Caesar Triumphant

Hardly believing their luck, Felix and the men of the two leading
Cohorts managed to close to within a hundred paces at a fast trot before they
were noticed by some of the men at the rear of the Wa formation. Keeping the
same pace for a handful of heartbeats more, Felix then called a halt when they
were just a matter of thirty paces away.

"Prepare javelins!"

Arms along the line of Centuries swept back in a rippling motion,
each hand clutching a javelin, the points tilted skyward, followed by a pause
no longer than a couple of heartbeats.

"Release!"

The air filled with the missiles, but although every man still had
their other javelin, Felix made the decision to forego a second volley, and
even as the missiles were still in the air, he was shouting an order.

"Charge! For Caesar!"

Consequently,
the Wa of the surprise attack force had almost no chance. Little more than a
handful of the Wa in the rear ranks managed to form a ragged and thin line
facing Felix and the two Cohorts as they slammed into the packed mass of
barbarians, cutting them down without mercy. Roaring at the top of their lungs,
the sudden eruption of noise was the first thing that alerted the Wa
immediately next to the wall of this new threat, and many of them whirled
around just in time to see their comrades slaughtered. Suddenly faced with the
choice of trying to continue their assault on the camp or face this new and
more immediate threat, almost every Wa in the attacking force, with no order to
that effect being given, turned to face the onrushing Legionaries. Roaring out
their rage, the Romans very quickly cut their way deep into the packed mass of
the Wa, but after the initial shock, the barbarian warriors quickly threw
themselves into this fight with as much fervor as their foes. This was
understandable; the least savvy of these Wa understood that, while they had no
idea how, the situation had changed and they were now fighting not just for
victory, but for their survival.

The
overall commander of the Wa surprise assault force, wearing a helmet of the
same style as the Wa facing Pullus except instead of horns he wore the white
wings of a crane, was even then ascending one of the ladders now that a
significant number of his men had made it over the wall. Ironically this gave
him a better vantage point than if he had been on the ground amidst his men, so
that he could see that his force still significantly outnumbered this barbarian
force. Therefore, he wasn't excessively worried, having been informed by one of
his warriors at the top of his ladder who was able to see into the enemy camp
that the original assault force surrounded the barbarians inside. His most
important decision, he understood, was whether he went on ahead into the camp,
or stayed here to lead the fight against this new threat. His subordinate was a
capable warrior, he knew, if slightly inexperienced, and he was tempted to let
him lead the fight on this side of the wall. After all, he reasoned, the
greater glory was in taking this camp. That clinched his decision, and he began
to climb the ladder again, giving one glance back over his shoulder to reassure
himself he was making the right choice. What he saw stopped him, as he stared
in the direction of the ridgetop road where it dipped out of sight. Seemingly
rising up from the ground just like he and his force had appeared some time
before, was a line of even more barbarians, coming at a fast trot. Suddenly, he
no longer felt quite so confident, and he recognized immediately that his place
was here, on this side of the wall. In numbers and the way the barbarians were
aligned it looked like it was exactly the same composition of this force that
was now battling his men. While he still outnumbered the barbarians, the margin
wasn't nearly as wide as it had been, but even before he finished descending to
the ground, he saw yet another wave of these barbarians, exactly the same as
the first two! Now, for the first time this Wa general was concerned. He was
still confident of victory, but it appeared that it would be much harder
fought. Reaching the ground, he shoved his men aside, snapping out an order for
his bodyguards to accompany him, then began to push his way to what was now the
front, where the fighting was happening.

 

The
second line of Centuries also discarded their javelins as they ran, their
Centurions clearly seeing how entangled the lines already were, the men on both
sides fighting with a ferocity that came from still being relatively fresh and
not at it for the better part of two watches like the defenders inside the
camp. One hidden benefit of the slight delay following the first line was that
it gave the two Pili Priores a chance to survey the situation and see where it
appeared they were most needed. As matters stood, there still looked as if
there were several thousand Wa massed along the wall, and from a distance it
looked like a giant black and white mass. Hemmed in on one side by the straight
line of the wall, and on the other bordered by a thin line, grayish-silver
tinged with red, that was much, much narrower than the mass of the Wa force,
the two Pili Priores instantly saw the spot where the Roman line was the thinnest.  Drawing closer, the Centurion commanding the
Cohort on the left veered in that direction even farther than the original path
steered by Felix. He had seen that whoever was commanding the barbarians had
shifted a large number of men from the rear ranks over to the Wa right, where
Felix's Sixth Century was being hard pressed. The enemy's intention was clear;
by shifting men to one wing and throwing every available man at this one
Century, he was attempting to turn the flank of Felix's formation.

In fact
even as the Pilus Prior, Gnaeus Labeo, watched, the last several men of Felix's
Sixth Century were either cut down or pushed backward by what appeared to be Wa
literally throwing themselves at the Roman lines. A gap formed, and through it
poured several hundred Wa warriors, who immediately turned to fall on the now
outflanked Sixth Century. Now breaking out into a full run, Labeo drew his
sword as he shouted for his men to follow him as he aimed his Cohort so that
the middle of his formation would come to the aid of the Sixth Century.
Startled by the change in course, the Pilus Prior of the other Cohort, Publius
Varrus nonetheless kept moving his men in the original direction, seeing that
the center of Felix's formation was almost as hard pressed as the Sixth.
Following behind the third line came the fourth and final pair of Cohorts, the
Pilus Prior of the Cohort on the left following the same path as Labeo. But
like Labeo, this Pilus Prior, Gaius Vorenus, was one of Caesar's Centurions,
and what he saw was an opportunity. In his judgment, there were enough men to
handle the barbarians outside the walls. He needed to get his Cohort and the
other one inside the camp, and to that end, he didn't head anywhere near the
eastern wall. Instead, he led his Cohort toward the southern gate, the Porta
Principalis Dextra. Now his challenge was to get his men inside the camp in
time to help.

 

None of
the men, less than three thousand Legionaries of what had been the 10th and
12th Legion that still remained in the fight inside the camp thought it was
possible that the barbarians could increase the fury of their attack, but they
were being proven wrong. Ironically, it was the sounds of the Roman horns that
had spurred them to increase their effort to the point that now it didn't seem
that any warrior used any type of technique or tactic to vanquish the foe
across from them. Instead, they were coming in what to the battered, exhausted
Legionaries seemed to be waves, but instead of water these were composed of
flesh, iron and fury. Slashing and hacking, the Wa poured every last bit of
their seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy into what they understood was
their last chance to crush these grubworms. The death of their general had come
as a great shock, but they didn't need him to tell them that time was running
out. What they did need was direction, and the Wa general's subordinate
officers were either dead, or too badly scattered around the perimeter of the orbis to issue any orders to the entire
force.

However,
unlike the Roman Legion, the army of the Wa wasn't trained to the level that
their enemy was, especially when it came to unit formations and maneuvers.
Consequently, the last phase of the fight became a clash of individual warriors
picking out one of the Romans across from them, and hurling themselves forward.
As ground down and battered as the remnants of the 10th and the 12th were, as
jumbled as their Centuries had become, all the endless hours of training were
now paying off, the Legionaries continuing to fight in the manner in which they
were trained. Despite their exhaustion, the harsh discipline that they so often
complained about to each other was what kept the woefully thin, semi-circular orbis intact, no man even thinking of
not giving his all when it came his time to fight. Still, as many of these
barbarians as they had killed, they still outnumbered the Legions by at least a
three to one margin, and now every single loss of a Legionary was one that
couldn't be spared. Even now, the surviving Centurions were working with lines
that at most were four men deep, and that was only in a few spots in the
formation. There were spots where the Roman lines had been thinned down to the
point that there was only one man standing behind his comrade who was fending
off wild swings of Wa swords or spears. These were the spots where the nearest
Centurion would run over and unceremoniously grab a man from those spots still
four deep with Legionaries, shoving the last man in the line towards the
trouble spot with a shouted order. This they had been doing for some time,
accounting for the hopeless confusion between Centuries and even Cohorts.

Sometimes
though, it had to be the Centurion himself who ran to the nearest threat, sword
held high, and if he had the presence of mind to grab one from a dead Legionary
as he ran, a shield. Of the 120 Centurions of the 10th and 12th Legion that
started the fight that day, now more than two full watches before, barely more
than 30 were still standing, meaning that they were spread thinly across the
entire orbis. One of them had taken
himself out of the fight, however, and that was Scribonius, kneeling next to
his friend who was also still kneeling, no accident as it would turn out.
Pullus, though barely conscious, had realized that toppling over in any
direction would do even more damage than had already been caused by the Wa
general's sword, which still protruded grotesquely from both front and back of
his chest. Blood was still flowing freely, but Scribonius, looking for anything
on which to fasten his hopes, saw that it wasn't the bright spray that signaled
a severed artery. That meant there was still hope as far as Scribonius was
concerned. Seemingly oblivious to the furious fighting that was now just paces
away in every direction as what remained of Pullus' Century surrounded their
fallen Primus Pilus, Scribonius held onto Pullus' uninjured shoulder gently but
firmly, understanding the same thing that Pullus did.

"Why aren't you in the fight?" Scribonius barely heard
this question from Pullus, made even more difficult because his friend's teeth
were still tightly clenched together.

"Why do you think?" the Pilus Prior asked in
astonishment, although a part of his mind understood that his friend was right,
that no one man, no matter his rank or status was more important than the rest
of the men still fighting.

But for the first time in his long career, Sextus Scribonius
simply didn't care about his duty, such was his concern for his friend.

"The men need you Sextus," Pullus retorted, weakly
voiced but no less adamant than Scribonius.

Understanding
that a continued outright refusal would only agitate Pullus more, Scribonius
tried to mollify him by saying, "All right Titus. As soon as the medici get here, I'll go back
to the fight."

Pullus
slowly raised his head to survey the scene around them, turning to look first
one way, then another with almost comical slowness, and unbidden to Scribonius'
mind came the memory that in that moment his friend looked like a giant
tortoise peering about for danger before taking its next, ponderous step. Done
with his inspection, Pullus turned to face Scribonius, and for the first time
looked his friend in the eye. That almost unmanned the Pilus Prior, because he
had never seen his giant friend with this ashen pallor, and it was only through
a supreme effort of will that he didn't let out a gasp. Scribonius' only slight
ray of hope was when his friend gave him a grimace that he knew was Pullus'
attempt at a grin and he saw no blood in his mouth, the presence of which was
normally a sure sign that he had suffered damage internally.

"We're
surrounded you idiot," Pullus said, "so I don't think the medici are coming anytime
soon."

Only then did Scribonius take his eyes away from his friend and
glance around, his heart sinking at the sight and knowing his friend was right.

Taking a deep breath, Scribonius closed his eyes for a moment in a
brief prayer, then replied, "All right. But only if I can try to lay you
on your side, understand?"

Pullus
didn't answer, but then his head bobbed once in a grim acceptance of what his
friend wanted to do, as he braced himself for even more pain. Standing up,
Scribonius used both hands to grasp his friend, trying to shut out the groan
that escaped from his friend's lips when Scribonius began tipping him over,
onto his left side. Although it seemed to be the worst thing to do, both men
had seen wounds like this too many times and they knew from bitter experience
that if the Primus Pilus was indeed bleeding internally, the pooling of blood
that would occur as the blood was drawn to the ground, as all things were,
would in all likelihood collapse his lungs and Titus Pullus would die of
suffocation, before any chance of help arrived. In addition, the weight of his
own body would actually close the edges of the wound around the blade and help
staunch the flow of blood. However, there was a tradeoff for the benefit, and
that was the excruciating pain caused by Pullus' own body weight pressing down
on the damaged tissue. But it couldn't be helped, and Scribonius deafened
himself to the groans and gasps as he strained to lay his friend slowly down
onto the ground. Once he was as settled as Scribonius could make him, the Pilus
Prior rose to go, very reluctantly.

"Are you all right there?" he asked without thinking,
and although the reply was harsh, it fed the tiny, tiny flame of hope that his
friend would somehow survive.

"What, are you tucking me in now?" the prone Primus
Pilus growled wheezily. "How the fuck do you think I feel, you idiot?"

Despite himself, Scribonius let out a laugh, drawing his sword.
Before he turned back to the fighting, he told Pullus, "Don't worry Titus.
We're going to hold these bastards off until whoever's out there comes to help
us."

"Not if you don't stop talking and get back in the
fight," Pullus was, and always would be, a Primus Pilus Centurion of
Caesar's 10th Legion, to his last breath.

 

Reaching
the southern gate, Vorenus led his Century around the dirt barriers of the
gate, winding around and through it, emerging into the camp, where he
immediately came to a stop. This had been by design, in order to get first his
Century, then his Cohort formed up before throwing them into the fight. But
even if it hadn't the sight before him would have brought him to a halt. The
camp was an utter shambles, with smoking ruins of whole rows of Legion streets
that had been put to the torch, and looking down the Via Principalis, the
street that led from the side gates to the Praetorium
and the forum, what he saw staggered him. There were heaps of bodies, and to
his experienced eye, the progress of the battle was told by those corpses.
Scanning the area to his left and front, while part of his vision was obscured
by those few tents that were still standing, he could see how the 12th and 10th
had waged a grudging, hard-fought withdrawal back to where they were now, the
forum. More accurately, Vorenus could see, they were in part of the forum, as
the barbarians had managed to collapse the orbis
of Balbinus and Pullus down to its present size. For some reason, the large
tent of the Praetorium of the camp
was still intact; Vorenus assumed that whoever was commanding these barbarians
understood its purpose and had given orders for it to remain intact, to be
plundered at leisure.

Oddly enough,
it was the sight of this tent that fueled Vorenus' rage, brought on by the
effrontery of this yellow-skinned savage to be so sure of victory. In turn,
this caused him to start lashing out savagely at his men, snarling at them to
move even more quickly than they already were. But no matter how quickly they
moved; and truly, they were scrambling into their formations with a speed they
had never displayed before, the gate was a bottleneck. Vorenus, and every man
of his Cohort understood that time was almost as much of an enemy now as the
barbarians with their swords, and those that had made it through the gate and
fallen into their spot in their Century added their voice now to Vorenus',
shouting at the comrades still pouring through the gate to hurry! Why were they
moving as if they had all day? The result was that, while it was the most
ragged Cohort formation he had ever seen, Vorenus decided that it was good
enough, even before the men of the last Century had finished forming up. Unlike
the relieving Cohorts outside who needed to cover a wider area, Vorenus had
decided on the more traditional three Century front, although by rights he
should have waited for the trailing Cohort to also arrive and place themselves
side by side. However, he hadn't taken the time to look back to see if the last
Cohort of the relieving force was in fact following behind. Which, as it turned
out, it wasn't, meaning that if Vorenus had waited as the manual said he
should, he would have been too late to save the men of the forum. Instead, he
raised his sword, and without waiting for his cornicen to blow the command, dropped it
as he shouted the command to advance. And as he expected, all eyes of the
Cohort had been on him, so just as if they were marching in the forum, Vorenus'
Cohort began the advance, heading for the rear of the as yet unsuspecting Wa.

 

The
last Cohort, the 10th of the 14th, hadn't followed Vorenus for the same reason
that Vorenus hadn't followed Labeo. Again, the Decimus Pilus Prior was one of
Caesar's Centurions, although of all of Caesar's Centurions he was the only
non-Roman. He was also the newest Pilus Prior in Caesar's army, having been
promoted to the post just a month before this new campaign began. He was a
Parthian named Pacorus, and his promotion to lead a Cohort had caused more than
its share of grumbling among the other Centurions; they had barely gotten
accustomed to the idea of non-Romans being Centurions, now this? Pacorus knew
how his fellow Centurions felt about him, and he also felt the weight of
representing not just the Parthians in the army, but all of the non-Romans,
since he was the first non-Roman Pilus Prior. Oddly enough, this was foremost
in his mind as, instead of following Labeo he led his trotting Cohort in
another direction. Making a wide enough arc that he and his Centuries could
safely skirt the lines of men of the other Cohorts now battling with barbarians
outside the camp, Pacorus led his men in the direction of the Porta Principalis
Sinister, the left-hand and northernmost gate of the camp. Being a Centurion in
Caesar's army meant that like at Caesar's camp, Pacorus instantly understood
the tactical situation and what would provide the most impact to the fight
inside the camp. This was why he led the way to the northern gate now, although
he was understandably nervous about making the right decision. Just like at the
southern camp, where Statius had understood the need for coordination, Pacorus
understood that at this point in the fight the most important thing was to
maximize the force he was leading as far as its impact on the battle. If
pressed, he couldn't have articulated any of this; it was more a gut instinct
than anything, but in fact the ability to think through a problem rapidly was a
trait that Caesar valued in his Centurions almost more than any other, and this
was what had recommended Pacorus to him. Now, the Parthian was going to either
prove or disprove Caesar's faith in his ability to pick the right man for the
right job.

It
didn't seem possible, but in the space of a finger width's of the sun's travel
to its home in the west, the Wa general commanding the surprise attack was
seeing certain victory turn into a defeat with a rapidity that he would never
have believed if it wasn't happening in front of his eyes. His men were still
fighting with the same reckless fury that they had started with, and the
general knew that the battle wasn't lost.....yet. But the last warrior he sent
up the ladder to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening in the center of
the camp, which was the shortest route to gather information but also the most
dangerous, had just jumped down to inform him that while the grubworms were
being hard-pressed, they were still intact and holding in the center of their
camp. However, because he had to take his look while dodging thrusts from
grubworm swords, he was unable to tell his general the disposition or numbers
of their own troops still left, other than a very general guess. Cursing the
man, the general gave him a cuff on the head for good measure, although he knew
that it was impossible to expect more from the limited time his warrior had,
without being skewered.

Now he
was in the fork of a dilemma; should he stop the assault on the walls and count
on the men of the main assault to finish what they had started in order to fend
off this grubworm attempt to save their doomed comrades? Or should he continue
with the mission assigned to him originally, and force his way up and over this
wall? He would never have thought that these grubworms could have held out as
long as they had to this point, and he had to believe that one more good push
would crack them. Now that these new barbarians had appeared he no longer had
the luxury of doing both things at once. His hesitation had nothing to do with
the idea that the men currently engaged with these new barbarians along what
was now his front line would be sacrificing their lives to allow their comrades
closer to the wall to continue the attack on the camp, the main goal. Every man
under his command knew their duty and would willingly lay down their lives
without hesitation, and in fact had done so in order to fill the ditch in the
original attack. His concern was purely practical; how many men could he afford
to leave behind to continue the fighting that would be a strong enough force to
hold off the grubworms as his men continued climbing the ladders? Normally a
decisive man, his reputation wasn't as esteemed as the general who, unknown to
him now lay dead in the middle of the camp, but he had been selected as second
in command because his renown was still very great.

Now,
however, he was in a turmoil of indecision, switching his attention from the
fighting going on outside the camp to watching with an increasingly anxious eye
at his men still trying to ascend the ladders. There would be a sudden spurt of
men clambering quickly up a ladder whenever a barbarian behind the wall would
be struck down and create a gap that allowed one of his men to leap onto the
dirt rampart. More than once his men had managed to carve out a pocket of space
to allow their comrades to join them in their attempt to fight their way to a
gate and secure it. That was the only way he had at this point of feeding
enough troops into the fight and break the back of these grubworms once and for
all. However, his gods had either turned their face away from the Wa or had
some design that he couldn't fathom that would bring them victory, because
despite several promising starts, no Wa force had managed to get to the gate.
He had briefly considered shifting a part of his force to assault the southern
gate, early in the fight, but he had been so confident of victory, so sure that
his men would swarm over the wall and crush these insects that it had only been
a brief consideration. Now, it was too late. This new force of barbarians had
hemmed them in between the walls of the camp and their wall made of swords and
shields. What sort of man would cower behind a small, portable wall anyway he
scoffed? Warriors with sufficient skill had no need for such devices, and it
was in fact the sight of these pieces of equipment that had led not just this
Wa general, but the overall commander of the entire Wa army who now lay dead
inside the camp, to underestimate the potency of this force of pale, strange
creatures.

That,
the general realized now, had been a mistake. Consequently, he was aware that
although he might escape censure for this error, since the tone of this entire
campaign to expel these grubworms from a land blessed by the gods had been set
by his now-dead superior, his error in not committing a force to the southern
gate wouldn't go unnoticed. That made it even more imperative, he recognized,
that this camp fall, because only then would their emperor forgive him. Still
torn, he remained at his spot close to the wall, a small space made for him by
his bodyguards, as he tried to force himself to think. And with every
heartbeat, his chances for a solution were becoming smaller and smaller. In
fact, although he wouldn't become aware of it for another span of time, the
moment had passed. This last Wa general, now in command of this assault force,
on which the entire strategy of this attack had hinged upon, had just managed
to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

 

All posts by R.W. Peake on blog.rwpeake.com are copyrighted by the author, 2012.