Chapter 23

Devnum

“Good morning,” Ky said, looking down at Lucilla as her eyes finally opened. “How are you feeling?”

It wasn’t, in fact, morning, but Ky found something humorous about putting it like that.

“Confused,” she said, looking around alarmed. “What happened at the docks? There was a man coming at me. He had a knife and yelled something and stabbed me and then ... I don’t remember.”

“That’s because Sophus put you in a coma ... uhh, an unwaking sleep, like the one I was in this past winter, so he could repair your body. He’s kept you like that for almost two weeks while he fixed you. I rushed back as soon as you were attacked so I could help with your recovery.”

“I was asleep?” she said, starting to sit up and wincing.

“Take it easy. You haven’t used your muscles in a while and you’re going to be sore. You also have some scar tissue that will take time for Sophus to remove, so it’s going to hurt to move for a bit. He made sure all of the critical points were completely healed, or as healed as possible, before waking you up, but I’m still concerned there might be more internal bleeding.”

“There won’t be any bleeding, Commander. I am confident I have closed all the wounds and repaired all the damaged veins and muscle groups. The soreness should not last long and there is no danger of additional damage.”

“You two have been arguing over me?” Lucilla asked, smiling weekly at Ky.

“The Commander has been unreasonably cautious on any topic involving your recovery.”

“I just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong when we woke you up.”

“I’m sorry to give you a scare,” Lucilla said.

“You need to be more careful. I know you want to be there for the people, but you have security for a reason. I talked to Modius. He, and the rest of your guards, all said you ignored their warnings, allowing yourself to be surrounded by people you didn’t know.”

“They were mostly women and children. We’re trying to convince their men to join us and man our ships. Treating their families as if they are lepers isn’t going help us achieve our goals.”

“But they aren’t the only people out there. This isn’t a legion camp where we know exactly who’s around you, or even a Caledonian village where insurrectionists or Carthaginian agents would have trouble blending in. There are Romans who still hate us and blame both of us for the changes they hate.”

“I’ve seen you walking through factories and even crowds. Why is it safe for you and not me?”

“An excellent question,” Sophus added.

Ky ignored the AI and said, “That isn’t the same. I have Sophus continually monitoring the crowds and my enhanced reflexes allow me to avoid attacks that you cannot.”

“I have pointed out numerous times that I can only see threats in your point of view, Commander, and yet you continue to put yourself in situations where unknown individuals are directly behind you. Enhanced reflexes cannot protect you from attacks you do not know are coming.”

“Fine, I don’t take the care I should either, although my system also has a full suite of medical nanites, instead of the hacked ones Sophus has managed to create for you. I just worry about you, and don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I know, and I appreciate that,” Lucilla said, placing her hand on the side of his face and caressing his jaw.

“Just promise me you’ll be more careful.”

“I will try to not get stabbed again,” she said.

“I find that answer vague and unconvincing.”

“Me too, but I think it’s as good as we’re going to get.”

“So I’ve missed two weeks? What’s happened? Is Velius still fighting in Ériunia? Have you looked at the cannon? Did you see the ships? How about the refugee quarter and the merchant quarters that are being built? I want to get those people out of tents as soon as possible.”

“Slow down, slow down. Yes, Velius is still in Ériunia. The last message we received said he was expecting to confront the Carthaginian army at any time, so that has probably happened by now. Yes, I’ve seen the cannon and you did an excellent job, and we should be testing the first cannon any day now. The ships are coming along well also.”

“And the refugees?” she prodded when he stopped without answering all of her questions.

“Tensions are on the rise. The people, especially the Caledonians, are blaming the newcomers for your injuries. There have been some incidents.”

“You need to make sure they’re protected. We are still short on labor in every area and if these people start getting attacked, or worse, they might stop coming. Especially the Scandi, who are only here for opportunity and aren’t fleeing anything. Hortensius says every day, how short we are on raw materials, and if they...”

“I know and I’ve already ordered the praetorians to increase patrols in the refugee areas and have had the praecones add a warning into their latest public notices that violence against peaceful visitors of any kind will not be tolerated. Of course, that won’t stop a lot of these people, but after some time, the outrage will decrease.”

“I should get out of this bed and go out where people can see me. If they’re angry because I was attacked, seeing that I’m fine should help calm them down.”

“You aren’t going anywhere. Sophus said you were healthy enough to come out of the coma, but you still need a few more days to give your body time to heal the rest of the way. We can keep things under control until then.”

“Fine,” she said grudgingly. “I’ve worked hard to try and get these people to stay and work with us and I know you have more plans in the works that will require more workers. We won’t be able to meet that need if we let this get out of hand.”

“Noted,” Ky said.

She’d always cared about the people her family governed, but ever since her experiences with the Caledonians, who treated her as one of them and not an untouchable noble, she’d revised how she saw herself to be a champion of the average person. Even with the projects she was overseeing and the work she did with the Scandi and Germanic immigrants, she had still made time for random stops in less well-off sections of the city, talking to the people and trying to understand what they needed.

It’s why there was outrage against those who people saw as her attackers had been so visceral, and not confined to just the Caledonians. Ky agreed she needed to get back out there and show the colors, as it were, but he was more concerned about her long-term health.

“But, if I wait here in this bed, once I’m up, I want to begin preparing for our wedding.”

“What?” Ky said, surprised by the unexpected statement.

“You heard me just fine. I’ve already made it clear to you that I want to get married and I’ve waited while we dealt with one crisis after another, but I’m done waiting. We’re going to be fighting this war for several more years at least, and I’m not willing to wait to marry you until we win.”

Ky didn’t disagree in principle. He loved her, both in the way defined by the people of his time in the future and in the more primal way people here thought of the word, but he didn’t feel the need for some official title to express that love. Marriage as a binding contract wasn’t a thing in his time. People were paired, and that was that. Of course, bondings were a lot less official there than they were here; where they required entire ceremonies and pledges of fidelity.

“I love you and do want to marry you, but I’m not sure this kind of distraction is what we need right now. We have a lot to do before this conflict is over.”

“Which is why the people need a distraction. Now that they aren’t under immediate threat, attention will waiver. Everyone’s for high-minded civic pride and wants glory for the Empire when asked directly, but what people really care about is their day-to-day living experience. We are working everyone extremely hard, and that can take a toll, especially since there isn’t going to be a chance for that pressure to let up until we get more people into the Empire to share the workload. They are craving a distraction.”

“But...”

“No. No buts. You may be from some far-off place with technology so powerful it looks like magic from the gods, but I know my people, and I know my heart. They are both demanding the same thing.”

“I guess I have no choice but to agree then.”

“See, you’re already thinking like a husband,” she said, putting her hand on his and smiling.

Southern Ériunia

“Are you sure about this?” Aelius asked, lying on the small rise next to Velius and looking at the medium-sized village below.

People were scampering everywhere, looking like ants running across an upturned mound from this distance, preparing defenses as best they could. Between the size of their army and the refugees from the night battle four days previous, the villages had several days warning to begin preparations, which now included a series of long ditches, not dissimilar to the ditches Velius had his legionaries dig around their camps that helped his legion defend itself during the night attack. Aelius couldn’t help but wonder if they got the idea from the defenses that had mauled them so badly only days ago.

“Yes, I’m sure. The messenger we received a few days ago came directly from Ursinus’s legions and had been present at the battle for Londinium. They faced a similar problem and addressed it in a similar fashion. It worked out well for them.”

“Those ditches aren’t the walls of Londinium.”

“No, but we also don’t have the same advantages they had there either. Until my legion can get reinforced and retrained, we’re essentially down to two under-strength legions and street fighting there will play right into the Carthaginians’ strengths. They can hold the alleyways and streets, forcing every attack to be a frontal attack. We can still take the city, they don’t have the manpower to hold it, but they can make us pay to take it. Without being able to maneuver around them, our only recourse will be to hammer away at their front-line men. They’re going to be surrounded so they won’t break, because there’s nowhere for them to run, which means we’ll have to fight to their last man. If at all possible, I want to avoid that.”

Although their last battle had been a stunning victory, it had come at a cost. His legion had stood up to a force close to four times its size for several hours and had come out of the fight badly mauled. He’d reorganized it as best he could to keep it field-ready, but he was only able to deploy five full cohorts, which was half the number of men he’d brought to the island.

This battle might finally secure Ériunia from the Carthaginians, but it wasn’t going to be the Empire’s last clash with them, and they were going to need as many men as possible to carry on the fight. Losing men with experience in a headlong attack was not what Velius considered a winning strategy.

“Won’t they be spotted?”

“Maybe, but they’re going to be Carthaginian ships flying Carthaginian flags, or at least ships of Carthaginian allies. Between that and the pressure we’re going to be putting on them, they will hopefully be too distracted until we hit them to notice.”

The situation was similar to the one they had at Londinium. The Carthaginians were again hemmed into a single point behind defenses and completely surrounded, which gave Velius some options. The countryside wasn’t pacified like it had been around Londinium, but he had enough men that he could deal with that.

He sent half of Vibius’s fourth legion west and half east to find fishing villages where they could commandeer boats for a landing force, and then he sent every mounted trooper he could muster, to cover the coast, watching for them. That had been two days before, and a rider had returned a few hours earlier reporting the sighting of a dozen small ships sailing towards the village from the east with Vibius’s men aboard. There hadn’t been any word from the cohorts he’d sent to the west yet, which wasn’t unexpected. He hadn’t been sure how many boats the men would find in either direction, which is why he’d split the forces in the first place, to increase their chances of finding enough to make a landing force.

He had to time the attack just right, however. Not because he was worried the Carthaginians might inflict enough casualties to break out, but because the most disorienting part of a fight was when the enemy initially engaged. Those initial moments were the ones where he’d have the most attention on Aelius’s legion, which should allow Vibius’s men to land and attack from the rear.

They’d been lying there for the past thirty minutes, Velius staring through his spyglass at the water to the east, looking for the sails. Finally, he saw what the scout had reported. The ships looked to be mostly fishing boats, some oar-driven and others with a single sail. The lead ship had strips of red cloth tied to the front of the boat, which was the signal the cohorts had been given to let his men on land know that they were on those ships.

“Let’s go,” Velius said, pushing back from the rise and returning to their horses and guards.

The legions were only a ten-minute ride behind, and they had to move fast. The ships would land in thirty minutes, and legions on land needed to be fully engaged at that moment. Thankfully, the legionaries were well-trained and had been standing ready while he and Aelius watched for the ships. As soon as they came over a small rise and into view of his men, the centurions had their men on the march.

The men already had their assignments and knew where to go, which saved the time of giving out orders. He’d released their Ulaid support to ‘pacify’ the countryside, keeping their unruliness from disrupting the battle plan. Although it would make ruling this area harder, since the people would have even more resentment after the Ulaid fighters savaged their villages and stole what few valuables they had, it was a necessary evil.

Velius hoped they’d distract the locals to keep them from harassing his legions during the battle, but mostly he just wanted the Ulaid fighters out of the way.

The buzz of action he’d seen in the village became a panic as his men marched over the rise and into sight of the village. Their line extended far beyond the village itself and wrapped around until both ends touched the coastline. They stopped their approach just on the other side of the wide trench filled with spikes.

The Carthaginians, who’d braced for the Britannians to try and charge across the trench, looked almost stunned when the Britannians instead stopped cold ... until the arcuballistas came up. The Carthaginians had helpfully packed themselves into tight rows, directly in the Britannians’ path, and the Britannians took advantage of it.