The Illyrian ship had drifted too close to come broadside so it first rowed away. However, after circling quickly, the warship came at the merchant vessel almost head-on.
***
Alerio stepped in front of the six Legionaries standing in the center of the cargo deck. They looked dejected and afraid as they watched the warship bare down on them.
“We’re going to die out here, aren’t we?” asked one of the Legionaries.
“Illyrians are known to be tough fighters and there are over a hundred of them,” another stated. “We’re perfututum, for sure.”
The Legionaries were looking at the entire battlefield and mentally casting themselves into the morass of a defeat. They should be concentrating on the unit’s area of responsibility, instead of potentially being massacred.
“Stretch your arms out to the sides,” ordered Alerio. After the six men complied, he continued, “That is the width of your kill zone. In front of you are fifteen feet of deck, that’s the depth of your kill zone. Just like a fight in an open field with a full Legion, you are only responsible for the Illyrians entering your kill zone. Now here’s the best part…”
The six bent forward hoping to hear some good news about this bad situation.
“The rail height of this merchant ship is nine feet above the water. She’s empty and riding high,” explained Alerio. “The bireme tops out at seven feet. So, just like an enemy crossing a trench, they’ll stumble when they enter your kill zone. Here’s another thing. I can guarantee you, they won’t have cavalry.”
“Unless they can ride seahorses,” one of the Legionnaires joked.
The six men laughed and some of the tension faded. Alerio marched to the last man in line. He locked eyes with the man before hamming a fist down onto the Legionary’s right shoulder. Without a word, he continued to strike each of them while looking into their eyes. Sometimes the bracing effect of a leader comes from a steady presence rather than pretty words.
***
Grappling hooks flew across the open space and Illyrians sailors pulled hard on the lines. The warship and the merchant vessel drew together until they were joined as one platform on the open sea.
“Steady. Hold position,” Alerio said from behind the line of his unit.
While the bireme was a little over a hundred feet long, the merchant ship was only sixty. This funneled the Illyrian fighters, limiting the number who could cross over at one time.
“Forward,” Alerio ordered calmly as if it were a parade maneuver and not a march toward screaming pirates. “Advance. Advance. Advance.”
The shields thrust forward followed by the stabbing of gladii. Once, and twice, then again, before Alerio ordered, “Four paces back.”
The directions confused the six Legionaries. They had the enemy stopped at the rail and couldn’t figure out why the Lance Corporal ordered a retreat. Two looked back.
“Do I look like an Illyrian sailor?” shouted Alerio. “Four paces back, now.”
The fury in his voice overcame the confusion and the six stepped away from the line of bleeding and dead pirates.
“Mind your front. Steady,” Alerio stated with a measured tone. More Illyrians jumped up on the rail, paused, and then stepped to the cargo covering boards. “Forward, advance. Advance. Advance. Advance.”
Once the wave of attackers was chopped down, or injured and reeling from the Legionaries’ assault, Alerio ordered, “Four paces back.”
This time the six Legionaries followed directions. Peering over their shields, they immediately saw the reason for the retreat order.
The first group of Illyrians had easily jumped the two feet up to the merchant ship. As more crowded forward, eager to get into the fight, they pushed those ahead, making them trip over the two feet difference. Now, as they fell over the rail, they had to scramble over the stacked bodies of their fellow pirates before facing the shields and gladii of the Legionaries.
“Forward. Advance. Advance. Advance,” called out Alerio. His unit met and hacked into the newly arrived pirates. “Step back four paces.”
A horn blared from the Illyrian warship and Alerio watched as heads disappeared below the rail. Shortly after, shields appeared over the grappling hooks and when the shields withdraw, the hooks were gone. The warship drifted far enough away for their oars to dip, and the ship glided away.
“Not so tough, are they?” he asked of his unit.
Two Legionaries dropped to their knees from injuries, but as they collapsed, he heard them say, “Not so tough, Lance Corporal.”
On the cargo boards of the merchant vessel, Legionaries bent to render aid to their wounded. Others bent to dispatch living Illyrians while another team tossed the bodies over the side.
Alerio stood tall and looked up and down the merchant vessel. Hadrian still manned the oar and all four of the Legionaries on the raised platform were uninjured. On the aft cargo boards, Second Squad’s Lance Corporal was directing the clearing of the deck. Toward the bow, Third’s squad leader was doing the same. Overall, the Legionaries had done well, Alerio thought. Then, his legs weakened, his mind went blank, and he tumbled to the deck.
Chapter 29 - The Battle at Bovesia
“Is he dead?” a Legionary asked.
“No, the insane gladius instructor is resting,” Private Lupus answered.
Alerio opened his eyes and peered up at the two Legionaries.
“I just needed a nap,” Alerio said. With his mouth dry and his lips stiff as if they would crack, he asked, “Water?”
An arm slid behind his back and lifted him to a sitting position. Alerio expected intense agony, but his wounds were numb and only throbbed with deep aches. A clay mug of water touched his lower lip and he grasped it with his hands and sucked down the contents. After two more mugs of water, Alerio took time to inspect his wounds.
Spots of red dotted the bandages on his thigh and side. He’d cracked the cauterized skin and blood was leaking through from the wounds.
“Want me to heat up the iron poker?” asked Lupus with a little too much enthusiasm. He pointed at the wet spots.
“No. No, but thank you,” Alerio replied quickly. “They’re just spotting. What did I miss? Did the Illyrians come back?”
“They’re just sitting there licking their wounds like a mountain ram after a fight with a wolf pack,” Lupus said. “And deciding if they want to come back for another kick in the cūlus from our lads. Oh, and those warships arrived.”
Alerio followed the direction indicated by the outstretched arm. At Bova Beach, two more Illyrian biremes approached the shoreline.
As the warships neared the beach, a stream of citizens from the lower levels of Bovesia scurried up the stairs with boxes, amphorae, and bundles of their most valued possessions. On the second tier, Legionaries were stacked three-deep on the narrow stairs. Corporal Cephas had beefed up the choke point, but had to break the line to allow the civilians to pass.
“Can they hold?” asked Alerio.
“For a while, maybe. But there are over two hundred fifty Illyrians about to come knocking on their door,” Lupus replied.
“Reminds me of Thermopylae,” Alerio said remembering lessons from when he was younger. “If we could get there…”
“We’d all die, gladius instructor,” said Lupus. “There’s no way anything less than three full Centuries could face those pirates.”
***
The oarsmen on the biremes stroked steadily as they approached the beach. Just before reaching shore, they shipped all oars, and the warships ran hard aground. Ramps dropped from the fore sections. Then, nothing happened. No Illyrians poured down the ramps, or left their stations; no one moved around preparing for the attack.
From one of the ships, a body was thrown. It sailed through the air and landed like a sack of grain. There it lay; a solid unmoving lump. The body seemed to be a signal as pirates began pouring down the ramps.
About half carried shields, armor and swords while the other half came down bar
e-chested and armed with the wicked sicas and spears. Those would be the oarsmen. Once on the beach, the Illyrians from both warships gathered below the bow one of the ships.
A man strutted to the bow deck and raised his arms. His mouth moved but Alerio couldn’t hear the words. He noticed a dramatic lean forward by the assembled Illyrians when the man indicated the body.
Two pirates appeared dragging a third man up behind the speaker. The speaker pulled a long knife and stabbed downward into the prisoner’s chest. A roar from the crowd reached Alerio and faded when the stabbed man was tossed off the ship. He landed half on the beach with his hips and legs in the surf.
The speaker pointed up hill toward Bovesia. There was a pause then the Illyrians charged across the beach directly for the stairs and the Legionaries waiting high above.
Alerio cringed as the mob moved. He relaxed a little as they bunched up pushing and shoving while trying to gain the stairs. Their greater numbers looked more manageable once the Illyrians were compressed to five abreast on the risers. At the first level, they spread out; they were again jammed together on the stairs as they approached Corporal Cephas and his Legionaries.
Blinking to clear his distance vision, Alerio strained to see details of the Legionary line. In the third rank, standing head and shoulders above any of the men, stood Hyllus. On one arm was slung a huge bronze shield. In his other hand, he gripped a long spear. Alerio couldn’t locate Marija but he was confident she was somewhere near her man.
The first rank of pirates approached the solid line of interlocking shields. They slowed, but the pent-up pressure from those following drove the first into the shields. Alerio couldn’t hear the command, it wasn’t necessary. The shields thrust forward and were pulled back. When the gladii followed they sank into the chests and necks of the tightly packed pirates. Some fell at the feet of the attackers blocking them. Others, wounded or dead, were lifted by the throng and passed overhead downward until there was room to throw the bodies off to the side.
While the Legionaries slaughtered those on the stairs, other Illyrians began to stack objects at the buildings. Once their hands reached the roof of a building, the pirates began to climb up. Four Legionaries appeared on the roof and began to fight with the climbers. From the landing behind the building on the other side of the stairs, three Legionaries and Marija jumped from the second level and raced across the roof to engage the Illyrians.
The Macedonian innkeeper was a good as her reputation. Sweeping back and forth with a spear tipped by a sharp broad-head, she defended a section of the roof. The Illyrians trying to avoid the woman and her spear ran into the Legionaries. They took care of the wet combat while Marija continued to herd newly arriving pirates into the shields and gladii. But more were crawling over the lip of the roof forcing Marija and her Legionaries to step back as they fought.
Below that fight, on the stairs, Hyllus jabbed his long spear over the head of a Legionary. With each thrust, an Illyrian fell out of sight and under the feet of his comrades. But here as well, the sheer number of pirates was taking a toll. The ranks of Legionaries were down to two lines of defenders.
On the other roof, one Legionary lay dead and the three remaining were almost lost in a ring of Illyrians.
A scream of frustration burst from Alerio. Hadrian and the Legionaries tore their eyes from the battle and looked at him.
“I can’t just sit here floating around with my mentula in my hand,” Alerio yelled. “They’re getting massacred. I need to be there.”
As he talked, Alerio struggled to his feet. Private Lupus rushed to his side.
“Gladius instructor. There’s nothing we can do for them,” the older Private stated. “If we were on that beach, we’d die as sure as a river trout meeting an ocean shark.”
Alerio deflated and his shoulders slumped. As he raised his eyes to the battle at Bovesia, the trumpet from the stand rang out three sharp notes.
“What now?” Lupus asked. “More Illyrians?”
Chapter 30 – Sixty-four Greeks on Bova Beach
Faster than the pirate’s biremes, taller by a few feet, and dipping one hundred eighty oars on each stroke, the Greek triremes sped toward Bova beach from the east. As they came near shallow water, one veered off and headed toward the warship guarding the merchant vessel.
Three banks of oars propelled the Greeks closer and closer to the pirate and merchant ship. The Illyrians dipped oars and turned away from the charging warship. They headed toward deep water with the trireme in pursuit.
“To the patrol boat,” Third Squad’s Lance Corporal bellowed. It seemed Alerio wasn’t the only one frustrated by the situation.
Before anyone could move, the first Greek warship ground onto Bova Beach. Ramps dropped and armored men carrying large bronze shields descended. They didn’t rush toward the fight.
The Greek ship kept disembarking men until two groups stood on the beach. From the ship, men passed down long spears and these were distributed to the men on the beach.
“There’s only about sixty-four of them,” Lupus commented. “Just a fat Century’s worth of fighters. Why didn’t the other ship come in?”
The Legionaries’, a second ago elated at the Greek’s arrival, now sank into despair.
“It’s a tight battlefield,” observed Alerio. “The Greek Hoplites are renowned as close formation fighters.”
“They may be good but sixty-four against almost two hundred isn’t good odds,” commented Lupus. “They’ll get swallowed up like a sparrow meeting a vulture.”
Some of the Legionaries had legs over the rail and they paused on that perch. Others were crowded behind them. No matter where they were on the merchant ship, they shifted their eyes between the fighting at Bovesia and the Greeks on Bova Beach.
***
Four Greeks stepped out in line. They began to slowly shuffle toward the Illyrians. Four men from the other group also stepped off. Their long spears held up as if they each carried a flag pole.
The two groups of eight men continued to kick sand as they walked down the beach. Four more men joined the march, then four more until each group had thirty-two men in the loose, slow moving formations. To the watching Legionaries, the Greek formations weren’t impressive.
The Illyrians had noticed the gathering of Greeks on the beach. Almost three quarters of them broke from the fight with the Legionaries and rushed down to the beach to meet the new enemy.
“At least the Greeks have pulled Illyrians from the town,” Alerio said.
“That gladius instructor,” commented Lupus. “Is a good thing. Even if the Greeks are going to die, their sacrifice will save Legionaries.”
While the pirates moved into rough lines facing the odd formations, the Greeks continued to shuffle awkwardly forward through the rocks and sand. Legionaries marched, Illyrians swaggered, so neither side could figure why the Greeks couldn’t pick up their feet.
The pirates didn’t care, they yelled and broke into a hard charge at the Greeks. In response, the Greeks closed ranks until their formation shrunk.
“They need to come on line,” stated Private Lupus. “You can’t swing a sword or defend with your shield in a formation that tightly packed.”
The fastest of the Illyrians had covered half the distance to the Greeks. In a few heartbeats, they would barrel into the tightly pack masses and disrupt the formations.
Suddenly, all the Greek shields lifted and touched edges. Because of the density of packed men, the shields ended up covering the formations from ground level to overhead, and down to the ground on the other side. Where the long spears had jetted into the air, they were now parallel to the beach aimed directly at the charging Illyrians. The awkward, shuffling steps allowed each formation to move steadily while keeping their shields together. They powered up the beach encased in a shell of shields bristling with spears.
“They look like armored porcupines,” said Lupus.
“The Greek phalanx,” observed Alerio. “It takes a lot of tra
ining to get it right and to keep it tight in battle.”
“How would you defeat the formation, gladius instructor?” Lupus asked.
“I would suggest you not stand in front of a phalanx,” said Alerio. “It’s not fast but it would be a tough nut to crack. Give them room and chip away at the sides like cutting down an old oak tree.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” replied Lupus.
The first Illyrians to reach the Greeks, zigzagged between the longest spears. But some of the spears were drawn into the formation. When the pirates dodged the long spears, the short spears thrust forward impaling them on the tips. Others never made it to the short spears as the long spears swept sideways knocking the Illyrians to the ground. Those who fell, disappeared under the bottom of the forward shields. When the formations passed beyond the spot where they hit the ground, the bodies weren’t recognizable as human remains.
The Illyrians clashed against the phalanx from the front. It seemed as if they collided with a huge rolling boulder. Those not impaled bounced off the shields and vanished under the steadily advancing formations.
The Greek formations remained apart. Each clearing a section of the beach. Now, as Illyrians realized the moving fortresses couldn’t be breached, they stepped out of the way and clustered between the formations. That’s when each phalanx stopped.
For three heartbeats, the pirates stood between the massed shields. Puzzled by the lack of motion, they peered at each other, or stared at the wall of Greek shields. Then, the Greeks began moving again.
One step forward, two steps forward followed by a ninety-degree pivot. The formations began closing the distance between the two, trapping and mangling the Illyrians caught between them. Most Illyrians, seeing they again faced the front of the phalanx formations, broke ranks and ran for their ships.
The final few remaining between the phalanx-vice felt a slight relief when the shield-shell broke apart. It was a small moment, soon replaced by apprehension when a line of Greeks stepped forward and drew their swords. They tapped their blades on their shields as a challenge.
Bloody Water (Clay Warrior Stories Book 3) Page 10