Caesar Ascending-India Limited Edition by R.W. Peake

Author:R.W. Peake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ancient rome, julius caesar, ancient warfare, roman legions, ancient india, titus pullus
Publisher: R.W. Peake

Gaius Porcinus crouched on the deck of his ship, waiting for the signal from his Centurion to move to his assigned spot to begin using the modified ladder to scale the dirt wall. Because he was on the opposite side of the ship, his shield hadn’t been punctured by any of the javelins being hurled down onto the heads of the defenders, although he had experienced a couple of near misses, with one of the missiles embedded in the deck of the ship right next to him. It had landed between him and his close comrade Vulso, causing the older man to give his version of a laugh, which Porcinus always thought sounded more like a hen proclaiming it had laid an egg than anything else. Regardless of this near miss, the only discomfort caused by the hail of javelins for Porcinus and his comrades in the rearmost sections was on their ears, from the clatter caused when one of them hit something solid, from the shouted curses, and worst of all, cries of pain when one of them struck flesh. Fortunately, there weren’t as many of those as Porcinus would have thought given how thick and fast the javelins were coming; in fact, up to this moment, things had been going extremely well for the Second Cohort. It helped that they weren’t leading the way like his uncle, and by the time his bireme reached its spot, the bow of the ship less than the height of a man away from the stern of the ship carrying the Fifth and Sixth Centuries of the First Cohort, the assault had begun in earnest. The scorpions were being loosed as quickly as their crew could reload and crank back the torsion arms, their distinctive twanging crack adding to the noise, and because of his vantage point behind them, Porcinus saw how devastating the weapons were, even when men dropped down out of sight behind what he correctly assumed was a wooden parapet. Fairly quickly, the quality of the sounds changed from the nearer but somehow less substantial noise of short javelins hurled by men into the sound made by a scorpion bolt punching through the six inches of wood, which in turn enabled Porcinus and his comrades to anticipate that their moment was coming.

And, as he expected, he heard Scribonius shout, “Ladders out!”

Porcinus watched as the men assigned to the task thrust the heavier than normal ladders out and up from the side of the ship, which like Pullus’ and every other vessel, had been shoved hard against the bank with the help of the men using poles from the outer ship. While Porcinus and his comrades waited, the men handling the ladder that he would be ascending did their part as intended, extending the ladder out and up at an angle that roughly mirrored the angle of the embankment, but about a foot above the dirt before dropping it, letting the weight drive the spikes into the ground, while the hooked end was dropped into place on the side.

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