On the towers, the relentless activity of the ballistas and sling-machines faltered as men paused to watch. Let ’em, thought Sabinus. Moments like this were worth an extra cohort.
It was an astonishing shot, first time.
Now arrow-shaft and spearshaft burned together. After only a few seconds the tar-fuelled flames reached the long black feather dancing on top and reduced it to a few motes of ash. What had seemed like so powerful a symbol of intimidation had vanished in a lick of flame, a puff of wind.
He was an impossible one, this Armenian. But not altogether stupid. A great cheer went up from the ramparts. Arapovian neither turned, acknowledged it nor reacted in any way.
‘Stuck-up son of a bitch,’ growled Knuckles nearby.
He deserved a decoration for that flamboyant act. Sabinus called over to him, ‘When this is over, you’ll walk away with a corona obsidionalis.’
‘When this is over,’ said Arapovian, never shifting his gaze from the approaching horde, ‘I’ll be glad to walk away with my life.’
He nocked another arrow to his bow and rested his injured arm on the battlements and waited.
The enemy rolled nearer.
They could see now that the Hun siege-towers were serious constructions, frontages padded with huge sewn bolsters of rawhide, stuffed with riverweed and horsehair and thoroughly soaked against fire-arrows. They rolled in unison towards the west wall, one to the left and one to the right. Good dispositon. The supporting lines of horse-warriors slowed and stopped, still out of effective range.
Sabinus bellowed to his artillery, ‘Concentrate on the towers!’
To the north, report came of the drifting boats on the slow-moving tributary laying down a deadly rain of arrows. Anchoring themselves there with supreme confidence for the long stay. So Sabinus gave the order to clear the north walls and abandon them. The water would save them there.
From the eastern gate, the Porta Praetoria, leading down the Via Lederatea to Ratiaria, only the empty road. No dust-cloud. Shadows of buzzards in the morning sky. No help coming.
The two men on the west gate-tower, the legate and his primus pilus, regarded the approaching towers steadily. Then, ‘You see what I see?’ said Tatullus softly.
‘I do,’ said Sabinus, and he gave a faint smile. ‘Amateurs.’
Though the massive towers looked impressive enough, the Huns, or their enslaved builders and carpenters, perhaps deliberately, had failed to give them a low enough skirt. The four big wooden wheels on which each tower rolled forward were hopelessly exposed.
‘Let’s get ’em in close first,’ said the legate. ‘False shooting to start.’
He quit the west gate-tower and made for the south-west. ‘Unit III, get your slingshots down! Decurion, lower the trajectory. I want flat slings hitting the head of the tower. Slingshots on the level. I want the towers under bombardment at two hundred yards. What angle’s that?’
‘Around twelve degrees from the horizontal, sir.’
‘Then give the order.’
‘I could do you five degrees, sir, hit ’em at only a hundred yards, but harder still.’
Sabinus shook his head. ‘Too damn near. Give it ten degrees, then.’
The machines were ratcheted.
‘And never mind the whole tower, just take out the head. We’ll fire up the rest.’
He ordered the same for the north-west tower, giving the unit there a rapid inspection. They had two big crossbow machines and two iron-frame slings. He gave calm words of advice to the young unit commander, then returned to take his stand in the western gate-tower. Face on to the enemy.
At two hundred yards the first slingshots and bolts were loosed against the towers. There was a satisfyingly curt brutality to the flight. Long-distance shots might look impressive as they arced up high and fell over half a mile away, but most of the impulsive power was lost by then, and the missile travelled so slowly – as much as ten seconds from shot to landfall – that there was ample time for the enemy to see it coming and dodge it. But under Sabinus’ orders there was the low, vibrating twang of horsehair rope, the snap of torsion springs, the smack of sling-beam, and only a second or two later the weighty lead and stone slingshots flew out almost horizontal from the machines and thumped violently into the flanks of the approaching towers. The well-trained artillerymen bent down and adjusted the ratchets a fraction more. The nerve-shredding creak of torsion springs, further shots. Satisfyingly loud claps of impact, the cracking report as balls and bolts hit their target. Not much damage to the great towers yet, though, until a lucky strike passed straight through one of the narrow slits in the tower and a scream from within suggested a direct hit.
The towers weren’t going to be brought down, nor even knocked headless. Already the great wickerwork drawbridges were being lowered, like dark and hungry jaws opening upon the battlements of the fort.
Sabinus waited a little longer, judging the moment, hands clenched on the wall. Then, finally, ‘Now! Lower units, hit the wheels!’
With instant discipline, the artillery units on the first level of the towers set up a punishing crossfire, hitting the wheels of the siege-engines at the widest angle they could. Medium-weight slingballs and heavy iron-tipped ballista bolts cut across each other’s trajectories from the corner towers before slamming in low. Almost immediately one good shot chipped off the edge of a front wheel.
Tatullus nodded and murmured, ‘It’s deliberate, a bad build. Cunning. But pity the poor sods when their Hun masters realise it.’
Sabinus said nothing. There would be too many dead to pity by today’s end.
He ordered a single eight-man unit of his heavy cavalry to stand ready inside the south gate with all but one of the braces drawn back ready. Tatullus glanced at him.
More careful adjustments to the arc. The pounding was relentless. Within the towers the slave-driven captives moaned, sweating and heaving at the drive-posts. And there came a deeper moaning too. A bellowing…
‘ Amateurs!’ said Sabinus again, smacking a fist into his palm. ‘Listen to that!’
He was right. Against all the rules, the Huns had roped up oxen inside the siege-towers to provide the drive power. It might have seemed a good idea in the cool, rational calm before the battle started, but battles didn’t stay that way. And roped-up oxen could start causing no end of trouble to their own side once the missiles started piling in, men started screaming, noxious tar-fires started burning out of control…
Sabinus gave the order at once. ‘Fire and tar, get some flames around them! That’ll soon have the brutes breaking free.’
The tower coming in on the right stubbornly refused to burn, but curls of smoke soon told a different story from the other. And as soon as they smelled the smoke, sure enough, the oxen within began to bellow and panic and heave themselves sideways in their yokes. Terrible studded flails fell across the creatures’ bony backs, but the maddened pair, one already feeling the heat of the flames on its tawny flank, only wrenched away the harder, their fear of fire far greater than any whip. Both of them giving a simultaneous lurch in chance harmony was enough to break one of the yoke straps so that they staggered awkwardly and one tripped to its knees where it could no longer move. The entire tower was wrenched round to one side, the captives inside heaving desperately at the drive poles, naked and blinded with their own sweat, their backs beribboned by the long whips wielded by the small team of Hun warriors walking their horses close behind them in the shelter of the tower. But to no avail. The unbalanced tower, one wheel-rim already chipped and dragging down in the earth, was pulled further out of kilter by the miscreant oxen and suddenly the unprotected flank of the great tower and the two huge, uncurtained wooden wheels were exposed to direct Roman attack.
‘OK!’ roared Sabinus, the infectious note of victory in his voice. ‘Artillery units: both towers – take ’em out and fire ’em up! I want the wheels in splinters and the towers in cinders! Go! ’