Адриан Голдсуорти - The Fort

Piso must have given the order, although Ferox did not hear it, for scorpiones cracked and bolts started to fly. Both towers quivered slightly when missiles hit them, but for the moment the archers on top were crouching behind cover. Some of the men pushing began to fall, for they were sheltered only from the front and vulnerable to missiles shot at an angle from the rest of the rampart and tower. Horns were blowing and men were cheering in the usual Dacian manner, and their own archers and engines kept up a steady barrage. A light-coloured stone came straight at them and men shouted to take cover, so that no one was hurt, but with a resounding clang it struck the bronze front piece of the scorpio over on the left, leaving it bent and one arm hanging down loose.

‘Bugger’s buggered,’ Naso said ruefully, and went to help the crew of the remaining machine.

The monâkon’s high arm slammed into the pad above its high frame and a great stone went high and straight towards the first tower, the one on the left. Ferox thought that it was going too high when at the last minute a figure popped up. The stone shattered the man into fragments, flinging some high into the air.

‘Daft sod,’ an auxiliary said. ‘Teach him to be nosey.’

‘Shit! Look at that!’ one of the Brigantians shouted. The first tower was on the causeway, coming across the outer ditch, when suddenly it lurched to a staggering halt, the front wheel sinking down into soft earth and the whole thing leaning sideways.

The monâkon lobbed a second stone, having reloaded faster than Ferox expected, and he wondered whether the line would be wrong now that the tower was at such a strange angle. Yet the stone hit with a great crash, shaking the whole thing so that he wondered whether it would topple over.

‘Beautiful,’ Naso said.

Ferox grinned and knew that he was not needed over here, so hurried down to the intervallum and went to where the second tower would reach the wall. Five veterans of I Minervia waited on the slope behind the rampart. All had helmets with upright bands welded to the top in a cross shape. They were strong enough to weaken the blow of a falx and save a man’s life, even if he would still get the father of all headaches. Each also had his scutum, and apart from his cuirass, wore a laminated iron guard on his right arm. Ferox had wondered in the weeks before the siege about equipping all the men with the same added protection, but there had not been time and other preparations had mattered more.

‘Ready, lads.’

‘Aye,’ one grunted. These were picked men, all of them highly decorated or in two cases the sort of men who would have won awards and promotion years ago if they had shown half the aptitude for the routines of soldiering that they had shown time and again in battle. They were killers, and they would lead alongside Ferox. Behind would come Bran and Minura, for if the fighting broke up and space was cramped he would trust their well-honed skills as much as those of anyone else in the fort, save Vindex and he could not be spared. Last there were two legionaries with torches and two more with pots of oil held in a string net.

Ferox led them up the slope and had them crouch just below the top, the veterans’ shields in front as protection. There was no need to speak or remind them of the job, so they waited.

‘Nearly here, sir,’ a soldier called down from the ramparts and then a great cheer went up all along the wall. ‘The tower, sir! The other one, it’s smashed!’ The man was grinning and then an arrow sprouted from his left eye and another drove through his mail into his chest. He fell, rolling down the slope past them. The arrows had come from above, which meant that the second tower was close, the archers on top beginning to do their job of clearing the rampart. Another man fell a moment later, and the rest were raising shields high and too busy to throw anything back. By this time, the tower was probably past the ground where any of the ballistae could reach it. He thought back to Ephippus cursing the Romans for their stubborn refusal to build towers that projected in front of the walls like any civilized folk.

‘Soon, lads,’ Ferox said softly. He heard the creaking of the great tower as it edged towards the wall and could see the archers sheltering behind wooden crenulations on the roof of the tower.

‘Up!’ he said. They stood, the legionaries in two ranks. Each one in front had his scutum level, as did Ferox who was on the right of the line, and behind them the man had his shield high. ‘Forward slowly,’ he said. They could not march easily on the grassy slope, so needed to be careful. Ferox’s shield quivered as arrows struck the front, and he heard more missiles hitting the other shields beside him. ‘Forward.’ Their legs were covered by the slope and the parapet once they got up onto the walkway. That was a dangerous moment, because until the second rank came up behind them they could not reach up well with their shields. Ferox saw the arrow, pulled his head down and felt the point clang just above the brow-peak of his helmet, no doubt leaving a dent. The veteran next to him was slower and an arrow buried itself into the bridge of his nose. He sighed as he fell, and the man behind cursed because he tripped over the falling corpse.

‘Swords!’ Ferox commanded. They were all up, apart from the veteran who had had to get over the dead man and he joined them after a moment. The shields kept shaking as arrow after arrow hit them. Ferox saw the tips of two arrowheads sticking through the inner leather face of his scutum and other bulges, but none came further. Bran was holding a shield over his head as best he could and there were bangs as it was hit. The two other survivors in the second rank held their shields high and level, as if they were in a testudo.

There was another great creak and then a crash as the drawbridge came down and banged on the top of the parapet. Ferox had hoped that it would fall lower, level with the gaps between the crenulations, but as feet came stamping across the boards and men were screaming war cries he realised that this was better because the archers could not see them. He stabbed upwards into the groin of a warrior, whose roar of defiance turned into a great squeal of agony. One of the veterans slashed, cutting right through another warrior’s leg so that he fell sideways, taking another Dacian with him to fall screaming over the side of the bridge.

More warriors came, the one facing Ferox with a shield and a sica, and, before he realised the danger, his gladius was under the edge of the shield. The long triangular point drove into the inside of the Dacian’s thigh before twisting free. Blood pumped out, spraying over Ferox and his shield. Someone had turned a scorpio from the next tower to the right and shot not at the archers, but at the crowd on the bridge, the bolt splitting the man on the side, hurling him over so that three more were knocked off their feet and two fell off altogether.

Ferox put his left foot up on the parapet and jumped up. It was narrow and precarious, but he felt Bran using his shield to steady him. An arrow skimmed past, missing his helmet by a thumb’s breadth and he climbed again, getting a boot on the edge of the bridge. Another arrow slammed into his shield, almost making him fall back and he could hear the archers shouting. Men on the ramparts were throwing everything they could at the top of the tower and one archer fell back as a stone smacked into his mouth. The scorpio shot again, killing another and causing more chaos on the bridge just ahead of him. Warriors were hesitating, reluctant to leave the tower and step into that shambles of writhing bodies.

One of the veterans scrambled up to join Ferox. A second tried, until an arrow took him in the throat, but then the third man was up. Ferox punched forward with the boss of his shield, knocking a wounded man off the bridge. His sword was back, elbow bent, ready to lunge forward at eye level. Beside him the veteran took a low guard, ready to jab, and then thumped forward with his own shield. Each scutum was heavy, and Ferox and the veterans were powerful men, putting their weight behind each blow. They pounded the enemy with the shields, stabbed when there was an opening and kept going forward. The Dacians had not expected this, and several had falxes, far too unwieldy to use in the press of bodies, for the Romans drove hard against them. Those men died, stabbed in the stomach, through armour if they wore it, or tumbling off the sides of the bridge. Another warrior with a sica managed a slash at Ferox and he felt the blow fall on his shoulder, but the doubling of his mail armour held and he killed his opponent, driving his blade through the Dacian’s teeth and out of the back of his head. He could not free the sword, so kept hold and grunted as he pushed the corpse into the men behind. Then he slammed the scutum forward again, knocking the dead man and the one behind him backwards. The two veterans from the second rank were up now, doing their best to fend off the arrows from above. One of the men in front had lost his helmet and his brow was bloody, but he stamped on his dying opponents, going over them. With Dacians trying to push forward and the men in front going backwards they could barely fight and the Roman swords stabbed again and again until the floor of the bridge was slick with blood. One desperate warrior grabbed the veteran on the right, leaping forward as the sword rammed into his stomach and both of them fell off the side.