By this time, the Lucanians entered Davos’ sight.
“Act according to the defensive deployment that we have trained previously!” Davos immediately gave his orders to the captains.
The captains began to orderly command their subordinates to go to their designated positions:
“FIRST HOPLITE UNIT, follow me to the north gate’s eastern wooden wall!”
“BROTHERS OF THE SECOND HOPLITE UNIT, follow me to the south gate’s northern wooden wall!” (T/L Note: Errrrr)
“BROTHERS OF THE THIRD HOPLITE UNIT, follow me to the training ground! Damn it, move faster!”
“The archers of the first peltast unit will be led by their team leader!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Soon, the soldiers were in place, and only the group of defeated soldiers are left and are surrounded by the guards.
“How many?” Asked Davos to Philesius, who had just been placated.
“Quite a lot! Nearly 400 men, and most of them are free men and are unarmed.” Said Philesius.
“Mersis!” Shouted Davos.
Mersis came in a hurry.
“How many javelins do we have left?”
“Five hundred and twenty-six. These two days, the blacksmith shop in Thurii urgently made them, and all the money we made in the market was spent on making these weapons…” Complained Mersis.
At this time, Davos is not interested in listening to his nagging, and said to Philesius, “Give each of them a javelin, then assign several people to each unit and have them participate in the defense!”
“Understood!” Philesius then walked towards the defeated soldiers.
Mersis stood still.
Davos understand what he was hesitating about, and immediately said, “Once the javelin is used, we will retrieve them back. Besides, the Lucanians will send us their weapons!”
This immediately made Mersis smile, and he immediately told the slaves to carry the weapons in the camp. Out of his trust in Davos, he did not consider at all that the mercenaries might not be able to defeat the enemy, and their camp would be occupied.
The mercenaries stood behind the wooden wall without any worries, as they calmly watched the enemies who were flooding towards their camp. They even have the time to educate the new recruits.
“Now, do you think that it’s not necessary too build such a complex camp?” Asked Matonis with a smile.
“It’s necessary!” He said excitedly, “Now, I hope that these savages can taste the traps that I dug!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
While relying on the wooden wall, the mercenaries seize the time to recover a bit of their stamina, while preparing to happily watch a play. The fifth hoplite unit of Hielos, because they did not participate in the previous battle, wish for the enemy to rush over and start fighting them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Once the warriors of Pyxous separated from the army of Grumentum, they immediately pursued eastward.
Gennat ran at the forefront, and the mercenary camp entered his sight, and he roared, “CHARGE! KILL THEM ALL!!”
The warriors roared in succession, and their fatigue seemed to disperse with their roar, and charge faster.
“Captain, the Lucanians are less than 200 meters away from the camp!” The leader of the archer troops shouted to Arpernst.
“Remind me once they enter 100 meters!” Replied Arpenst, then he turned around and gave orders to the slingers behind him, “Get ready!”
The slingers had to wait under the wall due to the walkway behind the wall being too narrow for them to spread out. At this time, they, one by one silently took out an egg sized rocks from their leather bags and place them into the net pocket in the middle of their slings.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
100 meters!
The soldiers on the wooden wall were all staring ahead and could not help but cheer when they saw many Lucanians stepping into the mark location.
Gennat didn’t know what the Greek’s in the camp said, but he subconsciously raised the round shield in his hand. During their pursuit, many of their warriors thought that the round shield is too heavy and affected their speed, and so they threw it away. But he still kept it.
“Greeks, you will soon be silenced!” He murmured viciously, but suddenly, his right foot was hurt.
“There are traps!” He was shocked and instinctively pulled back his foot, but a more severe pain came, which made him unable to speak. Looking down, a large piece of flesh was torn off in his right calf, and bled. Looking at the barren grass, there is a sharp iron thorn with a barb, about 30cm long, that was obliquely inserted into the soil. He tried to pull it hard, but he couldn’t pull it out. He then strike the compact soil and then saw that the lower end of the thorn was tightly attached into a piece of wood, which was deeply buried in the soil. No wonder that it could tear off his flesh and skin so easily.
“Vicious Greeks!…” Cursed Gennat, as he tore a piece of linen from his body, and wrapped it around his injured leg, then supported himself up with his spear as he resisted the pain and shouted, “Be careful, there are iron barbs on the ground!!”
But his warning came too late. Many warriors fell to the ground and screamed, while the mercenaries on the wooden wall cheered loudly when they heard their screams, “The barb works! Another one fell for it again!…”
The veterans proudly told the recruits that this is the masterpiece of their leader, Davos, so that the recruits will be awed. As a matter of fact, this is the standard configuration of the Roman garrison. Davos learned this from the military history forum, although this kind of trap seems to be not very lethal. In fact, the injury on the foot in enough to make a soldier lose his ability to fight during the cold weapon era.
The Lucanian warriors that cane afterwards, saw this tragedy and naturally became more careful. They bent down, and searched carefully among the weeds and rocks, and moved forward slowly to avoid those terrible traps. Who knew that the range attack of the mercenaries came immediately. Although the slingers could not see the enemy, they still have the archers to observe on the sentry tower and in addition, the large number of the warriors of Pyxous, made their accuracy not reduce. In order to avoid these rocks, it was impossible for them to pay attention to the ground under their feet, and so the warriors of Pyxous were either hit by the rocks or got stabbed by the iron barbs…
After struggling for tens of meters, they encountered a more terrible trap – the mercenaries called it the “tombstone”. It’s a hole about 1.5 meters deep, under which are sharp wooden pikes buried, and was covered by loose soil. If they step on it carelessly, and with the effect of gravity, the sharp wooden pikes is enough to pierce through the soles of their feet…
When Cincinnag, the great leader of Pyxous, arrived. He saw countless warriors falling to the ground and covering their feet. The voice of mourning resounded most of the time, and the other warriors standing hundred of meters away from the enemy camp, have their face filled with fear and hesitated to move forward…
“What’s the matter?! Why are you not attacking?!” Cincinnag asked angrily, and looked at the countless warriors who fell on the ground.
“Father.” Using the spear as his crutch, Gennat walked up to him step by step and said as he lament, “These despicable Greeks have laid out many traps outside of their camp, we…many of our warriors have gotten injured and yet, we still couldn’t get into their camp.”
“Warrior?! So all of you can also be called warriors!!” Cincinnag’s swearing made everyone around him look down in shame.
Looking at his most highly regarded son, made him in a difficult position and embarrassed. His son’s normally vigorous expression was replaced by tiredness and loss. Cincinnag became more distressed and his tone became softer, “How is your injury?”
“It’s okay father, this is just a flesh wound.” Gennat forced himself and said, “Just that…there are too many casualties among our people…can’t…we can’t attack anymore…”
Cincinnag nodded a bit, and looked at the mercenary camp not far away, and thought of the casualties that these mercenaries had caused to his soldiers. A sense of hatred welled inside him, “Have the Brutians attack!”
After the defeat of the Greek army, the warriors of Vergae did not have the same impulse as the Pyxous for revenge, and so their speed in pursuing was not fast. Therefore, they arrived at the same time as Cincinnag, and the tragic appearance of the warriors of Pyxous entered into their sight. However, under the low eaves they must bow their heads*, and as the leader of the city of Vergae, Sedrum accepted the order of Cincinnag, but he made a request to borrow the round shield of the warrior of Pyxous. (T/L note: chinese proverb meaning that they are controlled by others and so they have to bow their heads and obey.)
And Cincinnag agreed.
Pyxous gave orders to Vergae and in order for them to not make them angry, they could only endure it and prove to them that they are better than Pyxous. They learned from the experience of Pyxous and did not walk on the grassland. Instead, they only charge in the narrow and flat passage in front of the enemy camp. They protected their heads tightly with their round shields and formed a long line, then advance cautiously.
