The Fort

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  ‘Good.’ In the past the man had done little to conceal his hatred of Ferox and Vindex, but there was no trace of that now, only anger at the enemy outside.

  If bolt or stone from an engine struck a defender then the man had little chance, even if he did not die instantly. Arrows flew with less force, but because his soldiers stood behind a parapet, the odds were high that whenever they were hit it would be in the head or chest. A lot of the wounds were bad, and as the morning wore on dozens were carried down from the walls. The centurion Dionysius had been hit in the eye, fortunately by an arrow that was almost spent, and he was not the only one. Helmets gave decent protection, but always left the face and ears vulnerable, for the army wanted its soldiers to be able to see what was going on and listen for orders. There were few orders to give at the moment, only encouragement, so Ferox toured the walls, smiling, praising and sharing the danger. He began to wonder whether he ought to relieve the men on the walls with some of the ones sitting in groups down in the intervallum and streets. It was a risk, because he wanted and needed reserves who were fresh to take any breakthrough head on and drive the Dacians back. On the other hand, it would not do to have all the men on the ramparts exhausted before the attack came. Ferox spotted Sabinus, walking up and down in front of one party of reserves and saw him look up expectantly.

  ‘Another hour, maybe less!’ Ferox shouted down loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. ‘They’ll come by then and then we’ll slaughter them like sheep!’

  Sabinus did not look convinced, and was obviously eager to do something, and at least to see more of what was happening. It was tough for the reserves to watch men being flung from the ramparts by the missiles from ballistae or be carried down wounded. Waiting was harder on the mind than doing, but that was just as true for the enemy as well. So far the Dacians were doing what he would have done in their place, wearing the defenders down, weakening them, always knowing that they could send plenty of fresh men forward whenever they wanted. It was about a half hour to noon, and Ferox knew that the enemy would be nervous. Attacking a rampart, any rampart, even one like this built by an army who always expected to fight on the fields outside, was hard. No doubt there were warriors waiting away from the fighting, ready to come up and launch the attack. You could not stop them thinking and worrying, and there was the danger that they would drink too much or just lose the edge to their courage as the hours passed.

  Ferox was approaching the east gate when he heard the singing.

  ‘Oh the raven, oh the wolf, come to me and I will give you flesh.’

  Ferox smiled. It was the old war song of the Brigantes and it was good to hear the verses rising as more and more men took them up and the singing spread along the ramparts. Well done, Petrullus, he thought, for it was a good way to lift spirits.

  As he reached the gate tower and began to climb, he heard a familiar laugh.

  ‘Hello, husband.’ Claudia Enica was dressed for riding, with loose Parthian trousers tucked into the top of her boots. Bran and Minura were with her, and he had insisted that they stay at her side, even though the boy had wished to serve as his personal guard. ‘I doubt that the Silures can sing, but you can always mime the words.’

  ‘You should be at your post, my queen,’ Ferox spoke mildly. Outside the principia, Maximus was in charge of the remaining auxiliary horsemen and the queen had a band of thirty Brigantes with their horses ready. Their job was to rush to any weak spot, especially if the enemy made it through one of the gates. Vindex was in charge of a score of Carvetii stationed so that they could cover the rear gate, which it was hard for the rest to reach. Ferox missed having his old friend beside him, but wanted someone he could rely upon to do the job.

  As he glanced away to smile at the other men, the queen stuck her tongue out at him like a little girl. Men sniggered, especially when he turned back and she took on a look of studied innocence.

  ‘Shall we all go and sleep, while those cowards outside pluck up the courage to attack us?’ she asked.

  ‘Soon, lads, they are coming soon,’ Ferox happened to look as the big engine the Dacians had placed behind a mound of sacks some two hundred paces away loosed with a sharp crack. After a moment there was a pounding thump below them and the boards underneath his feet quivered.

  ‘They are shooting at the gate,’ the queen told him. ‘Have been at it for an hour. There are cracks, but for the moment it is holding.’

  Petrullus shook his head. ‘The Romans should learn from the Brigantes. Even your people would not build a fort whose gate could be approached – or be shot at – in a straight line. The army would do the same in a marching camp, so why not here?’

  The answer was that the Romans never expected to defend a fort like this, least of all against an enemy with artillery and some knowledge of siege craft. That was why the towers were set back and did not project outwards and no one worried too much about defending gateways.

  ‘Send men to bring up the carts from the fabricae,’ Ferox said. ‘And anything else to make a barricade in case they do smash the gates.’

  There was silence and Petrullus broke into a grin. ‘The queen has already given the orders.’

  Enica made a show of preening. ‘I do have my uses, you know.’ She paused. ‘Of course, I had forgotten that Vindex was not with us.’

  Ferox was not listening. As he watched, some of the Dacians around the ballista turned and ambled away. Others appeared to take their place.

  ‘Lady.’ Ferox bowed his head. ‘It is time. I ask you to return to your men and wait. If you see the men bringing the waggons then tell them to hurry.’

  For once she did not say anything, and just inclined her head slightly.

  ‘Petrullus, they will come soon. First they will blow all their horns and trumpets and raise a great shout. The gate still holds, but they may have a ram. Get your men to carry up the oil and he ready to use it.’ Several small cauldrons and buckets were boiling over a fire down below them. ‘Watch out for ladders as well. I shall be at the porta praetoria, so send word if you need anything. The supports know what to do.’

  The men in the tower were a mixture of warriors loyal to the queen and those who had fought for her brother. Ferox tried to think of anything he might say to make them all trust him and trust that they would live through this and win. A true Roman would no doubt have made a great speech and perhaps the honeyed words would have moved spirits.

  ‘Good fortune. For Brigantia, for the queen, for our oaths.’ He feared this was too much and might seem false. ‘Let’s make some food for the ravens!’

  Petrullus raised his arm in salute. The rest grunted. As Ferox went down through the trapdoor he just caught another inspiring cry. ‘For the tits!’

  A lot of Brigantes were like Vindex, for they were still cheering and laughing as he made his way along the intervallum, warning the commander of each group of reserves that the attack was coming soon. There was no way of controlling them, so he patted each one on the shoulder.

  ‘Use your judgement, and when you hit, hit ’em hard.’ Half the reserves were veterani because they were the best suited to heavy fighting, and ought to be confident. Bronzed and lined faces, beards flecked with grey, they waited, making the most of rest as old soldiers could. They would be nervous like everyone else, some because they had done this many times before and knew what was coming, and a fair few because in decades of service they had never gone toe to toe with an enemy.

  As Ferox reached the porta praetoria, he heard men up on the wall talking and realised that there was an uncanny silence, with no more arrows hissing through the air. Then the trumpets and horns blared out, far more of them than the enemy had sounded before, and the Dacians raised a great cheer. He dashed up the stairs onto the rampart and headed for the tower.

  ‘They’re coming, boys. Time to butcher them all!’ Men were following him, carrying boiling oil with great care and buckets of the heated sand almost as warily.

  Sabinus was at the top of t
he tower, waiting for him. ‘It’s a ram,’ he said, pointing at a wheeled shed being pushed up the track towards them. ‘Just as you said.’ He jumped back to dodge an arrow that flew between them. In moments the air was filled with clouds of missiles.

  ‘Down!’ Ferox shouted. ‘Wait for the order!’ Men crouched behind the parapet. There were baskets of stones to throw every few paces, and heavy siege spears leaning beside them. Crews knelt beside their engines. He and Sabinus moved either side of one of the gaps in the parapet so that they could shelter while still seeing out. Arrows thudded into wood or rattled off when they did not strike squarely.

  ‘Wait!’ The ram in its wheeled shell was coming on steadily.

  ‘Wait!’ It was at the gap between the outer ditch. Behind the ones pushing it were several hundred king’s men, all with red shields decorated in a pattern of rosettes. Another unit followed and on either side there were bands of warriors, still blasting their horns and chanting.

  ‘Ballistae!’ Ferox shouted. ‘Archers!’ There were a dozen archers detached from a specialist cohort and a similar number of men who had some idea how to use a bow. They bobbed up, drew and loosed at the first target they saw. A few arrows struck the hides on top of the moving shed, but most were better aimed and warriors began to fall or stopped as they hunched behind shields. Scorpiones spat their darts, and the bigger ballistae in the corner towers had the sense to aim at the ram while they still could. The side of the shed shook as a stone slammed into it, but after only a slight pause – no doubt with their heads ringing – the men pushing it went forward again.

  The chanting of the warbands turned into a mass of individual cries as they split up, some dashing on through the remaining obstacles and others going more gingerly. Ferox saw one man trying to leap the ditch only be struck in mid-air by the bolt from a scorpio and flung backwards. An auxiliary archer spun away as a similar dart shot by the enemy drove through his teeth and mouth with such force that the point erupted from the back of his helmet. Beside him, a comrade ducked and was sprayed with splinters and fragments of wood as a stone hit the parapet.

  The ram was closer, but luck was with the Dacians and, just as the crew levelled the ballista in the right-hand corner tower to shoot, it was hit squarely by a great stone. The missile shattered the frame, releasing the tension in a whirl of flailing cables and fragments of timber and iron, scything down the men serving it and half of the rest of the soldiers on that lower level.

  ‘Hercules’ balls!’ Sabinus gasped.

  Fortuna was as fickle as ever, because the ballista in the other tower aimed too low with its shot, so that the stone pitched a pace short of the ram, only to skim under the sides of the shed, ripping the legs off two of the men pushing from inside. Ferox could see a great pool of blood spreading from underneath.

  ‘Up!’ he shouted. ‘And kill the bastards!’ Men rose all along the parapet and began lobbing stones, javelins and siege spears into the mass of tribesmen flooding up to the walls. Some had ladders and they were vulnerable, for it was hard to carry one of those and use a shield. Warriors fell around them, but each time a ladder was dropped more men appeared to lift it again. The ram was lurching forward once more, and soon was safe from the remaining ballista, which with its next stone cut a lane through the king’s men following behind, sending up a spray of blood and fragments of shields and men. Bolts from scorpiones slammed in to knock down others so that the whole column seemed to shudder.

  Ferox went to the back of the tower. There was no sign of a big attack at either the back gate or the west, but he could see men all along the ramparts by the east gate as they hurled missiles at the attackers. In front of the principia the cavalrymen stood beside their horses, and as far as Ferox could see none of the other reserves had so far committed themselves. Enica was the only one mounted, and he could see her and her grey quite distinctly, her standard-bearer beside her along with Bran and Minura.

  ‘Sir!’ Sabinus called. ‘The ram!’

  Ferox dashed over to the front, first picking up an oval shield like the ones the auxiliaries used. As he reached the parapet he raised it to block an arrow, then angled it so that he could see out. The roof of the shed, a patchwork of soaked hides, was beneath them.

  ‘Oil!’ Ferox shouted to the men on the level below. ‘And bring the torches!’

  The ram swung and struck the timber gate with a great boom. Ladders were being raised all along the wall. A chieftain in gilded helmet and bright bronze scales climbed one of the first, shield held up. On the wall a little to the side, a veteran raised a pilum muralis – one of the siege spears made by twisting back the stem of a broken pilum and sharpening it into a point. It was clumsy and heavy, but he timed it well and struck the chief in the side, and whether or not it broke through the scales of his armour he was knocked from the ladder onto the men clustered below. He screamed as he was impaled on their spears. The veteran lingered too long to watch his success, and his head snapped to the side as the bolt from one of the belly-bows drove through the cheek piece on his helmet. He staggered and fell, rolling down the grassy slope into the intervallum.

  The ram struck again and a third time. Amphorae full of olive oil were flung down to shatter on the roof of the shed, spreading the thick liquid. An auxiliary was raising another one to throw when the bolt from a ballista drove into his chest, easily snapping the rings of his mail. He was flung back, dropping the little amphorae which broke and seeped onto the boards. Three soldiers appeared carrying burning torches.

  ‘Stop!’ Ferox shouted, but the one in the lead had already slipped on the oil and was falling. One torch went out as it dropped, but the other landed in the pool and surged into a great yellow flame. Some of the oil was on the man’s arm and he screamed as it burned. Ferox dropped his shield and bounded over, ripping free the brooch holding his cloak to beat with it at the flames. ‘Sabinus, help this man! You and you, over there!’ He pointed to the front of the tower.

  Ferox managed to smother most of the flames, helped because a lot of the oil had seeped through the cracks between the boards. The screaming auxiliary suddenly stopped, and he turned to see Vepoc, wrapping something around the scorched arm. Then he noticed that the Brigantian had no trousers.

  ‘This’ll frighten them!’ Vepoc told him.

  Sabinus had frozen, and was still behind the parapet when the men with the torches reached him. Beneath them, the ram pounded against the gate and the sound snapped him out of his shock. He took one of the burning torches, leaned through the gap and let it fall. A curse showed that he had missed, but he jerked back out of the way in time to let another arrow pass. ‘Another!’ Taking the second, he swung it gently to rouse the flames. ‘And you throw another from the side!’ he told the second auxiliary. ‘Now!’ Both men lobbed the torches down and Ferox heard the fire flare. ‘One more for luck!’ Sabinus said and the soldier threw the last torch down. There was black smoke, reeking of oil, rising in front of the tower.

  The ram slammed into the gate. Vepoc, his backside barely covered by his mail shirt, went back to loading the scorpio. Sabinus reached down to lift one of the big stones they had brought up to the top. Trusting to the cover of the smoke, he stood between the crenulations, hefting it and then flinging it down with all his strength. There was a crack as it hit the roof of the ram’s shell.

  ‘Come on!’ he called to the auxiliaries. ‘The rest of them.’

  The ram banged again.

  ‘I’m going down!’ Ferox shouted. On the lower level he saw men lifting the heated oil to tip onto the roof. It fell in a yellowish stream and the flames surged, the smoke growing thicker so that men started to cough as it blew back into the tower.

  Out of the tower and onto the rampart, Ferox saw a few warriors fighting with his men, but the only ones up on the walkway were all dead, so he kept running, scooped up a scutum lying on the ground, tried not to think about its former owner and hurried down the steps.

  Just as he arrived, the blunt head of t
he ram smashed through, shattering a plank and leaving a gaping hole just above the bar holding the two gates shut. Thick smoke came through the hole, but then he heard the screams from outside as the crew of the ram started to burn. Yet men must have been running past it, in spite of the scalding heat, for an axe head chopped down onto the bar and he could see the gates straining as they were pushed, inching inwards.

  Ferox drew his sword. The ram had attacked the gates on the right, and the pair on the left, separated by a narrow arch, were not under threat. He waved at the reserves to advance, saw the commander, one of the optiones, wave back, and some way behind him could see the cavalry mounting up. ‘Come with me, all of you,’ he said to three soldiers who had been tending the fires where they had heated the oil and sand. ‘This way.’ He led them into the shadows behind the far gates.

  The bar snapped as the other gates pushed inwards and open, and with a yell king’s men came pouring through the gap. They ran forward, and the optio shouted to his men so that the front rank of three hurled their pila into the mass. The heavy javelins punched through shields as if they were glass, the slim shank sliding on to drive their pyramid-shaped heads through mail, bone and flesh. Half a dozen men were down, and more fell as the second rank threw their javelins. There was a stutter, but so many men were pressing from behind that the leaders could not retreat and found themselves almost pushed forwards.

  The optio and his men charged, drawing their swords, and the Dacians ran to meet them until both sides stopped barely a pace apart. They hesitated, arms raised, swords or spears ready, until one or two went that last pace and struck at the enemy. There were some sixty or seventy Dacians to thirty legionaries and in time they would realise this and start to spread out around their flanks, but for the moment the rough lines faced each other, men probing and jabbing from behind their shields as they searched for openings. Ferox’s job was to make sure that no more of the enemy came in. There was the sound of roaring flames and he guessed that the ram and its shed were truly ablaze, for he could feel the heat even from where he was. That ought to make it harder for the enemy to flood into the fort.