Chapter 23 - The Inter-Cohort Battle: Defence of the River Tower


    <blockquote>


    Inter Cohort Battle status:


    Cohort 1: 923/924


    Cohort 2: 829/833


    Ongoing Rifts:


    1st River Tower Rift C1 12 : 1 C2


    1st Middle Tower Rift C1 2 : 2 C2


    1st Creek Tower Rift C1 0 : 1 C2


    Towers Fallen:


    -nil-


    Century Battle Status Report, II, VII:


    Location - The Forest / River Tower


    Strength - 72/74


    Incapacitated - 2


    Dead - 0


    Rift Teams -


    Fifth Decio - Full strength -Engaged-


    Sixth Decio (aka Team Palinus) - Full strength


    Seventh Decio - 4/5


    </blockquote>


    The hidden doorway shut behind him with a barely audible click.


    No one noticed as he slipped into the tower and out from under the stairs. Noises of shouting and explosions could be heard all around the tower through the thick walls, but the tower room itself was strangely silent.


    Arrayed on the floor under the rift were a team of five conscripts from the fifth decio. Palinus was jealous of their opportunity to enter the rift. They were the golden boys of the century and a small part of him was itching to tie their sandals together or rub something in the sun bleached hair of Augustus, their de facto leader.


    He reconsidered as he noticed a man standing quietly to one side watching over the unconscious boys. He wore the robes of a medicus and gave Palinus a pitying expression as he noticed him standing around at the bottom of the stairs.


    “Are you lost conscript?” The medicus asked.


    “No, thank you.” Palinus said quickly, “I was just… grabbing supplies?”


    “It is natural to be a bit scared, the first century of the first cohort are vastly superior to yours. Just go take a few hits and lie down so you can go back to the barracks.” The medicus said softly as if trying to sooth a panicked child.


    Palinus simply gave a nod of assent as he grabbed the wand he was issued from the pack he had left behind. They needed to make a good showing so they could get their shot at the Rift Trials and get out of the capital, he would not be accepting a beating or lying down in defeat.


    Making his way quickly up the stairs to the top of the tower, Palinus was excited to hear a familiar voice as he joined his team at the top of the tower.


    “... I still think we would have been a better choice in the rift.” Palinus could hear Rufian complaining. “They are all brawn and no brains. They’ll just take swords to the face until they pass out…”


    “You can barely talk!” Palinus joked as he joined them looking over the battlement up the hill. “Do you remember the time you and Caulion slapped each other till you both bled from the ears?”


    “That was his fault, he should have just given up. Where did you wander off to?”


    Palinus opened his mouth to start explaining but was cut off with a rough shove.


    “Duck!” Seline shouted.


    A bolt of whistling essentia flew uncomfortably close as Palinus barely had the time to duck his head.


    “Bloody oath!” He swore. The power of the bolt was intimidating considering this was supposed to be a mock battle as it landed with a thundering explosion that made their ears pop on the far edge of the tower.


    “The first salvo hit the 7th decio before they were ready,” Seline said, peering over the stonework down at the enemy. Her hand twitched on the bow she carried. “It knocked out two before they even saw it coming… we might have a weakened rift team before the first rift is even over!”


    Joining her at the edge of the tower they looked out up the hill.


    Across the entire width of the hill they saw a rough battle line of hundreds of conscripts from the first cohort marching in formation down towards them. The conscripts struggled to stay in an even line down the rough terrain of the hill but the effect was intimidating. With their shields up and feet churning the grass of the hill they looked invincible and innumerable.


    “One… Two… Three…” Palinus counted. “...seven centuries attacking!”


    Seline gave a hum of confirmation.


    “So many… They must be splitting the last three centuries across the five towers to be attacking so aggressively.” Palinus commented.


    “They scarcely need to defend the towers, it’s not as if we are going to be marching up there to attack them.” She replied “ They’ve probably just got a couple rift teams relaxing up on the hill there.”


    “Hmm,” Palinus hummed in thought. “That means we could ju-”


    “We’ve all thought it.” Seline snapped, cutting off his idea and Vesuvia laughed at the interaction.


    “Teehee little general Pal thinks he can win the unwinnable battle.” Vesuvia jumped in to mock him.


    Sensing that she had touched a nerve she explained.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    “The 5th decio won the first river rift last time and tried it… They rift jumped to the enemy tower, exited the rift under fire in the middle of an occupied tower and fought their way onto the roof. They miraculously made it to the top and were stuck there with no support until they were taken out. A valiant way to go… but no way to win the battle.”


    “Someone tries it every week,” Seline added. “The boys would have to beat the 1st 1st 1st Rift team to get the opportunity anyway so it’s not very likely we''re going to need to charge up to the tower to save them this time….”


    “It’s such a dumb team name.” Rufian said idly, before imitating the stick up the arse attitude of the soldier’s sons in the legion. “‘We’re the 111s! We have muscles on our muscles and we fart beams of sunshine which is why we have to clench so hard!’”


    The team laughed at his stupid impression.


    “Duck!” Seline yelled again.


    They jumped to the floor of the tower still laughing as the bolt crashed into the tower below them, narrowly missing its range.


    “Who is shooting at us?” he asked, sticking his head over the edge to eyeball the enemy.


    “The 4th Century.” Bruchts chimed in. “They’ve set up a siege engine.”


    He pointed out a group of conscripts split off from the advancing centuries. They stood besides a cart that looked like it was carrying a bright red miniature nexus. It had a bronze frame, a series of levers to one side and an enormous tube pointing out the front - directly towards them.


    Watching the conscripts buzzing around the device they looked like ants swarming a carcass as they worked together to lever down the firing tube and push the cart around to adjust the aim. They had set up in a position that was relatively flat, but they still needed to fiddle with several planks of wood under the wheels to stabilise the cart.


    A half minute later they were ready to fire again and the conscripts all jumped off the cart before someone pulled a lever and the whole contraption jumped off the ground slightly.


    The bolt sailed towards them, but this time it was clearly aimed elsewhere as it crashed down below the tower.


    A few yells from several of their century arranged below the tower indicated that it had come close and Palinus peered over the crenelations of the tower to look down at where it struck.


    Around the tower the his century was arranged in a checkerboard formation with smaller clusters of conscripts holding shields. In the aftermath of the bolt they laughed and dropped their shields, but held them at the ready for the next incoming shot.


    “Do we have siege engines?” Palinus asked.


    Bruchts pointed off to their right and behind them. They could just see a few conscripts hunkered down in the forest. Behind them Palinus could see another siege engine winding up to fire. This team looked much different from the siege team on the hill, they had pensive expressions and appeared to be waiting for something.


    “The 9th have a cart off in the woods. But the rift must not be going well.” Bruchts said with a grimace.


    He sensed the question Palinus was about to ask and continued.


    “They are not getting as much essentia from the nexus, it’s why they aren’t firing as frequently.”


    Palinus could feel the essentia within the nexus below them being strained. It felt like the essentia was being tugged up to the hillside tower. The tugging had an urgency and a tension that felt as though something was going to break as if the tide of essentia was about to turn.


    “This is not good.” Bruchts shared Palinus’s feeling of unease.


    The team turned to the sounds of people coming up the stairs behind them in a hurry.


    Rofarian and Iferio from the first decio nearly tripped over each other as they came to a stop in front of Palinus and the team.


    “Centurion Armiger has sent word for you to prepare for the next rift. We are about to lose the first... badly. So we need a quick win to counter capture and retain the tower.”


    “Vestra’s tits.” Rufian swore, “I told you all we should have gone in instead.”


    Turning back to go down the stairs


    “At least we get our shot! If we are fast maybe we can win the rift and get back before we are overrun.” Vesuvia said optimistically.


    The dark look from Seline said that she didn’t share the optimism.


    “It’ll be at least 10 minutes before the second rift opens. The 1st century will be spitting on our bodies before the first wave of minions spawns. Even if we could hold them off it’ll be out in the forest somewhere, completely out of cover and shining like a beacon for their siege weapons.”


    “She is just upset that she doesn’t get to trip muscleheads up with her ars and shoot them while they are on the ground.” Vesuvia laughed.


    With a spark of brown green light a root appeared to snatch at Vesuvia’s ankle, tripping her up and making her stumble down the steps and crashing into Brucht’s broad back.


    “You are getting better at that!” Vesuvia kept laughing as she took the opportunity to drape herself over Bruchts muscular shoulder. “But you can’t say I''m wrong.”


    Seline was flushed with embarrassment that matched her deep red hair.


    “Maybe I was a bit excited for some shooting…” she admitted. “I didn’t get to do it last week either.”


    She genuinely sulked as they walked down to the base of the tower.


    <hr>


    “Here you are!” Centurion Armiger looked unusually pleased to see them as they found him issuing orders to the century from behind the tower.


    It was yet another hint that they were about to get an uncomfortable assignment.


    “Optio Magunnus has already taken the second and fourth decio out to the likely seed location. Augustus and his team must have been unlucky to go down so quickly.” The centurion sneered at them, “Obviously I don''t expect you to counter capture the nexus. You just need to hold the rift line off for us to retreat the siege cart. The 3rd century will clean up your mess at the Misty tower rift. Dismissed”


    The team saluted with their fists to their chests and quickly shuffled off into the forest.


    Rufian had barely been able to maintain his composure, fortunately Bruchts was subtly pinching him to remind the fiery boy to not say anything stupid to their commanding officer. As they got out of earshot he whispered encouragement, but the snort of rage from Rufian indicated that he was by no means letting this slight go.


    There was a palpable tension as they moved through the forest away from the safety of the tower and towards a likely painful fate.


    “Should we have brought our packs?” Palinus wondered aloud.


    “There isn’t much point, we are sacrificial lambs and will likely be back in the barracks by lunchtime.”


    “Oh,” Palinus said simply, defeated disappointment settling into his posture.


    “Oh! I forgot to show you all this!” He remembered he hadn’t shown the team his new calculus.


    The team stopped and turned to watch him pull up his tunic.


    "We don''t want to see that you pervert!" Vesuvia joked as he lifted the cloth to reveal the calculus set at the top of his right thigh.


    Palinus igored her as he talked excitedly about the gem in his leg.


    “It’s called Enhanced Smoke Field! It obscures vision of enemies in a large circular area and provides some sort of a movement buff. I placed it in my leg to magnify the movement effect, Tribune Asterius seemed to think that was a good choice and was saying-”


    “How big i-” Seline started asking.


    “You met Tribune Asterius?!” Rufian excitedly asked ignoring Seline’s question.


    “Yeah! He took me down into the tomb below…” Palinus trailed off as he caught the hard glare from Seline. She looked like she was about to pull one of the arrows from her quiver and stab it into either Palinus or Rufian''s face.


    “I have an idea for how we can turn this situation around.” She said with a growing intensity. She turned to look up the hill towards the other cohort’s first century coming towards them and glanced back towards where Optio Magunnus stood with a cluster of conscripts. “I think the timing might be just about perfect.”


    As they walked through the forest with an eye out for incoming bolts of essentia Seline explained her plan. The plan started to come together quickly with excitement from the team, especially when Palinus shared some of the ideas he had picked up from the tribune and Marius.


    “These sitting ducks might have teeth.” Rufian said fiercely.


    Everyone laughed at how stupid that sounded. They laughed longer than was warranted as the tension of the situation began to bleed into a nervous excitement. There were going to be myriad moving parts and Palinus didn’t dare feel hopeful yet. Their first step might be the most challenging.


    They had to convince Optio Magunnus.