‘Bastard,’ shouted the Roman at the dying Gaul as he ran on, selecting another man who had emerged from a building carrying a spear, angled ready for a thrust with all his weight. Fronto ran at the man, screaming something incomprehensible about Gauls and the Tenth.
Atenos watched Fronto use his free hand to grab the spear and rip it to one side as he delivered three quick punches of his gladius with unerring accuracy to neck, belly and groin. The spearman screamed and fell back amid a wash of blood. Palmatus and the singulares were struggling to catch up with the man they had sworn to protect, finding themselves waylaid by desperate Gauls as they followed.
A Roman arrived next to Atenos, looking haggard and panicked, his young eyes wild with his first taste of real combat. The big centurion was about to order him on into one of the buildings when he realised that the man was one of the young narrow-stripe junior tribunes of the Tenth, his white officer’s tunic exchanged for a darker red one just like the rest of the legion’s officers for this action.
‘Stop him, centurion.’
Atenos blinked in surprise. ‘Sir?’
‘He’s gone mad, man. Can’t you see that? He must be stopped!’
Atenos peered off at the shouting legate as his commander savagely ripped open a warrior who’d had the misfortune to get in his way.
‘You don’t know our legate yet, do you, sir.’
‘Centurion?’
‘That’s not madness, sir. That’s two years of frustration and the loss of a couple of good friends finding a way out. I’d sooner step in front of a ballista than try and stop legate Fronto right now.’
Another glance up the street, and he watched with interest as Fronto pommel-bashed another man and took the opportunity of a lull in opponents to put a hard, military boot into the man’s ribs half a dozen times, yelling something incomprehensible as blood slicked down his blade and ran onto the hard-packed dirt at his feet.
‘We should report to Caesar that the town is ours,’ the tribune murmured quietly, a faintly horrified tone in his voice as he watched his legate at work, a huge stone hurled by some distant Roman siege engine missing him by a matter of feet and smashing into a building nearby.
‘Why don’t you go do that now, sir? I’ve got some Carnutes to kill.’
With the wild grin of the unfettered warrior, Atenos turned, yelled some dreadful Gallic war cry that ended peculiarly with a Latin reference to the Tenth legion, and barrelled on up the street in the gory wake of his commander, men of the Tenth yelling and running after him in support.
* * * * *
Fronto looked up at the sound of his name, the first word he had heard to which he’d felt remotely inclined to pay any attention over the last hour. The faint strains of sunlight were threading their way through the weave of the inky sky, forming the earliest tapestry of morning. The streets were muddy, yet tinted red with the blood of the Carnutes, their life’s essence pooling in hollows and forming moats around cobbles where the roads had been paved. The air was still murky and indistinct in the early light, fogged with the roiling smoke from a dozen charred buildings.
His singulares sat recovering in a huddle a few paces away, one or two sporting gashes and slashes. Across the small public square, a small party of legionaries was busy leading a line of a score of roped Carnute prisoners towards the city gate, while a similar party threw ragged native corpses into a commandeered wagon. Despite their work, the dead in the square still outnumbered the living.
How many of them had he killed personally, he wondered.
A group of legionaries burst from a doorway, laughing, their arms weighed down with plunder.
And there, in the middle of the square and walking towards him, was Marcus Antonius, senior officer of Caesar’s command… and friend.
‘Don’t start with me, Antonius.’
The curly-haired officer let out a strangely carefree laugh. ‘Hardly. Caesar will do that later. He takes it personally when one of his officers disobeys direct orders, though it’s such ingrained habit with you, I doubt he’ll do more than snap at you.’
The senior officer came to a halt a couple of paces from where Fronto sat on a wide, oak bench stained with the blood of the man that had died on it. He looked at the empty seat next to the Tenth’s commander and decided against it. With a shake of the head, he produced a wine-skin seemingly from nowhere and uncorked it, proffering it to Fronto.
‘No thanks. Don’t think I really need that right now.’
Antonius laughed. ‘On the contrary, Marcus, you need this right now. Have you taken a look at yourself lately?’
Fronto shook his head and Antonius looked around for a moment until he spotted a fallen Gaul, whose shiny, well-polished iron axe had not had time to see action before his untimely death. Crouching, he picked up the weapon and held it in front of the seated officer, such that the polished head acted as a mirror.
Fronto blinked at the sodden crimson demon that looked back at him in the blade, and reached up, wordlessly, for the flask.
‘I lost control.’
‘I know. Everyone knows. Three cohorts of men watched it happen. I hear you are to thank that silver goddess around your neck that you’re alive. Apparently half a dozen times our own artillery nearly did for you before they received the order to stop the barrage.’
‘It’s not a good trait in an officer. A legate should always be in control.’
Antonius chuckled. ‘Control is not all it’s cracked up to be, Marcus. Sometimes a little wild abandon is good for a person. Besides, this has been building in you for some time. And I’ve been told you have form. Apparently something similar happened in Britannia?’
Fronto nodded, remembering his berserk madness on that distant, misty isle.
‘What happened? I only saw a small part of the action.’
Antonius wandered over to the well a few paces away, retrieved the bucket of water and flung it across the blood-slicked bench before casting it aside. He crouched and took an intact cloak from a dead native, using it to dry the bench before he sank to the wood next to the legate.
‘The rest of the Tenth followed you in. The Eighth and the Eleventh both managed to get themselves involved before it was all over - they were the two legions nearest the gate. The last resistance was about an hour ago, in some native temple. A druid was stirring them up to kill, as though they still stood some kind of a chance. Stupid.’
‘Casualties?’
‘Theirs, or ours?’ laughed Antonius. ‘No idea how many their dead number, but we’re looking at about two thousand slaves to send back to Agedincum. Maybe a hundred got away, but we’re leaving them to spread the word to the rest of the tribe. As for ours? Well, we took the Carnutes by surprise. They hardly managed to raise a sword. About two hundred dead and critically wounded, and maybe a hundred walking wounded. Negligible, though sadly most of them were your lads.’
Fronto nodded absently.
‘And now it’s time for you to get back outside, get out of that grisly tunic, have a dip in the river and clean yourself up, and I’ll send someone with fresh clothes for you.’
‘I’d rather sit for a while longer,’ Fronto muttered. ‘My legs don’t seem to work.’
Antonius chuckled again and slapped him on the knee. ‘We have to go. The men are all being pulled out. The buildings have almost all been looted now, and the last bodies are being heaped into one of the granaries we emptied. As soon as we’re finished, Caesar’s given the order to burn the place to the ground. Cenabum is gone. The depot’s personnel are avenged.’
‘And next?’
‘Next?’ Antonius breathed, rising to his feet and reaching out a hand to his fellow officer. ‘Next we move to Novioduno as planned. The rumour is that the Bituriges have forsaken their oath to both us and the Aedui and thrown in their lot with Vercingetorix. Before we march on Avaricon, which is said to be impregnable, we need to test the water, as it were. Novioduno is small and no great threat, and we can confirm the nature
of their allegiance there before we move to Avaricon.’
‘No rest for the weary,’ Fronto sighed as he reached up and took the proffered hand, using it to pull himself to his feet, his gore-soaked tunic sticking, cold and unpleasant, to his skin.
‘To the river, Antonius. Then before we move on, I would like to sample a little more of that wine!’
* * * * *
The Boii oppidum of Gorgobina.
The latest assault pulled back rapidly down the gentle slope and Vergasillaunus sucked his teeth in consternation, watching the Arverni warriors and their allies as they retreated in disarray towards the large camp seething with men and animals. Without taking his eyes from the retreat and the jeering forms of the Rome-supporting Boii defenders atop the high walls, he cleared his throat and addressed Vercingetorix.
‘Why do we not commit a sizeable force and simply swamp them? It disheartens our warriors to attack again and again with no true hope of success.’
The king of the Arverni gave his cousin that usual knowing smile. ‘Gorgobina’s walls are high, for all its low slopes, and its inhabitants are fighting for their very existence. Any committed assault will cost us dearly, and I am in the process of building this army, not demolishing it.’ He saw his cousin readying to reply, and cut him off. ‘Gorgobina has only one well which, according to our sources, is not plentiful. Most of their grain is held in the farms that harvested it and are now under our control. And the oppidum is full to the brim with desperate Boii. Their food and water will not last long, and then we can simply walk into the place and claim it without risking many men. We just have to keep sending small forays to tire them out and help them lose hope.’
‘But the delay?’
‘What is a delay of a few weeks now? Caesar will take time to move with his army. The legions have been scattered in winter quarters, and getting them together and ready - let alone supplied - to move on us will take time. And we will hear from our northern allies when he starts to move.’
‘You are sure he is in the north with his army, then?’ Vergasillaunus murmured, ‘and not to the south in our homeland?’
‘I am certain of it. But Caesar believes he has plenty of time. He will be convinced he has tricked us into running south to protect our homes. He is not coming for us, and I want the Aedui behind our banner before he does. I am not yet considering time my most pressing concern. Every day we reduce the Boii, the Aedui are watching us and our men among them twist their leaders to our cause. No, Vergasillaunus, we are under no pressure here.’
He looked up once more at the walls.
Gorgobina was a small oppidum, the home of a tribe Caesar had settled here years before in the aftermath of his victory over the Helvetii. The tribe who occupied it was a small one, but loyal to both the Aedui, who sponsored them, and Rome, who had settled them with grace rather than extinguishing or enslaving them. The walls of the place were only a few years old and had been constructed with Aedui help and Roman resources. They were powerful and high and thick.
But nature had given them only a trickle of water within, and their own unpreparedness had left them short of grain - the grain which was even now being gathered by the Arverni and added to their own supplies. If the Boii had been clever, they would have torched their fields when they retreated within the walls and left nothing for the attackers. But then, they were not warriors like the Arverni, they were Roman lap-dogs.
The pair stood silent for a moment and then the king stretched. ‘Give them an hour to drop their guard and then send another small foray in from the north. Let’s keep them nervous and exhausted. We have the numbers, they do not.’
Vergasillaunus nodded and frowned as he saw a solitary warrior running towards them.
‘What’s this?’
The man closed on the pair and dropped to a knee, bowing his head before rising again. ‘There is a small column of horsemen coming in from the north, my king.’
Vercingetorix glanced at his cousin with an arched eyebrow.
‘Who knows?’ the man replied, and then turned to the warrior. ‘Any idea who they are?’
‘No. They’re not Romans, though. And they don’t look like Aedui. They will be here any moment.’ He rose and gestured to the north, where they could just make out a small party of cavalry cresting the low rise and moving down to the lower ground where the army had made camp.
The two commanders of the Arverni army waited patiently and watched as the horsemen approached, were met by a dozen spear-bearing Lemovice warriors and questioned before being permitted to proceed into the camp.
‘Friends, then,’ Vergasillaunus mused. They kept their eyes on the group as the two lead horsemen came on through the wide camp and the rest - clearly their escort - peeled off elsewhere. Vercingetorix was peering through the grey with narrowed eyes and trying to identify them when his cousin straightened with a smile.
‘Our favourite brothers return.’
The king frowned and gradually the creases around his eyes moved into a smile. But by the time the two chieftains had closed on the commanders’ vantage point, he could see the seriousness of the brothers’ expressions, and his smile had slipped away again.
‘My king,’ Critognatos said, sliding from the horse straight into a curt bow. Cavarinos simply nodded his head respectfully from the saddle.
‘You bring bad news?’
‘Not I,’ Critognatos said, earning him a cold look from the other rider. ‘Many thousand warriors are on their way from the Meldi, the Parisi and the Catelauni, and upwards of two thousand from the tiny unimportant tribes. The Carnutes and the Senones are with us still, and will send men in due course, the first moment the Romans turn their gaze away.’
‘And there lies the problem,’ Cavarinos said with a sigh. ‘Caesar is already abroad with his army. He has taken the grain stores of Vellaunoduno and moved on with eight legions to Cenabum, which I can assure you will by now be naught but bones and burned timbers… you know how the Romans hold a grudge. I wish we had got word to you faster, but we were delayed in our journey by having to avoid Aedui lands. Caesar has sent word to them, and the northern Aedui towns would sell us out to Rome in a heartbeat.’
‘The man moves with the speed and sureness of a snake,’ Vercingetorix said, shaking his head admiringly. ‘I wonder sometimes what the Romans have done that their gods gift them with such men to win their wars. Still, our own army is not led by fools. Caesar seeks to divide us from our northern allies? Let him concentrate on keeping the Carnutes and the Senones out of things. We already have many of their number with us. Plus we’ll soon have the Aedui - no matter what the Romans’ ambassadors can offer - and their numbers more than make up for the loss of any further Carnutes.’
Critognatos’ face took on a sour cast. ‘You would abandon the Carnutes and their neighbours to the Romans simply on a matter of numbers?’
‘Frankly, yes,’ Vercingetorix said, matter-of-factly. ‘We cannot afford to be sympathetic or sentimental at the cost of this war… you have seen for yourself what we are up against. Do you think Caesar would abandon pursuit of a large ally to rush to the aid of a small one?’ He rolled his neck wearily. ‘Besides, once we have the Aedui with us and we have the numbers to crush Caesar, we will move north and help our brothers the Carnutes, sure in the knowledge of our success.’
Cavarinos stirred uncomfortably in his saddle. ‘I’m afraid it might be a little more urgent than that. While at Vellaunoduno, I learned that once the Romans have destroyed Cenabum, their sights are turning to the south. Caesar seeks to enforce his alliance with the Aedui and the Bituriges. He will march upon Novioduno, and then Avaricon. And given how long we have taken to get here because of the cursed Aedui, the Romans will most likely be closing upon their first destination already.’
Vergasillaunus turned a surprised expression upon his commander. ‘Avaricon is only forty miles from here. Do we have the men yet to bring him down?’
The Arverni king affected a far-away look as
he made mental calculations of strength. ‘No. I do not believe so. Not without the Aedui. Caesar has eight legions and all of them are veterans, having cut their teeth on the shields and bones of our people for years. They have no fear of us and are more than familiar with our battle skills and tactics.’ He rolled his head, his neck clicking. ‘Besides, I have no intention of rushing off to aid Avaricon and abandoning all our work here.’
‘But cousin…’ Vergasillaunus began.
‘No. Avaricon is the strongest fortress in the west. The Bituriges can hold it for many weeks. Long enough for us to raze Gorgobina, conclude matters here, enlist the Aedui, and then move west and crush Caesar against Avaricon’s walls. We stick with our plan.’
‘Unless,’ Cavarinos murmured, ‘both Novioduno and Avaricon both open their gates to him willingly. The Bituriges have long been his allies through the Aedui, and they are not yet truly bound to our cause by aught other than fear.’
The Arverni king nodded thoughtfully. ‘I agree. Both cities must be bolstered, Novioduno in strength and Avaricon in courage. Novioduno is almost twice as far away - perhaps eighty miles. We will be truly fortunate to have a force reach it before the Romans do. We will sadly be forced to sacrifice the place in order to preserve Avaricon, but it will serve a purpose in delaying Caesar.’ He turned to Vergasillaunus. ‘Lucterius frets at being here and not in open battle. Send him with three thousand cavalry to Novioduno, as fast as they can ride. He can strengthen their defences with his men, and his own courage will bring forth their own. He must hold the place as long as possible and deny the Romans their supplies even in the end. When the place falls, I trust him to burn all the Bituriges’ supplies and find a way out and back to us.’
The Great Revolt Page 15