David Durham - Pride of Carthage

Though Imco Vaca knew that Mago had led a small band out on some mission, a few days before, the plan had not been explained to him. It was with considerable trepidation that he pushed off from the shore and began the crossing. The Volcae's numbers had increased over the last few days. It was hard to count them, for they lined the shore from horizon to horizon. Many camped right on the stony edge of the river, others among the trees and into the hills behind them. When they saw that the Carthaginians were finally beginning their crossing they hooted with joy. They drummed their swords against their shields and blew on their great upcurving horns, instruments not musical at all but like the bellowing of an elk caught in a bog. They seemed to think the Carthaginians were floating to the slaughter.

During the early half of the journey, Imco would not have disputed this. He was on one of the large barges that pushed off from far upstream. He manned a pole for the first portion of the journey, heaving it up from the bottom and starting again. They tried to gain the greatest momentum they could before the river deepened, but by the time they switched to their makeshift paddles it seemed they moved more with the current than across. Nor were they alone. Spread out into the distance along the river below them were innumerable vessels of every description. Barges of full-grown trees lashed together with bark ropes, rafts that rode so low their occupants stood ankle deep in river water. A few vessels flew simple sails to aid them; some dragged behind tethered ponies. Some men even bestrode sections of log, legs in the water on either side, weapons strapped to their backs, paddling forward with their hands. Only the Iberians were truly comfortable in the water. Many of them disdained the vessels altogether. They swam with their shields snug to their chests and their clothing and gear in leather sacks upon their backs. It was a motley flotilla.

Halfway across the first of the Gallic missiles began to fall, zipping into the water with little more sound than a pebble tossed from the shore. But they were not pebbles, as the man beside Imco soon learned. The young soldier heard the man's speech cut short. He recognized the squelching, muted thud of the impact. But he did not know where the man had been hit until he grasped him by the shoulder and yanked him around. The other had caught the arrow in his open mouth. It pinned his tongue against his palate and pierced the voicebox. The man's eyes betrayed no alarm at this, only incredulity. This must have changed with deeper realization of his situation, but Imco did not notice.

He turned away, grabbing his shield and ducking beneath it. He knew with complete certainty that joining this campaign was the biggest error of his young life. Nothing had gone right for him since the march began. The first week out, he had stepped barefoot on a fishing barb at the edge of a stream. The wound was a tiny one in the eyes of the warriors around him, but it caused him no end of pain as he marched. Dirt and grime had entered with the barb and made the whole area into a swollen pad of pus-filled agony. Somewhere before the Pyrenees, Imco had picked up an infestation of savage pubic lice. They terrorized his groin, biting him with such vigor that he sometimes jolted to a wincing halt in the middle of the war column.

Now he was sure his miserable life was about to end, body left floating like so much debris in the current. He imagined the ravages of nature upon his corpse, focused particularly on the genitals: a hungry turtle clamping down on his limp penis, fish nibbling the wrinkled sacs of his manhood, his asshole—an area he had never allowed violation of in life—prodded by bald, long-necked buzzards. What a fool he was! He should have quit the army and sailed home to Carthage to take some pleasure in his family's newfound wealth. He had no business in this strange land. His war successes had thus far been gifts from the gods. Now he had overreached their benevolence by thinking himself a true warrior, imagining he could march beside Hannibal on this mad mission.

Thinking thus, he was slow to notice the change in the course of events. It was only when a soldier near him prodded him with a jest about his courage that he peeked over the rim of his shield at the far shore. The Gauls were in chaos. They were shouting, but not out over the water: They were yelling to one another now. Some had their backs turned to the approaching watercraft. The rain of arrows had nearly stopped. There seemed to be a great confusion behind them, which they only increased with their clamor. The air filled with smoke, not of campfires but of destruction. And then came the horns. They were no different really from the horns the Volcae had been blowing on only moments before, but they came from the wrong direction and were blown inexpertly. They spluttered and cut off short and rose and fell in volume. Their discordance sent the Gauls into further confusion. Then Imco caught sight of them: Mago's small band.

Mago's force would have been hopelessly outnumbered, except that by this time the first of the watercraft were reaching the shore. A few Iberians jumped into the river, swords in hand, and lashed out. Cavalrymen mounted their horses, cut them free, and urged them through the water. Some began to hurl their javelins from the barges, catching the Gauls in the backs and flanks. The man beside Imco—not wanting to waste one of his preferred weapons—hurled an ax toward the shore. It cut an awkward, tumbling arch in the sky and hit a Gaul flat on the top of his skull. Though it did not pierce him with the blade portion at all, the impact was enough to liquefy the man's legs and drive him to the ground. The ax thrower sent up a howl of bestial pleasure at this. The scream pulled chill bumps up across Imco's entire body, and yet a moment later he was joining in. It was clear already that this engagement was to be a rout.

By the time Imco could see the stones in the knee-deep water where the barge grounded, he had forgotten the fear that had huddled him beneath his shield. The bloodlust on the underside of cowardice is a powerful thing. Imco felt it in the completeness of his being. He jumped ashore and his first strike was into the calf of a young man in full, frantic flight, for some reason running along the shore instead of away from it. The Gaul went down and spun around and looked up through a mass of dirty blond locks. For some reason that was not entirely clear to him, Imco aimed his next thrust directly between the man's grayish blue eyes.

By the fifth day of the crossing the army was over, save for the elephants and their keepers. These last had been preparing since they first arrived on the banks. A few rafts had been sent into the current with single pachyderms aboard, but more than one of the beasts panicked and dove headlong into the water. Two made their way back to the near shore; another two managed to progress all the way to the far side, the spine of their backs, the crests of their skulls, and their trunks jutting out of the water. It seemed to the watchers that the elephants had somehow found shallow portions of the riverbed just perfect for their crossing. One of the mahouts swore that the elephants had swum, and that he had known them to swim even farther in his eastern homeland, but he was shouted down as mad.

The small rafts were deemed too risky, and so they decided upon another method. Vandicar ordered the elephant handlers to build a jetty far out into the water. Beyond this they constructed rafts of stout trees, some as thick around as a man, lashed together with great quantities of rope. They shoveled earth onto the rafts and set tufts of grass atop the dirt; they even secured leafy trees in upright postures. Even greater stretches of rope were purchased from far and wide up and down the river. The ropes were tied together and secured to the raft and rowed across to the far shore, where it took a whole corps of men to hold the rope steady against the bowed pressure of the river.