by R. W. Peake
Then, something happened; Caesar wouldn’t learn about the Gregarius’ slaying of the elephant along the wall to his left until much later. All he saw was the animal leading the charge to the left of the gate suddenly dropping its head as if it intended to attack something on the ground directly in front of it as all four legs simultaneously collapsed out from underneath it, causing it to smash headfirst into the ground before skidding for several paces. At first, he thought the elephant stumbled, but it slid to a stop and didn’t move a muscle, while its companions were forced to veer away, sparing the men on the next several ladders over. This pause gave those men the opportunity to either scramble up to the rampart, if that was closer, or leap to the ground, neither of which were particularly safe but were better than the ladder. It was within a few heartbeats of that his men on the ramparts began hurling their javelins down onto the tops of the remaining animals, but while none of the elephants were brought to ground by the hail of missiles, he saw with a savage satisfaction the falling bodies of the Bargosans who moments before had been perched atop their animal, loosing arrows or jabbing down at the few intrepid Legionaries who were trying, however futilely, to strike a blow of some sort at the legs of the animals as they passed by. The feeling of helplessness was the worst for Caesar as he could only watch as the men of the 3rd tried to cope with this new menace, something that he now understood he had underestimated. Since the Pattalans didn’t use elephants, being almost completely Greek in their method of waging war, this was the first time he was laying eyes on these particular animals, and like Batius had earlier that same day, along with every man who had been at Thapsus, he realized that, while he knew from the descriptions written by the various observers with Alexander during the Macedonian king’s campaigns that these elephants were outfitted differently, seeing them and the destruction they were wreaking was completely different than reading from a page about it. The light from the pyres had caught the reflection of the animals’ armor, the scale blankets in particular making a rippling, golden display that, under other circumstances, might have been beautiful to behold. When Caesar saw what appeared to be at least a half-Century of men suddenly begin running, not towards the city but back in the direction of the wharves, his first thought was that he was surprised only that they had stood for as long as they had, and now they would need Caesar and the other warships’ help to withdraw. Turning to Apollodorus, he was about to send the secretary running back to the rear of the ship to order his navarch to raise the anchor and immediately row within range for the two ballistae and three scorpions that were the complement of artillery for his flagship to provide some sort of support, but when he did, Apollodorus was pointing in the direction of the city.
“Master, look! They’re not running away! They’re getting something from one of the ships!”
As soon as Caesar turned and verified this was the case, he instantly understood what was about to happen.
“They’re going to use the naphtha,” he said, almost to himself.
It had been discussed, although only as a last resort, yet Caesar knew that this was the extremity Spurius’ Legion had reached, and knew it wasn’t just the right decision, but the only decision. What he did next, however, would ultimately seal the fate of the city of Bargosa.
He turned back to the small group of men standing behind him, pointing to one of them as he ordered the Tribune, “Asprenas, you and Rufus take one of the small boats. You’re going to go to Cartufenus and tell him to unload the naphtha immediately and distribute it for use in the event they have even more elephants.”
Asprenas repeated the orders then was gone, dashing across the deck while shouting for Salvidienus Rufus, who had been part of Octavian’s staff until, rather mysteriously, he had requested to be placed under Caesar’s command shortly before leaving Parthia. Caesar suspected that there had been some sort of falling out, but frankly, he didn’t care enough to investigate into the squabbles between two young officers, remembering when he and Marcus Bibulus had been under the command of Thermus in Bithynia, and all the bitterness and acrimony that had created that lasted for decades. Until, he thought with a certain vengeful satisfaction, the bastard chose the wrong side and worked himself to death outside Corcyra.
Turning to where Gundomir and Teispes were standing side by side, he ordered the pair, “You two will do the same with the 7th. Is that understood?”
Almost as mysterious, but more amusing to Caesar, was the unlikely friendship that had struck up between his bearded German and the one-eyed Parthian, and he was struck by a sudden qualm, wondering if Mus would be able to understand either of them. Then he remembered how often he had used the German, so when the bodyguard did as Asprenas, repeating the orders in his accented Latin, Caesar impatiently dismissed him with a wave.
He didn’t want to miss what he hoped was about to happen, and since only Apollodorus was left within earshot, only his secretary heard him mutter, “Let’s see how much heat those beasts give off when they’re on fire.”
Memmon had given up trying to control Anala as he fled back in the direction of the city walls, which seemed impossibly far away, hoping only that he could get to a spot safe enough that he could try and minister to his elephant. He hadn’t been able to see what that Roman snake had done; his last view of the man who threw his shield aside as he sprinted in front of the other man with the crested helmet was him dropping to his knees in the instant before he was obscured by the bulk of Anala’s body. It was less than an eyeblink later, though, that Memmon felt his elephant give a massive shudder, and for an instant, he was certain his eardrums had been ruptured by the squeal of agony that Anala had issued since his trunk was raised and curled back against his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man rolling out from under the elephant roughly midway between the animal’s front and rear legs on the opposite side, somehow managing to avoid being crushed. When the animal, whose stride had broken and was now stumbling, made what for Anala was a ponderous turn away from his original path towards the Roman with the crested helmet, Memmon thought that his elephant was intent on crushing this cur who had hurt him, but this was quickly dispelled. It was when, after his initial cry, Anala made a series of staccato trumpeting blasts that Memmon realized that his elephant had only one thing in mind, and that was to flee from the creatures who had hurt him. In that moment, Memmon went from handler to passenger, but while he was too experienced to try and fight to control his animal, neither was he able to bring himself to jerk the spike from the leather thong and stop Anala’s headlong flight before he did more damage to his own side than the enemy. The fact that, to his surprise, the swordsmen and javelineers of Bhadran’s command weren’t standing in his path was why he did no such thing; at least, this was what he told himself, but it was much more than that. First, while he knew his elephant had been seriously hurt, Memmon had been listening for the telltale rasping sound that signaled one of the elephant’s lungs, each one of which was the size of the kind of bellows used to forge large pieces of metal, had been punctured and was filling with blood. That hadn’t happened, and if the spear had struck the animal’s heart, both of them would be back there, and both would be dead. No, he felt a stab of hope, albeit faint, maybe if I can get him to the enclosure, he can be saved, and he resumed speaking to the elephant, still leaning on the massive head, his upper body bobbing in rhythm with the movement. Who, Memmon could see and feel, was beginning to slow down, the last of his energy rapidly waning, and he saw this as an opportunity; before Memmon could reassume control of Anala, the elephant stumbled again, but for the first time, couldn’t recover himself, and the handler was forced with the unpalatable choice of allowing the momentum created by the animal to throw him clear an instant before he came crashing to the ground, or make one last effort to at least control Anala’s fall as much as possible in order to prevent the spear he knew was still lodged in his animal’s body from being driven in more deeply. Memmon didn’t hesitate, and just as the animal took a last
staggering step, the handler thrust his goad, hard, into the left side of Anala’s head. And, as always, the animal reacted instinctively by jerking his head in the opposite direction, away from the source of the pain, the sudden motion causing the bulk of his weight to shift to the left, so that when Anala’s rear legs collapsed, in a movement that seemed to last much longer than it did, Memmon saw the ground rising up to meet both of them as the animal toppled over to its left. The impact drove the air from Anala’s lungs in an explosive gust, but it was the deep groan that was most audible to Memmon, who had barely managed to swing his left leg over Anala’s neck to avoid it being crushed and pinning him under the elephant’s weight. Before Memmon hopped to the ground, he turned and, without pausing, withdrew the spear that, unknown to him, had been just the first one that the same Roman had thrust into his animal. The fact that Anala barely flinched he took as a good sign, and when he withdrew it, he saw in the firelight that about only two-thirds of the broad leaf blade was covered in blood. Throwing it aside, he hopped down to the ground, rushing around to get his first look at the damage that had been done to his animal; when he saw it, he dropped to his knees and began to sob. Meanwhile, less than seven hundred paces away, the other elephants were beset from all sides, his city was under attack from three other directions, and Memmon no longer cared.
The first bolt, once more wrapped in a rag soaked with flaming naphtha, was launched by Murena’s crew, and it seemed as if Pullus’ worst fears would be confirmed, the bolt slashing past the elephant, leaving a fiery trail behind it to embed itself in the chest of a Legionary in the Fourth Century of the Second Cohort; the only blessing was that the man was already dead but lying on his side because his corpse was partially propped up by his dropped shield.
Pullus saw it happen, prompting him to snarl at Murena, “If you miss again, you fucking cunnus, you’re going to wish you died tonight!”
Like every man under his command, Servius Murena feared his Primus Pilus, and when he was in this state, he harbored no doubt whatsoever that the huge Centurion would be merciless in whatever punishment he meted out. Fortunately for the Immune, the rest of his crew liked him a great deal, and whereas there were other scorpion crews where the members may have seen this as an opportunity to rid themselves of a commander they despised, between the regard they held for him and the urgency wrought by seeing their comrades being so mercilessly assailed by these beasts from Hades, they had the next bolt prepared and ready to launch almost as quickly as if it had been a normal one. This time, Murena accounted for the heavier weight and different flight path created by the flaming strip of cloth, and he smoothly pulled the lanyard attached to the pin, sending the missile on its flat trajectory to strike the elephant in its right hindquarter. The effect of the pain caused by not only the iron head punching through its hide, but the fact that it was coated with the flaming substance meant that no more than two or three heartbeats after impact the animal was fleeing just like the one that had been surrounded by Scribonius’ men, while the part of the strip of cloth not buried in the flesh of the animal created a tail of fire streaming behind it as it vanished into the darkness beyond the light provided by those tents that were still ablaze. Within a hundred heartbeats of the first strike, what had been a thundering menace that threatened every man surrounding these animals was reduced to animals shrieking with a pain that was unimaginable. Relentlessly, without any remorse, the scorpion crews worked with a feverish haste all along the dirt rampart, taking enormous risks handling the flammable naphtha, but everyone present had been forced to watch men with whom they had marched, fought, and bled beside battered and crushed by armored beasts that, in their private thoughts, each man had begun to believe were invulnerable. Although the lessons learned that night during the assault on Bargosa would serve them well in the future, none of them were thinking along those lines; all they wanted was to avenge those men who had already perished, and to punish the animals who were the cause. Flaming bolt after flaming bolt gashed fiery paths through the air between the dirt rampart and the elephants, and while most of those bolts that struck their target wouldn’t have been immediately fatal, the combination of the penetration caused by the velocity created by the scorpions and the pernicious flames that were in effect plunged deep into their vitals, a half-dozen of the animals collapsed before they could take more than one or two more steps, although most of them didn’t die immediately. Their bodies lay where they fell, but the Legionaries who had been surrounding their four-legged assailant didn’t hesitate or falter, falling on however many Bargosans were left with their elephants, chopping them down where they landed, or in more than one case, thrusting their blades down into the bodies of handlers who had been pinned by the collapse of their animal. Even as some of the surviving crewmen begged for their lives, holding their arms out in the beseeching manner that needed no translation, no mercy was shown to any of them. But, as befitted the role of Primus Pilus, it was Titus Pullus who provided the last bit of vengeance issued by the 10th Legion.
“Loose the naphtha!” he bellowed down to the men who were still standing on the decks of the second row of biremes.
It was a significant risk, not just to the men standing on the rampart, although Pullus mitigated it by ordering them to kneel for this, but to the ballista crews and, as Pullus was acutely aware, the even more valuable biremes, the decks on which the ballistae were secured. Nevertheless, the crews didn’t hesitate, placing a jar in the specially created iron basket. The crewman assigned to the task struck the flint, touched it to the rag stuffed into the leather seal, and in less than a heartbeat, the contents were released, the jars spinning over and over, sparks and smoke trailing from it, skimming no more than five feet above the heads of the Romans on the dirt rampart. The trajectory was so low because Pullus had ordered that the naphtha be hurled as far as possible, and while it wasn’t with any kind of precision, the wall of fire created by the exploding pots formed a line that trapped several of the fleeing animals, keeping them from the security provided by the northern wall. This presented the handlers of these elephants with the dilemma that formed their nightmares; the animals were out of their senses with pain and terror, making them impossible to control and every bit as liable to attack the nearest living thing, even if it was one of their own kind. Consequently, within the span of fifty heartbeats after the last avenue of escape was cut off by an exploding jar of naphtha, the handlers of the trapped elephants were beginning to yank the spike from their necks, the first step in what was the destruction of the most potent weapon their King Abhiraka possessed and essentially doing the Romans’ work for them. Not all of the elephants were trapped, but their collective state was identical to the frantic beasts who were, their plight only slightly better because they were on the city side of the inferno. Pullus could see the trapped elephants were already beginning to turn on each other, watching as one of them, outlined by the flames, slammed into another animal broadside, and despite himself, he winced at the tremendous collision and the screeching cry it elicited from the stricken animal. Oddly, at least to Pullus’ eye, it wasn’t the elephant who had been hit by its counterpart that collapsed first, but he was too far away to clearly make out the sight of the handler raising his hammer and slamming it down onto the spike. All he saw was that it was the aggressor that behaved in almost the identical fashion as the elephant that was lying dead several paces to his right at the base of the dirt wall. The victim of the collision was next, dropping down onto its knees, but he got the sense that it was from the force of the impact, although he couldn’t pay much more attention because, across his front, each of the trapped animals were being killed by their handlers, until there were only huge lumps of meat strewn on Pullus’ side of the flames. This was the moment when the forgotten original defenders of Bargosa reappeared, off to Pullus’ far left.
Despite all of his bluster and claims of valor, Bhadran’s nerve had failed him, and in doing so, confirmed Abhiraka’s suspicion about the man. It was
n’t that he was a coward, necessarily; essentially, Bhadran was born into the highest caste of Bharuch, had been pampered his entire life, and had pursued his studies of the military arts more as a hobby than as a serious undertaking. And, while he was a veteran, within the span of a hundred heartbeats after the demon Romans had appeared on the dirt rampart, led by that giant, Bhadran had realized that fighting river pirates and the one smaller kingdom that Abhiraka had conquered during Bhadran’s adulthood was scant preparation for what was facing him on a night that seemed to have no end. The runner sent by the king had reached him, and he had obeyed readily enough, dividing his forces the simplest way, taking command of every man who was on the western side of the road bisecting the remains of his camp, while putting a fellow noble, who was also a first cousin, in command of the eastern half. Then, with what many of his men considered an undue eagerness, Bhadran had led them all the way to where the canal reentered the river, essentially away from where the most intense fighting was taking place. His action, if he had carried out the second part of Abhiraka’s orders, would have been understandable, and readily obeyed by the men who had the misfortune to be under his command. However, Bhadran had stopped them just beyond the outer range of the scorpions that had been dragged onto the rampart, whereupon he and his men just…stood there, unmoving, and seemingly content to remain spectators. At least, this was Bhadran’s attitude, but while many of his men were chafing at his inaction, none of them were willing to risk the wrath of their commander. Because of their location, they were in a perfect position to fall on the right flank of the Romans down on the ground, where the men of the Fifth Cohort were being assailed by the last four elephants of their line, but in this Bhadran was actually correct not to do so, because when the Quintus Pilus Prior Marcus Trebellius spotted the movement heading in his direction, he sent two Centuries to stand in front of the very end of the rampart, where it connected to the base of the city wall, while the Tenth Cohort supported him from their spot on the wall above them. And, if Bhadran had done what Abhiraka certainly expected him to do and offered support for the king’s beloved elephants, he would have been forced to either split his small force into even smaller parts so that there were men facing the Romans on the dirt rampart, or risk everything that whoever was in charge of those Romans was so incompetent that he didn’t send those men down to the ground to fall on Bhadran’s rear. That this wasn’t the reason for Bhadran’s inactivity was immaterial to everyone but the men under his command who, because of the stakes involved, were willing to sacrifice themselves for their families they knew were anxiously waiting inside the walls of the city. Finally, when the Romans resumed the use of the flaming bolts, and within the span of a hundred heartbeats, the attack by the elephants was shattered and they were fleeing, it was the perfect moment for Bhadran to lead his men in an attack, but he stood there, still unmoving. The consequence of his inaction was that, using the confusion, men began slipping away, using the cover provided by the tents that were on the outer fringe of the camp and were the only ones that hadn’t either been burned or flattened. Their one difficulty came when they reached the line of fire created by the Roman ballistae, forcing them to negotiate their way through by using gaps in the flames. As they did so, a half-dozen men had the misfortune to be either occupying or being in immediate proximity to the spot where one of the ballistae, whose crews were loosing blindly, sent a flaming pot of naphtha down onto their heads, one of them literally. This man was the most fortunate, because he was killed instantly from the impact of the pot striking him in the head, which shattered against his helmet, sending blossoms of blazing naphtha to strike the other five men, and two of the remaining unburned tents. These human torches became their own mindless weapon of the Romans as, screaming insensibly, all thought driven from their minds by the agony of sticky, clinging fire, they scattered in every direction, either colliding into one of their comrades who was unable to leap out of the way, or in two cases, plunging into the side of an unburned tent, setting it aflame. It was about this moment when, from the opposite side of the camp, the nobleman Bhadran had appointed as the commander of the second force shouted the command to attack, which was what caught the attention of Pullus. These men were much too far away for Bhadran to hear, let alone see even with the massive fires that had essentially bisected the defenders’ encampment, but he did see the Roman reaction, when the men who had been standing idle for the most part began hastily descending the ladders, then hurrying to organize themselves in a line perpendicular to the rampart, but with their backs to Bhadran, who at least understood why they were behaving in this manner. And, it was only then, when Bhadran finally felt compelled to do something that he realized he hadn’t been paying attention to his own men, and now had a fraction of his command left. Without uttering a word to the handful of men who, for whatever reason, had chosen to stay with their commander, Bhadran turned and started trotting towards the city; this time, the remaining men followed their leader willingly. As he essentially took the same path of the men who had fled moments earlier, Bhadran began constructing his defense, not for here on the battlefield, but with his king, not knowing that his fate was sealed.
