Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

‘Felix, I know you still have your doubts about me, but if we’re not blood brothers after the forest, then what are we?’

I turned to look at the man who had stood by me through the worst of it. There was no denying that I had missed his dangerous presence.

‘You’ve seen what’s outside of those walls?’ I asked, a genuine smile creasing my cracked cheeks. ‘What we are, Titus, are ghosts.’

I stood on the eastern wall with a solitary companion. The night around us was cold and moonless. I pulled my scarf tight around my face to fight off its touch.

It was deep into our watch, and a light wind had pushed the cold inside my bones. I rolled my shoulders in their joints, and flexed my fingers against the shaft of a javelin. My shield rested against the wall, and now I reached for it.

‘I’m going to check the others,’ I told Micon beside me. The rest of my section was spaced out to cover ground, but I kept the young soldier within arm’s reach as we stood watch. ‘Don’t move.’

I made my way from man to man. The section covered a hundred yards of wall. More than eight men should have been assigned to such a stretch, but the fort was understrength. Arminius would want the soldiers on the walls to burn out through fatigue, but Caedicius was refusing to indulge him, instead gambling that he could rest his forces and have enough warning to reinforce the wall in case of an attack in the night.

It was a tactic I hoped would not be put to the test.

‘Black as a Syrian’s arsehole,’ Stumps greeted me, looking out into the darkness.

‘You seem to have their arses on your mind a lot,’ I responded. Stumps was silent. He never knew how to take it when I tried to make a joke.

‘Fucking cold,’ he said instead. ‘If it is a siege, it won’t be much fun. German winter’s savage.’

‘It’ll be savage on his own men, too.’

‘Yeah, but something about being uncomfortable in your own country makes it a bit easier to put up with, don’t you think? Not like they’re going to go short of supplies or firewood.’

I couldn’t argue with the man. ‘Firewood’s one thing we’ve got. Even with the civilians housed there’re still enough empty buildings we can tear down.’

‘We’ll see,’ Stumps conceded. We lapsed into silence for a moment. ‘I’m so glad he’s alive,’ he then told me, referring to his old friend, Titus.

‘Me too.’

There was a moment before he spoke again. ‘You said you saw him die,’ he said. The words were simply stated, but accusation simmered beneath the calm tone.

‘I thought I did.’

Stumps said nothing. I decided it was time to leave, and began to turn.

‘Did he run?’ he asked me. ‘Just be honest with me, Felix. Did Titus run?’

I turned back to face the man. It was too dark to make out his features. I expected his eyes would be filled with anguish. Worry and doubt that his friend had saved his own skin, and left his comrades behind.

No good would come of the truth.

‘I thought he was dead,’ I lied. ‘I’m glad that I was wrong.’

I walked away then and returned to Micon, relieved to find the young one where I had left him. Lying to Stumps was not something I enjoyed doing, but it was necessary. He had cheered in the days since we arrived in the fort, but his mind was fragile. He didn’t need the truth of his friend’s desertion placed atop the other traumas. I wondered how Titus would approach the truth, should he and Stumps survive to retrieve the pay chests, and the coins that Titus had chosen over what he had thought would be death with his comrades.

‘What was that?’ Micon spoke up in the darkness, breaking me from my thoughts.

‘What was what?’

‘I thought I heard something.’

I said nothing. The fort was a noisy place, even at night. Wood creaked. The waters of the river rolled by. Dogs barked, and cats screeched. It wasn’t a place that made a man feel comfortable, and I was certain that young Micon—

‘There it is again!’ he hissed.

I held a finger to his lips, and controlled my breathing. I strained to hear. Nothing. Nothing, until—

A soft bump against wood.

It came from our left, on the stretch of wall held by the next section.

‘Don’t move,’ I whispered, stepping off. ‘Six Section?’ I hissed. ‘Six Section?’

‘What?’ a soldier answered from along the battlements.

I ignored him; the sound had come again. It was wood against wood, and I knew then that death was about to follow in its wake.

‘Ladders!’ I shouted at the top of my lungs. ‘They’re putting ladders up! Find them!’

I rushed to the edge of the wall, looking downwards. It was a carpet of black, but alive and rolling like a night sea. My silhouette above drew a spear that cut through the air to my side, and then I was running, looking for the ladders.

A soldier of Six Section found one first. He hurled his javelin into the darkness and I heard a scream. I joined the man, and we pushed the ladder back and into the night with ease; the first casualty must have cleared the other tribesmen from the rungs.

‘Report! Report!’ I heard Centurion H’s voice below.

‘They’re on ladders! We need more men!’

I could already hear the cries to rally within the fort. Caedicius had ordered that half the men rest in full battle order, and these readily equipped troops were now being rushed to the battlements, sleep in their eyes and nervous energy in their muscles.

I ran back towards my own section. The sound of battle was growing from the opposite end of the camp, and all need for tact had gone.

‘Seven Section!’ I shouted for the ears of my own men. ‘Watch for ladders! Watch for ladders!’

A reserve section was running up the steps and on to the battlements. A dozen Syrian archers were with them, some carrying torches that they now pitched over the walls. Following the fall of the flames, I saw for the first time the assaulting enemy: dozens of them, ladders in hands and faces tight with nerves. Now uncovered, they screamed curses and threats as arrows began to thump into their bodies.

‘Seven Section, use the rocks! Save your javelins!’

I reached for one of the piles of stones, picking out a rock that was the size of Titus’s fist. I hurled it down, seeing a head snap back.

I felt a shove in my back and cleared the way as more archers appeared. I watched them work, shaft after shaft unleashed into the men below. By the firelight I scanned either way along the wall; I saw no ladders leaning against it, and thought that the enemy had been stopped from making it on to the fighting step.

The clash of steel on steel told me I was wrong.

It was coming from Six Section’s stretch of wall. I had been assigned my own duty, but hearing cries of challenge and pain, I made the decision to abandon my post. The archers beside me were murdering the men below them, and with their presence it would be near impossible for the enemy to place ladders against the wall.

But if they were already on it…

‘Seven Section! On me! On me!’

Through the darkness the shapes of my section appeared. The fighting step was deep enough for two men to overlap their shields and advance, and Brando fought to be the one alongside me as we pushed towards the sound of ringing blades.

We were too late to save the last legionary standing. He went down with a spear in his guts, and joined two of his comrades and a few of the enemy on their backs. A dozen of the tribesmen were on the rampart, some calling down to their comrades, frantically gesturing for ladders and reinforcement.

‘Wait for the archers!’ Statius shouted from behind me. ‘We can pick them off!’