Steam legion, p.5
Steam Legion, page 5
“While I take your words of caution seriously, Cassius,” she said, “I don’t believe that we have seen our last victory of this little war.”
They all looked to her, all but Cassius surprised that she was even speaking.
“Do you have a plan, my Lady?” Cassius asked.
“I have some ideas,” she confirmed. “We can’t fight them traditionally. We don’t have the numbers to cover our territory. If we try, they will do as you say, Cassius: Flank us in the cross streets, come in from behind our forces, and pin us between two or more groups at once.”
“What are you thinking then?”
“We use smaller squads, we ambush them from the side streets,” she said. “These are our streets. We know them, many of them may not. Their numbers are too great to be merely a local uprising. So we herd them like the animals they are, drive them to a point we choose, and there we meet them line to line.”
Cassius’s eyes fell to the map, gauging what she was suggesting. It had merit. If they could pull off the ambushes, it could work. He frowned, considering it, then shook his head.
“No, there’s a problem, my Lady.”
“What?” she asked calmly.
“The very reason we are considering your idea,” he said. “We don’t have enough men. We could do as you say, and it could work. Once we got them herded to the central position, however, we would not have enough men to finish the job. We could not defeat them with the forces available. I am sorry, my Lady.”
Dyna grimaced, pushing away from the table. “There must be a way.”
“They’re lighting fires as they go. Our fire teams are doing their best,” one of the others said. “And with the pumps provided by the Library, they’re doing better than I would have gambled on, but we’re losing men to that as well. Centurion Cassius is correct. We simply don’t have the forces to defeat them entail.”
Dyna snarled, baring her teeth as she slammed a hand down on the table. “I say there must be a way! You are of the Legion, I am born of Spartan blood, we belong to the Empire of Rome by Zeus. These fools are not to our capacity. We cannot be defeated by them; I will not submit to common bandits! I care not for their belief or how committed they are to their damned fool God. My ancestor faced three million Persian warriors with but three hundred Spartans at his side. If he could do that, we can solve this problem here.”
“I would remind you, Lady,” the man replied, “that first of all, your ancestor had three thousand Greek hoplites at his side that day. Second, he and all of his forces died in the battle. And finally, they were fighting a defensive battle at a strategic choke point. What we need to do here is far more complex, even if less daunting.”
“He is right, my Lady,” Cassius spoke up. “We have better trained men, yes, I agree, but there comes a point where the finest of soldiers will be worn down by the endless rain.”
Dyna growled, stepping away from the table. She paced briefly, shaking her head as she thought furiously through the problem. She refused to believe that there was no way to repel the invaders in her city, not when she had access to men who were better trained, better equipped, and backed by superior minds of military and logical prowess.
“Fine,” she said, turning back. She stepped up to the table, planting her hands in front of her as she leaned forward. “We need more men…or, at least, we need them to think we have more men.”
“Subterfuge?” one of the assembled men considered. “Possible. We could dress civilians up in armor, align them as a Legion Cohort. It would be a chancy affair, though. Should the Zealots see through the strategy, or attack anyway, they would be slaughtered.”
Dyna nodded grimly, but saw little other option. To do anything else was to bid welcome to the dark side of Ares himself within the confines of the city. Alexandria may survive it, but a great many of the great city’s people would not.
She was about to say as much when Cassius lifted a hand, one finger up to call on her and the others to hold for a moment. He was looking into the other side of the shop, face pensive, as if he were deeply pondering something to a degree she’d rarely seen in the man. Dyna remained silent, letting him finish his train of thought.
Finally he spoke. “If the strategy is to be deception…then let us embrace it wholeheartedly. Master Heron.”
“Yes, lad,” the old man asked from where he was sitting comfortably in the corner, apparently having listened in on every word.
“I hate to ask it of you, but do you believe you could brave the night air this one time?” Cassius asked.
“To do what?” Heron leaned forward, clearly curious.
“Cassius, you cannot ask the Master to go out into battle,” Dyna objected.
“To supervise,” Cassius said, for once ignoring Dyna. “How long would it take to mount your final play in one of the side streets of Alexandria?”
The men of the Legion were confused, but the eyes of Dyna, Heron, and Cassius moved as one until they fell on the eight Spartan warriors standing against the far wall of the shop. Their armor glinted in the light of the candles and oil lamps, standing at the ready and certainly fully prepared in appearance, at least, to make one final stand.
Heron considered it, eyes moving to the complex of ropes and weights that ran the elements of his last and, supposedly, greatest play.
“It is a job that would take days,” he said finally and slowly.
Cassius winced and sighed wearily as he assented to what he’d feared would be the answer.
Before he could say anything, however, Heron continued.
“So give me twenty men and I’ll have it done before dawn’s light touches the Pharos.”
Cassius smiled, eyes falling on Dyna, who was smiling in turn.
“Very well,” she spoke. “Then we have our plan of action. Cassius, you and the others organize your men into half squads and hand out the orders. Harass the enemy, show them neither peace nor mercy this night, and drive them…”
Her finger traced a line on the map until it fell on a street that narrowed to an appropriate degree and was crossed by a tall aqueduct. She nodded and tapped her finger on the spot.
“Right here. Master Heron, myself, and as many workmen, slaves, and Pedes as you can spare will have a reception prepared for them. Give us all the time you can, but it would be best if they arrived at this point just before, or just after the dawning light touches the sands of the desert.”
“Yes, my Lady,” Cassius said. “We can do it. On my honor, it will be done.”
He saluted, fist over chest as he stepped back from the table. The others looked surprised, but when Centurion Cassius glared at them, they too straightened and offered her a salute before he broke ranks and led them out.
Dyna turned to where Heron was rising to his feet, stretching painfully, and shook her head as she gave him a mildly disgusted look.
“You have bought yourself a long and painful night, Master Heron,” she told him.
He merely shrugged in reply. “All my nights of late have been long and painful, Dyna, child. This one will be productive as well, and there is really little more I could ask of the Gods than that. If it were my last night on this Earth, better I spend it accomplishing one last thing of note than to waste away in my bed until Hades comes to take me away.”
“If Hades were to come while I stood here, I would fight him for you,” she told him solemnly. “You’re worth so much more than anyone else I have ever known. I would not lose you easily.”
“And yet you would lose me anyway, Dyna, child,” he told her sadly, smiling all the same. “Besides, you are wrong. I am worth no more than most, and less than some. My life is complete, save for a few loose threads yet to weave. Yours is only just beginning. Find your fate, Dyna of Sparta, for I suspect it will be greater than mine.”
She snorted, shaking her head as she walked past him. “I will fetch the workers. We have many hours ahead of us before this will be done, hours to go and miles to walk before we may rest.”
When she was gone from the building, Heron looked to the eight Spartan warriors lined up on his wall and wondered which of them was right.
“Hours to go and miles to walk indeed,” he said finally, beginning to mentally map out the task at hand. “What will you and I find at the end then, I wonder? Ah, Dyna, child, you’re the student I waited my entire life for. Why did you come when it was so close to the end?”
Master Heron, the chief of staff at the Great Library of Alexandria, smiled sadly as he pushed those thoughts away to focus on each step that had to be done to accomplish what his city, his Library, and his student needed done.
My finest play ever.
Chapter 6
Oh my lord, Jupiter above us all, Cassius thought as he and his three-man squad paralleled the Zealot thugs, using their knowledge of the streets to keep pace with them as they ravaged the city and its inhabitants. How did these fools ever get within the city walls?
They wouldn’t have, had the Garrison been at full strength. Of that much he was certain. While they were proving committed and brutal, there was no skill in the assault or discipline in the way they were pillaging the city. The Legion would have broken them within days, had they tried to serve the Empire. They were sloppy in how they wet about pillaging private homes and businesses, missing several places known to hold valuable goods in the process. No member of the Legion under his command would have missed such obvious loot.
Cassius waved his archer forward, pointing to the group standing in the light of a streetlamp while harassing women they’d pulled from one of the buildings. The bodies of men on the ground around them were enough to tell him that the lives of the women likely wouldn’t be extended long beyond the amusement of the thugs.
“Sagitarii, take one of them, you choose,” he ordered the archer softly. “Dead or crippled, no light injuries.”
The archer nodded, notching an arrow to his composite bow and drawing back to his ear. The bow issued by the Legion was an asymmetric design, the upper section longer by half again the length of the lower so that the weapon could be used from horseback as well as on foot. He judged the range for a moment, then lifted the bow skyward and loosed the fletched arrow into the night.
Its arc was invisible to friend and foe alike in the dark of the night, but when the lethal spike fell from the sky, it perforated the back of a man who was watching and laughing as two of his comrades tore at the clothing of one of the women they’d cornered. He barely made a sound as he went down, the arrow buried deep in his lung, gurgling as he struck the ground and flopped around.
Screams of pain would have been nice in Cassius’s opinion, but the gurgling and flopping was enough to attract the attention of the other two and send them scurrying for cover. The women scrambled away—a nice bonus but not his goal—while the Zealots covered themselves in the building they’d just looted.
Pity they hadn’t already set it on fire, Cassius supposed. I would have liked to see them choose between the flames and arrows from the night.
He patted the archer on the shoulder and they pulled back into the night. With only three men plus himself, there was no way that Cassius was going to commit to a straight up fight. Luckily, that wasn’t the plan either. For now they were just to harass the Zealots’ thugs, make them frightened and make them angry.
Fear and rage would be the weapons they turned against the enemy on this night, and Cassius suspected that there were few weapons more effective that he could hope to wield. He just hoped that Heron and Dyna came through with their end. The idea had seemed too elegant and irresistible when it presented itself, but now he was worried that they were making this too complex and too prone to failure.
The night will tell. Whoever among us lives to see the dawn will know whether we are brilliant, or simply foolish.
****
Across the city of Alexandria, similar events were playing out as small squads of the Deiotariana Legion ghosted through the city as best they could in armor and field kit. Quiet as thieves they were not, though the studded-leather armor of the archers wasn’t too bad. The heavier Infantry armor wasn’t so quiet, however, but considering the riots going on through the city, a few disciplined military squads were hardly noticeable.
In another section of the city, a group of Zealots just finished setting another building aflame when their Commander arrived beside them with his two guards. He looked them over before nodding approvingly toward the burning building.
“Were any of the Roman unbelievers within?”
“Yes, three adults and four children.”
“Good. Very good work. Move on to the next street, continue according to your orders.”
They saluted and ran off, leaving him to stand and watch the flames lick at the stone and terracotta off the construction’s exterior.
“Burning a city is much easier away from the desert,” he said idly to his remaining men. “Still, even here, there is enough oil and cloth to set the internal frames ablaze.” He half turned to see a troubled look on the face of his youngest soldier. “A problem, Joseph?”
“No, Amichai,” Joseph said, hesitant.
“You may speak without fear.”
The young man took a breath, “The burning of the city I understand, Amichai… but the children?”
“Your concern does you credit, but they are not people, Joseph,” Amichai said seriously. “Remember Deuteronomy….”
The man took a breath before going on and quoting, “If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or your intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.”
“That is the scripture, Joseph. It is the Word of God delivered unto man,” Amichai said seriously. “The Pax forced upon us by these Roman bastards is an abomination before God. They demand that we revere the Emperors as Godly, and for that alone, neither you nor I, nor any of the faithful, shall stay our hand. They are not people, Joseph, they are unbelievers. Our duty before God is to end their lives before they can corrupt those who may be saved.”
Joseph bowed his head. “I see, and apologize.”
“Do not apologize for your doubts. They are normal and speak well of you.” Amichai clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps you may apologize for your timing, as this is not the place or the time for a lesson in the Word, but it is understandable. Remember, we do not do this to punish the unbelievers, it is not about them.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Commander glowered. “Were you not listening? We do not bear them ill will, Joseph, because that, too, would be hateful in the eyes of God. Punishment is His right, and we are not here to usurp His right. This city will burn this night, not as punishment on the unbelievers, but to preserve others from their future corruptions. We condemn their souls to the flames of Hell, Joseph, that many others may see the gates of Heaven. Burn out the disease, afore it spreads and fells the healthy.”
“I see, of course.”
“Good. Now let us move north, to the harbor section. I have more groups there to check on,” Amichai said as he looked toward the sea. “And with the events at the Library earlier, it would be best not to leave them with too much time to think.”
They moved northerly, heading for the harbor, as he’d said. Around them, the sounds of fighting ruled the city, screams in the distance clearly pointing out that they had succeeded beyond Amichai’s wildest hope in their assault on Alexandria. He’d had grave doubts concerning an open assault on one of the Empire’s more important cities; the Library here was known to all points of the compass as the place of learning for civilized men.
Pah. Civilized pigs, Amichai corrected the thought as he led his men to the harbor. They believe that their Empire makes them civilized, that the might of their Legions can stand against the righteous and the Word. Here is proof that it cannot. For all their power, we easily came within their walls, and now we will slaughter the unbelievers in His name.
For too long the Romans had been looking down on His children, even while supposedly granting them “protected status” within the Empire. Said status was ephemeral at best, coming and going depending on who was in power at the time. The only reason the Romans even permitted temples to remain open was due to the legal fiction listing them as “colleges,” a gift bestowed by Caesar. A gift! A gift that should never have been needed. Temples were places of worship; they should not be hidden merely so that they might exist without being desecrated by the law.
The massacre of the Garrison in Jerusalem was long overdue. The sheer abomination of forcing temple guardians to offer sacrifices to the so culled Cult of the Empire simply boiled his blood and chilled him to the bone all at once.
Contrary to what Amichai had told Joseph, he took a great deal of satisfaction in what they were doing here. Punishment may belong to the Lord, but that was in the afterlife. Here and now, he relished delivering unto the oppressors what they had sown in the eyes of God.
****
“’Ere’s another one. Leader type, I’d say.”
Immune Sevarus of the Deiotariana Legion moved closer so he could look out over the Pedes’s head to see what the man was speaking of. Sure enough, there were three armed men moving down the darkened streets, heading toward the docks. They’d heard fighting in that range earlier, but it was out of their assigned area. Now, however, they had specific tasks to accomplish, so they had ignored it in favor of trailing this new group.
