Steam Legion, page 16
As it was, this would surely be one of the most challenging problems of mathematics she had ever attempted.
She paused and ordered half her cannons turned two degrees to the north while leaving the rest on their current directions. The flames were blazing hot already, and the metal was beginning to glow. It was time, otherwise the boilers would surely melt.
“Draw up the stoppers,” she ordered, her voice flat even as her heart raced deep in her breast.
The acknowledgement of the order was lost in the sudden rush of water boiling off as the boilers built pressure. As before, once the critical mass was met, the great bronze plates on the front of the cannon barrels broke loose and flapped down to let the bolts and balls within fly free.
Great steam clouds erupted again, obscuring vision briefly, and the hilltop was once more rocked by the roar of the dragon’s breath.
“Eyes!” she called loudly. “Eyes on the field! See to where the weapons land!”
The round of projectiles had been fired at an even lower angle, providing less arc as they were flung through the air toward their destination. Again, the carved-stone balls pushed past the heavy iron-tipped bolts, some falling short of the target and bouncing up into the unshielded flanks and backs of the men trying to squeeze the Roman lines from the side. Those took men’s legs out from under them, in some cases in permanent fashion as the limbs were torn in twain from the impact.
The balls that landed on-target slammed into tightly packed formation, blood spraying wildly as the heavy stone projectiles tore through helmets like they were made of papyrus instead of metal. Two ricocheted off their intended targets and continued on into the Roman line, breaking bones and throwing men to the ground in bloodied heaps as the shots found the wrong target at the end of their journey.
As the men on the ground were recovering from the shock of the sudden bloody assault, the slower moving bolts rained down on the outer edge of the ranks. Most fell short due to the lower angle of the shot, but about a third slammed into the back and side of the Zealot flank with devastating effect.
Men were driven to the ground, literally pinned in place by the thick iron-tipped bolts that had slammed into them from the air. They couldn’t do more than scream as their blood soaked into the increasingly mud-filled battlefield, often being trampled by their own comrades as the instant of panic set in.
On the hilltop, Dyna watched, most satisfied with the effort. She cringed at the losses inflicted on her own men and growled at the wasted bolts that had fallen short. But the sort of close siege support she was attempting had never been done in a field battle like this before, and as much as she hated the brutality of it, the numbers had worked out in their favor this time.
I will need to refine our methodology, however, she told herself, eyes taking in everything as she continued to command her group. This is too valuable a tool to ignore.
****
The damage to his forces was less physical than moral, the Zealot Commander could immediately see, but between the total disruption of both flanks and the resurging assault from the Legion Heavy Infantry, he knew that the battle was lost. From the corner of his eye he could see men beginning to falter from his own lines, falling away and making a run for it.
When the Legion’s Auxiliary Cavalry didn’t bother to either attack or pursue them, it was all over. More men broke as they realized that running wouldn’t get them immediately killed, and within mere moments, his unit cohesion was shattered.
The core of his forces, those of the Zealot belief, stayed true, but now they were being forced back as the Legion rallied and began to inexorably shove forward while using their shields to clear the path of the resistance, even as their short swords cut down any that were unwilling to retreat.
The steady staccato rhythm of the Legion’s swords banging on their shields told the story as the much smaller force overwhelmed, and what had begun as a battle swiftly turned to slaughter.
****
From Centurion Cassius’s point of view, the critical moment of the battle arrived and passed largely without him having to do a thing. His men could feel it just as he did, and they reacted according to their training. As the enemy line fractured, his men punched forward with their shields. The weight of a scutem with a man behind it would break bones with that maneuver. The Zealot line broke, and Cassius hefted his sword as he screamed above the noise and charged forward.
Even he himself couldn’t have told what words he screamed, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the war cry that galvanized his forces as they strode forward and literally marched right over their enemies, only pausing to stab their swords down into the fallen to ensure that they would not be able to get up by some miracle and strike at them from behind.
As the Zealot forces lost cohesion, the Roman lines had to spread a little more than normal, as well, in order to maintain contact with the enemy. They charged in, now bringing their swords into more use than just stabbing from behind the shields, slashing out the legs of men as they tried to run or across the guts and arms of those who tried to fight.
This sort of melee wasn’t where the Roman forces were at their strongest, but it certainly wasn’t their weakest point either. The Legionnaires thrust, slashed, stabbed, and even stomped their enemies into the ground as they tasted victory against the supposedly superior force, and each of them wanted to drink his fill.
****
The Commander of the Zealot forces could feel it all slipping away and knew that there was nothing he could do to recover, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. He rallied the faithful as best he could, leading a countercharge against the Roman line personally. Their counterattack was mostly blunted by the superior armor and shields of the Romans, but none of his faithful faltered even as they were cut down.
A crushing blow to his right side sent the Commander to the ground, and as he rolled over in a daze and tried to get to his feet, the last thing he saw was a Roman Legionnaire standing over him and stabbing downward with his blade before moving on to the next target.
He coughed up blood, eyes casting upwards to the heavens. I have failed You, my Lord, and I am sorry. Please forgive Your unworthy servant.
It was then that the world went black and he saw no more.
Chapter 15
The aftermath of the battle was practically routine as the Cavalry was dispatched to hunt down the escaping enemy now that the main force had been dealt with. Cassius first saw to his men, ensuring that their basic needs were attended to until Dyna arrived with the supply train and doctors they had brought from Alexandria.
The battle had been a route, and he was honestly shocked by that. There had been little doubt in Cassius’s mind that he would be able to eliminate the much more numerous enemy—his men were well-trained, and the Zealot forces by and large were not—but the sheer attrition of the enemy numbers should have cost him considerably more.
He shook his head, eyes falling on the gleaming brass of the cannons, and knew that it was the power of those new weapons that had changed the tide. Oh, they hadn’t inflicted all that much damage to be precise about things, but the sheer terror evoked by the enormous plumes of steam they emitted and the volume of fire from a single weapon had been enough to spook the enemy this time.
That wouldn’t last, of course. As they were used more and more, the cannons’ weaknesses would be divined, and they would lose their mystical and visceral fear factor. Until then, however, Cassius was certain that they had a weapon that would truly change to field of battle.
He shook off the thought as he stepped into Dyna’s tent and saluted.
“It’s good to see you alive and well, Cassius,” Dyna said, smiling up at him from where she was working at a field desk.
“Thank you, and you, my Lady.” He smiled. “I wanted to compliment you on your use of the cannons.”
Her features darkened. “Don’t. I overshot the target and injured our own men, possibly killed some.”
“That has happened before in battle, my Lady, and it will, like as not, happen again,” he told her. “Be glad that you were not using naptha fire pots. I have seen those do truly ugly things to men.”
She nodded jerkily, but her face didn’t change expressions. “Fortunately, or not, I suppose, those would likely not survive being fired from a cannon. It still doesn’t excuse me for fouling my calculations, however. I will do better in the future.”
“My Lady, I never doubted it,” he told her honestly. He’d known her since she was barely twelve summers in age, and she had never been the sort to make the same mistake twice. “However, battle is fluid, my Lady. You will never account for everything that can happen and will likely go mad if you try.”
That brought a hint of a smile back to her eyes. “Haven’t you heard, Cassius? We at the Library are all quite mad already.”
He shook his head, but offered her a rueful smile and a shrug to accede his defeat. “Just remember, you did well today.”
“Perhaps, but I will do better,” she vowed simply.
Cassius merely nodded before changing the topic. “What shall we do next?”
“We’ll leave our wounded with the people in the township,” she said after consideration. “Those who cannot travel, at least. Beyond that, I’ll decide tonight after I contact the other signaling scouts and determine where, if anywhere, the enemy is.”
Cassius saluted as he bowed his head just slightly. “I await your orders, my Lady.”
“Thank you, Centurion,” she said, the hint of formality bringing a curl to her lips. “See to your men. We will like march on the morrow.”
Cassius saluted and slipped out of the tent, as she said he had work to do.
****
Dyna watched him leave for a moment before she returned to sketching out notes on her wax tablets, recording her thoughts, ideas, and plans so that she wouldn’t forget them when it came time to return home to Alexandria. The issue of accuracy was one of many that currently had her attention, but there was little she could do about that at the moment. So Dyna returned to the problem of Master Heron’s steam motive system, which had been plaguing her since he showed her his automated chariot.
She worked until night began to fall, then placed her work tablets into the interior of the field desk for one of her students to transcribe to papyrus back in Alexandria.
The signaling device was already set up where she had prepared it earlier, so Dyna merely had to catch the attention of the next station on a hilltop almost forty miles away. The signal code they had was limited, but it was sufficient to relay basic information about enemy locations and numbers. She shot off her request for information, then waited with stylus in hand for the response.
When it came through, Dyna acknowledged receipt and shut down, thinking furiously on her next move. Her goal had to be to protect Alexandria, but the entire Nile Delta was at risk and she had the only force that was active and mobile in the entire region.
We march for Cabasa then, she decided, considering her options before she shifted the signaler around and aimed it at another hill to the north. She had some orders she needed to precede her to the coast.
****
The Twenty-Second Legion had marched hard to the south, according to their orders, and secured the primary trade route from the southern part of the Empire as they went. The ongoing revolt led by the malcontents among the Israelites was a growing pain in Tribunus Gordian Latimus’s life, but it did provide an excellent opportunity to polish the effectiveness of his command.
The majority of the problems along the trade route were small raiding parties, some Zealots, but many just brigands making use of the chaos in the Empire to ply their trade while the Legion was elsewhere.
Pity for them this time around, Gordian thought with a smirk, riding at the head of the column as they continued south.
The Twenty-Second had annihilated no less than five smaller brigand bands along the march through the careful maneuvering of forward scout units and fast-moving Centuries. That, combined with the word that the Deiotariana Legion was back in the area, would push those lowlife bastards back under the rocks they had crawled out of, to be sure.
Which, of course, left the more serious threat of the revolting Israelites being stirred up by the Zealots and their ilk. They wouldn’t be frightened back into submission, he was afraid. No, it would take force and a significant application of it to shut down this threat to the Empire. With the Twenty-Second now moving south, having just passed Antioch a couple days earlier, he hoped to have them into position to flex their muscle along the Nile Delta within just a few more weeks.
Until then, the Garrisons would have to cover their own towns and cities as best they could, no matter how much that galled him. Gordian had objected to the orders that moved them north, but they had come from the Senate itself and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. The news he was hearing from the south now confirmed his objections, but he wasn’t quite high enough in Roman society to say “I told you so” without suffering at least some repercussions.
It was better to simply shrug, follow orders, and do his job without comment.
He was most concerned about the events in and around Alexandria, however, since the first reports from messengers came in. The fact that the city walls had been breached was bad enough, a sure sign that someone had been screwing around if he’d ever heard of one. But the fact that the Governor had been killed by all reports and the Garrison Commander was also missing didn’t exactly leave him feeling particularly good about the situation, to put things mildly.
The initial reports he’d received spoke well of this Dyna woman, as well as Centurion Cassius. He was at least moderately familiar with Cassius, having had the man serving under him for several years, and knew him to be a reliable, if somewhat stolid, man. Dyna, however, was more problematic.
Her national background didn’t impress him so much as it did those of the lower ranks. Gordian had yet to meet a Spartan who wasn’t more of a pitiful wretch than a warrior, despite all reputations to the contrary. The Empire’s fascination with Spartan history had left most of those within the borders of the once-proud Laconian state dependent on the hedonistic pleasures of Roman nobles, something Gordian himself had seen more than once.
Her actions, however, spoke well of her in his mind. She had defended her city well, by all accounts, and then taken extra steps to punish those who had violated Alexandria’s walls. He appreciated that sort of proactive thinking, having learned through long experience that action in advance of a threat could often prevent the threat from materializing. When you waited for it to come to you, however, it almost invariably did.
That said, she wasn’t an officer of the Legion, and she was a woman besides. In a crisis, perhaps no one had bothered to question either of those, but given time without the Zealots’ swords at their throats, he didn’t expect that would last. Someone would begin to agitate the rank and file, like as not for political purposes, and that kind of inner disruption could very possibly doom the entire region to infighting or destruction at the hands of the Zealots themselves.
No, he had to get the Twenty-Second back where it belonged before this Dyna woman accidentally kicked off an even greater crisis than they were already mired in.
****
The march to Cabasa took four days, but by the time they arrived, the orders Dyna had signaled ahead via the mini-pharos had been put into order, and clean barracks, food, and supplies were already awaiting them.
A minor official had scurried out to meet them as they matched into the town of Cabasa, eyes searching the column as they arrived. She wasn’t surprised when he lighted on Cassius and immediately turned to him, plastering a wholly too-large smile across his face.
“Ah, Centurion, we are so pleased to see you!”
No doubt, Dyna thought, amused. You’ve probably been quivering in fear of siege for weeks. A Legion standard planted within your walls would be Gods’ sent, to be certain.
Cassius glanced in her direction, but she merely shook her head and gestured for him to speak. She had no time, patience, or concern for the panderings of a minor noble at this point in what was shaping up to be a serious campaign.
Cassius nodded imperceptibly and stepped forward. “Greetings, sir. Have you followed the instructions we sent ahead?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” The poor man looked like he was going to trip over his own words, literally, as he stumbled along with the marching column. “We cleared out the bathhouse and its adjacent facilities for your use.”
“Thank you, we won’t put you out for long.”
“Oh, oh, no trouble. Stay as long as you wish…”
“We’ll be regrouping with more Auxiliaries and preparing to march on the enemy as soon as is practicable,” Cassius replied sternly. “There is more work for us to do.”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
After that, they’d all but ignored the man, marching swiftly to the bathhouse, and set about cleaning and performing basic maintenance on their gear, themselves, and their animals. Dyna was surprised at just how much everything in the column needed work, from the cannons right down to the simplest tools and weapons they carried. Intellectually, she supposed that she knew just how easy it was to dull the edge of a blade, or the edge of a man for that matter, but even her own blade, which had seen basically no use during the weeks they had been on the march, was in need of care and polishing.
She had sent out orders with runners to recruit more Auxiliaries from the local area, activating the reserves that had been too far from Alexandria to be of use before. Honestly, they were certainly already active; she was just getting them back under a unified command as quickly as she could. The other thing they were waiting for was further reports from their scouts, who were out looking for the main body of the enemy forces.
