At the top of the city wall, a legionary in black armor jumped from the tower and crashed into two Roman soldiers near the edge of the wall; the three people fell from 10 meters to the ground. The wall of the city of Rome had a height equivalent to a three-story building.
With a dull thud, the clone and the two Roman soldiers hit the ground; the clone soldier was spitting blood from his mouth, his body's organs and bones were damaged. The two Roman soldiers were in worse condition, and blood did not stop flowing from their mouths, eyes, and ears.
Taking advantage of the attacks of the clones, a group of eight clone soldiers gathered on the wall while they defended the position and gained ground for reinforcements.
A Roman centurion led 30 legionaries in formation to eliminate the eight clone soldiers.
On the narrow terrain of the wall, the numerical advantage of the Roman army was not very evident. The Roman soldiers with their shields could only push and stab with their short swords.
The clone soldiers, without having the opportunity to show their incredible combat skills, resorted to pushing and trying to stab the enemy.
A clone soldier took advantage of a gap to drive his short sword into the eye of a Roman legionary; the dead Roman soldier was in the middle of dozens of men who were pushing without being able to collapse to the ground. The corpse of the soldier was squeezed among the crowd that used him as a human shield.
The Roman soldiers with greater numbers managed to take advantage in strength and push the clone soldiers against the battlements of the wall. Two clone soldiers fell through the openings of the battlements originally created for archers.
The clone soldiers fell into the ditch of the wall that contained wooden stakes, suffering a quick death.
Before being able to expel the clone army from the wall, three clone soldiers took momentum from the siege tower as they jumped and fell onto the formation of the Roman army. The three clone soldiers abandoned their shields and swords, carrying simple daggers.
As they fell onto the heads of the Roman army that was packed together, the clone soldiers with their daggers stabbed the Roman legionaries in their eyes or faces.
The Roman legionaries were taken by surprise, suffering five deaths; a Roman centurion reacted quickly and raised his short sword, stabbing the stomach of a clone soldier, the Roman soldiers also reacted by raising their short swords while repeatedly stabbing the clone soldiers.
Without letting the Roman soldiers breathe in relief, five clone soldiers fell again onto the crowd of tightly packed Roman soldiers.
The siege tower was half a meter taller than the city wall, and the clone soldiers, were like suicidal madmen, taking advantage of the height advantage to launch various suicidal attacks.
The five clone soldiers repeated the actions of their previous counterparts; the Romans, knowing the enemy tactic, were not surprised and stabbed the clone soldiers above their heads.
A dozen Roman soldiers led by a centurion joined the combat.
The clone soldiers were like scavengers who took advantage of every opportunity to cause casualties to the Roman army.
Many Roman veterans compared the fighting spirit of the clone soldiers with the barbarian tribes outside Rome. The barbarians, like suicidal madmen, attacked the Roman formations from all sides without worrying about defense or their own lives.
The scene in this corner of the wall was repeated on both sides of the wall of the city of Rome.
Carbo and Norbanus frowned as they observed the brutality of the battle; although the Roman army had the advantage, the army in black armor did not fear death and their suicidal attacks were very problematic.
Sertorius and the young Marius, together with other Roman generals, observed the situation of the siege seriously.
"These siege towers must be destroyed," said Sertorius seriously.
"What is your suggestion?" asked Carbo while staring at a clone soldier holding a Roman legionary and falling from the city wall.
"Give me command of the archers, ballista operators, cavalrymen, and I also need oil," said Sertorius seriously.
Carbo and Norbanus understood the purpose of Sertorius upon hearing his request.
"All right," said Norbanus, nodding as he watched a clone soldier who threw himself onto the heads of a dozen Roman soldiers on the walls. Although the clone soldier was repeatedly stabbed, before dying his dagger blinded a legionary in one eye.
Sertorius ordered the ballista operators to move them close to the siege towers while giving orders to the archers and cavalrymen.
Dozens of Roman soldiers carried jars of oil as they approached the siege towers and threw them along the sides of the siege towers; the clone soldiers, upon noticing the jars of oil, focused their attention on the legionaries carrying them.
The Roman defenders focused on protecting the legionaries carrying the jars of oil; the clone soldiers could not prevent the jars of oil from being thrown onto the siege towers.
Septimus, as a person from the modern era, knew the intentions of the Roman army when he observed that they were throwing jars of oil at the siege towers.
The siege towers had a special coating that made fire attacks difficult but not impossible; the ancients, to avoid fire attacks, used mud or wet hides to cover the areas prone to burning on the siege towers.
Reducing a siege tower to flames was not an easy task, but Sertorius, as a veteran military man, could only give orders with determination to achieve the objective. The clones who used the siege towers caused many casualties to the Roman army.
Three hours passed, and all the archers who could position themselves on the city wall began to fire flaming arrows at the siege towers.
The arrows, like small meteors, stopped firing at the clone soldiers who were below the towers and concentrated their shots on the siege tower.
The first rounds of arrows did not cause much damage to the siege towers, but after one hour the constant accumulation of arrows and the soaked oil caused two siege towers to suddenly catch fire.
The clone soldiers quickly abandoned the two siege towers; the few soldiers who could not abandon the siege tower committed suicide to avoid a terrible death by burns.
Septimus frowned, because he knew that those two burning siege towers would not be the last. In a matter of time, the siege towers would be reduced to ashes.
The ballistas also began to fire, causing structural damage to the siege towers and killing the clone soldiers inside.
Time passed slowly, and five other siege towers suffered the same fate.
The pressure of the Roman army on the city wall decreased noticeably.
The Roman ballistas and archers concentrated on destroying the siege towers of the clone army.
Septimus could not remain observing without taking countermeasures; the clone soldiers began to organize a line of people to transport buckets of water from the camp.
Lines of clone soldiers extended from the city wall to the military camp, transporting buckets of water efficiently.
While the Roman archers tried to set fire to the siege towers, the clone army threw water to prevent the fire.
A struggle between fire and water that lasted for almost an hour.
The stalemate did not last long.
Hundreds of Roman cavalrymen suddenly appeared and attacked the clone soldiers who were transporting water.
The Roman cavalry charged against the clone soldiers who formed lines and transported water, throwing their javelins, and then riding away on horseback.
Without stirrups, the effectiveness in combat of cavalry in this era was very questionable.
When you strike an infantryman with your sword, sometimes it is not the infantryman who dies, but you who falls from the horse due to the recoil.
The cavalry of this time completely lacked the imposing presence of later cavalry. Therefore, after discovering this, Septimus stopped developing cavalry and focused exclusively on infantry.
As for stirrups, Septimus did not plan to introduce them until several decades later. The powerful enemies of Rome, the Parthians, the Germans, and the Gauls, were famous for their cavalry; the introduction of stirrups would give them a great advantage.
The Roman cavalry without stirrups could only dedicate itself to harassment and scouting.
Sertorius had mobilized 2,000 Roman cavalrymen to harass with the intention of disrupting the enemy's attempts to prevent the burning of the siege towers. The Roman cavalrymen had exited the city through small gates that were generally used to bring goods in and out of the city.
As a veteran general with years of experience, General Sertorius managed to frustrate Septimus's siege with relative ease.
In the future, Sertorius would fight with numerical inferiority, decisively defeating Pompey and Metellus.
Septimus did not know that his siege was frustrated by the famous general Sertorius, and with an order his clone army began to withdraw in an orderly manner.
Continuing with the siege would be a loss of troops, and it was already getting dark.
With the sound of the horns, the clone army began to withdraw while defending itself from the harassment of the Roman cavalry.
The clone soldiers were not completely defenseless against the Roman cavalry.
Many clone soldiers took the opportunity to throw swords, daggers, or javelins at the enemy cavalrymen, managing to kill them.
A normal army would have lost morale and would be defenseless; the clone army operated like a very efficient killing machine without fear of death.