Each of the sections of bridge was constructed of rough logs formed into a surface with tightly-tied ropes. The first two approached the stone bridge, slipping quickly down the slope, and almost sending the men at the front sliding and careening into the river below. By some miracle o f balance they remained upright as they neared the bridge. The enemy archers and slingers urgently shifted their aim, trying to take down the soldiers near the bridge, but relieving their barrage of Decius’ men proved disastrous, and many Arenosio warriors fell even as they tried to adjust their ranges. Endangered by a scattering of enemy shots, the engineers reached the bridge and ran across it, leaving the wooden structures on the near bank and unfurling coils of rope as they ran.
As they neared the far side, a legionary took a stray slingshot to the head and with a yelp vanished over the bridge’s low parapet, plunging into the shallow, rocky torrent some twenty feet below. The rest rushed on to the far bank and the slope that ran up to the narrowest expanse of the fortress walls , peeling off to either side as they did so, away from the path that led up to the gate. Another man from that same unit took an arrow in the leg a moment later and fell, sli ding down the turf and grasping desperately at undergrowth to prevent tumbling down the gulley and into the stream where the body of his companion lay broken on the rocks, his blood turning the white frothy torrent pink. Another man, from the other unit, slid on the grass and barely regained his footing. The enemy concentrated their shots on the men at the bridge now, heedless of the damage they were taking from Decius’ men. Another legionary fell, then another. But despite the losses the engineers found their marked position and began to haul on their ropes. The log bridges began to move out across the gulley on the cables , and Fronto marvelled at the strength of the dozen or so remaining men on both teams as the log bridge s slowly began to cross the gap and move into position.
Another man fell on the left unit as a slingshot struck him on the elbow and shattered the joint, sending him screaming to the floor. Having now lost three of their eight man team, the strength of the pull began to wane and the logs’ advance halted. Biorix, though, was already adjusting to the circumstances, and so was Decius. As the archers on the ridge began to specifically target the defenders near the bridge in an effort to lighten the cloud of missiles, Biorix sent another four of the men from the near side of each bridge across to join their fellows on the far bank. After all, those on this side only had to hold the bridge steady and then peg it into position at the end. Those on the far side had to haul it across and pull it into place while being struck by enemy missiles.
Fronto watched, tense, as the new additions reached their fellows on the far bank, and the added muscle hauled the bridges across and into place . Another two men fell to lucky blows from the walls as the two units painstakingly drove stakes into the turf and roped the bridge to them, tying off the knots. Even as another legionary fell, they were making their way back across the stone bridge and out of immediate danger. Their task completed, the teams on the near bank pulled the bridge taut and secured it to deep-driven stakes in the same manner. In two hundred heartbeats the slung timber bridges were in place, and access across the gulley had widened from two men to six a t a time.
Fronto watched the next bridges begin to slide down the hill. Now was the immediate test. Engineers always sounded sure about their business, but you could never be quite certain it wasn’t all bravado until the results were tested. Biorix had already changed the format of the second run, sending twelve men ahead and leaving four to maintain the near side.
The legate held his breath as the engineers reached the new bridges and ran across them, one team to each. Their feet pounded the temporary structures, which were being tested to the limit immediately, carrying the weight of twelve men each. He let out the breath explosively as they reached the far side with only one loss due to a stray arrow. In twenty heartbeats the third and fourth bridges were being hauled into place alongside the previous two. With a total loss of three men the teams tied off their bridges and returned, heaving in breaths as they arrived back with their fellows. The near side was secured and a six man approach became ten.
Even as he felt his burden lighten with the latest success, Fronto’s eyes drifted up to the walls on a hunch, feeling that odd , unsettling , hair-raising shiver tha t a person gets when they know they’re being watched. His gaze drifted along the walls, where he could not make out the individual details of the defenders due to distance, but could identify whether they were an archer, a slinger or armed with sword or spear to defend the walls. And there, as his gaze slid along the defences , they alighted upon a single figure who stood tall and, though there was no way of confirming it for certain, Fronto knew the man was looking at him. The figure stood so confident and tall despite the constant barrage of Decius’ men, and Fronto was hardly surprised when Decius suddenly concentrated his men’s barrage on the figure. Two more warriors appeared to either side of the watcher and threw up huge heavy shields, protecting the figure from missiles. He was still watching Fronto.
Watching to see what he would do. The man was expecting Caesar to do something. To join in the attack? Somehow Fronto knew in a trice that he was being measured as a man, even though mistaken for Caesar. And in a heartbeat the enemy decided what would happen. He disappeared from the walls, gesturing to someone inside the fortress.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Fronto muttered to Masgava and Galronus.
‘Everything’s going according to plan,’ Masgava said.
‘For now. But something’s not right.’
He watched with a growing sense of trepidation. There was no logic to his feeling of apprehension. In fact, it was what Priscus used to rib him about, and how , he realised, he now did exactly the same to Aurelius. But it was impossible to shake the feeling that he’d cast the dice and they’d come up wanting.
‘Cornicen, I want that mouthpiece next to your lips from now on, and ready to blow the recall any moment. Something is horribly, horribly wrong.’
To his surprise, Aurelius was next to him, nodding. ‘I feel it too.’
The fifth temporary bridge fell to disaster. Two lucky shots from the wall took out men holding the rear of the bridge on the near side and the weight was too much for the two remaining engineers . Their grip slipped and the whole artifice slid and rolled down the hill, taking half the lead party with it into the gulley and the stream. The surviv ors ran for safety.
‘There you go,’ Masgava said. ‘There’s the bad luck you were feeling.’
‘No,’ Fronto peered down as the last two bridges were run out. ‘That wasn’t it.’
A desperate last attempt by the defenders took out too many of the advance unit and the last bridge slid down into the gulley before it could be anchored. Only four of the twelve engineers made it back.
‘That’s all the bridges,’ Carbo said from off to the left. ‘We lost two, but it’s still widened from a two man crossing to a fourteen-man one.’
Fronto answered with a noncommittal grunt.
‘Fronto, we’re ready,’ Carbo urged him. Still the legate stood in silence as the bridges swayed slightly, clear of all legionaries , the only sound of battle that of Decius’ men exchanging missiles with those on the wall.
‘Marcus, give the call,’ Galronus said breathily.
Silence. The legate was peering at those walls as though expecting them to open up, revealing row upon row of teeth, and begin to eat the army by the century.
‘Marcus…’
Fronto dro pped a hand and the cornicen gav e two loud, sharp, high blasts, then two low. The cohorts began the descent to the gulle y, moving first at a slow march then , at a whistle from their centurions, the lead century doubled their speed. Another whistle and that lead century broke into run, the second into a fast march, the rest at a steady tread . By the ordered change of pace, the centuries moved into position to cross the bridges.
‘We should recall them.’
‘What?�
�� Carbo said incredulously.
‘This is wrong.’
‘Look at them,’ Carbo said. ‘They’re almost at the walls, with ladders ready. There’s less than fifty men on that stretch of the defences. The cohorts wi ll be over in twenty heartbeats.’
‘They’ll be dead in ten,’ said Fronto, darkly.
They watched , tense , as the legionaries reached the base of the dry-stone walls and began to raise the ladders. They had suffered maybe a score of casualties to missiles as they crossed the bridges and climbed the slope. It was negligible in the grand scheme of things. And yet…
Fronto closed his eyes. It was changing now, he could feel it. When he opened them, only one small adjustment had been made. The enemy missile troops were no longer aiming at the Romans below them at the walls. Instead, they were loosing like mad at Decius’ unit. Suppressing shots. He realised with a frown that the warriors on the walls had changed subtly while he’d been watching the progress of the cohorts. No one up there bore a sword or spear any more. The wall had bulked out with archers and slingers, and the sudden increase in numbers was putting Decius under pressure. He was starting to suffer proper casualties. The enemy were keeping Decius busy, and there was no one on the walls prepared to take on an attacker.
‘Sound the recall,’ Fronto barked.
There was silence. Carbo was staring at him, as was Galronus, though Aurelius simply nodded vehemently. The cornicen had his horn to his lips, but remained silent, clearly thinking he’d misheard or that something had gone wrong.
‘Sound the fucking recall,’ Fronto snarled.
The cornicen blew into the mouthpiece as though his life depended on it, his eyes wide in perplexed panic. But it was too late. Fronto watched the new defenders reach the parapet, lifting their heavy burdens. Decius’ men could do nothing about it, as they were being pounded mercilessly by Arenosio archers and slingers.
‘Run, you idiots,’ Fronto said under his breath, watching the attack.
A full cohort was spread out across the wall now, almost five hundred men, raising their six ladders, unaware of the mortal danger appearing above them.
‘Hades, no,’ Carbo breathed.
‘Shit,’ was Galronus’ succinct response.
Fronto watched with sick fear as the new arrivals on the wall top tipped their cauldrons of heated sand over the parapet on to the five hundred men below. The screams began instantly, but what was being done to them was no swift death, and they went on for a long time as the soldiers of Rome melted below the walls, their skin blackening and sloughing away under the onslaught of white hot material that clung to them even as they fell and rolled. Even those who made it to the water, heedless of the hard rocks beneath the surface, were too late. Their burns were too bad for them to live.
The second cohort, who’ d just begun to reach the far side of the bridges, reacted in chaos to the carnage ahead of them and the recall signal behind. Many fell to the missile troops on the wall, as they switched targets once more. Decius’ men had been forced back, and now arrows and stones smacked into fleeing legionaries, leaving the slopes of grass strewn with bodies.
‘I should have…’ Carbo said, his voice wavering. ‘You said…’
‘There was no reason for it. I just knew. No blame on you, Carbo. And we couldn’t have expected anything like heated sand. The Gallic peoples don’t use tactics like that. This is all the work of that smiling bastard of an Arenosio king. He watched me. And as soon as he knew I wasn’t coming, he changed it all. He’d been all - but inviting me in, and when I stayed here, he took it out on the men. When this is over I am going to have a few very hard words with that animal.’
‘The other cohorts are pulling back in good order,’ Galronus said quietly, ‘and Decius has most of his unit out of enemy range.’
‘What do we do now?’ Aurelius asked, his face pale.
‘We retreat. We think. We plan. Then we come back and we tear this bastard a new smile.’
* * *
‘What’s the damage? ’ Fronto said quietly, his opening words for the command meeting in the central tent of the camp.
‘ Eight hundred and fifteen dead, sir,’ Carbo said bleakly. ‘Oddly only thirty or so wounded. Few who got injured made it out alive.’
‘Over a quarter of our men. Nearly a third , in fact . And all in about quarter of an hour. And it’s my fault.’
‘ Your fault?’ Carbo said in surprise.
‘That bastard wanted me to attack. Caesar, I mean. He wanted Caesar to attack. If I’d gone in, that wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Or you’d also be lying on the grass with a melted face, sir,’ Terpulo argued.
‘No. I don’t think so. This is too personal. All of it. That was me being punished for not committing myself. We did very little damage to the enemy today and took horrendous casualties in the process. I presume you heard about the beacons?’
There were nods. ‘Two more beacons lit,’ Arruntius, one of the few miraculous survivors of the assault, said. His left arm was scalded, and wrapped in cold, damp bandages, but otherwise he’d managed to run from the danger just in time.
‘And lit further off, too . They’re answers. And that puts the Convenae less than a day away. At the very latest, they’ll put in an appearance by tomorrow afternoon. My only hope is that this insane king is so avid that he wants me to attack him that he’ll hold off with the Convenae long enough for that to happen, but we cannot rely on that. He may be methodical and clever, but he’s also clearly madder than a bag of toads , and madmen cannot be relied on for anything except unpredictability. So we’re left with little choice.’
‘Another attack?’ Masgava said. ‘At first light, so we can maybe take them before the reinforcements arrive. Maybe at the far side this time?’
Fronto gave the big Numidian a hard smile. ‘You’re supposed to be more cunning and inventive than that, my friend. No. Here’s what we now know about our friend ove r there. He thinks like a Roman. He set anti-horse lilia pits down in the lowlands, set up artillery ambushes. He uses terrain and all his available auxiliaries in order to preserve his own force. And here, right at the end, he used hot sand. Hot sand! Can you imagine how hard sand must be to obtain in the mountain passes in that quantity? He’d planned this for months. Long enough to ferry two or three cartloads of sand up from the coast or a lowland river. He’s cunning, and he’s planning. But there’s one advantage. He thinks like a good old Roman general. And that means he’s limited by the same thinking.’
‘You think you can out manoeuvre him?’ Galronus said.
‘I’m sure of it. Like any normal commander, he’s resting on his laurels right now, happy that he’s won. He’s almost certainly thinking that I’ll lead some last ditch attempt in the morning, and that’s what he wants: me – Caesar – desperate enough to join in the fight. So we have to do the unexpected. He knows we’ve retreated to lick our wounds. But that’s not what we’re going to do. It’s almost dark now, and we’re going to try again tonight.’
‘Attack in the dark?’
‘Yes. Do you realise that since my days in Hispania I have never yet lost a battle I commanded. I’ve been in a couple of debacles led by other people, including Caesar, but I’ve never led a lost cause. And I don’t intend to start now. I refuse to blemish my record because of that smiling bastard behind those walls. ’
‘But how do you hope to win in the dark when we couldn’t win in the light?’ Galronus frowned.
‘Simple,’ Fronto grinned. ‘We’ll cheat.’
‘What?’
‘I shall tak e a unit of the best, sneakiest sons of motherless whores in the whole army. We’ll head east, hidden by the ridge, then move into the trees. Then we ’ ll head up into the hills and come down the other side sometime around midnight, hopefully taking them entirely by surprise. With grapples, we might be able to get inside. And once we’re inside, we’ll try and move round to secure the south wall and the gate above the bridge. You lot will have e
very last man ready to move into a fight. A melee. That includes the wounded, the archers, the cavalry, the teamsters and the lot. Every man in this army who can lift a sword will be in position just at the camp edge, ready to move. When we secure the gate, I’ll send up a signal and you get there as fast as you can. Once we start the men pouring through the gate, we’ve won. It’s that simple.’
‘Oh?’ Carbo raised an eyebrow. ‘ That simple?’
Fronto laughed. ‘I’ll take the best men I can, including Arcadios. No one can launch a fire arrow like him. That’ll be your signal. ’
‘Why do you have to lead this?’ Masgava frowned.
‘Because this is all about me. Well, it’s all about Caesar , but you know what I mean. There are answers in that place waiting to be discovered. I intend to find them tonight.’
‘It’s mad.’
‘But it’ll work,’ Fronto grinned nastily. ‘Get everything ready. I leave in an hour.’
Late Maius
THE king stood atop the walls of the fortress, his cloak billowing in the night winds that rushed down then valley from the snowy peaks above . His keen eyes picked out the tiny shapes moving in the distance, despite the near-darkness. Shapes that believed themselves hidden, unaware that nothing in this valley was hidden from the king of the Arenosio. Eyes blinked in every tree and hollow, reporting back to the fortress by lesser paths.
‘What could they hope to achieve?’
The king turned to find Ategnio standing beside him, watching the enemy sneaking away. He smiled. The great, deadly Arenosio warrior who had been by his side since the early days was a clever man f or his upbringing, and strong – g ods, but he was strong – but his intellect still only stretched so far. The Gauls were weak and the Belgae were arrogant, but the Aquitanii were simple. That was not to say they were stupid – t hey were far from that – b ut more that they were straightforward and not given to deceit , and it had taken some work for the k ing to find men who thought in curves rather than straight lines. Ategnio was one of the most innovati ve and intuitive of his tribe, b ut next to the Romans he might as well have his features painted on and strings attached to his limbs to dance for the laughing crowds. But then, they were all puppets of a sort – the Arenosio to him, and all of man kind to the laughing, wicked Fates.
Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica Page 23