Rome Must Perish-Chapter 281 - 176: First Assault on the Camp

Suddenly, a piercing scream came from the side, followed by cries of alarm from many people.

The enemy has launched their short spears! ...Quintus was startled, turned around, and ran back, his foot slipping on a bundle of grass, he fell, got up, and slipped again, in a hurry he simply tore off the wooden sole of his shoe and ran back desperately.

At this moment, the tribal leader in the rear had already changed his expression, swinging his longsword viciously, threatening, "Continue carrying the grass bundles and fill the front of the camp! Anyone who is greedy for life and fears death, hiding away, I will report to the Great Chief, strip him of his land, and expel him from the tribe!..."

His threat took effect, and Quintus and the other tribesmen had no choice but to continue performing the dangerous task.

Quintus and his group were facing the east side of the camp, there were a total of three towers, and at this moment, all three towers began launching short spears.

Quintus intentionally slowed down, forced himself to calm down, and after observing, he discovered: these three towers liked to fire short spears into crowded areas, and after firing one, there would be a period before firing another.

With these two discoveries, Quintus immediately moved quickly in a crouch towards less crowded areas, and soon completed the task without incident, safely returning to the rear, and continued carrying grass bundles...

Many experienced Pannonian warriors also adopted the same strategy as Quintus, but some young warriors out of fear liked to cluster together for courage, becoming prime targets for crossbow snipers, sometimes even one spear would kill two or three people.

But there were only three towers, and there were more than 2000 Pannonian warriors active in front of the camp, the number they killed was only a ripple in a stream, merely instilling psychological fear in the Pannonians, and could not stop their actions.

However, when the Pannonian warriors pushed within about 30 meters of the camp, an urgent copper horn sounded inside the camp, and a deafening roar erupted from the wooden wall, stones and javelins fell like raindrops, immediately followed by screams, with a number of Pannonian warriors falling in front of the camp.

Since the Pannonian warriors were carrying grass bundles to fill the ground, they had little protection, and even if hit by stones, they would get injured, scaring them into retreating quickly, leaving their injured teammates writhing on the grass in agony.

"Looks like we can’t send them up alone anymore, otherwise casualties will be high!" Temagis in the rear, observing the situation, suggested to Andres.

According to the pre-arranged plan, their two families’ forces launched an attack from the east, while Brochi and Mazi’s reinforcements attacked from the north.

"You’re right, it seems we need to deploy what we’ve prepared for several days."

Shortly after Andres spoke, at the forefront of the Pannonian attacking force appeared a dozen very wide and long wooden planks, these wooden planks were made by interlacing wooden beams and securing them with iron nails, the wood was tightly joined with few gaps, each wooden plank was held at an angle by seven or eight people, moving slowly toward the camp side by side like a long moving wooden wall.

Behind them were still the warriors carrying grass bundles, intermixed with infantry holding shields and long spears, they were to prevent the enemy from suddenly charging out from the camp gate, a lesson Andres learned from his last small setback.

When the wooden wall approached within about 30 meters of the camp, it stopped moving forward, and the warriors behind lay down, stuffing the grass bundles in front of the wooden wall...

During this time, the Nix soldiers stopped throwing javelins and stones, even though they had the height advantage and could still hit the Pannonians behind the wooden wall, their destructive power would be significantly reduced.

Only the crossbows continued to fire, and thick wooden planks were still being pierced by short spears, killing Pannonian warriors behind, but quickly replaced by others. Despite the high accuracy of the three crossbows at such close range, they couldn’t stop the slow advance of the wooden wall.

This Pannonian tactic was not only carried out in the east but also executed in the north.

Maximus, overseeing from the north side of the camp, saw this situation and felt helpless: the Nix Tribe lacked bows and archers, not even javelins, only converting previously captured Segestica Spears, and their quantity wasn’t much. Furthermore, the Nix Tribe didn’t have specialized javelin throwers, they could only temporarily assign soldiers with such skills, like some Celts and Illyrian Mountain People who were adept at using javelins.

In addition, Quintus’s suggestion was adopted by everyone, which was to gather some smaller stones and have soldiers collectively throw them, also producing some damage, somewhat compensating for the lack of medium and long-range firepower, but once the Pannonians used the wooden wall tactic, the Nix soldiers, even from above, could still attack the enemies behind the wooden wall, but the destructive power was inevitably reduced, and to save javelins and stones, the team officers ordered a halt to the throws.

Having a well-defended camp but unable to fully exploit its defensive power due to a lack of adequate long-range firepower, this left Maximus feeling regretful and resolute to quickly improve the Nix Army’s long-range weaknesses.

When the wooden wall pushed to within 15 meters of the camp, it was forced to stop because in front was the barricade set by the Nix, countless waist-high sharp stakes densely crossed and inserted obliquely in the narrow area ahead, even a single warrior could not easily pass through this section to get closer to the trench, let alone when they were carrying wooden planks.