Eagles of Dacia Read online

  A memory flashed into Rufinus’ mind, tales of Trajan’s soldiers putting Dacian heads on spikes in that very same manner during the great war. It might be barbaric, but it was a little hypocritical to condemn the Sarmatians for what was a common enough practice in war.

  ‘General Appius Maximus,’ the tribune continued, ‘levelled a Dacian sanctuary here because of the barbaric murders they practiced. But the Dacians are Roman these days, their barbarism gone and forgotten, and it is you Sarmatians now who torture and maim, burning men alive in the veneration of your gods. As was Appius Maximus to the Dacians, so shall I be to you.’

  ‘Talk or fight. Not both. I am getting bored.’

  ‘Then you refuse my offer and I shall offer no mercy.’

  Celer turned his steed, moving away from the walls, and the centurions and staff followed. After a few heartbeats, Celer cleared his throat. ‘Tell me how we take Sarmizegetusa.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Four of the centurions were new and untried, the staff were little more than clerks. Rufinus had, in truth, been too busy fascinated by the Sarmatians and their decapitated victims to pay much attention to the defences.,He upbraided himself for that.

  ‘I did not see much evidence of bows,’ Cassius said quietly, ‘only spears. A sensible defending force would have had arrows trained on us during that meeting and, given the reputation of Sarmatian warlords, I am surprised we were not under attack even during your negotiation. We can assume they will have bows, of course. The Sarmatians are noted for them. But I think they are too nomadic by nature for this kind of fight. They are horsemen, used to open battle, not sieges. I do not think they’ve planned ahead, but simply react to threats as they see fit. We have the advantage over them simply in the fact that we know what to do.’

  ‘So that lends weight to the notion of a direct assault,’ Celer mused.

  ‘Quite, sir. This approach is also the simplest, given the access of the wide road and the easy slope. The other sides are much steeper, though the western approach is not too bad.’

  ‘You are advocating a direct assault from this angle?’

  Cassius nodded. ‘It is a calculated risk. But given the apparent lack of enemy planning and the relatively gentle slope, it represents our best chance.’

  The tribune mused, scratching his chin as they reached the lower end of that paved road once more and found the cohort assembled ready. ‘There is no need for lengthy planning or preparation, then, gentlemen. How high would you say those walls were?’

  ‘Around thirty feet, sir,’ Rufinus said, picturing them and the angle at which they’d looked up to the Sarmatian defenders.

  ‘We have lengths of siege ladder in the carts. In an ideal world we would have good siege engines, ballista and towers, but we are a part-trained cohort without a full complement of engineers and artillerists. It would take too long to construct machines, and I would not be comfortable relying upon their efficacy anyway. Let us avoid the time and effort of manufacturing. Have the carpenters take the ladders and peg them together. Improvisation is the watchword today.’

  Rufinus fought the urge to argue against it. It might be an unacceptable delay to manufacture siege machines for the tribune, but then he wouldn’t be the one trying to climb a ladder into a spear thrust. And while he knew that the siege ladders they carried were made to be pegged together into longer articles, he had also heard plenty of horror stories of such rickety combinations falling apart under men’s feet.

  ‘We will move in two centuries at a time,’ the Tribune decided. ‘The Third and Fourth will make the initial assault.’

  Rufinus’ mouth was working before he had chance to overrule it this time.

  ‘Sir, it would make more sense surely to put the veterans in first?’

  He could see Cassius nodding his agreement and felt bolstered by the understanding that he was not alone in his opinion.

  ‘No,’ Celer replied. ‘I have only one veteran century, and there are several sites we must overcome on the journey north. I will not risk losing the core of my force in the initial engagement. The First Century are the backbone of the cohort. They will follow up the initial assault once the wall-tops are ours, and will take the fortress from there with the others.’

  Rufinus saluted, though his pulse was thundering now. Untried men and a rebellious, untrustworthy second in command, committed to the initial assault. Rufinus searched his soul for a shred of confidence over what was coming, and came up entirely empty-handed. As the engineers and carpenters began to retrieve and alter the siege ladders from the carts, Rufinus peered over at Nicostratus, the centurion of the Fourth Century, who had been assigned the duty alongside him. He’d not spoken to the man a great deal, but he looked solid enough. Perhaps thirty years old, muscular and bearing a few scars, he looked the part. He certainly must have served as optio for a while.

  Let’s hope the men are up to it…

  Rufinus and Nicostratus came to a halt, peering up at the walls beyond the lines of sightless heads. The number of figures along the walls had increased heavily, though still no arrows came, and the young centurion was sure they must be within bowshot now. He felt odd, after the past few years, marching into a fight without Acheron at his side, but he’d reluctantly left the dog with Senova at the carriage. The animal could hardly ascend a ladder and would just by impotent and at risk below the walls.

  ‘Perhaps they just don’t believe we’ll attack?’ the other centurion mused. ‘They are too complacent for my liking.’

  ‘Maybe Cassius is right and they’re out of their depth without horses and open terrain to fight in. Either way ,the time has come. Best get to it.’

  Nicostratus nodded and gestured to his signaller, who stood to one side with the standard bearer. The great curved horn let out three blasts in a rising cadence, and both Rufinus and the centurion of the Fourth placed their whistles to their lips and blew once, stomping off up the hill. The tramp of one hundred and fifty pairs of boots on the paved road behind them fell into perfect timing for only moments. Rufinus winced at the increasingly common sound of hobnails scraping and skittering on the paving. A slope of smooth stone was absolutely the worst terrain for Roman boots, and he’d almost have preferred to climb through the trees. He forced himself to pay attention to the task ahead and not shout angrily at the men behind him occasionally falling out of step and struggling not to fall. Years of experience taught a good soldier to walk a certain way on flat stone, pressing on the inside foot to give the best grip. He was relieved to see Nicostratus with that same slightly odd walk. The man was a veteran.

  As they rounded the corner in the road and the walls came into clear sight past the trees, Rufinus risked a brief glance backward. What he saw gave him at least some hope for his untested men. They had begun to use the four long ladders they carried overhead to anchor themselves to one another against slipping on the stones. Mutual support. Excellent.

  Rufinus returned his gaze to the walls, and for the first time saw an archer. One warrior rose above the parapet with a curved, eastern-style bow, drew back the string and loosed. The arrow flew straight and true and slammed into one of the men from the Fourth. Fortunately, it struck the double-thickness chain at the man’s shoulder and, with the distance it had flown, all it did was rip out a number of links and bruise the man, knocking him back slightly.

  Rufinus cursed their lack of shields. Not one of his men carried one, and that put them at serious risk from missiles, but it was impossible to climb a ladder with shield in hand, and each man carried his defence strapped onto his back, where he could retrieve it swiftly once they were inside. More arrows began to come now. Men cried out here and there as the shafts slammed into them, some harmlessly, but others with horrible results.

  ‘Double pace,’ bellowed a voice, taking Rufinus entirely by surprise. In a rush of anger, he realised it was Daizus, safely in the traditional optio’s position at the rear. The century broke into a half run, and Rufinus was forced to do
the same or be trampled by his own men. The Fourth Century did the same, and Nicostratus threw a frustrated look at him, which Rufinus returned in kind. He had been saving the double pace for the safer, flatter ground, once they were off the sloping smooth stone.

  Sure enough men slipped and staggered, and both centuries floundered a little. Rufinus called for a return to standard pace, and the men began to find their footing better once more as they slowed. Arrows continued to come from the wall.

  Finally, the road levelled out as it approached the gate in the walls, and Rufinus gestured to Nicostratus, who nodded.

  ‘Double pace,’ he bellowed, and once more both centuries broke into a jog, this time with better grip and formation. More arrows. More wounds. Men fell and had to roll aside even in their agony lest they be trampled by their mates. The walls were close now. It was time.

  ‘Separate… and… at the run!’

  He allowed himself to fall back a touch and out to one side now that they were in more open ground, so that he was now running alongside the men rather than in front of them. The centuries separated, Nicostratus peeling his men off to the right and heading for the stretch of wall to that side of the gate, while Rufinus and his men went left. There was a little confusion and difficulty as they broke into the run with the ladders still held overhead, but as Rufinus was about to shout commands to pull it together, they managed somehow to fall roughly into step again.

  Finally the arrows slowed and then stopped. Archers atop a parapet could find it hard to angle down sufficiently to loose at figures close to the wall. Of course, Roman defenders who knew how to handle a siege would now have the archers in the towers where they could still launch arrows along the line of the wall, and would be gathering oil, pitch, hot sand, rocks and so on to drop on the enemy.

  He counted off the distance to the wall in his head and cleared his throat.

  ‘Ready…’

  Almost there.

  ‘Aaaand….’

  Here goes nothing.

  ‘Ladders!’

  The men thundered to a halt close to the wall and the ladders began to rise instantly. Rufinus noted with dismay as they came upright that one of the four had come unpegged during the journey and was now only twenty feet long, the extra piece clattering uselessly to the floor. Nothing they could do about that now.

  Rufinus stood twitching, watching the ladders as they angled up and up and finally clonked against the stone. Two of them had been placed too close and therefore rose well above the parapet, and the other was too far away, the top a full man’s height below the battlements. Irritated, he shouted a series of orders and those three ladders were moved and adjusted to the correct angle and height, then anchored in the ground. With even more irritation, he realised a quarter of his men were still trying to raise the short ladder. Idiots! With an angry bellow, he got them to drop the useless object and concentrate on the three intact ones.

  He wondered momentarily what this debacle looked like from the position of Cassius and his veteran First Century fifty paces back from the initial assault. Oddly, just as the thought occurred to him, the arrows started to fly once again, out over the top of the two struggling centuries, aiming at the Cassius’ men approaching behind.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the three ladders were in place and men began to climb. He scanned the scene and was gratified to note a relatively low casualty rate thus far. Given the cohort’s greenness and the various hiccups they had incurred, Rufinus considered himself incredibly lucky that they seemed to be facing an enemy who were also fighting a battle for which they were insufficiently prepared. Had they been facing the men who had built these walls, there would be an awful lot more bodies on the floor by now.

  Three legionaries were on the nearest ladder now, climbing with sword in hand, and Rufinus pushed his way into the press to be the fourth. A centurion should be at least near the front, if not at it. Vine cane tucked into his belt, he gripped his sword tight and began to climb.

  As they ascended, he reaffirmed his vow to raise an altar to Fortuna. The enemy had no idea how to handle a siege. No rocks came. No hot oil or searing sand. Nothing. Not even the most common defence of the lot: a Y-shaped stick to push away ladders.

  A third of the way. Ten feet was not a long climb, but it felt like it with one hand on the rungs and a sword in the other, constantly anticipating death from above. He glanced over at the other ladders, and fresh waves of irritation washed over him. On the furthest one, he could see Daizus nearing the top. The bastard was an optio. He was supposed to stay at the rear and motivate the men, not run ahead seeking glory. Rufinus was going to have to discipline him later, which would likely create dangerous ripples yet again. Damn the man.

  Still, now was not the time for worrying about such things.

  The first man on his ladder reached the last rung and tried to climb over but received a spear thrust to the chest that sent him howling in pain out into the air, to fall and crash to the ground amid the rest of the century. The second man reached the top and thrust with his sword. There was then a little desperate to-ing and fro-ing as the men on the ladder waited impatiently. Finally, the legionary took a horrible spear thrust to the face and fell after his mate. The third man followed in his wake, managing to cross the parapet, and Rufinus rushed up the last stretch, determined to close the gap and create a small bridgehead on the wall, protecting the other climbers.

  The middle ladder was faring much worse, and men were dying repeatedly as they reached the top. Finally, one of the Sarmatians produced a scythe-like object from somewhere and used it to push that ladder away from the wall. The ladder fell and broke, men dropping from it as it collapsed. The victorious defender rushed over to the third ladder to try and repeat his success, but Daizus was climbing over the parapet now and stopped him with a well-placed sword blow.

  Rufinus was only peripherally aware of the fighting at the other ladders, though. As the man who’d been ahead of him expired noisily to a brutal sword slash, Rufinus was momentarily alone atop this section of wall. Three figures were pressing him, and he ripped the vine stick free, using it to parry as best he could. He simply did not have sufficient time to take the measure of his opponents and plan as he usually did, but he was managing, through a combination of skill, determination and luck, to hold off two with parries while attempting to kill the third.

  Suddenly there was a legionary next to him, and the pressure eased. He concentrated on two of the enemy now, parrying one and then driving his gladius into the neck of another. As the body fell away gurgling, and Rufinus twisted his blade and ripped it free, he turned to the other Sarmatian only to find the man now in combat with a second legionary. His century were starting to swarm across the parapet, and even as the first of them died, another arrived.

  Rufinus pressed forward and realised with a start that the figure now facing him was a woman. Not the one he’d seen at the parley, but another woman with a scale shirt and a vicious looking blade, her shield painted with strange curling designs, her teeth bared. He parried her first blow and was forced to step back slightly. She was fast, and vicious, and the second and third blow he caught and turned with stick and sword. He began to wonder why he was losing and then realised with surprise that all he was doing was parrying. He’d not made one attempt to land a blow. Despite the clear danger, his body seemed unwilling to attack a woman at some basic level.

  Her savage snarl and strange, eastern words battered him and Rufinus turned another strike, though only barely, her stray sword scoring a narrow red line along his forearm. Forcing himself to think of her as any other enemy, he gritted his teeth and struck. The blow took her by surprise. Perhaps she had become complacent through his lack of attacks, but his blow took her in the side, just below the armpit, where there was a gap in her scale shirt, sinking deep into the torso in a killing blow.

  The Sarmatian woman fell away and was replaced by two other defenders, one with a spear, the other a sword. Rufinus
laid into them, breathing heavily with the exertion. More legionaries were arriving all the time now, and had begun to unsling their shields. They had gained the all-important foothold. Along the wall, he could see Daizus and his men in a similar situation. A brief glimpse of the interior of the place showed it to be largely empty, rather than swarming with warriors waiting to climb. There were not too many defenders after all, then. And with the hold the cohort now had on the wall, it was only a matter of time until it was over. All Rufinus had to do was survive.

  His sword slashed and chopped, biting into iron and bronze and leather and flesh. His vision became blurred with sweat and dirt and a fine spray of blood. At one point he found himself facing a legionary, and they had almost struck at one another in the confusion. With the blinding mess, the men covered in blood, it was becoming difficult in the press to determine who was who without concentrating.

  Finally, with a roar, he kicked a Sarmatian warrior away, his blade coming free of the wound with a sucking sound, and looked around to discover that there was no one else to fight. The wall was theirs. Mere moments later, as he wiped the gore from his face and blinked his vision clear, a familiar face appeared over the parapet as Cassius led his men into the fray.

  Rufinus sagged. He felt weary, and realised that, for all his military record and the number of times he had wielded a sword since his admission to the praetorians, he had not fought in a proper military engagement since the emperor Marcus Aurelius had died, six years ago. No wonder he was fatigued. Yet, despite everything, they had won. He felt a wave of relief wash over him, and tried not to think what would happen when they found themselves facing an enemy who knew what they were doing…

  VIII – A new Appius Maximus