They both stood for another endless minute gazing down at the advancing ranks of shields: two squares in an open formation, twelve men deep, with a double line before them. It was now possible to see that the men in front were light-armed skirmishers, equipped only with a few javelins, a helmet, and a shield; the men in the rank had breastplates and heavier spears. At the front of each square gleamed the standards- gilded eagles, set upon tall poles, trailing crimson banners which juddered as the standard-bearers made their way cautiously over the uneven ground. "Idiots!" whispered Straton. "Don't they realize?"
The Romans might be idiots, but the silence of the walls was clearly making them nervous: they marched more and more slowly, and at last stopped altogether.
At his shoulder Archimedes felt the air stir as Good Health's nose dipped. He retreated from the artillery port and went back along the catapult stock to where the new team of operators stood. There were three of them: one to load, one to fire, and one to assist. All three grinned- and then the captain of the team, a tough-looking man twenty years senior to Archimedes, stood aside from the trigger. "You want to test your new catapult, Archimechanic?" he asked.
Archimedes blinked at the nickname, but nodded, then moved to the foot of the catapult to sight along the stock; the machine was already aimed and loaded, and he found himself staring through the aperture at the air above one of the Roman standard-bearers. The man was only a couple of hundred feet away. Archimedes could make out the sandy color of his beard under the wolfskin he had tied over his helmet. The standard-bearer had lowered his shield while he talked to a man in a red-crested helmet. As Archimedes watched, the light-armed troops began to move back past the two into the gaps left in the formation of the heavy infantry: clearly, the Romans had decided that they'd come far enough and should retreat. It seemed to be what Hieron was waiting for: from overhead and along the city wall came a barking order, and then the sudden crack of catapult arm against heel plate; the air darkened with bolts. The standard-bearer at once lifted his shield above his head again. From the floor directly above came the deep bay of the Welcomer- and then there were screams.
"Now, sir!" said the catapult captain impatiently. "Now!"
Archimedes fumbled at the trigger.
Good Health's voice was deeper than the Welcomer's, a fearsome bellow ending in a smash of iron. The stone was gone too fast to follow- and then the standard-bearer was down, and the missile was tearing through the Roman line behind him like a harpoon through water. Screams- they were close enough that he could hear the screams clearly, even over the whoops of glee that rose from the catapult team as they saw their target go down. Archimedes stumbled back, still staring along the stock through catapult aperture and artillery port. The standard-bearer's body sprawled backward on the ground, red-topped, helmetless- no, headless! The two-talent stone had knocked his head clean off his body and gone on to kill or maim everyone behind him in the line of fire.
"Quick!" yelled the catapultist, already winching back the string. "Reload!"
His two assistants already had the hoist ready; another stone was dropped into place. On the floor above them, the Welcomer cried out again, and Archimedes glanced along the line and found another trail of bodies traced through the Roman maniple, but not quite so far; the one-talent stone seemed to fail after claiming its four or fifth victim. As he lifted his eyes, he saw that the rear ranks were falling, too. From the parapet of the city wall the small, long-ranged arrow-shooting scorpions struck methodically at the rear of the Roman force. The Romans were still trying to protect themselves with their shields, but catapult bolts went through shields, piercing wood and leather and bronze as easily as flesh and bone. From the upper towers of the fort, the lighter stone-hurlers volleyed steadily, sending weights of ten or fifteen or thirty pounds flying with hideous force into the middle of the rank. Battered by forty catapults at once, the Romans fell like grass to a scythe.
His survey had taken only seconds; beside him, Good Health now bellowed again. Another bloody furrow tore through the Roman force from front to back; a new set of screams rose audibly above a steady background of howls and the endless percussion of arms on heel plates. "Reload!" screamed the catapult captain; and the string groaned as it was winched back again.
In the field beyond, the Romans were throwing away their shields and running away as fast as they could, but even as they fled, the storm of death followed and cut them down.
"Oh, gods!" whispered Archimedes. He had never in his life before seen anyone killed.
Straton too was staring out the artillery port, his face contorted in a grin that was more than half snarl, his fist rising and falling in sympathy with the baying of the big catapults. "Welcome to Syracuse, you bugger-arsed barbarians," he muttered. "Good health!" He straightened abruptly and flipped down the cheek-pieces of his helmet. "Almost time to pick up what's left," he said, and ran lightly down the steps to join his unit. As he went, Good Health's bellow arose again.
Archimedes retreated from the catapult platform and sat down on the steps. He thought he was going to be sick. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the standard-bearer's body lying there headless. What had happened to that sandy beard? It must be smeared all over the stone- oh, Apollo! — with the man's brains and blood… his catapult!
There was a blast of trumpets, and then the high sweet sound of a soprano aulos, piping the men out into battle. The stone-hurling catapults stopped baying, though the percussion of the arrow-firers continued, picking off the Romans as they fled. No war cry followed from the Syracusans, however. As Hieron had promised, the Romans had already been smashed: all the Syracusans needed to do was pick up the pieces. And at last even the stuttering of the scorpions ceased.
Of the four hundred-odd Romans who had advanced on the city, perhaps twenty-five men made it back to their camp. Another thirty or so who had dropped to the ground to avoid being shot surrendered to the Syracusans, and fifty-four other prisoners were carried into the city, too badly injured to walk. All the rest were dead.
Hieron went through the Hexapylon, congratulating his men. When he reached Good Health's platform, he found the new catapult's team busily loosening the strings. The machine could not be kept at full tension without strain, and it was clear that the Romans would not try another assault on the fort that day. Of the king's new engineer there was no trace.
"Where's Archimedes?" asked Hieron, glancing about with a frown.
"Gone home, lord," said the catapult captain, climbing down from the stock. "He was looking a bit green. I don't think he's seen one of these in action before- and he'd finished here, anyway."
"Ah," said the king. His frown deepened.
"He can't have been upset by that!" protested the assistant in surprise. "He built the machine- he must have known what it would do."
"There's knowing and knowing," observed Hieron quietly. "Everyone who rides, for example, knows that it's dangerous to gallop downhill. But there are plenty of cavalrymen who do it all the time, because it looks bold and dashing. Once a fellow I knew killed a horse and broke his arm in three places doing it, and after that he understood that it was dangerous."
"And never did it again?" asked the catapult assistant expectantly.
The king gave him a sharp look. "He could never again bring himself to gallop at all. He had to resign from the cavalry. There's knowing and knowing." His frown lifted as he looked at Good Health. "I noticed that this machine worked every bit as well as its brother."