Chapter 28

Carthaginian Army

Bomilcar coughed through the thick wool cloth pulled over his face, once again mentally cursing the governor and his short-sighted demands. The army was moving slowly and shedding soldiers with every hectare. Broken legs from slips on the icy stone road, frostbite because of conscripts not being issued proper footwear, and a fever that was sweeping through the ranks.

Fighting in the heat of the summer was bad enough when dealing with conscripts and slave soldiers, without the added problems of the weather. Worse, because they were forced to use the only major road north, the Romans would easily predict their route, meaning they could choose the field of battle. Bomilcar wasn’t concerned about their ultimate fate, given the sizes of their respective forces, but the victory would be messy.

One day, one of these petty tyrants who seemed so adept at making their way up in the empire would demand too much or take on an enemy too strong, and the great Carthaginian Empire would fall. Bomilcar had no doubt of that. The Romans might be a tiny force, even with their new alliance, but there was word of other forces to the far east with powerful armies. His masters had disregarded those rumors as propaganda and fear, but he’d heard it from enough sources to believe it.

Bomilcar’s family had always served the empire, and now he feared that he might be the one to see it fall.

“Sir,” a rider said, coming up at a gallop and interrupting his train of thought. “We’ve sighted the Romans.”

“Show me,” Bomilcar said, spurring his horse and following the scout commander.

Surprisingly, they didn’t head towards the front of the line, but towards the left flank of the army. It took a moment to see a line of horsemen galloping towards them. Because of the speed at which they were approaching, Bomilcar thought for a moment they might crash into his mounted forces on that flank, when suddenly they turned. Had he not been there to see it, Bomilcar would have thought any report of it a lie. The line of horses made a sharp U shape as the column of Roman horsemen turned and rode away, barely breaking speed.

As they did, arrows began to fly into the ranks. Their accuracy left something to be desired, if they were shooting at his cavalry, since only about one in five hit a horseman or even a horse, but considering how many men were marching in columns behind the cavalry, it didn’t matter. This didn’t surprise him. He’d received reports of these more advanced arcuballista with their greater range and force of impact.

In military terms, it wouldn’t mean much. There just were not enough enemy horsemen to put a dent in his forces. It did, however, signal where the enemy would strike from.

“Turn the...” he began to give the command, when two more scouts appeared.

“Sir! Enemy horsemen attacking on the right flank,” the first one reported.

“We’ve identified Roman legion battle standards ahead,” the second one said.

Bomilcar stopped, processing the new information. One of his gifts had been the ability to take the available information and see the field of battle as a whole in his head, allowing him to adjust to changes quickly.

He could see the Roman plan. The two cavalry charges were faints, probably to draw off his cavalry and keep him from seeing around their line. Considering the terrain, with its rolling hills that limited how far he could see, they were probably holding a surprise out there. If he had to guess, they were holding forces back for a counter-attack or to get around his sides, perhaps trying to recreate Hannibal’s victory at Cannae. It wouldn’t matter. The difference in men was too great. As long as he kept his front line even with theirs, they couldn’t get around his flanks no matter how many men they had in reserve.

“Order the Cavalry to push back the Roman horsemen. Once the Romans are disposed of, I want them to probe the flanks of the Roman legions.”

In the back of his head, he was already accounting for the latter not happening. He’d seen the astonishing speed at which the Roman horseman had maneuvered. His men could not turn that quickly and the Romans’ new weapons allowed them to slowly pick off his men, even with their poor accuracy. He was, however, willing to sacrifice the bulk of his cavalry to keep them away from the flanks of his phalanxes. As long as they maintained their formation, they would punch through whatever forces the Romans could put in front of them. He could then bring up his archers, which would outrange the Roman horsemen and scatter them.

“Let’s go look at the Roman legions,” he said to the third scout, nudging his horse in the direction of his front lines.

Roman Front Lines Drest felt the wave of excitement that always ran through him just before a fight. Like the rest of his countrymen, he relished the thrill of combat, where he was able to test his physical prowess against an enemy, especially one such as this, where he didn’t have to hold anything back.

He knew he wasn’t actually allowed to do that, of course. He understood the plan and why it was necessary to fight in the Roman way, sneaking and sniping at the enemy instead of confronting them in a stand-up fight. He didn’t like it, but he understood. It was hard not to understand when looking at what seemed like an infinite number of long spears marching towards him, with the death worshipers’ army stretching as far as the eye could see.

He wasn’t afraid of them, but he did have a moment of doubt about the plan. For it to work, the entire death worshiper army had to be completely between the mountains to the west and the long lake to the east. Looking at the death worshipers, he thought it possible that they would stretch out longer than the lake, making it impossible to pen them in.

Of course, maps and planning on that scale weren’t his strength. Drest, like his fathers before him, had always been a war chieftain. True, theirs was a minor tribe, but one that had often been given a place of honor in Talogren’s battle line. It was a proud place to be, but it meant he only needed to worry about the army in front of him, so he’d leave the planning to the Romans.

The plan was simple, if not one to his liking. Attack enough to make it look real, and retreat. The hard part wasn’t the attack. His men were ready for that. The hard part was the retreat. He’d spoken to as many of his men as possible to convince them this was the right thing to do and they’d have chances to win glory before this was all over, but they still didn’t like it. It had actually been easier to convince half of the men to wear Roman-style armor than it had been to convince them that retreat would be necessary.

Ahead of him, the death worshipers long spears lowered, their points glistening in the early morning sun as they began to fan out, spreading across the plain ahead of him.

“ATTACK!!” Drest yelled, lifting his sword in the air and charging forward with his men.

Carthaginian Line Bomilcar had to hand it to the Romans, they were brave. His front ranks had even begun to buckle slightly at their attack. Watching them struggle, he was a little confused, however. He’d personally never fought the Romans, but he’d familiarized himself with their style, and this wasn’t it. The force in front of him was made up of men in Roman armor and dressed in the northern barbarian style, and yet they all attacked in the same, all-out reckless charge. This was precisely the kind of fighting his phalanxes were used to, since most had come from the final pacifications of Germania. They may have wavered a bit under the sheer brutality of the assault, but they didn’t break.

“They’ll be breaking soon,” an aide next to him said.

Bomilcar just nodded, his mind working overtime. None of this was right. Not only were the Romans attacking like barbarians, there weren’t enough of them. The last reports their scouts and the turn-coat Roman’s spies had given said there should be around thirty-thousand legionaries and barbarians facing them. This was, at most, five thousand. He was always skeptical of spies and even scouting reports, especially against an enemy that was as focused on disrupting his scouts as much as the Romans had been, but it seemed impossible their sources would be that wrong.

No, the Romans were planning something and this was just a feint or a diversion. He was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Roman Front Lines Drest pushed aside another spear and lunged forward, his sword catching the wielder just below the exposed collarbone. He’d been aiming for the man’s face, but had his sword deflected by the man’s small round shield at the last moment. Unluckily for the death worshiper facing him, their small shields didn’t block enough of their body and he wasn’t very good at using it to properly deflect the blow.

The man went down, writhing in pain. It wasn’t a mortal blow, but there was every chance he would be crushed under his compatriot’s boots as another man moved in to take the fallen soldier’s place.

Drest took a step back, looking to the left and right of him quickly. His men were fighting hard, and the death worshipers were making a poor showing for themselves, but there were too many of them. A lot of his men were already down, pierced by swords and spears. He was sure they’d killed more than they lost, but the fact that he couldn’t see their bodies because the death worshipers front line was continuing to push them back meant he was losing badly.

Glancing at the position of the sun briefly, he decided they had done enough.

“FALL BACK,” he yelled, sweeping aside a spear tip meant for him and taking a step back.

Carthaginian Lines “They’re running, my lord,” Bomilcar’s aide said. “We should pursue.”

“Tell the men to follow in order. Do not let the line break.”

“But sir, they’ll escape.”

“No, they won’t. This is a trap. They have lost maybe a fifth of their number at most and they’re fighting for their homes. If this was their last stand, they’d fight until completely broken. No, This is part of their plan. The rest of the Roman army is out there.”

The man’s brows furrowed as he considered that, before putting fist to chest and riding away to carry out his orders. As he watched, the trickle turned into a tide of men running along the road. In spite of the limited training and how slipshod the formation of units was, Bomilcar was proud of how well his phalanxes held their cohesion as they continued their march north, with the units that had suffered the most casualties falling back to let fresh units take their place.

The ground was still favorable to them, as they marched up the valley along the north-south road towards the Roman capital, passing a crystal blue lake reflecting the ridge on the eastern side of the valley. With his mounted forces still off dealing with the Roman cavalry, he was happy to see the narrowing landscape between the western ridges of the valley and the lake, which would limit surprise attacks that might hit him on his flanks.

The Roman’s biggest advantage was how much more quickly a Roman legion could turn and deploy for battle than his phalanxes could, and he was surprised that the Romans had chosen a spot that kept them in his front, all but eliminating their one area of tactical superiority. The lake was large enough that men couldn’t just come across it and long enough to keep any coordinated attack from maneuvering around it without his men having time to react. True, they could have ambushers in the hills, but the ascent on this side was steep and the rocks were icy, making it equally impossible to launch a coordinated attack from this side.

Cresting the next ridge, his suspicions about the Romans were confirmed. A much larger line of Roman legionaries was arrayed against them as the retreating men melted into their lines. The Romans lines were barely five ranks deep, stretched across the length of the valley between the ridge and the lake, probably trying to keep his phalanxes from wrapping around their flanks and encircling them. It was good in theory, but spread this thin, it was near suicide. He almost felt sorry for the men his forces were about to obliterate.

Roman Lines “Hold Steady,” Velius said, his voice carrying down the line.

His men were solid, but it would be hard for any man to not quake at the sight of thousands of spears marching over the rise ahead of them.

Ky had ordered him and the other legates to stay behind the lines observing from a distance and passing orders through messages. He knew the Consul would have words with him when this was all over, but Velius couldn’t leave his men to fight out here by themselves. Until the other two-thirds of the legions on this side of the valley and their Caledonian auxiliaries showed up, this and what was left of Drest’s men was all that was left to face a horde twenty times their size.

Velius sensed more than saw Drest come up next to him, but ignored it as his entire attention was focused on the line of men coming towards them.

“Ready,” Velius called out as the Carthaginians passed an invisible spot in the field Velius had been watching.

The Roman line rippled as the men pulled up their large shields and readied themselves for the initial push. This was the critical moment in any engagement with a phalanx. Surviving that first charge and pushing past the spears is what would make or break the legion’s fates. Once they were in close range, the heavy roman armor and large shields would be a hard shell for the Carthaginians to get past, but it was that first push that they had to steady themselves for.

Of course, they’d still suffer casualties and, without new centuries to rotate in for the depleted ones, this thin line wouldn’t last long, but that was a problem for Ky who was with the remaining forces, probably already giving them the order to move up and join the battle.

“Brace,” Velius called out as the spear points reached the Roman shields.

He held his breath as the Carthaginians smashed into his men and then broke like a wave across it. Romans fell here and there as spears got through small gaps in the shield wall, piecing this man’s thigh and that man’s side, but his men held.

Now to take the fight to them.

“Forward one,” he commanded.

Like the fine-tuned machine that it was, the legion stepped forward, pushing the spear tips across the tops of their shields and over their heads, bringing the invaders into the range of Roman swords.

Carthaginian Line “The first men were barbarians dressed up like Romans,” Bomilcar said, looking down on the clash of battle lines.

He had to hand it to the Roman commander, it was a clever ruse. He knew many generals on his side that would have fallen for it, allowing their men to break ranks and give chase to the diversionary force, only to be cut to pieces by the organized legions hiding on the other side of the next ridge. The line facing him was small, but seeing the ground, he could see the reason for it, and wasn’t surprised in the least as the first row of Roman reinforcements crested over the next hill and began marching down to join the men already engaged.

For a moment he’d hoped his men would roll over the thin line of legionnaires before their reinforcements could arrive, but the Romans were as good as history said they were. There was a moment when the left side of their line looked like it might break, but the barbarians dressed like Romans had stopped their retreat and were now acting like some kind of reactive force, charging in to reinforce the line as needed. Again, he was impressed. It wouldn’t have worked for a phalanx, which wasn’t trained to disengage and rotate out the way the Romans apparently were, but it was a smart way to use auxiliaries who’d crumble if put in line by themselves.

“Bring our archers up and have them form on this rise and have them target the reinforcements. Let’s see if we can take some of the fight out of them before they reach their friends.”

Bomilcar didn’t have as many archers as he would have liked, and he doubted they’d be able to disrupt the Romans, but he had to make the attempt. Even with the bows, it was clear he would need to really push his men in to break the Roman line. Once they broke, though, his men would roll right over them, but it was becoming clear the Romans were not going to be easy to break. As he watched he could see his front phalanxes struggle against the heavy armor and shields of the Romans.

That heavy armor came with a price, though. Even rotating through units, they were going to tire while he’d have more fresh units to push in. Eventually, the Romans would break.

“Get the rest of the men in battle formation. I want units ready to replace those that lose combat effectiveness,” he said to another messenger.

Roman Auxiliaries Ky had been watching the battle through his drone with the auxiliary forces. Once he’d confirmed that Velius was engaged and ordered the rest of the legions and Caledonians forward, Ky switched his focus to the rear of the Carthaginian line.

They were already in the area, but he needed them to bunch up more before he gave the word. Phalanxes were slow to maneuver, more so when in battle lines and pressed up against other phalanxes, all waiting for their turn in the front line.

“The Carthaginians have deployed their archers,” Sophus, who was able to focus on all of the drone feeds simultaneously, said.

“We expected that. There aren’t enough of them and we’re spread thin enough that, unless their general is a maniac who doesn’t care about his front ranks, they aren’t going to be able hit us once they’ve moved all the way up.”

“They will be able to target the civilian auxiliary and some of the Caledonians.”

“Yes, but both will be more spread out than the legions. We can withstand the losses.”

“I was more thinking of the auxiliary breaking under the shooting.”

“They’re fighting for their homes, I think they’ll hold. Still, you might be right,” Ky said.

Turning to one of the men next to him and speaking aloud, he said, “Tell Sepurcius to concentrate his volleys on the rise just off the center of the Carthaginian formation. Let’s see if we can’t disrupt those archers.”

The messenger half looked in the direction of the fighting, probably wondering how Ky knew there were archers at all, considering they couldn’t see the battle from the defilade they were currently in, but nodded and left to deliver the message.

Forest South of the Carthaginian Army “It’s time,” Ky said through the small device in Lucilla’s ear.

She’d been waiting for Ky’s signal for almost two hours, ever since the Carthaginian army had passed the forest into the cleared valley. They hadn’t been able to see them, because of how deep into the forest she and the men she commanded were, but she’d heard them as they marched by. It was impossible for an army that size to be anything but conspicuous.

They’d gone over this section of the plan dozens of times and ‘gamed out the variables’ as Ky had said. She’d been confused the first time she’d heard Ky use the phrase, but after going through fake versions of the battles and looking at all of the maps and diagrams of possibilities he’d provided during planning, it kind of made sense. Although she still thought calling anything involving war a ‘game’ was a bit callous.

Thankfully, their preparation had prepared her for running into the Carthaginian baggage train as soon as they cleared the edge of the forest. That was why they’d held a portion of the cavalry back with her. She could hear her men running down Carthaginian guards and camp followers before she even made it out of the woods. Part of her felt bad, since most of these were destitute people looking to make some kind of living off the Carthaginian army, or were the families of the soldiers, but it was necessary. She made it clear that she didn’t want anyone running south, away from the battle, to be chased. They only needed to keep Carthaginians from running north and possibly alerting their army that she and her men were here.

Between what horsemen she had and the Caledonians following closely on their heels, the road was already littered with bodies, with the snow that had already covered the Carthaginian army’s tracks now tinged in red. She forced herself to look, both because she should have to see the results of what she ordered and to confirm for herself that none of her people had gone to excess.