Page 65 of Taming the Eagle
After spying the eagle, he’d taken precautions. He’d increased the watch upon the walls and doubled the men at the nearest watchtowers. Yet it hadn’t been enough—and the sheer size of the army encircling Ardoch now was daunting.
“Toutorix has been busy,” Marcus muttered next to him. “Somehow, the cunning bastard has united the northern tribes.”
Justin scowled. Indeed, the Wolf managed to achieve what few of the Picti chieftains had. They’d underestimated him.
Peering closer, he noted one or two robed figures capering back and forth amongst the front ranks. These individuals had wild hair and long beards. Brandishing staffs aloft, they called out to the warriors, their shrill voices rising above the rumble of the gathered army.
Justin’s lip curled.Druids.
Like most Roman soldiers, he distrusted these sorcerers. Druids wielded much power over the chieftains of this land and could whip them up into a frenzy. They were dangerous men indeed.
Justin continued to survey the sea of blue-painted bodies. They appeared to surround the fort on all sides, seeking its weakest point.
Cries to the southwest, followed by the faint clang of steel and iron, drew his attention then.
The vicus.
The settlement outside the walls had guards defending it, but no high walls.
Justin whirled to where the camp prefect, Felix Antonius Magnus, had stepped up next to him. “Did we warn the magistrates in time?”
“Barely,” Felix replied, his leathery face set in hard lines. “We managed to get some of the residents inside the fort before the Picti reached them.” His mouth thinned. “The rest are now fending for themselves.”
Justin’s jaw clenched at this news. However, there was little he could do for the hapless souls facing the attackers outside the walls. “Have we got reinforcements at the other gates?”
The Porta Principalis Sinistra and Porta Principalis Dextra were both smaller than this one, with steeper yet less perilous access.
“Yes, General,” Felix replied. “Your men are ready.”
No sooner had the camp prefect spoken when the twang of bowstrings releasing cut through the night. An instant later, flaming arrows hurtled toward them.
“Shields up!” Justin bellowed, raising his own just in time. As one, the ranks of legionaries obeyed, and a wall of shields lifted.
An instant later, arrows clattered against wood and metal, the odor of burning pitch filling the air.
“Parati!” Justin shouted.
Get ready!
A second volley of arrows loosed, peppering the wall.
Pained grunts and cries followed, as one or two found their mark, despite the tightly-packed shield wall his men created.
Rising to his feet, Justin drew in a deep breath, before shouting, “Arm the catapults!”
This fort had a few of these large wooden and iron contraptions, installed above each of the gates and along the walls. Shouts followed, as men hauled boulders into the payload of the catapult above the Porta Praetoria and awaited his order.
“Loose!”
Rocks flew from the walls, smashing through the boiling tide of warriors.
Screams drifted up from below, yet the reprieve was brief. Another volley of arrows rained down upon them as the Wolves and their allies inched forward. A few of the bravest warriors raced up the causeway between the sloping ramparts and ditches. Some were cut down, while others managed to put up ladders.
The men defending the walls killed many of them with rocks and arrows before they managed to climb the first few rungs. But as Justin looked on, he saw the attackers had brought long planks of wood with them, which they hurled across the ditches. Vicious iron spikes lay within those trenches, ensuring a painful death for any who tried to climb the walls that way, although the wooden planks soon created a number of rickety bridges.
“Archers ready!” Marcus bellowed, his red cloak billowing behind him as he slid down the ladder from the guard tower to the wall.
Men wielding crossbows stepped up to the edge of the palisade, braving the hail of arrows from the attackers, to fire bolts of their own.