Ballista had not yet seen any legionaries from III Gallica, or any Roman regulars at all, but this was going to be far from easy. One hundred paces across an open, arrow-swept yard. Ballista gave the order to attack anyway.
Ballista got ready to go in with the first rank from Legio XVI Flavia Firma. The days when an emperor could keep well to the rear – and keep the respect of his troops – were gone. His old enemy Maximinus Thrax had set the new precedent, charging in at the head of his men. Of course, apart from his strength and skill at arms, Maximinus Thrax had had little to recommend him as emperor. Like another barbarian very recently declared emperor, Ballista thought wryly.
The arrows came screaming at them as they went through the gate. They hunched forward like men advancing into hail. The noise was all-encompassing: arrowheads slicing into wood, metal, leather, flesh; men muttering, praying, shouting, howling. They kept going forward.
Ballista's shield felt as if it were being kicked as arrows slammed into it. Three of the warheads punched through, one only an inch or so from his face. He snapped them off, kept moving. He was sweating hard.
How far? Ballista peeped out around the edge of his shield. Allfather, they were only just coming up to the altar. The weird foreshortening as the arrows sped towards you. He ducked back, blocking out the screams, forcing his legs to keep moving.
A cheer from the men around him. Ballista looked out again. The arrow storm was still there, but less of it, and at a different angle. The archers at the foot of the steps had ceased shooting. They were fighting each other to get back through the doors of the temple. Those up on the pediment and roof still wielded their bows. There were not that many of them. Now Ballista was able to note there were no missiles coming from the sacred grove to his left.
Hefting their shields higher, the soldiers ran forward. The withdrawal of the enemy into the temple seemed to have struck shackles off their legs. They were at the foot of the steps in moments. They set off up them. Hobnails screeching, gouging the marble. The great dark-wood doors at the top slammed shut.
A whistling sound – above the noises of the men – unexplained, eerie. A terrible crash. The men stopped. A stunned silence, then the high screaming of men in agony.
Something made Ballista look up. Sometimes your eyes see something so unexpected your understanding lags behind. Figures falling through the air, turning slowly. Rigid, yet unresisting. Getting faster.
The next statue slammed into the steps a few paces away. Marble into marble. Vicious, jagged fragments flying. The white steps now veined red. Another crashed down. And another. Pandemonium.
Ballista was cowering down. His shield had a wide rent. There was blood on his right leg. The men were running. He looked up at the pediment. Another divinity was teetering on the edge. Ballista ran too.
Back safe behind the outer wall, Ballista called the officers to him and took stock. Not that many casualties. They had left twenty or so inside the precinct; the dead or those too hurt to crawl. About the same number had made it out but were incapacitated by injuries. Ballista ordered they be tended, as far as it was possible, where they were. He could not afford to be without the men needed to take them to doctors.
Ballista questioned those around him on the layout of the temple precinct. It was Ahala, now binding up the flesh wound in Ballista's right thigh, who proved extraordinarily informative. The wall was high all around the compound. There were two other gates. One at the far western end opened next to the service buildings. From there you could get into a low walled yard that butted up to the rear of the temple. There was a wicket gate to the yard and a small back door to the temple. They would almost certainly be defended, and it would be hard to force the narrow back door, but it was worth a look. The other gate was off to the left in the southern wall and led straight into the sacred grove. There was a forester's hut just by it.
'You know the layout well,' said Ballista.
Ahala looked embarrassed. 'When we first came here… some of the boys told me there were sacred prostitutes in the precinct – had to take you on for their god, no matter how low the coin.' He shrugged. 'I was stupid enough to believe them.'
'I would not worry,' replied Ballista, 'some years ago the same thing happened to a friend of mine.'
The laughter was cut short. A soldier running flat out down the street from the north. 'Men coming! Hundreds of them! Roman regulars.'
Ballista made what dispositions he could with his limited force: a few holding the gate from the temple at their rear, the rest blocking the street. There was no middle way here. It was either very good or very bad.
The noise built – it sounded like a lot of men. Soon such speculation was redundant. The soldiers turned the corner into full view, a solid phalanx of heavily armed men stretching as far as the eye could see. The sound of their coming bounced back off the walls. The shields at the front were those of Legio X Fretensis. Its station was the northern city wall, part of Rutilus's command. And there, bareheaded on horseback, was Rutilus himself. No one could mistake the flaming red hair of the Praetorian Prefect appointed by Quietus. Facing him, Ballista calculated quickly: counting the standards, multiplying the numbers in each rank by those in each file – must be about five hundred. Rutilus had brought the entire vexillatio with him. Further back, there were other standards – at least two auxiliary units.
Rutilus's force did not break stride at the sight of Ballista's men. Inexorably, the shields of Legio X bore down. One hundred paces. They had numbers and momentum on their side. Fifty paces. They would sweep the men facing them aside. Ballista knew being taken alive was not an option. No cell near the surface a second time. The deep dungeons and the claws.
Rutilus yelled a command. The bucinatores sounded their instruments. With a crash, the great phalanx halted.
In the succeeding quiet, Ballista heard a dove cooing from over in the conifer trees of the sacred grove.
The ranks of Legio X parted. Rutilus rode through and out into the space between the lines. All alone, and still bareheaded. He may have always been a faithful servant to the house of Macrianus, but he had never lacked courage.
Ballista stepped out from his meagre ranks.
The two men studied each other.
Rutilus got down from his horse. He untied something, a bag of sorts, from his saddle. He opened it and pulled out a human head. He held it by the hair then let it drop into the dust. His horse skittered sideways, away from the noisome thing. Rutilus prodded the head away with the toe of his boot.
'Death to all traitors,' he said.
The head was unrecognizable. Ballista waited, heart pounding.
'That was the tyrant's cousin and partner in vice – Cornelius Macer.'
Ballista exhaled silently.
Rutilus saluted. 'Ave Imperator Caesar Marcus Clodius Ballista Augustus.'
Behind him, Rutilus's men took up the chant, with only the occasional 'Dives miles' to remind their new Caesar of his obligations.
Rutilus had indeed brought with him all five hundred of Legio X Fretensis, as well as five hundred Armenian bowmen and five hundred dismounted Moorish cavalrymen armed with javelins.
Once Ballista was acquainted with the full force at his disposal, he outlined his plan quickly to Rutilus and the other officers. His original force was to guard the perimeter walls to the north and west and, without taking the risk of becoming too entangled, probe the gate near the service buildings, check the rear entrance. Ballista did not want to ask too much of them. It is always difficult to get men who have once escaped out of combat to go back into it the same day. The dismounted Moors and one hundred of the Armenian archers were to break in the southern gate, secure the sacred grove and prepare to shoot at the Emesenes on the roof of the temple. The men of Legio X would go in via the main east gate and assault the doors of the temple in two units formed in testudo. The remaining four hundred Armenians would follow them and attempt to discourage the men on the roof from intervening. To get them through the temple doors, a work party was to cut down two suitable conifers from the sacred grove as battering rams.