Hasdrubal Sarran
I pressed my back against the rough basalt parapet of Agrigentum's outer wall, trying to steady my breathing. Over the top of the battlements, dawn's hellish glow revealed the Romans stirring in force. Far across the churned killing-ground, their siege towers lumbered forward, massive wooden beasts on wheels, each one creeping closer to our walls by the hour. Legionaries swarmed around them in tight formation, shields locked overhead like the shell of an iron tortoise. I swallowed dryly at the sight of their endless ranks. We defenders had fought off many assaults over these long weeks of siege, but this morning feels different—more final. I tightened my grip on my spear until my gauntlets creaked.
"General Sarran!" a voice shouted from my left. My junior officer, Hanno, was half-running along the wall's walkway toward me, ducking as a Roman arrow whistled overhead. "They're moving siege ladders and a tower to the east! By Tanit, it's coming straight for the breach point!"
I cursed under my breath and beckoned two spearmen to follow as I strode to Hanno's position. Sure enough, one of the largest siege towers was trundling toward a section of wall that had been weakened by Roman sappers days ago. The enemy was concentrating their push where they thought us fragile. "Archers to the front!" I barked, and my voice was hoarse from a night without sleep. All along the battlements, our Liby-Phoenician bowmen and Sicilian Greek slingers hurried to their stations. I raised my chin and called out loud enough for the men around me to hear: "Hold fast! For Carthage and for Agrigentum!"
A hundred voiced answer came back in ragged shouts of determination. They were afraid—only a fool would be unafraid now—but they were resolute. I could see the fear in the whites of their eyes as they notched arrows and hefted stones, but also the steely acceptance. There was nowhere to run. Behind us lay our families, our wounded, our sacred city. We must not let the Romans through.
The first Roman war-horn sounded, deep as a bull's roar. At that signal, the siege towers gained speed, pushed by teams of soldiers straining behind their mantlets. Siege ladders were hoisted and began to bob forward on the shoulders of armored infantry. A storm of pila suddenly arced up from the Roman lines, their iron shod javelins launched at the wall in a deadly parabola. "Shields up!" I shouted, throwing my own oval shield over my head. The sky darkened with a swarm of incoming spears. They rattled down on us; one pilum shivered clear through a nearby hoplite's bronze helmet with a sickening crunch, killing him before his scream could form. Other javelins clattered off stone or lodged quivering in our crenellations. A muffled cry went up as a few of our men fell, clutching at wounds. I bit back a surge of panic and forced myself to focus. "Archers, return fire!" I yelled. "Shoot their engineers! Burn those towers!"
Our archers leaned out and let fly. A cloud of barbed arrows whistled toward the oncoming towers. Some found their marks—Roman soldiers toppling from ladder rungs or slumping behind their shield walls. I saw one legionary fall from a siege tower's side with a shaft through his throat, tumbling like a rag doll. But the Roman advance barely slowed. With grim efficiency, their ranks closed up any gaps and marched onward, dead comrades crushed underfoot.
As the nearest tower rumbled within fifty paces of the walls, our men unleashed the prepared fire-pots. "Now! Cast it now!" I shouted. Two burly Balearic mercenaries heaved up an earthen jar of burning pitch and oil, its sides already cracking from the heat of the inferno within. Together they hurled it over the battlement. I peered over in time to see the pot smash against the front of the wooden siege tower. It exploded in a bright bloom of flame, splashing burning oil across the tower's hide and the unlucky Romans pushing it. Men screamed as liquid fire clung to their flesh; a few broke formation, rolling and flailing, their torches of bodies falling under the wheels. For a heartbeat I allowed myself hope—the tower's advance slowed, its timbers spitting sap as they caught fire.
But Roman discipline was not so easily foiled. Under a hail of our slingshot and arrows, a squad of Romans rushed forward with wet hides and sand, smothering the flames with ruthless speed. In moments, the fire was snuffed, and the tower lumbered on, blackened but intact. I cursed again, tasting acrid smoke on my tongue. The other towers were also closing in from the south and east. On the far side, I glimpsed one reaching the curtain wall—its drawbridge already crashing down onto our rampart amidst a fury of shouting. The fight had become hand to hand there; I heard the distinct clash of steel on shields, Latin war cries mixing with Punic.
A messenger scrambled up the ladder to our position, breathless and wide-eyed. "General, the south gate feint—they're at the walls in force, but they haven't brought up the ram. It looks like a diversion."
I grabbed the youth by the arm, steadying him. "If this is a feint, where is their true strike?" I demanded. But even as I spoke the words, a cold dread coiled in my gut. From below. The thought came unbidden, like a whisper in the back of my skull. Strike from below… Was it my own intuition, or had I overheard something in the chaos? I wasn't sure, but I suddenly remembered the rumors that had haunted our campfires for weeks. A Roman cohort that moved unseen as shadows, cutting down sentries at night. Supply stores going up in flames without a trace of the arsonists. A man who cannot be killed, leading warriors who appear and vanish like ghosts.
Umbra Cohors. I had scoffed when I first heard the Latin words repeated by a trembling prisoner we captured last month. Shadow Cohort—an ominous name, but likely just a trick, I told myself then. A legend to scare children. Now, with the walls shaking from the impact of Roman siege ladders and our lines stretched thin, I wasn't so sure. My heart pounded against my ribs as another barrage of Roman missiles rattled the stones. Could they be under us even now, burrowing through some forgotten catacomb? The Greeks who founded this city ages ago riddled the ground with tunnels and aqueducts. We'd posted guards in the under-passages… but earlier tonight one of those guards swore he heard distant screams echoing beneath the earth. We all laughed it off as nerves. Now I felt no urge to laugh.
A strangled scream nearby snapped me back to the present. A Roman ladder hooked onto our battlements just ten paces from me, and enemy legionaries were already clambering over the top. I roared and drove my spear into the first man's chest before his feet found purchase. Blood sprayed hot across my forearm as he gurgled and collapsed backward off the wall. Another was upon us immediately. One of my men, a veteran Libyan with scarred cheeks, swung his sword and hacked the Roman's legs out from under him, sending him tumbling down the ladder onto his fellows. I bellowed orders to shove the ladder off. Two soldiers rammed their shoulders against it, and with a groan of wood the siege ladder teetered and fell back, taking a handful of screaming Romans with it.
No time to breathe—on my other side the great tower had finally reached the wall. With a thunderous boom, its drawbridge slammed down onto the parapet stones not far from my position. Armored figures poured out from the tower's maw, a wedge of Roman heavy infantry intent on establishing a foothold. An officer in a crested helmet led them, shouting, "Forward! For Rome!" They barreled into our defenders. I saw one of my archers impaled on a Roman sword, his body lifted and tossed aside like garbage. Another Carthaginian was crushed under the drawbridge as it landed.
I gritted my teeth and plunged into the melee with a dozen of my best behind me. The battlement erupted into chaos—swords ringing, shields shattering, men grappling and dying with screams and curses. The morning air filled with an iron stink of blood. A Roman lunged at me, face contorted in battle-fury. I parried his sword with my spearshaft, then smashed my bronze shield boss into his jaw. His head snapped back with a crunch of bone, and he crumpled at my feet. All around, close-quarter slaughter: my spear's point found the gaps in a Roman's mail and spilled his guts; a heartbeat later a gladius sliced toward my neck and I barely jerked aside in time, feeling the burn as it skimmed my collar. Hanno speared that attacker through the eye with a cry of triumph.
Still they kept coming. We were outnumbered up here, fighting desperately to cast them back before the breach widened. A Carthaginian beside me fell with a pilum through his thigh, screeching. I stepped over him, guarding his limp form, and swung my spear like a staff to push two Romans off balance. "Hold, hold!" I cried out, rallying our line. Our men pressed shoulder to shoulder, trying to contain the Roman surge at the tower's landing point. For a moment, it looked as if we might stem the tide.
Then I heard it—a sound that did not belong here, at the edge of daylight and death. From somewhere beneath my very boots came a faint, muffled shudder and a curdling scream, as if the earth itself cried out. It was brief—most atop the wall likely didn't notice over the din of battle. But I felt it. A jolt through the stones, a distant wail rising from the depths below Agrigentum. My blood ran cold. One of my men staggered, eyes wide. "What was that?" he gasped, knuckles white around his sword hilt.
I knew in my heart what it must be. The Umbra. The shadows under the ground, come to rend the heart from our city. Fear flared in me, hot and undeniable. Was this how we would lose? Not to the proud legions at our gates, but to something crawling up from beneath, unseen? I snarled and bashed my shield into another Roman who clambered over the tower's bridge. "Keep fighting!" I shouted to my troops, voice cracking. "They want us to panic. Hold your lines!"
But my words tasted hollow. Even as I gutted another foe, I found myself straining to hear any other telltale sign from below: the clink of steel in a cellar, a cry from the tunnels… There was nothing obvious, and yet an instinct told me the worst was happening out of sight. The enemy's true stroke was falling in the dark, where I could not rally against it. We had fortified against every assault we could see. How could we fight an enemy who slipped under our feet like a viper?
"General, more coming! LEFT!" Hanno's shout yanked my attention back. A trio of Roman soldiers were charging from a breach in the battlement just to our left flank. I had no choice but to throw myself once more into the fray of sword and flame, focusing on the living threats around me. Steel met bronze and bone; I parried, struck, roared commands. The battle atop the walls raged on with savage fury. Yet even as I fought for each bloody inch, a grim certainty filled my heart like ice water: something was terribly wrong in the depths of Agrigentum, and by the time we discovered it, it would be too late.
I drove my blade through the last Roman in front of me and glanced back toward the city's inner quarter, where our command bunker lay hidden beneath the old palace. Black smoke from burning siege engines blurred the air, but I could just make out the outline of the palace compound in the distance. Down there, two of our highest generals would be directing the defense—General Bomilcar and myself were to regroup there if the walls fell. If Umbra Cohors truly was beneath us, that bunker would be their target. A chill dread settled over me. I had to get below, warn them… do something.
"Hold the wall!" I shouted to Hanno, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "You have command here. If they break through, fall back by squads toward the inner city."
Hanno looked at me in alarm. "Sir! Where are you—"
"Just hold as long as you can!" I barked. I didn't wait for his reply. As another wave of attackers pushed up from the tower, I seized a brief opening and sprinted toward the nearest stair that led off the ramparts. My heart hammered not just from exertion but from the nameless horror of what I might find below. A man who doesn't die… The old tale flashed across my mind. They say he's carved from night and suffers no wound to last. They say he walks in places no living man should walk.
Behind me, the battle cries faded as I descended into the dim corridors within Agrigentum's walls. I ran, feet pounding stone steps two at a time, torches whipping by in my peripheral vision. My duty was to defend the city—but how to defend against a legend? I could only pray to whatever gods still listened that I would not meet the devil of Rome in the dark. And if I did, that I would have the courage to face him.