A few days after Bato's interrogation, as Ulixes and his engineers were drawing up the final plans for the siege of Delminium, a courier arrived from the coast. He was not a soldier. He was a frantic Liburnian merchant, his robes soaked with sweat and seawater, his eyes wild with terror. He was brought before Ulixes by the guards.
"Legatus!" he shrieked, collapsing to his knees. "Your fleet! Your female Admiral! She is mad!"
Ulixes gestured for his engineers to leave, leaving him alone with Flamma and the trembling merchant. "Speak clearly," Ulixes commanded, his voice calm.
"Three of our ships, Legatus! Merchant ships! We were sailing under the flag of friendship with Rome!" the man choked out. "Your demoness... she sank them all! She said we were too slow getting out of her way! She slaughtered the crews trying to save themselves in the water! She laughed while she did it!"
Flamma swore softly under his breath. Ulixes remained silent, his face showing no emotion.
"The Liburnians are our allies, Legatus," Flamma said in a low voice after the merchant was escorted out to be given water and food. "They provide us with intelligence on pirate movements. If we lose them..."
"We will not lose them," Ulixes cut in. He walked to his table, picked up a blank wax tablet and a stylus. "Artemisia is a storm. You cannot tell a storm to stop. You can only direct it."
He began to write, his stylus moving swiftly over the wax. Flamma watched him in silence.
"What will you tell her?" Flamma asked. "Commanding her to withdraw will only anger her."
"I will not command her to withdraw," Ulixes said without raising his head. "I will give her bigger prey."
When he was finished, he gave the tablet to a special messenger. "Sail to the flagship, the Quinquereme. Deliver this directly into the Admiral's hands. Say nothing. Let her read it herself."
The messenger bowed and hurried away.
"What did the message say, Legatus?" Flamma asked.
Ulixes looked out the door of his tent, towards the Delmatae mountains waiting to be conquered.
"I wrote," he said. "'Admiral, your victory was swift and total, as I expected. Now, show me your genius, not just your might. Our enemies are the pirates hiding in their dens, not the cowardly merchants sailing in open water. The main pirate network operates from a fortress on the island of Issa. Destroy that fortress. I need a clean sea, not an empty one. Focus your rage on the correct target.'"
Ulixes looked back at Flamma. "I have given her a real enemy to crush. Now we will see if she is a brilliant admiral, or just a bloodthirsty war dog."
Weeks passed. Ulixes' legion, with its full strength of four thousand Spartan soldiers, plunged deep into the heart of Delmatae territory. The terrain became increasingly wild and unforgiving. They marched through narrow valleys perfect for ambush and climbed steep mountain passes. Yet, there were no surprise attacks. Armed with the information extracted from Bato, Ulixes knew of every trap before the enemy could set it, every ambush position before the enemy soldiers arrived there. He moved through enemy territory as if he had eyes in every tree and rock.
Finally, they arrived.
Before them stood Delminium, the capital of the Delmatae's hill fortresses. It was not a neat Roman fortification. It was a monster of stone and timber, a city carved directly from the mountaintop. Its walls of gigantic stone blocks seemed to merge with the cliffs below, towering and intimidating. On top of the walls, thousands of Delmatae warriors looked down with hateful gazes and arrogant confidence.
Even the most hardened Spartan soldiers stared at the sight with a quiet awe. They knew that this would be their toughest test.
Before the bloodshed began, a trumpet was sounded from the Roman camp, a signal for a parley. Ulixes, accompanied only by Flamma and a standard-bearer, rode his horse to a hundred paces from the main gate.
On the wall, Verzo, the main Delmatae chieftain, appeared. His old, rock-hard face was filled with mockery. "You've come all this way just to die in front of my walls, Roman?" he shouted, his voice echoing in the valley. "Your other general, Gabinius, also thought he could conquer us. His bones are now fertilizer for our trees!"
Ulixes looked up, unperturbed. "I am not Gabinius," he replied calmly. "I am here to give you one chance. Surrender this city, swear fealty to Rome, and your people will live."
Verzo laughed loudly, a rough, contemptuous sound. "We will never bow to dogs like you! Get off our land, or these walls will be your tomb!"
"You are mistaken," Ulixes countered, his voice now turning cold and piercing. "These walls will be your tomb."
He turned his horse and rode back to his camp without saying another word. The parley was over. As he arrived back at his line, he gave a series of brief commands.
"First and second cohorts, establish a defensive camp here. Dig a trench, set up barricades. Third and fourth cohorts, cut down trees. I want twenty ballistae and four siege towers ready within a week." He turned to an engineer. "And you, find their water source. That old waterway the prince spoke of. Cut off its flow."
The orders spread quickly. The sound of axes hitting tree trunks began to be heard, a new war drum. On top of the Delminium walls, the laughter of the Delmatae soldiers slowly subsided, replaced by a tense silence as they watched the demon legion below them begin to work with frightening efficiency.
Two weeks passed. The landscape outside Delminium had completely changed. In place of the forest, now stood a fortified Roman military camp, complete with defensive trenches and watchtowers. Smoke billowed from makeshift workshops where engineers worked tirelessly, and in the distance, the giant wooden skeletons of four siege towers began to rise, each day growing taller and more threatening. Delminium was now completely isolated from the outside world. The wolf's grip had locked its prey.
The first effect of Ulixes' strategy was felt not on the battlefield, but in the enemy's stomach. The secret waterway leaked by Bato had been found and destroyed on the third day of the siege. Reports from the Egyptian's spies inside the city confirmed that water was now being strictly rationed. Fights began to break out among the thirsty Delmatae warriors.
Verzo, the Delmatae chieftain, knew he couldn't just wait and die of thirst. At dawn on the fifteenth day, Delminium's main gate creaked open, and nearly a thousand of his best warriors charged out in a surprise attack, their target clear: the unfinished siege engines.
They were met by a shield wall that had been waiting for them.
The Roman legion, on alert day and night, had seen the preparations. The battle exploded around the wooden skeletons of the siege towers. The Delmatae warriors fought with desperate ferocity, their axes hitting wood and shields, their torches attempting to burn the fragile structures. But the Roman soldiers did not give them an inch. The fight was brutal and bloody. For every Roman soldier that fell, three Delmatae warriors died.
The attack was repulsed. The remaining Delmatae fighters fled back into the safety of their walls, leaving more than half of their attacking force dead on the field. They also left behind about fifty of their comrades who were captured alive.
Ulixes showed no mercy. He wanted to completely break their spirit.
That afternoon, the soldiers on the Delminium walls witnessed a horrifying sight. Fifty wooden crosses were erected just out of range of their arrows. Nailed to these crosses, their comrades were left to die slowly under the scorching sun.
As if that were not enough, Ulixes ordered his ballistae to begin a bombardment. But they did not fire stones. They launched the decaying carcasses of animals and the heads of the soldiers who had died in the attack, sending death and disease into the besieged city.
As dusk fell, Ulixes stood on a small hill, observing his enemy's fortress. He could hear the wailing and desperate screams carried on the wind from within the walls. He knew that their spirit was now cracked. Their stone walls might still stand firm, but the wall of their will was beginning to crumble. He turned to Flamma.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We end this."