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.
Hamilcar roared in triumph as a spray of Roman blood fell across his face, the legionary beneath his blade pitching backward with his arms outstretched; his chest slashed open, his defiant stand when all around him fled, ended by a Phoenician blade. Hamilcar continued the swing of his blade over his head as his mount thundered on, the momentum of their combined charge bringing the sword down with savage speed onto the helmet of another fleeing soldier, the forge-welded blade slicing cleanly through the thin metal helmet, dropping the legionary instantly.
All around Hamilcar the Carthaginian line enveloped the fleeing Romans, the slaughter unopposed as the exposed hastati ran for cover, many of them dropping their weapons in a futile attempt to speed their flight, the front ranks left with too far to run. They paid for the precious seconds they had given their comrades with their lives. Hamilcar violently reined in his mount only yards short of one of the outer buildings of the town while to his left and right more Carthaginians continued to butcher the bottlenecked legionaries. He drew his forearm across his mouth, tasting the blood of his enemy as he wiped the stain away, his heightened senses capturing each second of his first close-contact fight with the Romans.
A cheer erupted from the Carthaginians as the last of the Romans fell or fled, the men wheeling their mounts in tight circles as they held their swords aloft in triumph. Hamilcar scanned the scene around him. Fifty yards to his rear he spied his fallen men, their number laid out in a line marking the fall of the Roman spears, their loss repaid fourfold by the number of dead Romans who littered the horse-trampled ground and the Roman cavalry so easily dispatched in ambush only an hour before. Cries and alarm cut through the cheering and Hamilcar spun around to see a flight of Roman spears erupt from the confines of the town, the untargeted volleys falling loosely amongst his troops.
‘Withdraw!’ he roared, his men instantly obeying, galloping out of range of their unseen foe.
‘Commander!’ Hamilcar shouted as he spun his mount around fifty yards from the town. A senior cavalry officer was immediately by his side.
‘Re-form the line,’ he ordered. ‘Have your men rush any Roman who appears but do not attempt to breach the town.’
The officer saluted and galloped down the line, shouting orders as he did, the men falling back once more into a battle line that effectively imprisoned the Romans in Thermae. Hamilcar watched the officer for a minute, his gaze ranging over the extended formation, the expressions of his men still manic from the frenzied attack only moments before. They would need a firm hand to keep them in check and the uneasy stomp of their horses’ forelegs betrayed the pent-up aggression of the riders. Let loose they would charge the very heart of the town, their blood lust blinding them to the danger of attacking infantry in enclosed streets where their superior speed and manoeuvrability would count for naught. He watched as discipline reasserted itself, and turned his attention back to the town. Between the buildings and on the entrance road he could see a multitude of red cloth and burnished steel, the Romans rushing across his line of sight as their officers fought to regain control of their shattered formations. Hamilcar smiled although his eyes remained cold. No fewer than four hundred Romans lay dead before him and yet the wound to his pride was still raw, his heart calling for greater vengeance. He spurred his mount and raced off towards the southern end of the town and to the flank that would take him quickest to the shores of the inner harbour. As he rode he looked back once more over his shoulder and to the cavalry that had wrought such slaughter. Their fight was fought and won. Now Hamilcar would unleash the next wave, the attack that would wipe out the Romans and restore his honour.
‘By the Gods…’ Atticus whispered as a horde of Carthaginian soldiers suddenly emerged from the hatchways of the Carthaginian galley now transfixed to the Aquila. There were scores of them, many more than the normal complement of a Carthaginian galley; a multitude rushing towards the thin battle line of Drusus’s men. They stormed forward as one, the weight of their charge barely checked by the disciplined legionaries as they were pushed onto the defensive by a number three times their own.
A cheer emanated from the Carthaginian galley on the Aquila’s left flank and Atticus spun around to see the Roman line of the Minerva collapse under a similar assault, the legionaries retreating across the corvus as the enemy followed them onto the deck of the Roman galley. Atticus spun around to the waters of the outer harbour behind him. The Carthaginian galleys were forming a battle line across the width of the harbour, but Atticus noticed that they were slowing their advance and he hesitated, his mind racing to understand the enemy’s rationale, why they were not attacking. He swept aside the question and turned once more.
‘Lucius!’ Atticus shouted, his voiced raised above the Punic war cries that carried from the Minerva not thirty yards away, ‘All hands forward, send a runner across to Drusus and tell him to withdraw. We’ll cover his retreat!’
‘Yes, Captain.’ Lucius replied and was away.
As Atticus ordered his crew forward, the first flight of arrows from the enemy on board the Minerva flew across the narrow gap between the galleys and struck the main deck of the Aquila. A shiver ran down Atticus’s spine as an arrow swept past him and he fought to suppress it, standing resolute in the centre of his ship. He muttered his familiar prayer to Fortuna, knowing that if her hand was upon him this day he would live to see another. If not then Hades, the Lord of the Dead, would take him across the Acheron before the sun set. He felt his nerve strengthen as he ended his prayer, the initial panic every soldier felt at the start of close combat quickly subsiding within him and like countless times before, with a warrior’s heart, he gave his life to fate.
Atticus looked beyond the fight before him to the buildings surrounding the docks of Thermae and his thoughts strayed to Septimus. If the fleet had been baited into a trap then surely the legion had suffered the same fate. He turned to the town beyond the inner harbour and as his eyes strayed over the whitewashed buildings he saw a fire arrow take flight, its golden orange tip followed by a black tail of smoke that stood out against the cobalt sky. Even above the noise of battle all around him, Atticus clearly heard the visceral war cry emanating from the bowels of the town and he instinctively recited his prayer once more, this time for his friend. The dread war cry of the Punici whipped through the still air, the sound causing Septimus to turn his head to the western end of the town and the source of the cry, the men who roared it as yet unseen beyond the confines of the narrow streets now crammed with legionaries. High above his head he spied a lone fire arrow, its purpose immediately clear as a roar emanated from the eastern end of Thermae and the enemy on the reverse flank. Septimus immediately began to form the men around him, his officer’s voice joining the confusing disharmony of commands as centurions and optios fought to bring a semblance of order to the chaos.
The Ninth had run into Thermae in confusion, the ordered formations created on the open space at the edge of the town destroyed as the men fled the Carthaginian cavalry. Septimus searched around him for the banner of the IV maniple and the men under Marcus’s command but it was nowhere to be seen within his field of vision, a scene choked with men pushing and shoving to regain their own units.
The war cries to the west intensified and Septimus charged his shield in that direction, the men around him following suit, many taking their lead from the taller centurion in their midst. Septimus frantically looked
