by Peake, R. W.
"There's thousands of these bastards," he muttered, catching himself too late, but relieved that he hadn't said it any more loudly, and that Macrianus alone seemed to have heard, and he only gave a grunt in answer.
On the opposite side of the camp, Sextus Scribonius and his Second Cohort were faring better, but not by much. To this point, his men had been able to keep the Wa contained in the ditch by using their javelins, both as missiles, and as spears to stab downward at any men who ventured too near. But for the same reason Balbus wished for siege spears, Scribonius was afraid that it wouldn't be much longer before there were no more usable javelins left. The Roman javelin was designed to be thrown and more importantly, was engineered in such a way that it couldn't be thrown back, with a softer metal shaft and a wooden pin designed to shear off on impact. This meant that when used as a stabbing weapon, sooner or later the shaft would bend or the pin would break, hence the need for the broad-leafed, heavier siege spears. Scribonius could see that there were perhaps a dozen intact javelins left for the men of the front rank guarding the palisade, giving him just moments before those men would have to draw swords, as well. His casualties had been relatively light, which was a blessing from the gods, but he also knew that this couldn't last, once the Wa were able to close with his men and get inside the reach of their swords. Even as he thought this, he heard a choked cry to his left and whirled about just in time to see one of his men disappear over the rampart, hands clutching at his Legionary's armor pulling him down into the teeming mass. He had the briefest glimpse of a pair of legs straight up in the air before they disappeared, followed by a scream that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Fortunately, it was short-lived, the man going immediately silent, as his life undoubtedly was quickly snuffed out. But to his horror, Scribonius saw in that next instant that nobody had moved in to plug the gap opened by the loss, and it took a moment for his brain to comprehend that it was because there was nobody left near that spot. Even as this registered, he saw that while he could pull a couple of men from a spot farther down the wall, he was nearest, so of their own volition, his legs began propelling him quickly towards the gap, yet not before a helmeted head appeared at the empty spot in the palisade, arms hands grasping and pulling the stakes.
Pullus and Macrianus, standing side by side, were all that kept the Wa from swarming over that section of the wall, as one more time the giant Primus Pilus showed why he was one of the most famous men with a sword in the army. Using a shield he had taken from a man who no longer needed it, his sword arm was bloody to the elbow, as he thrust, chopped, and hacked down at the scrambling Wa, none of whom had managed to gain purchase on the rampart, at least in Pullus' immediate area. But the Primus Pilus was desperately tired, barely able to keep his shield in the first position—the most basic defensive position and, unsurprisingly the first one taught to all Legionaries. His sword arm was little better, and he could feel the tremors in his biceps that signaled that unless he got some relief, he wouldn't be able to defend his part of the wall much longer. At the very edge of his vision, he saw a flurry of movement telling him that some Wa had at last managed to make it up to the rampart, and there was a struggle for control of the packed earthen platform. However, Pullus couldn't pay attention to this, having to count on the Legionaries in that spot to do their duty to protect their comrades, because climbing out of the ditch and scrambling up the ladder that had been thrown against the wall came another Wa, this one with the curved sword they favored. Normally the contest would be tilted heavily in favor of Pullus, as the Wa had to concentrate on climbing the ladder, whereas Pullus only needed to wait for him to come within reach. But between Pullus' fatigue and the fact that not three paces away from him he saw Macrianus take a thrust from a long spear that knocked him backward with such force that he went tumbling down the ramp to land in a heap on the camp floor, the Primus Pullus was distracted enough, so that the Wa managed to scramble up quickly, slipping under Pullus' poorly aimed thrust to stand on the rampart. Immediately, the Wa launched a furious attack, catching Pullus on the wrong foot and forcing him to take an involuntary step backward. The Wa warrior, this one wearing the lamellar iron armor and flared helmet that marked him as one of the elite of the Wa army, kept up the fury of his assault, the blade of his sword a blur as it flashed about the edges of Pullus' defenses. First blocking with the shield, then barely parrying with the sword, Pullus tried to ignore the screaming fire shooting down his arms and to concentrate his energy and attention on the Wa's attack, looking desperately for an opening. Just as he had experienced in the previous battle, these Wa didn't seem to tire out, but kept up the same pace in the middle of the battle as they did at the beginning and end, something that no man in the army had encountered before. Still, Pullus hadn't lived this long on just luck, and summoning his rapidly draining reserves, he lashed out with his shield immediately after the point of the Wa's blade skipped off the boss when he had attempted a straight lunge. The blow was completely unexpected, catching the Wa square in the chest and knocking him flat, but before Pullus could leap astride his body to finish him with a sword thrust, in a move Pullus had never seen before, the Wa raised his legs up by drawing his knees to his chest, then quickly thrusting them out, levered himself back upright from his supine position. Pullus was so astonished that he stood motionless for a moment, his jaw hanging slack, and barely got his shield up in time to block the next sword thrust, this one a vicious sweeping blow aimed to disembowel him.
It had often been said that the gods smiled on Titus Pullus, not as brilliantly and often as they did at Caesar perhaps, but he had been shown their favor on numerous occasions, and this was one of them. The Wa had put all of his power behind this attack, hoping to capitalize on the hesitation caused by Pullus' astonishment, but Pullus blocked the sword with his shield. The blade of the Wa's sword cut deeply into the edge of the shield, normally the type of blow that would render shield or sword useless, either splitting the shield or breaking the blade. But this time, not only did the sword not shatter, its razor sharp edge enabled it to cut so deeply into the shield that the only thing that stopped it was the metal boss. Pullus felt a searing pain along the edge of his hand, but the Wa's sword was now trapped, caught by the friction caused by the two pieces of the shield. Taking advantage of this, Pullus twisted the shield, using his superior strength to push the sword down and away from him, but instead of employing the point of his blade, which would have taken more time to hit its mark, he gave a straight punch into the Wa's face with the pommel of his sword, catching the man flush between the flaps of the helmet and in his face. Once, twice, three times Pullus punched the man with all his strength, and though it may have been waning, he was still extremely strong. The Wa's head jerked back with each impact, going limp with the third punch, before Pullus dropped the shield and thus his hold on the warrior, who dropped to the ground in a heap. The huge Roman wasted no time thrusting his blade into the throat of the Wa, whose wrecked face twitched, as his life ended and he gurgled blood with his last breath.
Only then was Pullus able to turn his attention to the larger situation, and his heart almost stopped when he surveyed the walls of the camp. In more than a dozen places, the perimeter had been breached, and in at least three spots that he could see; his men had been pushed down onto the camp floor, where there was savage fighting going on. Suddenly, all pain and fatigue were forgotten as he realized that it was getting perilously close to the time, when he would have to order the cornicen to sound the order to form orbis. He began looking for the nearest one, having left his Cohort cornicen with Balbus. He spotted the Fifth's man, one of the old veterans, standing next to the Quintus Pilus Posterior, Vibius Pacius. But just as he was about to call him over, very faintly, over the sounds of the fighting, Pullus heard something he could not quite bring himself to believe hearing. In fact, he had just convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks with him and had opened his mouth, when it happened again, and this time he wasn't the on
ly one to react. Several heads turned at the sound, all of them Roman, and quickly a new sound was added to the din.
It was the sound of cheering, because what the Romans heard was a horn, but it wasn't Pullus' signal to form orbis. The pattern of notes signaled that another army approached, a friendly army.
Caesar had come to the rescue! Now Pullus had to hope that it was in time to save the 10th.
Chapter 7
Caesar had arrived in time...barely. Although Titus Pullus never ordered the orbis, it had been a close-run thing, and his Legion was badly hurt. A little more than a quarter of his men were unwounded; of the rest, there was almost a Cohort's worth of men seriously wounded enough that they would be immobilized for days, if not weeks. The rest of Caesar's army had suffered relatively light casualties; he had moved with his customary speed, so the Wa were completely unprepared for the swift savagery of a Caesarian attack. The men of the relief force had been ordered to drop their packs and move from column into line, a maneuver that was practiced over and over during the winters, and that drill paid off, as the Legions of Caesar slammed into the undefended Wa rear. Just a handful of the Wa had become aware of the threat from behind, but they were too few in number and were brushed aside as the Legions roared their battle cry. The attack devastated the Wa, the slaughter of the rear ranks immense, forcing the Wa army to reel backward from the walls of the 10th's camp. Those Wa who had made it into the camp itself through one of the several breaches were surrounded and quickly overwhelmed, since no support or reinforcements came through the breaches. In fact, for the first time, more than just one or two Wa warriors were captured alive, although they had yet to talk. But Caesar was grimly determined that they would, counting on the experience and imagination of the men of his torture detachment, which had swelled in number and the techniques picked up in his march across Asia. From Parthia came a couple of men well versed in their unique methods; another man from the Pandya, and from the Han an even half-dozen men whom Zhang had recommended. Caesar wasn't a cruel man—although this last 10 years had hardened him even more than either Gaul or the civil war with Pompey had—but he also understood a commander’s need for good intelligence and would stop at nothing to get it, no matter how much flesh had to be stripped from a man, or blood spilled.
Now, Caesar faced a dilemma. There was no way he could move for the next several days; too many men—good, hard veterans all—would die if they were disturbed in their recovery. Fortunately, the Wa army besieging the camp did not try defending the town located just two or three miles from the 10th's camp, allowing Caesar's army to fall on it. This time, most of the citizens had managed to flee, and the few left behind were too old or sick to be of any value and were put to the sword. More important than the slaves was the cache of food and supplies the town yielded, although when compared with the vast amount his army ate, it was enough for perhaps a week, at most. Still, that was a week of food he didn't have before. What concerned him was that his lack of mobility meant that the Wa army besieging Pullus' camp could retreat without being harried, and, even worse, could meet up with more Wa. More than anything, not knowing what he was facing ate at Caesar and kept him awake at night. But it couldn't be helped; giving orders that the 10th's camp be enlarged to accommodate the rest of the army, he settled down to let his wounded men recover enough to resume the march.
However, the other facet of the situation he found himself in that worried him was whether or not he would have the army return to the fleet to resume their sea voyage. In the first days after the battle with the 10th, his answer to that was an absolute affirmative, but a week after the battle, and just two or three days before they were to pack up and march back to the sea and the fleet, some of Caesar's scouts had returned with news. As was his usual custom in territory he didn't know, Caesar sent his scouts into every direction, both to get a better idea of the land through which they were marching, but also to avoid stumbling into another army. But the news the scouts he sent to the south brought had upset his plans of marching back to the fleet, because they informed him that his army was encamped in the middle of the neck of a peninsula that extended an approximate 70 miles to the south from their position.
That was bad enough, but the scouts he had sent to the east also returned, and from their information he was able to piece together a fairly solid idea that this peninsula was more than 50 miles wide, as well. Calling on Lysandros, now the ranking navarch, Caesar was informed that to march the 15 miles back to the fleet, board, and then sail around the peninsula, would take more than a week. Or he could march overland across the neck of the peninsula and rejoin the fleet on the other side. This is what he and the army had done on the Gayan Peninsula, although it had been much wider and longer than this one, making it a month-long journey without contact with the fleet. The difference, of course, was that no resistance was met on the Gayan Peninsula. It didn't take Caesar long to make the decision.
"We're marching overland from here, because I've been informed that we're located at the top of a large peninsula," Caesar announced to the assembled officers. "According to our best calculations, it would take us more than a week to cover the same distance that we can make in two hard days."
There wasn't much comment at this; as usual, the clerks in the praetorium had told their friends among the Legion clerks, who in turn had told their respective Centurions, meaning every man there had already had time to learn and absorb this. The only question came from a Centurion.
"When do we break camp?" Titus Pullus asked, thinking of the men who would be consigned to the jolting, bouncing wagons.
None of the original wagons that started the campaign into Parthia ten years ago now, had survived. In their place was, like in the naval fleet, a mishmash assortment of carts and wagons, many of them covered only with tarpaulins stretched over wooden frames, a trick picked up along the way. Unlike the wooden structures on wheels that were the original Roman wagons, these, while not as durable, were lighter overall, meaning they could carry more cargo. However, the wagons designated for medical transport were the sturdiest of the bunch. However, another refinement was that the men were actually slung from vertical poles within each wagon, which reduced the jarring impact a great deal, although not completely.
Pullus knew from bitter experience that about ten percent of the men that survived the first two crucial days would end up dying on the way, their final resting place an unmarked grave on the side of the trail. The only blessing, Pullus thought, was that so few Romans were left that this was no longer the huge problem it had been early on, as in Parthia, and the Roman belief that anyone buried underground was destined to walk the world as a shade was no longer as prevalent in the ranks as it had been.
"Two days from now," was Caesar's answer. "Those men who were fated to die will have done so by then, and those fated to recover will be strong enough to endure the march."
With that, the officers were dismissed to pass the word on to their men.
Just as Caesar had promised, two days later the army left behind the smoldering ruin of the camp, joining the still-smoldering ruins of the town to send smoke into the sky. Marching in the agmentum quadratum, the baggage train protected in the middle, guaranteed that the army would move more slowly than normally, but it also provided greater security. But what bothered Caesar more than any other challenge facing his army was the disappearance of the Wa army. His scouts had followed their trail, as the Wa moved eastward as well; but after crossing a river, the tracks seemed to disperse in every direction, leaving too many different trails to follow. Caesar knew in his bones that this was a ruse, and that the separate parts of the enemy army would recombine at some point. His hope was that it didn't also join up with yet another Wa force, before he could come to grips with it.
The men were exceptionally alert; their experience with the Wa so far had been singularly unsatisfying, resulting in far more casualties and less loot than they had experienced in some time. At the same time, they were extr
emely morose and sullen, the normal bantering on the march completely absent. Caesar was acutely aware of this, too, and he knew that unless he was able to provide them with something substantial in terms of a city or a fortified position held by a Wa nobleman, and a substantial one at that, he would face the biggest challenge of the campaign.
For the first time, Titus Pullus was really questioning Caesar's decision to continue the march. He wasn't willing to talk about it with Scribonius or Balbus yet, but he was close to the point where he wouldn't be able to keep his reservations inside. And Pullus knew that if he himself felt this way, the men were simmering with resentment. Caesar had always come up with something before, but this occasion was more important than ever. There either had to be a decisive battle, or they had to come across a city with enough loot to appease the men. Little did Pullus know that Caesar's and his thoughts were on parallel tracks, and neither knew what the future held.
The gods hadn't forgotten their favorite son, however. It was on the first night on the march that a member of the torture detachment, a grizzled former gladiator named Prixus, reported to the praetorium. He was allowed in immediately, Caesar giving orders to that effect, and in moments he was standing in before his general.
"We need your man Zhang," Prixus told Caesar, after the formalities were observed. Caesar noticed, but didn't comment on, Prixus' swollen and battered hands, despite the fact that Caesar knew these men always wore linen wrappings on their hands when they did their work. "We have two of these bastards ready to talk."