Arthur Invictus by Paul Bannister Read Free Book Online

downriver, and if we had to navigate in the dark, so be it. We were not the first of our party to leave, however.
    A picked force of two dozen men, led by the centurion Damonius, was already marching overland to capture the Roman customs post that was a mile or more short of the shipyards. I hoped that when we reached that place, it would be secured, and I doubly hoped that the patrol galley stationed there would be in our hands. I surreptitiously threw a gold coin over the ship’s side as a token offering to Mithras.
    The god must have been pleased, because we edged quietly into the military wharf to find a grinning Damonius waiting. “Your galley is prepared, lord,” he said, gesturing with his sword, which I noted was bloodied, to the trim, blue-sailed warship. I heaved a gusty sigh of relief. It had a ram mounted at the bow. I would not need to jury-rig the vessel with the great baulk of timber I had ordered stowed on our ship.
    Pointing to the warship, I ordered: “Get the chains fastened to that,” as a work party who had been briefed days ago scrambled onto the wharf. I followed them, raising an eyebrow to Damonius.
    “A few dead,” he said laconically, “but none of ours.”
    His attack had been a success. Arriving silently out of the dark, our raiders had silenced the solitary sentry in a gush of arterial blood and had hacked down the handful of legionaries who resisted. Their officer, sullen and bruised, was shackled to a wagon yoke, the customs officials and surviving legionaries were under guard in a stone pig pen.
    Now it was time to carry out the major part of our plan. Our men took the war galley’s oars and to the steady rhythm of the hammer taps sent out by the decurion Celvinius, another hero of the battle of Londinium, we scudded downriver. Immediately behind us was the galley with a peculiar ramp arrangement that jutted out from its bows, and behind it followed our other three ships.
    Celvinius kept a watchful eye on the gaps between the vessels, not wishing to separate our small flotilla, and the current kept even the slower, cargo-laden ships with us easily enough. As the wolf light gave way to dawn, a light drizzle began to fall, making me curse, for fire was our best weapon in this attack and I wanted every advantage. I glanced at the scroll in my hand, a sketch of the layout of the shipyard, lock gates, stores, ropewalks and all the assorted warehouses and stores associated with it.
    The only small comfort I could draw was that the barracks block was located at the furthest point away from our attack, placed there to defend against seaborne raiders or against the land raiders who must, by nature of the channels and topography, approach from the west and north.
    I really had no need to look at the scroll. Everything was burned into my brain, and as I peered through the drizzle, I saw the first important landmark, the tall arches under a sawtooth roofline that denoted the ship assembly building. I growled at the signals officer and he waved his red flags to the following ships. As planned, the last ship in line, which Grimr commanded, peeled away for the shore and I watched as a swarm of laden men ran for the long, low building.
    Next to depart in ordered silence was the force tasked with destroying the long line of ropewalks, where ships’ rigging was created. They would also be setting fire to the lofts, canvas stores, sawyers’ shops and to the woodworks where the pinewood frames, ribs, spars, stem and sternposts were created.
    I looked with disappointment at the log beds of the shipways down which the part-finished vessels were launched. If I could destroy those, we could certainly delay any invasion for a long time, but we had no way to do that.
    The third ship to head for the wharves carried the commando force that would destroy as much of the blacksmiths’ forges as possible, heaving the anvils and tools, tacks, nails and lead sheathing into the tideway, burning down the smithies. They