Marching With Caesar-Final Campaign, page 34
I stared in disbelief at the man, who seemed to refuse my order, and I was taking a step toward the group to grab him when I heard Macrinus give a loud cough, the kind that one uses to attract someone’s attention. Turning in irritation, he looked at the ground with a sheepish expression.
“Porcinus, you might as well turn around,” he called out, and only then did my nephew do so, looking at me with a mixture of defiance and apprehension.
For a moment, I completely forgot that there was a battle raging several paces away to stare at Gaius, wearing a ranker’s helmet on his head that he had somehow managed to jam over the bandage, or so I thought. I learned later that he had taken off the bandage, reopening the wound on the back of his head.
“I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, Centurion,” I snarled at him, but he did not answer.
Instead, one of the other men, one of the four Centurions that Macrinus had selected, spoke up. Only then did I recognize the face of Sextus Vettus, the Septimus Pilus Posterior to whom Gaius had served as Optio for a few years before being promoted.
“I came to fight, Prefect,” Vettus said mildly, pretending that what I said was aimed at him.
“And so did I,” Gaius put in, and I could see that he was actually more scared of me than what he was about to face. I also saw the tilt of his head and the set of his jaw that I knew so well from my own childhood when my sister would set her mind on something. I took a deep breath, knowing there was no more time to be wasted arguing, along with the fact that he would not obey my order to stay behind. I turned to glare at Macrinus, my anger flaring anew, except this time not at the enemy. To his credit, he did not flinch, looking me in the eye.
“You said bring the best fighting men in my Legion, Prefect,” he said softly. “And like it or not, he’s one of them.”
“Fine,” I snapped, shaking my head more to clear it than in any sign of acknowledgment. Returning to the matter at hand, I told the assembled men, “We’re going to smash this line, or we’re all going to die trying. We have to take this fortress and quickly. We’ve been fucking around too long, and I have no doubt that the garrison in the city has sent reinforcements. That means that your friends in the Third and Fifth are probably fighting for their lives.”
I could see by their expressions that they needed no more incentive to fight than that, so I turned to more practical matters.
“We’re going to slam into their lines at the oblique, with this,” I patted the remains of the gateway, “directly at our backs. I’m going to lead the way.” I hefted the new shield that I had picked up, renewing my grip on my sword, and turned to face the fighting. I looked back over my shoulder at the men, still standing just out of sight.
“The instant this Century sounds the signal for relief, we go. You better be right on my ass because I don’t want to be slamming into those bastards all by myself.”
My heart had been hammering in my chest from the shock of seeing Gaius, yet I was secretly proud of him, and prouder that he had stood up to me, even if I would not admit that to him, at least until now. I stood waiting for the whistle blast, moving my sword in a rhythmic pattern, the point etching figures in the air, an exercise I used to keep the muscles of my arm loose, which I had felt beginning to stiffen. The fighting was still going at its renewed pace, but again our progress had been stopped. We had begun our assault on the breach more than an hour before, a long time for this type of battle, and I was determined that we would break the Serdi line to begin the final phase of taking the fortress. Finally, I heard the blast I had been waiting for, and without waiting, I bellowed, “Caesar!” over and over as I ran forward. I could feel the presence of the handpicked men behind me and I hunched my shoulder behind the shield, trying to time things perfectly. My intention was to hit into the Thracian line the instant after our front line pushed off at the sound of the whistle, when there would be just enough of a gap between the two lines so that I was not posing as much of a danger to our own men who happened to be in the way. It almost worked, except that the Legionary nearest to me was a step too slow, unfortunately knocking him sprawling, where in turn he fell into the man who was trying to relieve him. I could not spare another look because I had to hop across a number of bodies without slipping in what was now the churned and bloody mud of the fortress floor now that we were several paces within the confines of the walls. I managed to maintain my footing despite the slippery conditions and put my shoulder into my shield, aiming for a Serdi who was still regaining his own footing after being pushed backward by the relief. I saw his eyes widen over the rim of my shield, slamming into him with full force, knocking him backward yet again. This time, he could not recover before I was on top of him, not even bothering to look down when I stabbed downward into his body, eliciting a shriek from him, clawing wildly at my leg. As quickly as I hit the first man, I sensed another Roman doing the same, first to my left, then to my right. Feeling a hand grab the back of my harness to shove me forward, I aimed for the next Thracian, a young warrior who had suddenly found himself at the center of our thrust into their lines. Armed with a Thracian sword and oval shield, he presented no challenge, swinging wildly more out of desperation than any plan of attack, dying quickly as a result. I risked a glance to see that, like I suspected, it was Gaius to my right, protecting my weak side, except that also meant that he was more deeply into the middle of the Thracian formation. He did not seem to be worried at all, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as he made quick, economical thrusts, forcing the Serdi in front of him and to his right side to give him a respectful amount of space. I was about to shout a warning for someone to come up to put his shield on his flank to protect him, something I would have done if it had been any other man as well, but there was no need. A Centurion from our group saw the danger, and moved into that spot, turning slightly to put his back at an angle to Gaius, his shield still offering my nephew protection while watching our right flank. Turning my attention back to the fight, I shuffled another few paces forward, followed by the others, now formed into a compact wedge driven deeper into the midst of the enemy, leaving Thracians bleeding in the dirt around us. We had made enough of an impact to the point that now all of the enemy realized that their right flank was being threatened. My goal was to drive diagonally as deeply into the fortress as I could get, counting on Macrinus to understand what I was doing and feed men in behind my small fighting force. Now that the Thracians also understood what was happening, they fought back with a fervor that comes from knowing that the next few moments will determine the outcome. It is not often that everyone involved in a fight knows when that moment arrives, yet such was the case in this battle, and they began pressing back against our incursion. As quickly as we had managed to make headway, the resistance stiffened, the enemy beginning to organize themselves. I found myself defending from a two-man attack, with Gaius on my right, and the man on my left too busy themselves to offer any assistance. One Thracian was armed with a spear, the other with a sword, and it did not take long to understand their plan. The man with the spear handled it deftly, and from a safe distance, jabbing at me repeatedly, moving his point of aim with each thrust, forcing me to keep my shield angled in his direction, while the man with the sword moved a pace to his left before stepping in to start his own attack. Forced to defend against two completely different attacks, blocking the spear with my shield, and parrying the other man’s sword with my own, it was a desperate moment. I honestly do not know how I managed, but none of their thrusts landed a damaging blow and, after what felt like a full day, but was only the span of a handful of regular heartbeats, both Thracians had to pause to catch their respective wind. I did not; keeping my gaze squarely on the man with the spear, I made a move like I was going to close with him, instead suddenly moving my sword from the first position up and out, locking my arm straight out from my shoulder. At the same time, I pushed off with my left foot, moving violently sideways instead of straight ahead while my head never moved, my eyes locked with the Serdi spearman, knowing that by the time either man realized what was happening, it would be too late for one of them. Lulled into the belief that I was focusing on the spearman, the swordsman had relaxed just enough that his reaction was delayed, because I actually lunged toward him instead, the point of my Gallic blade aimed slightly downward to compensate for our height difference, and I felt the shiver up my arm when I struck my target. Only then did I risk a quick glance, satisfied to see that my sword had struck just under the Thracian’s chin. When I withdrew the blade, I twisted it exceptionally hard, since I had not penetrated his spinal column and had to kill him by severing the vessel that carries blood from the heart to his head. Before he hit the ground, I had my eyes back on the spearman, who had realized he had been duped and managed to recover quickly. He was already in motion himself, barely giving me time to shift my shield to meet his attack, his spear striking me a solid blow that shoved the shield back into my body. I felt the point punch through my shield, slicing into my arm, but it was not a serious cut. For just an instant, the spear remained lodged in the wood of the shield, the Thracian tugging at it frantically. Shoving down on the shield, I kept the spear embedded in it, next giving a hard tug backward and taking a step to the rear. This had worked for me before in throwing an enemy off balance, but this man was experienced enough to know to just let go, causing me to stagger a bit. However, now he had no offensive weapon, and I saw his eyes flicker toward his dead comrade, the sword lying next to his body just out of reach of the spearman. Before he could lunge for it, I recovered and, despite the awkwardness of having a spear dragging my shield down, I moved to cut him off. I lunged, coming around the side of my shield, but he managed to block the blow with his own shield, now his only protection. The desperation was plainly written on his face, and I renewed my attack, this time with an overhand thrust over the top of my shield. Although he blocked me, I had put enough of my weight behind the blow to make him stagger, the point of my sword punching a hole in the top of his shield. His spear was still stuck in my own shield, the end of it waving around with the movement of my hand, and I suppose that he thought his best chance was to make a grab for his spear in an effort to retrieve it. He made a lunge for it, but completely by accident, I chose that moment to lower my shield even further, changing the location of the shaft to just a bit farther away than the spot he aimed for. The Serdi tried to extend his reach to compensate, but moved too quickly, causing him to lose his balance and stumble forward, letting out a cry of despair as he did so, knowing that he had just killed himself. I wasted no time, striking down hard and fast into his unprotected back, where the armor is made of slightly thinner plates, my blade sinking deeply between his shoulder blades. Before he gave his last breath, I stepped over him, seeing that I needed to catch up with Gaius and the others, who had already pushed even farther into the mass of Thracian defenders.
Our group was now about halfway across the breach, angling toward the southern wall opposite the small gate leading to Serdica. This was extremely risky in the sense that should the Third and Fifth not be able to hold, the reinforcements coming to the fortress would enter the northern gate and then be in our rear. This was one of the factors out of my control; I had to believe that the men of the 8th, knowing the rest of their comrades were depending on them, would hold. In the same sense, the men fighting for the fortress knew that their comrades in the two Cohorts blocking the road were in the same position. As I moved to catch up, I took a quick glance back, and was pleased to see that Macrinus had indeed made sure that there were men following us to consolidate the gains we had made. We had now cut off more than a third of the interior of the fortress and were squeezing the remaining Thracians into an ever-shrinking space, giving them less and less room to fight. There were pockets of Thracians that had not managed to withdraw with their comrades, and they were fighting desperately, their fate essentially sealed. Moving next to Gaius, I gave him a cursory check, and despite being covered in blood up to his elbows, with a fair amount spattered across his armor, I saw that none of it was his. Gaius’ face was set in an attitude of intense concentration, his mouth turned down as he marked his next target, and I don’t believe he even noticed that it was me next to him. I opened my mouth to say something, but did not want to distract him, so I shut it, turning back to finding more Thracians to kill.
And there were still plenty Thracians left, despite the progress we had just made. The men that Macrinus had selected, Gaius included, had been as good as I had hoped, and while two or three of them had minor wounds, none of them had fallen, dealing death out themselves without mercy. The ground was beginning to be soaked with enough blood that it formed a sticky paste, sticking to our boots, and the men moving in behind us had the job of finishing off those Serdi that we had downed but not killed. I could hear some of them begging for mercy, a few even shouting out in camp Latin to the man standing over them, offering them money, wine, and even sexual favors to avoid being finished with a thrust of the short sword, but there was no mercy to be had. Primus had not given any kind of instructions concerning captives being sold as slaves, so the men were working on the premise that no prisoners were to be taken. I did not care either way; my fortune at this point was essentially made, and money had never been anything more than a means to an end. Now that it was in sight, I was not obsessed as some men were. Pushing forward, I engaged with another Thracian and, for the first time since we had entered the breach, I felt the nagging pull of fatigue when I punched forward with the shield. This Serdi was a shorter, wiry man, lightly armored, and I saw why; he easily leaped backward a step, causing my shield to hit nothing but air. Cursing this man and his determination to be inconsiderate and not just die because I wanted him to, I moved quickly to deprive him of the space he had created by his retreat. Every foot we took forward moved us closer to reaching the southern wall, essentially cutting the Thracians into two groups. Keeping up the pressure, I punched again, except this time the slippery little bastard dodged to the side, bending low enough that only the bottom of my shield hit him. It was a glancing blow, yet because of my strength, it caused him to stagger just a bit, a look of surprise on his face.
“I’m a bit stronger than you thought, neh?” I grunted, thrusting under my shield before he could fully recover.
Still, he managed to twist his body enough, the point of my sword only catching the hem of his tunic that hung below his leather cuirass. I heard it rip, but cutting his clothes off and hoping he would die of cold was not going to work. However, before I could make another lunge, he came at me with the rapidity of a striking serpent, his weapon a sword in the Thracian style, except it was slightly different, being more slender through the waist of the blade, then flaring out a bit towards the point. At first, I could not understand the logic behind the design, until he whipped the blade in a sideways arc, aiming for a spot just below my kneecap and above my greave. He came up a little short, a good thing, but even so, I felt a burning sensation across the top of my shin, telling me I had been grazed by his blade, which he was using as a slashing weapon. That was when I realized that he was trying to hamstring me, attempting to cripple my mobility before either he or one of his comrades next to him moved into finish me. His sword was counterbalanced so that when he made a slash, the tip would move faster, and with the extra weight, cut more deeply when it struck. It was a dirty, nasty way of fighting, causing the anger that had been fizzling out to flare anew, tightening my chest as I snarled a curse at the Serdi. Feinting once again with my shield, my opponent reacted like I had hoped, repeating his backward hop of his first move, instead of ducking sideways, except this time, as he did, I went with him. Using my longer legs to my advantage, I timed my movement to coincide with his so that the moment both of his feet landed on the ground, the space between us was exactly the same that it had been before he had made his move. I punched out again with my shield as I stepped, catching the Thracian flush in the face, before he could bring his shield up and across his body to block. I could hear even over all the other noise the crunching sound of nose and probably cheekbone giving way. His cry of pain was muffled by the blood filling his nose and mouth, and his eyes filled with the tears that come when one is punched in the nose. I am not sure why, but a good blow to the nose always makes a man’s eyes water, obscuring his vision, meaning that even as I feinted a thrust with my blade, his shield was already moving to try and block what he anticipated would be coming but could not see. That was when I hit him again with the shield, harder this time, with my weight behind it instead of just using my arm, and I felt all the bones of his face give way under the blow, crunching like an eggshell. As he fell to the ground, I saw that I had flattened his face completely, pushing his nose back into his skull, along with his jaw. Even if he was not dead before he hit the ground, I did not envy his chances of being able to survive not being able to eat or drink, or breathe, for that matter. Still angry, I gave him a savage kick to the body before I stepped over him, but he made no sound or movement so I supposed he was dead.
