Volume 5: The Hegemon of Southern Italy, Chapter 112: Attack and Defense of the Fortress (Part 1)

“Gentlemen, the army of Cosentia has entered the Bruttian camp two miles away. According to scout reports, the enemy may number over twenty thousand.” Drakos said to the assembly. Upon hearing the enemy situation, he was not nervous but instead relieved.

The reason was that two thousand Besidia warriors had voluntarily submitted, and Drakos was struggling with how to settle them. Bagiripi had offered a suggestion: under the pretext that Nikurus would soon return with the army from Cosentia to take revenge, all warriors except the wounded who could return to Besidia town to recover should remain in the newly built fortress to assist the Daonians in defending against Nikurus’s attack. To prevent Drakos from suspecting he had too much military power, Bagiripi also proposed that each tribe’s warriors be led by their own chieftains.

Drakos was grateful for Bagiripi’s thoughtfulness. But after all, the fighting between Daonia and Besidia had just ended not long ago; some Besidia warriors’ families had died at the hands of Daonian soldiers, and the enmity between the two tribes could not disappear so quickly. In the cramped fortress, conflicts between the soldiers of both sides were inevitable. Drakos and Bagiripi were both worn out from dealing with this. Drax, who was never good at handling such matters, was eager to divert the soldiers’ attention to repelling the enemy’s attack.

After Drakos finished speaking, Adpigis translated his words into the Bruttian language. The battalion commanders were all eager to try.

Krem might have been nervous, but he knew he had to help the Daonians hold off the Bruttian alliance’s attack; otherwise, if the enemy broke in, Nikurus would probably want to kill him first.

Bagiripi sat steady, but in his heart he thought much the same as young Krem.

Only Brim, pressing a hand to his abdomen—wounded by a Daonian soldier’s spear and then bandaged tightly by the doctor—waved his other hand and said in astonishment, “Twenty thousand Cosentia warriors? Does Cosentia really have that many warriors now?!”

“I think Piallen must also have gathered the Ambarnians and warriors from other tribes,” Bagiripi said.

Brim’s astonishment lessened, but he still marveled, “Twenty thousand warriors! This is the strongest army Bruttii has ever seen!”

“What’s that! Quite a few city-state armies with over twenty thousand men have been defeated by my Daonia—Croton to the south! The Messapians and Peucetii across the gulf! … We’re not afraid of the enemy coming in large numbers; we’re afraid they’re too few!” Trotilas stood up and said passionately. This son-in-law of Anticoris the One-Armed had only been a squad leader when he first arrived in Thurii with the mercenary army; now he was a battalion commander commanding a thousand men.

His words were met with unanimous agreement from the other battalion commanders.

Brim wanted to retort, but Bagiripi held him down.

Seeing this, the First Battalion Commander Adrianx glanced at Drax and found that the legion commander seemed unwilling to speak. Knowing his old friend’s temperament well, he stepped in to smooth things over: “Though Cosentia’s force is large, we also have over ten thousand soldiers, and we have the fortress as a barrier. As Lord Davos puts it, ‘It’s not easy for an attacking side to take a city without several times the defenders’ numbers.’ Besides, the great army led by Lord Davos will be arriving soon!”

Clearly, the weight of Davos’s name made Brim lose the desire to argue.

Just then, Drakos saw that the hall had grown quiet and began to speak: “Tsipet, how is the training of the two thousand new Daonian freemen under your command?”

Tsipet replied with satisfaction: “These freemen sent by the Senate seem to have been strictly selected. They’ve undergone military training many times, obey orders well, and are strong at archery and javelin throwing. They can also hold their own in close combat. I’ve already organized them into units; they can definitely play a role in defending the city.”

“Good.” Though Drakos was satisfied, there was no smile on his face. He continued grimly, “Given that the walkway on the newly built wooden wall is narrow and cannot hold too many soldiers, when the enemy attacks, Zhan, you will lead the light infantry battalion and these two thousand freemen on the wooden wall to conduct continuous ranged attacks on the advancing enemy. When the enemy closes in on the wall, immediately order them to retreat below, and let the archers continue to use volleys to kill the enemy and disrupt their attack rhythm.”

“Legion Commander, rest assured! Hades will protect my battalion. The enemy may be driven back by my brothers before you even get to fight!” Tsipet said confidently.

Drakos was pleased to see such fighting spirit in his men, but he would not praise and encourage them like Davos, nor crack jokes to lighten the mood. He merely nodded slightly without responding, then looked around at the other battalion commanders and continued his battle plan: “After Tsipet’s force withdraws below the wall, the First and Second Battalions and the Besidia warriors will quickly take their places on the wall! The First and Second Battalions will defend the southern wooden wall; the Besidia warriors will defend the northern side. Do not leave any gaps for the enemy’s attack!

The Third and Fourth Battalions will remain in reserve below the wall. Once a dangerous situation arises, go and support immediately!

The Fifth and Sixth Battalions will stay behind to guard Besidia town! … Everyone, do you understand your tasks?!”

“Understood! By Brutus above, we Besidia warriors will not let a single Cosentian climb this wooden wall!” Young, patriotic Krem answered first, also making the pledge on behalf of Bagiripi and the silent Brim to Drakos.

“Legion Commander, that’s not fair! The Fifth and Sixth Battalions want to fight the enemy at the fortress too!” shouted Sixth Battalion Commander Trotilas loudly in protest.

The Fifth Battalion Commander said nothing, but the look of disappointment on his face said it all.

Drakos’s expression darkened, and he said sternly, “That is an order!”

“But—” Trotilas wanted to argue further, but Adrianx cut him off: “Trotilas, you need to understand that Besidia town is extremely important to us! If the Cosentians break through the fortress, the Besidia town you are guarding will be the last line of defense blocking the enemy from sealing off the mountain region, and also the forward base to welcome the great army led by Lord Davos!”

To wake him up, Adrianx did not hesitate to be a “crow’s mouth.” Trotilas was impulsive but not stupid. He immediately understood the implication of Adrianx’s words: if Besidia town fell without Daonian soldiers to vouch for it, and if there was any reversal, the Third Army Corps’ retreat would be cut off. That would not only plunge them into great danger but also cause the offensive plan set by Lord Davos to completely fail!

“I… accept the order.” Trotilas replied promptly.

…

“Hoo! … Hoo! …” In the distance, the sound of Bruttian war horns came.

Tsipet steadied himself against the crenellation of the wooden wall and looked out: ahead, the originally yellow-green grassland was now covered with dense enemies, like a black tide surging toward the wall…

It must be said that the Bruttians’ formation was still relatively orderly and tight, unlike the loose formation of the Lucanians. At two hundred meters from the fortress, the Bruttians stopped advancing.

“Drive the slaves forward and fill those traps for me!” Piallen ordered emotionlessly.

Two thousand slaves—mostly Greeks, plundered by various Bruttian tribes from Magna Graecia over the years—carried sacks of earth under the threat of warriors’ spears, stepped to the front line, and began to walk forward shakily…

“Battalion Commander, they’ve entered the trap zone!” The soldier beside Tsipet reminded him, a bit anxiously.

Tsipet looked at him, smiled, and said, “You must be a new recruit. Don’t rush. Let more enemies come within range.”

One slave dropped the sack on his back and turned to run. Another slave immediately threw his sack into the empty space nearby… one after another, the scene was both tense and somewhat chaotic. Occasionally, a slave accidentally stepped on a trap, letting out a miserable scream, which made the other slaves throw their sacks even more nervously.

But the supervising Bruttian warriors, for slaves who were slacking off, not only used whips but in severe cases directly killed them with spears.

Facing the threat of death, the slaves did not dare to be lazy. They obediently ran to the rear of the formation, picked up sacks, and continued paving the way.

“Archers, ready!” Tsipet felt the time was right and raised his right arm.

Over five hundred archers from the Seventh Battalion and two thousand freemen stood on the four-meter-high wooden wall, drawing their bows and nocking arrows one after another.

Eighty meters—exactly within the range of bows! After silently reciting the Hymn to Hades a few times, Tsipet swung his right arm down heavily: “Release!”

“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! …” Continuous bowstrings twanged, and over two thousand arrows shot straight into the sky, then in an instant whistled down, falling evenly among the slaves. A spray of blood blossomed, and screams continued unabated…

Seeing this, Piallen’s expression changed. It wasn’t because of the slaves’ casualties, but because he hadn’t expected the Daonians to have so many archers, and judging by the fall of the arrows, their skill was not poor.

Could it be that the Daonian army here was not a hastily assembled force but a main enemy force?! After all, the Besidians who had fled to Cosentia earlier told him that the enemy attacking Besidia town was not very large, probably no more than a thousand men! And when Nikurus fled back to Cosentia yesterday, he had increased the number of enemies by two thousand… All this information had made Piallen quite confident about “recapturing Besidia town.” Yet upon arriving, a fortress that had already taken shape surprised him, and just one volley of arrows from the Daonians made him cautious.

“Great Chief, the enemy does have quite a few archers!” Petalus, clearly aware of this as well, said with some concern.

Piallen maintained an outward calm: “Let these Greek slaves keep consuming the Daonians’ arrows. Even if they all die!”

The Bruttian warriors executed a dozen slaves who tried to flee, terrifying the rest. The slaves were forced again to fill the earth, while the wall above kept shooting its merciless arrows…