The Fires of Vulcan - Chapter 16

Outside Factorium

Lucilla sat in the carriage, watching the familiar countryside roll past in a blur of green and gold. She’d taken this trip so many times that she was almost comfortable with the bouncing and jostling, although they were turning for a detour, heading to the new work camp south of the manufacturing city. She was both eager and apprehensive about inspecting the new labor camp.

It was a necessary solution to their critical worker shortage, but the security complexities still troubled her. That was why she’d insisted on seeing the facility for herself, over the objections of her guards.

Glancing across from her, Lucilla studied the stern, chiseled profile of Praetorian Prefect Faenius who, along with Ramirus, was giving her a tour of the facility. The stalwart commander sat rigidly upright, fully armored even for this routine journey. She didn’t know the commander well, relying on Ramirus for most internal security matters, as he took care of coordinating most issues with the Praetorian. Apparently, Faenius had something on his mind as well.

As soon as he saw her turn her attention toward him, the commander said, “There’s something we must discuss regarding the priest Vesnius.”

“What did he do this time?” she asked, annoyed that she was going to have to once again deal with the troublesome priest.

“Last week, my men observed Vesnius meeting secretly with the consort Medb near the market, where they conspired in private in a side alley.”

“What do you mean by ‘conspired’?”

“My man overheard only part of the conversation, but it was clear she was inciting the priest to continue his attacks on your rule and pushing him to do more. It was evident to my man that she was manipulating him, and Vesnius was buying into it.”

“Why am I just now hearing about this?” Lucilla asked.

“My men don’t spend much time with imperial guests. I wanted to have my man see Medb when she made one of her trips out of the palace, to confirm that the person he saw was indeed the Ulaid consort. He only confirmed it was her yesterday.”

Medb. It made sense. Lucilla knew the former queen harbored ambitions of power, though Cormac seemed oblivious to his wife’s true motivations. It also explained Vesnius’s xenophobic tirades as of late. The high priest had always been naive, but she hadn’t considered he’d be this easily manipulated.

“You’re certain that what your man heard was Medb pushing him to preach more dissent?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Claudius is a good man. Smart and reasonable. I trust his report implicitly. I also believe this matter demands our swiftest action, before their schemes progress further. I can’t imagine she’s doing this just to cause trouble. She has something specific in mind.”

Lucilla looked out the window, contemplating the report. She had hoped to avoid direct confrontation with the irritating priest, but Faenius was right. This secret collusion with the scheming Medb was alarming and could not be ignored. Decisive measures would be needed to suppress the brewing rebellion and maintain stability in the kingdom.

“Very well,” she said finally, turning to meet the Praetorian’s gaze. “Have your men arrest Vesnius immediately, but do so quietly, away from any crowds. We cannot risk inflaming tensions by making a public spectacle of it.”

Faenius inclined his head, “Of course, Your Majesty. My people will be discreet.”

“See that they are,” Lucilla said. “Make sure he’s comfortable, but keep him away from anyone else. He’s always been a true believer, and if she’s warped his mind, we won’t be able to change it back. At least not quickly. We need him off the street and not causing any more trouble until I deal with Queen Medb.”

“I understand, Your Majesty,” Faenius replied, serious.

Lucilla gave him a nod. He was a good man, and she knew he’d take care of it. Now she just had to figure out what to do about Medb. This situation was rife with political and security risks. Ulaid citizens were still pouring into the capital, and they loved their prince, who in turn loved his wife.

He’d already been causing problems, almost certainly provoked by his wife. Now she was out there provoking the priest and who knew who else. She was definitely working on a plan, and it would result in people getting killed.

No, Lucilla definitely needed to deal with the queen. She just had to figure out how to do it right.

“We’re here,” Ramirus said, interrupting her thoughts.

Lucilla looked across at Ramirus and out the opposite window, catching her first view of the work camp.

She had to hand it to them, the large fence was impressive. The design was provided by Sophus when the project to build the prison camp started, it was unlike anything she had seen before. Strings of the new steel wire Hortensius was manufacturing were criss-crossed in a pattern making diamond-like shapes stretched between two metal poles, with the pattern then repeating to the next and the next pole, until it formed a see-through wall that encircled the new work factory.

When Sophus had first suggested it, she’d been skeptical. It hadn’t seemed that this chain-linked fence, as her disembodied friend had called it, would be strong enough to hold anyone in, but when wrapped tight against the metal posts, which were dug deep into the ground, it appeared to be surprisingly effective. The metal wire was extremely hard and made an effective boundary.

To make it difficult to scale, they had topped the fence with another addition provided by Sophus called barbed wire. This was more of the wire used for the fence, but with regularly spaced sharpened protrusions on it, like the thorns on a rose. It was rolled along the top of the fence in long coils that would both cut into anyone trying to climb over it and cause them to get wrapped up in it, since it wasn’t pulled tight, but only looped through the top set of gaps in the chain link. A second fence was then built outside of the first with a several-pace gap in between the two, meaning that anyone scaling it would have to scale one, and then scale another to escape.

That was only the external wall. The camp was also subdivided into sections, with a long prisoner barracks separated in one area, also with fencing around it, and a separate factory area. The entire complex was a maze of metal wire and walkways, with guards spread throughout, both on the ground armed with clubs and in towers, armed with rifles.

Yes, it really was impressive at first glance.

“Welcome, Your Majesty,” Ramirus said, coming around the carriage toward the main gate of the compound.

“This is very impressive,” she said, echoing her previous thought.

“I agree. The notes the Consul left you on this new fencing material are really what makes this possible,” he said, a sly smile on his lips as he continued. “Hortensius was particularly impressed with the new galvanizing procedure. I had to sit through a thirty-minute lecture about all of its benefits and his plans to rework one of his foundries to specialize in galvanizing large amounts of steel.”

“He gets enthusiastic,” Lucilla, who’d been forced to sit through many of those lectures, said.

“Let me show you the camp,” he said, extending his arm toward the open front gate.

It had taken some doing to get her guards to agree to this tour, since there were obvious risks to putting their leader this close to so many prisoners, but she was still concerned about this entire notion of using them as workers and wanted to see what Ramirus had set up first hand. In the end, for them to agree it had required Faenius and a hundred of his men to be present, in addition to her guards and the normal camp guards, as well as having every prisoner locked into their barracks, which was in turn locked behind the wire fence. In spite of all that, her men and Faenius looked nervous as they started the tour.

There was still one unoccupied barracks as Faenius continued to vet those prisoners who volunteered. While it wasn’t exactly comfortable, with rows and rows of beds, a small chest at the foot of each, where dozens of men would sleep at a time, it was preferable to the tents and dirt floors they’d used in the camp outside of Devnum. That had started as a temporary solution and they didn’t have the cleared land there to build something large like this. One of the reasons the site of Factorium had been selected was the available land not being used for farming that could be used to expand into. It also helped that this was only a small portion of the prisoners they currently held. There were just too many captured Carthaginians to make this kind of thing practical for all of them.

The factory itself was more concerning. Although it was in its own fenced-in area, the building was set up like all of Hortenisus’s other factories, except that instead of being devoted to one thing, it was larger with sections to produce each of the products from his other factories. At first, she’d thought they might have some kind of protective walls here, but the more she thought about it, the more it was clear that wasn’t possible. So many pipes and metal shafts ran across the building that it just wasn’t possible. What that meant, however, was that this would be the largest concentration of men in the complex, and they would be using sharp tools and fire, and they weren’t blocked from moving around freely in the building.

The only different feature was a series of catwalks near the ceiling, presumably for armed guards. It was unlikely they’d have enough bullets to kill everyone on the shop floor if everything fell apart. Possibly it was a deterrent, since they could kill some of the prisoners, and no one on the floor would know if they would be one of the unlucky targets.

“I’m worried we may have made a mistake here,” she said, turning to the two men with her. “This seems impossibly risky. I can see a dozen tools that could be used as a weapon from right here, and I’m sure there’s more I’m not taking into account. Things could get out of hand here faster than the men we’ll have guarding them can react.”

“I agree, it’s a problem,” Faenius said, looking from Lucilla to Ramirus. “My Praetorians are spread too thin to properly vet each prisoner volunteer as it is. We’re relying on secondhand information from other prisoners and gossip, which is far from ideal. The only troublemakers we’ve been able to weed out are the ones who’ve given my men trouble directly or who my men have seen cause problems firsthand. It’s unlikely that we’ve kept all of the real problem cases out.”

“Both valid concerns, which is why we’ve built in all the precautions we have,” Ramirus said. “Yes, it’s possible that we might get violence or lose control of the prisoners. That’s a problem even in the holding camps where these men have all been living since being captured. If anything, we have more control of them here than we do in their current camps. Even if it does get out of control, the building itself is locked down. The prisoners are contained within the double fence. At best, they’d take the building, but we’d be able to take it back.”

Lucilla remained unconvinced. The vast space of the factory was filled with heavy machinery, assembly lines, and vats of molten metal. She could see the potential for chaos if a riot broke out among the prisoners working the machinery.

“I’m going to be blunt,” Lucilla said. “I think we moved too fast on this plan and may have jeopardized security in our haste to address the urgent labor shortage.”

“The realities that drove us to this decision haven’t changed. We could shut everything down, but we’d be right back to falling dangerously behind on producing what we need for the war effort,” Ramirus said, and then paused a moment before continuing carefully. “Are you ordering me to shut the work camp down?”

Lucilla pressed her lips together. She was stuck. As much as the risks worried her, they didn’t really have much of a choice.

“No,” she said finally. “But I want you and Faenius to go over all of the security arrangements again. Make absolutely certain we have contingencies in place in case things go badly here.”

She turned and surveyed the sprawling factory grounds, her sense of unease not abated. The web of chain-link fencing might seem secure at first glance, but people could do amazing things, especially when they were desperate. The insurrection and the waves of attacks by her brother’s loyalists had all but proven that.

In the end, it came down to a balance of risks. They had to win this war, or the Carthaginians would make a prison uprising look mild in comparison to the death and destruction they would unleash. It’s why she’d agreed to this in the first place, despite her better judgment.

Seeing this place in person, with its fences and guard towers, and this large open factory floor, she was worried she was being forced into a mistake by her own desperation. But … they were still desperate. Maybe not in the same way they were when the Carthaginians were right outside their walls, but the stakes were just as high even now.

She could only hope that they’d made the right choice … and brace for the consequences if they hadn’t.

***

Belgica, Near the Rhine

Ky rode his horse through the dense woods behind the rows of legionaries, their formation broken by a mass of trees. Although this was part of the plan, he was uneasy. This was exactly the type of terrain he’d been trying to avoid fighting in since arriving on the continent. It limited the use of his rifles and made cannons all but useless. Cannonballs would only go a few dozen meters before hitting a tree, deflecting and plowing into the ground, and canister would hit more trees than people. Since they broke up the front shield wall, he’d been forced to leave the artillery in the rear, waiting to be called up. Worse, it also limited the usefulness of his rifles. He still had enough of them to kill many of the enemy, but the trees would also break up the enemies’ formation, making them less massed and less vulnerable to volley fire.

All of which meant there was no way to avoid hand-to-hand combat, and in that, numbers mattered. His men were good, but there were just too many of the Carthaginians to hold out against that kind of fighting. Unfortunately, he’d been left with little choice. For two weeks, he’d been dancing with their army, trying to pull them into a fight on open ground. He’d had his local allies picking at their edges, trying to pull them into the fight he wanted, but the enemy had gotten too smart. They knew what a battle against firearms could do on open ground, and they weren’t willing to meet him on his terms. Every time he challenged, they pulled back into defensive positions deep in the forest and waited.

With the pressure from the tribes to stop the burning of their villages, Ky couldn’t just wait them out. He had to draw them into battle … and he had to win. Which meant taking serious risks to his army.

After their last unfruitful clash, the Carthaginians had pulled back to the spot they currently sat, sending out raiding parties to attack any locals they could get their hands on. He’d kept watch on them using the drone, but could really only see the camps closest to the Rhine, where the tree line thinned out. Beyond that, there were just too many trees to see through the canopy.

The army could feel the tension, marching as quietly as any he’d seen. The joking, talking, and roughhousing that men on the march normally did were gone, replaced by serious soldiers who’d steeled themselves for the coming battle. In fact, the forest as a whole was quiet. The animals that normally lived here had cleared out in the presence of so many men. In spite of the quiet army and absent animals, he couldn’t hear much. The Rhine was close enough to hear the water moving, but everything beyond that was silent, like the trees themselves were absorbing the sounds of the two large armies that were about to meet.

Three riders appeared out of the trees, their horses dodging arboreal obstacles, pushing hard. One of the men had a crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder, which told Ky all he needed to know. They’d started to see the arcuballista among the enemy over the past few weeks, although that wouldn’t help the Carthaginians in this terrain any more than his rifles would help him.

The line parted, allowing the horsemen through. One stopped next to Ky and his command group while the other two headed rearward, presumably to get the wounded man medical attention.

“Report,” Ky commanded the trooper.

“They’re about half a mille passus behind us. Their scouts must have seen our lines, because they’re already in battle formation and marching this way,” the soldier said, saluting.

Waving a salute in return, Ky turned to Bomilcar and said, “Send out the word.”

Saluting, the general and several of their aides rode back through the forest.

“Make Ready,” Ky called to his men, the front line raised their shields while the rows behind them prepared to fire, guns leveled.

Quiet blanketed the area as the legion tensed, poised for contact. Moments later, the ominous tramp of many feet became audible. Carthaginian warriors began to emerge from the trees, marching in dense columns. At first only visible piecemeal through the foliage, soon a solid mass of men stretched across the narrow open space between the tree lines. Clad in a mix of leather and linen, with the occasional bronze armor, their lines bristling with spears and swords, the enemy force radiated menace.

Ky held, waiting. These first moments had to count; they needed the Carthaginians’ blood up and their focus forward. The Carthaginians quickened their pace, bellowing war cries meant to terrify, then surged forward in a full charge.

“By the rank, fire!” Ky commanded, his words rippling down the line.

The crack of a thousand rifles roared, sounding as if the world was being snapped in two. And then a thousand more reverberated along the wide front. Again, and again each row fired, smoke covering the woods, making it look as if it were on fire.

Carthaginians fell as if they ran into a brick wall. Hundreds died, and then hundreds more. The Carthaginians were prepared for this, the men pushing the rows ahead of them forward until they became the front row themselves, never stopping, regardless of the losses.

If he had more rifles or more distance, his forces could probably have whittled down the Carthaginians until they ran out of men, but he had neither. For every four bullets that hit a man, one hit a tree, and the ones that missed, instead of hitting a man further back, would bury themselves into wood. That was truer the farther back the bullet had to travel. They were wreaking terrible losses, but there was no way to stop the forward motion of the enemy force.

“Prepare for contact!” Ky bellowed, although mostly to himself, as even his powerful voice couldn’t be heard over the noise of the rifle fire.

The Carthaginians slammed into the Roman first rank, pushing the men back as the weight of the bodies smashed into their shields. Men violently stabbed, slashed, and battered at each other amidst the deafening din. Bayoneted rifles stabbed forward and down as the rear ranks continued to hammer out shots, independently now, as chaos reigned.

“On the back step,” Ky said to the man next to him.

The legionnaire lifted a small bugle to his lips, one of the minor inventions Ky had introduced, that was significantly easier to wield than the old Roman trumpets. The man blew a series of notes, which was echoed by bugles further down either side of the line. Ky had predicted this outcome and even included it as part of their plan; the men trained tirelessly to learn the precise steps.

As if they were a single organism, the entire formation took one synchronized stride rearward without losing unit cohesion. Carthaginian warriors surged forward to fill the gap, sensing weakness. The rifles fired again, into the front ranks, before the Carthaginians slammed into contact again.

“Again,” Ky commanded.

Again, the entire line backed up and the Carthaginians surged forward, fell, and regained contact. As each rank fired, they stepped back in unison, rifles reloaded with practiced efficiency. Then the shields came up, and the macabre dance began again, the enemy surging forward to exploit the gap, only to be scythed down by another deadly volley.

All around Ky were the unmistakable sounds of close-quarters combat. The rhythmic clash of metal on metal, the grunts and cries of effort and pain, the thick, cloying smell of blood and smoke. Men fought desperately, their lives hanging in the balance. A well-timed shield bash or sword thrust spelling the difference between victory and death.

Despite their losses, the Carthaginians showed no signs of relenting. For every Roman that fell, it seemed twenty enemy warriors remained. They flowed around and past their own dead like a raging river hitting a dam, an inexorable tide seeking to overwhelm the thin Roman lines through sheer force of numbers.

Ky could see the inevitable outcome; his men would be overwhelmed by the sheer mass arrayed against them if something didn’t change soon. The plan called for this, for the losses to be taken as his men continued their slow, steady retreat, forcing them to bleed for every inch, their focus completely captured. If their timing was off, the Carthaginians would roll over them, pouring around their sides like so much water.

In fact, it had already started; the first signs that their position was worsening had begun to show. On both flanks, the weight of Carthaginian numbers was beginning to wrap around the ends of the Roman formation. If they managed to get around behind them, his army would be encircled and destroyed piecemeal.

“Pull the flanks in, curve back toward the center,” Ky bellowed to one of his nearby officers. “We have to refuse to be flanked, bend but don’t break!”

Messengers rode off in either direction to pass on the orders. The legions on the edges angled their formations, trying to present a corner rather than an edge to the enemy tide. Like bending a stiff rod, it threatened to snap their cohesion, but they had no choice. The integrity of the main line had to be preserved.

The ends could only bend for so long, however. They would either break or roll up on the rest of the formation, allowing the Carthaginians to encircle them, giving the enemy the Cannae that every general hoped to achieve.

A horse thudded toward Ky, one of the messengers who’d left with Bomilcar and his detachment.

“Where are they?” Ky demanded. “We’re being flanked; we can’t hold much longer!”

The messenger saluted. “They are nearly in position, sir. They should arrive momentarily.”

Ky ground his teeth in frustration. Momentarily could mean disaster if the line broke before then. He had no choice but to trust his subordinates, but this was the part he hated the most. Flying a fighter, he was just a part of a whole, only having to focus on his own actions. This was something else. Anything that needed to be done, he couldn’t rely only on himself. He could only hope the people he picked were as good as he thought they were, and that they’d deliver on their responsibilities.

“Commander, the left flank,” Sophus said, its voice icy calm.

Normally, he wouldn’t be able to see either end of his own lines through the trees, but he’d taken his drone in below the canopy, zipping through tree branches under Sophus’s control. If a soldier looked up, they might see a faint blue light as it sped through the trees a few meters above their heads, swinging from one end of their line to the other to give them a three-hundred and sixty-degree view of the battle.

As Sophus spoke, the drone reversed course and was crossing the right flank, catching a sudden mass of movement. A mass of axe and sword-wielding tribesmen slammed into the Carthaginian flank, doing to them exactly what they had planned to do to the Britannians.

The attack wasn’t coordinated, and there wasn’t a solid line like the Britannians had, and there might only be a thousand warriors in total, but the ferocity of their attack and the total surprise they had on the Carthaginians made up the difference.

The Carthaginians reeled back, their flanks compressing toward the middle, taking pressure off the Roman flanks and making the Carthaginians an easier target for the Britannian riflemen, whose rate of fire picked up as the legionaries saw the battle joined.

For the moment, the pendulum swung in their favor, but it wouldn’t hold for long. Already, the Carthaginians’ surprise was fading, replaced by anger as they began to counterattack, pressing out from the compressed center. There weren’t enough tribesmen to hold the Carthaginians for long. He didn’t need them to hold for long, though.

“Come on. Come on,” Ky mumbled to himself.

And then he heard it. A trumpet in the new design, like the ones he’d had signal along his lines, but sounding from in front of him, well on the other side of the Carthaginian lines.

Ky smiled a wolfish grin as the trap was sprung.

Ky watched through the drone’s camera as the last pieces of his trap fell into place. Far on the other side of the Carthaginian army, Ursinus’ legion appeared through the trees, smashing into the rear of the Carthaginian army. They had made a wide circuit, crossing and recrossing the Rhine behind the enemy’s back, while Ky kept the enemy’s attention focused on him.

“Send orders to the flanking legions. Support the tribesmen and wrap around the enemy until we meet up with Ursinus’s flanks on either side,” Ky said to messengers who saluted and rode away to pass the orders.

Pinned between the anvil of Ursinus’ advance and the hammer of the Roman flanks, the Carthaginians realized their peril too late. They tried to turn and face the new threat, but the press of their own numbers worked against them. Packed in shoulder to shoulder, unable to maneuver, they made easy targets.

The Romans tightened the noose steadily amidst the screams of the dying. What had been an organized army degenerated into a panicked mob searching vainly for an escape. The trap didn’t shut instantly, and there weren’t enough tribesmen to stop the Carthaginians from escaping out of the sides entirely. Thousands of Carthaginians ran, throwing down weapons and armor to lighten their loads, presumably ready to run all the way back to the Mediterranean. But that was still only a small part of the army. Many more, hemmed in against their comrades, didn’t make it out before the Britannian line extended fully, closing the trap entirely. And then the circle began to contract.

Ky watched impassively as the drone recorded the slaughter. Tens of thousands of Carthaginians died in those blood-soaked woods. The Cannae that the Carthaginians had envisioned had been reversed on them. Ky eventually got the slaughter to stop, with maybe five thousand Carthaginians left alive in the end, a small fraction of the army that had marched north. Most would be marched to the coast and sent back to Britannia, going through the same process as the other prisoners. Some would end up joining the legions, some would work, and some would be true believers and held in a prisoner camp until the end of the war.

Most, however, would never do anything again. Their victory had been costly, Ky had no doubt. When he finally got the count of their losses, there would be more than Ky could afford to lose. But this was the only major Carthaginian army in northern Germania. There would be more. There always were. But this victory would cement the loyalty of the tribes and allow him to begin his march south to take the Carthaginian camp.