His listeners lifted their eyebrows in agreement. The smoke trails from the weapons that had fired held their corkscrew shape even as they drifted downwind, dispersing.
Niger’s lips pursed, however, as he followed his own line of thought even while ceding the truth of what Clodius Afer had just said. “Well,” he offered hesitantly, “if they don’t hit it the first time, sir — and I don’t guess they would neither — what’s to stop they keep trying until they do?”
For a moment, it looked as if the senior non-com were about to snarl an angry put-down instead of giving the suggestion a proper reply. Perhaps if Vibulenus had not been present, that would have happened, but the tribune’s expression of something between agreement and expectancy calmed Clodius Afer.
With a smile instead of a bark of haughty dismissal, he said, “If I can see the chance, lad, you can bet your hopes of a woman that this lot we’re gettin’ wiped by’ll see it if we draw a line to it, plinkin’ away with firepots. Mayhap they do already and they store the shit down a floor with a layer a’ stone between the tubs and anything we could touch with the splash if we did hit.”
“All right, I see,” said Vibulenus who at last did understand what had been so obvious to the centurion that it took him this long to realize what he had to explain to his juniors.
The tribune was smarter than the older man — either of them would say — and was certainly better educated. But Clodius Afer had the habit of looking at military problems and military solutions, putting himself in the other man’s boots. At one time or another he’d been on the other side of most problems during service in Lusitania and Gaul, besides the catastrophic last thrust into the Parthian domains.
For some problems, there is no satisfactory substitute for experience. Learning that had been a valuable piece of experience for Gaius Vibulenus.
“Now, I don’t think they’re worried about that yet,” the centurion continued, glowing now from the approval of his social and military superior. “The way they poured the stuff down the first time, they weren’t takin’ time to haul it up any distance — and why would they bother? They’re no more used to our artillery than we are to their cursed fire! But I guess they’re smart enough to learn.”
Niger spat angrily beyond the edge of the guardwalk. “Learn quicker ‘n some folks does, I reckon. Or else we wouldn’t be buildin’ right up t’ the wall for another bath any time they get good and ready t’ offer it.”
Bows snapped faintly from the top of the tower. The missiles, moving in several flights as the archers pumped their cocking levers, quivered in the sunlight as they arched upward. When they dropped at last, it was almost vertically. They had been aimed at the teams laboring forward, dragging the hundred-foot timber that had been brought so far with such effort — and would blaze with empty magnificence in a few days or weeks, along with the remaining material of the rebuilt siege-works.
Even with their height advantage, the defending archers were unable to get much more than a furlong’s range from their bows. The breeze scattered the light missiles terribly, so that only a few of the dozen or more launched even landed on the track smoothed onto the surface of the ramp for transport.
Though the wood was soft, one of the bolts flopped back after it struck point-first, lacking the slight momentum that would have enabled it to stick. With poison, of course, it could have left a dangerous wound on bare flesh or — possibly — the tougher hide of one of the draft animals. There was little chance of that, since the drivers had already halted fifty feet back of the zone of danger.
“Sure wisht we could borrow that laser,” said Clodius Afer with a sigh.
“We won’t get that,” said the tribune, his voice calm but his mind dancing with a sudden thought as blazingly splendid as the flames which had destroyed the siege works and twenty-seven men.