The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 12

Coast, Southern Britain

The galleys cut across the water, slamming into the beach hard, driving up onto the sand. As soon as the boats stopped, men in heavy armor began piling over the sides in twos and fours, quickly crowding the entire beach with hundreds of men.

Another group of legionaries sat across from them, crouching and covering their heads, as centurions walked up and down the line, telling this group of men or that group they were dead.

A spectator watching the proceedings would have been very confused by the entire thing. Thankfully for them, and the training legions, there weren’t any spectators. The praetorians had cleared people out of the area for more than a mile in all directions, ensuring the training could continue without any spies getting a look at what the Britannians were practicing.

“Move up,” Velius yelled as he hit the beach, pushing men gathering in clumps by the boats towards positions forming halfway up the sand. “Boat teams; get them back out in the water. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Velius fumed. Men moved, but not fast enough. They knew this wasn’t real and some were treating it more like a bit of fun than the training it was supposed to be. It was true that, before the Consul, this kind of training didn’t happen so the men weren’t used to it, but after seeing it used several times successfully, Velius saw the benefit of it. Getting five thousand men to see it too, however, was harder.

The men did finally start forming up, however, and the first galleys were starting to move back into the ocean, clearing the way for the next wave. They would have to pick up the pace if this was going to work for real, but otherwise, things were going according to plan. The legion playing the part of the Carthaginians started releasing small groups of soldiers to charge the Britannian line, but they weren’t enough to break through.

Bomilcar had been against this part of the war game, arguing that the Carthaginians would hold their men together until they could form up for a concentrated push. While Velius could see his point, since that was how phalanxes normally fought, when under this kind of barrage, some of the men would break. In his experience, some of the men would run away and some would prematurely attack. For once, the Consul had agreed with him and not the Carthaginian.

Some of the men whacked their attackers a little harder than they should have with their wooden swords and there would be a fair number of bumps and bruises the next day, but as long as the cannon barrage was accurate and could fire continuously, it seemed this plan would work.

The second wave landed and was half unloaded when things went south. Men were still trudging through ankle-deep water, trying to form up with the men already on the beach when two groups of legionnaires carrying long poles to represent the phalanx spears came out of the woods from either side of the lined-up invasion force.

They were a distance away and the cannons could have engaged them, but it would have meant slacking fire on the main body at the tree line, not that it mattered, since he didn’t have any way to signal the ships. They were watching through spy glasses, but it was decided to focus the first several waves on just front-line soldiers, and save support units like messengers and signalmen for the last wave. They also only had partial cohorts, and not all the leaders were on the boats in the first wave. One cohort had a senior centurion leading it and only two prefects and a tribune as it made ashore. Worse, he only had one messenger available to pass orders.

“Tell the leftmost cohort to turn and block their advance,” he said to the messenger he did have, pointing at the force coming from that direction.

As the man ran off, Velius ran to the cohort on the right, which was also the one with a senior centurion leading it. The man had done well, getting his soldiers lined up and prepared for battle, but he was in over his head and not trained to make decisions on his own, like turning his men to face the threat from the right.

The battle devolved from there, with the left flank collapsing under the pressure, causing the center to roll up before Velius could shift men to shore it up. Finally, he called a halt to the entire exercise. It took time to find the signal team, waiting with the ‘opposing forces’, so that he could signal the waiting galleys to go back to port. The men who had already landed would march back to their base camp a few miles north of where the exercises were taking place.

By the time he got all of the men situated, the Consul and Bomilcar had shown up riding in with the other legates who were training nearby.

“That was a disaster. I thought the goal was to make this as realistic as possible, but the opposing force broke into three parts for that insane attack. They wouldn’t break a force into three small units like that. They went from having a numerical advantage to three outnumbered units. I’ve never seen a phalanx do that in my entire life. What general would even do that?”

“I would,” Bomilcar said. “In fact, I did.”

“See, this is what I was talking about,” Velius said to Ky. “I thought the goal here was to give our men real battlefield training so they would know what to expect and how to react when the day came. Instead, they’re going to be confused, looking for attacks that won’t be there, and they’ll lose cohesion. The whole exercise was wasted on tactics the enemy would never use because they know it wouldn’t work.”

“Except, it did,” Ky pointed out.

“Only because we weren’t expecting it.”

“Which is exactly why I did it. Your men were in disarray. You only had a handful of battle standards on the field and it took much longer for them to form up than I’ve ever seen from a Roman, or Britannian, army. The obvious answer was you didn’t front-load officers, opting for fighting men instead. You’d already pushed off ships and started your second wave, so I knew what you were doing and I could see the galleys waiting to come in. It wouldn’t have been hard to figure out, even without knowing what I know, but I waited until the second wave landed because a general would want to make sure he knew he was right about the ships standing just offshore before committing. Knowing that, I knew I had a limited amount of time where I would have both numerical superiority and greater cohesion, which has always been the Roman strength. That meant I couldn’t wait for you to start your attack. You already had men lined up and the shelling would have made it difficult to hold men in line to cross the beach, so I pulled two-thirds of my army and sent half one way and half the other, reasoning that you couldn’t hit them all at the same time, considering there were only three ships in the harbor firing. It was the best solution at the moment, and one our enemies will try if our actual landings are anything like these.”

“Which is the point of these exercises,” Ky said, trying to cut some of the tension. “I think we can see we need to make some adjustments to our order of deployment.”

He didn't point out that those changes were the same ones Bomilcar had been arguing for already, and Velius had been arguing against. At the time, Ky had sided with Velius since it made sense to get as many fighting men on the beach as possible in the first wave, and he himself downplayed the possibility of the Carthaginians taking advantage that early in the battle. The odds were they wouldn’t be deployed to meet the Britannians before the second wave even landed and no one on that side of the field would have ever experienced being bombarded by explosive shells. Ky still believed the most likely outcome was that either the Carthaginians would break under fire completely or would be locked in place, both of which would make the move that Bomilcar had performed unlikely.

Of course, the whole point of this exercise was to prepare for the unlikely. There might not have been actual explosions here, but the Carthaginians were on an island with nowhere to run, which would be a pretty good motivator.

“Don’t make the mistake of assuming your opponents are idiots,” Bomilcar said. “Yes, you’ve won amazing battles, including the one against me, but it was never guaranteed. The thing that led you to victory in those other battles was superior generalship. Yes, you had some new weapons, and I will grant you that the ones the Consul has brought out now are even more impressive, but even the most advanced weapons can be deployed poorly and lead to a defeat.”

“He is correct. There are numerous occasions where a technologically superior army was defeated by an inferior opponent with superior generalship. The British at Kandahar or the Battle of Isandlwana during the Zulu Wars are excellent examples,” Sophus said, flashing descriptions of the battles across Ky’s vision.

Ky hadn’t needed the object lesson, but it reinforced the lesson for him.

“He has a point,” Ky said to Velius. “Although it is unlikely, I believe we should take the lessons from this and adjust our plans to keep it from happening. If the most likely scenario occurs and the Carthaginians are fully suppressed by our cannon, then it won’t matter. If it doesn’t and Bomilcar is right, we will be glad we had the proper force disposition to deal with it.”

“I guess,” Velius said, sounding almost like a spoiled child, upset that he was proven wrong.

Ky frowned. He’d picked Velius for his role as the prime legate and head of the Britannian legions because of how flexible and reasonable he was. This level of inflexibility whenever Bomilcar was involved was out of character for the man. One of the things that had helped them succeed against the Carthaginians had been how short-sighted and poor the Carthaginian leadership had been, Bomilcar aside, especially in comparison to the Britannic leadership. The last thing they needed was for their top commander to start exhibiting some of the Carthaginian weaknesses.

“Can you gentlemen excuse us,” Ky said.

Bomilcar simply bowed his head slightly and rode off towards the men on the beach but several of the other legates and aides gave side glances to Velius. Ky normally didn’t believe in calling out men in front of others. He found it bad for morale and discipline, even asking to speak to a soldier alone when it was clear to everyone around what was about to happen. He, however, didn’t have a lot of time and needed to nip this feud in the bud, now, before it started making problems that could not be corrected.

“We have a problem,” Ky said.

“I agree. I don’t know how he convinced you that he’s reformed, or changed allegiance, or whatever, but he’s going to get my men killed.”

“Bomilcar isn’t the problem. You are.”

“What?”

“Velius, you’re a good man. You care about your soldiers and you’re willing to do what’s necessary to achieve our goals. You have a solid tactical mind and you’re loyal. You, however, need to find a way to keep your personal feelings from affecting your professional judgment.”

“I’m not …”

“Bomilcar has done nothing to suggest he’s working against our best interest. If you were to stop for even a minute and put your dislike for the man aside, you would see he was right when he said we were too focused on holding the force in front of us here. I know I agreed with you in the planning session, but he showed us both that we were wrong. You were on the field so you should see it the best.”

“Maybe, but I think he’s distracting us from where our focus needs to be. Maybe he isn’t doing it on purpose, but he’s doing it.”

“No, he’s not. He’s right, though. If the cannons are able to maintain suppression then changing the balance of the early waves won’t affect anything. But if they can’t, then he’s right, and it’s the difference between winning and losing. Our army's strength is its cohesion and that fell apart today.”

Velius didn’t say anything in response. Ky waited a few beats to see if he would, but the man only clamped his mouth shut more firmly.

“You’re a good leader, Velius, and I don’t want to replace you, but I will.”

“Because I won’t accept him?”

“No, because of you. I need you to be able to follow orders you may not like or agree with. It’s how the chain of command works, and it’s breaking apart now. I need to know that you’ll hold to my or the Emperor's decisions and not fight against us. If you can’t do that, I’ll find someone else who will.”

“I can follow orders.”

“Good. I like you, Velius, and you still have a long way to go in your career. I would hate to have anyone else leading our armies, so get your shit together. Understood?”

“Yes, Consul.”

“Good. I have to return to Devnum, again, and then I need to sail out with the Valdar for at least a week. Their first run with the cannon went just as well as this did and if they can’t hold their fire on target, being flanked by the Carthaginians will be the least of our worries. While I’m gone, I need you and Bomilcar to get these landings sorted out. The training went well and the actual unloading part of the landings was solid, so I know you two can make this work. Run this scenario a few times if you need to and work out as many problems as you can. Bomilcar’s goal is to try and trip you up any way he can so we see the problem spots before they happen. Don’t push your head in the sand and refuse to make the adjustments just because you don’t trust him.”

“I’ll try,” Velius said.

“Good, because this is the second time you and I have had to have this conversation. There won’t be a third. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Consul.”

***

Emain Macha, Ériu

Cormac looked out the window of his room, staring down at the circular building that was the seat of Ulaid government. The night air was cool and crisp, helping clear his head, which was still spinning from the large amount of mead he’d drunk at the wedding feast.

Wedding feast. It still felt odd to say that, even to himself. A month ago, being married seemed like something far off in his future. He’d been out on the battlefield, ready to prove himself like his father had. Although it could have been better in places, Cormac felt he’d done well. He’d even gotten one or two kind words out of Llassar, which was a feat since all that old goat seemed to know how to do was point out his flaws. True, he’d made some mistakes, but he’d learned from them and thought he’d have more chances to continue learning.

Out of nowhere, Llassar and his father had ambushed him, telling him he was going to be married, to Queen Medb of all people, and that it was going to happen quickly. And it had happened. Which explained the drinking.

He was sure the people at the feast had thought it was because of his dislike of Medb or maybe because everyone knew his father had picked his bride and ordered him to marry her. The real reason, and one he’d probably admit to no one, even under torture, was that he was scared. He’d never considered marriage, especially not to someone like Medb, and he wasn’t prepared for it. Worse, there was tonight. The wedding night was a big deal. Stewards would come in the morning and claim the furs and bed sheets to prove the marriage was consummated.

It was pointless, really. Medb had been married previously, so there would be no blood stains for the priests to examine, but tradition was tradition. Cormac was no stranger to women. He was rich and he was a prince, so women had thrown themselves at him ever since he came of age. This was different. Most of those women he knew he’d never have to see again or if he did he wouldn’t have to care what they thought of him. He’d had his fun and moved on.

This was a new challenge. For one, Medb was ten years his senior. She was experienced and a warrior, unlike the farmers’ daughters and clingers on he’d previously bedded. Yes, Medb was still beautiful in her own way, but also frightening. She wouldn’t be like the farmers’ daughters, afraid and shy, which in turn scared Cormac.

“So here we are,” her voice came behind him.

Most of her things were in the rooms she’d been staying in as his father’s ‘guest’ and she’d gone to retrieve some changes of clothes and the like. For such a large, powerful woman, she moved quietly, like Llassar. It was unsettling. He turned to find her in a simple tunic, slippers on her feet. A change from the regal way she normally dressed, adorned with jewelry and accessories. Even during their wedding, she’d been dressed as fine as any queen, which she’d been until recently, so that at least made sense.

Her hair was down from the tight coils she normally wore it in, hanging over her shoulders in a wavy cascade. She looked even more beautiful like this, dressed simply. It was like he was seeing her for the first time. She was still startling, in a way. Taller than him, her arms sculpted in sharp lines showing just how powerful she was, although not as bulky as the picture he’d had in his mind.

“Uhh, yeah,” he said, not moving from his place by the window.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” she asked, seeing right through him.

“No. I’m just … this happened very fast. I’m still adjusting to it.”

“Yes, it did. I honestly didn’t see this coming,” she said, moving to sit on edge of the bed in the center of the room, on the side closest to him. “It was smart of him. He’s managed to keep me from being a threat to his rule of my kingdom in a way that wouldn’t cause my people to rise up against him. It’s much cleverer than I’ve ever given him credit for being.”

“It wasn’t his idea. Llassar was the one who suggested it.”

“Really?” she said, cocking her head slightly. “How interesting.”

“I would have thought this would make you angry. Losing your kingdom and being forced to marry me. You seem to be taking it well. A lot better than I would have.”

“My other choice was to let your father take my head, and then kill a lot of my people when they rose up in revenge. I decided I liked the idea of being married a lot more than being dead. Besides, you aren’t that bad of a bargain. You led the armies that defeated my people and were smart enough to send that advisor of yours, Llassar you said his name was, to defeat Fergus, and you’re quite handsome, actually. More than Fergus was, anyways. He was all muscle and no brain. I’m glad you managed to get rid of him before I actually had to marry him. I can’t even imagine what a disaster that would have been.”

“Handsome?” Cormac said.

He hadn’t actually planned on saying anything. He’d wanted to play it cool, not letting her know how the compliment had felt to him. He wasn’t an idiot and knew she didn't actually care for him and was probably still maneuvering by flattering him and feeding his ego. And yet, it did feel good to hear it, and the words escaped him on their own.

“Absolutely. Strong, well-muscled without being obscene, and full of youth. I could have done a lot worse.”

“You don’t need to try to flatter me,” he said, getting ahold of himself.

“Sure I do. I’m your wife. Making you happy is now my duty,” she said, although the sarcasm was thick enough in her voice that they both knew she didn’t actually mean that. “That isn’t why I said it though. I know you’re suspicious of me. If I had to guess, you were probably forced into this by your father. I know how I would have felt in your shoes, being told I had to marry some old hag.”

She was so blunt and matter-of-fact about everything, it was a little disconcerting to Cormac, who was used to people always choosing their words so carefully.

“You aren’t an old hag,” Cormac said.

“Now who’s flattering who?”

“I mean … I’m not …”

“It’s alright,” she said, and then patted the bed next to her. “Come sit down. I promise I won’t bite.”

Cormac hesitated for a moment and then did as she asked, although leaving a distance between them so she had to twist her body to look at him.

“Look, I know this is awkward. I feel it too. You’re trapped by your family and I’m trapped by my obligation to my people … and my own life, if I’m being honest. Neither of us has any reason to trust the other, let alone feel any sort of affection for one another, which only makes things harder. Does that sound about right?”

“Yeah.”

“Since we’re stuck, we should figure out how to make this work. Your father can order us to marry each other, but he can’t tell us how to deal with each other once we’re married. I don’t know if we’ll ever like each other, let alone love each other, but we can at least not be miserable.”

“I can work with that,” Cormac said.