The Fires of Vulcan - Chapter 19

Port Invictus

Velius stood atop the walls of Port Invictus, surveying the sprawling Carthaginian siege works encircling the city, taking in the trenches and barriers dug by the enemy to protect themselves from the Britannian artillery. Despite this artillery, the Carthaginians had made steady progress toward the city walls. At the rate they were gaining ground, Velius estimated they would be close enough to assault the walls and get clear of his artillery in a few weeks’ time.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, pressing against his eyelids, trying to smother the headache that had been gaining on him. A week of hard travel without much sleep, spurred on by the desire to get to his men, was starting to catch up with him.

The cohorts defending Port Invictus were battle-hardened but depleted, slowly being whittled down by the need to man the line of forts and protect supply trains. Even if he’d had a full legion here, he lacked the numbers for a direct sally against the Carthaginians. Gordianus had arrived with his legion in the mountains the evening before, but they might as well have been on the other side of the world, what with the sea of Carthaginians between them.

His only hope was that they could hold out until their massive foe was whittled down to the point they were forced to pull back. Even with their trenches and log barriers, they were losing hundreds of men a day, by Velius’s estimate, and that was before Gordianus got fully engaged. Still, it would be weeks before they finally killed enough to force them to retreat.

At least he still had supplies coming in from the sea, so he didn’t have to worry about starving.

As if in answer to his thoughts, in the distance, fire erupted from Gordianus’s legion camped on the mountainside. Shells smashed into the Carthaginians, mostly into the ground around the trenches on the mountainside of the Carthaginian positions, as his gunners got their aim, with only a few landing on the trenches themselves. The ones that did hit the trenches destroyed everything mercilessly, throwing bodies and material into the air like dolls.

Unfortunately, the Carthaginians had laid their defenses out well, with the trenches going to the foot of the mountains and stretching a ways back before opening up to a middle position between the two wide sets of trenches. From Gordianus’s present position, their artillery could currently only reach part of the Carthaginian forces encircling Port Invictus. They couldn’t reach the middle section which was unprotected by trenches and filled with tents and supplies for their soldiers.

When Gordianus pushed forward, he’d be able to rain shells there, destroying the Carthaginians’ safe area between the two sets of cannon. Of course, to push forward, Gordianus would have to deal with the Carthaginians already on the mountainside. They were the ones set to perform the ambushes Aelius had mentioned. Through his glass, he could see men moving toward Gordianus, up the mountainside, angling in on where the cannons were firing.

Gordianus was an experienced soldier, though, and had prepared for it. As the Carthaginians scrambled up the mountain, smaller puffs of smoke appeared all across the crest as riflemen, probably the legion’s best shots, began picking them off. With impressive rapidity, bodies began to roll back down the slope, like shells dropping from a fishing net as it lifted into the air.

The Carthaginians weren’t going to be able to dislodge the seventh legion from their position. Not with cannons and rifles able to fire down the slope. What they could do was slow their progress down the mountainside even more.

It was frustrating.

“Sir, look,” one of Aelius’s tribunes said, pointing down towards the closest trenches.

Velius looked through his spyglass, following where the tribune was pointing. A group of Carthaginian soldiers rushed forward, pushing large, wheeled catapults toward the walls of the port, but were still inside the trenches. It was unclear if they would be able to launch their payloads from there, but Velius doubted they’d have deployed them if they didn’t think it would work.

“Target the catapults!” Velius yelled to his gunnery officers. “Concentrate fire on them!”

The wall cannons roared, belching clouds of grey smoke as they fired. Shells arced through the air and smashed against the Carthaginian barricades. Wood and dirt sprayed into the air where the shells impacted. Several balls found their targets, landing past the barricades and into the trenches themselves. Two of the catapults disappeared in blasts of fire and shrapnel.

But more machines were already being pushed forward, weaving through the trenches to replace the ones that had been destroyed. His cannons were too few to cover the entire encircling siege line and many of the wall positions didn’t have a good angle on the newly erected barricades sheltering the catapults.

Whenever he knocked out one position, more machines were brought up to take their place. The Carthaginians were willing to absorb losses to get their catapults in range of the walls. Once there, they could begin bombarding the walls and city in earnest.

The walls could take the pounding, as could the port itself. Whatever they destroyed could be rebuilt. If they rained enough stones, they could create enough casualties to make it impossible to hold the port. Which had to be their plan. Worse, if it was flaming rounds. Most of the gunpowder was in protected stores, but they had to have cartridges with the cannons. A few fabric balls soaked in tar and lit on fire could destroy entire positions, taking whole chunks out of the wall if they hit the gunpowder near a cannon.

And he couldn’t just take their ammunition away. Without the cannons’ continual fire, the Carthaginians would charge, attempting to take the wall.

“Increase the rate of fire. Destroy those catapults,” he ordered.

The order wasn’t needed. His men saw them and understood the danger. It was more a sign of his own uneasiness with the situation. It wasn’t enough to stop the Carthaginian effort. Several of the catapults had their arms pulled back, ammunition being loaded into their baskets.

“Brace for impact,” he ordered. “Have the gunners secure their ammunition as best they can. Possible incendiary rounds.”

There wasn’t much they could do, but at least they’d be warned.

As he watched, a catapult arm slapped forward, sending its payload sailing through the air. As soon as it cleared the trench, a part of Velius’s mind recognized that something was different. It wasn’t a large ball of rope soaked in tar, nor was it a stone. It looked like a large clay pot, which was unusual. He’d heard of pots full of oil being thrown, prior to flaming rounds, intended to increase the damage caused. That kind of thing wouldn’t damage the walls, and the Carthaginians would know that. Yes, it would increase the chances of gunpowder being set off, but it didn’t seem likely the Carthaginians would know that.

He was still trying to process what he was seeing when the unthinkable happened. The container smashed against the wall and exploded, expanding out in a ball of flame. Chunks of masonry blew away from the wall, leaving a gouge in the side of the wall. It took a moment for the sheer shock of what he was seeing to pass and his brain to work again. He was still in disbelief that the Carthaginians could have gotten gunpowder, but it wasn’t exactly the same as theirs. If that container had been even half full of Britannian gunpowder, the explosion would have been larger, which meant either the container was practically empty, which was possible but didn’t seem likely, or it was weaker than what they used.

Velius didn’t understand the substance fully, but he’d had a conversation with Hortensius the previous year when they were developing it, and he remembered the manufacturer talking about testing to find the right ratios to give just enough explosive power. Even weaker though, it was still a huge danger.

Velius’s worry was proven correct when two more pots sailed through the air. One exploded prematurely, well away from the walls, suggesting there was some kind of pre-lit fuse on the pots, but the other landed close to one of the cannons. Close enough that the fireball itself, or perhaps some flaming debris, hit the cannon’s supply of gunpowder. The explosion showed just how different their gunpowder was from what the Carthaginians were firing.

The explosion shook the ground under Velius’s feet halfway across the port and obliterated not only the cannon and its crew, but an entire section of the wall. The cannon tube itself flew high into the air, smashing to the ground outside the walls, as chunks of masonry flew in all directions amidst billowing smoke and dust.

His other cannoneers recognized the danger and intensified their fire against the catapults, but it was a losing battle. He didn’t know how much gunpowder they had, but they weren’t keeping it all with the catapults. He could see a pair of men running through a trench with one of the containers using his spyglass, along with more catapults being wheeled into position.

With that one shot, the entire chain of logic for his defense was crushed. The gap in the wall from the cannon explosion didn’t reach to the ground, but it was large, and it wouldn’t take much more pounding to rip a sizable hole in the entire wall or send that section crumbling to the ground, and that was one hit. They wouldn’t last until Gordianus pushed into the Carthaginian line. Port Invictus was going to fall.

The only question that remained was how many of his men he was going to lose before it did. Even as his mind raced for solutions, two more rounds impacted, one outside the wall and another just inside the wall, ripping the men it landed among to shreds, the shards of the pot like shrapnel, cutting down men outside the blast down like wheat.

“What the hell was that?” Aelius asked, rushing up from the interior of the port where he’d been directing the men’s movement.

Instead of answering the legate’s question, Velius said, “Prepare to pull your men back to the docks.”

“What?” Aelius asked, a shocked look on his face. “We’re giving up the port?”

“Yes. We can’t hold it, not if they’re throwing explosives. We could keep pounding at their catapults as they bring them up, but they only need one lucky shot for a breach, and they’ll storm us. If the wall breaches, there’s no way we’re going to hold it. We need to save as many of our men as we can. I’m not throwing away the lives of two cohorts for a fort we can’t hold.”

“I can stay, lead the defense here …”

Velius cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand, “You will take the bulk of the men and evacuate to the ships in the harbor. I will remain with two centuries of volunteers to ensure your escape.”

“But, sir …” Aelius began to protest.

“That’s an order, Legate,” Velius said firmly. “Gather the men swiftly and board the ships. We don’t have time, so don’t bother with supplies, just get as many men onto the water as possible. I will keep the Carthaginians occupied as best I can to make sure you get clear.”

Aelius’s expression made it clear he didn’t agree, but an order was an order. As more explosions boomed outside the walls, he turned and stomped off, bellowing orders to get the men moving.

Waving a messenger over, Velius said, “Send a signal to Gordianus to pull his legion back to the first fort. Have him alert the Consul about the enemy’s new weapon and await further instructions from him. If the enemy approaches the fort, abandon it and withdraw to the next in line in a fighting retreat. On open ground and mobile, they won’t have a chance to dig trenches, and his cannons can outrange their catapults. He is to conduct a fighting retreat, but he is not to endanger his command until the Consul responds.”

The messengers raced off as more clay pots streaked overhead and burst against the walls. The crumbling section of the curtain wall trembled under the impacts. They were clearly focusing their fire on the already damaged section, hoping to create a breach they could exploit. And it was working. Already, the gap was widening.

Velius addressed the men nearby, “I need two hundred volunteers to remain as a rear guard while the rest escape.” Only the grimmest determination showed on the faces of the men that stepped forward. They knew the likely outcome yet stood firm.

“Form up on the inner curtain, with the strongest defenses opposite the breached outer wall. Abandon the outer cannons. They will shortly be in enemy hands regardless. I want you to go to the gunpowder magazine and pull all of it out,” he said, indicating about a third of the men waiting for orders. “I want it all mounded by the inner wall. Every bit of it. Everyone else, make for the docks. Move.”

An explosion thundered deafeningly close, blasting another section of the wall in a hail of stone fragments. Looking over his shoulder, down the sloped ground to the docks, he could see boats already making their way out to sea, towards the caravel and supply ships waiting in the harbor, with more men stacked up on the beach, waiting to join them. With only two cohorts, it wouldn’t take long for all of the men to be evacuated.

Another series of explosions rocked the battered fortifications. The deep rumble of falling masonry followed each blast. The air filled with dust and smoke, reducing visibility to a grey haze.

Velius returned his focus to his tiny force manning the secondary wall, trusting Aelius to get the men out. Then, he began to move with the rest of the men to the inner curtain.

With the cannons no longer firing, the Carthaginian firing intensified. Explosion after explosion sent showers of stone raining down as the breaches in the outer fortifications rapidly widened and then finally broke, leaving a wide gap in the outer wall.

The Carthaginians sensed their moment. Through the smoke and dust, Velius could make out a mass of figures spilling out of their trenches like ants from an ant pile. They charged the wall, pouring through the gaps and into the space between the inner and outer walls like water through a crumbling dam. Sharp cries and exultant shouts rose from the enemy as they sensed victory close at hand.

“Prepare for assault!” Velius bellowed, his voice hoarse from breathing the smoke-filled air. The remaining men rushed to take up positions along the wall walk, weapons at the ready. With their men this close in, the catapult firing stopped, not that they’d need it. He didn’t have the cannon and the number of men to hold the wall from their scaling attempts.

The first ladder smashed against the wall, the metal latches at the end of it clattering against the battlement to hold it in place. One of Velius’s men brought his sword down on the wood connecting the metal hooks, starting to cut it through. Another legionnaire leaned over his rifle, pointing down and firing, hopefully killing a man climbing up. More followed, thudding into the stone facade of the tower at the corner of the wall. Velius watched enemy soldiers start to swarm up the parapets.

The area between the walls was filling with men, thousands of them, with more pressing against the gap in the outer wall, trying to get in. His two hundred men weren’t going to hold this for long. Already, bolts from Carthaginian-style arcuballista were sailing over the wall, and Britannians started to fall, increasing the already impossible odds.

A husky Carthaginian warrior hauled himself over the crenellations, pushing past the body of the legionnaire he had just gutted. With a wordless cry of rage, he charged. Velius met the charge, knocking aside the sword swung at him. His shoulder slammed into the larger man’s chest, driving him back over the parapet.

It didn’t matter. None of them were going to survive this. He was just buying time for Aelius to get the bulk of the forces away and to let the Carthaginian forces build up, pressed hard against the wall. He wanted as many inside the curtain, or just outside of it, as he could get.

Which was exactly what was happening, as men packed in, shoulder to shoulder, attempting to make it up the inner wall at the same time.

“Light it,” he yelled to the legionnaire below, standing next to the entire supply of powder left in the port, originally intended for the legions and other forts.

Pallets of filled cannon charges, hundreds of barrels of loose powder, and boxes of pre-packaged rifle rounds by the tens of thousands. A massive supply of gunpowder, all stacked together. And a legionnaire with a lit torch.

The man paused, which was only natural, considering what he’d just been ordered to do. To his credit, the hesitation only lasted a heartbeat. He knew what he was fighting for and what the stakes were. Looking up at Velius, his face scrunched tight, and he threw the torch into an opened barrel of gunpowder.

The world seemed to freeze for a single heartbeat as Velius watched the torch fall. Then the powder ignited in a flash more brilliant than the noonday sun. The eruption expanded outward, enveloping barrels, crates, and men alike in a tidal wave of destruction.