Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre
Marcus Scipio and the Battle of New Serai, 1770 AD
Part 1
The heavy rain pelted down on the marching Roman column like a subtle form of artillery, whose intent was not to maim and kill but to sicken and demoralize. It drummed upon the tops of their shakos, dripped down their necks, ran down their backs, and had by now soaked them to the skin. The deluge did nothing to help the mood of the men, whose spirits were already low.
By rights, the Roman army should have been elated. They had now captured two Mongolian cities, Mycenian and Ning-Hsia, and were marching on a third, some place called New Serai. Taking it would cut off the Mongolians from the Mycenian peninsula and would completely secure the Roman beachhead in this land, ensuring the Romans of relatively easy and secure resupply and reinforcement from their home continent.
News from elsewhere, however, had significantly dampened their spirits. Rather than rushing home to defend Mongolia’s main territory, as everyone had expected him to do, Genghis Khan had instead continued pushing his forces against England, Rome’s ally. He’d travelling unimpeded through supposedly-neutral Greece, and just after the Roman triumph at Ning-Hsia, word had come from the north that Khan’s forces had captured the English capital, London itself. Queen Elizabeth had barely escaped—the sole consolation from the debacle.
The dispiriting news had turned the taste of victory to ashes in the Romans’ mouths. The whole point of the Mongolian campaign had been to relieve pressure on Rome’s traditional ally, England. It obviously wasn’t working, which was shocking. How could Khan simply ignore the loss of two of his cities, and the approaching loss of a third? What was he thinking and planning? Was he simply stubborn, or did he have something more up his sleeve? The unanswered question which bothered the troops most of all was nearly unthinkable: could it be that Genghis Khan was a better strategist than the immortal Caesar?
None of these doubts helped boost the morale of the Roman troops as they marched towards New Serai. Nor did the weather. Nor did the state of their footwear.
“Bloody hell!” Lieutenant Marcus Scipio cursed as he paused to shake another stone out of his boot.
The front part of the sole had separated from the boot a few days prior; that and the holes worn in them ensured that Scipio’s feet were soaked with cold rainwater and mud, and that every few paces a small stone could find its way inside his footwear to torment his aching feet even more. The boots of the rest of his Legion, the 14th, weren’t in much better shape.
“We
would have to do all of this bloody marching during Mongolia’s rainy season, wouldn’t we, sir?” Sergeant Necalli muttered from beside him. The hulking Aztec rifleman was stumbling through the mud like his officer, his feet similarly soaked and sore.
“The bloody supply ship was supposed to be here weeks ago!” Scipio snarled.
“Word is there was a storm off the coast of Antium…” Necalli replied.
“Bollocks!” Scipio growled his opinion of that official excuse. “Stupid bloody useless navy pansies won’t leave port if there’s so much as a stiff breeze to lift their skirts.”
Despite their discomfort, Necalli smiled. There was something about seeing his commanding officer in a foul mood that inexplicably cheered him up. Maybe it was some small form of revenge for Rome having conquered the Aztec empire centuries before.
“If you say so, sir,” was all he said, and managed to make the grin disappear from his face before Scipio turned to glare at him. Necalli’s gaze wandered upwards, towards the top of the hill on the right hand side of the road. “Think the rain’s bothering the Mongos as much as us, sir?” he said, nodding with his head.
Scipio turned to look where Necalli was indicating. He could barely see anything through the rain, but the Aztec had sharp eyes. Scipio blinked some water out of his eyes, then squinted. Yes, there, at the top of the hill, he could just see them—a group of men on horseback. Cavalry, about a dozen of them. Though they were little more than silhouettes, Scipio knew they were the enemy; Roman troops wouldn’t be watching their own column from a distance with such interest.
“Scouts?” Necalli said.
“Let’s hope that’s all they are,” Scipio replied.
Despite how rain-soaked they were, the hairs on the back of Scipio’s neck were standing up. It was hard to count the shadowy figures through the heavy rain, to tell if the group of Mongolian cavalry were merely a small force or a harbinger of something much larger. They’d be insane to attack the entire Roman column. But they had the rain for cover, the Roman army was on the move and out of its usual protective fortifications, and if they knew how low the troops’ spirits were…
In a heartbeat, Scipio was on the move, running. Through the rain, a few paces ahead of him, thankfully conspicuous because he was on horseback, rode Colonel Gracchus, commander of the 14th Legion.
“Sir! Sir!” Scipio called out as he approached his commanding officer.
Gracchus looked down at Scipio with no small measure of distaste. He came from a long line of Roman patricians, and found the idea of a plebeian like Scipio—let alone one so obviously low-born—holding an officer’s rank to be anathema. Scipio was used to the attitude and did his best to ignore it—most of the time. At the moment, he had no time or concern for the Colonel’s elitist sensibilities.
“Mongolian Cavalry, sir!” Scipio said, pointing up the hill.
Colonel Gracchus squinted up through the rain as Scipio had done only a moment before.
“Cavalry? Hardly, Scipio,” Gracchus said dismissively. “Looks like no more than a motley group of scouts. Or a few of the locals out for a ride.”
“In this weather, sir?” Scipio asked pointedly.
Gracchus glared down at the junior officer, his dark eyes glaring beneath heavy black brows that were just beginning to be grizzled with silver.
“Scouts, then,” he said sharply, then waved his hand and turned away.
Scipio ground his teeth and looked back up the hill, squinting through the driving rain. “There’s more of them than there were a moment ago, sir,” he said.
“What if there are, Scipio?” Gracchus replied impatiently, turning in his saddle to glare at his subordinate.
“There’s a
lot more of them,” Necalli, silent and unnoticed until now, despite his size, said ominously from beside Scipio.
Scipio and Gracchus both looked up at the top of the hill, and both quietly gasped. Even through the heavy rain, they could now see the silhouettes of at least a hundred horsemen there, where before only a dozen or so silhouettes had been visible.
“Lieutenant...” Colonel Gracchus managed to choke out, but Scipio was already in motion.
“FORM SQUARE!” Scipio shouted, Sergeant Necalli on his heels, as he ran back towards the riflemen of the 14th, who were still marching in column. “FORM SQUARE, YOU BASTARDS!”
The riflemen were in a tired, dazed stupor from the long march and the rain, but the order was second nature to them. After the briefest of confused hesitations, they began a quick but orderly move into several adjacent defensive formations.
At that very moment, the Roman riflemen heard a shout from above and to their right, then a sound like thunder as the cavalry began their charge downhill. The hundred horsemen in front began to rapidly descend the hill, a hundred more behind them, and a hundred more after that. Their steeds were charging at a gallop almost as soon as they began their descent down the slope.
Fortunately, it wasn’t the first time the Roman infantry had faced off against cavalry, and they knew exactly how to do it. Each square was two ranks deep on each side, the front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing. The faced outwards; each man quickly attached his two-foot long, wickedly sharp bayonet to the end of his rifle and pointed it outwards at a raised angle, the butt of the rifle braced against the ground. It didn’t matter that cavalry horses were highly trained beasts of war; they were still animals with an innate sense of self-preservation, and would not charge into such an array of deadly sharp spikes.
Provided, of course, the horses could stop themselves in time. And could actually see the bayonets.
A cold, ugly feeling stirred in Scipio’s belly as he watched the Mongolian cavalry rushing down the hill towards him. Even though they were only a few dozen yards away, the heavy rain prevented him from seeing much more than huge, dark shadows in motion, the pull of gravity speeding their charge and making them look onstoppable. Despite the torrential downpour, Scipio’s throat suddenly felt dry.
“RIFLES!” he shouted. “PREPARE TO FIRE!”
Again, the Romans hesitated for the briefest of moments, but only for a moment. It was unusual to fire out of a square, but an order was an order, especially from their hard-featured lieutenant. The men in the two ranks facing the hill raised their weapons to their shoulders and took aim at the charging horses.
“FIRST RANK! FIRE!” Scipio yelled.
The loud, sharp crackle of rifle fire rang out in the rain, almost instantly followed by the horrific sounds of screaming horses and men. Mongolian horses fell, tumbling down the hillside, taking their riders with them, tripping other horses behind them. Some of the more skilled riders managed to jump their mounts over the new obstacles.
Without even pausing to think about it, the first rank began to reload, popping the spent cartridge from their weapons’ breaches, pulling another from their belts and sliding it home. They did so without even flinching as the second rank, on Scipio’s shouted order, fired over their heads. More horses and riders fell.
“It won’t stop them, sir!” Sergeant Necalli shouted.
Scipio knew it was true. The cavalry were relentlessly continuing their charge, only a few yards away now, so he could see them clearly through the rain; he could smell the wet loam being raised by their pounding hooves, he could see the foam forming at the corners of the horses’ mouths. The Romans lowered the butts of their rifles again, expecting the horses to shear away at the last moment like they always did.
But they did not. Blinded by the rain, unable to stop because of their downward momentum, the horses continued their charge straight towards the sides of the squares facing the hill. Only at the last moment did the horses see the forest of spikes in front of them; only then did they scream in fear and try to stop, but it was too late. They were practically on top of the hapless riflemen, who screamed and threw themselves to the wet ground as the huge, suddenly panicked horses lunged over them.
Scipio, standing behind the two hillside ranks, watched in horror as they horses crashed through the Roman line. Less than a heartbeat later, he instinctively threw himself aside as one horse charged towards him, the whites of its eyes visible in its sudden terror. The huge, heavy flank of the animal struck his shoulder, sending him spinning; Scipio narrowly avoided having his legs trampled beneath the beast’s rear hooves. Fortunately, the horse’s rider was preoccupied trying to control his panicked mount, otherwise Scipio might have been mercilessly chopped down by a cavalry sabre.
When Scipio managed to shakily push himself up from the cold, wet earth where he’d fallen, the scene around him had already descended into chaos. One side of each Roman infantry square was shattered. The first few horses had trampled the ranks of riflemen beneath their hooves, but had received mortal wounds from the raised bayonets in the process; the animals had gone mad in their pain and death throes and were thrashing about wildly, doing as much damage to their own riders and neighbouring beasts as they were to the few Romans who were still standing. Behind them, uninjured horses were riding into the middle of the square, their riders still in control and looking down from their saddles for enemy to kill.
Scipio cursed, then pushed himself to his feet. He could run, but he knew he’d only be cut down from behind by a Mongolian cavalryman. There was nothing for it but to join the carnage.
“RIFLES!” he shouted over the din of battle and the pounding rain. “TO ME! TO ME!”
Some of the men in the remaining three sides of the square, turning to see the formation hopelessly broken, obeyed their first instinct, which was to run. Many more, however, either heard Scipio’s order or heeded their own anger and launched themselves towards the invading cavalry.
Scipio looked about quickly and spotted a rider sporting epaulettes and sash. An officer; even now, the man was waving his sword and shouting orders to his men. He remembered that he’d loaded but had not fired his weapon. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger, then watched with satisfaction as the Mongolian officer fell from his horse, his brownish-grey deal suddenly sprouting a dark blossom of blood.
“KILL THEM!” Scipio shouted as he threw the leather strap of his rifle over his shoulder so the weapon hung over his back. He drew his sword and screamed incoherently as he ran forward. Other riflemen ran alongside him, shouting as well.
Private Lallena, the Spaniard, ran by him and plunged the blade of his bayonet into the side of a horse. The animal screamed in pain and reared up just as Lallena yanked the blade free. He ducked out from under the animal’s slashing hooves, then jabbed his bayonet upwards again, this time into the gut of the horse’s rider, who yelled and fell from the saddle.
Sergeant Necalli, a few yards to Scipio’s right, waited, poised on the balls of his feet as one cavalryman charged towards him. The huge Aztec deftly side-stepped the horse at the last moment, lashing out and striking the animal on its sensitive nose with a large, heavy fist as it passed by him. The beast screamed in pain, and Necalli took advantage of the rider’s loss of control to reach up and yank the man out of the saddle. He struck the Mongolian once, then stamped upon his face with his boot and turned to face his next challenge.
Rifles still crackled around Scipio. A few paces behind him, Corporal Ancus Silo was hunkered down on one knee, the old poacher calmly loading cartridge after cartridge into his weapon, taking careful aim, and dispatching horses and riders with deadly ease.
Despite their valiant efforts, however, the Roman infantry were being overwhelmed. Their square was broken, and the Mongolian cavalry were wading through them, the heavy beasts knocking the puny men aside while their riders used carbines and swords to finish them off.
Scipio was suddenly jostled and turned to see Private Li standing beside him, his usually-narrow eyes opened wide, unblinking. The young Chinese private stared at the carnage around him in barely-controlled terror; but he hadn’t run, Scipio briefly reflected. Li had held his own in a handful of battles now, and this one would be no different.
“Come on, Wei!” he said to the young private, flashing a feral grin at him. “Let’s you and me kill some of these Mongo bastards!” Li nodded, drawing encouragement from his commanding officer’s bravery and savagery.
Together, they rose and charged the nearest horse; the rider and his mount, confused by the two targets presented to them, each took a moment too long to decide which one to attack first. Scipio suffered from no such moment of indecision. He slashed the blade of his sword at the horse’s mouth, sending the animal rearing back out of control; he picked his moment carefully, ducked beneath the slashing hooves, and plunged his bayonet into the rider’s ribs. With a groan, the Mongolian fell to the ground, the horse reared and ran away, and Scipio gave Li an encouraging smile and nod, grateful for the distraction the young private had provided.
Yet even as Scipio watched the horse he and Li had attacked run off, he heard more hoof beats behind him, approaching rapidly. Scipio didn’t even pause to think, he just reacted, judging the approach of the horse from the sound. He threw himself to one side and felt his tall shako torn from his head as a heavy cavalry sabre struck it, barely missing striking his skull. Wet mud sprayed by the animal’s huge, heavy hooves soaked his uniform, informing him just how closely death had just passed him by.
He quickly pushed himself up from the mud, his sword held ready as the Mongolian quickly turned his mount. Scipio’s new opponent was a tall, sturdily-built man wearing the silver epaulettes of a Mongolian colonel and a black patch over one eye. That one eye was as black as midnight, as was the formidable war horse the man rode. His lips were curled into a contemptuous sneer as he eyed the Roman infantryman standing before him. He spurred his horse forward, renewing his attack.
Scipio waited as long as he dared, then lashed out with his sword, not at the rider, but once again at the sensitive mouth of his mount. The rider anticipated this tactic, however, and yanked on the reins to not only pull his horse’s head away from the attack, but to present his sword arm towards his opponent.
Scipio could see the long, heavy blade drawn back, then slashing down towards him. In an almost surreal moment of utter clarity, he could see rivulets of rain water flying from the blade as it descended. He shifted his own sword to parry the blow.
The impact of the sword hitting his own seemed to reverberate right through him, rattling his teeth and shooting white-hot pain through his arm. His own sword—a cheap weapon that he’d barely been able to afford once he’d earned his commission—shattered noisily. One large portion of the blade was flung over his head, while smaller shards of metal struck his uniform and cut his face and the back of his sword hand. The force of the blow threw Scipio backwards, the mud barely cushioning the blow. His rifle, slung across his back, cracked as its long barrel broke away from the stock. Instinctively, Scipio rolled away from the horse’s slashing hooves, his right arm useless, his eyes glancing about him for a weapon, any weapon at all, knowing that death was only seconds away.
Suddenly, the great black war horse reared up and screamed in pain. Scipio saw the Mongolian pull harshly on the reins, struggling for control even as he turned to search for the source of the attack on his mount. Through the animal’s powerful legs, Scipio could see the breeches of a Roman rifleman. The beast moved aside and Private Li was revealed, the blade of his bayonet dripping with the animal’s blood.
But Li had only cut the animal, and not deeply; the Mongolian quickly brought the horse back under his control and turned to face this new threat. Li stood his ground, his eyes open wide, as he looked desperately for another opening.
“Wei!” Scipio shouted weakly, knowing all too well the peril the young rifleman was now facing, “get out of there!”
Either Li didn’t hear him or was unwilling to abandon his commanding officer when he was in distress. He scuttled backwards, but kept thrusting his bayonet towards the Mongolian and his mount, attempting to keep them at bay, and apparently succeeding. But from his prone position, Scipio could see the man was toying with Li, awaiting the perfect moment to strike.
“SILO!” Scipio shouted to the Legion’s best marksman as he pushed himself up with his one good arm. “SILO!” he shouted again and turned to see that he’d caught the attention of the former poacher. “Kill that one-eyed bastard! HURRY!” Scipio yelled.
Silo sized up the situation in an instant as he saw the danger the young private was in. He quickly loaded his weapon and brought the rifle to his shoulder, one eye closed as he took aim. He squeezed the trigger.
At that very moment, the Mongolian colonel attacked. He and his horse moved as one, their wordless communication forged by years of training and practice. Horse and rider lunged forward, the tip of horseman’s heavy cavalry sword deftly slipping by Li’s bayonet. Silo’s bullet, aimed so perfectly only a split second before, now flew harmlessly over the head of the lunging Mongolian. The tip of the man’s sword pierced Li’s throat, then emerged with a bloody explosion from the back of his neck. Just as quickly as he’d thrust it forward, the Mongolian twisted his blade and withdrew it.
“NO!” Scipio shouted, running towards Li even though he now had now weapon and risked dying as well.
Li’s knees buckled and he dropped to the muddy ground, blood coursing from the wound in his neck, soaking the front of his dark blue uniform, staining it purple. His hands went limp and his rifle fell from his hands. He crumpled like a wad of paper thrown into a fire, and fell over onto his side.
The Mongolian turned to face Scipio again, his bloodied sword ready to finish him off. Just then, however, the Mongolians’ horses whinnied nervously, and the horsemen glanced nervously around them. Scipio felt the ground begin to shake beneath his feet. At that moment, the rain suddenly petered out, and in the sudden silence, the distant sound of trumpets, shouting men, and galloping horses could be heard.
The Mongolians had attacked only one portion of a vast, long column. As the battle raged, trumpets were sounding from both sides, summoning aid. Behind him, Scipio could now hear the pounding of thousands of horses’ hooves, and knew it wasn’t Mongolian cavalry approaching. The Mongolian colonel barked some quick orders at his horsemen, and the skilled riders quickly turned their mounts and fled back up the hill from which they’d attacked only moments before.
Scipio watched them go. He heard Silo fire another shot at the departing horsemen; unusually, it didn’t seem to strike a target. But Scipio wasn’t surprised. He knew why the marksman’s aim was suddenly off.
Scipio walked over to the crumpled body of Private Li Wei, then awkwardly fell to his knees beside the young man’s corpse. He sensed the large, looming presence of his Sergeant behind his shoulder.
“Buddha wept,” Necalli murmured, his voice tight.
“What?” Private Lallena asked as he walked up behind Scipio. “Who...?” Then he spotted Li, his body all too still, the blank stare in the young man’s eyes. “No. Oh no.
Madre de Dios, no...”
Behind them, Silo stood in silence, remonstrating himself for that one missed shot. He knew he’d never had a chance, that by sheer luck the Mongolian’s lunge had been timed too perfectly. But he missed so rarely, and of all the shots to miss...
Scipio reached down and gently closed Li’s eyes with his fingertips. Several more riflemen were dead of course, their bodies laying on the cold, sodden ground around him. He’d mourn for them too, but Li... Li had been special. He’d been the youngest soldier in the Legion. He was the son of the man who had developed the very same weapon that they all carried. He’d received no end of good-natured ribbing for his youth and for his parentage, but every man in the 14th Legion had no small amount of admiration for him. As the son of a prominent, privileged family, he hadn’t needed to enlist—but he’d chosen to do so, to risk his life alongside the very men who carried his family’s legacy in their hands.
And now he lay dead in a foreign land, across a vast ocean from his home. It would be weeks at the earliest before his family knew of his death. But he had another family, the men of Rome’s 14th Legion, and every one of them would mourn his passing first.
But not Scipio. He ruthlessly set his sorrow over the young man’s death aside and cast an angry glare up the hillside to his right.
“I’ll find you,” Scipio murmured under his breath. “I’ll find you, you one-eyed bastard, I swear it to Mars himself...”
- putting up imaginary stories along while playing the game since Civ II, it was nice to find out how I wasn't alone in not only being addicted to the gameplay, but actually getting deeper stuck into this sort of meta-game...
.
