals,’ Bellacon shouted.
And under his breath: ‘Come on, Cantex. Do your stuff.’
Horn calls blared out, whistles from the officers, calls and orders, standards waved and dipped, the archers jogged back to where they could take opportunistic shots still, and the legions began to move into the fray. Behind, a single fire arrow was released, the missile racing straight upwards, leaving a line of oily black smoke that trailed back to the earth. The missile turned a narrow arc and plunged back to the ground, punching into the turf mere feet from the man who had loosed it.
The signal had been given.
‘Gods be with us.’
Bellacon slapped his mare’s reins and rode forward into battle.
Chapter 29
Cantex shivered. The day was cold enough without sitting in freezing water, but he had to thank the gods of both his home and of this benighted island alike that they had got this far without disaster.
The men on the walls had been inattentive and distracted, given that they were happy their section of rampart was quiet and uninteresting, apart from the occasional close sweep of the imperial cavalry and scouts doing their rounds. The danger lay to the south-west, where the imperial legions were pounding the walls with artillery, and most of the defenders here were looking back across the vastness of Steinvic towards that southern assault. Even those few who weren’t doing so were paying scant attention to their surroundings, bored as they were.
Even before dawn, when Cantex and the others had arrived and before the siege had begun, the focus had been on the south-west, for the inhabitants of Steinvic had known what it meant when the legions drew up in order there and the artillery was positioned to point at the ramparts.
Or at least they had thought they had known.
It had been surprisingly easy, if nerve-wracking, to get himself and his team of five men in position. Unseen from the walls, they had moved from tree to tree in the copse until they were only thirty paces from the base of the walls and the pool that lay before it, formed of the meeting of stream and ditch.
The rain of the previous day had left off, but in its place it had left sullen cloud that obscured the moon completely. While the men atop the walls would stand little or no chance of seeing men moving down in the shadows near the trees, their silhouettes on the rampart were clear enough for the stealthy intruders. The attackers had been slow and careful, knowing that they had hours yet, for all Cantex twitched and chafed, the need to cross those walls and find his prey paramount.
Each time the men atop the wall had moved away, gathering in small groups to warm their hands, chat, and ask about the latest news of the imperial forces away to the south, Cantex had paused, making sure they were clear, and then sent one man running.
One by one they had crossed that dark stretch of turf on light feet until they reached the pool, where they slid in as quietly as they could and stroked their way across the dark water into the tunnel. Cantex had been the last, sending his five men through first.
Once in the tunnel, the men had gone to work instantly, and Cantex had simply let them get on with it.
They were engineers, and that career path clearly involved initiation into a brotherhood that was almost completely unintelligible to outsiders. They had their own humour, spoke their own language, and seemed to ignore the chain of command in favour of some system of academic superiority. In short, they were an enigma. But they were left to be that way because, while it created an insular and occasionally insolent bunch, it did produce men who could achieve marvels and who would rarely refuse a commission.
An engineer had once told Cantex that th
ere was nothing impossible. There were just things for which a solution had yet to be found, so they would cheerfully attempt the impossible purely for the challenge. Well, this task might not be impossible, but it was most certainly tricky.
The five men had immediately fallen to dealing with the task at hand, despite the cramped conditions, the knee-deep icy water and the pitch black. They had whispered questions and suggestions, used barely discernible hand signals, and even drawn in the mud with their fingers.
Though Cantex had not been able to see these drawings other than as vague shapes on the tunnel side, the engineers had nodded thoughtfully and then tweaked the plans with their own fingers.
Then had come the actual work. Cantex had blinked in surprise when the end of a sodden rope had been slapped in his hands and he had been told to tie it to a protruding peg they had somehow managed to drive silently into the roof of the tunnel.
The engineers didn’t care that he was the most senior man in the entire army. All they cared about was that he was a useful pair of hands in the darkness. He watched in frustrated fascination as they produced an iron rod, discussed silently the positioning, then held it sideways at the water level and with some difficulty drove one end into a crack in the bedrock at the stream’s edge.
He frowned as they angled it horizontally, since it didn’t reach across the water, and then blinked again as they extended the rod, telescoping out of itself, a bar inside a thick iron tube, driving the other end into the rock at the far side. Once they were satisfied it was properly wedged, they lined up holes at the odd device’s centre and dropped an iron peg into it, creating a good, solid metal rod across the tunnel at water height.
At their silent urging, he fed the damp rope he was holding beneath the bar and then shuffled back along the stream to the outer edge of the rampart. Over the next hour, as the world perceptibly lightened outside the tunnel entrance with the approach of dawn, five more ropes had been brought to the western end for Cantex to hold.
The tribune had assumed that was it. They had done what they were here to do. He was wrong. As he sat fretting at every moment of delay in which he was not avenging Convocus by driving two feet of steel through the queen, the engineers went about a baffling array of tasks, none of which seemed to have any purpose, prodding this and nudging that, testing the weight of this and changing the position of that by an infinitesimal degree.
Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Page 32