Steam Legion (28 page)

His advisors nodded in agreement.

“However, neither can we leave them be. Those weapons must come into our possession.” He looked around. “Are we in agreement?”

“Yes, Commander. You speak for the temple as you speak for us,” his closest advisor said after a moment’s exchange with the others.

“Then we march north,” he decided. “We cross where they cannot funnel our forces into such a small point and then circle back and overrun them when the battlefield does not so favor their forces.”

Their path decided, the men broke from the group and set back to calm and organize their now thoroughly spooked troops.

****

Dyna and her soldiers watched the army across from them as it moved and reorganized, the tension building as they tried to determine whether there would be a third assault. When it became clear that the force was moving to the north, there was a long exhale from everyone watching, the relief practically palpable as they realized that they wouldn’t be fighting to the death on this day.

Dyna, however, didn’t have time to be relieved. She had to set things in motion quickly, so she grabbed her polished mirror from the chariot while thumping the side.

“Get that thing unhooked and off the bridge, Sensus!” she called. “I need you mobile!”

“I’ll just get the automatons packed up then—”

“No, leave them where they stand!” she countered. “There is no time. Bring that thing off the bridge and get it connected to the carts holding the remaining four cannons.”

“Uh…yes, my Lady,” he stammered out while she walked off the bridge and began to flash signals up to the hill where Aelia was standing his post.

Sensus seemed confused but did as he was told, detaching from the automatons and setting the cogged wheels on the automated chariot to roll the device off the bridge and over to where the first of two chariots was waiting with a pair of steam cannons mounted on it. He easily latched onto that, then rumbled, rattled, and rolled over to the second cart and latched that into place behind the first.

Once that was done, he could do little more than wait to see what she wanted next, so that was precisely what he did.

Dyna exchanged signals to the hill for a few moments before she was satisfied and came back over.

“Immunes, secure your weapons for travel,” she ordered the men standing near the carts. “You ride with the cannons.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

Dyna nodded to the men of the Legion who were approaching. “Stand your post here. With the cannons and you to hold the bridge if they double back, even the Gods themselves would think twice before they tried to cross this place.”

They saluted, eyes shifting to the slowly steaming chariot and the two carts now attached to it. They knew where she was going, of course, and each of them would surely march with her given the choice. That was a choice that she had taken from them with her orders, but she was glad they understood that the post had to be stood by someone and they were the ones available.

“As you command it, my Lady.”

Dyna smiled at the men, her men, and nodded once before she turned back to the automated chariot and the man controlling it.

“Are you ready to move?” she demanded as she walked up beside the slowly steaming chariot.

“Where are we going?”

“North,” she told him as she swung herself up onto the chariot, looking after the departing army of the Zealot temple that was following the road away from the bridge to the north. “We’re going north.”

Chapter 22

The carnage on the bridge caused Gordian to slow his horse and signal the column to halt behind him. He could see the color of the river below, muddied to a reddish brown by the blood from the stones. As he didn’t see any army on his side of the river, the Legion armor and shields weren’t really any comfort to him as he approached.

He waited out of arrow range of the far side of the river, very cognizant of the fact that the Legionnaires he was seeing could well be Zealots in stolen armor. It wasn’t long before a couple men picked their way through the bodies and blood on the bridge and approached with their shields held over their heads to show their nonaggression.

He nodded to his guards and dismounted, pulling his blade from the saddle and sliding it into his belt as he moved to approach the soldiers.

“Hail!” they called, recognizing him. “Tribunus Gordian, well met.”

“It would appear,” he said, looking past them to the bloodied bridge again. “We’ve been tracking a Legion-sized force now for many days, and from what I’ve seen, you caught a piece of them here.”

The men laughed openly, digging their scutem shields into the ground so they could lean on them.

“We met them here, to be sure Tribunus. They’ve since decided that crossing at this bridge is not in their best interests.”

“I can see that.” He couldn’t help but look back to the bridge. The unbelievable scene drew his eyes like metal to a lodestone. “We know they did not turn back, so I presume they’ve gone north?”

The two glanced at one another, grinning like loons, but nodded.

Gordian sighed, pinching his nose. “And from the looks on your faces, may I further assume that they’re going to be meeting someone along the way?”

“Very nearly a Legion of someones, Tribunus.”

Gordian felt his eyes widen in shock. “Where in the Empire did you scrape together a force that size? No, stop, I don’t care. How far ahead of us are they?”

“They reorganized and marched out a little over an hour ago, with the Lady Dyna following along the west bank.”

“Dyna…the Spartan woman?” he asked, perhaps not as respectful as he might have been in retrospect.

The two men didn’t say anything, but Gordian had been reading men most of his life and he could see them instantly cool toward him. They nodded in answer but didn’t say anything for a moment.

Finally one spoke again. “My Lady Dyna led the defense of the bridge, Tribunus.”

Mentally, Gordian backpedaled.
My Lady Dyna? Interesting.

Deciding a little diplomacy was likely the best path to take, he said aloud, “She apparently managed to job with dispatch.”

He could almost literally see them swell with pride in their Commander, and Gordian had to admit that he was becoming more interested in this woman now, himself.
Anyone, man or woman, who can get this out of their men is someone worth knowing.

“Oh, she did that for certainty, Tribunus,” one of the men laughed. “We tried to count the enemy’s fallen but lost track past the first hundred and fifty or so, and we only lost four men with another dozen injured.”

That rocked him back on his heels, his eyes again darting to the bridge.

Impossible. There is no possible
way
for them to have turned back a force that size with so little loss.

The two Legionnaires just smiled at him, clearly reading his expression as plainly as he had earlier read theirs. Further, Gordian could tell that they were
enjoying
holding back the information he was seeking.

That was fair, he knew that he’d likely be enjoying the moment himself in their position, but they should learn not to be so obvious when baiting a superior.

“Given that I heard this Dyna woman hailed from Alexandria, I presume that the brass I see on the bridge are a new weapon out of the Library?” he said dryly, hiding his smirk as the pair slumped slightly.

“Yes, Tribunus,” one said, sounding incredibly disappointed that the officer had guessed the answer so quickly. “Though they’re not new, exactly. Master Heron devised them from the notes left by Archimedes of Syracuse.”

“Ah.” Gordian eyed the brass again with new eyes. “Steam cannons then. I heard that they were too heavy and of limited power for real military use.”

“Not after the Lady Dyna and a couple others finished making small improvements,” the first man said, clearly proud of his association with both the people and the weapons. “With them and the automatons, we could have held this bridge against the Gods themselves.”

There were clearly many levels of things going on here, and Gordian wished for more time to delve into it all, but he didn’t have that. He had already spent more time here than he likely should have, and the enemy was putting footfalls between them and his legion. He cast another look at the bridge, then shook his head again before he turned away.

“You were ordered to stand your post here, I presume?”

“Yes, Tribunus,” the Legionnaire said promptly. “The Lady Dyna told us to remain prepared in case the Zealots turned about.”

“Well, that’s unlikely now, but stay with her orders even so,” Gordian said as he signaled to his aide to bring up his horse. “We’ll follow the river north and make certain no one escapes the trap you laid.”

“Yes, Tribunus!”

Gordian detached his sword and tucked it into the saddle before swinging himself up. He then looked across at the visible forces for a moment before nodding. “Excellent work, Legionnaires.”

“Thank you, Tribunus.” They saluted.

He offered a salute to them, received one quickly in return, and then edged his horse away, waving his Legion onward along the road that headed north along the river. Slowly, the army began to move, leaving the startling display of carnage behind. For Tribunus Gordian, however, it was an image that would remain with him for a long time.

****

Dyna grimaced as she was thrown against the side of the hot boiler by a particularly rough bounce as the chariot rolled along the northern road along the west bank of the river. She hissed, pushed herself off the boiler, and braced a foot against a plank to pin herself in place while she pulled out a map and unfolded it.

“The east road curls in close to the river around the next bend!” she called back to the carts being towed by the automated chariot. “I want you to make your cannon elevation thirty degrees, maintain current bearing!”

The closest of the Immunes stared back at her as he was almost tossed from the cart by another bump.

“While we’re moving!?” he blurted, shocked.

“Well, we aren’t stopping,” she countered with a grin. “Light the braziers as well. I want them ready to fire!”

The men stared for a moment, both amusing and irritating her.

“That would be an
order
,
Immunes!”

“Yes, my Lady!” they responded, some even trying to salute and almost getting tossed from the rocking carts as a consequence.

Dyna laughed freely, letting them set to work as she folded her map and shoved it inside her armor so that she could pull out her planetaria and begin making calculations.

“My Lady?”

“Yes, Sensus?” She glanced over.

“You’re not going to have them fire while we’re moving, are you?” he asked more than a little fearfully.

She shrugged, laughing gaily. “We’ll see now, won’t we?”

The craftsman-turned-chariot-operator shuddered, shaking his head at the thought of what might happen if she ordered those things fired off. He didn’t know much about the cannons, admittedly, but he’d experienced their force from closer than he’d prefer already. The steam that poured off the blasted things was hot!

I need protection for my face and eyes if I’m to do this regularly,
Sensus thought sourly as he tried to keep the chariot on the bumpy road by riding all his weight on the pads that slowed one wheel or another.
I wonder if I could convince Master Heron that polished jewel lenses are required and should be supplied by the Library?

He laughed, leaning to the left to center the chariot again.
Not a chance in Tartarus.

The bend in the river came, and Sensus had to lean his whole weight on the right wheel, slowly dragging the chariot around the curve in the road and drawing the two carts along behind as they continued to rattle along at a speed of about a marching pace. Behind him, Dyna was spinning the disks on her planetaria, working out numbers as she called orders back to the men behind her.

Those men were braving the rocky and jarring motion of the small column, twice falling off and barely avoiding being run over by the wheels, only to run along and climb back onboard. They lit the fires under the cannons, loaded the stone balls and heavy bolts into the barrels, and then tightened down the tension plate to prepare the weapons for use.

As they came around the bend of the river, Dyna crowed, and they all looked up to see marching men moving along the far bank.

“Put air to the bellows!” she called.

The Immunes began pumping the bellows hard, heating the flames under their weapons until they glowed brightly, even in the bright sunlight.

Dyna leaned over, speaking directly to the closest Immune. “Travius, loose the water when your boiler is ready.”

“At your command, my Lady.”

Heating the boiler took a few moments, even with the furious pumping on the bellows, but as soon as the metal hit the right temperature, Travius pulled the lever to drop just a little more water into the upper tank. That splash of water was enough to fill the top tank over the siphon limit, and it then immediately proceeded to dump the entire tank into the bottom boiler.

There was a powerful hiss at first that built to higher and higher levels until it seemed to stop and silence for an instant before the tension plate on the front of the barrel gave under the massive pressure.

The cart shuddered with power not related to the motion of the steam engine pulling it, and with a roar of releasing pressure, five heavy bolts and a stone ball were launched skyward.

****

“Son of a whore.”

The bestial roar and plume of smoke from the far bank came as an unpleasant shock to the Zealots, and even more so to their Commander. He glared at the three chariots pacing them for long seconds before the rapid fire thuds along the edge of the riverbank caught his eye.

There were bolts as if from a scorpion sticking from the mud there, making it clear that they had just been fired on by the bastard Romans, not that he needed the confirmation. It was only when he looked back up that he realized that the chariots pacing them had no horses.