Septimus moved without hesitation into the second line although he was no longer one of the
principes
of the IV maniple of the Ninth as he had been at the Battle of Agrigentum. As he did so he examined the sudden command of the legate to deploy into battle formation. Thermae was less than two hundred yards away and seemed completely devoid of activity. This in itself was not surprising given that the advancing Roman legion would have been seen from over a mile away and would have prompted every civilian to flee into the interior of the town. What was unusual however was that the outriders of the Roman cavalry had not reappeared, and since the legion was in enemy territory, albeit to subdue a town that was reported to be sparsely defended, it seemed prudent to deploy for battle rather than advance without proper reconnaissance. Legate Megellus was a cautious man, Septimus thought.
Within five minutes the forty maniples of the Ninth had deployed into battle formation and the air grew quiet again as they waited patiently for the order to advance. Septimus blinked a bead of sweat from his eye, overcoming the urge to lift his hand and wipe his face, the ingrained discipline of the legions still strong in his blood. His gaze shifted left to right at the skirmishers who were now reaching the outskirts of the town, the closed shutters of the low whitewashed buildings
revealing nothing to the advancing soldiers. He watched as one of the
velites
negotiated his way around a tethered dog, the sharp bark of the mongrel breaking the silence before a yelp of pain cut the sound short. In the centre of his vision, the approach road to the town was crowded by a detachment of the
velites
, their commander signalling orders as they prepared to advance into the town proper.
Septimus dropped his gaze, ignoring the unspoken order of eyes front as he sensed a tiny vibration beneath his feet. His mind registered and processed the sensation within a heartbeat, triggering a memory and a corresponding sense of alarm. As if to confirm his dread a sound began to fill the air around him, a sound like distant thunder to the uninitiated, but unmistakable to a veteran. His mouth began to form the warning but a dozen other men in the rear ranks beat him to it, their uncoordinated voices overlapping into a jumble of sound, but their warning nonetheless distinctive.
‘Enemy cavalry to the rear!’
The low sun blazed into Hamilcar’s eyes as he crested the hill and he blinked away the momentary blindness, his eyes taking in the entire vista before him in an instant. To his left, a mile away and less than two hundred yards from the town, the Roman legions seemed to be in disarray but Hamilcar’s military eye could see they were deploying into a battle formation, their cohesion evident even at this range. His gaze did not linger long on the enemy however, but shifted to a point directly across from his own on the other hill flanking the valley approach to Thermae. He was half way down the slope, his men following en masse behind, before he spotted the second attack force breach the top of the hill, the second unit of five hundred cavalry that would link with his own on the valley floor.
Hamilcar wheeled his horse into the centre of the valley and his men formed a line of battle on his flanks as they continued at the gallop. He straightened up in the saddle, shifting his weight and locking his legs against the barrel of his mount. His horse, a veteran herself of many battles, sensed the shift and, raising her head slightly, allowed Hamilcar to guide her with his legs, thereby freeing his hands from the reins. He reached behind and drew his sword from the scabbard strapped to his back, drawing the blade in a high arc, a fluid motion that signalled to his men the commitment to battle.
Hamilcar set his gaze firmly on the Roman formation a thousand yards in front of him. He had prepared for this moment for the past three months, from the day he had watched Hannibal Gisco suffer and die on the cross, punishment for the arrogance that had been the Carthaginians’ undoing at Mylae. He had marshalled his forces and then almost immediately concealed them, hiding them from the Roman enemy who sailed unopposed across north-eastern Sicily. He had surreptitiously watched their every move, expecting and then confirming the imminent attack on Thermae and with tempered hate he had laid his trap. Now Hamilcar’s eyes glazed over as he muttered a prayer to Anath, the Carthaginian goddess of war, for her favour in ensuring the enemy had approached unawares. With her good grace he prayed the Roman fleet had advanced under the same veil of ignorance and arrogance. As his vision cleared, the enemy ranks, although still eight hundred yards distant, seemed to fill his vision. A visceral war cry reared up within him and he roared his defiance at the Romans, a shout that was taken up by the thousand men who followed him without question.
‘Attack speed!’ Atticus commanded.
The whip cracks below decks intensified at the order as the two hundred slaves of the
Aquila
worked to get the trireme up to eleven knots, the drum beat intensifying, the heightened rhythm triggering the adrenaline to rise in Atticus’s veins at the anticipation of battle. The Carthaginian line was less than three hundred yards away, nine triremes and one quinquereme in line abreast formation perpendicular to the dock, their hulls pointing directly at the Roman advance.
‘Captain…’ Lucius remarked slowly, standing at Atticus’s shoulder.
‘I see it…’ Atticus replied, his mind racing. The enemy decks were swarming with activity but Atticus noticed they weren’t getting underway. In fact, they were showing no signs of advancing.
The Carthaginians’ strength was in ramming their enemy. For that they needed sea room and that space was rapidly being eroded by the Roman vanguard advancing at speed. In less than a minute it would be too late and they would be sitting ducks.
‘Or the perfect bait,’ Atticus realised suddenly. He whipped around to look out over the aft-rail to the headlands encasing the harbour and the entire fleet of Roman galleys now enclosed within them. ‘Poseidon protect us!’ he whispered.
‘Masthead lookout!’ Atticus shouted, ‘Check out approach, beyond the harbour mouth!’
Corin immediately turned from the impending battle and looked out over the low lying headlands. From fifty feet below Atticus could clearly see the sudden look of alarm on the lookout’s face and dread filled his stomach.
‘Enemy ships approaching from the east!’ Corin roared, pointing to the harbour mouth and the rush of Carthaginian galleys entering at battle speed.
Atticus was already running to the main deck as Corin shouted the alarm, the captain seeking Lucius out amongst the throng of men surrounding the mainmast. He spotted him immediately, his bull-like stature pushing through the legionaries as he too sought his commander.
‘Lucius! Get aloft. I want a full count including formation!’ Atticus ordered, knowing the inexperienced Corin wasn’t up to the vital task.
Lucius nodded and dashed to the running rigging, grasping the rope with his calloused hands and nimbly climbing arm over arm to the head of the mainmast.
‘Drusus!’
Immediately the acting centurion was at Atticus’s side.
‘Have your men form up on the foredeck behind the
corvus.
Once you have control of the enemy main deck I want you to fire her and retreat. Don’t engage below decks.’
Drusus saluted, his clenched fist slamming into his chest armour. He turned and issued terse orders to his men, the soldiers breaking ranks to reform on the fore. Atticus hesitated a moment to watch him. He was an
optio
of the Fourth legion who had been drafted to the marines as Septimus’s second-in-command. With the centurion absent, Drusus was in full command of the marines, a position he had never held before in a naval battle. He was a quiet man who kept his own counsel, but Atticus knew him to be a strict disciplinarian and he followed orders to the letter, never questioning a command or commander. But he lacked experience and Atticus realised he would need to guide both galley and marines in the fight to come.
‘Thirty enemy galleys!’ Lucius roared suddenly from the masthead and Atticus lifted his gaze. ‘Three quinqueremes in the van! Moving in arrow formation!’
‘Captain!’ Varro shouted, breaking Atticus’s concentration, ‘What’s going on?’
‘A trap, Tribune,’ Atticus said brusquely, not looking at the Varro but at the Carthaginian galley to the
Aquila
’s fore, now less than a hundred yards away, ‘and we sailed right into it.’
‘A trap?’ Varro repeated, a slight edge of apprehension in his voice, his confidence of minutes before suddenly challenged.
‘Ready the
corvus
!’ Atticus shouted, watching Gaius from the corner of his eye as the helmsman lined up the bow of the
Aquila.
‘What are you doing?’ Varro asked, his previous command forgotten. ‘We must withdraw.’
‘No!’ Atticus said angrily but then immediately instantly calmed his voice, needing the tribune to understand. ‘We must attack, Tribune. We’re too close, too committed. We need to wipe out the threat to our front before we turn. Otherwise we’ll be forced to fight on two fronts.’
Varro looked away, his face twisted in uncertainty, his eyes darting left and right. Atticus turned his attention once more to the attack.
With twenty yards to go Drusus ordered his
hastati
to release their javelins, the final prelude to attack that would shatter any confluence of men on the Carthaginian foredeck. The
Aquila
shuddered as the seventy ton galley struck the unyielding hull of the Carthaginian ship and the
corvus
was instantly released, its thirty-six foot length hammering down onto the enemy deck, the three foot long spikes on the underside of the ramp crashing into the seasoned pine of the enemy fore, securing the two galleys together in a deadly embrace. Only then did the legionaries roar, their bloodthirsty cry filling their hearts with anger and courage. Within seconds Drusus led all sixty of his men across and a battle line was formed at the head of the Carthaginian galley, the interlocking four-foot
scutum
shields of the legionaries creating an impenetrable
barrier against which the
Punici
could not stand. Slowly and inexorably the Romans began their advance, their swords finding the gaps between the shields, each thrust searching for and finding the flesh of the enemy as man after man fell beneath Roman iron. The noise of battle carried clearly down the length of the
Aquila
to the aft-deck; cries of anger and pain mixed with the clash of weapons. It was a sound like no other in the world and Atticus was transfixed by the sight before him, the vicious struggle that he had known half his life, first as a pirate hunter and now as a galley captain in the war against the
Punici.
Septimus gritted his teeth as he ran, almost stumbling as he favoured his right leg. All around him the sound of officer’s commands filled the air, their voices raised above the sound of five thousand men running towards the outer buildings of Thermae; their orders tightly controlling the panic that lingered just under the surface of every Roman infantryman at the thought of being caught in the open against enemy cavalry.
Septimus’s vision was filled with the throng of men in front of him but his senses also picked up the advance of the Carthaginians behind; the approaching thunder that infused the very air and his mind calculated their proximity from the sound. Less than two hundred yards. They weren’t going to make it and Septimus heard the legate issue a desperate order to try and check the Carthaginian charge.
‘
Hastati
! Prepare to form ranks!’
Septimus ran on through the assembling ranks of the junior soldiers, each one preparing to deploy their
pila
javelins over the heads of the retreating legionaries, the decision to deploy them a desperate gamble to give the rest of the legion time to take cover. The troops were crowded together in the gaps between the buildings and on the main road into the town.
Septimus pushed himself out of the throng and into an island of calm against the bare whitewashed wall of a house. He drew his sword and immediately began to command the men at the crush points to his left and right, his voice reprimanding the soldiers who were pushing those in front, ensuring that panic did not ripple across the men frantically vying for the safety of the town. He looked back towards the approaching enemy, their primeval war cries almost drowning the orders of the centurions commanding the
hastati.
The junior soldiers stood with their feet apart, braced for the throw of their weapons against the enemy bearing down on them. It was a sight to see and Septimus felt his pride swell at the fortitude of the younger men, many of whom had never faced down a cavalry charge. His trained eye judged the distance between the forces, counting the yards off in his head. At thirty yards they would release and the
hastati
would break for cover. Whether they reached it or not depended on the enemy’s courage.
Septimus instinctively muttered the command a heartbeat before the shouted order of ‘Loose!’ released fury upon the enemy.
Twelve hundred javelins were released as one, their trajectory almost flat at the short range and they hung in the air for a mere second before crashing into the enemy ranks, the iron point of each six foot spear slamming indiscriminately into the exposed flesh of the enemy with Fortuna’s hand separating the lucky from the damned. For an instant the force of the charge was repressed, its momentum struck as horses and men fell under the weight of Roman iron. Time slowed as Septimus locked his gaze on the front ranks of the enemy. From where he stood he could see the individual expression of each man and witness the critical moment when their courage would either rear up in defiance or collapse. It passed
and his body moved before his mind could fully register the outcome, his survival instinct faster than his conscious mind.
Septimus was already through the now empty gap between the houses behind him when the order for the
hastati
to break was given. Only then did he replay in his mind the sight he had just seen, the moment to which he had borne witness. The Carthaginians had never wavered. They had run over their own dead and injured without check and the air behind Septimus was ripped by the terrible sound of the enemy cavalry striking the exposed ranks of the
hastati
as they scrabbled the remaining yards to the cover that many of them would never reach.