Conn Iggulden: The Gates Of Rome

He smelled fresh smoke on the air and could see flames lick from high windows in the streets just ahead. Screams sounded above the eternal clash of arms, and desperate figures climbed out onto stone ledges, thirty, forty feet above the sprawling melee below. They would die on the great stones of the roadways. Sulla saw one woman lose her grip and fall headfirst onto the heavy curb. It broke her into a twisted doll. Smoke swirled in his nostrils. One more street and then another.

His men were moving quickly.

"Forward!" he urged, feeling his heart beat faster.

Orso Ferito spread a map of Rome on a heavy wooden table and looked around at the faces of the centurions of the First-Born.

"The line I have marked is how much territory Sulla has under his control. He fights on an expanding line and is vulnerable to a spear-point attack at almost any part of it. I suggest we attack here and here at the same time." He indicated the two points on the map, looking round at the other men in the room. Like Orso, they were tired and dirty. Few had slept more than an hour or two at a time in the previous three-day battle, and like their men, they were close to complete exhaustion.

Orso himself had been in command of five centuries when he had witnessed Marius's murder at the hands of Sulla. He had heard his general's last shout and he still burned with rage when he thought of smug Sulla shoving a blade into a man Orso loved more dearly than his own father.

The following day had been chaos, with hundreds dying on both sides. Orso had kept control over his own men, launching short and bloody attacks and then withdrawing before reserves could be brought up. Like many of Marius's men, he was not highborn and had grown up on the streets of Rome. He understood how to fight in the roads and alleys he had scrambled along as a boy, and before dawn on the second day he had emerged as the unofficial leader of the First-Born.

His influence was felt immediately as he began to coordinate the attacks and defenses. Some streets Orso would let go as strategically unimportant. He ordered the occupants out of houses, set the fires, and had his men withdraw under arrow cover. Other streets they fought for again and again, concentrating their available forces on preventing Sulla from breaking through. Many had been lost, but the headlong rush into the city had been slowed and stopped in many areas. It would not be over quickly now, and Sulla had a fight on his hands.

Whatever Orso's mother had called him, he had always been Orso, the bear, to his men. His squat body and most of his face was covered in black, wiry hair, right up onto his cheeks. His slab-muscled shoulders were matted with dried blood, and like the others in the room who had been forced to give up their Roman taste for cleanliness, he stank of smoke and old sweat.

The meeting room had been chosen at random, a kitchen in someone's town house. The group of centurions had walked in off the street and spread the map out. The owner was upstairs somewhere. Orso sighed as he looked at the map. Breakthroughs were possible, but they would need the luck of the gods to beat Sulla. He looked around at the faces at the table again and was hard put not to wince at the hope he saw reflected there. He was no Marius, he knew that. If the general had remained alive to be in this room, they would have had a fighting chance. As it was…

"They have no more than twenty to fifty men at any given point on the line. If we break through quickly, with two centuries at each position, we should be able to cut them to pieces before reinforcements arrive."

"What then? Go for Sulla?" one of the centurions asked. Marius would have known his name, Orso acknowledged to himself.

"We can't be sure where that snake has positioned himself. He is quite capable of setting up a command tent as a decoy for assassins. I suggest we pull straight back out, leaving a few men in civilian clothes to watch for an opportunity to take him."

"The men won't be pleased. It is not a crushing victory and they want one."

Orso snapped back his ire. "The men are legionaries of the finest damn legion in Rome. They will do as they're told. This is a game of numbers, if it is a game at all. They have more. We control similar ground with far fewer men. They can reinforce faster than we can and… they have a far more experienced commander. The best we can do is to destroy a hundred of their men and pull out, losing as few of ours as possible. Sulla still has the same problem of defending a lengthening line."

"We have the same problem, to some extent."

"Not half as badly. If they break through, it is into the vast city, where they can be flanked with ease and cut off. We are still in control of the larger area by far. When we break their line, it will be straight into the heart of their territory."

"Where they have their men, Orso. I am not convinced your plan will work," the man continued.

Orso looked at him. "What is your name?"

"Bar Gallienus, sir."

"Did you hear what Marius called out before he was killed?"

The man reddened slightly. "I did, sir."

"So did I. We are defending our city and her inhabitants from an illegal invader. My commander is dead. I have assumed temporary command until the current crisis is over. Unless you have something useful to add to the discussion, I suggest you wait outside and I'll let you know when we are finished. Is that clear?" Although Orso's voice remained calm and polite throughout the exchange, all the men in the room could feel the anger coming off him like a physical force. It took a little courage not to edge away.

Bar Gallienus spoke quietly. "I would like to stay."

Orso clapped a hand on his shoulder and looked away from him. "Anything we have that can launch a missile, including every man with a bow, will mass at those two points, one hour from now. We will hit them with everything and then two centuries will charge their defenses on my signal. I will lead the attack through the old market area, as I know it well. Bar Gallienus will lead the other. Any questions?"

There was silence at the table. Gallienus looked Orso in the eye and nodded his agreement.

"Then gather your legionaries, gentlemen. Let's make the old man proud. 'Marius' is the shout. The signal will be three short blasts. One hour."

Sulla stepped back from the bloodied men panting in front of him. Of the hundred he had sent into the fray hours before, only eleven had made it back to report, and these were wounded, every one.

"General. The mobile squads were only partially successful," a soldier said, trying hard to stand erect over the weakness of his heaving lungs. "We did a lot of damage in the first hour and at a guess took down more than fifty of the enemy in small skirmishes. Where possible, we caught them alone or in pairs and overwhelmed them as you suggested. Then the word must have gone out and we found ourselves being tracked through the streets. Whoever was directing them must know the city very well. Some of us took to the roofs, but there were men waiting up there." He paused for breath again and Sulla waited impatiently for the man to calm himself.

"I saw several of the men brought down by women or children coming out of the houses with knives. They hesitated to kill civilians and were cut to pieces. My own squad was lost to a similar group of First-Born who had removed their outer armor and carried only short swords. We had been running a long time and they cornered us in an alleyway. I-"

"You said you had information to report. It was clear from the beginning that the mobile groups would do only limited damage. I had hoped to spread fear and chaos, but it seems there is a semblance of discipline left in the First-Born. One of Marius's seconds must have taken overall tactical control. He will be looking to strike back quickly. Did your men see any signs of this?"