She found the archers with the hawk, and sent fire spinning through the air once more.
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The green trees burned stubbornly, but brown-gray smoke began to choke the path ahead of them, roiling up into the sky like long fingers. “Keep moving!” Caesarion shouted, stepping over one of his own unconscious men. “Archers! Return fire!”
He’d positioned archers, hidden at the center of both columns, waiting for a good moment. The legionnaires all around the archers pulled their sheltering shields back, protecting only themselves now, and not the men beside them, and the archers did their jobs, peppering the treeline with their own shots, forcing the ambushers to keep their heads down and stay in cover for the moment. He knew precisely where the sudden flames kept coming from, and approved heartily—and distantly. He worried every time his column was raked with arrows and stones, but it was . . . manageable concern.
The air was getting thinner now, burning a little in his chest. “One more bend,” he called, letting his voice rise over the sound of boots and clanking armor and grunts of effort from the rest of his men. “Hold it together! Shields up!”
The archers ducked back down. The shields went back over everyone’s heads. And then yes, one last hairpin turn, and over the shoulders of the men ahead of him, he could just make out the wall barring their path. Stone and mortar at the base, wood above, and with two wooden towers with archers behind the wall itself. A gate, so that the defenders could get in and out—and as Eurydice had seen, a sheer drop past the southern edge of the wall, making it difficult for attackers to go around, and a steep cliff to the north, which shallowed past the wall into a slope that led up to where the Tillii rebels had built their fort.
That was his last clear view, as the smoke in the air was joined by a sudden, unnatural fog that seemed to billow up out of the very ground. The men at the front faltered at this evidence of magic used against them, and Caesarion could hear the war-cries and howls rise from the defenders behind the walls. “Advance the rams!” he shouted. “Keep moving! Right flank—throw torches!”
The right flank responded immediately, passing their torches up the line and throwing them into the trees below the cliff. Green wood and leaves caught reluctantly, but then the flame hit the drier undergrowth, and started to spread. The line behind him split to allow the men carrying the ram—and their fellows, who’d cover them with their bodies and shields—to advance straight up through the armored lines. Caesarion frowned slightly on seeing Malleolus lead Eurydice up, then swore as a hail of arrows came out of the fog, rattling off shields. “Get her down,” he snapped at Malleolus. “Why did you bring her up?”
“Lost most of our cover,” the Praetorian replied, jerking his head at the men with the ram, even as smoke thickened the fog around them.
“Can you lift the fog?” Caesarion demanded urgently, switching his gaze to Eurydice.
“I can try!” She set herself, and began muttering under her breath in Egyptian. A swirling gesture of her hands, and he could feel the first breath of wind rise. “Have . . . to take the energy . . . from the fires behind us . . . raise too much of a wind . . . flames will just spread . . . .” She strained, and the breeze became a tiny whirlwind. Then larger, whipping at the faces of all the men around them. And then, with a cry of effort, Eurydice set it free, propelling a gale-force blast towards the walls, tearing the fog and smoke away, and deflecting another hail of arrows entirely.
But what her efforts revealed was surely worse. Atop the cliff, about twenty feet higher than the wall itself, dark shapes out of nightmare—fantastic black beasts with riders on their backs. Bears. A serpent the size of horse. A great stag. And each of the riders glowed with color—reds and blues. Some had horns on their own heads, and as they were revealed, Caesarion felt his men stop. Superstition had just run into the undeniable presence of real magic, and even hardened veterans faltered.
“Romans!” a male voice shouted in good Latin, and Caesarion tore his eyes from the strange figures atop the cliff to see a man in the armor of the Legion waving from one of the towers. “I am Lucius Tillius Atacinus, and I call on you to remember who you are! I call on you to remember the days of the Republic, before the tyrant Caesar crowned himself a king, and paved the way for a half-Egyptian mongrel, nothing more than a bastard, begotten out of wedlock, to rule over us. Turn on your bastard general, and let us take Rome back—”
Caesarion called out, letting his voice roll over the top of Tillius’, “So, lads, what’s it going to be? Beat me with sticks and drive me from your company, as if this were the Ides of March, and I’m Mamurius Veturius, the spirit of the old year who needs to be thrown out of the city?” Nervous laughter from the men, gathering in strength as Caesarion exerted himself to calm and steady them. “Or do we give the Tillii and their allies a sharp stick up the ass?”
A pause, and then someone bawled from deep in the column, “Give ‘em a good fucking, dominus!”
A roar from all the rest of the men, and the slam of spears or swords against shields as they found their purpose again, their discipline—and then one of the riders high up on the cliff-face kicked its mount, and the black stag leaped forty feet to the ground, landing lightly in front of the column. Laughing like a mad thing.
Caesarion stifled a curse. The woman was entirely naked, and painted in blood, as well as swirls of exotic tattoos, and sat bareback atop the black stag’s back as if born there. A shield on one arm, a spear in the other hand, and barely touching the creature’s neck for balance. A great wolf howled and then leaped over the edge after her, again landing as if it weighed no more than a feather. “Fucking,” the woman said in Latin, her accent somehow mellifluous in spite of the harsh tone and words. She bared her teeth, exposing fangs like a wolf’s, and Caesarion felt his men shift, deeply disturbed. Something that should have been sexual—a naked woman, apparently ripe for the taking—was suddenly not.
“How typical,” she called, riding back and forth now in front of them, taunting. “But what else is a Roman army for? Brigands, and nothing more. You take and you take and you take. Thieves!” she shouted, her voice crackling through the air, and the men behind the wall howled in response. “Rapists! Murderers! Cowards!” She turned towards them now, her eyes glittering in the sun, mad and fey. “You want this land? Come and take it. Especially you, Caesarion,” she added. “Son of Caesar. Who came to our shores to murder peaceful farmers, but couldn’t hold our island. Who came back nineteen years later to kill and steal once more, and was thrown from our shores again. No more! Not one more foot of Gallic land falls to you, rapists. Murderers. Pigfuckers. Come and face someone born of the gods, if you dare!”
“Get her back,” Caesarion hissed at Malleolus, pushing Eurydice back into the shelter of the Praetorian’s shield, and got in step with the rest. Accustomed to taunts before battle, the veterans at the head of the column couldn’t be baited. They waited for Caesarion to shout, “Forward! Take the gate!” and for the horns to blow before they moved forward, inexorable as death.
But when the front ranks lowered their spears to jab the woman, she opened her mouth and wailed.
Caesarion was still forty feet back, deep in the column, but he could feel the power of it, crackling through the air. Could see the first two ranks, twenty men, all fall as if dead. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Loose spears!” he bellowed, and the third rank, morale shattered, did just that, throwing their pilum directly at her, her mount, and her wolf—and two of the spears clearly hit her bare flesh, and bounced, as if she were as armored as Caesarion himself.
An indecipherable cry in some Briton language, and then the smoke-filled darkened, not with fog, but with birds—ravens, swirling in like arrows, so many that they blotted out the sun. Screaming, cawing, pecking, they threatened eyes and faces, so the men reflexively locked shields and moved together, bringing their shields up to keep the birds at bay—which kept them from being able to bring the ram up to the gates. Caesarion star
ted moving up through the ranks, trying to get to the woman, and thought grimly, Eurydice, if you can do anything, now would be a good time.
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From further back in the column, once more covered by all the men around her, particularly Malleolus, Eurydice could see the birds. “Too many,” she muttered. “I’ve never been able to control more than one before. She’s got hundreds.” Wait, maybe one of Tahut’s spells might actually be helpful. Not that it ever really made sense to me as written. She concentrated, incanting intently, and then shouted, “Shield your eyes!”
A dome of blinding light appeared around the front ranks of men, extending as far forward as the gates. It looked like a mirror, except it seemed to radiate light, almost as brightly as the sun—amber-gold, from the smoke in the air. The archers in the towers and on the cliffs threw their hands over their eyes, reeling back in pain; the legionnaires who hadn’t heard her warning flinched and looked down, trying to move forward. And inside, where Caesarion struggled forwards? The world went darker than night. Not a single ray of light came through—and the birds reacted, retreating in confusion, unable to see their targets.
“What in Dis’ name—” Malleolus began to demand, and then paused as every one of the ravens flew out of the dome, scattering—and were unable to return back inside, just as blinded as the humans.
No time to explain. No time to tell him that Tahut’s darkness spell, as written, was supposed to create a dome of blackness over a small region—no more than ten feet. Like a cup of dark-dyed glass, overturned. Eurydice had never been able to understand how it worked, so she’d learned to structure it in a way that made sense to a Roman mind, tutored by the finest Hellene philosophers. If you don’t want light somewhere, you block it to create shadow. You can’t create solid matter around the men, not without it collapsing on them, or suffocating them. You can’t make the air do the work. But here, where there’s smoke and dust in the air . . . those can be made to reflect the light, can’t they? You just need to change their properties a little.
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Inside, in darkness, Caesarion shouted, “Forward! Forward, while they can’t attack us, and get that ram on the gates!”
The thunderous sound of the ram slamming into the wood of the gates reverberated through the ground, and the shouts of the men echoed in the air—”Back! Back! FOR-ward! Bring it back! Back! FOR-ward!”
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Aucissa rode her mount out of the bubble of darkness, storming along the side of the column. Jabbing with her spear, testing their defenses. And her wolf leaped for the throat of one man, staggering him back in spite of his raised shield, and Aucissa jabbed her spear at his exposed arm. Every shot doesn’t need to kill. I just need you all bleeding and not thinking.
And then she was past, looking for the magic-user who’d brought darkness, and who’d been calling to her ravens for the past month. Ravens, Morrigan’s beloved creatures. She got control of her confused flock, and sent them down again through the lines, even as more arrows hailed down on the infantry from the walls and cliff—but these were shots whose power had been stolen by distance, and rattled off shields with ease. Since when do Romans bring magic to the field? Aucissa wondered, catching another pilum strike on her shield, parrying it with ease, and jabbing for blood once more. Where is their magic-user? I know it’s a woman. The ravens have told me so. Where is she?
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At the front of the column, the gate gave way. Caesarion swore to himself. “This is too easy,” he muttered, his voice lost under the shouts of his men, the directions of the centurions. “Why aren’t the rest of them doing more than shooting bows?” He raised his voice to a shout. “Let the darkness go! Accipitra! Give us light again! We’re through!”
Eurydice heard him, heard the private nickname of hawk used for the first time in public, and released her spell, ducking further into the shelter of Malleolus’ shield, heartily thankful for the wall of armored men between her and the outside of the column. She could just see the crazed woman, covered in blood, riding by, jabbing and chivvying. “She’s trying to get the men to break formation,” Malleolus muttered in her ear. “Might even work with a legion that isn’t the Tenth.” Pride in his voice.
“But why—”
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The darkness cleared, and Caesarion got his first good look past the wall—where two Roman legions had drawn up ranks, one facing each wall. Shit. They know that our rear-guard is coming. So much for surprise. “Drop ram and fall in!” a centurion bellowed.
“Form up, form up, and forward!”
“Archers, open fire on the bastards on the cliffs. Right flank, left flank--someone light the gods-be-damned towers on fire—”
And the archers left the protection of the center of the column, laying down covering fire as best they could at the enemy, who had the high ground, but catching them every now and again. Torches flung to the left and the right, to set the wooden towers alight, and force the archers there to abandon their perches. Caesarion glanced around, looking for the woman who’d challenged him personally, but couldn’t find her—
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“Form up, Seventh, form up and advance!” Eurydice could hear that from behind—Alexander’s voice, not cracking, but definitely younger than the rest as he passed along the orders from his legate. “Tenth’s taking this in the teeth, move up!”
And from the other side of the walled-off village, more Roman horns as the Fourth advanced, bringing their own rams to bear at last on the second gate. Eurydice’s eyes flicked up to the dark riders on the crag, who’d yet to move. “What are they waiting for?” she whispered. “Why don’t they attack?”
As if in answer to her question, as the Tenth moved through the breached gate, pouring through like grain through a funnel, the men on the beasts struck. They raised their hands and chanted in their strange language, their voices echoing in eerie harmonies. And she could see as the spirits of the land answered them, leaping to enter the trees lining the right side of the trail—both those green, and those covered in fire. The spirits screamed at the invaders. Wrapped themselves in the bark, and tore the roots up from the ground, whipping their branches in a frenzy. She saw one oak tree, perhaps a hundred years old, bat a legionnaire to her right into the air with one gnarled branch. The man went flying, screaming, over her head and slammed into the cliff-face on the left side of the trail. Scraped down the rock with the sound of tortured metal.
And didn’t move again.
“It’s Germania all over again!” Malleolus shouted. “Do these barbarians fuck trees? Steady lads! You remember how to handle these! Flanks, defend! Second line, entrenching tools! Break the gods-be-damned branches!”
Eurydice stopped breathing for a moment as she saw the men struggling. Digging out gear that should have been used to set up palisades. And trying to chop, over the shoulders of their brothers, at the trees. She could see the spirits inside the trees, howling and screaming and weeping for their people. She could see a branch, broken and splintered by a Roman axe, plunge forward, dripping sap, and slam through a Roman throat. Then pull back, dripping with Roman blood. No, she thought distantly. No, no, no. I can’t let this happen. I can’t.
She incanted, pulling all the flame from the forest fire below towards her, and wreathed one moving, killing one tree at a time with it. Plunged fire into its heartwood, and felt the sap inside boil. A surprised cry from the spirit animating it, and the tree exploded in a shower of red-hot fragments. The men to her right yelped and got their shields up, barely in time. Cinders struck her, but she barely felt the burn against her flesh. She was too busy weaving with fire. Selene’s fingers draw the finest threads into cloth. I can’t create. I can only take the spark within me, use it to steal what’s around me, and then send it out to create ruin. Perhaps I’m more Roman than everyone thinks. Vague, diffuse thoughts, and she sent the fire out again, and again. Let it dance.
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At the center of the battle, Caesarion’s men had just met the first of Tillii. No room for tactics in this narrow area. No room for clever deployments. Just man against man, the front line against the front line. Caesarion glanced past the burning towers, and shouted for the back ranks to spread out and try to circle to the right, around one of the small huts that the herders that lived here used. And try not to get pushed over the edge of the cliff, he thought, but didn’t have the breath to say, for he’d reached the front line himself now, and was stabbing viciously over the top of his shield at the Tillii legionnaires in front of him. Men to the left of him and right of him, all doing the same. A comfortable, familiar rhythm from the practice field . . . except it still felt too damned easy. Where is that god-born? And why have the other riders not joined the fight—oh, shit. He got his first glimpse of a tree on fire, lumbering into the very area he’d just sent men to flank the Tillii legionnaires. “Right flank, watch yourselves!” he shouted—and saw one of his men lofted into the air by a flaming branch, flying over the edge of the damned cliff after all. All right, we’ve dealt with this before, he thought. “Left flank! With me! Up the hill, straight for their shaman!” Break them, and the trees die, yes?
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Back with the Seventh, Alexander and Tiberius had been riding at the left of the column, mostly in an effort to keep their horses alive. As very junior members of the command staff, their job was mostly to relay orders that the men had probably already heard being passed down the line by brazen-voiced centurions anyway. But they were about six ranks from the front at the moment, in clear view of the standard-bearer holding the Eagle aloft. And they heard the shout from behind, “The Tenth’s cleared out of the way! Move up! Move up you lazy bastards, or they’ll have all the glory!”
Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1) Page 43
