Heir of Aurelian

Chapter 144 A Leap of Faith

While Marcellus had defeated the Eastern Roman forces under the command of Yazdegerd in Italia, Constantius was circling the outpost where the Magister Militum of the east and his army were located. The defenders of the fortress had already fallen by the time Constantius arrived, and their enemies had made use of its natural defenses to catch a breather.

Upon noticing this, Constantius was forced with two options, to lie in a wait, and hope that Durio’s army would abandon the fortress in pursuit of their next target. Or lay siege to the weakened stronghold and kill the man where he stood.

Ultimately, the roman legate pulled out a solid gold solidus and flipped it. Whatever side it landed on would determine how he would proceed. Though the coin fell to the floor in under a second, the duration of its drop felt like a lifetime.

In the end, the answer revealed itself as the handsome visage of Marcellus’ face was boldly displayed. Upon seeing this, Constantius sneered, before equipping his helmet over his head while giving the following order.

“Prepare the trebuchets! We lay siege to the castrum. I don’t care how long it takes. I will have Durio’s head!”

The roman legionaries beneath Constantius’ commands threw up their arms in salute and responded in the affirmative before carrying out their orders.

“For the glory of Rome!”

After saying this, the western roman army began to manufacture trebuchets on the spot. While this was occurring, Durio’s troops took notice and informed the man, who came to the ramparts to witness the western roman army’s actions. He spat over the edge in disdain as he proclaimed his enemy to be suffering from madness.

“Do they really think they can bring down these walls? If not for the sacrifices of our brave soldiers, we never would have scaled over them and taken the fortress. Very well, if they wish to sit back and pepper our defenses with stones, they are more than free to do so!”

With this arrogant statement, Durio did nothing but keep watch on the Western Roman army as they prepared their trebuchets for action. Hours passed, and still Constantius did not make a move. Instead, he waited for the siege weapons to be properly assembled. After nearly two days of waiting, twelve trebuchets were built to surround the fortress.

Unfortunately for Durio, the roman soldiers who defended the fortress had thoroughly dismantled their trebuchets before the walls fell, and because of this, he was utterly lacking in siege weapons. Thus, it came as a surprise in the middle of the night, when flaming rocks flew through the air and collided with the stone walls of the roman fortress.

With each round fired, the walls shook, and the mortar which kept the stones together began to crack. Despite this reality, they still held firm, and thus Durio was unphased. He merely sat back and waited for the enemy to advance, knowing that sooner or later they would grow weary of throwing stones.

However, contrary to his expectations, Constantius waited patiently. Hour after hour, day after day, the 90kg stone projectiles flung forth from the trebuchets and onto the stone walls of the roman fortress. Until finally, the barriers began to erode. When Constantius saw the first stone fall from the wall, he grinned and gave another order to his soldiers so that they may continue the assault.

“Keep it up! They can’t hold on for much longer!”

Despite the fatigue of constantly loading stones into the siege weapons, the trebuchet crews continued to operate their devices to the fullest capacity. Minute after minute, hour after hour, flaming stones flew through the air and collided with the walls, ripping the bricks apart piece by piece.

It was only after the barrage had lasted for three days and three nights that Durio began to feel fear. By now, his engineers had begun bracing the weakest part of the fortress’s walls with wooden beams, and yet this did not appear to be enough to stop their inevitable collapse. When the wall fell, the thousands of roman legionaries sitting outside would pour through the gap, and kill their way to victory.

Despite this, there was nothing he could do. The enemy’s siege weapons were beyond the range of his archers, as were the men of the western roman legions who stood by and waited for the unavoidable collapse of the walls.

Eventually, Durio’s greatest fear came to pass, and three sections of the wall thoroughly crumbled at the same time. Burying the men unfortunate enough to be standing on their ramparts. The moment the gaps appeared, the Western Roman Legions poured through them. While under the cover of their allied crossbowmen, who fired their bolts into the eastern roman defenders. Durio quickly shouted the orders to his soldiers, who did their best to follow them.

“Fill the gaps, make sure no man passes through into the courtyard!”

With this said, hundreds of eastern roman soldiers rushed forward towards the gaps in their walls, and formed a shield wall, in an attempt to forestall the enemy from taking the fortress. However, was it so easy?

Many of the eastern roman soldiers were conscripts with little more than a helmet and shield to protect them. Whereas the western roman troops were all heavily armored in iron lorica squamata. The difference in equipment alone was enough to ensure lesser casualties for the west.

The western roman legionaries pushed off against the eastern roman shieldwall and filled the gaps between their defenses with their iron swords. The blades sunk into the torsos of those who were unarmored and spilled their blood and guts onto the floor. Their lifeless bodies soon fell to the ground as friend and foe alike trampled on their corpses.

As time went on, and the conflict continued, the western Roman troops began to advance. At first it was a matter of a few feet into the gaps, but soon, whole meters of ground were gained, and with minimal casualties on their part. The eastern roman forces were pushed back further and further, and as Durio witnessed this, he began to fear for his life. He could only mutter under his breath in a state of panic.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way…. How… How did this happen?”

Despite the walls closing in on the man, he had no urge to escape, because he knew there was none. After massacring every man who defended this fortress, and using it as his own base of operations, he had never expected it to become his grave.

As Durio gazed upon his armies being pushed back into the courtyard, the young Magister Militum fled deep within the Keep, where he climbed onto its roof, and took one last glance at the battle beyond the walls. Those western roman legionaries who had made it into the courtyard were just a minority.

He was surrounded on all sides, and hundreds of his men fell by the minute. In a moment of hopelessness, he took a step off the ledge and fell to his death. Narrowly avoiding the torture he was sure to receive when his army was defeated. Upon witnessing the death of their commander, the eastern roman army, or what remained of it, surrendered.