Chapter 35

North Africa

“Consul, my analysis indicates nearly one hundred thousand soldiers in the Carthaginian army,” Sophus said.

Ky had been watching the Carthaginians approach for almost an hour as his men set up defensive works as best they could. His scouts had come in contact with theirs the night before, and it was clear to everyone that this battle would happen today. Ky let the enemy come to them, having his men dig in, putting in pits and trenches to slow cavalry as best they could.

He wished he was still in Germania, where rivers and hills gave him more opportunity to funnel the enemy and counter the advantage of the numbers they had. The desert gave them too much room to maneuver. True, they weren’t in the desert proper, but the rocky ground wasn’t much better. There were a few narrow spots between the crest behind them and the sea, but the way they were laid out, he could hold maybe a few hundred men in them, and they funneled in the wrong direction. Even if he set up on the other side, he wouldn’t be able to get enough guns in position to stop them, with the slope and drop off was on the other side.

Sure, he could force their troops through the narrows before they got to melee range, but they could wheel cannons and position archers up the slope and shoot down the cliff edge on his men. There were a few other passes, but they were even smaller. Besides, past that cliff was open beach and the sea, not giving him very much room to work with.

So here he sat, lined up, his forces horseshoed back slightly to lower the chance that the enemy would wrap around and surround him, even though it made his volley fire slightly more ineffectual.

“Most of them aren’t soldiers,” he replied to Sophus. “No armor, a lot of crude and makeshift weapons, just like we were told. It looks like they’re all up front, set to take the brunt of our fire, keeping their ‘real’ troops safe for when they come into contact with ours. Smart. Brutal, but smart.”

Before he could sub-vocalize anything else, Bomilcar rode up and said, “They should be in range in a few minutes.”

“Nothing fancy,” Ky ordered. “Have the artillery open up as soon as they are in range. We’re not going to trick our way out of this one. We need to pound them hard and keep it up until we break them.”

“Consul, with all due respect, with those numbers...”

“I know, but we don’t have many other choices. The men are ready, and we have the firepower. Let’s use it.”

“As you order, Consul,” Bomilcar said, saluting and riding off again to hand out orders.

They watched and waited as the Carthaginians drew nearer and nearer. Finally, they crossed an invisible line, bringing all of the Britannian artillery to life. Cannon across their line roared, sending a hail of iron and smoke into the Carthaginian ranks. The ground shook with each volley.

It did not stop the coming onslaught, but it did provoke a response. While their infantry was still outside of acceptable rifle range, a cascade of horns sounded across the enemy line, unleashing their heavy cavalry.

“Rifle volleys, now!” Ky shouted. “Concentrate fire on the cavalry!”

The Britannian soldiers responded as a rippling crack of rifles sounded along the line. They were moving fast, too fast to get his artillery reloaded before they connected. Despite the withering fire, the Carthaginian cavalry crashed into the Britannians, their initial impact sending their horses deep into his lines. While the ones that did penetrate didn’t last long, learning the lesson of why cavalry charges against bayonet-wielding soldiers didn’t last long, the impact did its damage.

They were also a distraction as the huge main body marched on. Ky kept his artillery fixed on them, trying to thin the massive horde out as much as possible, and focusing on the catapults and cannon being pulled by teams of horses.

“Increase fire on their artillery. Focus on those,” Ky called out as the Carthaginian artillery stopped and began setting up. “All cohorts, volley fire.”

He wasn’t sure how powerful their cannon were going to be, but the exploding gunpowder was going to be devastating. They’d been experimenting with fuse-equipped charges of their own, to enable shells that exploded on impact, but they were still in the initial stages of development. More testing was needed for a proper fuse. Ky had known it wouldn’t be ready before the war was finished when he’d given the plans to Hortensius, but he dearly wished he’d had them now.

Carthaginian cannon opened fire, their shells, while underpowered, still wreaking havoc as they smashed into his lines. Their gunpowder pots opening holes in his formation as the fire and shrapnel from their containers ripped into his men.

And finally, the Carthaginian line connected. They had taken unfathomable losses, but the sheer number of men was so great they could absorb them. His men fought valiantly, the front-rank shield bearers and the men with bayonets behind them fighting not that differently than the legions had when he’d first arrived. While they had trained for it, this kind of combat lost them almost all of their advantage.

“Hold the line!” Ky bellowed. “Stand your ground!”

He was glad that, at least this time, Lucilla had listened to him and was with the ships just offshore a few miles in their rear.

“Consul!” a messenger cried as he rode up, his face streaked with sweat and grime. “Our flanks are bending back! The enemy is trying to pour around our edges!”

“Send in the reserve cohort, half going to each flank. Reinforce the faltering lines. We must hold!”

He’d hoped to use the single cohort he held in reserve for reinforcing the center, which was getting hammered painfully, but if the enemy got around him, he would be surrounded and crushed, as he’d done to them several times.

The death toll along the line was brutal. The conscripts were not fighting well, and dying by the dozen, but they did their job, taking down men, pushing back his line, creating gaps. In this kind of fight, weight of men alone was a powerful advantage.

“Consul, we’re taking heavy losses,” the Tribune Euan from the 26th Cohort in the center said, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead. “What are your orders?”

For a moment he just looked around the battlefield, seeing the chaos and death all around him. He knew this was going to be bad, but he’d held out some hope that they could continue to counter the manpower disparity with more firepower alone. He’d seen the massive number of enemy soldiers and hoped that, since so many were untrained conscripts, their numbers wouldn’t hold up under fire.

He’d been wrong.

The estimated counter Sophus kept in a section of his vision, based on the feed from the drone far above, suggested that both forces had lost maybe ten percent of their men. For him, that was devastating, amounting to almost a full cohort. For the enemy, that was as many men as he’d brought into combat all together. They still had nine times what he’d brought into the battle and didn’t look to be slowing.

“Sound the retreat,” Ky ordered. “We need to get back to the beach and regroup.”

“Consul, if we disengage now, they’ll overrun us before we can form back up,” Bomilcar said next to him.

Tribune Antonius, who’d been nearby since his cohort was in the dead center of the line, stepped forward. “Consul, let me take three centuries. That narrow pass through the cliff behind us can be used to funnel them. If I place my men right, with a few cannons, we can make a stand; buy you time to pull back.”

Ky looked at him. It would work, at least to slow them down, but there was no way any man assigned to that duty would survive.

“You understand what you’re asking?”

“I do, Consul.”

“Take what cannon you need. Find good cover. Make them pay for every inch.”

A grim-faced Antonius, saluted, fist hitting his chest hard enough it seemed to hurt his hand. “I will Consul. For Britannia.”

“For Britannia,” Ky echoed.

It took time for his men to pull back, as actual disengagement was not possible, the enemy pushing forward with each step his people took back. The losses continued to mount.

The cavalry peeled back first, followed by the artillery crews, who needed to limber their guns, costing more time that his men had to keep the enemy horde back. Ten guns and precious munitions broke off in the pass, allowing them time to dig their weapons in. Their teams were sent with the rest. None of the men left to man them had any illusion that they would leave that place.

Finally, the infantry began their gradual withdrawal, the shield line holding the enemy back as riflemen kept up a steady fire aimed just behind the enemy front line, to keep them from pushing too hard. His force collapsed through the narrows, pulling back on itself into a tighter and tighter coil, units managing to disengage as they backed into the cliffs.

For now, the enemy had only infantry up front, so there wasn’t a danger of them shooting down on his men, although that would change as more and more of his forces got through and moved off to the beach. He had chosen the terrain carefully for the battle. He might not have known this would exactly be the plan, but it had been a possibility, and he’d made sure to pick a section where the cliffs were just high enough that any men trying to jump off would almost certainly break limbs in doing so, taking them out of the fight as effectively as a bullet or bayonet.

“Keep it steady, boys!” Bomilcar shouted, riding up and down the line. “Don’t let them break through!”

The general was everywhere and already had two horses take arrows, forcing him to switch animals.

As the bulk of the Britannian force made their way through the narrows, Antonius and his three centuries took up position in a series of caves and crevices along the narrows. It looked as if the path was open, but any who tried to get through would find themselves riddled with case and shot. This was made worse by the way it funneled in as it narrowed, helping avoid crossfire while opening up the largest section of the enemy to them. The design would make it harder for his men to escape, but that wasn’t part of the plan anyway.

Ky made it through with one of the last cohorts, holding back long enough to see his men make the break. He ordered an additional century to hold at the neck itself, on this side, to help keep them bottled up. Once Antonius’s men fell, they wouldn’t be able to cap it for long, especially as cannon were brought up on the cliff above, which is why Ky ordered them to pull back as soon as things got too hot.

They were good men and they’d do their job.

Ky continued to watch the battle in the narrows as he pulled back to the beach. The enemy seemed to sense victory, watching the Britannians fall back, running for their ships. They surged forward and were met with a hail of bullets. The land in the narrows became a killing ground. When the Carthaginians entered the narrows it was as if they had kicked an angry nest of hornets. His men were well dug in, and difficult to dislodge.

Wave after wave of enemy soldiers crashed against the Britannian position, only to be cut down by rifle fire and cannon blasts. The ground between the forces became a charnel house of mangled bodies and shattered weapons. The Carthaginians responded, bringing up their own artillery. They rolled their cannon forward, blasting the cliff face at nearly point-blank range. It wasn’t shot, and his men killed many of the Carthaginians working the heavy, oversized tubes, but their huge shot smashed into their defenses, pulverizing man and stone alike.

Still, the men fought on. They would not hold forever. Finally, the bottleneck he’d left behind was forced to retreat, running flat out for the beach a mile behind them. Surprisingly, the Carthaginians did not immediately follow. Maybe because they didn’t realize the path ahead was clear or maybe just out of rage at the hurt those three hundred men had caused them.

They charged them again and again, throwing conscripts and trained soldiers alike. And then time ran out. Trying to rally his men to keep fighting, Antonius wielded two gladiuses with an expertise that impressed even Ky, the enemy finally found an opening, a long spear punching through his chest.

Antonius’s last words were to command his men to keep fighting. The firing trickled off as, one by one, his men fell, until the entire rearguard was gone.

They did their job, however. They had bought him time to get his men back to the beach. Broken units reformed, and a new line just off the soft beach sand was ready to fight again.

“Is it over?” Bomilcar asked.

The general had long ago figured out Ky could see things from far off perspectives. He could have even sent a message up to one of the balloons, moored to the largest galley, that would have had a view of the fighting, but he didn’t. His question was as much prayer as anything else.

“Yes. They did their duty. The enemy’s casualties are very high. If he took less than ten or fifteen of them for every one of his killed, I would be shocked.”

“So, they’ve resumed their march.”

“Not yet. They have to reform and are waiting until the majority of their force is on the other side. I give them thirty minutes to an hour before they march. Have the men rest in line. Eat something if they can. Drink water. Signal all of the ships to pull shoreward as close as they can and prepare to provide support. Have the supply ships send us more gunpowder and ammunition.”

“I’ll see to it.”

As Bomilcar walked off, a longboat skidded into the sand not far away, Lucilla jumping out of it.

“No,” Ky said, the word coming out angry and clipped. “You said you’d stay on the ship.”