by R. W. Peake
“Good luck,” I heard a man mutter, but I found my throat was too dry to respond, so instead I just nodded. My heart was pounding harder than if I sprinted the whole way to the wall, and I was sure that if things continued, it would explode right then and there. A different kind of sound added to the cacophony of noise, and I sensed the rapid movement of objects heading towards the walls, looking up to see the javelins thrown by the Third Maniple slice through the air and into the wall, some striking the Lusitani. Immediately after this were screams of pain, followed by dull thuds of men falling down to the ground off the rampart. Very quickly, another volley landed, with much the same effect. The Lusitani were now huddled behind their walls, unwilling to expose themselves to any more of the javelins, telling us this was our moment. Didius reached out to grab the sides of the ladder, pulling it taut against the wall so that it would not slip. While watching him do this, the Pilus Prior was already halfway up the ladder before I realized it.
“Get up there, you stupid bastard. We’re right behind you,” I could not see who it was, though it sounded like Calienus’ voice.
Gulping down the huge lump in my throat I began climbing, taking two rungs at a time in an attempt to catch up while trying to hold my shield above my head. There was still no sign that the Lusitani felt safe enough to peek their heads up to see what was happening, and again I offered a prayer that our luck would hold a few more moments.
It was at this moment that there sounded a horrible scream, something so inhuman that it caused all of us, Roman and Lusitani alike, to freeze. For just a moment all activity stopped, and I looked in the direction of the noise, which was just dying out, seeing that it came from a man on the other ladder. I say it was a man, but it would be more accurate to say that what I was viewing was merely a large lump of scorched meat. What had been his face was blackened, along with every inch of his exposed skin, which was issuing a thick smoke, like when the fat in meat catches fire, and I suppose that is exactly what was happening. The part of his tunic not covered by his armor was burning brightly, the flames licking up around his head, and covering him from head to feet appeared to be a substance that to my inexperienced eye looked like boiling honey. Immediately I realized that it was the pitch that they were heating in preparation for just such a moment. However, as much as the scream, it was what the man was doing that I think arrested everyone’s attention, for he was still ascending the ladder, very slowly but definitely noticeably, and despite my horror at the sight I also felt a fierce sense of exultation. This was how a Roman died, I thought! Even dead on his feet he still advanced, and I imagined that this sight must strike fear and despair into the heart of the Lusitani. We could not be stopped, and as if in answer to that thought, I felt the ladder begin shaking again as the Pilus Prior continued his climb, even Crastinus stopping like everyone else. As Crastinus did so, the other man slowly toppled off the ladder, still in flames and smoking, and I saw the men below scatter out of the way in order to avoid being hit and burned by his body, which in a sense had become a weapon of the enemy’s on its own since anyone touched by it would be horribly burned as well. I started climbing again too, when I was struck by the sudden thought that the man on the ladder had nobody above him. That meant that he was first, so it must have been Vinicius who I just saw incinerated. Just moments ago, I was talking to him about the very thing that killed him, and I wondered when we would next talk again in the afterlife. Maybe sooner than I think, I thought grimly as I peered up to see the Pilus Prior almost at the top. Just then, a Lusitani appeared in a gap in the wall just next to the Pilus Prior; letting out a cry in his language, he used a long spear to try and skewer the Pilus Prior. However, his war cry alerted Crastinus, who dodged out of the way, almost losing his grip on the ladder, which he now clung to with only his right hand. Without waiting for another blow and displaying a speed that astonished me, he jumped up and over the wall, disappearing from sight, then I heard the thud of his borrowed shield as he smashed the boss against the Lusitani, followed by a wild yelp of pain. Even as Crastinus did this, I scrambled the last couple of rungs then pulled myself up onto the wall, where for the first time I could see into the town. The parapet of the wall was also made of wood, about ten feet across and crowded with men. All of them were armed, although there was a wide variety of weapons, some of the men brandishing nothing more than hoes and sticks with sharpened points. Nevertheless, there was also a fair amount of men in armor, and these were the men crowded around the area where we were assaulting the walls, the more poorly armed men obviously in reserve.
All of this I took in over a matter of no more than a couple of normal heartbeats as I jumped down onto the parapet before turning to my right, barely in time to meet a wild swing of a Celtic sword with my shield. Feeling the shock of the blow move all the way down my arm, making it go numb instantly, it was only because of my size that I did not stagger backward. For the first time my opponent seemed to notice my bulk, his eyes going a bit wider. Dumbly I stood there, allowing him to recover before I did and strike once again, this time in an overhead swing, I guess to try to split me down the middle. Once more, as if of its own volition, my arm went up to block the blow, my body again vibrating from the shock.
“Pullus you stupid bastard, draw your sword and kill that cunnus. Quit messing about,” I instantly recognized the voice of the Pilus Prior, and only then did I realize with a great amount of chagrin that he was right; I had yet to draw my sword.
I was ashamed of myself; here I was supposed to be the star pupil and I could not even remember to draw my weapon! Grasping the handle while holding it in the manner Vinicius taught me, I unsheathed the sword and immediately dropped into the first position, my sword pulled back and parallel to the ground. Instantly, I felt a surge of confidence as my body reacted to the familiar, and my opponent must have sensed the change because he assumed a wary expression as I advanced toward him, grimly determined to retrieve my dignity, also remembering that I needed to make room for the men coming up behind me. So far no more than a dozen normal heartbeats had elapsed, and I heard other men landing behind me as I moved towards him. Suddenly, I lashed out with the shield, catching him by surprise because he was obviously expecting me to make a move with what he considered my offensive weapon, not realizing that to Romans, the shield is as much of one as the sword. He staggered back but in his attempt to regain his balance used his own shield, much smaller and round compared to our larger oval, moving it backward in an automatic movement to try and recover by counter-balance. Both of us knew in that instant that he just made a fatal mistake, because I saw the despair in his eyes as I lunged, thrusting the blade while twisting forward with my hips in a perfect, training ground thrust. My blade pierced him in the left side, in the ribcage, and he let out a short, sharp shriek before collapsing as I made a perfect recovery. Rather I tried to, yet I had not been quite as training manual perfect as I thought. One of the first things we are taught is to strike with the plane of the blade parallel to the ground, so that if we do strike in the rib area, it is more likely to slide between the ribs and not get caught in the bone. I obviously did the opposite, holding the sword with the plane perpendicular to the ground so that when I went to recover, the sword stuck in his body, causing me to almost lose my grip. At the same instant, another man, this one carrying a long spear and with the same type of shield, came charging at me, again forcing me to parry the blow with my shield, but unable to counter because I could not get the damn blade out of the other man’s body. This Lusitani lunged at me again, and again, but despite being able to block, I was having a hard time maintaining my focus on him while trying to twist the sword free. After his third strike, my blade finally came free just in time to use it to parry his lunge by knocking his spear down while stepping forward and using the boss of the shield to smash him hard in the face. I heard the bone crunch, and he made a choking cry as his mouth and nose filled with blood. I hit him once, twice then three more times, until his face was pulverized
and he fell to the ground twitching. Within the first moments on the wall I made my first two kills, and I could feel the confidence surging through me as my training took over.
By this time I was joined by another man, who stood by my side shoulder to shoulder, there being only room for two of us to stand this way on the parapet at this moment with a bit of room to maneuver. There were still a sizable number of Lusitani in our vicinity of the parapet, but they had seen the fate of their two companions and now were not quite as bold. The two of us moved slowly forward, our shields locked together, then I felt someone grasp my harness behind me to brace me in the way we were trained.
“Let’s go get these bastards,” I heard Calienus say, and realizing that he was the one behind me made me feel even more confident. For the first time since I was on the wall, I became aware of the sounds of battle going on around me; the clashing of metal on metal, the roars of men trying to slaughter each other, the cries of the wounded and shrieks of the dying. I was too inexperienced to know how the fight was going by the sound; that would only come after several engagements, so I had no idea how the assault was progressing. Moving forward, we stepped over the bodies of the two men I had slain, taking care not to trip as we tried to close the distance between us and the remaining Lusitani. At first they were content to keep backing up, making half-hearted jabs with their weapons, then one of them looked behind him and saw what we had seen already; they were running out of room. Immediately behind them was a series of large log columns protruding above the parapet, effectively blocking it off from the parapet on the other side. There was a ladder next to the columns but they knew as we did that the moment they tried to climb down we would be on them, and while the wall was only ten feet high on the outside, the actual level of the town was lower by a few feet where they had dug down to create streets and such. This was not a height that would kill them if they jumped, but it would definitely stun or knock the wind out of them, which was just as dangerous. However, this was actually a bad spot for us as well, because now that they knew there was no escape, their only choice was to attack or die. Not that it mattered much in the larger picture; the murder of the Tribune sealed the fate of the defenders of this town, along with the citizens, but first we had to finish what we started. One of the men, a decent-sized warrior a bit older than us, was the first to attack and in doing so, showed us a characteristic of the Lusitani that I have since seen in other Gallic tribes, with whom the Lusitani are distant cousins. Unleashing a war cry, he lunged forward, a whirlwind of ferocious movement as he slashed at us with his long sword. Both the man next to me and I raised our shields as we were buffeted by blow after blow, each of them sending shocks traveling down our arms that were clearly transferred backwards as we recoiled. Keeping our guard up while watching through the crack between the shields, we waited for an opening, and it soon presented itself. For a moment the Lusitani dropped his guard as he panted for breath, both his sword and his shield moving just a bit. Like a snake striking, my comrade, who I recognized as a veteran from my Century that was salted into our ranks, thrust his blade through the gap between us, plunging it into the gut of the Lusitani who let out a gasp of air as if he was punched. Before my mind even registered it happening, the blade was back behind the shield and I looked down to see that fully half of its length was covered in blood. The Lusitani took a step back, began to turn around, then toppled off the parapet, whereupon another man took his place, and it was then that I noticed this strange custom. The Lusitani, much in the same way as the Gallic tribes, have this notion of single combat and whenever possible prefer to attack one at a time. At least, that is how they start out; usually, by the third or fourth time we faced them they learned the folly of their ways, but since this was our first battle with the Lusitani, they still were determined to fight in the manner in which they were accustomed. The next man apparently did not learn anything from watching his comrade, instead coming and swinging wildly at us, making it a matter of a few heartbeats before he was dispatched. It was in this manner that we slowly moved forward, eliminating all of the men on that section of the parapet.
Once our section of the parapet was cleared of the enemy, we turned our attention to the fighting around us. The immediate area was now crowded with Legionaries, yet none of us had made sufficient headway against the Lusitani to enable us to get off the parapet and down onto the ground. While our Century was clearly holding its own, I thought that they would welcome the help of the rest of us in our small group, but I was not sure what to do, so I turned to Calienus for direction and he seemed to weigh the options in his mind. Narrowing his eyes in thought, oblivious to the mayhem that was taking place just feet away from us, he announced, “We’ve cleared our section, so we could go down the ladder and come back up behind them farther down the wall,” and I looked down at the area immediately surrounding us.
It was full of the Lusitani in reserve, and although they obviously did not have the weapons and probably did not have the training of the Lusitani on the wall, they made up for it in numbers, at least as I saw it. However, I would obey my Sergeant no matter what he said.
“But I think that while we could take most of those bastards, there's just too many to make it a sure thing,” and I heaved a sigh of relief at the decision, “so let’s go help the boys over there,” he pointed to where Crastinus was fighting.
Running along the parapet, we were forced to hop over the bodies heaped there, it surprised me how quickly I was becoming inured to the feeling of wanting to throw up whenever I saw a corpse. Less than a full watch ago, I felt like I wanted to vomit when the Tribune was decapitated, but now I hopped over mangled bodies like they were no more than a log. I have always found it interesting how the human mind works that way. Making our way to the rear of the group of men from our Century who were in the assault team with the Pilus Prior, I grabbed the back of the harness of the man in front of me who twisted in surprise, in turn giving me a shock, albeit a happy one. It was Vibius!
He grinned when he saw me and I returned it as he asked, “Well, how many have you done for so far?”
“Three, and helped with a couple of others. You?”
He looked a little embarrassed as he shook his head, then nodded towards the front and replied, “Those bastards up there won’t give me a chance. They won’t rotate through like they’re supposed to.”
Standing on tiptoe I could see that, indeed, the Pilus Prior was still up front, thrusting away with short, brutal strokes and I could see men toppling over in front of him, most of them either falling or being pushed off the parapet to land on the ground. Next to him was one of the veterans of the Century, a Legionary named Figulus, who was doing the same. Looking down at the growing pile of bodies heaped below the parapet, I saw some of them moving and trying to crawl away, with others being completely still. Trying to estimate how many there were, I thought maybe twenty or thirty, but there appeared to be at least that many men left between us and the rest of the Century that had been led by the unfortunate Vinicius, so that pressure was being applied on both sides as the two parts of the Century moved towards each other, making the results inevitable.
After another few moments of fighting, we cleared the area of rampart that we were assigned, whereupon Crastinus pointed down with his sword at the mass of men standing in what passed for a street in towns like this, though was nothing more than a wide expanse of rutted dirt with puddles of mud.
“Let’s sort those bastards out,” he yelled so that he could be heard over the noise.
Despite our immediate area being clear, we could see down the length of the parapet to see very fierce fighting still going on, extending all the way to where the wall curved out of sight, following the contour of the hill. There were a couple of spots that looked like the Legionaries were getting the worst of it; whether it was that the Lusitani in command of that local area was made of better stuff, or the men themselves were more organized I could not tell. I wondered briefly if we would go to thei
r aid, except it became clear very quickly that the Pilus Prior was not concerned with them. Turning to us, he scanned our faces, found someone and pointed at him, beckoning him to stand next to the Pilus Prior.
“Rufio, you’re the acting Optio. If you don’t completely fuck things up in the next little while, maybe you’ll be Optio for real,” he said this matter-of-factly, and I was troubled that he did not make any mention of Vinicius. He was the whole reason for Rufio being promoted after all, yet as I was to learn, those emotions that one feels at the loss of a close comrade are to be put away for later, after the battle, and Crastinus was more concerned with keeping the rest of us alive. Rufio joined him then Crastinus turned to the rest of us to give us our orders.
“Half the Century is going to go down that ladder,” he pointed at the one nearest us, “and the other half is going down that ladder.”
He indicated back behind us to the ladder that we were closest to earlier.
“So, Sections One through Five on me, the rest on Rufio. We go when I give the signal. Look around to see if there are any javelins that can be used lying around here. We’ll use them to keep these savages away from the foot of the ladders while the rest of us go down. I go first down my ladder, and Rufio goes first down his. Just make sure you don’t end up like Vinicius.”
The mention of Vinicius affected us, and Crastinus saw it. “Mourn him later, boys. We still have work to do,” he ordered.