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
