Ranks of Bronze

Vibulenus turned toward the right flank as Niger and the centurion bullied men to safety in the other direction. He saw no one he knew by name, though soot, helmets and emotion were effective masks. "Run for it, boys!' he called in cool arrogance, gripping a pair of the nearest men by the shoulder. One of them wore a centurion's red cross-plume on his helmet. "Get 'em moving before the wall comes down!"

Fragments of adobe brick and headsized chunks of the stone battlements tumbled with as much as seventy feet in which to accumulate momentum. Legionaries raised shields if they had warning, but this was little protection against the heaviest pieces. One legionary bounced to the ground screaming, his left forearm broken in a dozen places and the thick plywood of his shield in splinters held together only by its felt backing.

For all the injuries, at least one of them fatal, the scatter of debris was probably the best thing that could have happened to the men at the base of the tower.

Nothing the tribune could have said-no command, even if all the signallers in the legion had delivered it-could have so effectively gotten the attention of those most at risk.

In the pause that followed the crashing impacts, Vibulenus shouted, "Run or you'll die, boys! Run!" He thrust the men he held in the direction he wanted the whole force to go.

That pair moved, the centurion first glancing upward and then braying, "Mithras save us, she's comin' over!"

A full-sized block, tumbling and as big as any in the lower part of the wall, plunged down with just enough outward momentum to keep it clear of the tower's batter. It struck a pile of stones dragged from the base of the tower with a crash like the world splitting. Neither the block which fell nor the one it hit broke up to absorb the impact.

The block sprang outward in an elastic rebound that gave it virtually the same velocity it had at the climax of its seventy foot drop. It caromed through the legs of the centurion with the energy of a builder's dray, scarcely slowing in its crazy, corner-bobbling course into the fascines of the siege ramp which caught it harmlessly.

The man turned a truncated cartwheel, his arms flung wide by the weight of shield and spear. The stubs of his legs, both amputated at midthigh, spurted arcs of arterial blood as they described their own courses around the center of motion. When the centurion crumpled in a pile, his helmet fell off as if in benediction.

The upper face of the tower swayed like a curtain in a breeze, rippling toward either edge from where the hollow log leaned against it. More bits fell from the top, tiny until their velocity swelled then into blocks as big as a man and heavier than a dozen men.

Whether by instinct or from the tribune's warning, legionaries had already abandoned the ground on which the missiles were falling. Many of the troops were trying to climb back the way they had come, up the face of the siege ramp. They were safe enough from plunging debris, but the whole artificial valley would be covered by rubble from the total collapse of the tower. The men who had sense enough to throw down their shields and equipment would probably be able to scramble clear that way, but the others were seriously at risk.

As was Gaius Vibulenus himself. His job was done and he was a human being again with no duty except his own salvation.

There was a cataclysmic tearing sound from within the tower, shaking the ground and sending up sparks in dazzling traceries rather than balls of flame as before. The i

'"Help me," moaned the legless centurion.

The mangled soldier's eyes were staring in the direction of Vibulenus, but his words seemed instinctive rather than voiced in hope of a response. The eyes did not focus. The mind behind them was as droolingly slack as the lips.

Moments before, while the tribune was an intellect dissociated from every factor save the pieces he moved on the game board, he would have seen the sprawling amputee as a factor interchangeable with fifty-nine others in the legion. Now he had returned to being Gaius Vibulenus Caper, who had been a boy of eighteen and who recognized the centurion as the grizzled man who had punched him in the Main Gallery of the vessel that brought them-here.

Vibulenus turned and ran two leggy strides in the direction Clodius and Niger had chivvied other legionaries clear. The face of the tower would buckle outward any instant like a butterfly unfolding a broad stone wing, and anyone caught in the path of that cataclysm would be pulverized beyond the magical skill of the Medic to help.

There were legionaries on top of the wall flanking the crumbling tower. The defenders' resistance had collapsed so thoroughly that the soldiers leading the scrambling assault were able to turn and help their fellows onto the battlements instead of struggling to survive on their dangerous perch. Horns and trumpets sounded in the chaos, but Vibulenus could not tell whether they were giving orders or simply reacting to the general enthusiasm.

Metal gleamed at the edge of the siegeworks, where the palisade had been thrown down by soldiers surging toward the fortress. The sun winked on polished bright-work, the mace-studs and hackamore bosals that left the jaws of the carnivorous mounts free to raven and tear. The smokey glare of the tower stained the iron plates of the bodyguard the color at the heart of a forge, the color of the blood leaking from the stumps of the centurion.

Now that it was safe, the Commander had come to view his victory.

"Fucking bastards!" screamed Gaius Vibulenus, and he ran back to the dying man.

Dead, the tribune thought as he slid his hands under the hooped corselet that gave rigidity like an insect's shell to a body that was flaccid within. When he shifted the armor for a grip, the mouth gave a great sigh though the eyes did not blink.

The centurion was a heavy man, even without the weight of his lower legs, and when Vibulenus had raised him waist high he found that the man's shield was still strapped to his left arm. To clear it would require dropping the centurion and starting again the awkward business of lifting a dead weight… or throwing the bastard down and ru

Fuck it all, he'd finish what he'd started. He twisted a fraction so that the dragging shield did not foul his boots and began striding forward again.

Vibulenus had not realized how done-in he was until he started to carry the dying man. The pains that had been covered by rushing adrenalin earlier in the assault were present in full fury, and the detachment of moments before no longer operated to free his mind from the needs of his body.

All that was bearable because it had to be borne, but the weakness in the tribune's muscles was catastrophic and the final catastrophe. He was too young and too healthy ever to have had doubts about his body. There were limits to his strength: he knew that Clodius Afer was stronger than he, and that others might be quicker or faster as well.

But Vibulenus had not realized in his heart of hearts that there would be a time when a task that was within his normal capacity would find him incapable because of exhaustion. He had expected-not pla

Now that he was committed, he found that he was able to grip his burden only because his knuckles were locked. Vibulenus' lungs burned so that every breath flashed him an image of the flickering inferno above, and his legs were bladders of thin gelatine which were hard put to support their load-much less drive it at a run beyond the zone of destruction.