The Depths of Neptune - Chapter 24

“Is this the last shipment?” Ky asked watching four large wagons packed with crates stamped with the recently adopted Britannic seal.

“Almost. We still have another shipment of ammunition and one last cannon and then we’ll be ready to go, although Valdar says it will only take three or four days on the outside, depending on the winds. Since your diversion needs a full week at the least to pull off any of their armies, we’re going to be sitting on our thumbs for almost that long just waiting. Hortensius has taken the extra time as a challenge and thinks he can get at least one more cart load of rifles to us before we set sail. He’s already beaten his target, but the man is nothing if not ambitious.”

“I know. I can’t believe how fast he’s moved. We didn’t get as many of the muskets as I wanted, but at least I feel less bad about taking a hundred of your rifles with us.”

“Now he just needs to keep this pace up so we can arm the rest of the legions. So, are you sailing today?”

“Yes. Ursinus marched the men over to Londinium and the eastern ports days ago, so the men have the least amount of time to sail. Even splitting our troops across multiple docks, the number of smaller ships we have to load up means half of the men will be sitting on board ships for almost a full day before the fleet gets underway.”

“Are they going to be able to get some rest before they start marching?”

“A few hours at most,” Ky said. “The last word Ramirus got was that there’s one small force in the area already, dealing with some unrest, and we have to start our swing south to threaten the larger Carthaginian forces in that direction.”

“Good luck,” Velius said, looking past Ky’s shoulder. “Hopefully I’ll see you when our forces rejoin each other on the coast of the Middle Sea.”

“I look forward to it,” Ky said, clasping arms with the legate and turning to see what had grabbed his attention.

The what was Lucilla, making her way down the docks with her guards in tow. She was taking her time to get to him, since she had to stop every few feet to greet this or that soldier, sailor, or just random citizen calling her name. Ky knew, in a vague sense, how popular she was with the people of the empire, but it still surprised him to see it in effect when they were out in public. People reached out to touch the hem of her stola, held their hands out for her to brush her fingers over theirs, or shoved small children in her direction for her to touch. It was touching, although it made getting from point A to point B very slow for her at times.

Finally, she made it to him, inside the small bubble of space created by his guards, and now reinforced by hers. They didn’t have to bother. As she embraced Ky, the people gave them room, almost purposefully looking away to give the two of them privacy in the midst of the throng. Yet another sign of respect for their beloved Lucilla.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “Every time we get a few days in the same city, time seems to fly by, and then it drags interminably once you leave again.”

“At least we can still talk to each other, which is more than the other men separated from their wives and families right now.”

“You say that every time. It doesn’t make me miss you any less. Just tell me you love me, you’ll miss me, and you’ll think of me every moment you’re gone.”

“I love you, I’ll miss you, and I’ll think of you every moment I’m gone,” Ky repeated.

“See how much better things go if you just do what I tell you to,” she said, smiling up at him.

“It’s funny how that works,” Ky said, matching her grin. “I’m glad you came to see me off, though. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Not long. Father wants my coronation to happen within the month, and you’re going to have to be back for that.”

“That might not be possible. It depends on where the field operations are at the time.”

“The first snow should be falling by then, and the Carthaginians will have to pull back south if they want to keep their men supplied. Even if they cut you off from the coast, you can be supplied from the Sea of Serpents, but with us controlling the waters, they have to send food and supplies the long way.”

“Or take it from villages in the area that’ve put aside food for the winter.”

“If they’re dumb enough to do that, they’re doing us a favor. All we have to do is feed those people to bring them to our side, and thanks to how much you were able to increase the harvests this year with the new plows, fertilizers, and that stuff that cut down on bug infestations, we have enough surpluses going into the winter to do just that.”

“True, but that means even more work for me to do.”

“You have competent subordinates. Ursinus, Auspex, and Llassar all know what they’re doing. They can manage for some time even without your powers. I want you back here when the time comes.”

“I’ll do my best,” Ky said.

“I know you will. I also came down here to give you this,” she said, slipping the drone out of her stola and putting it in an empty pouch at his waist.

“I know this is going to make some of the work with Hortensius a lot harder. I’m sorry about that.”

“We’ll manage. You’ve gone over everything new he’s doing, aside from that new impact fuse design you wrote up yesterday, so most of what needs to be done is the refining processes, which I don’t think will require Sophus’s need to visualize.”

“I might need this for a while. I do have a new project I want to start Hortensius and Sorantius on in the spring, but I don’t want to distract them from getting as many rifles, muskets, and cannons produced as possible. We’ll need all of our legions and as many of our allies as possible armed with the new weapons as soon as the snows melt, because the Carthaginians will spend the winter building up their forces, and they’ll be throwing them all at us as soon as they can.”

“I know. I worry about that.”

“Don’t. They’re going to be the ones worried once they face firearms for the first time. Even with a huge push from them, we’ll be able to control the pace of battle since they’re not going to know how to deal with our new weapons for quite a while.”

“I hope you’re right. So what is this new technology that makes up for not having your drone in the field?”

“It’s hard to explain, but I think you’re going to be impressed when you see the first of our people high up in the sky, separate from any building.”

“You’re going to teach our people to fly?” she said, pulling back in surprise.

“In a manner of speaking. Don’t worry; it will make sense when I show you what I have planned. Until then, you’ll just have to use your imagination.”

“So you’re just going to say something like that and then leave?” she said, faux angry.

“Yep,” Ky said, bending down to lightly kiss her on the tip of her nose.

He turned to leave, almost laughing, when she grabbed him hard, spun him back around, and pulled him in for a hard kiss. Shouts, cheers, and several almost indecent suggestions rose up from the men walking around the docks.

***

Carthage

“What do you mean ‘wiped out’,” Caesius said to the bedraggled man.

“Just that, my lord. Your father’s men captured everyone from Decius down to our newest recruits. The few of us that were away from home when the raids happened ran, but I’ve heard that most of the others got caught before they could get off the island. They knew my name, my family, and where I lived. Everything. I barely made it off myself and the captain who brought me can’t ever go back. We pushed off from the docks just as the praetorians got there. It was sheer luck that the warships they’ve had sailing around the island were away when we ran for it.”

“I thought he had his men working in cells that didn’t know about each other, so they couldn’t be captured. How did this happen? What happened to Decius?”

“I don’t know. I had already been sent to come here with the latest dispatches and information when it happened. I heard a rumor that he’d been captured, but I don’t know.”

“What about this gunpowder he managed to steal? What happened to it?”

“I don’t know, my lord. I think they were still trying to find a way to get it off the island without the praetorians finding out, but they didn’t tell me things like that. For all I know, it’s still wherever they hid it.”

“So we have no one left? At all?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Fine …” Caesius, no longer seemed to notice the messenger. “Go.”

The man looked perplexed, but bowed and left, leaving Caesius to his thinking, which had turned very dark. Daily, the emperor complained that he wasn’t holding up his side of their deal. He wanted the secrets of the smoke guns and of the black grains that were apparently at the heart of them, and he expected Caesius to get it for him. When he’d received the last message that they had pulled off a daring raid and stolen a dozen barrels of the stuff, Caesius had been excited, reporting that he’d have samples shortly. And then nothing. Days and then weeks stretched on, with no word.

Each day Caesius didn’t deliver the prize the emperor became more and more impatient. After a month, impatience turned into anger. Caesius had found reasons to be out of town, excuses about messages from his contacts and information on the shipment, but those excuses had started to wear thin. After two months, the emperor had assigned him his watchdogs. Terrifying men in all black, except for their skull masks. Only their eyes were uncovered, enough to know they were always watching him.

So far, they were at least not following him into every room, but that wouldn’t last long either. Caesius could feel the moment coming when the emperor, or his functionaries, would order the death disciples to stick closer to him. He was running out of time.

“Go to the docks. Procure a ship for yourself, a passenger, and some servants. Tell them it’s a sickly brother that you want to take to Greece to see one of their healers. Pay them to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I have a few things I must clear up here, and then I will join you. There will probably not be time for a warning and it’s likely we’ll have to be ready in a hurry,” Caesius said, putting a stack of coins in the man’s hand.

“Where are we going? Greece?”

“For now, that’s all you need to know. We’ll deal with our real destination when we’re safely on the water. This is important. Talk to no one about what you’re doing. Go. Now.”

The man bowed and hurried out, while Caesius began to pace. This wasn’t going to be easy. He needed to secure assets. He wouldn’t have an empire supporting him anymore, and wherever he landed would just be a stop on a journey. He had to get somewhere that wasn’t controlled by either the Romans or the Carthaginians, which didn’t leave a lot of options. Even some of the far northern reaches, like the Scandi, were off limits, since the word was they had begun trading heavily with his father’s Empire.

He’d also need to find a way to get his guard dogs off his scent. He had no problem killing them, but he had no guards of his own and only a few servants he trusted. Men who’d escaped his homeland after the Carthaginians lost it and had come searching for him. None of them was a match for the Brothers, or whatever the skull-masked men called themselves.

It was going to be tricky, and he didn’t have a lot of time to figure it out.

***

Belgica

“Consul, the men need a break,” Ursinus said, riding up to Ky’s small group.

“I know,” Ky said, not looking at the junior legate. “We’ll be able to rest in a few hours. They’re still almost all a few hours march behind us. There’s a good ford ahead where we can cross this river. It’s isolated and narrow. If they cross and keep in tight pursuit, we can pick them off one at a time, but I’m assuming their commander will figure that out, which means he’ll hold his men on the other side until his entire force has made it there, which will easily take until nightfall. If he holds, we’ll break to camp early, giving the men a longer rest tonight.”

“Is the other side clear?” Ursinus asked.

It was a fair question. Multiple times they’d tried to find a place where the ground gave them some advantage to fight or a way to take on isolated parts of the Carthaginian army, and every time those plans had fallen apart when a large band of Germanic or Gaelic warriors appeared, forcing the Britannians to continue marching. They’d been marching for four days with hardly any breaks, and the men were starting to feel the strain.

Ky had known this was going to be difficult, but he’d hoped they’d be able to find the right ground to keep his small army from being swamped by the massive number of men chasing them. Classic Roman tactics, arcuballista, and a hundred rifles plus a few cannons were powerful force multipliers, but it still wasn’t enough for the numbers they faced.

Ky had brought almost twenty thousand men with him to what was known, at least in his timeline, as Belgium. It wasn’t enough. When they’d first started out, there had been almost sixty thousand Carthaginians after them, which was more than the last estimate Ramirus had given him, but still, a number they had dealt with successfully before when they were on the right ground. Ky had hoped that they would find a good position once they got out of the lowlands and into the more broken ground where they could more easily limit the front line, but so far they’d nearly been flanked every time.

The Britannians had done well for themselves, marching fast and constantly threading the needle between large warrior bands that might have slowed them down enough to allow the Carthaginians to catch up to them. When the thread was thousands of soldiers in heavy armor, that wasn’t an easy feat, and the men recognized this. Good spirits helped, but only to a point; and the nearly non-stop pace had pushed the Britannians to that point.

Worse, each of those bands of warriors had joined the main body of Carthaginians after missing the Britannians, steadily growing their size until now there were well over a hundred thousand men chasing them, which included warriors from dozens of tribes by this point. That actually made it worse than the number of men they faced.

One of Ky’s main goals was to get those tribes to switch allegiances and ally themselves with the Britannians, since taking away manpower from the Carthaginians while increasing their own was the only real way they would win this war. Based on Ramirus’s reports and Sophus’s analysis of what it was seeing through the drone, it seemed like every tribe in an almost hundred-mile radius had sent every able-bodied man to join the Carthaginian army.

That was bad. The Carthaginians had pulled together all of the security forces they had in northwest Europe to chase the Britannians down. This also meant there weren’t soldiers forcing those tribes to send all of their men to fight the invaders. That suggested more support for the Carthaginians than Ky had predicted they’d face, at least based on what the refugees who’d escaped to Britannia had told them. Even if they did manage to defeat the army chasing them, if they didn’t start to build an effective power base here Ky’s entire plan was going to fall apart.

“Commander, there are indications of a large movement of men from east of the intended crossing point,” Sophus said, interrupting Ky’s train of thought.

Because he only had the one drone, Ky had been forced to use it to both observe where they were going and the forces chasing them, meaning that, even with its height, it had to zip back and forth constantly, since it was impossible for it to see both at the same time. Ky’s attention on it had waned as Sophus had been moving it back to a position beyond the ford they would be crossing shortly.

Sure enough, a couple of miles beyond the ford he could make out maybe a hundred and fifty men in rough furs all carrying weapons, moving slowly but steadily towards where they were crossing. A hundred and fifty wasn’t a lot, but it could cause problems if they hit them as they were crossing and they probably weren’t seeing everyone. The Germanic tribes they’d seen before had come in very close, usually spread out over a mile or more. There might be hundreds more warriors beyond the range of the drone’s cameras, and they wouldn’t know about them until they were actually crossing the ford, since the drone was already operating at its max range.

“We have a problem,” Ky said to Ursinus. “Germanic warriors are moving toward the other side of the ford.”

“Damn it. So I guess we aren’t stopping.”

“It’s worse than that. We’re at a bad angle. If we try to follow the river southeast, we’re going to hit a point where it connects to another, larger river. We’ll be trapped with nowhere to maneuver, and the Carthaginians will be able to push their full weight into us. If we go northwest, we’re going to hit some very marshy ground that will both slow us down and make it very hard for us to fight. It’s why this ford was so good for us, because there are not a lot of other options for crossing without making a wide detour.”

“So, we cross and push through the tribesmen?” Ursinus asked.

“Yes, but we have to hurry or they’ll hit us mid-cross. Send a messenger to Vibius to pick up the pace. Run them if he has to, but we need to get across that ford in the next hour. Once across he’s to push forward half a mille passus and then form up for action. The other three legions will come up behind him for support. I want your men on the right and Marcus’ on the left. Auspex will bring up the rear, crossing and then reversing to guard the crossing from the Carthaginians, just in case their lead elements get to us before we are able to get on the move again.”

Marcus Sextus Thurinus had been the senior tribune in the legions, just beating Gordianus, Velius’s second in command, by a year. They’d picked up enough recruits to reform the second legion after it was dissolved following the insurrection and Marcus had been promoted to lead it. He’d actually been next in line when Ursinus had been jumped from optio all the way to legate, but he’d taken the news well and earned some credit in Ky’s eyes at the time. He actually had more experience than Ursinus, but he was still a little too stuck in the old ways of doing things, which was a habit that they’d have to break by next year when his men got issued their rifles.

“This is going to slow us down and even if they don’t catch up to us we aren’t going to be able to give the men extra rest unless the Carthaginians are unbelievably slow crossing the river.”

“I know, but it can’t be helped. I don’t know for sure yet, but there are probably enough warriors up ahead that we can’t just ignore them. Get us across as fast as you can.”

“Yes, Consul.”

The next two hours seemed to drag by. The men held good order, but the narrowness of the ford meant a slight pile-up while they tried to get all twenty thousand across. Some things broke in their favor, however.

Although there were more tribesmen than Ky originally thought there would be, with the total number closer to two hundred, they exhibited some odd behavior. After their lead scouts cleared the tree line enough to see the crossing Britannians, instead of having their men charge in while they were vulnerable, the Germanic warriors pulled back, holding almost half a mile away from where Vibius was finally getting his front lines set up. It didn’t make any sense to Ky. They might not have fought Romans with their tall shields and tight formations but they, or at least their fathers, would have fought against Carthaginian phalanxes enough to know that it was better to hit formations like this before they got set rather than waiting until they were ready.

And yet that was exactly what the Germanic tribesmen were doing, even as Ursinus and then Marcus crossed, extending the Britannian lines. Now, instead of hitting them when only twice their number was across, the two hundred tribesmen were facing a line of fifteen thousand mostly seasoned soldiers.

“We should just start marching forward. They’ll either scatter or be crushed under our boots,” Marcus said as the four legates gathered with Ky to discuss the situation.

“This smells like a trap,” Auspex said.

“So? There can’t be that many more of them out there, even if they are trying to lure us in. We can push over them and keep going,” Marcus said.

“Almost half of the army now chasing us is made up of local warriors,” Ky pointed out. “It’s hard to tell, but it seems like they have been pulling these people in from across the continent, maybe to make up for the lack of trained units they could get here before winter. Our sources this far inland have not been great, so it’s hard to tell. My original plan assumed they would have some local support, but not the level we’re seeing. You might be right, but we just don’t know. Besides, most of the war bands we’ve faced in the past haven’t used these kinds of tactics, which makes me pause. We’re missing something, and that worries me.”

“This is good ground,” Auspex said. “The ford narrows down the front they can advance on more than any of the places we’ve considered so far for a stand-up fight. The ground is also terrible for them. It’s wet, muddy, and rocky. Not only won’t they be able to get an entire phalanx in line as they cross the ford, but they’ll have to do it on terrible ground. We can put a single cohort there and block the entire thing.”

“The ground will be just as bad for our men. Our line will struggle to hold together with such poor footing,” Ursinus said.

“We don’t need to. We put one cohort here, at the ford. The ground lifts up from here, giving us an opportunity. We put our hundred riflemen and four cannon here, at the high point before it starts to even off, and we can even fit in two, maybe three centuries of men armed with arcuballista in addition to the cohort at the ford who are also carrying them. The rifles and cannons can keep them under fire all the way to the opposite tree line. Shortly before they get to the ford, they’ll also come under fire from our arcuballista, which will make crossing even harder. What forces do make it across will have difficulty holding their formations. If they bring up archers, we can shift cannon or rifle fire at them, which should keep that in check. There isn’t even enough room here for one legion to operate, let alone all four, which means the remaining three legions can hold their positions facing whatever they have planned for us from the other direction. As positions go, this seems very solid to me.”

“I agree,” Ky said. “I am hard-pressed to believe that they have another army larger than the one chasing us in front of us, which makes them the greater danger. The ford and lay of the land will take away most of their advantages. Bring up the riflemen and cannons and get them in position. Hold our baggage train and supplies in between the two forces and get the rest of your legion in position. You three, hold your legions where they are and be prepared for contact from the northeast. Make sure your men stay focused on what is in front of them, regardless of what they’re hearing from behind them. I don’t want all the firing to distract them from their duty.”

The four legates saluted and went about their business. Ky had a similar plan already in mind once this new group of warriors stopped when they should have attacked, but he was glad to hear Auspex voice his version of it. Soon all of the legions would be armed with rifles and cannons, and it was important they stopped thinking like men leading armies made up of spearmen and heavy infantry. Fighting with rifles required thinking of things like fields of fire, chokepoints, and distances of contact. True, they didn’t have to worry about the enemy’s distance of contact or counter-battery fire, but the mindset was still what was important. It surprised him that Auspex was the one to present the plan. His legion had had the least amount of time to train in the new tactics. It required serious lateral thinking and was worth considering Auspex for future advancement.

Ky moved the drone to watch the Carthaginians. The huge horde was moving slowly, but steadily, which gave the Britannians plenty of time to get into place. Finally, they reached the river bank and Ky could see the moment the Carthaginian general realized the problem the ford presented to him, as he pulled his huge army to a stop. They held there for a moment, maybe trying to figure out what the Britannians were up to, just waiting on the other side.

On the face of it, it was probably pretty obvious, what with the legionnaires and their large shields lined up across the mouth of the ford that limited the length of the front line. What must have been confusing was that they were spread out on the opposing slope instead of packed tight against the river to better refute the phalanxes, as would be the tactic of the day.

He had probably heard about the arcuballista’s impressive stopping power and maybe he was judging if he could push his men forward enough to counter that threat. It certainly wasn’t a concern for the casualties they’d encounter, since the Carthaginians had never shown any concern about that before. Finally, the man made up his mind and trumpets sounded on the opposite shore, sending the large force lurching forward again.

“Hold your fire,” Ky commanded.

The Carthaginians hadn’t encountered gunfire before and Ky was fairly certain they would turn and run once it started. The goal here wasn’t to just escape this army, it was to destroy it, or at least a good part of it, so it wouldn’t do to fire early. Ky wanted their forces to be halfway across the large river, with the forces behind pushing to try to get in on the battle, which would make it difficult for the bulk of them to run when the firing started.

“Wait,” Ky said, watching the first Carthaginians begin across the ford.

“Wait … open fire!”

The command echoed out over the field. The cannons closest to Ky’s position boomed with thick clouds of smoke drifting up from them, followed by the rippling crackle of the rifles, tearing into the middle ranks waiting to march into the ford. Birds from the tree line jumped into the air at the sound of the sudden, unexpected thunder. Arcuballista strings snapped as the legionnaires closer to the shore took aim at the men now in the ford trying to run across and engage the Britannians.

Confusion erupted on the opposing shore as what must have seemed like the end of the world began. Men by the dozen were smashed or flung into the air by cannon balls smashing into them. An invisible scythe slashed through their midst as hundreds of men suddenly dropped, dead or screaming. At this range and with the Carthaginians packed so tightly, more than half the bullets punched through one man and into another. It was pure slaughter.

Then something Ky didn’t expect happened. Instead of the lines thinning out as men began to run rearward, the Carthaginians began to push tighter against the river, to the point that men started to get pushed into the water. Ky repositioned the drone to the rear of the Carthaginian line and saw something amazing.

The front of the Carthaginian force had been their phalanxes with local auxiliaries bringing up the rear, as was their standard deployment. What was different this time was that those local auxiliaries in the rear had suddenly and ferociously attacked the Carthaginians in front of them, hacking and slashing their way into the ranks.

The Carthaginians reeled, men in the rear trying to push to the river while the men by the river tried to push to the rear, both trying to escape annihilation, with the men in the center being crushed to death by the weight of their own comrades.

It was a slaughter.

“Adjust your fire low, targeting only those forces by the riverbank,” Ky ordered, not wanting the rounds being pumped into the Carthaginians to hit their unexpected new allies.Now they just had to wait for sixty thousand or so men to die.