“You’ll be joining us, sir?”
“There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Gwendyrn organized his men while Constantine checked the standoff in the corridors. The Romans were exchanging fire with the Nortlanders, but nothing but a quick rush right at the defenders would end it.
There was no other way.
“All right sir, we’re ready.”
Constantine caught Orestius’ eye and gestured. Whistling, he pulled his cohort back around the convenient corner, his front ranks backing away slowly to provide cover for their legionmates. Once there, they reassembled behind 13th Cohort. Farther back, other cohorts were arriving. Good, Constantine thought. We’ll need as many men as possible when we storm that throne room.
The last few men walked backward around the corner, a few shots from stone throwers coming after them. Constantine heard cheering from the Nortlanders, as well as some off-tune singing. So typical.
“We’ll give them something to sing about,” Gwendyrn boasted to his men. They beat their swords on their shields as they waited for the order to advance.
Constantine counted to ten. Relax your guard, relax your guard. He prayed to Minerva and Nike briefly, then gripped his spatha tightly. “Charge!”
The cohort pounded around the corner, feet sounding like a thousand drums as they raced the three hundred feet or so toward the Nortland lines. Howling in surprise, the Nortlanders fired hurriedly at these new opponents, their aim wild. The Romans closed the gap. Shields before them, the Romans took the first concentrated fire well; only a few legionnaires went down.
And then the barricade was right before them. Legionnaires tried to push the upturned benches and food carts out of the way while engaged in hand to hand combat. It was not a fight to their advantage.
Constantine saw one barbarian use his axe to pull a legionnaire toward him, then strike down the off-balance Roman with a vicious slash to the face. Another used a long boar spear to pin legionnaires while his countrymen fell upon the trapped men.
“Use your plumbatae!” Constantine heard someone shout. The lethal metal darts flew overhead, and a quick series of explosions threw stone, wood, and worse over the combatants.
Constantine leapt into the fight. Using his shield as an umbrella to stop the rain of axe blows, he stabbed with his spatha at the unprotected legs and feet of his opponents. Several men fell into formation beside him, covering him on his left and his right from vicious Nortlander counterattacks. They must be targeting my white plume, Constantine thought briefly as he crunched a man’s arm with his scutum, the tough metal rim breaking the man’s arm with a crack. The man’s face went ashen and another legionnaire quickly dispatched him.
Constantine checked his surroundings. They were inside the barricade’s perimeter. All along the barricade, legionnaires were clambering over dead or wounded defenders. Even so, the wounded Nortlanders fought on.
No quarter was offered, nor was any given.
The remaining Nortlanders rallied near the large metal door. Please, call for help, Constantine mentally urged, hoping they would turn coward and seek the safety of the throne room, thus allowing the Romans entry.
Instead, the Nortlanders charged, one brute of a man carving his way through legionnaires and tossing them up into the air. His double chain-axes chewed through shields, armor, helmets, and appendages.
Constantine looked at his formation mates. “Follow me!” he yelled as he charged in, his men forming a wedge behind him. With the battle joined, the remaining northerners fought desperately, taking down two or three legionnaires for every barbarian lost.
Leaping dead bodies, Constantine saw Gwendyrn engage the hulking brute from the other side. The large legionnaire swatted one axe out of the barbarian’s meaty hand, the weapon clattering to the floor where it spun in circles, its razor-sharp teeth trying to gain purchase on air. Roaring, the barbarian punched Gwendyrn in the face. The Gallic legionnaire flew backward, his men rushing forward to shield him from the renewed onslaught of the last Nortland berserker.
We’re losing time! Constantine’s brain cried as the berserker wielded his remaining axe two-handed now, cleaving through those careless enough to get too close to him.
Sheathing his sword, Constantine pulled out his hand repeater, firing the miniature bolts into the man from just a few feet away. Bellowing, the man turned, his eyes tinged red and his mouth frothing in battle madness. Holy Hera.
The man bore down on him like an enraged bull. Constantine’s bolts seemed to do nothing against the man, until there was a small explosion and a blast of heat and smoke.
Constantine had ducked down behind his shield, bracing for an impact that never came. He peeked over its edge to find the man on the ground before him, blown nearly in two, guts scattered. The commander looked up to see his savior.
Gwendyrn wiped his hand across his bloody face. “Dat stupid git bwoke my nose. So I bwoke his back wit dis,” he said angrily, pinching the bridge of his crooked nose with his thumb and forefinger. In his other hand he held a plumbata.
“Well, Centurion, you certainly have the best aim I know of. Perfect hit,” Constantine commended. “Now, does anyone know how we can open these doors?”
Chapter 26
Julius
The slamming door, followed by heavy footfalls, announced the return of the king and his cronies. Julius heard cruel laughter and grunting. Finally, Julius was hauled to his feet. His boots scrabbled for purchase on the stone floor, and he leaned heavily on his captor. The scene that greeted him made his stomach sink.
On his knees within a circle of the king’s henchmen, Duke Laufas huddled under the pummeling of their fists, grunting in pain with each meaty blow.
“Enough!” The king held up his hand and his men stepped back. Looking exceptionally pleased with himself, he spouted a guttural stream of Norse.
I hate not knowing what’s going on, Julius thought. As if he’d heard, Corbus appeared next to him. “The king is telling the rebel leader that he must order his men to submit. Assuming there are any left willing to fight for him,” Corbus sneered. Julius remained silent.
“By the way, did you know that your Roman brothers appear to be fighting amongst themselves? There used to be four legions out there, now there are just two.” Julius looked up at that information.
A haggard-looking militiaman ran into the hall. Julius had learned to distinguish them from their better-equipped professional allies. The leather helmet and simple armored jerkin stood in stark contrast to the steel helm and chainmail-reinforced tunic of the king’s soldiers and raiders. The man blurted something in Norse that seemed to alarm everyone in the hall. Julius caught the flicker of a smile on Laufas’ blood-streaked face. The king stood and began shouting orders at various lords. Soldiers raced in all directions, some even blundering into each other in their haste.
Corbus’s hand grabbed Julius’s hair, yanking him around. “Roman! Your compatriots must wish for death, as they assault our walls directly. But worry not that your time with us will be short, for we intend to deny them. Even now, our men are mustering to the wall to crush your pitiful war machine and your puny countrymen.”
Julius laughed in his face at the end of this tirade. “Very typical of you, Corbus. Why aren’t you out there fighting?” he jeered.
Corbus hit him in the stomach and marched away in a fury. The door slammed shut behind him.
“That’s one bad man to anger,” Laufas said quietly through gritted teeth.
“We’re already prisoners and probably going to die anyway; what’s the worst that could happen?”