by Vox Day
“We’ll do better this time, sir. We were, uh, just trying to avoid our own horse.”
Fuscus nodded angrily and stalked away to shout at another onager crew. Secundus turned to his two fellow crew members and shrugged. This particular machine had been a nightmare ever since they’d been assigned to it. But there was nothing to be done, so they put their shoulders to it and muscled it to a position where it was aiming just a little east of where the cavalry battle was most fiercely raging.
“Do you see that decurion?” Secundus pointed to one of the enemy knights who could just barely be distinguished from the others by his plumed helm. “We’ll use him as our reference. If the left beam is warped, that might explain why we’re dropping the rocks so far to the right of where we want them. Maybe we just have to compensate for it.”
Together, they took another rock from the pile of eight remaining ones and loaded the big leather pouch. Fuscus inserted the pin to secure the arm, and the other two ballistarii winched it down, grunting as the twisted ropes were strained by the tremendous tension. Secundus nodded when the arm was down far enough and twirled his hammer. He eyed the decurion again, just to be sure of himself, and was raising his arm to drive the pin out and let the onager kick when the hidden fault in the wooden beam gave way.
The onager didn’t kick so much as erupt. The wood splintered, the ropes snapped, and the rock simply dropped onto the ground with a dull thud.
Secundus screamed and clutched at his abdomen where a thick block of oak had gone all the way through him and poked out his back like a large, bloody wart.
“Am I going to die? Am I going to be all right?” He begged the optio to reassure him. “Please, I don’t want to die! I didn’t do anything wrong! I swear, it just went to pieces!”
Fuscus sighed and shook his head. “Bloody hell, Clodius, only you could get yourself wounded so bad when you’re perfectly safe at the rear. Now shut up, knock off with the crying, and let’s get you comfortable. We’ll get a medicus over here to take that out, and you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine!”
Fuscus was lying. The optio was a mean, hard-hearted man. He’d seen scores of men under his command die. Clodius Secundus wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last.
Even so, Fuscus crouched down beside the stricken ballistarius and continued to talk with him until the unlucky young man finally stopped his pathetic crying. Then he reached out and gently closed the eyes on the tear-stained face before standing up and turning to the tribune that Magnus had sent to keep an eye on the right flank as it came under pressure from the enemy cavalry.
“Tell Magnus I’ll want to know who sold us the beams for these onagers. We’ve got a big bone to pick with the thieving bastard.”
The battle was proceeding beautifully according to plan, insofar as Nobilianus could see. The infantry was in a good position on the slope and holding strong despite the best efforts of the rebel legion to dislodge them. Now Legio XV’s cavalry wing had finally been unleashed, and they were driving back the rebel horse with ease.
Magnus’s knights were still holding their formation, retreating before each charge, only to regroup as soon as the tribune commanding the wing called them to heel. But the rebels lost a few more knights with each pass, riders they could not afford to lose, and as the wagons of the rebel baggage train came within sight, Nobilianus sensed that one more charge would break them.
He glanced back at his squadron, which had the honor of serving as spearhead to the three hundred-strong wedge of the united cavalry wing. They were in good order, having lost only two men in the initial encounter. Unfortunately, one of them had been Carus, who’d taken a lance through the leg, leaving him with only one junior decurion. But, perhaps because they were fighting fellow Amorrans, his knights had so far been inclined to keep their customary freelancing to a minimum. Only a few of them still had their spears, but their swords would be sufficient.
The only question, to his mind, was whether they would be ordered to attack the baggage train or the left flank of the enemy foot. He hoped for the former, as there would be considerably more loot to be had from the train than from the pathetic corpses of the commoners.
The horn blew. Nobilianus drew his sword again and called out to his squadron.
“Wedge on me! This time they run! For Amorr and Vallyria!”
“Amorr and Vallyria!” the knights shouted back.
The charge began, slowly as it always did, with the horses trotting, then cantering, and then, to his savage satisfaction, he saw the enemy horse turn tail and flee instead of riding forth to meet them.
Seeing them turn, Nobilianus kicked Phasmatis into a full gallop. He could hear the thunder of the twenty-seven horses behind him as his men did the same. He was close enough now to see the faces of the rebel knights, white with fear as they lashed their horses, desperate to escape the field of battle.
“We have them!” he turned his head and shouted gleefully to no one in particular. The entire world was shaking and thundering, a glorious chaos of wind and the excited fever of the hunt, as he chased the fleeing rebels. He might have been alone instead of at the fore of some three hundred horse, or the lead hound in a pack chasing a terrified fox. And he was gaining on them!
At first, he thought his horse was simply faster. Then he realized the enemy was slowing, though he couldn’t imagine why. As he galloped closer and closer to them, he could see they were forming into columns even as they continued to flee. What could possibly be the sense of that? The answer struck him just as the last line of the enemy horse broke apart, revealing the menacing, well-spaced lines of at least three centuries of infantry. The retreating horse disappeared down the columns opened for them like water running out a sieve.
No sooner had the last horse galloped through the gaps than the lines began to close, with each spearman in the second rank stepping forward and to the right to block the way forward.
Magnus had played them, Nobilianus realized with horror, and played them badly. With the charge already at full speed and the squadron wedge following upon his heels, there was no way to avoid crashing into the deadly forest of pila planted in the ground and waiting for them. Trying to stop would be futile and almost surely more fatal than trying to break through, so he aimed at a gap slightly to his left that a legionary had failed to fill, urged Phasmatis on with his heels, and prayed that the horse wouldn’t shy from the spear wall.
“Amorr!”
He crashed into the enemy lines, slashing blindly to his left and to his right with his sword. Spearheads jabbed up toward him as he rode past, licking up past his face and then down again like lethal dragon’s tongues. But aside from one that bounced off his shield, he was miraculously unharmed.
Somehow, he was very nearly through the infantry line! Then Phasmatis screamed and shuddered as one spear plunged into his breast, followed rapidly by two more in his right side. The mortally wounded horse twisted and tumbled, sending Nobilianus flying head over heels beyond the enemy’s rear. He slammed onto the ground, fortunately on his back rather than his neck, but the force of the impact took his breath away.
The decurion lay there for a moment, heaving madly as he struggled for air, then rolled to his stomach and began to push himself up. He had just enough air to scream as the metal tip of the lance held by the enemy rider, now galloping back toward the melee, penetrated his mouth and punched through the back of his skull. His neck snapped and his body flopped over like a rag doll as his killer galloped past him, cursing and trying to free his fouled lance.
Aulan dragged the body of the dead decurion for some distance before concluding that his lance was hopelessly stuck. “Hey, you!” he shouted at a nearby legionary who was watching him with bemusement. “Make yourself useful!”
The soldier obediently jogged over, and with a little effort, managed to pull the lance free from the corpse. “Mind if I, uh, you know?” The gold ring on the dead man’s finger clearly hadn’t escaped his attention.
Aul
an laughed and shook his head. “Not often you get to loot a decurion, eh? He’s yours, but if he’s got any papers on him, give them to your centurion.”
“Yes, sir,” the man saluted energetically. “Thank you, sir!”
Aulan acknowledged him with an indifferent nod and looked past the killing ground, where the three centuries of the first cohort were busy slaughtering the greater part of the younger Valerian’s cavalry, which was now caught in his uncle’s lethal trap. It was brutal butchery.
Several of his own squadrons were already chasing the few horsemen who’d somehow avoided the trap back up the hill, but Magnus had more in mind than the mere destruction of the enemy cavalry. Aulan waved to his draconarius, who blew the signal to gather on the banner, then had him follow at a slow trot around the infantry and up the slope. It wasn’t long before the senior decurions were gathered around him, breathless and excited by how well the plan had worked.
“Well done, gentlemen. We’ve got a free hand now,” Aulan observed. “So let’s make the most of it and see what Legio XV is made of. Nothing much, I expect. We’ll ride wide and hit them in the side. Give them room to run, though—they’re more useful to us spooked than dead.”
The infantry lines were still fully engaged when they reached the heights. They’d come under attack by some slingers but were taking no serious casualties as the ballistarii covering their movement from below soon had the slingers disrupted and retreating out of range in disarray. But whereas their own infantry managed a smooth rotation, Legio XV made a shambles of theirs as the rear ranks were more occupied with watching the approach of Aulan’s wing than following their centurions’ directions.
Aulan raised his hand, and the squadrons began to form up in three large wedges around him, as they’d previously arranged. He laughed as he saw the enemy flank start turning haphazardly before any signal was given. Their discipline was breaking down. He closed his hand, and in response, the knights began clashing their mailed fists on their shields and chanting.
“Magnus! Magnus! Magnus!”
He waited a moment, letting the terror build in the enemy formation, already under heavy pressure from the veteran infantry at their front. The infantry, sensing weakness, took up the chant and redoubled their efforts. The front line began to buckle.
That was the moment Aulan was waiting for. He whistled at his draconarius, who promptly sounded the charge. One hundred twenty knights roared in response, and the three wedges, each led by a much-decorated decurion, hurled themselves toward the enemy’s right flank.
Fifty paces separated the points of the wedge from the enemy. Forty. Thirty. At twenty, Legio XV broke, the first of more than four thousand legionaries began to turn their backs to their attackers, and for the first time in history, a Valerian legion began to flee the field.
Victory! Aulan would have given much to see that clever bastard Clericus’s face right now, realizing that he’d been outsmarted and outgeneraled by his uncle. But he made do with driving his lance into the back of a retreating legionary. He hoped that somewhere, somehow, his father was watching Valerians kill Valerians, and laughing.
As the battle raged up the hill, the bodies of men and horses below were forgotten.
But not by everyone.
Eyepopper came in steeply and landed awkwardly on a horse, from which he was promptly driven by a protesting raven half again his size. He cawed in futile defiance, then hopped onto the chest of a man whose head was hanging awkwardly to the side, partially obscuring one eye.
Eyepopper turned his own head to the side, wondering how he might get at it, then he pecked eagerly at the more accessible orb. It burst open with the usual pop, and Eyepopper cheerfully began his much-anticipated repaste with no small degree of relish.
MARCUS
Five days had passed since his unexpected defeat at the hands of Magnus. Five days and four mostly sleepless nights since his legion had retreated in shock and dismay from the battlefield to the legionary fortress at Montmila.
During the days, Marcus was too busy giving orders and keeping up a brave face for his men to dwell upon what had happened, though it nearly killed him to look them in the eyes.
He had failed them. All of them. He had failed the living, the wounded, and worst of all, the dead. Their fears that his youth and inexperience would let them down had come to pass, and at the very worst possible time. He knew tha,t if he let them see weakness, if he let them see his remorse, he would lose them entirely. So he smiled, and nodded, and slapped them on the back. And he never showed them any sign of the doubts that filled his heart.
It was the nights he dreaded most. No sooner was he alone than he relived the battle and his preparations at least twenty times each night. There had been so many mistakes, but which one was the crucial one? Should he have ordered his horse not to pursue? He knew from personal experience how futile such orders could be when every knight was sure the enemy was ready to run. Had it been a mistake to reinforce Legio XV’s knights with an entire wing from Legio XVII?
He’d had the numbers! He’d grabbed the better ground! He’d made the enemy come to him! He’d done everything right—everything except win.
One hundred fifty horse to his four hundred fifty, and they’d still destroyed two-thirds of his knights and driven his infantry from the field. How was that even possible? Was Magnus a genius? A wizard? He’d grown up in the man’s house, he’d studied most of the man’s battles, and yet he still couldn’t figure out how his uncle could possibly have won the day with all the odds stacked against him. If he hadn’t been there and witnessed it, he would not have believed it possible.
With the exception of the First Knights, who’d died on his shattered right flank, Legio XVII’s losses hadn’t actually been terribly severe. Most of the casualties were taken by Legio XV before they broke and ran, and before their senior centurions betrayed him by surrendering to his uncle the day after the battle.
At that single stroke, his fighting forces had gone from ten thousand to four thousand, while Magnus’s had grown to the point that he now had more than three men for Marcus’s two. And despite Legio XVII’s successful retreat to Montmila, it was only a matter of time before he would have to decide whether to surrender it or order the men to take the field again despite being outnumbered and demoralized.
He stared down at the crumpled letter from Magnus, and unable to help himself, began reading it again. It was a portrait in magnanimity, carefully composed to spare his feelings and flatter whatever might remain of his pretensions. But his uncle’s iron fist was there, unmistakably, with no pretensions of concealing it beneath the fine velvet glove.
To M. Valerius Clericus, tribunus militum, legatus locum Legio XVII
Montmila (Ianuarius)
My dear nephew and namesake, I hope you will allow me to congratulate you on your remarkable performance in admirably filling in for the late Marcus Saturnius as legatus locum tenens for Legio XVII. I know you well, Marcus, and I know how the sting of this defeat will be painful to you. But it is no hollow compliment when I tell you that I would count this among the foremost of my victories were it not for it having been won against my own House and my own legions. Your strategy was decisive, your tactics were sound, and even in defeat, your leadership was magnificent. Far more experienced generals than you have failed to execute such a well-disciplined fighting withdrawal from the battlefield.
But, as you have now learned, the wisdom of age and the lessons of experience will trump even the most gifted young mind. So I call upon you to heed that wisdom, to listen to the voice of that experience, and come to me. I do not ask you or your men to lay down your arms, as I will have need of them, come spring. I do not have so many officers of skill and experience at my disposal that I would spurn your services, nor will I hold against you what might be seen by some as a rebellion against the rightful Lord of your House. I am aware that you were only seeking to continue to serve Amorr and honor your tribune’s oath to the best of your unders
tanding and ability.
Your ability, as I always believed it would be, has proved prodigious. However, your understanding of the complicated and unprecedented situation that has arisen in Amorr, in Vallyria, and in the allied cities is understandably deficient. I shall, of course, be pleased to fully apprise you of it upon your arrival, but suffice it to say that the Amorr of the Senate and People we knew and served is no more.
While the empire and its trappings still exist in superficial form, there is no life in them. Not only are the imperial provinces in revolt, but after years of having their demands for full imperial citizenship rejected, in no small part due to me and my party, the Utruccan allies have formally rejected Senatorial rule and formed an independent league that dwarfs Amorr in manpower and geography alike. Vallyria is of course among them. So, as Dux Vallyria, it now falls to me to lead our House legions on behalf of the Vallyrian people and their ruling council.
You know the motto of our mutual House: Our House is Amorr. But what you must understand this means is that our allegiance must be to House Valerius, not to what is the now-shattered empire of Amorr. It is our House that is Amorr, not Amorr that is our House! Marcus, I call upon you to be faithful to your House, to be true to your ancestors, and to be honest with yourself. You are House Valerius first and foremost, and therefore I expect you to surrender Legio XV to me within seven days of receiving this letter.
In other news, Sextus sends you his greetings and his best regards. He was betrothed to Severa, the daughter of A. Severus Patronus, at the winter festival, and by this time will have been elected tribunus militum as well. So, as you see, much has changed, and it is becumbent upon us to ride the waves of those changes to the benefit of our House and the people of Vallyria.