Centurion (31 page)

‘Watch out!’ Cato shouted. ‘Incoming fire arrows!’

The auxiliaries crouched down behind the rims of their shields or ducked behind the hard cover of the stone battlements. A moment later a glittering arrow whipped over the wall, trailing a fine line of smoke, before it reached the top of its trajectory and curved down towards the palatial buildings of the royal accommodation. The arrow shattered as it struck a roof tile and the flaming fragments exploded in all directions. More arrows followed. Most struck the roof or walls, or fell harmlessly to the ground, but a handful lodged in the timber of doorways or window frames and the fire parties pounced on them immediately to beat the flames out.

‘Sir?’

Cato turned and saw Centurion Aquila coming towards him, crouching low. Now that his horses were gone, Aquila and his men fought as infantry and Cato had chosen Aquila to act as his second-in-command in the defence of the gate.

‘What is it?’

‘Shall I give the order for our slingers to shoot back? And the bolt-throwers on the towers?’

Cato shook his head.’No sense in exposing our men just yet. Let the rebels waste their ammunition; they’re not doing us any harm. We’ll hold back until the ram is within range. Then the slingers can target those archers.’

‘Yes, sir.’ A look of disappointment flickered across Aquila’s face. ‘Very good.’

‘Don’t worry, Aquila. The men will get their chance to carve ‘em up soon enough.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ Aquila muttered grimly as he risked a quick glimpse over the wall.’Time to pay them back for the horses.’

‘The horses?’ Cato wondered, and then shook his head. His cavalry commander was clearly one of those men who cared deeply for his mounts. Still, if he blamed the rebels for the mass slaughter of the previous day, so much the better.

‘Centurion Aquila, when this is all over, I promise to let you have the pick of the enemy’s horses.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’ Aquila grinned.

There was a dull whack from below in the agora and a moment later a flaming bundle of rags tied tightly round a rock blazed over the battlement. The missile dropped down towards the part of the citadel being used for the hospital and crashed through the tiles and vanished from sight. Cato felt his throat tighten with anxiety for Julia’s safety, but he was powerless to do anything to protect her, or even find out if she was safe, while the enemy attack was under way. He tried to push all thought of her from his mind as he took a breath and rose up to check on the progress of the battering ram.

The rebels had got it a third of the way across the agora. Prince Balthus and his archers were keeping up a steady barrage of fire arrows, which formed a sparse stubble across the leather roof of the ram housing.The arrows smouldered in the damp leather but before they could catch the boys would dart forward and hurl fresh water over the roof. The groan from the axles of the large wheels carried up to the battlements even above the din of the iron rims grinding across the flagstones. The drums continued to beat a steady rhythm to the men straining inside the housing as they pressed forward.

‘Man the bolt-throwers!’ Cato commanded. ‘Load incendiaries!’

The crew of the ballista in the left tower jumped up on to the firing platform and began to crank the arms back. Another man held the tip of a three-foot-long heavy bolt in the flames of the brazier at the rear of the platform.The oil-soaked rags wrapped round the shaft just behind the iron head quickly caught alight and the auxiliary hurriedly carried it across to the bolt-thrower. He carefully placed the bolt in the channel as the optio in command of the artillery section took aim on the ram housing. Already the rebel archers had spotted the crew clustered round the weapon and were loosing shots up at the tower.There was a crack as an arrow shaft trembled briefly in the frame of the bolt-thrower. Smoke trailed up from the oiled rags.

‘Get some water on that!’ shouted the optio and then turned his attention back to the weapon. As soon as he was satisfied with the laying he straightened up and reached for the release lever.

‘Stand clear!’

The crew stepped away and an instant later the arms snapped forward and smacked against the padded restraints. The flaming bolt shot out of the weapon in an almost flat trajectory, lancing across the agora. It struck the leather covers of the ram housing, burst through and disappeared inside.The crewmen punched their fists into the air, but the optio turned on them angrily.

‘What in Hades are you doing? You’re not paid by the day. Reload the weapon, and you, put that fucking fire out!’

Cato had watched the fall of the shot and nodded with satisfaction. ‘Keep it up, Optio. Fast as you can shoot. Won’t take the rebels long to move the ram so close to the wall that we can’t depress the bolt-throwers enough.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the optio replied. ‘We’ll do the best we can.’

Just then, the man who had been standing at the front of the platform extinguishing the burning arrow with his canteen let out an explosive gasp. He dropped the canteen and staggered backwards, arms scrabbling for the shaft sticking out of his back, just below the shoulder blade.

‘Watch it!’ Cato shouted. ‘Stop him!’

But it was too late. The auxiliary’s calves struck the rim of the battlement and he tumbled backwards, arms flailing, then was gone. His scream was mercifully short, but they all heard the heavy thud as he landed at the foot of the tower. The optio gritted his teeth, strode to the front of the bolt-thrower, plucked the burning arrow out and threw it back towards the enemy before striding back to the rear of the weapon and snarling at his men, ‘Next cunt who lets that happen to him is on a charge. Remember, keep your bloody heads down!’

There was a distant crack and Cato turned to see that the other bolt-thrower was also targeting the ram. As the rebels slowly angled in towards the gate several more shots struck the housing, passing straight through the leather and tearing into the packed ranks of the men inside, or lodging in the stout timbers of the framework, burning there until one of the rebel water-carriers managed to extinguish it. Behind the ram housing a wake of blood smears and the bodies of dead and injured told of the destruction being wrought by the citadel’s bolt-throwers.

The one-sided barrage from the towers could not last for ever, and just as the ram housing reached the point at which the auxiliary crews could not depress their weapons any further, one of the enemy bolt-throwers mounted in the carts down in the agora scored a lucky hit. The heavy iron tip of the bolt smashed into the throwing arm of the weapon on the left tower. With a splintering crack the torsion arm snapped and under the immense strain of the thick cord of the bowstring the arm slashed round in an arc, crushing the head of the nearest man and shattering the arm of the next as splinters exploded in all directions, showering the soldiers closest to the weapon. Three more men were injured, one of them screaming in agony as he raised a hand to pluck a long sliver of wood from his eye.

‘Get the wounded away!’ Cato yelled. ‘Down to the hospital. Optio!’

‘Yes, sir?’ The optio was wincing as he removed a large splinter from his forearm.

‘Pull the weapon back and get that throwing arm repaired.’

‘Repaired, sir?’ The optio glanced at the bolt-thrower. The splintered stump of the throwing arm protruded a short distance from the torsion coils. ‘It’s fucked.’

‘I don’t care. Get it out of sight of the enemy and get it fixed. We’ll need it.’

The optio stiffened up and nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Right, lads! You heard the prefect. Let’s get to it.’

Cato stepped away as the surviving members of the crew clambered round the broken weapon and heaved it away from the battlements. Around him some of the auxiliaries were helping the wounded men over to the stairs and down into the courtyard. Cato raised his shield and went forward again to check on the progress of the ram. The rebels had managed to heave it close enough to the wall to take it out of the line of fire of the citadel’s bolt-throwers, and yet not so close as to be vulnerable to falling rocks or flammables. All the time the archers and the bolt-throwers down in the agora kept up a steady barrage of missiles aimed at the battlements, while catapults continued to lob the occasional blazing bundle in a high arc over the wall to crash down on the buildings and people inside the citadel.

Even though the ram was safe from the defenders for the moment, the rebels would have to run it up to the gate soon and there it would be directly exposed to the men immediately above. Prince Artaxes had anticipated the danger and already many of the archers and bolt-throwers were being repositioned to cover the ram. Cato ran down the stairs to the wide walkway directly above the gate. He leaned over and called down into the courtyard.

‘Get the heated oil up here! Now!’

Cato turned to the men with pitchforks standing beside the braziers a short distance from the bound bundles of kindling and rags soaked in pitch, then gave the order to stoke the flames up and be ready to set fire to the faggots. While some of his men thrust their pitchforks into the bundles and heaved them over towards the battlement, others used bellows to heat the braziers to a brilliant golden glow and sent sparks whirling into the air.

‘Light ‘em up!’ Cato shouted, and an optio grabbed a torch, held it in the fire until it was well alight and then ran across to the faggots and touched it to each one until the flames caught and smoke swirled round the battlements as the kindling crackled. ‘Over the wall!’

At the prefect’s order the men with the pitchforks heaved them up and over and shook them out to dislodge their blazing burdens. One by one the bundles roared down from the battlements. Below, the water boys glanced up in terror and turned to run for their lives as the faggots crashed on to the roof of the ram housing and burst apart, showering the surrounding area with burning debris.

‘Keep them coming!’ Cato ordered.

As the faggots tumbled down from the gate tower most hit the ram housing, but some missed and burst on the flagstones of the agora. Cato glanced down just as one knocked a water boy to the ground. He rolled to one side, covered in flaming material. A shrill scream pierced the air, and went on and on as the boy writhed on the ground. His comrades who had run from the bombardment were now beaten back towards the ram housing by soldiers with whips. They darted round the leather-covered structure dashing water on to the flames and fleeing whenever they saw a burning faggot plummeting towards them, only to be forced back by the whips. And through it all the men, invisible beneath the roof of the housing, strained as they heaved the ram on towards the gate.

The last of the faggots went over the wall and Cato ran to see what had become of the heated oil. The carriers were still struggling up the last flight of stairs to the top of the gate tower: four men gripping two long wooden staves that passed through iron rings on each side of the cauldron.

‘Hurry it up! Move yourselves!’

As they reached the platform, a tremor ran through the tower as the first blow of the ram thudded into the gate.

‘Cato!’ Macro’s voice called up, and Cato leaned over the wall,

‘Sir?’

‘Get that oil on to the ram, and the rocks, whatever you can!’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cato turned to the auxiliaries in the tower and drew a breath as he pointed to the pile of odd-sized chunks of masonry piled behind the battlements. ‘Get the rocks over the wall.’

The men piled their pitchforks to one side of the tower and joined Cato as he grunted under the weight of a large stone and staggered to the battlements.With a strained grunt he heaved it up on to the wall and risked a glance directly down at the ram housing.The long leather mantle stretched out from the gate, and as a drum beat the time there was a crash below and again the impact was felt through the gate tower. Cato could see that the only serious damage caused by the faggots was a small scorch-fringed hole close to the head of the ram housing. The glistening torsos of the rebels swinging the ram could just be glimpsed. Cato waited a moment until some more of his men stood either side of him, ready to shove their crude missiles over the parapet.

‘Now!’

With a scraping of stone on stone the Romans pushed and the lumps of masonry tumbled off the wall and plummeted towards the roof of the ram housing. The rocks crashed straight through, tearing gaping holes in the leather padding and the wooden planks beneath. Those rebels directly below were crushed by the impact.

‘Keep it up!’ Cato ordered, and then turned to the men with the cauldron of oil. Smoke and steam wisped up from the blackened iron sides of the vessel and the air was filled with the thick odour. ‘Bring it over here!’

As the auxiliaries at the parapet continued to rain stones down on the ram housing, Cato helped the others manoeuvre the cauldron towards the battlements, directly above the ram. Once it was in place Cato called more men to brace themselves under the far stave and slowly the cauldron began to tilt towards the enemy. A plume of steam rose up as the liquid began to stream down, splashing over the shattered roof above the ram and through the gaps on to the men beneath. At once their agonised screams cut through the air and they abandoned their positions and scrambled away, stumbling from the rear of the ram housing. Balthus’ men turned their attention on the fleeing rebels and arrows arced across at an angle, cutting down several of them as they ran for the safety of their own archers’ shelters. Their comrades did their best to force Balthus’ men to keep their heads down as a furious exchange of arrows ensued.

While the enemy’s attention was drawn from the gates’ defences Cato took the chance to examine the damage below and saw that the heated oil had done its work. The ram was on fire and the flames were quickly spreading along the damaged wooden framework. The enemy’s water-carriers were fleeing along with the warriors and no one remained to fight the blaze. A hard smile of satisfaction flickered over his lips before he felt the first wash of heat strike his face. Then Cato felt his guts clench in a moment of anxiety at the memory of the fortified gate of a German village he had defended alongside Macro years before. He hurried across the tower and shouted down to the legionaries below. ‘Sir! The ram’s on fire!’