The Fort

XXV

FEROX HAD ORDERED the standards brought to the top of the tower over the porta praetoria. The carpenters had made a wooden block with grooves to take the three butt spikes so that the vexilla could stand in a row and be wreathed in garlands for this was the second day of the rose festival of the standards, twenty-one days after the first. He doubted that there would be much chance for a proper supplication, but had done what he could.

The enemy had taken longer to prepare their assault than Piso had predicted, even though the two siege towers had been ready the day before. Ferox had always wondered when the enemy planned to create routes across the ditches, as it seemed unlikely that they would try to come up the tracks leading to any of the gates, since the towers would merely be the same height as the ones over the gates and lower than the tall ones at the porta praetoria. The Romans had done their best to hinder the work, especially of the engineers toiling to the right of the track because those men seemed to know what they were doing. Perhaps a few had died from bolts and arrows, but the work had hardly slowed.

Piso had declared himself fit that morning, although he had sat in silence through the consilium after saying that he wanted to help and not take over. The arrow had come out cleanly and done little damage, so although he limped with his bandaged leg, he was sprightly enough when he climbed up to the top of the tower, shaking his head with amusement when he noticed the Brigantes’ flag. His admiration for Claudia Enica’s bare legs was as obvious, prompting her to leave and walk back to the road behind the gateway, where she was to command a score of her men, but for once not Bran and Minura, for they had another task. All save a handful of the horses had been killed in the last few days, so that the reserves were all stationed closer to the walls, with a unit behind each stretch of rampart facing the approach ramps for the towers. There were fewer reserves though, and fewer men on the walls, for although there had been no more major assaults, there had been plenty of smaller ones, and all the while the archers and engines shot at the slightest hint of a target. Plenty of men took their second, third or fourth light wound, so that barely a quarter of the garrison remained unscathed, and every day a few more died and others were hit badly. Petrullus was lucky not to have lost an eye, and would have a big scar on his cheek for the rest of his days, although he swore that he was fit for duty and remained at the east gate. Ferox had had to order his own men to save their missiles, for they were running low. The archers could shoot back any arrow they found in good enough condition, but the rest were to be saved for the next assault.

‘They are coming!’ someone shouted as the big towers lurched forward. Their timber fronts and sides were covered in hides, just as the ram had been, and they rolled on six big solid wheels.

‘No rams,’ Ephippus said after studying them for a moment. ‘Just bridges to lower once they are close.’

‘Good,’ Ferox said. He had expected as much, for the softness of earth ramparts made them absorb a lot of the force of a ram and made them hard to undermine quickly.

‘They should burn well.’

‘If we get the chance,’ Ferox agreed. There was little oil and tar left, so they had prepared torches and clay pots full of oil. Delivering them was another matter, and meant a big risk. ‘Now get ready.’

‘Are you sure, my lord?’

‘Positive.’

Piso waited until the engineer had gone before he spoke. ‘These Greeks need a firm hand, you know. Always want to argue, always have their own ideas.’

‘The Lord Hadrian holds a high opinion of his talents, and in the last month I have come to share it.’

‘Well, one would-be Greek is bound to like another,’ Piso sneered. ‘Better all offer hetacombs to Zeus, Aphrodite and Ares if we are relying on that bearded bugger to save us.’

Ferox felt it better not to be drawn. If this did not work, then he would have problems enough for the moment. ‘I must go, my lord. The engines and archers will shoot when you give the order.’

‘Good luck, Ferox,’ Piso said, managing a smile.

‘You too, sir.’

Ferox went down to the lower platform on the tower, waiting to be sure where the siege towers were heading. They were getting close to the crossings, and he heard Ephippus shouting at the crew of the monâkon to shift the great machine just a little. Hopefully that would not take too long. The tower on his left was moving steadily until it stopped, and with some care and little pushes this way and that to turn it, the men lined it up with the ramp across the ditches. The one on that side was narrower and less well made than the other. On Ferox’s right the second tower would move a few paces and then stop, but did not need to be turned and was pretty much squarely in the middle of the ramp.

Piso must have given the order, although Ferox did not hear it, for scorpiones cracked and bolts started to fly. Both towers quivered slightly when missiles hit them, but for the moment the archers on top were crouching behind cover. Some of the men pushing began to fall, for they were sheltered only from the front and vulnerable to missiles shot at an angle from the rest of the rampart and tower. Horns were blowing and men were cheering in the usual Dacian manner, and their own archers and engines kept up a steady barrage. A light-coloured stone came straight at them and men shouted to take cover, so that no one was hurt, but with a resounding clang it struck the bronze front piece of the scorpio over on the left, leaving it bent and one arm hanging down loose.

‘Bugger’s buggered,’ Naso said ruefully, and went to help the crew of the remaining machine.

The monâkon’s high arm slammed into the pad above its high frame and a great stone went high and straight towards the first tower, the one on the left. Ferox thought that it was going too high when at the last minute a figure popped up. The stone shattered the man into fragments, flinging some high into the air.

‘Daft sod,’ an auxiliary said. ‘Teach him to be nosey.’

‘Shit! Look at that!’ one of the Brigantians shouted. The first tower was on the causeway, coming across the outer ditch, when suddenly it lurched to a staggering halt, the front wheel sinking down into soft earth and the whole thing leaning sideways.

The monâkon lobbed a second stone, having reloaded faster than Ferox expected, and he wondered whether the line would be wrong now that the tower was at such a strange angle. Yet the stone hit with a great crash, shaking the whole thing so that he wondered whether it would topple over.

‘Beautiful,’ Naso said.

Ferox grinned and knew that he was not needed over here, so hurried down to the intervallum and went to where the second tower would reach the wall. Five veterans of I Minervia waited on the slope behind the rampart. All had helmets with upright bands welded to the top in a cross shape. They were strong enough to weaken the blow of a falx and save a man’s life, even if he would still get the father of all headaches. Each also had his scutum, and apart from his cuirass, wore a laminated iron guard on his right arm. Ferox had wondered in the weeks before the siege about equipping all the men with the same added protection, but there had not been time and other preparations had mattered more.

‘Ready, lads.’

‘Aye,’ one grunted. These were picked men, all of them highly decorated or in two cases the sort of men who would have won awards and promotion years ago if they had shown half the aptitude for the routines of soldiering that they had shown time and again in battle. They were killers, and they would lead alongside Ferox. Behind would come Bran and Minura, for if the fighting broke up and space was cramped he would trust their well-honed skills as much as those of anyone else in the fort, save Vindex and he could not be spared. Last there were two legionaries with torches and two more with pots of oil held in a string net.

Ferox led them up the slope and had them crouch just below the top, the veterans’ shields in front as protection. There was no need to speak or remind them of the job, so they waited.

‘Nearly here, sir,’ a soldier called down from the ramparts and then a great cheer went up all along the wall. ‘The tower, sir! The other one, it’s smashed!’ The man was grinning and then an arrow sprouted from his left eye and another drove through his mail into his chest. He fell, rolling down the slope past them. The arrows had come from above, which meant that the second tower was close, the archers on top beginning to do their job of clearing the rampart. Another man fell a moment later, and the rest were raising shields high and too busy to throw anything back. By this time, the tower was probably past the ground where any of the ballistae could reach it. He thought back to Ephippus cursing the Romans for their stubborn refusal to build towers that projected in front of the walls like any civilized folk.

‘Soon, lads,’ Ferox said softly. He heard the creaking of the great tower as it edged towards the wall and could see the archers sheltering behind wooden crenulations on the roof of the tower.

‘Up!’ he said. They stood, the legionaries in two ranks. Each one in front had his scutum level, as did Ferox who was on the right of the line, and behind them the man had his shield high. ‘Forward slowly,’ he said. They could not march easily on the grassy slope, so needed to be careful. Ferox’s shield quivered as arrows struck the front, and he heard more missiles hitting the other shields beside him. ‘Forward.’ Their legs were covered by the slope and the parapet once they got up onto the walkway. That was a dangerous moment, because until the second rank came up behind them they could not reach up well with their shields. Ferox saw the arrow, pulled his head down and felt the point clang just above the brow-peak of his helmet, no doubt leaving a dent. The veteran next to him was slower and an arrow buried itself into the bridge of his nose. He sighed as he fell, and the man behind cursed because he tripped over the falling corpse.

‘Swords!’ Ferox commanded. They were all up, apart from the veteran who had had to get over the dead man and he joined them after a moment. The shields kept shaking as arrow after arrow hit them. Ferox saw the tips of two arrowheads sticking through the inner leather face of his scutum and other bulges, but none came further. Bran was holding a shield over his head as best he could and there were bangs as it was hit. The two other survivors in the second rank held their shields high and level, as if they were in a testudo.

There was another great creak and then a crash as the drawbridge came down and banged on the top of the parapet. Ferox had hoped that it would fall lower, level with the gaps between the crenulations, but as feet came stamping across the boards and men were screaming war cries he realised that this was better because the archers could not see them. He stabbed upwards into the groin of a warrior, whose roar of defiance turned into a great squeal of agony. One of the veterans slashed, cutting right through another warrior’s leg so that he fell sideways, taking another Dacian with him to fall screaming over the side of the bridge.

More warriors came, the one facing Ferox with a shield and a sica, and, before he realised the danger, his gladius was under the edge of the shield. The long triangular point drove into the inside of the Dacian’s thigh before twisting free. Blood pumped out, spraying over Ferox and his shield. Someone had turned a scorpio from the next tower to the right and shot not at the archers, but at the crowd on the bridge, the bolt splitting the man on the side, hurling him over so that three more were knocked off their feet and two fell off altogether.

Ferox put his left foot up on the parapet and jumped up. It was narrow and precarious, but he felt Bran using his shield to steady him. An arrow skimmed past, missing his helmet by a thumb’s breadth and he climbed again, getting a boot on the edge of the bridge. Another arrow slammed into his shield, almost making him fall back and he could hear the archers shouting. Men on the ramparts were throwing everything they could at the top of the tower and one archer fell back as a stone smacked into his mouth. The scorpio shot again, killing another and causing more chaos on the bridge just ahead of him. Warriors were hesitating, reluctant to leave the tower and step into that shambles of writhing bodies.

One of the veterans scrambled up to join Ferox. A second tried, until an arrow took him in the throat, but then the third man was up. Ferox punched forward with the boss of his shield, knocking a wounded man off the bridge. His sword was back, elbow bent, ready to lunge forward at eye level. Beside him the veteran took a low guard, ready to jab, and then thumped forward with his own shield. Each scutum was heavy, and Ferox and the veterans were powerful men, putting their weight behind each blow. They pounded the enemy with the shields, stabbed when there was an opening and kept going forward. The Dacians had not expected this, and several had falxes, far too unwieldy to use in the press of bodies, for the Romans drove hard against them. Those men died, stabbed in the stomach, through armour if they wore it, or tumbling off the sides of the bridge. Another warrior with a sica managed a slash at Ferox and he felt the blow fall on his shoulder, but the doubling of his mail armour held and he killed his opponent, driving his blade through the Dacian’s teeth and out of the back of his head. He could not free the sword, so kept hold and grunted as he pushed the corpse into the men behind. Then he slammed the scutum forward again, knocking the dead man and the one behind him backwards. The two veterans from the second rank were up now, doing their best to fend off the arrows from above. One of the men in front had lost his helmet and his brow was bloody, but he stamped on his dying opponents, going over them. With Dacians trying to push forward and the men in front going backwards they could barely fight and the Roman swords stabbed again and again until the floor of the bridge was slick with blood. One desperate warrior grabbed the veteran on the right, leaping forward as the sword rammed into his stomach and both of them fell off the side.

The scorpio shot again, killing an archer. One of the rear rank men took the place of the one who had fallen, breaking a warrior’s nose as he punched with the boss of his shield. Bran and Minura were on the bridge behind them, dodging or catching the few arrows still coming down, and the others doing their best to scramble up. Ferox’s gladius at last yanked free and the corpse fell. He stamped onto the body, nearly tripped, and the lurch meant that the warrior in front mistimed his slash and overbalanced. Ferox punched forward, then twisted round, using the shield to tip the Dacian off the bridge. Behind the man, another lifted his falx one-handed, but the tip caught on the roof as he swung and before he realised, the centurion had recovered and slashed his neck open to the bone.

Suddenly the floor of the tower was empty, save for the dying, and Ferox just saw a head bob away as a man went down the ladder to the next level. They had a moment.

‘Come on!’ Ferox said to the remaining veterans and they went to the trapdoor to stop anyone from coming back up. The enemy were bound to recover soon, but it would be hard for them to fight their way up.

‘You two!’ he called in the language of the tribes. ‘Up top.’ There must have been half a dozen archers or even more up top and three or four at least must still be alive, so Ferox sent Bran and Minura to deal with them. It was hard not to lead them, but the aim was to destroy the tower and he had to make sure that they held on until that was done. The boy led up the ladder and his ‘sister’ followed, but none of the veterans paid attention as the pretty girl showed her long legs. A spear came jabbing up the trapdoor, but the veteran closest had greaves and the point threw off a spark without doing any damage. Another legionary slashed at the shaft, breaking it.

There were cries from the upper level, feet stamping on the floor and the clash of weapons. The two men brought the oil and Ferox pointed them to the left-hand side. ‘There,’ he told them, and they piled the rags against the solid side wall and then emptied the pots of oil all over them. Something thick and warm dripped onto Ferox and he realised that it was blood, coming from cracks in the ceiling.

‘Time to go!’ he shouted in Latin and then switched to the tongue of Britannia. ‘Time to go!’ Bran came down the ladder, face flushed and smeared with blood, but grinning from ear to ear. Minura’s boots appeared after him.

‘There were five,’ Bran said. ‘Thetatus,’ he added using army slang for dead. Vindex had taken to the word and the boy must have picked it up from him.

‘Quick.’ Ferox pointed his sword back towards the rampart. ‘Go! Go!’ The men who had prepared the fire ran. One stumbled as an arrow drove through the scales of his armour and almost tumbled off the bridge until the other caught him. Bran and Minura went next, leaping nimbly down onto the parapet.

One of the veterans hissed as a sica slashed up into the tip of his boot. ‘Bastard!’ He jabbed down, but could not reach his enemy.

‘Get him out of here!’ Ferox shouted to the others. ‘I’ll hold ’em back!’

The wounded veteran shrugged off the others and limped away.

‘You sure, sir?’ one asked.

‘Yes, go!’ Ferox glanced back at the men with the torches. ‘Light it!’ a Dacian yelled as he came up the ladder, sica ready. Ferox pushed the blade aside with the edge of his scutum and kicked the man in the face, stamping down again as he staggered. The warrior fell.

Already Ferox could feel the heat from the spreading flames. Everyone else had gone, so he ran back over the bridge and tried to vault across the parapet. His foot caught and he went sprawling headlong, shield and sword flying away before slamming onto the far edge of the walkway and sliding half way down the slope, his breath knocked out of him.

‘Very pretty,’ one of the veterans said. ‘Like a salmon.’

Minura was beside him, helping him up as he panted. Her face was pitying, and then Bran appeared, still excited.

‘It’s burning!’ he shouted, ‘it’s burning!’ The wood inside must have been dry or the shape of the tower acted like a chimney because the fire was shooting upwards and black smoke rising high. Dacians were trying to beat at the flames with cloaks, but it was too late. Some ran across the bridge towards the wall, and the veterans stood up to meet them, striking at their legs. They fell and the ten men behind had nowhere to go because the tower itself was an inferno. Some burned and some jumped and the rest came forward only to be killed. The ropes burned through and the veterans managed to lever the edge of the bridge off the parapet with their swords until it flapped down against the front of the blazing tower.

The attack was not over, and many more men died before the Dacians gave in. They had plenty of ladders and a great deal of courage, and time and again men fought their way onto the parapet. Ferox led charge after charge to clear them off, and took a blow to the side that did not pierce his mail, but made a great bruise. Bran and Minura were always with him, and they worked as a pair, moving like dancers, each covering the other, dodging and cutting. The boy lost his helmet, took little cuts to arms and legs, but kept going until he was covered in the blood of the men he killed. The woman was untouched, and more than once she parried a blow that would have cut him down.

There was a moment when Ferox thought that the fort had fallen, and then his wife appeared at the head of her Brigantes, surging up the bank behind the rampart and killing all the Dacians who had broken through. He had not seen her fight for a long while and had forgotten her deadly grace, so that he marvelled even as he feared for her. Yet though tall and strong warriors fell on either side of her – several dying willingly as they used their bodies to protect her – she passed through unscathed, although her shield was left as little more than fragments by the end of the day.

The Dacians gave in just when he thought that the Romans could take no more, but the cost was dreadful. Sabinus was beheaded by a falx, Dionysius, returned to duty with a bandage over his ruined eye, lost his right leg and bled to death before he could be helped. Ephippus had his head torn off by a thrashing cable when the monâkon suddenly ripped itself apart as they were preparing to lob another stone into the mass of attacking warriors. Ferox did not know whether the repairs to the old machine had simply proved too weak or whether someone had tampered with it.

Thirty-nine more soldiers were dead, three times that so badly wounded that they might die and would certainly not walk for some time. There were hundreds more Dacians dead outside the walls and dozens inside to be tipped out when enough men had the strength to do the task. Piso was pale when he came down from the tower and for once said little and did not even leer at Claudia Enica when she passed. She was whole, and Ferox rejoiced because of that, but even she was subdued. Although she had fought and killed men many times, he knew that she had only ever been in one real battle before she came to the fort, and this was slaughter upon slaughter. The enemy were losing many more than the garrison, but since there were so many more of them still to attack it did not really matter. Ferox doubted that they could repulse another assault on that scale, because there were no longer enough men to man the walls and plug the gaps. Half of him wondered whether to let the Dacians know that the monâkon was ruined, so that they could go on their way. It probably did not matter anymore. After so much killing the enemy were bound to want revenge.

Ferox had less than two hundred and fifty men reasonably whole, and a few dozen more who could help if they were not required to move too much. That was far too few to hold walls as long as this against any real attack, especially as there were few missiles left. Apart from the hospital many of the rooms in the principia and praetorium were filled with wounded, mainly lying on the floor, on straw where it was available and on nothing where it was not. Ephippus had almost finished his acropolis and there ought just to be room for them all to squeeze in. He had already moved half the remaining food there. They might last a day or two more or they might not, depending on how determined the Dacians were to kill them. The trick was to delay the Dacians, hold the ramparts as long as they could and then pull back to the stronghold with as little loss as they could manage.

Claudia Enica came to him as he supervised the start of the clear up and she clung to him tightly. They had given up their room and bed to the injured, and now she slept with Sulpicia Lepidina and he bedded down in his office in the principia with Vindex and several others.

‘You take risks, husband,’ she told him.

‘So do you. But I think now I have faith.’ Ferox could not explain it, but he was no longer worried. He had rarely cared that much about his own fate, and more than once had come close to welcoming death. That had changed when he became a father and even more when he came to love this woman. He did not want her to die, not here, not for many years until she had seen their children grow. The fear should now have overwhelmed him, for it had preyed on his mind so often. Yet it was gone.

‘We will be all right,’ he said. ‘I have faith in your magic.’

She stared at him, and he could not tell whether she was curious or worried. ‘Now don’t turn cheerful on me,’ she said. ‘I could not bear the shock.’