R. Cooke - Rome - Sword of the Legion

Terror then spread through the enemy ranks. Though they outnumbered the Romans nearly four to one, the ruthlessness of the simultaneous attacks on their flank and their front spurred them into a panic. Their cursing officers could not get control of them, and finally, they broke and ran for their ships, leaving behind a causeway covered with twitching bodies, abandoned sarissas, and broken shields.

Lucius caught his breath for a moment before arrows from the enemy fleet forced him to find an abandoned Alexandrian shield under which to take cover, prompting his surviving men to do the same. As he crouched behind the shield, he counted thirty-nine of his original century still standing. Add to that about a dozen more men that had come from Caesar’s cohorts. Every one of them was out of breath and covered in blood, from their own wounds and the wounds of those they had slain.

The attack of Lucius’s century had been successful. It had given the three beleaguered cohorts, farther down the mole, a small measure of breathing room. It had allowed Caesar to finally do the sensible thing and order a withdrawal. And he must have done just that because the cohorts were now falling back while a few troops remained behind to hold off the phalanx attacking from the south. The transports now came in close to the rocks. Legionaries cast away weapons, shields and armor to try to swim for them. There was little order once the troops hit the water. They swam for the nearest transport, regardless of the number of men already aboard it. Lucius saw one such ship, low in the water, its decks and rigging covered with a mass of soaked troops, capsize suddenly and sink, taking most of the men aboard down with it. But even that did little to dissuade the panicking soldiers from crowding aboard the other craft. In the hundreds of splashing arms and legs, Lucius lost sight of Caesar, but he assumed the general had made it to one of the vessels and was now pulling away from the mole.

Lucius knew that he had done all he could. The rear guard to the south was already being overwhelmed by the enemy phalanx there. It was now time for him to get his own men off.

Glancing over his shoulder, he fully expected to see his own transport waiting dutifully beside the mole, but it was not there. The galley had pulled away, and was now rowing back to the fleet. Lucius could see the ship’s master looking back at him over the stern rail, smiling sardonically and making an obscene gesture. The bastard must not have appreciated Lucius’s sword point against his throat.

Lucius looked north. The causeway was open, and there was a chance he and his men could make a run for Pharos Island. But before he could get the order out of his mouth, a new group of enemy vessels pushed up on the western side of the mole, unloading hundreds of fresh troops to block off the escape route. Lucius and his men were now trapped between two enemy formations closing from the north and the south. The Roman transports were now all pulling away from the shore. No one was coming to the assistance of the few legionaries left on the mole. They were being written off, as the rear guard had been.

Lucius cursed inwardly before shouting, “Testudo!”

The two score troops with him instantly formed a tightly packed shield-covered square. Lucius did not think that his men would be any less likely to fall victim to the giant flaming missiles coming from the fleet, except that the warships carrying the larger weapons had been down the mole opposite Caesar’s position and would now have to maneuver slightly to bring their ballistas to bear on Lucius’s troops. The oncoming enemy troops, however, did not appear to be planning to wait for that. They had the blood lust in their howls and cries, and they were coming on, faster and faster, each phalanx determined to be the one to finish off the remaining Romans.

Lucius peered between the breaks in the shields to find what he was looking for. And he found it almost immediately. To the north, the phalanx was fully organized and intact, a bristling row of spear points, from one edge of the mole to the other, advancing steadily. The enemy formation to the south, however, was a different story. Its front rank was irregular, still not having fully recovered after annihilating Caesar’s rear guard. In one spot, a large space, five men wide was open and not yet filled in by the rear ranks, who were carrying their pikes upright and not extended before them. Lucius knew this was his only chance – not of survival, but of making the enemy pay for every last Roman corpse.

“Listen to me, all of you!” Lucius shouted to his soldiers over the endless rain of arrows and stones striking the upturned shields. “When I give the word, break formation, hold your shields to the right, and follow hard on my heels! Understand? Kill every bastard in your path! Every one you see! Don’t stop killing! Show me you are true sons of Rome!”

The sweaty, blood-spattered faces in the shadows did not appear overly confident in his plan, but most of them nodded.

“Come on, you dogs!”

Lucius burst from the formation with a cry and leapt over an Alexandrian corpse.

The sight of the fierce, broad-shouldered centurion wearing such a menacing snarl beneath the cross-plumed helmet was enough to give the enemy pause. They stopped their advance, not from any orders from their officers, but because they could not comprehend the foolishness of such a move. But Lucius and his men did not give them much time to think about it. Holding their shields in their right hands, to fend off the missiles from the enemy ships, the legionaries charged in a wild fury that could only be described as berserk. A handful of them stopped to cast javelins at the phalanx, but this hesitation cost them their lives. They became the chosen targets of the enemy ships and were soon bristling with arrows from head to foot. The rest followed Lucius directly into the gap in the enemy, swinging shields, jabbing with swords, and attacking their foe with a savagery that the packed Alexandrians had not anticipated. With ranks packed six and seven men deep, the panicking pikemen in the closer ranks could not get away from the Roman attack, the pressure of the men behind them pushing them into the carnage. They died on Roman sword points, slicing deep gashes with lightning rapidity to their bellies, groins, and necks. Blood spurted from a dozen severed arteries, spraying upon shields and armor, and men began to fall.

Eventually, the Alexandrians recovered from the shock of the attack and began to close ranks around their attackers, forcing the Romans into a circle of defense, the edges of which were tipped with crimson gladii and piling bodies.

Ducking the thrust of a pike aimed for his neck, Lucius spiked his sword down onto the Alexandrian’s exposed left foot, severing the toes and starting an effluence of blood. The man crumpled from the pain affording Lucius an opening to slice his sword half-way through the man’s neck. Two sword-wielding Alexandrians replaced the fallen pikeman. Lucius instantly shoved into one with his shield, throwing off their coordinated attack and allowing him to take them on in turn. Within moments, both were stumbling to the rear, holding their intestines inside their sliced open bellies.

But it did not fare as well for the other legionaries. In spite of Lucius’s continual shouts of encouragement, the pressing enemy ranks were too much for them. The man to Lucius’s left received a razor sharp spear point through his throat that tore out his wind pipe and left him a gurgling mess. Romans on the other side of the circle were falling, too. The enemy was not throwing javelins, for fear of hitting their own, nor were the enemy ships firing, for the same reason, but the pikemen, once organized began killing the Romans, systematically, one by one.