Адриан Голдсуорти - The Fort

As Ferox reached the porta praetoria, he heard men up on the wall talking and realised that there was an uncanny silence, with no more arrows hissing through the air. Then the trumpets and horns blared out, far more of them than the enemy had sounded before, and the Dacians raised a great cheer. He dashed up the stairs onto the rampart and headed for the tower.

‘They’re coming, boys. Time to butcher them all!’ Men were following him, carrying boiling oil with great care and buckets of the heated sand almost as warily.

Sabinus was at the top of the tower, waiting for him. ‘It’s a ram,’ he said, pointing at a wheeled shed being pushed up the track towards them. ‘Just as you said.’ He jumped back to dodge an arrow that flew between them. In moments the air was filled with clouds of missiles.

‘Down!’ Ferox shouted. ‘Wait for the order!’ Men crouched behind the parapet. There were baskets of stones to throw every few paces, and heavy siege spears leaning beside them. Crews knelt beside their engines. He and Sabinus moved either side of one of the gaps in the parapet so that they could shelter while still seeing out. Arrows thudded into wood or rattled off when they did not strike squarely.

‘Wait!’ The ram in its wheeled shell was coming on steadily.

‘Wait!’ It was at the gap between the outer ditch. Behind the ones pushing it were several hundred king’s men, all with red shields decorated in a pattern of rosettes. Another unit followed and on either side there were bands of warriors, still blasting their horns and chanting.

‘Ballistae!’ Ferox shouted. ‘Archers!’ There were a dozen archers detached from a specialist cohort and a similar number of men who had some idea how to use a bow. They bobbed up, drew and loosed at the first target they saw. A few arrows struck the hides on top of the moving shed, but most were better aimed and warriors began to fall or stopped as they hunched behind shields. Scorpiones spat their darts, and the bigger ballistae in the corner towers had the sense to aim at the ram while they still could. The side of the shed shook as a stone slammed into it, but after only a slight pause – no doubt with their heads ringing – the men pushing it went forward again.

The chanting of the warbands turned into a mass of individual cries as they split up, some dashing on through the remaining obstacles and others going more gingerly. Ferox saw one man trying to leap the ditch only be struck in mid-air by the bolt from a scorpio and flung backwards. An auxiliary archer spun away as a similar dart shot by the enemy drove through his teeth and mouth with such force that the point erupted from the back of his helmet. Beside him, a comrade ducked and was sprayed with splinters and fragments of wood as a stone hit the parapet.

The ram was closer, but luck was with the Dacians and, just as the crew levelled the ballista in the right-hand corner tower to shoot, it was hit squarely by a great stone. The missile shattered the frame, releasing the tension in a whirl of flailing cables and fragments of timber and iron, scything down the men serving it and half of the rest of the soldiers on that lower level.

‘Hercules’ balls!’ Sabinus gasped.

Fortuna was as fickle as ever, because the ballista in the other tower aimed too low with its shot, so that the stone pitched a pace short of the ram, only to skim under the sides of the shed, ripping the legs off two of the men pushing from inside. Ferox could see a great pool of blood spreading from underneath.

‘Up!’ he shouted. ‘And kill the bastards!’ Men rose all along the parapet and began lobbing stones, javelins and siege spears into the mass of tribesmen flooding up to the walls. Some had ladders and they were vulnerable, for it was hard to carry one of those and use a shield. Warriors fell around them, but each time a ladder was dropped more men appeared to lift it again. The ram was lurching forward once more, and soon was safe from the remaining ballista, which with its next stone cut a lane through the king’s men following behind, sending up a spray of blood and fragments of shields and men. Bolts from scorpiones slammed in to knock down others so that the whole column seemed to shudder.

Ferox went to the back of the tower. There was no sign of a big attack at either the back gate or the west, but he could see men all along the ramparts by the east gate as they hurled missiles at the attackers. In front of the principia the cavalrymen stood beside their horses, and as far as Ferox could see none of the other reserves had so far committed themselves. Enica was the only one mounted, and he could see her and her grey quite distinctly, her standard-bearer beside her along with Bran and Minura.

‘Sir!’ Sabinus called. ‘The ram!’

Ferox dashed over to the front, first picking up an oval shield like the ones the auxiliaries used. As he reached the parapet he raised it to block an arrow, then angled it so that he could see out. The roof of the shed, a patchwork of soaked hides, was beneath them.

‘Oil!’ Ferox shouted to the men on the level below. ‘And bring the torches!’

The ram swung and struck the timber gate with a great boom. Ladders were being raised all along the wall. A chieftain in gilded helmet and bright bronze scales climbed one of the first, shield held up. On the wall a little to the side, a veteran raised a pilum muralis – one of the siege spears made by twisting back the stem of a broken pilum and sharpening it into a point. It was clumsy and heavy, but he timed it well and struck the chief in the side, and whether or not it broke through the scales of his armour he was knocked from the ladder onto the men clustered below. He screamed as he was impaled on their spears. The veteran lingered too long to watch his success, and his head snapped to the side as the bolt from one of the belly-bows drove through the cheek piece on his helmet. He staggered and fell, rolling down the grassy slope into the intervallum.

The ram struck again and a third time. Amphorae full of olive oil were flung down to shatter on the roof of the shed, spreading the thick liquid. An auxiliary was raising another one to throw when the bolt from a ballista drove into his chest, easily snapping the rings of his mail. He was flung back, dropping the little amphorae which broke and seeped onto the boards. Three soldiers appeared carrying burning torches.

‘Stop!’ Ferox shouted, but the one in the lead had already slipped on the oil and was falling. One torch went out as it dropped, but the other landed in the pool and surged into a great yellow flame. Some of the oil was on the man’s arm and he screamed as it burned. Ferox dropped his shield and bounded over, ripping free the brooch holding his cloak to beat with it at the flames. ‘Sabinus, help this man! You and you, over there!’ He pointed to the front of the tower.

Ferox managed to smother most of the flames, helped because a lot of the oil had seeped through the cracks between the boards. The screaming auxiliary suddenly stopped, and he turned to see Vepoc, wrapping something around the scorched arm. Then he noticed that the Brigantian had no trousers.

‘This’ll frighten them!’ Vepoc told him.

Sabinus had frozen, and was still behind the parapet when the men with the torches reached him. Beneath them, the ram pounded against the gate and the sound snapped him out of his shock. He took one of the burning torches, leaned through the gap and let it fall. A curse showed that he had missed, but he jerked back out of the way in time to let another arrow pass. ‘Another!’ Taking the second, he swung it gently to rouse the flames. ‘And you throw another from the side!’ he told the second auxiliary. ‘Now!’ Both men lobbed the torches down and Ferox heard the fire flare. ‘One more for luck!’ Sabinus said and the soldier threw the last torch down. There was black smoke, reeking of oil, rising in front of the tower.