His arm wanted to fall off. Never in his life had he known such physical exertion, and with each slash and parry, the very marrow of his bones ached, longing to simply break and end the prolonged agony. Yet he persevered. With embers of a lingering range, he stood foremost in the breach, standing toe to toe with the oncoming enemy, helping his men batter aside incessant attacks from determined warriors. His scarlet sash, wrapped tight around his armor, had marked him for all to see, friend and foe alike. It was a rash gesture, an invitation for arrow and blade to find and end him. Yet this was a mad day, and he was at the crest of it, carrying him beyond what he thought he knew of himself. The torture lasted for hours, the enemy numbers inexhaustible. Soon his arm would truly give way, his life to follow.
Yet suddenly, his mad slashes no longer connected with flesh and bone. Soon he was piercing the air, the lack of resistance sending him off balance, only strong hands around him keeping him from pitching through the wall and down the slope below. His vision blurred, the weight of the day’s strife pressing down on him. It was as if sound vanished, and what had once been a roaring mob simply stopped and stared at their handiwork, the torn bodies of warriors strewn across the single ever so dangerous breach in the main wall, packed densely through and down to the valley below. Hundreds? A thousand perhaps? Madness.
His vision came into focus, and with a roar in his ear, the noise came back. It was deafening. This was not the cries of men in battle, screaming their defiance…this was…cheering…for him. It was unfathomable, unnerving, and he limped away from the carnage, his officers at last reaching him, carrying him back to safety, clucking at his insanity. Yet the deed was done, the day was rescued, and the men loved him for it. As a way of acknowledgment, their general tripped over a rock, keeled over, and expunged the contents of his stomach into the dusty ground. Such was how Selenus celebrated his first battlefield victory.
That night, he returned to the scene, cleaned up since the last visit. Dusk was settling over the walls of the Syracusan fortifications, the garrison was once more dispersed in nervous patrol, with a strong contingent guarding this break in the stonework. Already, most of the bodies had been removed and a gruff
primicerium was overseeing hasty repairs, his men shoving loose stone and dirt into the gaping hole. For the present, however, Selenus could still see out over the landscape below and could still see the last of the Vandal columns limping back into camp, from where the smoke and fires had continued all day. There was still a mass of dead arranged all the way down the western slope of the
Epipolae, a testament to the intensity of the latest Vandal effort.
He heard the crunch of rocks, but didn’t turn.
”Why did they come so hard, Marcus? Surely the Prince knows how impossible the attack was, no matter the numbers. And repeatedly…all day. Has the man lost his sense?”
Not observing the officer’s reaction, he kept starting, squinting at the layout of the Vandal camps. The fires had been burning for the past three days…day and night. And the smoke hung over the valley like a dense fog. What then? Why would an army stoke fires for days and launch a series of desperate and futile attacks. Pride then, but why would the Prince not wait? Another six months to a year, and Syracuse would starve. Selenus couldn’t pull off another resupply miracle. The Vandal blockade was tighter than ever. What then?
His eyes flickered to the warriors strewn the rocks below him. And then it hit him. The fires, the smoke…the bodies.
”Plague.”
Each man instinctively shivered, but at last it made sense to him. His army was weakened by plague and rather than admit his vulnerability and break off the siege, Prince Gento had gambled poorly, with predictable results. He had bashed his army against the walls of Syracuse and had failed.
Selenus could recall the last attack, as he had observed from his horse, watching the Vandal warriors crest the rise and concentrate on a breach made by a siege engine months before. Hundreds of their strongest had poured into that desperate melee, and he had felt the siege slipping away from him, the breakthrough that would make pointless all his efforts, all the planning, and all of the meticulous maneuvers. It had filled him with dread…and then anger. Before his staff could stop him, he had lept off his horse, drew his
spatha, and charged into the fray, bludgeoning his way through the ranks of his men until suddenly, there he was, at the forefront. He had frozen, he recalled, stunned at the suicidal gesture he had made. Then that Vandal axe had crashed into his blade, almost knocking it aside in one blow. He had staggered, but it ignited his rage, and the madness had overtaken him. Without thought, without technique, with poor discipline, his sword had become a sickle on wheat, not always effective, yet keeping the enemy at bay, wary of this cornered animal that had appeared in their midst. His own soldiers, shocked by their pale and soft general in their midst, had responded with ferocity. And the Vandals had broken.
By Heaven, he had done it, he gritted to himself, trying to control the sobs that now wracked him. To his credit, Marcus said not a word nor placed an arm, letting his general have his private moment. No one would ever say a word. Selenus fell to one knee, holding his head in his hands, feeling the moist tears on his cheeks. He was filled with self-loathing, but God help him, he had loved it. With just his sword hand, he had become an instrument of decision. He had saved his siege with the force of his will. He could never go back now, he finally realized, wondering if he meant the farm or the battlefield.
The Praetor Selenus, painted soon after his Sicilian campaign
Collecting himself, he stood and walked quietly back to his waiting staff, all of whom were staring shyly at him, with that quiet respect that had permeated the entire army since that last attack.
He sat on his horse with a weary sigh.
”Back to the city. I need a bath, and there’s marching orders to be drawn. Be ready to send out riders.”
* * *
Two days later, he was proven right. Admitting defeat at last, Prince Gento took the remains of his army and marched south, away from the scenes of death and away from the defiant walls of the city he could not take, with its general he could not break. Almost immediately, Selenus sent patrols across the Anapus, tracking the Vandal retreat. But it was the camps, rather than the enemy army, that presented the greatest obstacle. Despite Gento’s attempts to burn away the disease that had stripped his army, the river camps were a land of desolation. Bodies were piled on the ground, fallen anywhere, left to slowly decay and die. Worse, diseased horses and men both lay on the riverbanks, polluting the waters. It would take a week to clean up the decay and eliminate the threat to the city. Soberly, Selenus had the work details quarantined in camps of their own, struggling not to notice as pestilence worked its own revenge on these Romans. But the hard measures worked. Syracuse was spared this disaster, and the pursuit could resume.
As if to mark the victorious occasion, the Vandal fleet disappeared, and the first convoys from Italia arrived to replenish supplies and manpower. Selenus knew this would not last forever, and he made fleet construction a priority. For the present, however, Roman Sicily could breathe easy.
