The Caspian Gates wor-4

by Harry Sidebottom

  With the limited means at his disposal, Ballista had shaped his plans. The armed citizens and slaves were distributed evenly around the walls. They could throw and drop things; some of them had bows and knew how to use them. But there was little point in keeping any back as a reserve; they would be no use hand to hand against Gothic warriors. The men chosen for the watch and the ephebes had been mixed in with the Dacian auxiliaries and the stationarii. The idea was to pad out the number of the latter and stiffen the former.

  Ballista had thought long and hard about how best to deploy his inadequate number of trained men. The first decision he had taken, and he still considered it his best, was to station a hundred and fifty of them in the temple of Apollo Delphinios. There they could cover both the Lion Harbour and the small fishing jetty to its east. Less obviously, they could also prevent any Goths coming down into the main city from the more northerly of the eastern fishing harbours. That this implicitly meant abandoning the northern residential districts to the enemy was something he carefully failed to mention.

  Another group of one hundred and fifty he quartered in the Baths of Faustina. These protected the Theatre Harbour and, similarly, they could try to stand in the way of any Goths who had scaled the land walls at the base of the peninsula. Again, in the latter case, the fate of the southern area of houses was not discussed.

  From the remainder, he had created six small units of forty men. These were ordered to various important places around the walls: one at each of the two fishing jetties on the east, one where the aqueduct crossed into the city, one each at the Lion Gate and the Sacred Gate in the southern wall, and one in the Western Market.

  This left just fifty trained men. Forty of them were to remain with Ballista as his bodyguard and the only reserve. The final ten, aided by a large number of labourers, were to operate the two siege engines he had constructed.

  At the siege of Arete, Ballista had seen pieces of artillery which had been hit by enemy projectiles. One had been smashed and had fallen on its side. One of its torsion springs lay horizontally on the ground. The image had stuck in his mind.

  An artillery piece was a complicated bit of equipment, hard both to build and to maintain. Two vertical torsion springs each had an arm which powered a slide which threw the stone or dart. Here, Ballista had overseen the creation of two new and radically simplified weapons. A huge torsion spring, made from the long tresses of Milesian women, was set horizontally in a stout wooden frame. Its one arm was winched back almost flat to the ground. A stone was placed in a sort of bowl at the end. Released, the arm sprang vertically. When it hit an upright retaining bar, the stone was hurled.

  These improvised artillery he had placed at the foot of the theatre, covering that harbour. There had only been time for a couple of test shots before the Gothic sails had been sighted. The weapons had worked, if with alarming inaccuracy. Ballista hoped the latter would prove less important than the factor of surprise.

  Standing on the hilltop in the cool night air, Ballista stretched and yawned. He knew he had done all he could. He had just over five thousand defenders. They outnumbered the Goths in the region of two to one. But only one in ten of his men had any real training. In fighting men, the Goths outnumbered the Milesians about five to one. But the walls would make a difference, and so should the artillery.

  High above, the moon fled through the sky. At the end of time, when the snows of Fimbulvetr, the winter of winters, lay across the world, the wolf Hati would run the moon down and devour it. Ballista shrugged the image from his mind. That lay in the future, as did the fight for Miletus. Ballista knew the ways of the Goths. They did not attack at night. He called Maximus and Hippothous to him. They were all bone tired. They might as well get some sleep.

  Ballista woke with a feeling of profound dread. Although next to no breeze came through the open window, somewhere in the house a door clicked. Outside, the leaves of the ornamental shrubs rustled. The very air seemed to heave like a swelling sea.

  Unwillingly, he forced his eyes open. Nothing. He sat up, looked all around the bedroom. By the faint light of a low lamp, he could see the room was empty. Unsatisfied, he got up, checked the room again. Still nothing. He stepped to the window, felt the cool night air on his face. Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the moonlit atrium. The humped shapes of the men of his bodyguard slept peacefully.

  Ballista lay back on the bed. Strangely, he felt almost disappointed. For most of his adult life he had been haunted by the daemon of the emperor Maximinus Thrax. Intermittently, but always in the dead of night, Ballista would wake to find the huge, hooded figure regarding him.

  Julia, true to her Epicurean upbringing, had tried to argue it away: it always happened when Ballista was tired and under extreme pressure; it was no apparition but a figment of his mind. Ballista did not believe her. Twenty-four years earlier, he had broken his oath and killed the emperor he had sworn to protect. The body of Maximinus Thrax had been mutilated, denied burial. Barred from Hades, it was only too likely the dead emperor’s daemon would walk the earth, seek out the one responsible.

  Ballista had not seen the daemon since he had killed Quietus. As he fell asleep again, Ballista wondered about the shade of that ephemeral emperor. Another sacramentum broken, another mutilated corpse, another daemon whispering revenge.

  ‘Wake up!’

  Ballista was sunk deep in sleep; it was hard to surface.

  ‘Wake up, you lazy bastard.’

  Ballista forced his eyes open. Maximus’s concerned look and the gentle hand on Ballista’s shoulder belied the Hibernian’s harsh words.

  ‘At fucking last.’

  Ballista threw back the sheet, swung his feet to the floor. ‘The Goths are in the city?’

  ‘No,’ said Maximus, ‘but they are moving.’

  ‘You could have let me sleep until they got here.’

  Maximus laughed. ‘Sure, are you not the brave one.’

  ‘What can you do?’ Ballista, having laid down fully dressed, pulled his boots on, reached for his sword belt. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘No, not until we are armed.’ Maximus hauled the softly shimmering pile of mail towards the bed. ‘ You might want to go down in history as one of the stupid fuckers who runs out bare-arsed at the first alarm and gets a stray arrow in his balls, but I do not. We have got some time.’

  They helped each other into the heavy mail coats, then each started to buckle and tie their own various straps and laces. Ballista’s fingers fumbled with his left shoulder guard. Maximus fussed his hands away and fastened it for him.

  ‘I have said it before,’ muttered the Hibernian, ‘but if I were as frightened as you before a fight, I would not do it.’

  Ballista grinned ruefully. ‘I was not aware I ever had a choice.’

  Maximus said nothing, because it was the truth.

  Up on the roof, Hippothous was waiting. From somewhere, he had acquired a fancy, antique Greek helmet. Its inlaid face mask hid his features. Wordlessly, he pointed to the north. The moon was still up, and the clouds had blown away. In the clear, still, azure night, the longships were easily seen, but harder to number. At least a dozen, maybe more. Evidently, they intended to round the tip of the peninsula and attack at some point on its eastern flank.

  Hippothous turned dramatically and gestured south. Out beyond the land wall, the Goths had already come to shore. The boats were beached out of sight, but the first fires glinted apricot in the dark. Above, straight as a spear shaft, the first columns of smoke rose from burning buildings.

  There was no need for Hippothous to point out the other two divisions of Goths. One, about fifteen ships roughly in line, although still some way out was wheeling to run in towards the Lion Harbour. The final group of raiders was closer. More than twenty of them, their oars whitening the wine-dark sea, they were pulling hard to the Theatre Harbour.

  ‘There are more of them than at Ephesus.’ Hippothous’s voice came muffled from behind the narrow ‘T’ opening of his he
lmet.

  Ballista grunted. He was thinking.

  ‘Success breeds success,’ Maximus said. ‘Every northern pirate in the Aegean will have joined them, maybe some locals too.’

  Ballista took a final look all around. For once, the priorities seemed straightforward. With luck, the southernmost Goths would be diverted by looting. They might be intended as no more than a diversion anyway. Those rounding the peninsula would have to be ignored for now. The longships heading for the Lion Harbour would take a little time to arrive.

  ‘Rouse out the bodyguard.’ Ballista’s voice was decisive. ‘We will go to the Theatre Harbour.’

  Hippothous turned to go.

  ‘And send a runner ahead. Get the men from the Baths of Faustina on the walls, and tell the artillery not to shoot until we are there.’

  At the head of the stairs, Hippothous acknowledged the order.

  ‘One more thing – tell them to light the fires, if they have not done so already.’

  Hippothous vanished below. Soon the clattering of equipment and the thud of boots floated up. Ballista and Maximus stood in silence. Beyond and to the right of Lade, across the water and the plain, the mountains were a dark, serrated mass. Ballista thought he could just make out the pale line that was the acropolis of Priene. The Goths were here, not there, and that was good.

  ‘Ready,’ Hippothous called from below.

  They plunged down the steps of the theatre, along corridors three times the height of a man. The noise of their passing reverberated back from the vaulting, torches throwing misshapen shadows across the great stone slabs.

  Emerging from the theatre, they ran to their left. Along the wall, the levied men shifted nervously. The regulars from the Baths of Faustina cheered. The militia joined in, but tentatively, uncertainly. A night they had prayed never to see had come.

  The two new siege engines stood ready, monstrous, sharp-angled things in the light of the fires. Their throwing arms were winched back, loaded. They smelt of fresh-cut wood and tar.

  Panting, Ballista asked the optio in charge if all was ready.

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  ‘Wait for my command, then reload and shoot as fast as you can.’

  Ballista and his bodyguard climbed the steps to the wall walk. They fanned out to either side. The levied men shuffled aside gratefully.

  The Gothic longships were closer than Ballista had expected. Low and sleek, they were at the harbour mouth, not much more than a couple of hundred paces out. Lines of white splashes showed where their oars broke the water. They were rowing hard.

  ‘Wait, wait!’ Ballista found himself shouting. Unconsciously, he dragged his dagger an inch or so from its sheath and snapped it back, repeated the procedure with the sword on his left hip, then touched his fingertips lightly on the healing stone tied to his scabbard.

  The longboats cut through the water. Ballista had ranged the artillery for a hundred and fifty paces, the limit of effective arrow-shot. He cursed himself for not thinking to place some marker out in the harbour. Gallus had done so at Novae. He had done the same at Arete. Allfather, he was a fool. It was harder to judge distances over water, and at night.

  ‘Light the missiles.’

  Along the wall, bowmen touched their fire arrows into the torches. A smell of burning. From behind came louder sounds of bigger things catching fire.

  ‘Release!’

  The flaring tips of dozens of arrows shot away, bright in the night. Most fell short; some flew wildly askew. A derisive cheer started across the water.

  A heartbeat or so later, a great double twang and thump from behind the wall. With a terrible whooshing, the incendiary missiles of the artillery raced overhead. They rose, then dipped and fell like meteors trailing sparks.

  One dropped short. The other had the range. It did not hit a ship but splashed, hissing, into the middle of the fleet.

  Cries of surprise and alarm came from the Goths. The splash of the oars faltered. The ships lost way. The Gothic reiks were bellowing at their warriors. In no time, the oars restored their rhythm. The longboats surged forward again.

  Arrows whickered out. One or two were finding targets. Here and there, red fire blossomed momentarily on the boats, before being doused by the crews.

  Ballista could hear the squeal of the winches dragging back the arms of the artillery. How long could it take? He did not look round. All his attention was on the still, dark water in front of the leading longships.

  Suddenly, with a terrible splintering and tearing unmissable above the din, one of the leading longboats shuddered to a complete halt. Those behind it swerved. Two of them collided. Yells of consternation from the Goths. Another boat embedded itself on a sunken stake. The longboat behind it rammed into its stern.

  The water creamed, as the crews dug their blades into the water, desperately bringing the longboats to a halt. Arrows continued to hiss among them. Confusion reigned in the harbour. Some reiks and warriors roared forward, others screamed retreat. Some boats turned, uncertainly. Most lay dead in the water.

  The double twang and thump came again. The great burning missiles arced through the night. One fell almost dangerously short, spinning down to fizz and sink just beyond the dock. But the other, as if guided by the hand of a god, plummeted inexorably down towards a stationary longboat. The world seemed to hush for a moment. Then it exploded in a fury of sound: the crash of timbers, the roar of flame, the pitiful screams of burning men.

  There were brave men among these Goths, but it was over. The unseen dangers below the surface, the all too visible threat from the heavens, the growing accuracy of the bowmen: all made it irrevocable. Some longboats stayed in place, trying to rescue those they could from the crews of the three irreparably damaged vessels. The rest backed water, turned and hauled back towards Lade. With those from the stricken ships who had not drowned dragged on board, the last few boats fled. Arrows and intermittent artillery shot pursued them all until they were well out of range.

  Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta. The chant echoed down the defences; full throated with the exhilaration of relief. Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.

  ‘I am of a mind that one swallow does not make a summer,’ said Maximus.

  ‘For once, I am inclined to agree with you.’ Hippothous had pushed the bronze helmet to the back of his head. His eyes glittered.

  That is a man who enjoys killing, Ballista thought. ‘Hippothous, gather the bodyguard and round up about fifty of the regulars here. We need to get to the Lion Harbour.’

  As the men were collected, Ballista briefly inspected the artillery. As he had suspected, one of them had broken on its second shot. He praised the men there, and told them not to relax; the Goths might come again.

  They pounded down a dark street. At least the grid plan of the town made directions easy. After about three hundred paces they came to the south wall of the Bouleuterion. Ballista called a stop. He told them they needed to get closed up – who knew what they would find around the next corner? But, equally pressing, he had to get his wind back. Running in full armour was always exhausting, but he was far from campaign fit, and he was not so young any more. Forty winters were taking their toll.

  Turning left, the tall, many-columned edifices of the agora opened up around them. All was empty and quiet where they were, but the north end was a very different case. Men were fighting and dying along the battlements of the hastily constructed wall which blocked the quay of the Lion Harbour. The bowelclenching sounds of steel on steel, of agonized screaming, washed down the colonnades towards them.

  There were some two hundred paces to go. It was too far to run; they would arrive fragmented, out of breath.

  ‘Form up on me,’ Ballista said. ‘We walk until I give the order.’

  Nearly one hundred armoured men, close packed, stepped forward. Ballista was at their head; Maximus on his left, Hippothous his right. Going to meet something very frightening, it was hard to walk slowly. E
very instinct screamed: run, get it over and done. Twenty paces gone, thirty – just let it be over.

  More Gothic warriors were appearing on the wall walk. A few had fought their way down some steps and were trying to cut their way to the gate. If they got that open, it was all over.

  Sixty paces, seventy. Unconsciously, Ballista quickened the pace.

  A knot of Roman auxiliaries was fighting with their backs to the inside of the gate. More Goths were pressing on them. Blades flashed, rising and falling in the eerie torchlight.

  Ninety paces gone, a hundred.

  The fight at the gate was nearly over, but a handful of Romans was still on their feet. They could not last more than moments.

  ‘Charge!’ Ballista drew his sword and launched himself forward.

  The paving stones hard under the soles of his boots, scabbard banging against his left leg, Ballista forced his legs faster. The weight of his shield was dragging on his left arm. Faster, faster.

  Ballista had pulled clear of the line; Maximus and Hippothous half a step behind. The charge was shaping itself into an arrowhead: the wedge or boar’s snout beloved of the northern sagas.

  The last Roman had been chopped down. Only twenty paces to go. Four of the Goths moved to lift the bar of the gate. The others, twenty or thirty, turned to face the onslaught.

  The warrior facing Ballista set himself, long braided hair and beard, eyes glaring above a red shield. Ballista, legs pumping, shield well out, crashed straight into him. The impact stopped Ballista. The Goth staggered a step or two back. Someone thumped into Ballista’s back. Knocked forward, the northerner’s shield dipped as he fought for balance. The Goth raised his blade for the killing blow. Dropping the shield, still off balance, Ballista side-stepped off his left leg. The Gothic blade thrummed just past his ankle. It rang, sparking on the stone. Feet slipping, still toppling forward, Ballista shot like a ferret between his opponent and the next warrior in line.

  Not glancing back, a hand to the ground, Ballista regained his balance and let his momentum carry him on.