“As soon as you see the Eighth move, signal the advance.”
Petrosidius nodded, keeping his gaze on the standards of the Eighth off to their right. Ten yards behind the officers, the Tenth legion shuffled their feet in agitation, itching to be off. Fronto faced forward once more, looking at the path before them.
It had certainly been a whirlwind preparation. Only two hours ago had the first Roman scout crested the hill in sight of the Veneti stronghold and in that short time Mamurra’s men had constructed what looked, to Fronto, like a very unstable dam on either side of the headland, holding the sea back from the causeway. Certainly they appeared to have the odd small leak, rivulets of seawater trickling down the inner face. The plan had extra merit that had occurred to them after the meeting. With the tide in, when the legions attacked, Brutus’ fleet would be able to get closer to land.
Fronto’s gaze passed across the mass of artillery on the headland keeping up a constant barrage, though having now shifted from the ruined walls to pounding the interior. This fortress was smaller and less well defended than Corsicum and had succumbed to the assault remarkably quickly.
His eyes followed the missiles as they arced up from the onagers and once again he focused on the brooding sky. He just hoped in the name of every God he could think of that the weather would hold off until after the attack. The grass underfoot was faintly damp, but ‘faintly damp’ was as dry as it had been in weeks. The sky above, however, boiled with black, grey and white clouds, promising storm conditions and torrential rain, likely with lightning and thunder. Not, he grumbled to himself, good conditions to be marching up a slope and wearing bronze.
A buccina call rang out from the Eighth, and Petrosidius waved the standard, triggering calls from the Tenth’s own musicians.
The legions moved off and a grin split Fronto’s face. It felt good to be marching into a fight again.
The three officers slowed their pace slightly until the first cohort reached them and then slid in among the men, taking their place in the front line. The smile on Fronto’s face widened for only a moment, and was then rudely removed as the men around him pushed, shoved and jostled suddenly, falling back into military precision seconds later and leaving the legate two rows back from the front.
Fronto issued a low growl, glaring ahead, and an apologetic voice spoke up from next to him.
“Sorry sir. Orders of the primus pilus.”
For a moment the legate was tempted to argue, but knew it would be fruitless. The Tenth respected their commander, Fronto knew, as much as he respected them, but the legate was often just a voice from high up, whereas a senior centurion was the man that put you to digging in shit for months at a time when he was unhappy with you. Fronto had no chance against that kind of threat.
Settling into his position in the third line, Fronto continued with the steady march as they descended the slope and reached the causeway at the bottom. His eyes strayed to his left, where he could see one of Mamurra’s dams, the other out of sight beyond the promontory. His mind immediately furnished him with vivid images of a dam exploding inwards, rocks tumbling this way and that, releasing the structural internal timber beams to rush toward the panicked Tenth legion on the crest of a deadly wave. Fronto squeezed his eyes shut and forced the picture away but, when he opened them again, he couldn’t look too closely at the dam without his knees taking on a very unmanly tremble.
The legions marched on across the causeway. By this time, the ground they trod would normally by under at least six feet of water.
Pictures in his mind again.
Damn it.
Or Dam it, anyway…
Fronto smiled to himself. The ground beneath his feet squelched unpleasantly and he sank an inch or two into the murk with each step.
The moments passed with the unpleasant sound of thousands of squelching feet and the dull clunk of armour and weapons that were becoming a martyr to rust in the conditions this summer.
The legate sighed with relief as his feet confirmed they had finally reached the upward slope that led to the walls and almost smiled until he realised that the rumbling he was hearing was not now the constant barrage of the artillery. The shooting had ceased to allow the legions room to manoeuvre, and so the low grumble he could now hear was thunder.
“Shit.”
“Problem, sir?”
Fronto glanced at the man next to him. He’d not meant to say it out loud.
“Just the weather.”
“I always try to stand next to someone taller if it’s thundering and I’m wearing armour, sir” the man replied with a grin. Fronto laughed for a moment and scanned the ranks around him, noting with wry humour that he stood half a head taller than any man close to him.
“Great. Just great!”
The slope ahead was much easier than that of Corsicum. Just as the stronghold was only perhaps a quarter of the size, with less powerful walls, so the cliffs were lower and the promontory less pronounced. Wearily the men of the Tenth slogged up the incline toward the smashed walls that had protected the fortress proper.
Carbo, ahead and to his right, barked out commands as they moved.
“We take the left. First century, peel off as we reach the walls and secure to the left before working your way round the edge of the cliffs. Once we near the crest, I want the rest of the first cohort to start spreading down the hill and then swing round at higher speed, like a closing gate, making sure we clear the whole surface. I don’t want to miss anyone.”
There were shouts of acknowledgement from the appropriate centurions and Fronto grinned. It was this that granted command ability. Oh, some of it was natural talent, such as in the case of the general, but far too many legates and tribunes stood at the back, slapping each other on the shoulder and watching happily as their men fought the battle. Only when you understood the men themselves, the abilities and responsibilities of the centurionate, and how everything fitted together in the actual fight, could you hope to direct a legion effectively. It was his appreciation of the situation his men were in that had given Fronto all his experience. He and the Tenth had made a name for themselves together.
His attention was brought back to the immediate situation as there was a shriek from ahead.
He focused, startled, as the line staggered to a halt, a figure missing.
“Lilia?”
Sure enough, as the legion began to move again, more cautiously, Fronto looked down with sympathy at the man who, two rows ahead of him, had discovered the first hidden pit with its sharpened stake.
The man writhed in the hole, the point of the stake through his thigh, the bone shattered. Once the legions were ahead and out of the way, the capsarii following up would find him and take him back to the makeshift camp, but the man’s leg was ruined, along with his career. Fronto swallowed sadly and raised his eyes again.
Then, thankfully, they were past and the man was out of sight, though the occasional shriek from left and right announced the location of another deadly trap. Fronto grimaced as he kept his gaze straight ahead, locked on the walls. For just a moment, he wondered how a tribe they’d never fought had adopted Roman defensive methods, but it hadn’t taken him long to realise that Crassus had spent last summer suppressing these people. They had picked up Crassus’ tricks.
A minute later the front ranks reached the line of the fallen walls, slowing once more as they stumbled over the rubble and into the stronghold itself. The first century set off along the line of jagged stone, only to discover that the deep grass here had been left deliberately long to hide the brambles and thorns that had been left there in a tangled mass.