The Fires of Vulcan - Chapter 29

Daramouda

Ky stood, looking at the high walls of the besieged port and the smoke billowing up from inside its walls. The Carthaginians had picked their ground well, even if they hadn’t done it on purpose. Almost no high ground existed, at least not within range of the port, limiting his ability to fire into the city. They’d also improved their walls more than he’d thought they were capable of.

He could see wood and dirt through the cracks and holes left by the continuous fire from his cannon, showing a pretty advanced, for the time, improvement in the walls. It also explained why they were unusually thick, compared to the other walled cities he’d seen.

“This is taking too long,” Bomilcar grumbled next to him, lowering his spyglass. “We’re going to shoot through all of our gunpowder before we get through this wall, and will have to resort to throwing bullets at them once we do.”

Ky nodded in understanding. It seemed unlikely that the Carthaginians would realize one of Britannia’s greatest weaknesses. They may have figured out that he didn’t have the manpower they did, but he doubted they’d know enough about gunpowder to work out how slow their production was or the limit that placed on his ability to bombard a fortification. They’d simply tried to protect their men from his cannon, and lucked into a strategy that played against his weaknesses.

Already, he’d had to restrain his men’s enthusiasm, slowing their rate of fire to once every five minutes, to keep the artillerymen from exhausting the supplies they currently had on hand. Not that it would ultimately matter.

“Patience. Between us and Valdar, they’re surrounded. We might be short on gunpowder, but with as many men as they’ve shoved inside those walls, they’ve got to be running very short on food. I can’t imagine they’ll hold out for long. Besides, we’ll have some new options soon. I’ve been informed that the new artillery I ordered from Hortensius, along with some other surprises, are on their way from home, and should be here in a few weeks. Once we have those, we can hopefully speed things up.”

What he didn’t say was the word from home had been Lucilla over the comm and not a runner, who’d managed to arrive ahead of the supply ships coming their way. Not that either would matter in the long run. In spite of Velius’s sacrifices, this would probably not be the last time the armies split up. The balloons would give the men not with him some of the same advantage they had when they were with him, thanks to his drone. For now, though, they were all together, which meant the balloons wouldn’t enhance his men’s capabilities much.

The howitzers would, since they would allow him to fire over the walls, which would solve his current problem of his cannon not getting the elevation they needed to fire over the walls, but it didn’t matter. As he said to Bomilcar, with Valdar shelling from the unwalled seaward side of the port, coupled with a total blockade, they wouldn’t last long. It was why trying to take the walls by force was never an option for him. That would have been costly and done little but add a few weeks to the campaign season, which would be generally slowing anyway now that winter was approaching.

“What’s really bothering me is that they’re up to something over there, but I can’t tell what,” Ky said.

“You saw this through your bird thing, yes?” Bomilcar asked, still struggling to understand Ky’s drone.

That was another thing that would change once they had the balloon. As miraculous as it was, the basics of a balloon were understandable and wouldn’t instantly devolve into thoughts of magic the way seeing anti-grav in action did. Bomilcar did well, adapting to it as he had, accepting that Ky could just see through the small disc he’d shown the general, and not questioning it at every turn like some other subordinates had.

“Yes. They’ve had heavy traffic in and out of it for days, but I can’t figure out what they’re doing. They’ve got most of the entrance covered, probably as protection from the heat and sun and not to avoid detection, since I doubt they’ve realized we can see what they’re doing, but the effect of blocking my observation is the same. I do occasionally see barrels, but they seem to both be going in and coming out in equal numbers, making it impossible to guess what they’re doing.”

“Maybe just a place to feed and rest their men on the walls out of the sun.”

“Maybe,” Ky said. “But I don’t think so. It feels like I’m missing some …”

“Commander,” Sophus’s dispassionate voice said, interrupting him.

Its warning was too late, with the words barely said when he felt the earth tremble like an earthquake, the ground shifting underfoot. Part of his brain almost dismissed the thought, since there were no fault lines where they stood, making an earthquake unlikely, except the expression on Bomilcar’s face indicated he felt the same thing. Ky’s brain was still grasping for an understanding of what happened when the entire world seemed to heave and rip apart.

Ky and Bomilcar were launched into the air as a massive explosion ripped up from the earth. He slammed hard into the ground a dozen meters away from where he had stood, only his advanced reflexes allowing him to roll with the impact, keeping him from being seriously injured. He and Bomilcar had been lucky. They’d been on the edge of where the explosion occurred. The center of his line had been shattered, with the bodies of legionaries lying hundreds of meters from where they’d previously stood. Even sections of the line away from the blast had not gone unscathed. In places, Ky could see men crushed by the heavy steel tubes of cannons that had been launched into the air before falling on them.

The blast hadn’t been right on his line. The crater it left marked the center of the explosion several dozen meters ahead of the front of his line. It was large enough that the edge of the crater, over a hundred meters from its center, still extended into his line, completely breaking its center.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what happened, or how they’d done it. Clearly, the activity he’d seen had been tunneling. Their commander had taken the lesson Velius had taught them and adapted it, moving their stockpile forward under his own line. Considering how high the groundwater table was here, the tunneling itself was an impressive feat, since water would have been a serious problem. They must have also spent their entire supply of gunpowder, since the blast had been very large. Not as big as the one Velius had set off, based on the reports, but still massive.

A groan nearby broke Ky out of his thoughts. Bomilcar tried to push himself up and then collapsed as his supporting arm gave way.

“Ahh …” the general groaned, clutching the offending appendage.

“Easy,” Ky said, helping the man up.

The man’s shoulder bent at an unusual angle, not severe enough to be absolutely broken, but definitely unnatural.

“It appears to be dislocated,” Sophus offered, superimposing an anatomical display on top of the general’s shoulder, highlighting the affected joint and surrounding musculature. “It will have to be reset into the socket for his arm to be mobile again. If left untreated, the arm will lose circulation and become lame.”

“Show me how to fix it,” Ky sub-vocalized.

In his time, nanos would swarm the area, putting the affected limb in something like a cushion, releasing micro-targeted numbing agents before slipping everything back into place. It would have been nearly painless and happened almost as soon as the joint went out of its socket. Unfortunately for Bomilcar, he didn’t have that advantage.

Sophus overlay the steps Ky needed to take.

“I need to put your shoulder back in place,” Ky said, putting his hands on either side of the man’s shoulder as Sophus’s display showed him what to do.

“The line,” Bomilcar said through gritted teeth, trying to push Ky away.

“I know,” Ky said, already seeing the gates of the city open through the drone feed, Carthaginian soldiers lining up on the other side of the wall, ready to march through. “I need you mobile and leading the men on the wings.”

Moderating his force, to keep from causing more injury, he pushed the joint back into place as Bomilcar screamed as the muscle and sinew stretched, the bone and cartilage scraping as it slotted back where it should be.

“They’ll be coming,” Bomilcar said, as Ky helped him up, still gritting his teeth through the pain. “Following up on the blast.”

A thick haze of dust covered everything, limiting visibility, but Bomilcar’s years of experience told him what was happening, even if he couldn’t see it.

“I know. They’re already coming through the gates. I’ll get our center back into place. Our line covers the entire arc around of the city, so they can’t flank us. They’re going to try and push through the hole in our center. I need you to get to the men on the flanks. We’re going to be weak and even pieced back together, the center won’t hold for long. Once they’re fully committed, I need you to bring the flanks in, wrap around them.”

Bomilcar’s eyes flicked to the side as he visualized the battlefield, something Ky needed Sophus and his advanced retinal displays to be able to accomplish.

With a nod, he said, “The center has to hold long enough for that.”

“I know. I’ll take care of it. Go,” Ky said, slapping him on his uninjured shoulder before turning his attention to the task in front of him.

As soon as Bomilcar was off, Ky grabbed the nearest soldier he could find.

“Go to the reserves, order their cohorts, all of them, to double time to the center of our line to reinforce and plug the hole,” Ky told the bewildered man, still trying to make sense of what was happening.

Being given a specific task seemed to be enough to shake the man out of his fugue, his eyes focusing on Ky as he spoke. The man gave a shake of his head, maybe in an attempt to clear it, before running off toward the rear. At least, Ky hoped he shook off his confusion since he didn’t have time to go to the rear and get the reinforcements himself.

“Spread out. Grab anyone you can and get them back in line,” he yelled at his lictores.

They seemed torn, unable to decide between staying with their charge or following his orders. Strabo finally settled the indecision, yelling at them to follow orders before cutting to the right, grabbing and shoving stunned legionaries as he went.

Ky didn’t pay the men any more attention, his focus was on the line in front of him and the drone as he moved toward the crater. The scene of devastation grew worse as he approached ground zero of the explosion. A massive crater yawned open where solid earth had been just minutes before. Bodies and parts of bodies were strewn around the rim and littered the bottom.

Men staggered around in shock, many with ghastly injuries, bleeding and hobbled. Some crawled on hands and knees, while others just sat staring blankly ahead. The blast had shredded the center of the line. Through the drone, Ky could see the enemy closing on the other side of the crater.

“On your feet! The enemy is on us!” Ky bellowed, trying to get through the daze all of his men seemed to be in. “Back in line, now!”

Slowly, some of the men at least began to come to. Ky’s words pierced the veil they were under, the danger of their situation suddenly becoming real.

“Move! Form a line!” Ky continued to yell, grabbing men by their armor, yanking them to their feet and into place.

Then the enemy did something Ky didn’t expect. Instead of going around the crater, circling the obstacle to get to the still-shattered men, they flowed down into it. Row upon row of Carthaginian soldiers ran down into the center of the crater, almost funneling into it rather than going around. For the life of him, Ky couldn’t imagine what they were thinking, but he wasn’t going to let this moment pass him by.

“Open fire,” he yelled, slapping several men’s rifles into their hands, pointing down into the crater. “Pick up your damn weapons.”

The enemy suddenly appearing through the haze, right in front of them, did more to get the stragglers moving than any yelling he did. There were less than a hundred of his own men at the front of the crater, versus the hundreds flowing into the crater itself, but at least they were moving. Raising their weapons or finding dropped weapons, resetting the primer, and aiming.

If the messenger he sent did his job, the reinforcements should be here soon. He just needed to hold out for a few minutes. The Carthaginians seemed to be doing their best to help him, putting themselves in the worst possible position, but he needed his men to shake off their shock and get into action.

The first rifle cracked, and then two more. With the throng of enemy soldiers reaching the center of the crater, there was no chance of missing, the bullets punched down into them, causing ghastly wounds as they killed. More and more rifles began to fire as his men finally got back into the fight.

“That’s it,” he yelled. “Keep firing. Don’t let up.”

The men fired and reloaded, their training taking over. It was almost like being on the range again. It was also not having enough of an impact. There were just too many Carthaginians and not enough of his own men firing. Their explosion had done its job, ripping apart his line with such devastation that he couldn’t bring enough men to bear in time. Carthaginians fell by the dozens, but more pushed in behind them. Ky had to slow them down, to buy time for his reinforcements to arrive.

Drawing his sidearm, Ky carefully placed two precious rounds into the teeming mass below. He had less than a dozen rounds left, and with these, he was now in the single digits, but there was no choice. Once the enemy started up the sides of the crater, his line, and then the entire army, would fold.

The pellets expanded into burning balls of green flame, rolling through the enemy, melting men, twisting armor and weapons, vaporizing skin and bone. Men on the edges of the blast caught on fire as the super-heated air reacted with the loose tunics and treated hide armor. With the men packed so tightly, the fire started to spread to their neighbors; beards and hair, shirts and bindings went up in flames, the tightly packed mass at the bottom of the crater making perfect conditions for the fire. It was like an inferno in the heart of a wooden city, except these weren’t buildings, they were people. Too pressed together to run or put out the flames, they burned. Screams echoed from inside the crater.

Ky didn’t wait. They had slowed, but not halted, and now more were running from their smoldering comrades than trying to advance the attack.

“Keep firing!” Ky commanded as he scooped up a rifle and ammo pouch from a nearby body and began adding its fire to the growing cacophony.

Seeing their commander’s example, Ky’s men fought with renewed fury, pouring relentless fire into the crater. The sound was deafening as hundreds of rounds ripped into the tightly packed Carthaginians. They had no room to maneuver or find cover. It was a slaughter.

Their advance faltered, as men tried to find a place to hide from the onslaught, or were gripped with fear at the sudden appearance of what seemed like the fires of Hades itself, magic that overwhelmed their sense of self-preservation.

Ky noticed that someone on the enemy side had gotten things together. He could see through the drone that they had stopped pouring into the crater, instead doing what they should have done from the beginning, circling the depression and attacking along either side of the crater. Through the drone, Ky could see what looked like a banner standard at the other side of the crater, where the enemy was starting to split to either side. Whoever that officer was, he threatened to get the attack Ky had managed to stall reinvigorated.

“Commander,” a tribune said, rushing up to him. “I have the thirtieth, forty-second, and forty-fifth cohorts here.”

Relief washed over Ky. He had barely a hundred men holding this side of the crater, and he was about to be hit by thousands of men pouring around either side. They would still be outnumbered with the addition of these thirteen hundred men, but it brought the ratios up enough to at least give his men a chance.

“Give me one century here in the middle to keep firing on the men in the crater, so they don’t rally and hit us here. Split the rest between either side and prepare for contact. You take the right side. You should see the enemy streaming out of the dust any moment now. Prepare for hand-to-hand combat.”

The tribune’s eyes widened, but he didn’t hesitate, not even bothering to acknowledge Ky’s orders before shouting orders to get his men into position. Which is exactly what he should have done. Ky yelled for the men closest to him to follow him, charging down the left flank, arriving just as the Carthaginian horde emerged from the dust and smoke.

He knew what Lucilla would say if she could see him here, in the front line, flanked by legionaries on either side, as the Carthaginians charged toward them. In this kind of combat, the highest casualties always came from the front lines, especially now that most of his men no longer carried shields, armed only with rifles and gladii.

“Fire!” Ky yelled, and the men with loaded weapons who’d gotten into place in time let loose a volley of fire right into the faces of the charging Carthaginians.

As it always did, the impact had an effect, causing the Carthaginian line to stagger slightly as it was hit the wall of lead. Ky also knew that the effect was limited and would only last a second.

“Charge!” Ky yelled, gladius held up as he led off, ahead of the rest of the men.

They crashed into the Carthaginian line hard. He parried the first spear thrust at his chest, then sliced his gladius across the attacker’s throat. Another spear glanced off his armor, knocking him back a step. Ky recovered and stabbed under the enemy’s guard, dropping him quickly.

Ky was a blur of motion, no longer holding back to keep from scaring his own people. His sword flashed, over and over, cutting through men and material in a blur, churning through men as a thresher would cut through wheat.

Even so, the enemy tried to kill him. Two spears slashed forward at him, Sophus displaying their projected path of progress. Ky’s hand shot out, grabbing the shaft of one of the spears in a vice-like grip while parrying the other with his shield. Shoving the spear in his hand back, he sent the soldier tumbling into the man behind him, crashing hard as Ky’s enhanced muscles did what no other human on this planet could do.

He wasn’t alone. His men may not have been able to copy his feats of speed and strength, but they fought no less hard, bayonets stabbing forward, rifle butts parrying spears. The rear ranks continued to fire over their heads, scything down the enemy ranks and creating small breaks that helped keep the enemy from completely overwhelming them.

It was also clear they were not going to be able to continue this forever. They needed something to break the tide, and Ky knew what it was.

“Push men,” he yelled as he intensified his attack, cutting his way into the Carthaginian line.

Ky was a whirlwind of death, carving a path through the Carthaginian ranks. His men fought bravely behind him as he slashed and stabbed tirelessly, his blade finding enemy flesh again and again.

The Carthaginians threw themselves at him relentlessly. A hulking warrior with an axe rushed him, but Ky sidestepped the blow and relieved the man of his weapon arm in one smooth motion. Another came at his back only to find Ky’s sword protruding from his chest a moment later.

Step by step, Ky cut his way further into the massed Carthaginians until there were enemies all around him. They seemed as surprised as his own men were, unsure how to deal with the enemy allowing himself to become separated from his own support as he did. If it had been anyone else, it would never have happened. But Ky wasn’t anyone else.

Aside from his enhanced strength and speed, he had Sophus, who’d brought the drone overhead, rapidly updating the battlescape for him, allowing him to see attackers that should have been able to attack from behind without ever being seen. Ky let himself fall into the motion assist, becoming almost one with Sophus and his projections, the movement of his own gladius and the stolen axe never stopping. Blocking and parrying in every direction, stabbing and slashing any man that came within his reach.

The Carthaginians’ attack slowed as they pushed away from the creature released in their midst, their animal brains taking over, choosing flight over fight. They still attacked his line, but the men within his reach became less and less as the enemy flowed around him, as if he were a stone in the center of a stream.

Ky didn’t care, he was a man possessed, and he had a target in his sights. He continued forward, bodies flying as he cleaved men nearly in two, finally breaking into a more open area near the rear of this mass of Carthaginians, right where the battle standard projected over their heads, rallying their men as his own standard rallied his.

The Carthaginian commander’s eyes went wide as Ky exploded through the mass of men surrounding and protecting him, covered in gore from the dozens of men he slaughtered to get there, practically dripping with their life’s blood.

The man tried to backpedal, almost instinctually, to escape facing a demon, a thing of nightmares, but he was too slow. Too human. With a guttural cry, Ky lunged forward, sinking his blade deep into the commander’s chest. The man let out a choked gurgle, then slid off the blood-slicked blade to the ground.

For a moment, Ky stood alone amidst the Carthaginian inner circle, before he resumed his carnage, slashing the junior commanders, giving them the same fate as their general. And then his men were there, crashing through the breach he’d created, a guttural roar going up from them collectively as they fought hard, driven into a killing frenzy.

The combination of the sight of Ky, his men’s frenzied fighting, and the death of their commanders was too much for the shattered Carthaginians, who began to fall back, trying to find safety from certain death.

A full retreat, at least where Ky’s men were fighting, was brewing. But there were still other parts of the line that were in danger. The tribune on the right was fighting hard, but his men were being pushed back by a wall of Carthaginians, that side of the Britannian line bowing far inward, moments away from breaking, creating the breach Ky’d been fighting to stop.

Just as Ky turned to fight in that direction, plunging back into the Carthaginian line from the small bubble of quiet he’d created around the fallen commander, a trumpet sounded, piercing through the din of battle. Ky sent the drone higher, trying to get a better view of the battle.

Relief rushed over him. Bomilcar had arrived, the flanks of the Britannian line hitting the Carthaginians from either side. Carthaginians were still marching out of the city, their huge army taking time to pour out of their port refuge for the attack that should have crushed the Britannians once and for all. Now, the line of marching Carthaginians was hit on either side by the attacking Britannians. Their march forward stalled as they fought in both directions, desperately trying to retreat into the city.

Watching this play out from the drone, Ky realized they had a chance to end the entire battle right here. His men were exhausted, the strain of battle starting to sap the strength from them, but they couldn’t rest yet. He needed a little more from them first.

“Don’t let them escape. The port is open. Follow me!” Ky yelled, raising his weapons and charging forward, leaving it to the men with him to follow his example.

Sophus focused the drone’s camera, showing Ky that his men, in spite of their exhaustion, didn’t hesitate. They understood completely, that their wounded enemy was trying to escape back behind the walls, and that their commander was going to personally keep that from happening.

They’d kept their faith in him through the brutal fight to keep the battle around the crater from destroying their lines. They were now prepared to follow him into the mouth of the underworld. Ky and his men crashed into the long Carthaginian column, fighting straight into it as Bomilcar pressed on either side.

For a moment, it seemed as if the Carthaginian resistance might stiffen, but the attack from three sides along the five-hundred-meter column was too much. They broke just like the men around the crater had broken. This time, there were Britannians on either side to press in on them as their line collapsed. No one escaped the press of death.

Ky’s focus, however, was on the gates. Once enough Carthaginians got out of the way, the enemy would try to close them, put the stopper back in the bottle. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

Ky slashed and hacked his way through the enemy soldiers. All around him, the Carthaginian column was disintegrating under the Britannian assault. Men screamed and fell before him, but Ky’s eyes remained fixed ahead on the open gates. Ky dodged Carthaginian attacks and his own men who were attacking the enemy from his left and right, navigating over and around obstacles with a single-minded purpose.

He ducked under a wild sword swing, then lunged forward, impaling the attacker. He dodged around two Carthaginians desperately trying to get to the safety of the port, cutting them down from behind as he passed.

Ky was within one hundred meters now. Panic was everywhere.

“Through the gates,” Ky screamed at the soldiers around him, some from the reinforcements, some the men following in his wake, scrambling over the quickly growing carpet of bodies.

And then they were at the gates, the Carthaginians who’d been manning the massive wooden doors falling back, the pressure from the enemy and their own retreating comrades too much for them.

Ky and his men surged forward, flooding through the open gates. His men made him proud. Even as mixed up as badly as their divisions were, no one officer knowing where any of their men were, they still worked as a unit. The moment they burst through the gates, Britannians fanned out. Some flowed up the steps to the wall while squads broke off and continued chasing the enemy down the alleys and streets, killing any Carthaginians they came upon.

Ky finally stopped, letting his men carry on with the gruesome work. The city was theirs. The Carthaginian army, while still outnumbering them, even now, had completely fallen apart, each soldier trying to find safety. From the drone, Ky could see hundreds running to the docks, jumping into the ocean, trying to swim their way to safety. Valdar would handle them.

There wouldn’t be much in the way of prisoners, not from this battle. His men were blood-crazed, and there was no stopping them. Especially the veterans of the Seventh, who’d been one of the units on the flanks. After seeing their leader killed, their men chased for weeks by the Carthaginians, they wanted vengeance, and it would take an act of God to stop them.

The outcome of the battle had been a lot closer than it should have been. What had been a siege that Ky had been certain he would win had almost turned into a disaster. The tunneling and explosion had been brilliant, and it had almost worked. It was only the Carthaginians’ mistake of trying to attack through the crater, instead of around it, that had saved the Britannians, allowing the reinforcements enough time to arrive and plug the hole.

There was a lesson to be learned from this. The enemy might be primitive, without the weapons that he’d gifted the Britannians with, and they might be rigid in how they fought, but they could still be dangerous. He only had to look at Bomilcar to realize how intelligent their leaders could be. As they took the fight to Africa, he’d have to keep that at the forefront of his planning.

For now, though, they’d found victory.