CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Barbaricum of Germania Antehac Libra
August 15th, 167 CE
BOOOOOM! BOOOOM!
Artorius looked up; it was nearly noon, and the rate of cannon fire had dropped off, because the barrels were burning hot and needed a lot more sponging. And to be picked free of red-hot debris with a corkscrew-like arrangement on the end of a pole. The breeze had kept the smoke from getting too bad—the fog of war needed still air to form—but the stink of burnt sulfur was very strong.
“How time flies when you’re having fun,” he muttered. “Didn’t think they could hold themselves back this long.”
Then louder: “Here they come!”
Messengers from the Marcomanni leaders had been coming out more and more frequently and running around to their allies, and there had been stirrings and heaving more and more frequently in the flanking forces. Now a substantial chunk, looking like better than a thousand men, were trotting forward toward the Romans. That was from the left, the Germanii’s right flank, which had just started getting its third drubbing from long-range cannonballs.
“Just about time for the allies to start screaming at their hosts: You’re not the ones getting shot to shit,” he said to himself, with a baring of teeth.
He rode over a dozen paces to the cohort commander, who was sweating freely, pacing back and forth and calling the commands in a hoarse voice, along with arm signals.
And doing his job well, which is why I haven’t been bothering him for the last hour. Never interrupt someone doing it right. Someone on your side, that is.
“Centurion!” he called.
The man faced around with a jerk. Artorius raised a hand.
“They’re coming now, Centurion. Remember your instructions.”
The man looked half mutinous, under a disciplined veneer. “Sir, I hate the thought of abandoning—”
“The enemy probably won’t have time or tools to do much damage to the guns,” he said. “And if they do, we know how to make them now. Replacing trained men who can train others would be more difficult. How are we for ammunition?”
He knew the answer, but he saw the man blink again and come down from that exalted focus of absolute concentration on one limited task.
“Ah, we’ve replaced the round shot four times, sir. Still have the cannister, of course.”
“But we’re not going to have enough time to fire sixteen rounds of that per gun,” Artorius said grimly. “Not after they get—”
He pointed out into the open space. Three hundred and fifty yards out, a line of white stakes had been driven into the ground. That gave everyone an instant reference point; it was also the limit of cannister range from these guns. There was another line of stakes fifty yards out.
The gun crews would have been working stripped to the waist if this were the American Civil War; it was a hottish day, and they’d been doing shatteringly intense physical work. They staggered as the cohort commander went down along the line, giving the battery centurions his heads-up.
Artorius had business to do as well. He rode his horse back to the clump of Americans and their local guardian angels.
“Get going!” he said, after another glance. “All of you!”
More chunks of the barbarian host were milling about or running forward in scattered masses. As he watched, the Marcomanni and Quadi came over their berm too; their leaders had decided that if there was going to be a charge, they might as well join in.
They can hope the charge will work, and they know their alliance would really be screwed, and for good, if they bugged out and let the others fail for want of numbers. Rock and a hard place, dudes. You really shouldn’t have let Prince Ballomar have his head last year. He lost his head, his nephew lost his head, then his other nephew did, and now you’re going to. Ain’t karma a cruel bitch?
Sarukê hesitated for a single instant, since he was obviously not coming along right away.
“Now!” Artorius barked. “See you later,” he said to the three Americans.
With their bodyguards behind them they cantered away toward the Imperial banner.
The cohort commander was barking: “Targets of opportunity, adjust range!”
BOOOOM! BOOOOM!
They had time for another six rounds of solid shot as the Germanii host streamed down the slope toward them, concentrating on the Marcomanni now . . . which slowed them a little, and prevented the enemy from massing into a single fist. They were aiming short, deliberately, and the bounding bronze shot plowed swaths though the dense formations. The enemy were operating on reflex—you had to, which was why having the right reflexes drilled in was so very important.
Up until now, dense formations had meant survival. Reality had changed, but reflexes took longer.
Artorius felt his gut tighten. This was going to be close . . .
“Now!” he called to the Antonio Banderas look-alike.
This close, I can judge ranges pretty well . . . with the ranging stakes to help. Also start seeing those spearpoints distinctly. Julia, I’m not going to leave you alone if I can help it!
“Switch to cannister!” the centurion called.
The loaders worked their ballet, only a little ragged. Then as the foremost of the charging enemy came to the outer line of stakes:
“Shoot!”
BOOOOM! BOOOOOM!
The sound was a little different. It looked different, too. The cannister shot was pitched low like the solid shot; he’d remembered how the Civil War accounts said that made them bounce gut high . . . or crotch high . . . when they hit the target. Spreading cones of dust smoked up as the hundred lead balls from every muzzle hit and fanned out across the dirt and nine-tenths of them rose and bounced on, and then swaths of the charging warriors dropped in the same neat conical formations.
Absolutely nothing neat about the results inside the cones, though.
By the second volley even the charging barbarians were slowing a little; eighteen tubes pumped out nearly two thousand of the bullets into a target where few of them could miss. Half a thousand men or more were dying or going down in screaming agony at every volley, every thirty seconds, swept away in an instant each time a gun fired. Even in that stunning-large host, it hit home.
Again, again—
“Now!” Artorius shouted.
The screaming of the advancing ranks was loud, but the gun crews had drilled in this a dozen times, and they’d been waiting for the word, for the hand signals too. Only a few had to be grabbed and butt-booted into attention. Every man threw down what he was holding, turned, and ran for his horse. In moments they were all mounted, except for one who’d tripped and struggled to get into his spooked horse’s saddle. They’d have to take their chances.
The charging barbarians saw their tormentors running, and came on faster still, but horses kept ahead of them . . . except for one who went down somehow. They galloped on, through the narrow gaps between the auxiliary infantry cohorts, grim-set faces under the helmet brims, then past the archers setting cord to string.
Past the long line of carroballistae batteries, then between the legionary cohorts, through the little stream, then up to the higher ground where the Imperial command group waited.
He panted as he drew rein beside Marcus Aurelius and Fronto and turned his horse, saluting and taking out his field glasses.