The Trumpets of Mars (Imperium #2) - Chapter 27

Devnum

“We’re still weak on the blocking side,” Velius said, looking down at the large map holding dozens of carved figures. “If we can’t hold them in this box, they will sweep around the lake and crush us.”

“I know, but we don’t have much of a choice. We have to use enough of a bait force to make them believe we are routing. They know what kind of forces we have available to us. We can get away with shortening our numbers some, especially if the cavalry does its job, but there’s a limit to it, and I think we’re getting very close to that. Any less here,” Ky said, pointing to the largest grouping of wooden figures. “And they will start looking for the rest of our army, or worse, looking more at the topography and seeing this area for what it is.”

“Are you sure they won’t see it ahead of time,” Ursinus asked? “As you said, they’ve got enough information already to see everything we did in making this plan. They know our forces and they have to be looking at maps of their invasion route.”

“If they see us putting up stiff resistance and that almost half our forces are missing, they might figure it out, but just looking at the map alone, no, I don’t think so. It’s just over a mille passus from the lakeshore to the cliffs. They’ll see the cliffs and the lake on the map, but they won’t see it for the box that it is until it’s too late, especially since they can’t see the excavation work we’ve been doing on the cliffside to make it impossible to climb. I’ve walked the area. On the ground, with the way the ground rolls, it’s even harder to see how much it narrows.”

Ursinus frowned, but nodded. Unlike most of the commanders, Ursinus had actually fought side by side with Ky when he first arrived, and had seen some of Ky’s use of technology up close, which meant he tended to give Ky the benefit of the doubt. Ky understood his hesitancy. No one of this time had ever seen aerial reconnaissance of a battle area before and would have a harder time grasping the entire field as a whole, rather than just what they could see from the ground.

He hadn’t considered it before, but once he managed to get a chemical industry set up and producing things like sulfuric acid, he could introduce hot air balloons, the earliest designs of which used sulfuric acid and iron filings to safely produce the hot gasses used to lift them. One of the biggest limitations in ancient battles was the limited information commanders had during the fight itself. They would strategize ahead of time, working out plans for how to fight the enemy, but during the battle itself, everything was passed by runners, sending back updates of the fight from commanders one by one. It limited what the commanders were able to do, turning the entire business into a slugfest with little tactical control.

Plans like this one required very specific timing to work. The only reason this plan was even feasible was because he could see the entire battle as it progressed and communicate with Lucilla in real-time from a distance.

No matter their training, it was unlikely the Romans and their Caledonian allies would have been able to pull something like this off without him, and he wouldn’t always be around. If, however, he could set up something like a signaling corps using balloons and flags, commanders would be able to outmaneuver their opponents even mid-battle without Ky’s intervention. It would give them a big advantage in the fights to come, especially since the Empire would be fighting on multiple fronts and its commanders would have to confront larger forces without Ky’s technology.

It wasn’t something for now, but Ky filed it away as another thing he needed to work on.

“Even if they don’t realize it’s a trap, I’m still not convinced they won’t break through our lines,” Velius said. “The front lines on both the forward and rear of the Carthaginians will take two full legions each to cover, and that’s spread very thin. The pressure of a hundred thousand men, especially ones who realize what mortal danger they’re in, will be intense. I’m not confident we can hold back that pressure. Considering we only have five legions total, once the fourth legion arrives, with two so under strength that we have to put them together to equal one full legion, we’re left with nothing but auxiliary forces in reserve. I mean no offense to our Caledonian allies, but holding men in place is a different kind of fighting than your men are used to.”

Drest, the man Llassar assigned to take his place, had almost as little expression as Llassar, but nodded back in answer. Everyone assembled knew that Velius had a point and had heard him make this point before, once all of the commanders were brought in on the plan. They’d run two full-scale mock battles to give the men a chance to train on what to expect, a concept that, in of itself, had been completely foreign to militaries in the ancient world and difficult for both the Romans and the Caledonians to grasp. The results had proven what Velius had said. When put into the Roman blocking positions, the Caledonians had not managed to hold the line, even when faced with just pushing and shoving of men armed with wooden training swords. When faced with the real thing, no amount of warrior drive and toughness would counter an organized and coordinated push by either a legion or a phalanx.

“I know, and I’ve agreed that this was the weak point all along. Unfortunately, we don’t have any more men to draw on. We’ve pulled every legion in and even if we stripped the praetorians for additional manpower, an action that could backfire on us dramatically considering men like Decius are still out there setting fires, it would not make a difference. There aren’t a thousand more men with legion training left in the Empire, and we’ve run out of time to train any more.”

“Then what do we do when the legions start to bend? And they will under that much weight.”

“They might not. If the civilian auxiliaries are effective, I’m hoping it damages the unit cohesiveness of the phalanxes enough to keep them from pushing our men back. However, I thought we could hold back enough of Drest’s men as a reserve. When the line weakens, they rush in as a counter-attack, giving time for the pressed legion to reform and reset their walls.”

“Charging an engaged phalanx like that is suicide,” Auspex said.

“My men aren’t afraid to die in battle.”

Auspex was about to retort when Ky held up a hand, stopping him.

“We saw in the war games that, while the Caledonians couldn’t hold a concerted line, a massed attack was able to push the opposing line back. That’s all we’ll need.”

“I’m still not convinced these war games of yours can be counted on to show us what things will be like for real. Men with steel swords react very differently than men with wooden ones,” Lartius, the newly appointed legate of cavalry, said.

“They also react differently when facing real swords instead of wooden ones. I know it’s a new concept and you’ll have to see it to believe it, but it does give us practical experience to understand what might happen. Once the battle is over, we can discuss its effectiveness. Until then, you’ll just have to believe me.”

“I think we can all agree a charge by armed Caledonians will push any opponent back, at least enough to let us reform our lines, so I don’t have an issue with that. I’m wondering where these warriors will come from. You yourself just said we needed to have enough men in the retreating forces to convince the Carthaginians. If these have to be Caledonians, where are you going to get enough men to use as a reserve? Because we need it on both sides of the fight, by my count, we don’t have enough men for this.”

Ky couldn’t disagree with Velius’s estimates. Sophus had run the numbers multiple times using the war games as a baseline, and even if they cut the number of soldiers in the bait force, the bulk of which would be made up of Caledonians either as themselves or dressed as legionaries, they had just barely enough left over to make up an effective reserve on one side of the fight. That was, however, not enough. The Carthaginians would be trying to break out in either direction, and if the rear force faltered, then nothing the main force did would matter.

“You’re right, we don’t, but there isn’t anything we can do about that. The forces we have now are all we’re going to have. We can only hope that the civilian auxiliaries do enough damage to keep the enemy boxed in.”

“Do we have enough arcuballista to arm them, after the warehouse fire?”

“We should. Hortensius has stepped up production significantly, and a lot of our production was targeted at arming the legions themselves and the praetorians, beyond what was needed for this battle. We had enough already in the hands of the legion for training to equip most of the auxiliary, thankfully.”

“Good. We should …” Velius started to say when a guard burst through the opening of the tent, bending over to whisper in his ear. “Excellent. The fourth legion has arrived.”

“Good. Have Vibius report here as soon as his men are settled. The Carthaginians should be moving any day, and they are closer to the ground we’ve chosen for the battle than we are. We’ve already looked from areas to set up camp where we won’t …”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Consul,” Velius said. “But I’ve been told there is something we need to see?”

“Really?” Ky asked, stepping away from the map table and following the guard, followed by the rest of the legates and officers.

Ky headed for the western side of the camp, where the fourth legion should be marching past. Their advanced riders had come through in the morning and Velius had directed them to lead the rest of the men to a spot southwest of the seventh legion’s position to set up camp.

Ky had expected to see Roman legions marching past. While there were legionaries at the head of the column, behind their legate, Ky hadn’t expected to see row upon row of Caledonian warriors marching behind them. From their position, it was impossible to see the number of north men in the column, but it had to be at least a thousand.

When Vibius noticed Ky and the gathered legates he said something to the tribune riding next to him, most likely orders to take the legion ahead, and then broke from the men, riding over to Ky and the rest.

“Consul,” Vibius said, dismounting and offering a salute.

“It’s good to see you again Vibius. Where did all these men come from?”

“Talogren has spent the last several weeks gathering every able-bodied warrior in the north not directly attached to their guard force and dispatched them with my legion to join the fight. He showed up just as we were forming to march south and told me he’d received the reports you had Ramirus send him about the enemy troop strength. He wanted me to tell you that he understands if Rome falls then the north falls with it and of his willingness to show you the commitment of the Caledonii. He made it clear these men are here to help with this fight, but must return by spring for the harvest, but that right now, they were needed here more than drinking and growing fat in warm huts.”

Ky turned to Drest and asked, “Did you know anything about this?”

“No, but I am not Llassar. My chieftain wouldn’t consult me on his decisions.”

“So it’s a surprise to everyone,” Ky said. “This is good, though. This should help our manpower problem on the rear side of the force. Will you find whoever is leading them and help them get settled with the rest of your men?”

Drest bowed his head slightly, which was as close as a Caledonians got to a salute, and went to intercept the marching northmen.

“It looks as though we have everything we need to make this plan work. Now, we just have to wait for the Carthaginians to make their move.”

Ky didn’t have to wait long. After another hour with the legates, including the newly arrived Vibius, going through the strategy for the coming battle, making sure everyone knew their parts, Ky headed out of camp, back towards Devnum. He’d hoped to make it back in time to meet Lucilla, who’d stayed behind to see Llassar off. Instead, he encountered her and Ramirus riding in the opposite direction towards the seventh legion.

“I was afraid we’d miss you,” Lucilla said.

“Are they moving?” Ky asked, his eyes going to Ramirus.

Lucilla riding out to meet him wouldn’t have been unusual, since she’d been pushing to spend every free moment the two of them had, which was admittedly not much, together. He couldn’t fault her for her aggressiveness, since their forced time apart while he was unconscious made him value the time they had together just as much.

Ramirus being with her, on the other hand, was unusual, since the spymaster wasn’t even supposed to be in town. He’d left a few days before to travel to the border so he could be closer to his agents and their reports. From Ky’s understanding, he’d planned on moving from village to village along the border until the invasion happened.

“Yes. Their army began the march three days ago. They are making slow progress because of their sheer size, the difficulty they’re having supplying their men, and having to stop and clear the roads regularly, but they are moving.”

“Tell me they’re coming the way you predicted.”

“They are. As I said, none of the other roads heading north are passable enough for another month and going cross-country is out of the question for their supply column. This was the only path open to them.”

“We need to get the men moving. We have a lot further to go and part of our force needs to be in hiding before their scouts get here. The praetorians may have been able to keep scouts out, but the army’s cavalry screen will be too much for them.”

“That’s why I rode here as quickly as I could. Lucilla found me on her way back and told me where you were. I knew we didn’t have time to wait, so I asked that we try and intercept you on the way back to town, to save you the time of retracing your steps.”

“How long do we have?” Ky asked as he turned his horse around, leading the small group back towards the legion camps.

“Four days, most likely. It’s possible they could speed up their progress and cut that number by a day, but I doubt it. It’s more likely the further they get from Londinium and the longer their supply line gets, the slower they will go, since their supply wagons will be having as much difficulty as the rest of them.”

“Could he be right and they’ll be there in three days?” Ky asked Sophus internally.

“Without additional data, it is impossible to form an accurate projection, Commander. Based on current information, I project a fifty-five percent chance the Carthaginian army will need four full days to arrive at the chosen battlefield. If we could access Ramirus’s reports, I should be able to increase the certainty of that projection.”

“I need you to get me whatever reports you have before we march, which means in the next several hours. As of now, we have to assume our time frame is shorter, just to make sure we’re in place. Except for the main forward force, we need to have everyone in position and our cavalry screens out to keep their mounted forces from stumbling across the rest of our legions before we want them revealed. If we need to be in position in three days, we need to start the march tonight. The roads will be just as bad for us as they are for them.”

Ramirus nodded and turned his horse again, galloping back towards Devnum.

“I think he’s right that three days is impossible,” Lucilla said. “The weather wasn’t that much worse north of Devnum and we weren’t able to cover that amount of ground in that short of time, and we had less men and supplies to bring with us.”

“I think you’re probably right, but even when he comes back with his reports and Sophus can give us better odds, I still want to be in place three days from now. We have to not only march there, but have enough time to get several thousand men hidden and out of sight before the Carthaginians get anywhere near them. I’d hoped we’d have more time than this.”

“I know,” she said, reaching a hand out, which he took in his. “This plan will work.”

“I guess we’re about to find that out,” he said, looking towards the legion camps.