Steam Legion (21 page)

That brought a hint of a smile back to her eyes. “Haven’t you heard, Cassius? We at the Library are all quite mad already.”

He shook his head, but offered her a rueful smile and a shrug to accede his defeat. “Just remember, you did well today.”

“Perhaps, but I will do better,” she vowed simply.

Cassius merely nodded before changing the topic. “What shall we do next?”

“We’ll leave our wounded with the people in the township,” she said after consideration. “Those who cannot travel, at least. Beyond that, I’ll decide tonight after I contact the other signaling scouts and determine where, if anywhere, the enemy is.”

Cassius saluted as he bowed his head just slightly. “I await your orders, my Lady.”

“Thank you, Centurion,” she said, the hint of formality bringing a curl to her lips. “See to your men. We will like march on the morrow.”

Cassius saluted and slipped out of the tent, as she said he had work to do.

****

Dyna watched him leave for a moment before she returned to sketching out notes on her wax tablets, recording her thoughts, ideas, and plans so that she wouldn’t forget them when it came time to return home to Alexandria. The issue of accuracy was one of many that currently had her attention, but there was little she could do about that at the moment. So Dyna returned to the problem of Master Heron’s steam motive system, which had been plaguing her since he showed her his automated chariot.

She worked until night began to fall, then placed her work tablets into the interior of the field desk for one of her students to transcribe to papyrus back in Alexandria.

The signaling device was already set up where she had prepared it earlier, so Dyna merely had to catch the attention of the next station on a hilltop almost forty miles away. The signal code they had was limited, but it was sufficient to relay basic information about enemy locations and numbers. She shot off her request for information, then waited with stylus in hand for the response.

When it came through, Dyna acknowledged receipt and shut down, thinking furiously on her next move. Her goal had to be to protect Alexandria, but the entire Nile Delta was at risk and she had the only force that was active and mobile in the entire region.

We march for Cabasa then,
she decided, considering her options before she shifted the signaler around and aimed it at another hill to the north. She had some orders she needed to precede her to the coast.

****

The Twenty-Second Legion had marched hard to the south, according to their orders, and secured the primary trade route from the southern part of the Empire as they went. The ongoing revolt led by the malcontents among the Israelites was a growing pain in Tribunus Gordian Latimus’s life, but it did provide an excellent opportunity to polish the effectiveness of his command.

The majority of the problems along the trade route were small raiding parties, some Zealots, but many just brigands making use of the chaos in the Empire to ply their trade while the Legion was elsewhere.

Pity for them this time around,
Gordian thought with a smirk, riding at the head of the column as they continued south.

The Twenty-Second had annihilated no less than five smaller brigand bands along the march through the careful maneuvering of forward scout units and fast-moving Centuries. That, combined with the word that the Deiotariana Legion was back in the area, would push those lowlife bastards back under the rocks they had crawled out of, to be sure.

Which, of course, left the more serious threat of the revolting Israelites being stirred up by the Zealots and their ilk. They wouldn’t be frightened back into submission, he was afraid. No, it would take force and a significant application of it to shut down this threat to the Empire. With the Twenty-Second now moving south, having just passed Antioch a couple days earlier, he hoped to have them into position to flex their muscle along the Nile Delta within just a few more weeks.

Until then, the Garrisons would have to cover their own towns and cities as best they could, no matter how much that galled him. Gordian had objected to the orders that moved them north, but they had come from the Senate itself and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. The news he was hearing from the south now confirmed his objections, but he wasn’t quite high enough in Roman society to say “I told you so” without suffering at least some repercussions.

It was better to simply shrug, follow orders, and do his job without comment.

He was most concerned about the events in and around Alexandria, however, since the first reports from messengers came in. The fact that the city walls had been breached was bad enough, a sure sign that someone had been screwing around if he’d ever heard of one. But the fact that the Governor had been killed by all reports and the Garrison Commander was also missing didn’t exactly leave him feeling particularly good about the situation, to put things mildly.

The initial reports he’d received spoke well of this Dyna woman, as well as Centurion Cassius. He was at least moderately familiar with Cassius, having had the man serving under him for several years, and knew him to be a reliable, if somewhat stolid, man. Dyna, however, was more problematic.

Her national background didn’t impress him so much as it did those of the lower ranks. Gordian had yet to meet a Spartan who wasn’t more of a pitiful wretch than a warrior, despite all reputations to the contrary. The Empire’s fascination with Spartan history had left most of those within the borders of the once-proud Laconian state dependent on the hedonistic pleasures of Roman nobles, something Gordian himself had seen more than once.

Her actions, however, spoke well of her in his mind. She had defended her city well, by all accounts, and then taken extra steps to punish those who had violated Alexandria’s walls. He appreciated that sort of proactive thinking, having learned through long experience that action in advance of a threat could often prevent the threat from materializing. When you waited for it to come to you, however, it almost invariably did.

That said, she wasn’t an officer of the Legion, and she was a woman besides. In a crisis, perhaps no one had bothered to question either of those, but given time without the Zealots’ swords at their throats, he didn’t expect that would last. Someone would begin to agitate the rank and file, like as not for political purposes, and that kind of inner disruption could very possibly doom the entire region to infighting or destruction at the hands of the Zealots themselves.

No, he had to get the Twenty-Second back where it belonged before this Dyna woman accidentally kicked off an even greater crisis than they were already mired in.

****

The march to Cabasa took four days, but by the time they arrived, the orders Dyna had signaled ahead via the mini-pharos had been put into order, and clean barracks, food, and supplies were already awaiting them.

A minor official had scurried out to meet them as they matched into the town of Cabasa, eyes searching the column as they arrived. She wasn’t surprised when he lighted on Cassius and immediately turned to him, plastering a wholly too-large smile across his face.

“Ah, Centurion, we are so pleased to see you!”

No doubt,
Dyna thought, amused.
You’ve probably been quivering in fear of siege for weeks. A Legion standard planted within your walls would be Gods’ sent, to be certain.

Cassius glanced in her direction, but she merely shook her head and gestured for him to speak. She had no time, patience, or concern for the panderings of a minor noble at this point in what was shaping up to be a serious campaign.

Cassius nodded imperceptibly and stepped forward. “Greetings, sir. Have you followed the instructions we sent ahead?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The poor man looked like he was going to trip over his own words, literally, as he stumbled along with the marching column. “We cleared out the bathhouse and its adjacent facilities for your use.”

“Thank you, we won’t put you out for long.”

“Oh, oh, no trouble. Stay as long as you wish…”

“We’ll be regrouping with more Auxiliaries and preparing to march on the enemy as soon as is practicable,” Cassius replied sternly. “There is more work for us to do.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

After that, they’d all but ignored the man, marching swiftly to the bathhouse, and set about cleaning and performing basic maintenance on their gear, themselves, and their animals. Dyna was surprised at just how much everything in the column needed work, from the cannons right down to the simplest tools and weapons they carried. Intellectually, she supposed that she knew just how easy it was to dull the edge of a blade, or the edge of a man for that matter, but even her own blade, which had seen basically no use during the weeks they had been on the march, was in need of care and polishing.

She had sent out orders with runners to recruit more Auxiliaries from the local area, activating the reserves that had been too far from Alexandria to be of use before. Honestly, they were certainly already active; she was just getting them back under a unified command as quickly as she could. The other thing they were waiting for was further reports from their scouts, who were out looking for the main body of the enemy forces.

While the Zealot armies weren’t up to the strength or discipline of the Legions, the available reports made it clear that they were more than just scattered malcontents.

They’re drawing from a large population base, and whether of their own free will or against it, the Israelite population is apparently responding.
Dyna frowned as she examined the reports, considering what it would mean for the Empire.

Years of warfare, at the very least, possibly decades if the revolt wasn’t stamped out completely.

It saddened her, though she knew that it had been a long time in coming. The Empire had long been pacifying the Israelite peoples, despite their obstinate refusal to pay homage to the Cult of the Empire, as all peoples of the Empire did. The conflict went back generations, with notable leaders of the Empire offering up many concessions in order to placate the unrest within the Israelite peoples over the years.

All they had done, of course, was buy a few more years of peace each time, and it seemed that now things had finally exploded out from the simmering discontentment that had always been there. Ironically, by all reports she had been able to find, it had been an idiot Proconsul of Rome who kicked off the civil unrest by actually occupying and destroying their temple in Jerusalem.

All the concessions offered over the years and some damned fool throws it all away for what? A pile of rock that means absolutely nothing to anyone in Rome.
Dyna shook her head, irritated by the turn of events that had brought them to where they now stood.

It wasn’t that she believed that the concessions had been the correct thing to do, but having offered them, it seemed foolish to throw away all that they had bought for no gain. Particularly if the Empire hadn’t been able to predict the all-too-expected response, because as far as she could see, if they were going to intentionally start a civil war, they should at least have had the Legions positioned to win it quickly and decisively.

Though perhaps that was unfair. The Governor had shifted the Twelfth Fulminata Legion into position prior to the revolt. They had even surrounded Jerusalem but, for reasons known only to the Senate, had been ordered to fall back to the coast. The sheer stupidity of that strategic withdrawal was likely to be recorded in history as one of the most baffling decisions of any Legion Commander ever.

The subsequent attack and annihilation of the Twelfth by the Zealot and revolutionary forces had been a shock that had thrown Rome and its provinces into chaotic disarray for some time after. That disarray had directly led to the situation Dyna was now entrenched in, and she, like many others, she was certain, wondered just what had caused the Senate to order the Twelfth back from Jerusalem when they had the situation contained.

Like as not, whatever reason they had was the same as caused the Twenty-Second Legion to be ordered so far to the north.
Dyna scowled as she continued to read the reports.
Bureaucratic idiocy, I suppose.

Whatever the reason, it had created a mess that now spanned three Roman provinces and was threatening to grow beyond all reasonable measure. By the best reports she had available, it appeared that the rebels from the Judea Province had committed as much as a full Legion to raiding and pillaging Egypt.

Given that she had, at the moment, barely more than a Cohort of men—and those were splintered across various specialties that left her with less than two Centuries of Heavy Infantry—Dyna did not see how she could prevent what was coming or preserve the many lives at risk in the region. If the rebels arrived in force at Alexandria, then tens of thousands would die, and immeasurable knowledge would be lost should they succeed in burning the Library.

Granted, it wouldn’t be the first time the Library burned—the last having been done by Julius Caesar himself, supposedly by accident—but like the last time, there would have to be precautions taken to prevent any significant losses. Those of the Great Library, like herself, had grown paranoid over the years due to the way the fame of the place attracted fools with torches.

Dyna sighed and sketched out a quick note before calling in her Adjutant.

“Yes, my Lady?” the man asked as he came into the room.

“Have this sent to the Pharos of Alexandria,” she ordered, handing him the wax tablet.

He took it and glanced it over, then looked up sharply. “My Lady? Are you certain?”

“Yes.” She nodded tiredly. “Unless our available forces change reasonably soon, I do not believe that we’ll be able to hold them off. The contents of the Library must be preserved. We will not run from this enemy, but if we fall, there are things there I would not lose if it might be avoided.”

He saluted before he backed out and headed for the closest signaler.

With that done, Dyna put the Library from her mind; it would now be the responsibility of someone else. At the moment, she had to cause as much trouble and distress for the enemy as she could, given the forces she had available.