The Triumph of Venus - Chapter 29

Syrakousa, Sicilia

Ky relaxed in the center of the room, eyes closed, his mind focused inward. It wasn’t sleep, precisely, but it allowed more of his processes to shut down and the nanos swimming through his body to do more of the work they needed cleaning his system of the standard degradation of time, which allowed his age to extend so much beyond that of a human life span in this time.

As it did every time he entered his rest state, he thought to Lucilla. She had her own nanos which, thanks to Sophus’s ingenious extension of the limited technological equipment available to them, still operated even though he couple remained thousands of miles apart for months at a time.

The question that always came to him in moments like this was, how long could her nanos keep the rigors of time away from her? What would her life span be? Now that he’d found her, found these feelings, he couldn’t imagine ever losing her, and yet the fact that he would live for, probably another one to two hundred years meant that eventually, she would leave him.

It was worse for Sophus who, although sentient, had no body of its own that would give it a sense of the passing of time. It was along for the ride, forced to experience its death without ever changing what it saw as its own being. Would Sophus be able to keep his flesh going after he passed? Continue existing in his lifeless husk. It was impossible to know. No one had ever had an AI in a body for so long, let alone a sentient one. They were in uncharted waters.

He was just about to fall down the rabbit hole of thoughts, when the noise of a distant commotion somewhere in the city pushed its way into his consciousness, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to the present. Even with the increased pickups and filtering, it was hard to work out exactly what the sounds were.

And then sounds suddenly appeared outside the house he was staying in. Shouts in the street. Dozens of sandaled feet striking hard-packed earth, followed by a crash of wood, sending Ky propelling upward. By the time the first alarm shouted, Ky was already falling down the stairs, landing with a hard thud on the first floor.

His men had acted fast, already engaging the first few men through the door, but the surprise had been almost complete. Ky could hear a guard outside in combat, meaning they’d isolated the door guards, swarming the building to get men inside.

His men were trying to form up, protect the stairs and their charge, whose sudden appearance hadn’t had time to register yet. Ky knew Carus, on the far left, would be furious for what he was about to do, and he didn’t care. Leaping over his men in a forward lunge, Ky landed in front of them and rolled into a stance, forcing everyone, friend and attacker alike, to freeze in place for a moment, surprised by his sudden appearance.

A moment was all Ky needed.

With superhuman speed, his blade whipped out and caught an enemy off guard, slashing across an exposed throat, sending the man crumpling to the ground. Two more went down almost as fast, with a fourth mortally wounded by the time his compatriots finally got their senses about them enough to begin responding, with the first enemy blade making its way toward Ky, almost in slow motion as Sophus identified and began plotting all of the potential tracks across his vision.

Ky spun, parrying a blow from one of the attackers and feinted left before striking right, catching a man in an exposed thigh as he lunged forward, Ky’s blade going in just far enough to sever the artery before pulling back and whipping around to block another attack.

“Consul,” Carus finally shouted, seeing the man he was supposed to protect in front of him. “Protect the Consul.”

His men tried to surround him, but their bodies were between him and danger. Ky knew they meant well, but his greatest asset was his mobility, his ability to dodge and parry attacks at lightning speed.

“Give me room,” Ky shouted as he dispatched another man. “Surround the door.”

The door was the key. With each man Ky killed, another came through. They had to staunch the flow of enemy and regain control of the situation, or some of his men would die. Already, Firminus was bleeding, an arm hanging limp where a sword had cut deep into the muscle. If this went on much longer, he’d lose even more of his precious guards.

And then, as suddenly as the attack began, it ended, with men falling and no more coming through the door to replace them. This was the only place the fighting had stopped, however. The noise of the city continued to grow, a building crescendo of shouts, screams, and curses.

Ky rushed outside, hurdling over the bodies of the fallen enemy, almost certainly the “missing” Carthaginian soldiers, by the look of them. On either side of the door were two legionnaires, placed there to guard the building. The sight of Carthaginians lying near their bodies spoke that they didn’t go down without a fight.

Fires raged unchecked, the flames casting an eerie orange glow over the city. Screams and the sounds of metal sounded from every direction, signaling how widespread the fighting was. From one of the side streets, a wounded legionnaire stumbled out, clutching his side.

“Consul,” he gasped, his face contorted in pain. “The Carthaginians...they’re everywhere. They came out of nowhere.”

“Are you okay?” Ky asked, grabbing him, helping hold the man up.

“I’m okay. We … fought our way here, to you. The others …”

“I understand. You did your duty. Where were you when they attacked? Do you know how many?”

“Five blocks over, manning an intersection. I don’t know how many, but every direction. Hundreds, maybe. It was quiet and then … they were there, attacking. Cutting us down.”

“Go inside, rest. You’ve done enough.”

“No,” the man said, stepping out of Ky’s arm and standing on his own, pain etched into his face. “I can fight.”

Ky wanted to order the man to go rest, but he knew he’d do the same in the man’s place. He wouldn’t take his honor from him now.

“You’re a good man,” Ky said, before turning to one of his lictors. “Pacatianus. Take this man and any other legionnaires you can find. Make your way to the front gate and out to Auspex’s legion on the plains. I’m sure he’s seen the fighting and will be on his way into the city, but help guide him. I want his legion to establish a perimeter around the gate and push out from there. We need a zone of control and safety for our wounded. They must have been in some of the houses, and there might be more. He isn’t to push to another block until he’s cleared all the houses inside his perimeter. Move slowly, checking everything. He’s to value security over speed. If they’re smart, they would have planned for our second legion, and have another trap ready. I don’t want him falling into it.”

“Understood, Consul,” Pacatianus said, saluting.

Ky clapped the wounded legionnaire on his shoulder, before turning his attention to Carus and the few legionnaires that had started to gather, all making the same calculation as the other man had. They were probably rallying either here or the headquarters Bomilcar had set up a few blocks away.

“The rest of you, with me. We’ll assemble every legionnaire we can find and establish a perimeter around this building. I want to fight towards Bomilcar, who is almost certainly doing the same. From there, we will expand out and connect with whatever zone Auspex has carved out. We are retaking this city, block by block.”

Before any of the remaining men could start moving to follow his orders, a shout from behind alerted him to a new threat. Another group of Carthaginians, perhaps thirty strong, emerged from a side alley, charging towards them with swords drawn.

The legionnaires reacted instantly, their training taking over. They quickly arranged themselves into a loose formation, each man covering his neighbor’s vulnerable side.

The Carthaginians crashed into them like a tidal wave. Ky parried a vicious thrust, countering with a lightning-fast stab into the man’s chest. Next to him, Carus fought like a man possessed, cutting down two men almost as fast as Ky could have.

“Consul! We must fall back to a more defensible position!”

“Fall back to Bomilcar’s position,” Ky ordered.

It seemed impossible the enemy had enough men to attack like this all over the city, which meant the real thrust was here, at him. The other attacks were mostly a diversion. If that was true, it was likely Bomilcar’s command post was likely also being hit hard, and he could not afford to lose the general.

A Carthaginian soldier lunged at him with a spear. Ky sidestepped the thrust and grabbed the spear shaft, wrenching it from the man’s grasp. With a swift motion, he drove the spear point through the soldier’s chest, then kicked him off the blade.

“Consul, watch out!” Carus shouted, rushing forward to intercept a Carthaginian who had slipped past Ky’s guard.

Carus’s sword cleaved the man’s skull in two, spraying bone and brain matter across the cobblestones. Ky nodded his thanks, then turned to face the next attacker.

Step by step, the legionnaires fought their way to the square, leaving a trail of Carthaginian corpses in their wake. Occasionally a single or maybe a pair of legionnaires would see them and join up. Slowly, the odds evened and then shifted, until the Britannians were no longer the outnumbered ones.

And then they were there, at Bomilcar’s command post. Much as Ky thought, it was surrounded by Carthaginians, the bodies of a dozen legionnaires scattered around front. Bomilcar stood behind a wall of men who were fighting valiantly, a more sensible plan, considering his lack of enhanced abilities.

“Help him,” Ky called out to the legionnaires with them. “We’ll finish these.”

Ky redoubled his attack on the few Carthaginians left assaulting them as all but his lictor turned and charged the men attacking Bomilcar’s command post. As if on cue, the remainder of Ky’s lictors appeared, looking bloodied and tired, but intact. Their sudden attack finally turned the tide, giving everyone around the command post a slight breather.

The battle wasn’t over yet, however. He could still hear screams and shouts across the city.

“You found us,” Ky said to Sellic, grabbing the man’s blood-smeared arm.

“We followed the bodies,” Sellic said, indicating the trail of dead Carthaginians that led back to the house Ky had quartered himself in.

“Good. Help Carus and Bomilcar. We’re establishing a front here. There should be enough of us.”

More and more legionnaires were appearing, either from the direction of Ky’s previous living quarters or headed directly for the command post. They were good men, and all doing what they needed to do.

The men, now bolstered, fought with renewed vigor, pushing the enemy back from the command post, creating a bubble that slowly expanded. As they advanced, they encountered pockets of resistance, Carthaginians emerging from side streets and alleyways to engage them in brief, bloody skirmishes. Each time, the Britannians pushed them back, their numbers growing as they rescued beleaguered legionnaires and added them to their ranks.

The fighting was intense and chaotic, with no clear front line. Ky found himself constantly on the move, racing from one crisis to the next as he sought to turn the tide of battle, leaving an unhappy Bomilcar at the command post turned reinforcement depot and hospital. From there, the general directed reinforcements to ensure their perimeter held out, and that every building was checked thoroughly for men laying in wait.

It was not without losses. Legionnaires going blindly into buildings was a dangerous mission, and several were slain each time they found hidden Carthaginians, but they succeeded in their mission, digging the enemy out from their prepared ambushes one at a time.

The battle felt endless, especially to the exhausted legionnaires, many of whom had been woken up and thrust immediately into the fight. Thankfully, the men he sent for the remaining legion did their job, and after almost an hour of straight fighting, fresh legionnaires appeared, helping clear streets and buildings, replacing men ready to drop from fatigue.

By the time daylight broke, the city was once again theirs.

***

Off the Horn of Africa

Valdar gripped the railing hard as the ship pitched and rolled in the turbulent seas, the gray skies above unleashing sheets of driving rain. Icy spray lashed his face, the salt stinging his eyes. The Consul had warned him the waters here were treacherous, but he’d sailed the northern seas and into the great waters that stretched endlessly west, and had thought he was prepared for anything.

He’d been wrong. These were some of the roughest conditions he’d sailed through. It felt as if the very seas themselves were in competition, with one side pushing him west and the other pushing him east.

“Reef the mainsail!” Valdar bellowed above the howling wind. “Secure those lines!”

His crew leaped into action, scrambling up the rigging to battle the flapping canvas. The deck heaved beneath their feet, making the task a perilous dance.

Waves crashed over the deck, threatening to sweep away anyone not securely tethered. Valdar ignored it, his attention focused off the port side of his ship, following one of the schooners struggling in the maelstrom. The smaller vessel rose and fell with sickening velocity, its deck awash with foaming seawater. Valdar watched with growing unease as the schooner’s mast swayed precariously, the wood visibly flexing even at this distance.

The schooner’s crew scrambled about the deck, working frantically to secure the rigging. It was all for naught. Even as the sailors fought to control their vessel, Valdar saw the mast shudder violently as the winds and pressure on the deck pulled it this way and that.

With a final, wrenching motion, the mast gave way, snapping like a twig in a giant’s grasp. The top section toppled, plunging into the churning sea beside the crippled vessel. The schooner lurched drunkenly, its balance lost, and began to list heavily to one side.

Sailors were thrown about on the schooner’s deck, some tumbling over the side and vanishing into the sea. He didn’t need to hear the words to know the desperate cry that would be ringing out: “Man overboard!”

Not that there was anything they could do for the poor souls. Not in seas like this.

They weren’t the only ones struggling. To the starboard, two of his galleys had drifted dangerously close, the towering waves and brutal winds conspiring to push them together. Their much smaller masts, not built into the frame of their ships but bolted to the decks, weren’t enough to control the vessels. Not in seas like this.

The gap between the two small ships narrowed, bringing them closer and closer, until collision was unavoidable. The men fought valiantly, but without success, as the two ships slammed together with a sickening crunch, plank and beam sheared from each vessel, flying in every direction. The men aboard the ships were flung about like discarded dolls. Worse were the ones in the way of shredded timber, which became missiles in the collision, spearing the men like arrows shot by the gods.

“Ready the rescue boats!” Valdar commanded, his voice straining to be heard. “We need to get our men off those ships!”

“Admiral, in these seas the boats will be swamped in minutes! We’ll lose even more men!”

He was right. Valdar cursed himself and the seas as he watched one of the galleys roll over and begin its trip to the bottom.

“Throw lines to the damaged ships!” he ordered. “We’ll tow them through the storm. And get every able-bodied man bailing water on that schooner!”

The crew hastened to obey, hurling weighted ropes across the heaving gaps between the vessels. On the stricken schooner, sailors snatched up the lines, lashing them fast to the cleats.

“Heave!” Valdar roared. “Put your backs into it, men!”

His own ship groaned as it took the strain of pulling another ship while fighting the waves. He saw one of his other caravels closing the distance, following his lead as it tried to pull the two remaining ships to safety.

They continued east, pulling the lamed ships, ordering his other vessels to keep wider gaps, which made communication worse, but kept additional collisions from happening.

Two hours later, the winds died down and the seas calmed. It was still overcast and drizzling, but at least his ships weren’t being thrown about like the gods’ playthings any longer.

The damage, however, was done. Half his ships had damage of some kind, mostly minor, but they needed to find a harbor to effect repairs. Two more were damaged to the point of no longer being able to move on their own. And two ships were lost entirely. Aside from the galley he saw go down himself, another just disappeared into the abyss. It had been astern of one of his other carvels, which lost sight of it temporarily in a crest of waves. When they came out on the other side, the galley had just been gone, vanished as if it had never existed.

For another hour, he kept the ships in sight of land, which now sat to the off the port as his fleet turned north, looking for a place they could pull ashore. The crews on his two most damaged ships bailed continually, trying to keep the sea out of them, but he was running out of time.

“Admiral,” one of his crewmen who’d been assigned to keep his glass fixed on the shore called out. “There.”

Valdar took the man’s glass and followed where his finger pointed. Sure enough, it looked like a protected inlet, or at least enough of one that ships sitting off the shore wouldn’t be swamped and pushed onto the sand.

“That will have to do,” Valdar said. “Signal the fleet to weigh anchor and hold off the coast. Any ships in need of repair are to follow us in. Galleys can beach and brace for repairs if they must, but otherwise they are to hold and repair in the shallows.”

The battered fleet limped to shore, the crews of the damaged ships struggling to keep them afloat long enough to reach the shallows. All but one of his ships stopped as they entered the natural port, with the one damaged galley continuing until its keeps scraped to the sandy bottom.

As soon as it made contact, dozens of men jumped overboard, splashing through waist-deep water as long lines were thrown to them. With great effort, they managed to pull the ship out of the water, its hull grinding against the sand and rock.

As it came out of the water, Valdar could see a great gash along one side from the impact with the sunken galley. It was a miracle the ship had managed to stay afloat.

“Send our carpenter and any unoccupied men to the damaged ships to help with repairs. Focus on the ships still floating. All legionnaires are to go ashore and set up a perimeter. I have no idea what the locals where are like, but I’m not willing to risk it. Captains are to fix what they can, but the fleet will continue sail by the morning. Once they have work underway, I want all captains who are able to meet me ashore for a conference in an hour.”

The officer nodded and went to begin sending the signals. It took more than an hour to get most of the captains ashore. No vessel, not even the Bellona, was without damage, which left a lot to be done.

Not that the captains were wasting time. By the time Valdar and the rest made it to shore, the cannons of the damaged galley had been offloaded and one of the fleet’s carpenters had declared the ship unsalvageable. While not unexpected, it made three ships lost, and they hadn’t even reached battle yet.

“While that was difficult, we made it through,” Valdar said once the captains were assembled. “I know what we’d all like to do is stay here for a little while and lick our wounds, but we still have a mission to accomplish. We were ordered to cut off the flow of weapons to Carthage, and that’s what we’re going to do. The Consul might not have known about the Red Sea route, but that doesn’t make it any less of our concern, and every day we spent getting there is another day they can make shipments. So when I said I wanted to sail by morning, I meant it.”

“What about the damaged ships?” the captain of the damaged Schooner said.

“I’m afraid we can’t wait. No offense to our galley captains, but if it was just Galleys, I’d say sink them and transfer all of the crew and material to the rest of the fleet, but I’m not willing to give up on the Velox as easily, which changes things a bit. Actually, this works out. It’s too far to make regular trips back to the other port we set up, especially with how unpredictable the trip around the horn is going to be, which means we’d need another port on this side of the continent anyway. This just decides our location a bit earlier than expected.”

“It’s a lot drier here than on the other side?” One of the captains pointed out.

“True. It doesn’t mean farming will be impossible, but it does make it harder. Thankfully, fishing should still be an option. Beyond that, we’ll work it out as best we can. Since it appears the Maris is unsalvageable, I want it broken for parts. Have anything valuable and usable taken off. We can use some of it to help repair the Velox, which is still seaworthy enough to offer some protection. Beyond it, I’m also going to leave four galleys here. Two will station here to help with fishing and offer protection, since the Velox won’t be particularly mobile. The other two will make the trip back to report on our situation and arrange supply shipments for this port. You are not to risk your ships. Navigate carefully and turn back if conditions worsen. We need additional supplies and reinforcements, not more boats at the bottom of the sea. Understood?”

Both captains nodded that they did.

“Good. We’ll be leaving several of our carpenters and craftsmen here, as well as all of the legionaries we have left. I don’t expect us to set up any more ports and they won’t be able to do much when we take on these supply ships, so it’s better to leave them here to help protect this location. And I think that about sums it up. You all have work to do. I’m very serious about sailing at first light, and the next time we stop will be to intercept a potentially hostile fleet, so I want every ship as seaworthy as possible. You all have a lot of work to do, so get to it.”