Atticus grabbed three more legionaries, warning them quickly before sending them across, the three men descending backward, their shields raised in defence against arrow strikes. It was a slower retreat and Atticus waited impatiently before he turned once more to the fight. There were ten legionaries left, the semi-circle now crammed against Atticus shoulder. He grabbed two more men, the second turning defiantly, his sword raised in a trance-like rage, but he stayed his blow as he recognised the captain. Atticus pushed them onto the corvus, the legionaries backing down as the others had before, their shields taking strike after strike but the men protected.
Sudden whip-cracks filled the air and Atticus saw the remaining grappling lines fall, severed by Carthaginian axe blows at the aft-rail of the quinquereme. The corvus tore left and buckled, its laboured timbers now the only link between the galleys. The two legionaries immediately lost their balance, one falling quickly to the sea to be crushed by the Aquila, the other instinctively dropping his sword and shield as he grabbed onto the edge of the ramp and hung precariously over the murderous chasm between the ships. Atticus never hesitated, running unguarded down the corvus, throwing himself onto his stomach as he grabbed the forearms of the legionary. He held him there, the wound in chest driving shards of pain through his mind. He gasped as he bent up his arms, lifting the soldier to give him a chance to swing up one of his legs. An arrow stuck the planking beside him, then another and Atticus heard his own crew shout warnings as they intensified their rate of attack to protect their captain. The legionary swung up his leg onto the ramp, grunting heavily as he lifted his own weight and Atticus released him, coming to his feet again as he pushed the legionary ahead of him down the ramp.
Atticus turned as he got to the bottom, looking back up to the remaining five men standing, Septimus and Drusus still among them. The corvus was beginning to break up, the outer timbers snapping and falling away. There was no time.
‘Septimus!’ he shouted, watching as his friend’s head suddenly jerked sideways, an unconscious acknowledgement that he had heard Atticus’s warning.
Septimus screamed through the burning pain in his arm as he shot his sword forward once more, the press of the enemy never ceasing, never abating. He felt the leading edge of the corvus against the back of his foot, felt it slide across his flesh as it struggled to hold its grip. Atticus’s call rang in his ears, the urgency in his warning. Septimus struck out once more, twisting his blade savagely to release it quickly from the sucking flesh of his enemy, an enemy that had taken nearly all of his men and given nothing in return. He had to save the rest, the men who stood beside him, the men he had led on a damned attack.
‘Legionaries!’ he shouted, ‘Full retreat on my order.’
As always they shouted in affirmation, but the calls were without vehemence, the exhausted soldiers knowing the disintegrating ramp behind them was a treacherous path to deliverance.
‘Now!’ Septimus roared, and he sensed rather than saw the soldiers to his left and right turn and run down the ramp. He stepped to his right, taking the centre line at the head of the corvus, stepping up onto the ramp but never turning, willing to commit the last seconds of his life to save the lives of his men by giving them time to reach the Aquila.
A sudden void was created by the retreating Romans and a Carthaginian rushed into the gap before Septimus, his sword raised in mindless attack, the last of the Roman defenders standing firm. Septimus hammered out with his shield, parrying the untargeted blow before striking out with his own sword. The tip of the blade deflected off the Carthaginian’s armour but Septimus continued the lunge, running the sword edge across the Carthaginian’s exposed side, slicing the muscle deeply, putting the man down. Septimus recovered in an instant but was already too late to fend off the next attack to his left, his balance off-set, his shield too high. His mind registered the oncoming Carthaginian, screaming at his body to react quicker, to turn into the attack but there was no time and Septimus knew his fight was over.
The Carthaginian suddenly fell, his face twisted in agony and surprise as a blade ended his charge. Another rushed forward in his wake but a red-cloaked legionary stepped into the fight, protecting Septimus’s flank. It was Drusus.
‘Get back, man!’ Septimus shouted as more Carthaginians came forward, hammering on the shields of the two men. ‘The corvus is about to go!’
Drusus didn’t answer, but held firm beside Septimus, repelling the attack of two Carthaginians, striking out methodically with his sword, half a life’s training commanding his arm. He put his sword arm in front of Septimus’s shield and pressed him back, both men stepping up onto the corvus.
‘Drusus!’ Septimus shouted, feeling the ramp move violently beneath him, the final death throes of the corvus, ‘I’ll hold them. Get back to the Aquila!’
The optio continued to fight, ignoring his centurion; ignoring an order for the first time in his life as he held the Carthaginians off with the strength only a legionary could command. He turned to Septimus.
‘We go together,’ he shouted, his tone that of an order.
Septimus nodded in reply.
‘Run! Now!’ Drusus shouted and he lunged suddenly against the wall of attackers, his shield pushing the enemy back momentarily, throwing them off balance, creating a vital second needed to escape.
Septimus grabbed the collar of Drusus’s armour and wrenched him from the fight, pushing him down the corvus. He hesitated for a heartbeat longer and then followed, his shield dropping away, his legs pumping beneath him, his feet finding the remnants of the boarding ramp even as the air was split by the sound of snapping timber, the spar on the Aquila finally giving way at the instant the spike was torn from the quinquereme. Drusus jumped onto the foredeck as Septimus desperately threw himself forward, his gaze filled with the cutwater of the Aquila and the ram beneath, his left hand flailing, his right never letting go of his sword. The air was suddenly blown from his chest as he struck the forward rail of the Aquila, the galley’s ramming speed saving him from falling short and steady hands grasped his forearms and shoulders and hoisted him over the rail onto the deck.
He stood up uncertainly, pushing away the hands that helped him, spinning around to gaze at the escaping quinquereme, ignoring the Carthaginian arrows that continued to strike the Aquila’s foredeck as the enemy crew screamed curses and taunts across at the vanquished Romans. The Aquila’s speed was dropping, any pursuit futile, the rowers already spent. The quinquereme began to pull away. Septimus watched it go, his gaze fixed to the aft- rail of the enemy galley. He turned suddenly to his remaining eight men, nodding to Drusus, the optio returning the gesture before looking to the enemy once more. Septimus continued to stare at his men. Eight legionaries left from the thirty he had led across the corvus no more than ten minutes before, the survivors’ expressions a mixture of anger and shame at having lived while others fell.
Septimus looked away to the quinquereme again and suddenly, with all the strength of his body, with all of the rage filling his soul, he flung his sword after the Carthaginian ship, the blade soaring through the air before striking the stern of the galley, the tip hammering into the timbers. Septimus looked at it for a second longer, then to his empty hand before turning and brushing past the men of his command. In the distance, two miles behind the Aquila, the sound of trumpets heralded a Roman victory.
Varro reached out from the skiff and climbed up the rope ladder on the top deck of the Victoria. He adjusted his scabbard and then strode purposefully to the aft-deck and the waiting figure of the senior consul.
‘Well?’ Regulus asked.
‘The jetties as you can see can accommodate some one hundred galleys,’ Varro began, gesturing over his shoulder to the shoreline of Tyndaris, ‘while the shallows have anchor points for at least another hundred.’
Regulus nodded, his gaze shifting to the land beyond the shore, behind the line of jetties from where Varro had just travelled, ‘And?’ he asked, indicating the unseen terrain.
‘A supply-dump large enough to stock a significant fleet and quarters for at least twenty thousand troops.’
Regulus shook his head slowly, amazed at how close the Carthaginians had been to fulfilling their plans, how ready they were, how their surprise land-attack west now made sense, their ultimate destination revealed. And what of Syracuse? Hiero was certainly complicit in some way, allowing the Punici to use his port. An alliance of convenience or maybe he was fully aware of their plans. Either way Regulus vowed the king of Syracuse would answer to the charge.
‘What news of the Alissar?’ Varro asked, interrupting the consul’s thoughts. The name of the Punic quinquereme and the identity of her commander had been ascertained soon after the Carthaginians’ capitulation at the point of a sword and Regulus had immediately ordered two quinqueremes in pursuit. Varro had seen that they had returned as he made his way to the Victoria moments before.
