‘Centurion Faustus,’ Vespasian called as he dismounted.
Faustus looked up and immediately snapped a rigid salute. ‘Tribune Vespasian,’ he said, grinning all over his face, ‘and Magnus, you old dog, have you come to join our little war? Thracia must be very boring if you’ve been forced to travel all this way to see a bit of action.’
‘Thracia is indeed boring,’ Vespasian replied, clasping the centurion’s heavily muscled forearm, ‘but we haven’t come to help you enjoy your war, we’ve got a little battle of our own to fight before you go killing every Geta that you can find. This is my brother Sabinus and this’ — he indicated Artebudz and the Thracians — ‘is our army.’
‘Ah, now let me guess, you’re on the hunt for that weasel-faced priest. I won’t ask why but I assume that you want to find him before Poppaeus does; in which case you’ll have to get him tonight as it’s an open secret here that we attack tomorrow night.’
‘Very astute, Faustus. Now we need your help to get some Getic clothes and a boat.’
Faustus looked hesitant. ‘Poppaeus has started to make things very difficult for me since his return; I can turn a blind eye to what you’re up to but as to-’
He was interrupted by a shout from the centurion of the century stationed on the walkway along the wall. ‘Incoming! About five hundred of them. Get down, lads. Pila ready.’
His men up on the walkway immediately crouched down, hefting their spears into a throwing position.
‘Shields,’ Faustus shouted, ‘then get yourselves under the wall.’
All around the legionaries dropped their tools, grabbed their shields and ran for safety in the lee of the wall.
‘Get your men and horses to the wall, sir, you’ll be safe enough there. The stinking horse-botherers do this once an hour or so, trying to set fire to one of the towers; it seems that it’s our turn again, although I wish they’d pick on the Fifth Macedonica more often as I’m desperate to win a bet.’
Shrill, ululating war cries filled the air and the sound of hundreds of hooves pounding the earth drew closer as Vespasian and his comrades reached the wall. Moments later came the sharp hiss of multitudes of flaming arrows streaking over it, leaving trails of thin smoke in their wake; they thumped into the tower with a seemingly never-ending staccato beat. The sudden impact caused a lot of the burning rags attached to the arrows to come off and fall, like flaming rain, to the ground, but more than a few remained intact and the tower started to burn in dozens of places.
A century waiting with a pump and water-filled buckets beneath the tower reacted immediately to douse the flames on the lower parts of the tower; but further up, out of reach of their efforts, the fire started to spread as another huge volley of fire arrows careered in, augmenting the damage already done.
‘Get that fucking pump working properly, you come-stains; that fire is not sacred to Mithras, it’s the sort that needs to be put out,’ Faustus hollered, waving his vine cane threateningly at the group of legionaries desperately pushing and pulling the see-saw pump handle up and down in an effort to get the device up to a high enough pressure to reach the top of the tower. The threat of their primus pilus bearing down on them in all his wrath worked wonders for the pumping legionaries and the stream of water from the nozzle of the hose, held by two men, burst into a jet that reached up to the flames beyond the range of their bucket-wielding comrades.
A new threat came flying over the wall; the Getae had got close enough to hurl the resin-soaked torches some of their number carried to light their comrades’ arrows. Dozens thundered on to the tower, scraping flaming resin down its side that carried on burning despite the water being flung at it. The firefighters renewed their efforts as, from above, Vespasian heard the centurion shout the order to release pila at the now in-range Getae. The war cries from the other side of the wall turned into screams as eighty pila slammed into what Vespasian imagined would be by now a tightly bunched body of cavalry. A scream from above him caused him to look up as a legionary came tumbling, head first, off the walkway to fall at his feet. Even if the arrow embedded in his jaw had not killed him, the fall on to his head certainly had; his necked lolled at an unnatural angle, indicating a severe break. Young but lifeless eyes stared up at Vespasian; the lad could not have been more than seventeen.
‘Poor bugger,’ Magnus said from beside him. ‘He just learnt the hard way that you don’t stick around to see whether you’ve hit anything once you’ve chucked your pilum.’
Vespasian nodded in rueful agreement as another volley of pila was ordered above. This time the Getae were ready for it and another couple of legionaries, with arrows protruding from their necks or faces, crashed to the ground accompanied by a roar of triumph from the other side of the wall.
‘That’s it, they’re going,’ the centurion above shouted.
‘And about fucking time too. Artillery!’ Faustus roared.
The crews of the ballistae and onagers stationed with the first cohort rushed out from the wall and began to frantically load their weapons.
‘Two hundred paces; two fifty,’ the centurion on the wall called down. He was waiting for the enemy to be far enough away for the missiles not to overshoot them because of the trajectory they needed to use to clear the wall. ‘Now!’ he yelled, flinging himself down so as not to have his head taken off.
Fifteen assorted artillery pieces released simultaneously with a loud rasp of metal grating on wood followed by sharp cracks from the wooden arms of the machines slamming into the restraining beams as they released their projectiles.
Faustus came strolling up to Vespasian as the volley flew over the wall. ‘We hardly ever hit any of them with the artillery, I just consider it to be good manners to send a few bolts and rocks after them as they go,’ he said grinning, ‘and besides, it’s good fun.’
‘And good practice for the crews,’ Sabinus observed. ‘They had their weapons loaded very quickly. I’m impressed.’
‘Well, don’t tell them, it’ll go to their heads and they’ll slow down.’
‘I won’t, my brother in light.’
Faustus raised his eyebrows. ‘So you heard my slightly profane reference to our Lord Mithras, brother? I’m sure he will forgive it, but, to make certain he does I will do my utmost to help a fellow believer. A boat and clothes you say; not a problem.’
Faustus turned his attention to his men. ‘What are you all looking at, you idle buggers?’ he bellowed. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a steaming siege tower before? Get back to work, the lot of you; the Fifth Macedonica didn’t stop in all the time we were under attack so jump to it and clear those bodies up.’
The reaction was instantaneous; shields and buckets were downed and the men returned to their tasks. Once he was satisfied that all was proceeding as quickly as possible he returned to Vespasian and his comrades. ‘Well, gentlemen, the Getae have solved the clothes problem. Rather than me having to get eight of the prisoners and executing them, there are probably dozens of already dead ones just beyond the gate. We’ll go and take a look when it gets dark, but first let’s find you a boat.’
‘From what I know of this sewage drain,’ Centurion Faustus said, pointing to a crude diagram of the fortress lit by a single oil lamp, ‘it’s just to the west of the keep, which means that it will open up into the main courtyard.’
‘Shit, that isn’t going to be very private,’ Magnus exclaimed. ‘It’ll be packed with Getae.’
‘Yes, two thousand or so, the rest are in the fortified settlement,’ Faustus replied. ‘However, if you go in the dead of night there’s a good chance that they’ll be asleep.’
‘A good chance you say, but not definite?’ Vespasian asked, scratching his crotch, which had been playing havoc with him since donning Getic clothes.
Faustus shrugged. ‘Who’s to say what these fuckers get up to at night, they do keep a few horses in the fortress. Anyway, if you get in, the priest will probably be found in the keep itself. According to the few auxiliaries who managed to escape when the fortress was overrun, the most comfortable rooms are halfway up, on the third floor; I would guess that the Getic commanders will commandeer them.’