The Sands of Saturn - Chapter 6

Londinium

“I don’t care what the governor has ordered. Can you do it?”

“I don’t know,” the ship’s captain said, looking around nervously. “We normally just make cargo runs to ports in Hibernia controlled by our people. If we were only going there, I’d say yes. Aside from the occasional collection of messages for the governor there to forward on to the emperor and his magistrates, he hasn’t paid much attention to our trips since the first voyage. This is our first trip back to the capital, however. I can’t imagine he’d accept handing me messages to deliver. He’ll probably have his own man aboard, and I doubt I could keep you hidden from him on such a long voyage.”

“I’ll worry about him once we’re underway. I just need you to get me on your boat that morning, before he brings you the message to send. I know him and his lackeys. They’ll keep someone at the docks after you’re handed the message until you’re out of sight. I need to be in the hold and hiding before then.”

“This isn’t enough money!” the ship’s captain said, weighing the bag of gold coins in his hand. “If they find out, they’ll tie me to the bottom of my boat before having someone else sail her out. I’m not going to risk my life for this.”

“The governor is done. Even if the emperor gets a relief force here before the city falls, what do you think’s going to happen to the man who lost Britannia? He had the largest army this island has ever seen — and the second largest, I might add — and lost both to a force a tenth their size. I, on the other hand, am still an asset to the emperor, especially now that they’ve lost the island. So who should you be more afraid of, a governor who’s already dead, or me?”

“I …” The man said, nervously, unsure of what to say next.

In a way, Caesius didn’t blame him. While everything he said was true, for the moment at least, the governor still had more than enough loyal guards to do exactly what the captain was afraid of.

“You’re loyalty to the emperor, by keeping me alive to assist in the reconquest of this island, will be rewarded. I will see that you get additional payments when we arrive. I take care of the men loyal to me.”

With one last look past Caesius towards the handful of guards left to watch over the docks, the captain nodded his agreement.

“Good. The governor plans to send the message once the last ship that was sent to Hibernia returns, which should be in a week. I will be here on that evening to come aboard. Be ready.”

The man nodded again before scuttling away like the rat he was. Caesius hated having to rely on someone so clearly deficient in both brain and spine, but this was the last real chance to get off the island before the city fell. He knew that, even if he survived the assault, he wouldn’t survive captivity by his former subjects. Not after betraying them to the Carthaginians.

***

Emain Macha

Llassar wiped the drips of water off his face for the thousandth time, staring at the outline of the stone blocks above him, barely visible in the flickering torch light. His people had never built anything larger than a communal hut for gatherings and rituals, and even those were wood and thatch. He’d have liked to think that, had his people taken enough prisoners to need something like these dungeons, they would have built them better.

He’d have preferred being tied to a stake in the middle of the village or given a warrior’s death in personal combat over this leaking, rat-infested cell. It wasn’t so much the rate, or even the steady drip of water from what seemed like every inch of ceiling, that bothered him. It was more the quiet than the dark. It gave little for him to do but sit and stare, trying to make out details of his cell when the torch in the passageway flickered just right, giving at least some visibility of the walls around him.

Of course, if they’d just killed him, he would have failed at his mission. He’d been prepared for that. In spite of what he’d said to Lucilla, he’d been less than confident that the people here would be willing to deal with him. He had made friends, of a sort, when he was here before, but he’d still been a prisoner. There was enough of a history of raiding between their two peoples that an almost cultural hatred existed between them, not dissimilar to the cultural hatred that existed between his people and the Romans. Llassar had hoped that, just like with his people and the Romans, desperation would allow them to get over that hatred and come together for survival.

It had worked, to a point. He wasn’t dead yet, which was why he wasn’t surprised when a guard appeared at the door to the cell.

“Get up,” he said, hand on his sword hilt.

In spite of the guard’s rough shove as Llassar left the cell, the Caledonian was certain they weren’t taking him to execute him. If they had wanted to do that, they would have done it earlier, and they probably would have sent more than a single guard. He was proven right when he was led into the palace, instead of into a courtyard or some other place suitable for a public execution.

Conchobar was on his throne again, looking sour. Llassar remembered the look from his previous stay. Conchobar may have been more thoughtful and clever than his playmate Fergus, but the two shared a stubborn streak that would have put anyone in his homeland to shame. The only reason the king would have pulled Llassar out of the dungeons for another audience was because he’d been forced to reconsider Llassar’s offer. Knowing Conchobar, or at least knowing the young man he’d been years before, Llassar knew the only thing that would get him to reverse course was desperation.

Of course, that desperation had limits. Men like Conchobar had been known to let their kingdoms burn to save their wounded pride. He knew his people, or rather his new people, since thinking of the combined Caledonian and Roman people in the Britannic Empire still felt foreign, needed the Ulaid. He’d been sent to secure an alliance with them, which also meant not pushing them into destroying themselves before they could be of use.

“My king,” Llassar said, taking a more formal tone than he normally did. “I am happy you’ve allowed me a second chance to explain my people’s message to you. You know I am a warrior and unskilled in the language of diplomacy, and I think I might have given the wrong impression during my first audience.”

“You say you don’t speak the language of diplomacy, but you sound as if you share its forked tongue.”

“Then I’ll speak plainly. Your armies are outmatched. I know you had parity with the other kingdoms, or at least you did when I was here last. I remember the old king complaining of the uneasy truce with the Laigin, the Connacht, and the Erainn. We only recently heard of the Carthaginians landing on your southern shores, so I don’t know how that has shifted the balance of power here, but I’m certain it has. I saw the destruction of Ulaid villages on my way here, before your men found me. In the days of the truce with the other kingdoms, that would have never been allowed to happen. I know you’re not one to shirk your responsibility as king, which means it was allowed to happen because of an inability to stop it, instead of unwillingness. You’re losing, Conchobar. Without help, the Carthaginians and their puppets will wash over you like the tide.”

Conchobar didn’t respond immediately. He stared down at Llassar, silently fuming, his jaw grinding as he fought with himself in his head.

One side or the other must have won the internal struggle, because after several tense and silent minutes, the king looked to the guards and ministers around him and said, “Leave us.”

The speed at which the men fled the chamber, leaving only Conchobar and Llassar spoke to the king’s power and authority. He’d seen similar responses to Talogren and witnessed weaker leaders before his chieftain’s rise to power whose advisors always hedged and wheedled when given an order, instead of obeying outright as these men had done.

“You were always too blunt for your own good,” Conchobar said.

“I only did what you asked.”

“So you did. You’re right, though I hate to admit it. We’re losing. The Carthaginians invaded in the south, taking Ivernis early on. The Erainn tried to fight them, but the foreigners were clever. They sent emissaries to all of the other kingdoms. The ones that came to us, I had executed right away, as did Labraid Loingsech. Unfortunately, Medb was willing to hear them out. Using her armies and the Carthaginian army in Ivernis, the Connacht defeated the Erainn. Crushed them, would be more accurate. Fergus had just been exiled and I was too busy solidifying my position to do anything about it, which left the Laigin on their own. With her new allies, Medb made quick work of subduing both kingdoms. She probably plans on betraying her benefactors at some point, once she’s consolidated the entire island under her rule, but for now she’s still their puppet.”

“Your armies have not fared well?”

“No. You always said our metal was weak and brittle. I hated that, you know.”

“I do know,” Llassar said, thinking of their arguments as younger men.

Conchobar’s pride had always extended to his people and he always took offense at the idea that anything his people did might be inferior.

“Medb isn’t just using Carthaginian armies. She’s armed her men with their weapons and armor as well. Half of our swords shatter or bend when brought against Carthaginian steel. When you showed up on my doorstep, we had just sent the largest army we’ve ever fielded against them. I just received word that our forces were completely routed. We don’t have the men to stop them.”

“We do.”

“I don’t want to become some kind of proxy for your war with them. I’m not going to be a Roman puppet any more than I’d be a Carthaginian one.”

“I don’t answer to the Romans. I am still a Caledonian and I still fight for my people. The new Empire we formed with the Romans, it’s one of equals. We still maintain the laws in our lands and have an equal say in what happens to the Empire as a whole. While I was given instructions to offer you to become a part of that Empire, that isn’t required for our assistance. Our only goal is to make ourselves safe from the Carthaginians and their plans to rule the entire world. That means pushing them off of our islands and out of our region entirely. For that to happen, we need help. Specifically, we need manpower. The only thing we ask in return for our help is that you pledge your people to helping us defeat the Carthaginians. After that, we are open to any form of treaty or alliance that both our people agree on, be it just for trading, or a military alliance, or you becoming an equal member of our Empire, with full autonomy to rule your lands as you see fit. Right now, we simply want to survive and defeat the Carthaginians.”

Conchobar thought for a long moment, his hand resting under his nose, over his mouth, his brow furrowed.

“Tell me more about what kind of help your people can provide,” the king said finally.

***

Outside Londinium

It had taken two days to work out the details with Ramirus’s contact, and another day to work out how to get men on the ship without other ships finding out. Scouts had finally found a small inlet not far from the mouth of the river that the fishing boat could use to load men without one of the other ships seeing.

It had been a minor concern, since there were only a handful that braved the run out of Londinium each day, avoiding Roman archers and the one trebuchet still trying its best to hit the moving ships. Ky didn’t want a chance witness bringing back news of the plan to the governor, both for the safety of the men already smuggled into the city and for the success of the plan itself, which was their best chance to breach the city without incurring large-scale casualties.

Ky had Ramirus get detailed descriptions of the warehouses to be used and had spent the better part of a day observing them using the drone. As best he could tell, they were being left completely alone. Ramirus had also been right when he’d said that there wasn’t much foot traffic around any of the businesses near the docks. From what Ky could see, there were hardly any people in the streets at all that weren’t actively engaged in some specific activity. Ramirus had heard that the citizens were being conscripted into a militia and were being forced to man the wall, which Ky imagined made those who hadn’t been conscripted yet eager to keep from drawing attention to themselves.

The only problem with their plan, at the moment, was that Londinium and the Empire soldiers surrounding it were a good ride from the coast where the fishing boat would pick up the men. Although both his lictore and the legates had been less than thrilled with the idea, Ky had wanted to ride along this first time to see the handoff. As soon as he had, he saw a flaw in the plan. The Carthaginians might not notice squads of men leaving the line and heading east once or twice, but every night for a month and a half, someone would notice. Even if they sent them roundabout in other directions, someone might get curious. It was also a long ride for the men.

They’d agreed to find a spot to set up a small camp for the men selected to sneak into the city and a small security detachment, not far from where they’d be meeting the ship each day. There were other praetorian camps up and down the coast for the guards patrolling and watching for Carthaginian ships, so if it was maintained by the praetorians, anyone getting curious would at least find a reason for them to be there.

It was a day’s ride back, which meant Ramirus had already returned to the lines outside the city, both to check on messages from his contacts and to work with the legates to get the men selected to sneak into the city ready to travel to their new camp.

Ky had expected that to take a day or two at the least, which was why he was surprised to see Ursinus and Ramirus riding out to meet them as he, the praetorian officers who’d be setting the camp up, and his security detachment returned to the Roman lines outside the city.

“Problems?” Ky asked as the men rode up.

“Yes. I just got word that the Carthaginians are going to try a break out along the river.”

“That’s insane!” Ky said. “They don’t have the numbers to break through, and if they do, what then? Attack our lines from behind? Even down to two legions and the Caledonian forces that chose to remain, we have more than twice their number. What do they hope to accomplish?”

“I don’t know,” Ramirus answered. “I only know that one of my people floated a message to my man on the south bank two hours ago that the Carthaginians were armoring men at the west gate. It looks like a full phalanx.”

“If they were going to try it, why not use cavalry? At least then they’d be mobile. Phalanxes are slow. We’ll have plenty of time to converge on them, and if they did manage to break out, how would that many men on foot be able to do anything without support.”

“I’m not sure they have very many experienced commanders left in the city,” Ursinus said. “From the interviews we’ve done with the commanders, basically everyone with actual experience was with the army we defeated. This is probably the brainchild of someone desperate to be seen as doing something. What it does is present us with an opportunity. If we hit them right as they’re coming out, we might be able to get through the gates before they can get their men back inside and lower them.”

“That’s a risk. As far as we can tell, they don’t have any catapults in the city, since they sent them all out with the army just before winter, but they still have a good number of archers,” Ky said. “Beyond that, fighting in an enclosed space like a gateway, especially one blocked by a phalanx, is going to be costly. We’d be eliminating our advantage of numbers for them.”

“Any attack we do is going to be costly, but the gateway hurts them as much as it does us. A phalanx isn’t going to operate in a gate like that. It isn’t tall enough for them to get their spears all the way up, so rear ranks will either have to be more separated or their spears will be in the way of the line in front of them. That might work for one or two lines, but any deeper than that, and it will start to hinder them. Also, this isn’t their front-line infantry. From what Ramirus has told us, nearly every unit with any level of training went out with the last army, and only a handful of stragglers made it back. Unless the governor plans on sending his guard force out, these are going to be poorly trained militia at best, or possibly some of the civilian population that the Carthaginians have been levying. Will we lose men? Yes. But if we’re successful, it will be a lot fewer men than we’d lose storming the walls.”

“They are correct, Commander. An assault as they’re describing would have a higher chance of success than the current plan, with fewer points of failure.”

“Very well then, let’s do it,” Ky said, for the benefit of both the commanders and Sophus. “Pull three centuries and stage them behind our line as close to the gate as possible. As soon as they are halfway out, I want at least five squadrons to hit them in the flank. As soon as they see the cavalry, they’ll start to turn their line and get their spears set for the charge, so we’re going to take casualties, but I think if we hit them fast enough, it won’t be devastating. Either way, they need to hold the men there long enough for our soldiers to run across the open ground and engage. If we’re lucky, our casualties will be light. Either way, we’ll have their phalanx stuck in the gateway, blocking it. I also want to have a group of Caledonians ready to come in behind the legionaries to exploit a breakthrough. Once the phalanx is broken, their style of fighting will fit the chaos that will happen on the other side of the gate better than the legionnaires’. When they’re through, we need to be ready to follow through with at least half of Auspex’s legion closest to the gate. I want an overwhelming force inside in minutes after the gate falls. Do we know when they’re going to attack?”

“No,” Ramirus said.

“I don’t think they’ll try a night attack. If they stood a chance at all, they’d have to keep their phalanx tight and attack close to the river, where they don’t have to worry about being rolled up on both sides. As it is, it’s insane because we completely overlap them enough to completely circle them on one side, but at least it would be slower with only one flank exposed.”

“But their commander has to be inexperienced to even try this, so they might not realize the same thing, which means a night assault is possible. Have the three legions, cavalry squadrons, and Caledonians stand ready. We’ll release them an hour before dawn with fresh troops, that way if they do attack at dawn or sometime in the morning, our men won’t be exhausted.”

The legate saluted and he and Ramirus rode back to the lines to get the men assembled. If the Carthaginians were even fractionally intelligent, they’d notice the built-up Britannian forces facing that gate, and call the thing off once daylight hit. Of course, anyone insane enough to plan this crazy attack might not, either.

Ky had been gone all day and part of the previous day, which meant he had fallen behind on his work. While he left the actual running of the legions to the legates, he still had correspondence and messages to deal with as Consul, along with hours of transcribing of notes for Hortensius, Opilio, the Senator representing the farms and plantations, and the various mining operations on how to take the next steps in improving their operations and instructions he’d need to give them when it was time to begin the next phase of advancement.

While they’d worked out a schedule for introducing technology and plumbed Sophus’s database on the best way to do that, Ky being the only one with a computer in his head capable of accessing that data meant they’d hit a serious bottleneck, since disseminating the data was limited to the speed of Ky’s writing.

Ursinus’s guess that they wouldn’t try a breakout at night proved correct. There had still been no action outside of the city when Sophus alerted Ky thirty minutes before daybreak. Ky’s best guess was that they’d try at first light, when the legions would only just be rising for the day. Ky had never understood that thinking, himself. Everyone knew it was the time people liked to attack, so if one was expected, there were always soldiers waiting for it, which negated the surprise element. True, they probably thought this time it was a surprise, but the thinking still puzzled Ky.

Everyone was assembled, with the cavalry up by the bend in the Roman lines as they curved with the bend in the city wall. The Roman lines were a little further than a third of a mile back from the walls of the city itself, close enough to see it, but mostly out of range of arrow fire and any smaller artillery like dart throwers they might have on the walls, hidden from plain sight.

The centuries and Caledonians were on the line facing the gate, the fresh units already making the switch for the ones that had kept watch all night. The men could see the distance they’d need to run, holding formation as best they could so they hit as one. It would take several minutes for the men to cross the open field and come to grips with the Carthaginians, which was going to be a long time for the cavalry riders to be in contact with spear-wielding infantry, but they’d have to hold.

As if on cue, as soon as light began to break over the field, the gates began to rise. There wasn’t any fanfare or trumpets playing, but it was impossible for anyone looking that way to miss the gates going up and the long spears being lowered down to come through it. Once again, Ky marveled that anyone was going to attempt such an obviously doomed maneuver, but hoped they’d be able to exploit it and get on the other side of the wall before the Carthaginians realized their mistake.

Moments passed as one, then two, and then a third rank of men filed through the gate. They were compressed into columns ten men wide, which is just about as wide as they’d be able to march abreast and stay together coming through the gate, which meant it would take them longer than normal to get all of the men out. Ursinus, who had more field experience than Auspex, having been involved in both recent battles against the Carthaginians, had been left to decide the timing of the cavalry charge.

Thirty seconds ticked by and then a full minute with no response from the cavalry down the line. Another row marched out, and then another. Ky could feel Ramirus and the officers around him getting nervous. Ky had actually been more worried about the opposite problem of Ursinus sending the horsemen too soon. He was watching the gate up close, thanks to both his enhanced vision and the drone high in the sky, giving him two views of the gate and the soldiers marching out. The line of men was possibly much larger than the men around him suspected, as they were more used to seeing phalanxes arrayed for combat than transitioning through a gate.

Ursinus, who didn’t have Ky’s advantages, actually timed it pretty well. Ky saw the first horses cross the line when just over a third of the men were through the gate. They’d already started fanning out into a full battle line, which left an angle where the thinner line connected with the growing wider line, and the centurion leading the charge knew his business, smashing into it right at that angle. As suspected, the soldiers had noticed and brought their spears down to try and stop the charge, but there were too few of them to stop the charge entirely, and the horsemen cut through the line like a knife.

As soon as the first horseman had crossed the line, the signal was given for the centurions to charge. The Caledonians, who were already getting their blood up and looked like they might jump off early, thankfully held, which would give the legionaries time to hit the Carthaginians as a single unit.

The horsemen had strict instructions to not try and take the gate on their own, since once they got in the gateway, they’d be surrounded and easily cut down. They did have to come to grips with the Carthaginians, both to keep them from lining up with their spears and to keep them focused on the current threat until the legionaries got there.

The fighting was brutal and horsemen began to fall. More than Ky was comfortable with. The stirrups at least helped them stay on the animals as they swung across either side striking at the men below, but they were still being pulled down.

The Carthaginians themselves couldn’t seem to make up their minds what to do. Some of the men still inside the city tried to run to their comrades’ assistance while some of the men outside the city tried to run back inside, creating a traffic jam right inside the gateway. The men who’d already formed into position at least tried to fight as an organized unit, turning and trying to back away from the horsemen and to get their spears deployed. Whoever was leading them at least had some small unit tactical experience, because he’d almost done it, when the legionaries hit them from behind.

The portion of the phalanx that had deployed dissolved as they were attacked from either side. The cavalry began pulling back as the legionaries started forward into the gateway, pushing against the mass of men crammed into the small area, when the thing Ky nor his legates had predicted happened. The men on the other side slammed the heavy gate down, crushing any of their own men who happened to be in the way.

It was actually the only thing that had saved them from having the Romans break through the gate, but with so few soldiers left, Ky hadn’t predicted they’d just leave those now caught on the other side to their fate. The Caledonians had finally caught up with the rest, and with their blood up and their goal blocked, vented their frustrations on the few Carthaginian soldiers still standing outside the walls.

It was a massacre. The centurion in command of the field force left the Carthaginians to the Caledonians and formed up across from the gate. Ky wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish, since with the gate closed there was no chance they would get through, but it was a very human response. They’d been so close to breaking through, and it had been pulled away from them at the last second. While the last Carthaginians outside the wall were being slaughtered on the field, archers on the walls began to take a toll on the soldiers wandering in front of the wall, trying to figure out what to do next.

“Call them back,” Ky said.

“They might …” Ramirus started to say, before Ky interrupted him.

“They’re not going to force that gate, and the Carthaginians aren’t going to open it back up. We’re just wasting men’s lives right now. Call them back before we lose any more men we don’t have to.”

A trumpeter began to blow the signal for the men to retreat; they did their best to gather up their fallen comrades, most of who had been in the initial cavalry charge. It was going to cost more men, trying to rescue injured friends and bring the dead back with them, but Ky wasn’t going to get in their way. He understood the way soldiers formed bonds and was sure he’d do the same thing in their position.

“Looks like we’re going to have to stick with plan A after all.”