by Alan Smale
Hadrianus had wanted such exercises to begin the previous week. His Praetors had demurred, Marcellinus included. The men were not prepared yet. The Hesperians especially needed much more training in their individual cohorts before coming together as an army.
Well, the sands of time were draining away. They would just have to be ready now.
The closest Mongol scouts began to move again, this time to the right. They would keep their distance but climb to the top of a different hill for another view of the encampment of the Imperium and the League.
Two more cornu blasts came, each with a distinct pattern, separated by a few seconds. Ifer nodded and moved to the ladder. The first signal had come from the Sky Lantern above them, broadcasting the information that the Mongol scout party was on the move. The second signal came from behind them in camp and was the call to senior officers. The Imperator was summoning his Praetors. The tribunes would also muster, ready to execute whatever orders came down from on high.
The rank and file were preparing, too. Below Marcellinus men were marshaling, the laggards now out of their tents, centurions and decurions barking out orders to hurry their troops. Everyone knew today would be a day of action. Not a battle, but the next best thing.
And drifting above it all, and if anything even more apparent at the height of the Wakinyan launch tower, came another strong waft of ordure.
Enopay was not wrong. Forward Camp reeked.
—
By moonlight, Marcellinus walked the streets of the inner castra with Decinius Sabinus and Lucius Agrippa, agreeing on details of men and assignments for the deployment exercise they planned for the morrow. Afterward he exited into the still tragically disorganized mess of the outer camp to meet with Tahtay, Akecheta, Mahkah, and Hanska about Hesperian support of the exercise. Returning at long last to his tent, he found Sintikala and Enopay discussing how to construct a makeshift Longhouse of the Wings closer to the launchers, and the most efficient way of transporting more Catanwakuwa from the quinqueremes to this longhouse. They needed to complete this as a matter of some urgency, as they were still unable to fly the Hawk patrols that would become essential as the enemy neared. However, as soon as Marcellinus appeared, Enopay strategically yawned and excused himself, at which point Sintikala challenged Marcellinus to a skirmish of a most energetic and pleasant nature that kept them engaged for some time. They fell asleep wrapped around each other, which complicated their abrupt awakening just a few hours later.
In the dark before the dawn, the sky lit up, and there was an earsplitting bang that seemed to come from mere inches away. Marcellinus’s eyes snapped open.
Through the walls of the deerskin tent Marcellinus saw the remains of a bright flash. Almost at the same time came another explosion, the scatter of sparks, and a sharp smell that he recognized from his nightmares.
Jin salt, the black powder of far eastern Asia, had come to Forward Camp. The Mongols were assaulting them with thunderclap bombs.
Sintikala awoke all at once and lashed out, thumping Marcellinus on the side of the head. They rolled, limbs entangled. “Shit!”
Shoving him away, Sintikala leaped up and lunged for the doorskin of the tent. Marcellinus was on his feet just moments later. A deep fear gripped him. Even after all this time the images of the Night of Knives, the treacherous Iroqua night assault on Cahokia, were still vivid in his memory. Sintikala’s accidental clipping of his ear brought a pulse of pain reminiscent of the head injury he had sustained later that day. And over and above it all was his terror-filled realization that the Mongols were here attacking Forward Camp when they should have still been at least two hundred miles away…
And, not least, his fear for Sintikala, who had just run naked out of the tent they shared into what might already be a battlefield.
He burst out of the tent and looked up into a sky where it seemed that the stars were exploding, yet he saw no enemies in the streets, only befuddled legionaries stirring themselves. The explosions still rang in his ears, along with the babble of confused voices in many languages, but he heard no screams of pain or torment.
Another dazzling light flashed above him. He instinctively flinched away—might such a glare blind him?—but soon glanced back to see a blob of red, white, and purple light falling slowly through the air. To illuminate the camp so that the attackers could pick out targets?
Forward Camp could not withstand a siege. That was not its purpose. Its fence of wattle and daub was mostly to keep the horses in and the mules out. A ditch six feet deep surrounded that fence, and the prairie sod and earth thus excavated formed a low wall around the camp, but they had no palisade. If the Mongols attacked in force, their defenses would provide little protection.
Marcellinus ducked back into his tent. He grabbed breechcloth and tunic, greaves and breastplate, and dressed for war as best he could.
Another, much larger explosion came. Now he heard screaming, and it was only about a hundred yards away.
Marcellinus’s head pounded. He needed to protect it or his confidence would be gone, sapped by his fear of a disabling injury. He grabbed his Praetor’s helmet, despite the white plume that would glow in the rocket’s glare and make him a target, and shoved it onto his head. He snatched a gladius, and finally he was ready for whatever the night might bring. Out he went again.
The support struts for the Wakinyan launcher were aflame, the wood blazing merrily. As he watched, a second thunderclap bomb came in, lobbed by an unseen engine outside the camp, and exploded in a sudden bright sun just a few tens of feet away from the main tower of the launcher. Marcellinus registered fleeting impressions of a myriad of small flying objects radiating from the explosion in a sharp cloud and then the screams of agony from the men who were trying to fight the fire.
Two Roman trumpets sounded at once. Then one mercifully fell silent, allowing him to decode the message of the other.
Marcellinus broke into a run, calling for Mahkah, then changed his mind and his direction, swerving right. “Hanska! Third Cahokian! Up and to horse!”
Mahkah was prudent where his horse was concerned. He loved the fine four-legs, and his guilt at being responsible for the crippling of one might slow him down at this critical time. Hanska, though, viewed horses with little sentiment and was crazy enough for anything. And indeed she was up already, she and a good two dozen of her warriors, only half of them wearing even a tunic, let alone armor, but all on their feet and rushing to their mounts as the skies erupted around them.
Marcellinus ran up to her, panting. “Blinkers!”
“I’m not fucking stupid,” Hanska snapped, and indeed she had already strapped the leather cups to her horse’s head, the tack that attached to the cheek plates and prevented a horse from seeing to the rear or the side, allowing it to look only directly ahead. “Who do we kill?”
“They must have a trebuchet throwing thunderclap bombs, with Jin rockets to light their way.”
Hanska stamped her foot. “Yes, of course…Gaius, how many of what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Mongol light cavalry?”
“Very fucking useful.” Hanska leaped onto her horse. “Third! Come on!”
Marcellinus’s warhorse was in a stall deep in the castra. Even if he’d had time, he didn’t know where to find it. A trooper of his First Cohort always brought it to him when he needed it. “Futete,” he said.
He saw no saddled horse that did not already have a Cahokian astride it. He did, however, hear the chink of Roman armor and see three ragged centuries of the Sixth jogging toward the Westgate. They clearly had donned their armor in a hurry, but at least they were carrying scuta and pila.
That would have to do. He was almost relieved. Damned if he felt confident enough to ride an unfamiliar horse by night anyway. Horses had better night vision than people but were also more likely to spook in the dark. They sometimes could not tell shadows from holes and might shy or bolt without warning. He was better off on foot.
Marcellinus ran to his
infantry. He did not recognize the centurion leading the squad, just another short-haired, muscular soldier with clear skin. Without tattoos, Marcellinus now found Romans difficult to tell apart. The centurion recognized him, though, or at least his Praetor’s plume, and snapped him a salute. Marcellinus fell in alongside the centurion at a steady jog as another batch of the Sixth ran to join them.
Where the hell was Sintikala? As if in answer, he heard the creaking twang of the launch equipment behind him as a Catanwakuwa shot over his head. He glimpsed it only for an instant before it was gone into the night. Briefly Marcellinus hoped she had found something to wear, and then there was no time for any further distracting thoughts because the Westgate was in front of them, and they were about to charge out of the camp and into gods knew what…
Yet another rocket exploded in the sky, just in time for its light to alert Marcellinus to a hole in front of him. He hopped over it and kept running, through the open gate and out into the night.
—
The gate was not wide enough for infantry and cavalry to exit side by side. Hanska’s Third held up and waited for the four centuries of the Ironclads to jog on through, and then rode out to flank them.
The lead centurion raised his hand, a dark shadow in the night. “Walk. Close up,” he commanded, and his soldiers slowed. Marcellinus came to a walk, too. It was a wise order. If they were about to fight, by all means let the soldiers get their breath back. If they continued to jog into the darkness, all it would take was for one man to trip over an unseen tussock and ten others would tumble over him.
Peering ahead, Marcellinus saw only the shadows of the low hills. The glare of the rockets had unsettled his night vision. The legionaries beside him were just dark ghosts that smelled of leather, steel, and fear.
They continued to advance. Behind them in the camp they could hear orders being shouted and the jangle and chink of armor as men hurried to obey them. That noise might well be covering up any quieter sounds of an ambush ahead. If there were Mongol cavalry nearby, the Romans would be able to see their silhouettes against the sky, but warriors might be squatting stealthily in the darkness all around them and not be noticed.
“ ’Ware fire lances,” Marcellinus said quietly to the centurion.
“Aye,” said the man, and raised his voice to spread the warning. “Beware skulking Mongols with fire lances!”
As he said the words, the night lit up once again, right in front of them. Marcellinus heard not the crack of black powder but the whomph of something large catching fire. He dropped forward instinctively. The legionaries around him reacted, too, each man grounding the heel of his scutum and taking a knee behind it. Marcellinus, who carried no shield, held up his left arm in front of his face in a futile attempt to block out that insanely bright light. He drew his right hand back, ready to swing his gladius, ready for a Mongol warrior to appear before him at any moment…
Now he recognized the bright shape outlined in fire. Behind the low rise ahead of them a Mongol trebuchet was ablaze, the wooden frame and ropes all burning and distinct. Scores of men milled around the base of the trebuchet. Had that been an accident, or had the Mongols set fire to the thing themselves?
The horses of Hanska’s Third Cahokian whinnied in fear, and some bucked. Above the crackle of the fire and the barked commands in Latin came the sound of Cahokian curses. Once again the night had turned to pandemonium. Marcellinus swore, too. Had they been crazy to leave the confines of the camp?
“Up, in close order!” cried the centurion, and the men of the Sixth rose to their feet, shields raised and overlapping. “Forward, on the double!” and they jogged after him.
Marcellinus stayed where he was. The enemy warriors he saw guarding the trebuchet’s base were holding spears and clubs but seemed dazed and uncertain. Some were already down on the ground. Perhaps injured or incapacitated?
A cloud of thick smoke blew across him. Marcellinus coughed. Was this a trap? Yet behind his four centuries of the Sixth he could hear more legionaries pounding up, racing out of the camp and spreading right and left in support; there seemed little chance that Mongol reinforcements could overwhelm them.
Now came the clangor of steel weapons as battle was joined. The legionaries had arrived at the base of the merrily blazing siege engine and set upon its guards. Men shrieked in agony as they were cut down.
More legionaries ran past Marcellinus with swords and spears raised, eager to engage the foe. Yet again, Marcellinus’s instincts were rebelling. Where were the Mongols’ horses? It did not feel right.
This was the trouble with night actions. This was why the Roman military tried to avoid them whenever possible. Too confusing, too much chance of chaos.
Over the commotion of the butchery he heard a whistling sound, followed by an earsplitting explosion not fifty feet away. Against the bright afterimage of its flash Marcellinus saw bodies hurled into the air, and the roaring and screaming redoubled. The gladius had slipped from his hand in the shock, and as he futilely held up his arms to try to ward off whatever was happening, bright shards of pain erupted in the palms of his hand and along his forearms. At the same time pottery plinked off his shoulder greaves and helmet. “Holy fucking Jove…”
Another thunderclap bomb. Parchment or thin deerskin wrapped around a lethal combination of black powder and sharp potsherds. If the explosion didn’t get his soldiers, the shrapnel would. “Damn it—”
A horse appeared from nowhere beside him. Marcellinus dropped to the ground and rolled, hoping that it wouldn’t trample him, that the Mongol astride it was not armed with one of those deadly hooked spears he had seen at Yupkoyvi or, worse, a fire lance…
“Get up!” Hanska shouted. “Gaius, they’re killing the prisoners!”
He found his gladius, jumped to his feet, looked up at her. “What? More bombs?”
She reached down a strong arm, grabbed his forearm. “Just one, from the other trebuchet. The Mongols are retreating. Roma is killing us instead!”
Marcellinus kicked upward futilely. Hanska hauled on his arm. Her horse sidestepped, whinnying in protest, but somehow Marcellinus clambered up onto the horse’s rump behind her. Her words still made no sense to him. Other trebuchet? Prisoners? “What the hell?”
“Hold on.” Hanska spurred her horse, cantering straight toward the Roman legionaries and the men on foot they were hacking to the ground in the baleful light from the burning trebuchet. Marcellinus hurriedly flung his arms around her to avoid being thrown off.
Over her shoulder he saw several dozen mounted Mongol warriors a few hundred yards away, galloping across the plains away from a skeletal shadow that had to be a second trebuchet.
And right in front of him, a massacre. Everything became clear in an instant.
“Stand down!” Marcellinus bellowed at the top of his voice. “Sixth Ironclads, stand down, fall back!”
As Hanska’s horse loomed over the Romans, they turned and raised their swords against her. In the light of the flickering flames he saw panic in their eyes, the daze of combat. In their bloodlust, they might easily take Hanska and Marcellinus for Mongol barbarians and cut them down as readily as they were killing the others. “Stop!” he shouted again. “Soldiers, stand down! For the love of all the gods, stop killing!”
“It was a trap,” Marcellinus said, and lifted the beaker of water to his lips. His throat was seared, both from the smoke and from his frantic screaming at his troops. Horrific images still loomed before his eyes, sickening him. “A double trap.”
Too tired and battered to stand, he sat on a camp stool in the Imperium tent in the middle of Forward Camp. He had pulled out most of the slivers of pottery that had lacerated his hands, but he was still dripping blood onto the floor. In front of him stood the Imperator and Lucius Agrippa. To his left were Tahtay, Sintikala, and Enopay, all staring at him with the same shocked disbelief as the Romans. Hanska stood by his side, sweating and glowering. She had refused to leave him, apparently fearing that he m
ight be killed by his own leaders.
Behind him the centurion of the Sixth, who had led the evening’s action, stood rigidly at attention and stared at a fixed point in space somewhere over his Imperator’s left shoulder. The centurion’s face was plastered in mud, ash, and blood. Hanska’s face was equally dirty. Marcellinus doubted that he looked any better himself.
“Obviously a trap,” Hadrianus said. “But perhaps we could trouble you to be a little more specific.”
Marcellinus took another drink of water and spoke again, swallowing almost convulsively every few words against the smarting in his throat. “A Mongol special unit. Creeping forward under cover of darkness. They set up a trebuchet behind a low rise and used it to bombard the camp. They struck the Thunderbird launcher. Other damage.” They nodded impatiently. They all knew about the damage to the camp.
He took a little more water, and anger strengthened his voice. “I went out with several centuries of the Sixth Ferrata and horsemen of the Third Cahokian. The Mongols set fire to their trebuchet, left their slaves behind, and withdrew.”
“Slaves?”
“Yes. The Mongol trebuchets use human power in a concerted effort to throw the missiles. Pulling on the ropes, all together, thirty or fifty at a time. The Mongols had brought Hesperian prisoners, mostly Shoshoni and Hidatsa. The prisoners launched the missiles. Then the Mongols abandoned them to be cut down by our legionaries.” Again Marcellinus felt sick. “It didn’t feel right. Even in the dark I half recognized the languages they were speaking. They sounded familiar and not like the Mongol tongue…Anyway, the Mongols had armed the prisoners and told them the Romans would slay them. Half of them believed it, fought us in their panic. The other half begged for mercy. The legionaries did not understand them. Dozens were dead before I could order the stand-down.”
Tahtay briefly closed his eyes. “Again Romans killing Hesperians.”
“Not deliberately. It was not the fault of the legionaries, Tahtay. You must see that.”