Master of Rome

by John Stack

  Scipio’s mount became skittish as it sensed the tension of its rider. Scipio spurred his horse to a full gallop, his startled coterie of tribunes reacting more or less quickly in following him as he rode to cut off the retreating detachment of cavalry. He halted their flight and quickly scanned their number. Two of the remaining seven were injured, with arrow shafts protruding from grievous wounds. The tribune was not amongst them, and Scipio looked beyond to the crumpled figures lying in the shadow of the town walls. It was a senseless, wasteful death and Scipio burned the sight into his consciousness. Panormus would fall, of that he had never had any doubt, but now he was determined that the fall would take the town, and all who dwelt within, to the very depths of Hades.

  Dawn afforded Atticus his first proper view of the captured trading boat; he rubbed the tiredness from his eyes as he moved to the side rail for a better view. It was a small boat, lateen-rigged for coastal trading, and the trader had tried to slip through the blockade three hours before sunrise. It had been a moonless night, putting the odds firmly in his favour, but Fortuna had taken a hand in his fate and his attempt to slip through a gap in the blockade had coincided with the return of a galley, the Corus, to its station.

  The trader had been quickly discovered and the skirmish that ensued had been both brief and one-sided. The shouts of alarm and commands had roused Atticus from his sleep; he had rushed on deck to witness the confused encounter that was illuminated only by scattered torches less than a hundred yards away. Orders rang out for the release of grappling hooks, and Atticus judged that at least two other Roman galleys that flanked the Corus came to her aid, but it was all over before any other ship could intervene.

  In the silence that followed, sporadic cheers rang out, and Atticus quickly shouted orders to be passed down the line of galleys, warning the crews to be vigilant against any other boats that might take advantage of the distraction to make their own attempt at escape. Thereafter the blockade had descended into near silence, but few slept, including Atticus, the nearness of dawn and the brief but intense restlessness brought on by the skirmish combining to keep all alert and awake.

  In the dawn light, the crew of the Corus had lined the side rail of the trading ship with its own crew, and Atticus watched in silence as he waited to see what fate the victors had decided for their captives. The attitude of the blockade crews had changed over the three weeks since arriving in Panormus. Initially there had been many attempts at escape, particularly amongst the larger trading ships. All had been recaptured and their crews sent to a stockade that straddled the encampment of the Second Legion. From there they would be sent to the slave market and the proceeds would be divided amongst the blockade crews.

  As the blockade dragged on, however, and the attempts at escape had become more sporadic and the boats smaller, the Roman crews began to tire of the boring routine of blockading. Their attitude had changed towards any Carthaginian crew that was captured trying to escape. Frustration and tedium had descended into anger, and an unspoken decision was made amongst the men that smaller Carthaginian crews were fair game, not worth the paltry sum they would fetch on the slave market. A precarious balance had begun to emerge between discipline and insubordination, but Atticus had turned a blind eye to the brutal retaliation the men were dealing out to the captured Carthaginian crews, preferring them to vent their frustration at the enemy rather than at their commanders.

  Atticus counted fifteen Carthaginians lining the side rail of their captured ship; without warning the crew of the Corus pushed them all into the sea. A cheer rang out from the galleys closest to the action and many of the crew of the Orcus rushed to the rail to gain a better view. Atticus had witnessed some brutal methods to dispose of Carthaginian crews over the previous days, but this time the method seemed simple: swim or die.

  Almost immediately half a dozen men, the non-swimmers, disappeared beneath the water, and the silence that followed their desperate screams was filled with groans of anger and annoyance from those amongst the crew of the Corus who had bet on them. The gambling now started in earnest on every galley within sight, and shouts of encouragement and cheers echoed across the deck of the Orcus. Atticus watched the scene dispassionately while glancing occasionally to his crew who were bunched on the main deck. Baro stood amongst them, making the book.

  Some of the Carthaginians struck out for the shoreline two miles away, but in a panic one man swam directly to a neighbouring galley, calling out to the Roman crew to rescue him. Many of them laughed, but others took to fending off the struggling Carthaginian with the tip of their spears, not wanting to see him survive in favour of the man they had backed. Two other Carthaginians were treading water a dozen yards off the bow of their boat, and it soon became apparent that one of them couldn’t swim. He was clinging desperately to the shoulders of his friend, terror etched on his face, and he frantically gulped the air as the swell drenched his face.

  Their plight quickly drew the attention of the Romans, and again shouts of anger mixed with those of encouragement as more money changed hands and side bets were taken. Some of the crewmen of the Corus on board the trading boat began to hurl objects at the struggling pair, trying to separate them, and the swimmer was accidentally struck on the head with a pulley block. He was knocked unconscious and, as he rolled over in the water, his companion clawed desperately at his back, his frenzied efforts pushing the unconscious man beneath the surface, drowning him. In a panic the non-swimmer lost his grip and he slipped under the waves, leaving behind the body of the man who had tried to save him.

  Atticus turned away and looked towards the shore. One hundred yards away another man was struggling, a weak swimmer, and his arm shot up as if clawing at some invisible source of salvation as he slipped beneath the waves. Beyond him only two men remained and all eyes went to them. They were swimming strongly, twenty feet apart, and they had already gone nearly two hundred yards towards the shore. Again the level of noise from the fleet increased as new bets were taken, and Atticus found himself drawn into the intensity of the struggle.

  Shouts of anger caught Atticus’s attention and he turned to watch a fight break out on the foredeck of the Corus. Suddenly a flight of arrows shot forward from the melee to fall with deadly accuracy on the first swimmer, neatly piercing the water around him until one struck his shoulder. His scream could be plainly heard across the galleys, but it was soon forgotten in the brawl that followed. Atticus called his own crew to order and calmed the arguments that had broken out over the settling of bets. The crew moved away quickly but Atticus could see that on other galleys the captains were struggling to regain control of their men. Atticus cursed the blockade, knowing the situation could only deteriorate if the siege continued, but as he looked to the town he felt his spirits rise.

  Over the previous weeks he had watched with interest as four siege towers had taken shape at the eastern side of the town. They had risen slowly from the ground, four hundred yards out from the walls, and on days when the offshore breeze carried sounds towards the ocean, the air would ring with the beat of hammer blows. They had stood immobile as they grew, but today they were no longer stationary, they were moving, inch-by-inch, towards the wall. Over the expanse of open water that separated the Orcus from the shore, the progress of the siege towers was almost imperceptible, but soon many others noticed their advance and the last of the angry shouts amongst the fleet gave way to a cheer that could be heard across the bay. The legionaries had finally begun their assault.

  ‘Heave!’

  A thousand voices echoed the command, a deep growl that gave strength to their effort. Four men stood behind each bar that passed through the long, blunt-edged poles extending from the back of the siege towers. Thirty yards long, the poles resembled huge stationary battering rams, butted hard against the near intractable weight of the massive siege towers. The lines of pushing men weaved from side to side as they stumbled over the uneven ground, with only their momentum keeping them upright as one hard-fought step was
taken after another.

  Septimus echoed each shouted command to the men nearest him, his back locked straight as his legs heaved through each step, the bar pressed tight against his chest, the sweat stinging his eyes. He glanced to his right and the ordered ranks of the Second Legion, drawn up two abreast between the pushing poles, directly behind the ladder that led to the top of the siege tower. The Ninth had built the towers, had slaved over them during every daylight hour over the previous weeks, and now, like dray horses, they were heaving them into place, handing their labour and the honour of assaulting the walls over to the Second. It was a bitter trade, and Septimus roared out the order to push, feeding his frustration into the task.

  ‘Incoming, shields up!’

  As one, the legionaries on the flanks, protecting the men who were pushing, threw up their shields to accept the first flights of arrows from the walls of Panormus. The Carthaginian archers were stationed further along the walls, loosing their arrows diagonally into the men further back from the tower, those not screened by its bulk, and the legionaries were forced to form an elongated testudo.

  Septimus looked up. Fifty yards to go and his eyes were drawn to the corpses hanging from the battlements. They were legionaries, captured in a night attack a week before when the Carthaginians had sallied out from the town to try and fire the siege towers. Their attack had been beaten off, but the dawn light had revealed a macabre consequence. The legionaries had been brutally tortured and, as the Roman army looked on, each soldier was hung from the walls, the fall mercilessly breaking the necks of the lucky ones, while the unfortunate were slowly strangled, their desperate struggles drawing cheers from the onlooking Carthaginians.

  The blood of each watching legionary ran cold that day but, rather than acting as a deterrent, the brutal act had driven all semblance of humanity from the Romans. Septimus recalled the savage determination that overtook his men after that day as they raced to finish the siege towers.

  The order to make ready was heard and the first ranks of the Second moved forward. From the enemy’s perspective, the front of the rectangular tower was solid and imposing, a sheer wall of oak reaching above the height of the walls of the town. At the rear, however, hidden from the Carthaginians, a massive inclined ladder, wide enough for four men, reached from the base of the tower to a platform twenty-five feet above the ground, the height of the town’s battlements. The leading ranks of the Second jumped up on to the base and climbed up the first rungs of the ladder. Their progress was slow as the tower swayed over the rough ground, but a dozen men reached the top and formed up behind the crude drawbridge at the front of the platform, waiting patiently as each yard of ground was covered.

  The rain of arrows intensified and, with it, the calls of encouragement from the centurions and optiones. Sporadic cries of pain came from all sides and the men redoubled their efforts as the order to ‘heave’ became more frequent. Fire arrows soaked in pitch struck the upper works of the tower, striking deep into the timbers, and like tenacious fingers of Vulcan the flames licked the newly cut oak. Sudden cheers rang out from the battlements as fire took hold of one of the siege towers. The legionaries who had stood ready on the upper platform, in jumping to escape the flames, fell to their deaths.

  Still the dogged order to advance was heard across the legions and the men of the Ninth looked grimly to the earth beneath their feet as they put their weight behind the attack.

  As the gap narrowed, the arrows gave way to spears, the iron-tipped javelins, loosed from the height of the walls, piercing even the strongest shield. The casualties on the ground mounted, the extreme forward flanks of the Ninth bearing the brunt of the assault. Like a wave breaking against jagged rocks, the tight formation of shields formed to protect the men was shattered, leaving the exposed soldiers with nothing to do except pray to Mars as they passed through the killing ground.

  Under the lee of the walls, with mere yards to go, the defenders resorted to throwing rocks on the exposed legionaries. Only those men on the siege tower or directly behind it were safe. Further back there was no defence against the missiles, each one the size of a man’s head, and they tore bloody swathes through the flanks, killing and maiming as bones were shattered and bodies broken.

  The blood ran freely down the side of Septimus’s face and he blinked it from his eye as he spat the salty taste from his mouth. It was not his own, and he glanced to the empty space on his right. The rock had hit the legionary on the head, cracking open his skull before driving through into the man behind, shattering his pelvis; his screams echoed in Septimus’s ears as he relentlessly pushed forward.

  The gap between the siege tower and the wall fell to five yards. Almost without command the men of the Ninth dropped the heavy poles and began to retreat out of arrow range.

  That same instant the drawbridge was released and the legionaries of the Second swept across in a savage wave of steel and flesh. The Carthaginians held firm on the narrow battlements, and men fell to their deaths as the struggle descended into a chaotic brawl, the enemies fighting chest to chest, their faces twisted in aggression and rage.

  The legionaries streamed up the ladder of the siege tower, creating a crushing momentum that forced the front ranks deeper into the enemy’s midst, pushing out the flanks along the battlements, the narrow walkway creating individual battles where strength and will held sway. The Carthaginians fought with demonic resistance, the defenceless inhabitants of Panormus to their backs; within minutes the balance shifted as the Carthaginians first checked, then reversed the tide of battle, pushing the legionaries back towards the towers, striking down any Roman who stood his ground against the maniacal fury of the counter-attack.

  Septimus watched the fight from two hundred yards away, his chest heaving from the exertion of the advance and the battle lust flowing in his veins. He had never turned away from the moment of attack before and he cursed the subservient role the Ninth had been given in the assault, the bloody casualties it had endured that would go unreciprocated.

  Suddenly he noticed the momentum of the battle turn against the men of the Second on the battlements. The legionaries were no longer ascending the ladder and the platform to the drawbridge was overcrowded as the assault stalled under the weight of the Carthaginian counter-attack. He looked to the other siege towers, trying to judge their situation, but smoke and distance frustrated his attempt.

  Septimus looked forward again and, almost intuitively, he decided. ‘Men of the IV, to arms,’ he shouted.

  His maniple reacted instantly, responding to his command without question. They rose up and formed behind their centurion, drawing their swords as one. He signalled the advance and they fell into the wake of the siege tower, their pace increasing as they covered the same ground a second time, this time with the tools of war in their hands.

  The sudden headlong rush of the IV maniple caught others in the Ninth by surprise, but they quickly responded. By the time Septimus reached the base of the siege tower, he stood at the head of an unstoppable charge. They pushed past the legionaries of the Second, and like a seventh wave overcoming its lesser predecessors, the IV maniple went on up the slope of the ladder. Septimus pushed through the throng on the upper platform, his head down through the black smoke that was engulfing the space, as Carthaginian fire, loosed from close range, caught hold of the wooden structure.

  Through hooded eyes he saw the enemy before him and he bunched his weight behind his shield, his feet instinctively finding purchase on the narrow, blood-soaked drawbridge, the memory of a dozen assaults across a corvus guiding his actions. He roared in defiance, his call taken up by a hundred men, and they tore into the Carthaginian front line, shattering it instantly as men were flung backwards from the battlements. He spun on his heel, turning the momentum of the charge along the narrow walkway, and once again the battle was transformed into two narrow fronts as the legionaries tried to sweep the Carthaginians from the walls.

  Septimus tasted blood: the remnants of the legi
onary who had fallen beside him, his own from a shallow sword wound under his helmet, and also the blood of his enemy, a fine spray that covered his face as he twisted and withdrew the blade of his sword from the clinging flesh. The close-quarter combat reached a bloody peak as each side neared the limit of its strength and desperate commands were shouted in disparate languages, driving the men through barriers of pain and exhaustion.

  Septimus stabbed his sword forward, his shield arm numb to the shoulder from countless blows but, as he stared into the eyes of his enemy, he began to see seeds of doubt there. Suddenly the tempo of the defence changed from tenacious to desperate. The number of legionaries on the battlements had reached a critical level and an instinctive recognition swept through the Carthaginian line.

  The pressure against Septimus’s shield fell away and, over the shoulders of the enemy front line, he saw men retreating, fleeing down the steps that led to the street below. The warrior facing him sensed the vacuum to his rear and he stepped back in panic. Septimus stabbed through the Carthaginian’s open guard, slicing cleanly into his groin, and he pushed him from the battlements as he led his men onwards, the Carthaginian’s dying screams lost amidst the cheers of the Ninth.

  They swept down off the battlements and along the narrow street that led to the eastern gate, clearing all before them, dealing quickly with any individual Carthaginian who stood his ground, running at full tilt as blood lust and victory combined to chase all restraint from their minds.

  Septimus had led a hundred men from the battlements, but as he neared the eastern gate that number fell to a dozen, the others disappearing into the warren of streets, knowing they were the first, eager to ravage the virginal town before the horde descended. Four Carthaginians stood guard at the eastern gate, the brave remnants of a detachment that had already fled, and they threw themselves against Septimus’s men, screaming battle cries of hatred. They were quickly killed, and the legionaries sheathed their swords as they lifted the locking bar clear.