Just behind the command group, and standing directly in front of the First Cohort were the skirmishers of Achillia’s allied detachment; the archers of the Second Legion dispersed to cover their own soldiers when they moved against the northern and southern ramparts. The Syrian woman looked over her shoulder and saw Magnus staring at her, his face full of worry. She simply smiled and winked at him reassuringly.
“Ready to write the pages of history?” Vespasian asked Artorius, a sinister and determined gleam in his eye.
“Yes, sir,” the master centurion replied confidently. The fear and uneasiness that came before every battle he’d fought in over the last twenty-eight years suddenly vanished. The wait was always the worst part for Artorius and, now that it was over, training and discipline took over.
“Then take up your position,” the legate directed.
Artorius saluted sharply and quickly walked to his position at the extreme right of the First Cohort’s front rank. Vespasian then dismissed the legionaries who had been acting as his bodyguards, releasing them back to their respective units. The Siege Master would advance alone at the head of his army with just his cornicen marching behind his right shoulder. It was not a matter of grandstanding or ego, but was, in fact, a practicality, since from there he could observe the advancing of his entire force, while directing maneuver as much as possible before all units converged for the assault.
“Sound the advance!” he ordered.
The loud notes resounded on the cornicen’s horn and the army began its move. Artorius and the cohorts of the Twentieth Legion were in the very center and stepped off slowly, as the cohorts of the Second Legion on either advanced at a much quicker pace. Directly behind them, the artillery crews drove their massive siege engines forward. Each crew supplemented by more than a dozen auxiliaries to drag the heavy machines forward. In the far distance, Cursor’s cavalry regiments rode in front of the north and south face of the hill. Two regiments of Batavian auxiliary infantry blocked the western approach to the hill, having positioned themselves in the middle of the night.
Anxious as the men were for battle, they kept their pace slow and measured; the hill being much further away than it appeared. Despite it being nearly fall, it was an unusually warm morning. The sun was already beating down on them and, remarkably, there was nary a cloud in the sky.
From the top of the great hill, King Donan watched intently as the Roman Army advanced. Even at a distance of a mile, their footfalls echoed across the ground. The armor and shields of the legionaries gleamed in the rising sunlight. While still confident that Mai Dun could withstand the coming assault, Donan was struck with fear. What would happen to his people should his men fail? He had perhaps four thousand warriors, along with about twice as many boys and women who were able to fight and had grabbed whatever they could in the way of weapons.
He had numerous bows, slings, and short throwing spears in his arsenal, which had always proven more than enough whenever neighboring tribes had been brazen enough to attack Mai Dun during the incessant disputes over the region’s fertile lands. And yet, having witnessed firsthand what these Romans were capable of once they closed the distance, he knew that if they breached the ramparts and a close-combat battle ensued, his people were finished. What Donan was not prepared for were the large wooden mechanisms that were being wheeled, almost inconspicuously, behind the advancing wave of legionaries.
“Cohorts…halt!” Vespasian shouted.
The Twentieth Legion’s men took one final step then stopped. The units of the Second Legion continued their advance towards their supplemental assault positions.
The rolling mounds where the road had to wind its way through were now clearly visible, as were the wooden barricades where numerous warriors clustered with slings and bows. Vespasian knew how to break them up.
“Onagers and ballistae make ready!” he ordered. “Scorpions…post!”
Having taken every piece of siege equipment available, Vespasian was able to mass twenty scorpions between each of the gaps of the assaulting cohorts. The rest were dispersed to cover the Second Legion and provide harassment fire to the defenders on the other ramparts. In addition to the onagers, he had acquired the ten heavy ballistae the emperor had brought to Britannia. Given their cumbersome weight and lack of mobility, they were almost never used in open battle, and were, instead, employed strictly for sieges against large strongholds. Vespasian reckoned there was no better place to finally put his heaviest weapons to use.
The enormous machines were unloaded off their carts and arrayed in a long line, facing towards Mai Dun. All the while, the Second Legion’s cohorts continued their methodical advance in the distance. And while any type of heavy boulder would suffice, the engineers had been carving and smoothing down those that would be shot from the heavy siege engines, thereby ensuring greater accuracy. Two wagons of shot were placed behind each onager and ballista.
“Load!” the centurion primus ordo in charge of the catapults shouted.
A similar command was echoed by the section leaders of the scorpions, who were arrayed just in front of and in between the three cohorts of the Twentieth Legion. While a single man could carry the stones used by the onagers, it took two men using a pair of carrying poles to lift the heavy shot into the siege ballistae. And while three or four men could readily man an onager, the largest of the ballistae took a minimum of eight. The throwing arms of the onagers were pulled back with heavy cranks, and several men on each ballista turned the large wheels that pulled back the double arms.
“Siege engines set!” the centurion called out to his commanding legate.
“Scorpions ready!” another officer shouted back.
Vespasian took a deep breath as the taunts and war cries from the ramparts grew louder.
“Time to bring the hammer down,” he said quietly before shouting his next order. “Siege engines…fire!”
The loud slap of more than forty onager throwing arms slamming home, along with the loud screech of the heavy ballistae as they unleashed their heavy payloads jolted the legionaries positioned in front of them. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying for Artorius and his men as they watched the storm of death fly over their heads and towards their enemy.
The warriors on the wooden ramparts had never so much as seen a catapult before. So when the storm of several dozen large boulders was hurled at them, they stared, first in disbelief; this turned to abject terror at the last moment as both man and barricade were smashed to pieces. One warrior had his head smashed clean off his body, which stood momentarily with torrents of blood spewing from the stump his neck before tumbling unceremoniously over the ruptured ramparts. Another took an onager shot directly to the chest, sending him flying back and landing with a sickening crunch amongst his companions behind the barricades. His eyes were wide, tongue protruding between his bloodied teeth. Many of the catapult stones flew over the ramparts and landed amongst the warriors who were massed on the other side.
“What unholy magic is this?” one of them screamed as he looked upon his friend’s shattered body that twitched violently after having been brutally crushed.
“The Romans have summoned the beasts of the underworld!” another snarled as he climbed up one of the rolling mounds near the gate. In an instant a scorpion bolt slammed into his throat and burst out the back in a spray of blood and bone. A volley of similar missiles fell amongst the defenders with several more falling, either killed or badly injured.