Hannibal: Fields of Blood by Ben Kane

bladder emptied itself again. As his legs gave way beneath him, his shoulders took all of his body weight. Yet the pain of that was as nothing compared to the excruciating hurt where the iron had met his flesh. The smell of burned meat filled his nostrils, caught in the back of his throat. He retched; up came a few mouthfuls of bile. And then he was falling, falling, down a bottomless well. At the mouth of the well, he could dimly make out the officer’s face, which was twisted with fury. The Roman was shouting something, but Hanno could not make out the words. He wanted to reply, to say, ‘I’m no slave,’ but his throat wouldn’t work. A door slammed; other voices were raised. They too were unintelligible.
    Confusion filled Hanno as he slipped away into the blackness.
    Bostar burned with anger as he gazed at Victumulae, which lay a quarter of a mile distant. It was entirely surrounded by the antlike figures of thousands of men. The air was filled with the tramp of feet on the hard ground and shouted orders as the units designated for the attack marched into position. There were regular twangs from the light ballistae as they shot at the ramparts. The stones landed with dull thumps, which were often followed by screams. Bands of Balearic slingers in light tunics whirled and spun before the walls, adding their slingshots to the showers of missiles. Large formations of Gauls advanced, chanting war songs and blowing their carnyxes in a deafening crescendo of sound. Ringed by his senior officers and a group of scutarii , his best Iberian infantry, Hannibal watched the operation from the back of his horse, some two hundred paces away. The remaining elephants stood nearby, their mere presence designed to intimidate the defenders.
    After the rousing speech that Hannibal had just given, Bostar longed to be with the Gauls who were advancing with ladders to the foot of the walls, or with those who were already battering at the main gate with a ram fashioned from the trunk of a massive oak. Hannibal had praised every man in his army. Told them that he was proud of how they had overcome all obstacles in their path. He was impressed by their discipline, their bravery and fortitude. He’d said that their loyalty to him could be repaid in only one way – with a deep loyalty of his own. ‘I will do anything for you, my men,’ Hannibal had cried. ‘I will endure the same hardships. Sleep on the same rough ground. Fight the same enemies. Shed my blood. And if I have to, I will lay down my life for you!’ Those last words had stirred Bostar’s passions deeply, and from the mighty roar that had followed, he judged it to have had the same effect on every soldier within earshot. All he’d wanted to do after that was to attack. Yet he and his spearmen had been ordered to stay put. As at the Trebia, Hannibal was conserving his veterans. They had seen some action during a vicious mêlée on the road the previous day, but that was it. Bostar’s fist clenched on the hilt of his sword. There had better be some Romans for me to kill when we get into the town. His desire to shed blood wasn’t just because of Hannibal’s rallying call. Hanno’s presumed death by drowning had been hard enough to bear. The grief of it had scourged Bostar for many months. Why couldn’t the gods have taken Sapho, his other brother, with whom he had a fractious relationship? To have been reunited with Hanno out of the blue had seemed the most incredible of divine gifts, but to lose him again so soon was too cruel. It wasn’t as if he could even blame Hanno’s second-in-command. Mutt had asked to be punished, but, as Hannibal had said, it was clear that, misguided or not, Hanno had brought his own fate down on his head. Why did he act so rashly? wondered Bostar yet again.
    ‘A shekel for your thoughts,’ said a deep, gravelly voice.
    Bostar’s head turned. A short but distinguished-looking officer in a pilos helmet with a scarlet horsehair crest stood