Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

  On Marcellinus’s other side Leotie crashed down, an arrow in her thigh and another in the center of her back. Even as Marcellinus bent over her, he knew it was hopeless; Leotie would never make it back to her feet, and they could not carry her. Leotie knew it, too: mute, face racked with pain, she shook her head, waving him on.

  The First Ocatani came at last, at a steady march, and Jove be thanked, they all bore honest-to-gods Roman steel shields of the 33rd Hesperian. Marcellinus struggled to remember the name of their Ocatani centurion, a tall slender warrior carrying a Roman gladius, with bright but hastily applied war paint smeared across his cheeks. “Centurion!…Coosan! Line them up, raise shields, defend the people, be ready for an organized retreat.”

  Marcellinus ran right and left, helping people get into the formation, sending the elders and children ahead where he could. He had lost sight of Hurit and Anapetu but knew they would be doing the same thing.

  The first quinquereme rammed the muddy bank, riding up high on the shore. At the same time the marines dropped the corvus, a wide gangplank at the bow that anchored itself into the bank with a heavy metal spike. Legionaries were jogging onshore with a jangle of heavy armor before the warship had stopped moving.

  To either side the second and third quinqueremes also beached and began to disgorge soldiers. Behind them in the water the fourth and fifth warships rowed past, heading upstream into the mouth of the Oyo, and their drumbeats slowed as the captain commanded his oarsmen to hold position against the current.

  “Throwing engines!” Marcellinus shouted as Hurit ran up to his side. “Look out!”

  The leftmost warship rocked in the water as the first onager loosed its missile, an irregularly shaped iron ball that tumbled lazily end over end in the air before smacking into the palisade just a hundred feet north of Marcellinus and Hurit. The wall shivered. Splinters flew.

  The townsfolk were retreating as fast as they were able under cover of the First Ocatani’s shields. From behind them came a smattering of arrows from Ocatan’s palisade. The legionaries of the Sixth Ferrata raised their own scuta. They were swiftly forming ranks, arraying along the bank in a solid line. The auxiliaries put their bows over their shoulders and stepped back, their job done for the time being; the troops in the first rank locked together in close order, shields up, pila at the ready.

  Behind them legionaries continued to pour off the three beached galleys. Marcellinus had lost sight of the Praetor, but he knew the Sixth Ferrata was only moments from its first charge.

  Out on the river the fourth and fifth warships again swayed as they fired their onagers. One ball slammed into the stockade. The other flew over the wall into the town. Marcellinus had no doubt that the missile would do its work of spreading terror even if by sheer luck no one was hit.

  The last two quinqueremes had split off. The sixth was rowing at full speed across the Oyo toward the much smaller Ocatani fort on the other bank, and the seventh pulled in to land on the riverbank a few hundred yards northeast of the rest of the Roman force.

  Marcellinus had backed up almost as far as the gates now. The civilians were almost all inside, the First Ocatani retreating steadily. “Halt!” Coosan cried.

  Marcellinus turned. Anapetu stood close by him, leaning on Hurit’s shoulder. A dozen other Ocatani and Cahokians were waiting to enter the town.

  They had stopped to let Iniwa’s warriors stream out of the fort, armored in reed and wooden mats and armed with the usual motley collection of weapons from swords to axes to rocks and carrying only the occasional wooden shield, ready to do battle with the Romans, with the war chief Iniwa himself in the lead.

  Marcellinus swore. This was craziness. Out in the open field of war the Romans would utterly destroy them.

  A Catanwakuwa flew over his head, its pilot hurling pots of liquid flame down onto the Romans. The pots exploded, showering the front line of the legion with the searing incendiary. A second Hawk pilot came in from the right, dealing her own pots of flame into the massed Romans. A grenade of liquid flame exploded onto the deck of the first galley, and the crew scattered away from it. But the largest pot a Hawk pilot could carry was the size of a man’s head. These were not the giant sacks of flaming death that Cahokia had unleashed on the 33rd Hesperian Legion all those years before. Here the attacks from above were at worst a minor annoyance.

  With another blare of cornicens and a loud clanking, the Romans started their advance. Not an energy-wasting full-out charge but a strong walk behind a line of red Roman shields bearing the golden thunderbolt of the Sixth.

  Roaring their battle cries, the warriors of Iniwa ran forward to engage them.

  Marcellinus didn’t hear the order, but the legionaries in the central third of the Roman line hurled their pila as one. A stout wave of spears slammed into the Ocatani war line. The sheer force of the heavy spears knocked warriors off their feet, spun them around, and in some cases pierced straight through their chests.

  Marcellinus turned. “Inside! All of you! Move!”

  Another iron ball smashed into the palisade to his right, its impact so loud that he dropped into a squat and covered his head as shards of wood and clods of earth rained down on them. He stood to find the warrior centurion Coosan in front of him. “The First Ocatani, inside? You say so?”

  It was a fair question. The last of the townsfolk were disappearing within the gates of Ocatan. The firing platforms and palisade above were lined with archers who were holding fire so that they would not hit their own warriors in the back. Down by the river the Sixth Ferrata still advanced, hacking its way through Iniwa’s men. The warriors fought valiantly but were hopelessly outnumbered and outequipped.

  “In, in!” said Marcellinus. “Hold the town. Let the Romans lay siege to us.”

  “Siege?”

  Marcellinus resisted the urge to punch him. “You will not throw away your men’s lives out here. Fall back! I have spoken!”

  Coosan tried to mask his relief with little success. “Inside!” he commanded. “Man the walls! From the right, double time!”

  The far end of the line turned and jog trotted back into Ocatan, retreating to safety.

  “Back!” came a yell from just a hundred feet away. “Back!”

  Iniwa was calling the retreat as well, but it had come much too late for most of his men. Over a thousand warriors had run forward from the walls to fight the Romans. Fewer than a third of that number were running, walking, or limping back.

  With another blare of trumpets the center of the Roman line broke into a run, surging forward. Marcellinus could see the whites of their eyes, their faces blank under their helmets. Their pila cast, they were charging with shields up and gladii held out in front of them.

  It was a terrifying sight.

  The First Ocatani was in, with Iniwa and most of his warriors on their heels. Marcellinus checked left and right; Ocatani were down and bleeding in front of him and all around him, but he could not help them, not if he wanted to keep his own head on his shoulders.

  He ran through the heavy gates of Ocatan, and they swung shut behind him. Wooden cross-braces fell into place. “Fire! Shoot!” Marcellinus shouted, because nobody else was doing it, and above him on the palisade the archers sent a hail of arrows into the Roman lines.

  Iniwa and his men were climbing the steps to the palisade. Some looked dumbstruck, others terrified. Some stumbled and fell, dazed or wounded. Again Coosan was looking at Marcellinus, almost beseeching him.

  Marcellinus glanced up at the palisade. “Coosan, keep the First Ocatani together down here. Order your men back, hold ranks. If the wall…when the wall falls, have your men ready to step into the breach. Try to hold the Romans back. Or if the Romans concentrate on the gate, be ready in ranks thirty feet back to attack the legion as soon as it starts coming through.”

  “Shit,” said Coosan.

  Marcellinus clapped him on the shoulder. “Strength, centurion. The people of Ocatan need you.”

  An iron ball f
lew over them and thudded into the Temple Mound two hundred feet behind them. At the same moment the Ocatani launched another Hawk in the opposite direction. The warriors in the Sky Lantern were shooting arrows over the wall at the Romans. Marcellinus could only hope that it was Ocatan’s best archers up there and that they were aiming for centurions, perhaps tribunes—

  He caught himself, rocking on his heels. Now he was wishing Roman officers killed?

  Marcellinus pulled himself together. His one duty here was to protect the innocent, save whoever he could. As he looked all around him at the Ocatani townsfolk milling in confusion in the streets, he realized that the clamor of the Roman forces from the other side of the stout wall had dimmed.

  Where had Hurit taken Anapetu?

  “Wanageeska!”

  Iniwa was calling to him from the top of the palisade. Marcellinus ran up the steps two at a time. “What is it?”

  “Your silver men. They are leaving?”

  The legionaries had broken formation and moved back fifty feet, some almost strolling. Several had walked back across the gangplanks onto their ships. They seemed dismissive of the Ocatani arrows that landed around them and with fair reason, considering the weight of steel that armored them.

  Iniwa peered at Marcellinus, irritated at his silence. “They are raising their masts to sail away?”

  “No. Those are not masts, and they are not raising them. Those are battering rams, Iniwa. They will bring them up to the gates of Ocatan and smash them down.”

  Iniwa scowled. “They will not. We will drop stones upon their heads, throw liquid flame, boiling water. Shoot them from above. They will not smash the walls of Ocatan.”

  “They will.” Marcellinus felt momentarily weary. “See, now: those stout sheds they are carrying off the ships, each like the roof and side walls of a hut, but with no ends? They will hold those in sections over the soldiers and the battering ram, making…a longhouse that will cover them and keep them safe.” He squinted. “The sheds are wooden but covered in hides. See them wetting down the hides with river water? Those will not burn. They will be hard to break, and if you do break one, they will just replace that section with a fresh section. The battering ram will be protected. Ocatan’s gates will fall.”

  “They will not. I have spoken.”

  Marcellinus nodded. “As you say. But your people should flee anyway, great Iniwa. We should get the townsfolk out of the northern gates and into the grass, the woods, to hide until it is over. Is it not so?”

  Hurit jogged to the base of the palisade and clattered up the steps to his side. “The Romans are leaving?”

  “No. How is Anapetu?”

  “Angry and bleeding. Will we fight?”

  “No, we will run, escape. Is Anapetu still lucid? Can she run?”

  Iniwa stared, open contempt in his eyes. “The great Wanageeska will run like a child? We will not flee. We will go to the gods first.”

  “You think there are gods?” Marcellinus said. “Look around you. There are none. Your people—”

  Marcellinus recoiled, his face burning. The Ocatani chieftain had slapped him. “Those are your people who attack us! Your silver men. You will go out and stop them, tell them they must leave or face the wrath of Ocatan!”

  Hurit shoved at the war chief’s chest. “You will not hit the Wanageeska again. Do not touch him!”

  Iniwa raised his fist. Marcellinus stepped forward. “These are not my Romans, great Iniwa. They will not listen to me, you, or anyone here.”

  “They are your brothers. At least make them pause. No?”

  “If I walk out of here now, they’ll slay me without hesitating or drag me away as a prisoner.”

  Iniwa’s lip curled. “You fear them.”

  Any sane man would fear the Sixth Ironclads. Marcellinus opened his mouth to respond, but the Ocatani war chief was speaking again. “Then we will fight.”

  “No, no. Iniwa, hear me. You have to run. Get the hell out of here. Escape out of the northern gate before the Romans surround Ocatan. Some of us must stay here and fight a rearguard action.”

  But Iniwa had walked away, not even deigning to respond.

  “Damn it,” said Marcellinus. “Then you, Hurit. We’ll marshal them, and you’ll lead them north, away from here. To Cahokia if you can.”

  “While you stay here?”

  He swallowed, glancing again at the Sixth Ferrata’s methodical preparations as they brought the battering ram forward with the sheds in position over it. They were wasting precious minutes. “Yes.”

  “No.”

  How to make her understand? Marcellinus grabbed her arm, walked her down the steps, tried to hustle her toward the north gate, but she pushed back. “Hurit, listen. The Romans will destroy Ocatan. Today. Soon. There is no doubt, no hope of resisting them. And if you are still here and still alive, then…their soldiers will hurt you. Use you.” He took a deep breath. “Hurit, you are young and beautiful, and they will keep you alive a long time and hurt you horribly…viciously. I have seen what Roman legions do to…girls like you. You have to get away from here and take with you Anapetu and Dowanhowee and Nashota and every other woman or girl who can run.”

  She stared at him, mouth open.

  “Hurit, go. Please. Run.”

  Tears sprang into her eyes. She blinked them back. “You think I am a coward? That I fear those verpa, that I would let them…?”

  Marcellinus changed tack. “No, Hurit. I think you have to protect the others, the younger ones who cannot fight the way you can. Get the young girls out of here and keep them safe. Please.”

  Hurit’s eyes widened. “Futete.”

  Because above them on the palisade a new hubbub had broken out, and Iniwa was striding toward them, his face hot with fear and anger. “Four-legs!” he shouted. “Romans with four legs! Beasts in armor!”

  “Beasts?” Hurit said.

  But now Marcellinus could hear for himself the thunder of galloping hooves on the other side of the palisade walls. “Holy Jove…”

  Once again he ran up the nearest steps, with Hurit close behind. As they came up to the level of the walkway, he put his hand on her head to shove her down. She immediately understood, and they approached the parapet at a crouch and peered carefully over.

  Roman cavalry wheeled outside the town. The seventh quinquereme, the warship that had beached at some little distance from the first three, was still disgorging a steady stream of horsemen, their hooves clattering on the gangplank.

  They wore short-sleeved mail shirts over wool tunics, braccae, and iron helmets, and each man bore a long spatha sword and a flat oval shield with a signum of laurels and moons. Light cavalry, and under a standard that Marcellinus knew, at least by reputation: the Cohors IV Gallorum Equitata.

  He turned back. “Fourth Gallic Cohort. Specialized cavalrymen.”

  Hurit’s face was ashen. “They are…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Monsters? One thing or two?”

  About to snap at her, Marcellinus suddenly recalled his shock at first seeing the Iroqua flying machines in the mountains of the Appalachia. How even the battle-hardened Corbulo had been terrified and confused by the vision of the Iroqua Hawks wheeling overhead. There was no shame in Hurit fearing horses.

  “They are two things, Hurit. Men, just ordinary men, astride beasts of burden.”

  “Huh.” She squinted at them.

  Marcellinus saw only one standard, that of the Fourth Gallorum. Therefore, there would be just 128 horsemen in total, four turmae of thirty cavalry, with each turma led by two officers: a decurion and a duplicarius. Surely a single quinquereme could not hold more than that, anyway.

  En masse, though, weaving within the infantry to take their supporting positions, it certainly looked like more.

  “I hate them,” Hurit said suddenly. “The four-legs. They are horrible, not…right. Get me away from them.”

  The first and second battering rams were ready, on the bank under their protective sheds. Fo
ot soldiers were lined up to carry them. In a few minutes they would be marching forward to smash Ocatan’s gates.

  The horsemen were forming up in loose groups. Once the walls came down, the cavalry would wreak havoc in Ocatan.

  Iniwa strode along the palisade walkway shouting orders. The Ocatani were preparing rocks, amassing pots of liquid flame. The Roman onagers had ceased firing, perhaps to conserve the iron balls. The battering rams would do the job much more efficiently.

  Legionaries were falling into ranks again, ready for the next assault. Again the terrible trumpets sounded.

  Only about half the Roman force was rallying: the cohorts who had rested on the flanks the last time. The remainder was being held in reserve. The Praetor leading this assault was supremely confident, and his confidence was justified. As Marcellinus had predicted years before on his first visit to Ocatan, the silver men of Roma would take Ocatan with ease and within the hour.

  Marcellinus would probably die here. But with luck, Hurit and hundreds of other Hesperians would not.

  The land north of Ocatan was largely flat and grassy; the Ocatani had cleared the trees away from their walls, leaving a wide empty perimeter so that Iroqua and other ancient enemies could not use them for cover. The nearest forest cover was several miles to the northwest. The Mizipi passed Ocatan to the west and then curved left and right in two giant oxbows before heading north. The trail to Cahokia followed the Mizipi for three miles, then continued straight when the river turned—

  “Hurit, lead them into the bottomlands. The mud where the Mizipi has burst its banks.”

  She looked at him as if he were mad. Marcellinus was getting a little tired of that look today.

  “The horses can’t follow you there. If the soldiers pursue you, swim. Jump into the river, let the current take you. The Romans will not take off their armor to follow you into the water. Swim hard, come ashore on the west bank, walk north to Cahokia-across-the-water.”

  “With the four-legs, the Romans will get to Cahokia before we do.”

  “No. This is their strategic goal. They’ll stop and fortify here.”