Chapter 12

Northern Germania

“They’re all like this?” Ky asked, looking across the Rhine from the small hilltop they stood upon at what had once been a small village.

Dark plumes of smoke curled from the charred ruins and even from here, Ky could see bodies littering the ground, with no one left alive to bury them.

“The ones our people have actually seen, yes,” Bomilcar said. “There are tales of more villages deeper inside Carthaginian territory getting the same fate or worse, since this was a raiding party and those were hit by full detachments from their armies. At least this is our understanding based on the stories we’ve heard from the handful of people who’ve managed to escape and run north.”

“They’re fighting to rule an area where they leave no people alive. What’s the point?”

“‘Lives are cheap’ is a common saying among the emperor and his cronies. This was a common sentiment even toward my own people, but especially towards barbarians, which to the emperor is everyone who isn’t a Carthaginian. If they win, they’ll just bring people in from other areas they control and force them to settle here and work the land. There is some good news, at least. Since this was a smaller raiding party, a fair number of people escaped and made it to neighboring villages. They’ll be able to rebuild.”

“Come back to where their families and neighbors were murdered? I’m not sure they’d consider that good news.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” Bomilcar pointed out. “And it’s better than my other news. Our scouts have followed the trail of the Carthaginians. They crossed the river and are headed toward an Istvaeones village.”

“Damn,” Ky muttered.

“So far, the destroyed villages had been in areas still controlled by the Carthaginians, or at least in contested areas like the one we’re looking at. If their raiders are headed toward an Istvaeones village, it will be the first time they attack one of their allies.”

“I’ve sent riders to warn the village, but most of the Istvaeones men have already left our camps to return to their villages and get their families to safety,” Bomilcar said, his expression grim. “They make up a significant portion of our raiding forces, which is going to slow our disruption of Carthaginian supply lines. I believe they intend to bring not just their families, but everyone they find to the north, abandoning their villages.”

“In that kind of a hurry to escape, they won’t be able to carry much, which means we’re going to have to take them in as refugees. Some of the villages further north might take them in, but they’re all short on supplies as well and the harvest is still two months away. They won’t be able to feed all their people and care for the refugees too.”

“We don’t have the resources to handle them either,” Bomilcar pointed out.

“I know. Send a rider back to the coast with a message explaining what’s going on and arranging to have as much food and clothing as possible shipped to us. Also, have Valdar’s merchants start trying to buy what they can and deliver it here. Lurio’s going to have a stroke trying to find an additional money source to support this request, but Lucilla will see that it is taken care of.”

Ky would actually message her as soon as they rode away from the scene and he had a quiet moment alone, but they had a fiction to maintain which meant sending a runner with the request. At least with the advance warning, she could start getting the supplies together, maybe even send Valdar’s ship early saying it was based on her intuition.

It would still take time and they’d be stretched very thin until additional supplies arrived. They’d set out to make the Carthaginians struggle to keep their men fed and somehow, the Carthaginians had managed to turn the tables on them. Of course, the Carthaginians didn’t have to worry about feeding and protecting civilians, so all they were concerned about was their own army.

“We can’t stay on the defensive like this,” Ky said at last. “With our raids slowing, they’ll be able to increase how quickly they can build up forces while we have to divert rations from our men to feed civilians. Every day that passes we’ll get weaker and they’ll get stronger.”

“We still don’t have enough rifles to equip all of the men. Velius got the last shipment, which gives us only two equipped legions, not counting the muskets we handed out. Our supply of gunpowder is also lower than I’d like. The last shipments have been very light.”

“I know,” Ky said, thinking hard.

He didn’t disagree with Lucilla’s decision to transfer some of the gunpowder from his forces to Valdar. The Carthaginians had such a massive advantage in manpower, they could just keep throwing men at him, whittling away at him, unless he did something to slow down their reinforcements. Valdar was their only real shot at doing that.

“Which means we need to change our tactics,” Bomilcar said.

“That sounds like you already have something in mind.”

“I do. I didn’t disagree with your original plan to use hit-and-run tactics. Considering the disparity in manpower and the fact that most of our men are still not armed with rifles, it was the prudent thing to do. Especially during winter while we were still training our allies and consolidating forces. We can’t continue this tactic forever. No one has ever won picking at an opponent, slowly whittling away at them until they gave up, and we’re not going to win that way here.”

That might have been true in ancient times, but there had been points in history where guerrilla warfare worked, with the attacker eventually giving up and going home. Of course, there were just as many times, like the moon colony rebellion, when the other side giving up meant leveling every settlement and making the area uninhabitable before they left. Of course, that wasn’t really possible with the current level of technology and it didn’t make Bomilcar’s point any less valid.

“So instead of using allies to hit and raid, what should we do?” Ky asked.

He’d actually already gone over some plans with Sophus, but none had jumped out at him yet. Sophus was invaluable and his ability to process tactical data was unmatched, at least in this era, but sentience had not come with the human ability to imagine and think outside the box.

“Instead of hit and run, we need to hit them directly. Draw them into open battle where our new rifles would give us an advantage. If we can funnel their army into a trap, we could decimate them with a single blow. Right now, the Carthaginian army is advancing along the Rhine toward the Istvaeones villages. If we position our forces to the southeast, we can lure them into the hilly country between the Rhine and Visurgis rivers.”

“That plan has some risks,” Ky said. “The land there isn’t as mountainous as where we’ve been fighting. Yes, it’s broken up by a lot of smaller rivers, but it’s heavily wooded, which negates our advantages. We won’t have clear lines of sight for our guns, which will allow them to get on top of us faster.”

“That’s true, but there are some clear areas and our people know exactly where those are. We can use the rivers to slow them down and keep them from outflanking us, hit them, and then pull back to the next one. If they try and pass us, instead of using the musket-armed tribes for raiding, we use them to pick at the edges of the enemy forces while they’re moving through the forest. Their mounted units won’t be able to run our people down and they won’t be able to mass their archers. They’ll have to turn to face the threat, at which point our allies pull back, bringing the Carthaginians against our main body, which is set up and focused on where they’ll emerge from the trees. With our cannons and rifles, we can tear them apart and then pull back and do it again.”

“We’d have to choose our ground very carefully. We need to find areas that are both open to attack and have rivers close enough to keep them from flanking us, which would also help us break contact as they get close.”

“I’ve already picked several spots on their line of advance.”

Ky considered his plan. They were short on rifles and gunpowder, and running low on either would put them in a dangerous position. They were also outnumbered, although not as badly as they had been in the past, since the bulk of the new Carthaginian forces were still near the Mediterranean. Still, they couldn’t just keep waiting on supplies before attacking, not while the Carthaginians were threatening their new allies. They’d promised these tribes protection, and if they failed the first time one of the tribes was threatened, it would make any future promises that much weaker.

“Alright, let’s start moving. Have the legions break camp and get ready to march. You’re going to need to talk to the auxiliaries though. I’ve gone on enough of the raids now to see firsthand how ... energetic some of these tribesmen can be. It’s imperative for them to know that they have a specific job, and that they can’t just engage in all-out combat. If they don’t break off, all we’ll end up doing is losing their men without drawing the enemy into our attack.”