The Triumph of Venus - Chapter 23

The Port of Kalb, Hispania

Cormac leaned back in the chair at Niall’s desk and listened to the crashing waves and bustle of the docks below, and closed his eyes, relishing the moment. He felt bad about how often he kicked the commander out of his own workspace, and if he was honest, there were probably other temporary accommodations he could set up while he was operating out of the port, but he preferred the commander’s office.

Besides being convenient to messengers and soldiers as needed, he liked how it sat above the docks. High enough that not too much noise came in the window, which allowed him to leave it open for the nice breeze that came off the middle sea, but close enough he could still look out and see the bustle and the high masted ships coming.

A knock at the door drew him out of his reverie, and to the reason he was sitting in the office at all.

“Come,” Cormac commanded, sitting up and schooling his features.

Cormac watched as the Arandur representative was led into the office by two legionaries, his face pressed into a scowl. The man wasn’t in manacles or even being touched by the men, but it was clear from his face he hadn’t come willingly.

“Welcome, friend,” Cormac said, standing up from behind the plain wooden table that served as a desk. “Please, have a seat.”

The man gave the two soldiers a look, as if assessing if he could just leave or not, before stepping forward and taking the offered seat. As he did, the men moved to stand on either side of the door, inside the room, as Cormac had instructed them to do before they left to retrieve his guest.

“Some wine, perhaps?” Cormac gestured to a clay jug and goblets on the table.

“I’m no friend of yours, Britannian,” the man finally snarled. “Your soldiers dragged me here against my will. What gives you the right to accost a free man of Hispania in such a manner?”

Cormac held up a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Please, I apologize if my men gave you any indication that your presence here was forced. That was not my intention.”

Of course, that was a lie. Cormac’s men had dragged the representative here very much against his will, on Cormac’s instructions. Something he had learned from Medb was to always stack the deck when negotiating. Instead of trying to predict the reaction of the person you’d be against, set up a scenario that was most likely to produce a reaction you could work with ahead of time. Besides, it was satisfying to see the usually brash and cocksure man looking so off-balance.

“Well, I cannot say I appreciate being fetched like some errant child. Now, perhaps you might tell me what was so urgent as to justify this...discourtesy.”

“Straight to business then. Very well. We have concluded our investigation into the recent attack on one of your outlying villages. We have found some...inconsistencies with the accounts from your survivors. In short, we believe the attack never happened. It was staged.”

“What!?” the man spluttered, his face reddening. “This - this is an outrage! You dare accuse us of fabricating an assault that cost our tribesmen their very lives?”

Cormac just sat there and listened as the man repeated himself, over and over. Demanding apologies, for all intents and purposes completely flabbergasted that anyone would dare think his people would do something so reprehensible.

“You can deny it all you want, but we know the truth,” Cormac said when the man’s denials finally wound down. “The damage to your village was extremely localized, and the people were clearly afraid of the warriors accompanying the main I sent to investigate. Meanwhile, every other raided village was nearly burned to the ground, with widespread destruction. Not a single person was able to accurately identify which tribe had supposedly raided them. Yet every other raided village had no trouble pointing to the Arandur as the ones who raided them.”

The man started to say something, another denial, most likely.

“Furthermore,” Cormac said, leaning forward and speaking over him. “The injuries on the so-called victims were still fresh. The man we sent is a seasoned warrior with decades of battle experience. He knows what fresh wounds are and can tell the difference between those and injuries that happened days or even weeks prior. He is quite certain these supposed ‘attacks’ happened after our last gathering of the tribes - after you had already laid claim to being raided.”

“I don’t care what you think you can prove. You Britannians are no different than the Carthaginians who came before. You swoop in thinking you can decide what is best for Hispania and her tribes,” the representative said, his credulous expression fading as he jabbed a finger at Cormac. “What matters here are the tribes themselves, who have never gotten along, always fighting each other for land, resources, and power. The Carthaginians at least understood that. They knew that if they let the powerful tribes have their way, there would be peace of a sort. Something you Britannians still need to learn.”

The man leaned back, his standard over-confident demeanor back in place, as if he hadn’t been outraged moments before.

“If you keep insisting that all the tribes work together under your high-minded rules, all you will get is chaos and bloodshed as we fight among ourselves.”

“That sounds remarkably like a threat. Are you saying that if I refuse to provide weapons to the Arandur or hold you accountable for violating our agreements, you will sabotage relations with other tribes and provoke more conflict in the region?”

“Take it however you want, Britannian,” the man said with a shrug. “I’m simply telling you how things work around here. The tribes have never gotten along, and they never will. That’s the natural order of things. But if you keep pressing this and refuse to sell to my people, then we’ll have no choice but to make sure the other tribes know how duplicitous you really are.”

“I see,” Cormac said, remaining calm and thinking back to some of the things his wife had said about negotiation. “Then let me make my position equally as clear. Britannia will not be coerced by threats from those who violate their agreements with us. Nor will we allow chaos and bloodshed to spread unchecked. If the Arandur insist on raiding their neighbors despite our warnings, then they will face severe consequences.”

The man started to respond until Cormac held up a hand, stopping him, “Don’t bother with any more of your threats. Tell anyone what you think you have to. I think you misjudge the wisdom of your neighbors and your own place in their eyes.”

“You aren’t from here and know nothing of us. You think the other tribes will just stand by while you crack down on us? They’ll see your hypocrisy for what it is.”

“We shall see,” Cormac said. “Thank you for coming.”

The man glared at Cormac but didn’t say anything further, instead standing and stomping toward the door. The two legionaries glanced questioningly at Cormac, who gave a slight shake of his head. Each man stepped aside, allowing the representative, who never looked back at Cormac nor said anything while this was taking place, to leave, following the man outside as he did.

Cormac sat in silence for a long time after that, thinking. While their conversation didn’t end the way Cormac had hoped, it did end more or less how he predicted it was. Now he had to decide what to do next.

***

Rome, Italia

As his legion spread out into long firing lines, interspersed with batteries of artillery, Bomilcar looked toward the walls of Rome. For months, they’d slowly plotted to reach this point, delayed again and again by the string of attacks up and down their supply lines.

Now that they were here, he wasn’t even sure it was worth it, even with the towering wall the Carthaginians built around it. Once this had been a magnificent city, the heart of what was the Roman Republic, which his own ancestors had fought so hard to capture. Now it was a shadow of its former self. He had been in the city several times over the years, before his life and allegiances had taken such a drastic turn, and every time he’d been shocked by the state it had allowed itself to fall to. Gone were the parts of the city that had once held massive temples and architecture, if the artists who’d rendered paintings of it were to be believed, replaced by small ramshackle homes built shoulder to shoulder, a crowded and intertwined mess.

If it weren’t for its symbolic value, Bomilcar would have as soon bypassed the city altogether, finishing it off at some future time. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that luxury. Every day they had gotten closer to the city, his Roman legionnaires had become more excited by the prospect of retaking their ancestral homes. While Bomilcar was sure they would feel differently once they got inside, he could at least understand their feeling.

“Have the batteries prepare to bombard the walls, concentrating on the gates if possible,” he commanded Gordianus. “They are to keep their fire low, to minimize damage to the city as much as possible. Although I don’t expect them to sally, keep the cohorts in line and prepared to repel an attack.”

“Yes, Legate,” Gordianus said, saluting and riding off.

Bomilcar watched him go. He was a good man and, by all rights, should have taken over the Seventh Legion after the unfortunate loss of Velius. He would have done a good job at it too. Bomilcar had already talked to the Consul about finding a legion for the man, but politics played their hand and Marcus, who’d already been groomed for a position, had gotten there first.

Twenty minutes later, the cannon began firing, smashing iron balls into the stone and brick walls. Aside from the normal cannon that had made up the Britannian batteries since their formation, he had several pieces of a new style of cannon the Consul had called howitzers. While he was duly impressed with their range, he immediately ordered the fire from those weapons ceased as their first shots sailed over the walls of Rome and into the city proper.

He could see the advantage of these weapons, able to be fired behind the line instead of slotted into the line and drop down on any part of the enemy line, used much like he’d used archers or catapults before he’d been introduced to firearms. They would even be useful in a siege where he wasn’t trying to protect the city proper, as he was here.

For almost an hour, his cannon pounded away at the walls, sending sections crumbling to the ground. Not enough to try and exploit yet, but signs that it was working. One of the large gates opposite him had also suffered a direct hit, smashing in the upper portion of the door.

It wouldn’t be much longer until the breaches were large enough to begin to exploit. While that was good, Bomilcar was still bothered. The enemy had tried a few ranging shots with their hurled jars of gunpowder, all of which exploded well short of his position, and then fell silent.

In the few times they’d faced the weapons, the Carthaginians had been liberal with their use, as if they had no care of supply at all, even when the ranges were against them. To see the weapons fall silent now worried Bomilcar slightly.

“Have the cannons pause after every five volleys and the men listen for digging. I’m not sure what they’re up to, but I don’t want another crater like the one they created outside of Daramouda.”

The messenger saluted and ran off to begin relaying the message.

“Do you think they’ll try it again?” Gordianus, who’d returned a few minutes previously, asked.

“They might. It didn’t work then, but the damage was fairly catastrophic. Had they gone around the crater instead of in it, they might have broken our lines. Well, and if the Consul hadn’t been there to lay waste to the ones that tried. I just don’t want any surprises.”

“The walls are already starting to breach. It won’t be long until we can take the city. Maybe they’re holding back their gunpowder for then, since they know it’s coming.”

“Maybe,” Bomilcar said, unconvinced. “Have the legions pull back five hundred paces, just in case.”

“Won’t that leave the artillery exposed?”

“Only minorly. We’re a fair distance from the gate and can move back into position quickly if the enemy sallies.”

Gordianus nodded and began sending messengers to the cohort commanders.

Bomilcar watched his men begin to shift back, away from the line he’d created. If the enemy was digging, it would take time for them to pass the word to the men tunneling. He’d also been told by the Consul there was a limit to how far they could tunnel without creating air shafts, which he would be able to see. The distances had been a range and not an exact number, but his legions were now far enough back that, if they were going to set up an explosion, it wouldn’t reach his main force.

Not that it would matter soon. Gordianus had been right that the walls would be down soon. Another well-placed shot blew the gate opposite him wide open, sending the large doors tumbling back into the men on the other side, and taking some of the wall that had held the door with it. It was still too narrow for an assault, but it did mean they were close. Another breakthrough, and he’d be willing to send his men.

He was about to order a change in the artillery, to focus the fire on a few spots to create that additional breakthrough, when the ground erupted in a series of fire explosions all along the Britannian line.

It wasn’t the massive, earth-shattering explosion like outside of Daramouda, however. Instead of one massive blast, there were dozens of much smaller ones, scattered both ahead of and behind his position, not concentrated in one specific area. It also wasn’t all at once. It began with a few and built to a crescendo of explosions, past his line to the east and west, seeming to curve around the circumference of the city itself. There was also something else different about this. The holes left behind were also much smaller, more of a pit in the ground than a crater.

Taking all of that in, Bomilcar realized this wasn’t tunneled explosives out to their position, which would have taken days to reach him, but something completely new. The Carthaginians had laced their city with the explosive charges. He wasn’t sure how they’d managed to set them off, buried as they were, but they must have had some kind of fuse he’d missed. They must have also done it around the entire city, or at least the northern half of the city, since they couldn’t know the direction his men had come from.

Unfortunately, the range of the explosions didn’t just go east to west. Some were well in front of his artillery by dozens of paces and some were so far behind as to be in the middle of where he sent his infantry. Worse, the explosions alone were not causing all of the damage. The Carthaginians’ explosions looked to be sending out a lot of shrapnel when they exploded, very similar to how their own canister rounds worked.

The worst damage, however, occurred when an explosion launched out of the ground almost directly beneath an ammunition carriage, causing a chain reaction of an explosion that sent the tube of the cannon sailing into the air, hurtling end over end. Thankfully, it sailed toward Rome and not back into his cohorts.

“Move the infantry further back, out of the blast zone,” Bomilcar commanded, not flinching as one of his messengers was suddenly struck down by the flying shrapnel. “Batteries are to hold position and maintain fire, but back their ammunition carriages out.”

He was willing to accept the risk of losing a few more cannon if it meant continuing to open the breaches in the wall, but he wasn’t prepared for more of his ammunition reserves to go up.

Almost as soon as the ripple of explosions began, they ended. His messengers had barely gotten to the closest cohorts when the rate of explosions began to gradually slow until it was only one or two, with long spaces of time in between each. In some part of Bomilcar’s mind, he realized that must be from however they rigged up fuses, since it was unlikely to be a stable or controllable process. It also made sense that some would have gone unexploded and would be a hazard for people crossing this land in the future.

Not that any of that mattered now. Unless they were completely braindead, they would follow that display up with a counterattack, since they had to know it was unlikely to completely decimate his forces on its own.

“Bring the cohorts back in line. At the double step,” he ordered, sending more aides rushing off.

Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, however, the enemy launched their attack as a line of cavalry poured out of the entrance into the city, riding hard for his line.

Bomilcar didn’t wait for messengers, instead turning his horse and riding along the line of artillery.

“Load canister!” he shouted. “Fire by battery.”

He repeated the command down the line, hearing it echo as men heard him and saw what was coming their way. A few cannons fired wildly to clear the charge they had already set up while the rest of the crews leapt into action, lowering the barrels to preset ranges and pushing thin metal tubes with solid bases designed to break apart as soon as they cleared the cannon, creating an additional layer of shrapnel.

The men had trained on this maneuver and did him proud, each holding fire until the well over two hundred horsemen thundering toward them came in range. The artillery went off almost as one as the horsemen came in range, letting loose huge billowing clouds of grey smoke as their metal charges ripped across the open field, tearing down scores of horses.

The gunners began clearing and reloading their weapons almost instantly, but it was unlikely they’d get another chance before the horses made contact. Bomilcar was about to order their retreat when a thundering of footsteps caught his attention. Before he could even turn, legionnaires began skidding to a halt from a full run into their previous positions. They didn’t wait for orders or coordinated fire. Any man who arrived fired as soon as he was in position, before kneeling to reload, allowing any men behind him to also fire.

Bomilcar turned his horse to see Gordianus riding across the field, cajoling men into position, ordering them to fire at will, without waiting for the others.

At first, it was a handful, mostly misses, but that quickly became a continuous ripple of gunfire as more and more men got into position and began to fire. It wasn’t the crashing wave a full volley would have produced, but it was enough to turn the already injured cavalry. A few persisted and made it to his lines, crashing into gunners and riflemen, who then made quick work of the isolated rider. There were casualties, but the Carthaginians had missed their chance to break his line after their clever plan. The small amount of infantry that had begun to come out of the broken gates reversed themselves almost instantly as they saw the cavalry charge dissolve, its remnants riding hard back the way they’d come.

“Fix bayonets. Forward, at the quick step,” Bomilcar commanded as soon as the cavalry charge disintegrated.

The enemy would get jammed up in their own door, everyone pushing to get back inside, giving him a window to follow on their heels, taking advantage of the chaos to smash into their rear and break through into the city. He hoped that the enemy used most of their gunpowder, but even if they hadn’t, he was going to have to assault the wall and deal with their gunpowder eventually.

Either way, the city was theirs. Their army was in chaos and they’d spent their one chance. Now it was just a question of the cost.