Rome: Sword of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series)

by R. Cameron Cooke

  From the deck of the galley, the dark-eyed officer made eye contact with Lucius who was conspicuous in his cross-plumed helmet. The officer’s thin lips smiled in derision, his hand thumbing a mocking salute much to the amusement of the ship’s archers, before the officer turned away and ordered the vessel to pull for the harbor.

  Lucius was normally calm and collected in battle, but the long morning of constant instruction to his ill-disciplined troops, over things he would never have had to even voice had he been with his old Tenth Legion, had put him in a mood. And now this insult from the Alexandrian suddenly turned his mood into a rage. Breaking from cover, he snatched up a javelin and sprinted out to the shallows as the vessel’s oars began to rise and fall. The archers saw him and took aim, but then lowered their bows when the dark-eyed officer said something to them. Presumably, he had ordered them not to shoot, though Lucius could not imagine why. Deprived of their kill, the archers instead resorted to ridicule, making obscene gestures and lifting their tunics to expose their genitals in the direction of the single Roman centurion with the javelin, who was now well out of range.

  But the archers did not know who they were dealing with.

  Lucius never took his eyes off the galley as he reached for the coil of leather strap that hung loosely from his belt.

  One of the archers standing at the galley’s bulwark would have done better not to have laughed when he saw the single Roman in the shallows throw the javelin. The missile looked feeble in the distance as it arched up into the sky and floated in the air for what seemed like ages. The unfortunate man realized too late that it had the distance, that it drew closer by twenty paces every heartbeat, and that the six-foot-long weapon was coming directly at him. At the moment the archer sensed he was in danger, the missile descended like a lightning bolt, its momentum violently driving it through his exposed abdomen, catching him in mid-laugh with tunic raised. The archer’s face registered the shock of what had just happen as his blood poured out onto the deck. The other archers stopped laughing as they watched their comrade crumple to his knees and then fall over the side, the javelin still firmly lodged in his body when both splashed into the harbor.

  The dark-eyed officer appeared again at the stern of the retreating galley, the disdainful expression now gone as he stared back at Lucius in utter awe and confusion. And he remained that way as the vessel drew farther and farther away. As far as Lucius could tell, the Alexandrian officer never once stopped staring at him as the galley rowed back across to the south side of the harbor and was eventually lost from view among the myriad of Alexandrian ships moored there.

  “That was incredible, Centurion!” A voice said behind him. “I have never seen the like!

  Lucius turned to see his signifer along with most of the men from the century all nodding in wide-eyed agreement.

  “How did you manage that?” the signifer asked in wonderment.

  “While you were all wallowing in Italy with Pompey, pretending to be soldiers, I was with Caesar in Gaul and Germania.” He shot the signifer a scathing look as he rewound the leather strap and returned it to his belt.

  “An amentum!” the signifer said, suddenly identifying the strap. “You must teach me someday, Centurion.”

  “There are things learned in those lands that cannot be taught elsewhere. They must be experienced. They must be lived.”

  The signifer nodded, accepting the answer, his face showing obedient disappointment. Lucius certainly could have taught him how to use the leather strap that had propelled the javelin four times farther than a man could throw it – a skill he had learned from a Gallic skirmisher – but he had no desire to.

  Lucius studied the men of his century as they picked over the Alexandrian dead. They had fought fairly well, he supposed, after much goading. But the simple villagers garrisoning the island were not frontline quality, and they had been beaten easily. He wondered how his men might have fared had the Alexandrian officer and his guard made a stand on the beach. That would be the real test of their mettle, when they came up against the Alexandrian regulars, many of whom were themselves former Roman legionaries. The old veterans had retired and settled in Egypt, after subjugating the east under Pompey, more than a decade ago. Now, in a strange twist of fate, they had come out of retirement to defend their new home from soldiers trained by their old general.

  The fools, Lucius thought. What idiot would come out of retirement to get a spear in the belly from his own countrymen? The bastards deserved to die.

  Two days later, Lucius and the rest of the officers were summoned to Caesar. The general stood on a large rock as he addressed them, a bare-headed figure wrapped in a scarlet cloak that whipped in the stiff breeze. The white-capped waters of the eastern harbor and the outstretched mole lay behind him.

  “Friends,” Caesar shouted over the wind, “You have taken Pharos, as I knew you would. Now that we have command of this island, the enemy cannot send their ships beneath this bridge.” He gestured to the bridge over the northern gap in the mole.

  Indeed, no Alexandrian ships had attempted it all morning, lest they fall victim to the mass of flaming missiles that would surely come from the Romans controlling the land nearby. Caesar then directed them to look across the harbor, where the long land bridge joined the mainland.

  “But our task is not yet finished. As you can see, the enemy still controls the bridge at the other end of the mole.”

  Lucius could see the southern bridge far down the causeway, and beyond it, on the shore of the mainland, sat a small fortress commanding the approaches to the bridge.

  “As long as the enemy controls that bridge,” Caesar continued. “Our fleet will be in jeopardy. We must finish the job, friends! We must take control of the bridge. Once it is in our hands, the enemy won’t be able to use the water passage beneath it, and we will control both harbors. The fortress beside the mole is the key. At dawn tomorrow, three cohorts will land simultaneously at the southern end of the mole and advance up the beach to take the fort. Three more cohorts will remain in reserve aboard ship, but I do not expect that they should be needed. There are only a few hundred of the enemy entrenched around the fort, no doubt troops of the same quality we encountered when we took this island. I expect the fort to be in our possession within an hour of the landing.” Caesar then paused and his face drew stern. “I want it understood by every one of you, that the fort’s machines are to remain intact. Any man who sets fire to a thrower or damages one in any way will be crucified on the wall. Is that understood? Once we have control of the fort’s engines, the enemy fleet will have to withdraw or risk being put to the flame. Once the fort is in our possession, the engineers will land and set to work filling in the gap beneath the southern bridge. The reserves are not to attack unless I expressly give them direction to do so. They are to remain aboard ship and out of range until called for. Is that clear to all of you?”

  As logical as the strategy sounded, Lucius was skeptical of its success. The attack would call for a measure of discipline and timing he was not sure the Pompeians were capable of. Not to mention the fact that the so-called cohorts would be comprised of centuries not anywhere near full strength. Lucius’s own century had just shy of sixty men, and few fared better. Lucius overheard two former Pompeian centurions standing near him express their own doubts in hushed whispers. No doubt many of the others felt the same way.

  “Damn it, I won’t do it,” muttered one tribune, loud enough for the other officers around him to hear, but not Caesar. “He asks us to do the impossible! But when the chips fall, will he be in the thick of the fight with us? No, the blessed consul will be watching comfortably from his yacht while we are all butchered.”

  Lucius eyed the officer skeptically. He knew this tribune. His name was Rufio, an officer on Caesar’s staff and often one of his closest advisors. It was odd talk coming from one who was considered an intimate of Caesar, but it certainly got the attention of the others around him. They mumbled their agreement, and the p
rotest quickly spread until the whole assembly was growing petulant.

  “What is that noise?” Caesar demanded. “Is there a problem, Tribune Rufio?”

  The ruckus was immediately silenced, and Rufio stood obediently at attention.

  “No, General,” Rufio said respectfully, as if he had not just been talking treason.

  But there was something else, something in Rufio’s expression that did not seem quite natural. Lucius could clearly see the tribune’s face from where he stood, a vantage point that the others did not share. There was something in Rufio’s eyes that spoke of mischief as he stared up at the general. Lucius then followed the tribune’s gaze to Caesar’s face only to discover that the general wore an equally artificial expression. It was subtle, but it was there. Had Lucius not campaigned with Caesar for so long, he never would have noticed it.

  There! Had Lucius seen it, or was it just his imagination? The shadow of a smirk crossing the consul’s face for the briefest moment as he glanced back at Rufio.

  “Friends,” Caesar finally said to the group. “There is one other thing you must pass on to your men.” Caesar paused, and then raised a fist in the air. “When you go into battle tomorrow, I will lead you!”

  At this, the collection of officers erupted in a delirium of wild resounding cheers. Some held swords aloft, others raised their helmets, but all were now firmly behind the man whom they had been doubting only moments before. The shouts of adulation quickly transformed into the repetitive chanting of the general’s name.

  “Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!...”

  Lucius chuckled inwardly as the former Pompeian officers exhibited an adulation for Caesar that now bordered on worship. But Lucius had not been deceived. He had been with Caesar for far too long. Always the shrewd devil, Caesar had anticipated their very thoughts, and had even planted his own confederate within their ranks to ensure that the seeds of doubt were nurtured and allowed to sprout. And then, with perfect timing, and the perfect words, he had evaporated all of their doubts in a single instant.

  III

  The next morning, as the first light of the rising sun painted the high clouds crimson, as the dark waters of the harbor began to dance in the early morning breeze, the attack commenced as Caesar had ordered. Three understrength cohorts, totaling no more than six hundred men, assaulted the mole from the eastern harbor. A dozen transports carried the legionaries inshore, driving in until the wooden bellies scraped upon the sand and bumped along the rocks. With a battle cry that could be heard by the reserve cohorts riding in the fleet in the bay, the six hundred legionaries poured over the bows of the transports and began to form ranks on the beach. From the moment the first boot hit the sand, they were taken under fire. A hellish onslaught of javelins and arrows erupted from the entrenchments near the fort and descended on the forming soldiers, piercing mail tunics and seeking out exposed necks, arms and legs. Fresh blood spattered the virgin white sand and the weathered shields of the Sixth Legion. The fifty-two year-old Caesar was with them, leading them. From the deck of his transport, sitting idly offshore with the reserves, Lucius could see the consul’s plumed helmet darting among the clusters of troops, until the three cohorts finally compressed into three giant testudos and Caesar’s plume disappeared inside one. Like three armored beasts, the creeping formations began to move, gliding up over the steep slope and onto the plain to advance on the fort. They had landed from the Roman controlled eastern bay at the stretch of beach where the mole met the mainland. To reach the fort, they needed to cross over the tapered spit of land to the western harbor where the fort sat on a bank commanding the approaches to the south bridge. That meant that every step toward the fort brought them nearer to the Alexandrian ships sitting in the western harbor and hovering near the shoreline like angry wasps ready to strike.

  Lucius was certain that the ballista and catapult fire from the enemy ships would break up the testudos, but the giant missiles never came. Arrows and javelins, however, flew by the hundreds, enough to cover nearly every shield in the formation, until the testudos resembled porcupines more than they did tortoises. The three testudos continued the advance, never once stalling, but continuously pressing on under a largely ineffectual enemy barrage. When the formations had approached to within a few paces of the trenches, they suddenly opened. A mass of pila was hurled at the enemy works, and then the flood of Romans charged. Before Lucius could scratch his nose, he saw legionaries in the trenches, gladii rising and falling, and Alexandrians fleeing by the hundred. They seemed to abandon the fort more out of fear than out of defeat, and it wasn’t long before Roman helmets appeared along the parapets.

  Some men standing on deck with Lucius cheered at the sight. What had seemed nearly impossible an hour ago, now seemed a reality. Caesar had pulled out a victory, yet again. He had taken the fort, and now every Alexandrian defender was either running for the city or lying dead in the works.

  Lucius suddenly noticed that his signifer was by his side, the Wolf’s head adornment atop his helmet pushed back such that the wolf no longer appeared fearsome, but pathetically struggling to hang on to the soldier’s back.

  “I tell you plainly, Centurion. I’d have never believed it unless I saw it with my own two eyes. The gods bless him, he was right. By Jupiter, he was right! I’m for Caesar until my dying day, mark you me.”

  Lucius did not respond, lest he encourage more of the man’s senseless babbling. Still, the fool was probably only voicing what the rest of his men were thinking. Any of the Pompeian soldiers who had lingering doubts about Caesar’s greatness, would certainly have those doubts no more. Even Lucius was stunned by the ease of the victory. It had all been so simple. Too simple.

  Now, all that remained was to turn the fort’s engines against the Alexandrian ships in the western harbor, drive them away from the mole, and land the engineers to fill in the gap. As if on cue, a signal flag fluttered from the fort’s parapets. The two transports sitting idly in the bay, responded immediately, coming to life as their banks of oars rapidly propelled them toward the shore. As soon as they had landed, several score diggers with their axes and spades disembarked and began marching toward the mole.

  But something was not right.

  Caesar was now in possession of the fort. That meant he had control of the giant ballistas on its walls. But if that were true, why were the Alexandrian ships not moving away? Surely they would be well aware of the danger and would take the prudent measure of moving out of range of the fort’s weapons. Instead, they sat at anchor in the fort’s lee as if nothing had happened. Why was the fort not letting fly with everything it had to sink the easy targets?

  “What in Hades are they doing?” a soldier near the rail said incredulously, pointing at the fort.

  Lucius squinted his eyes in the wind to see a mass of Roman shields emerge from the gates and earthworks. They quickly began to reform in the three testudo formations, as before, and again were taken under a heavy fire from the Alexandrian vessels.

  This was not according to plan. Why, in Jupiter’s name, were the cohorts leaving the fort?

  At that moment, a chill ran down Lucius’s spine as he deduced the only explanation for it.

  Caesar’s entire plan was predicated on the fact that the fort’s machines would drive off the enemy fleet. What if the enemy had come to the same conclusion? What if they had destroyed or removed the engines? That would explain the scanty defense put up by the garrison. They had fled, yielding to Caesar a useless fortification that would quickly become his death trap. Caesar now had to move quickly to get out of the trap, and that certainly would explain why the cohorts were now flooding back out of the fort. But as Lucius watched, fully expecting the bristling formations to head back to the beach and the waiting transports, they instead took a left turn and began marching north up the mole. The mole was only wide enough to fit a single cohort, so the three testudos moved out onto the mole one after the other, all the while under the relentless missile fire from the enemy ships. So
me of the enemy ships were literally bumping along the western side of the mole, moving along with the cohorts, which they pelted with a galling rain of stones and missiles. The freshly landed Roman engineers quickly scurried inside the creeping formations for protection, though the armored testudos offered little of it from the enemy ballistas, which were now being utilized to their fullest effect. Giant flaming bolts flew in abundance, wiping out entire files of men in a single fiery breath.

  Lucius cursed inwardly as he realized that Caesar was not going to retreat. Certainly, the proud Caesar was determined not to let his enemy win the day. Ships or no ships, he was going to march up to the bridge and do what he had come to do, and he would not leave until the southern gap in the mole was destroyed.

  It was a hasty, desperate, and foolish act, and one that played directly into the enemy’s hands. By marching his cohorts out onto the mole, Caesar had effectively walked into another trap, and this one was much more deadly.

  Lucius watched helplessly as the trap was sprung.

  A mass of armored infantry suddenly appeared at the edge of the city, numbering at least a thousand spears. They began marching in quick step across the plain toward the mole. At the same time, the hitherto docile ships in the rear of the enemy fleet suddenly began to move. Lucius saw the masts of the enemy vessels dancing above the mole. They moved in groups, a dozen dashing to the right and a dozen more to the left. Lucius quickly surmised that the craft were landing enemy troops on the far side of the mole, to the north and south of Caesar’s position. Moments later, his fears were confirmed when pikemen and swordsmen appeared on the mole in the hundreds. They immediately formed into phalanxes, the points of their fourteen-foot sarissas gleaming in the sun. Caesar was now surrounded, with well-armed infantry closing in from the north and south and a devastating fire coming from the enemy ships. Only the rocky eastern shoreline of the mole was left open. It was Caesar’s only hope of escape. The quick-thinking Rhodian captains, who had pushed their transports back into the harbor at the first sign of enemy troops from the city, realized the Roman general’s plight and drove their vessels to converge beside the mole near Caesar’s position.