The standard fell, and Furius was straight at it. Fabius leapt after him, parrying a blow that should have taken Furius’ head off as he ran with single-minded purpose. The warrior lunged at him again and Fabius was forced to sidestep to deflect the blow, almost toppling back over the wall until the next legionary over the parapet pushed him back away. Three more clashes of blades and Fabius saw his opening, dipping low and driving his blade in just above the man’s hip, through his gut and up to pierce his heart.
He looked up to see Furius in trouble, turning aside blow after blow, mostly through blind luck, as he worked to free the standard from its dead bearer’s fingers. Leaping forward, Fabius slammed his sword into the attacker’s side, giving his friend a moment’s respite. The Gauls seemed to be pulling back under the onslaught, the wall top clearing and a space opening around them.
As he glanced about, he saw a wide area beginning to open around the other ladder, too. Sure enough, many paces over to their right, above the vineae at the far side of the ramp, the other two ladders were in place and men were securing the wall above them. He became aware, over the din of battle, of the cacophonic honking of carnyx in the city below, and realised the Gauls were pulling back, abandoning the walls.
Furius had the standard now and was struggling to find his feet.
‘The corona!’ someone shouted. ‘The corona is won!’
Fabius glanced round to see a blood-slicked legionary standing above the other ladder a few paces to their left, waving a standard from one of the centuries at that position. His gaze turned slowly back to Furius, to see his friend’s face drain of colour. The tribune rose slowly from his crouch, the standard slipping from his loose fingers. His gaze was fixed on the ecstatic legionary waving the other standard in a welter of blood. As Furius took an angry pace forward, Fabius stepped in front of him.
‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
Furius pushed his friend roughly out of the way, but Fabius grabbed his sword hand and pulled at the fingers until he dropped the blade. At least the tribune wouldn’t gut the victorious legionary, now.
He followed his friend, wiping the rain from his eyes and gesturing for the legionary to lower the standard, but the oblivious man was too busy celebrating as he waved it. The blood-soaked veteran reeled as the tribune’s punch connected with his jaw, sending him back two steps before he righted himself.
‘What…?’
‘That was for Jerusalem…’ Furius snarled, drawing a look of utter incomprehension from the legionary. He was still frowning in confusion as the tribune’s uppercut sent him back and onto his arse, the standard clattering away through the rain to the wet wall-top.
‘And that was for Avaricon, you pisspot!’
Furius sagged as Fabius grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backwards, uttering polite excuses to the legionary who lay on his back, massaging his face.
‘You are a mad bastard at times,’ he grinned at his irate companion.
* * * * *
Critognatos thrashed his sword around in the air in angry impotence, the rain ricocheting from his face and armour in a fine spray.
‘The cowards! The gods-forgotten cowards! Who sounded the recall? The walls could have been saved!’
Cavarinos nodded silently. Much as he hated to agree with his brother, it was true. The walls had fallen needlessly, and with them Avaricon had gone. But it was not cowardice, whatever Critognatos said. It was laxity. It was over-confidence and negligence on the part of the leaders of the city who had not insisted on a full complement on the wall regardless of the terrible weather. Had the wall held its usual number of men and been on proper alert, the Roman ladders would never have succeeded and the legions would not have managed to achieve a foothold on the parapet.
Still, it was all moot now. The wall had fallen.
‘We must rally the warriors. We can fight them still,’ Critognatos snapped. ‘We know these streets and Roman tactics will not work here. We can make them pay for every foot of ground they take.’
‘Pointless,’ Cavarinos replied sadly. ‘The city has fallen. All you will do is get more men killed.’
‘Then you advocate flight?’ his brother snarled.
‘Not for the Bituriges, actually. It’s up to the people of Avaricon what they do. Hide? Fight? Run? It is no longer our concern… it cannot be. We have to get back to Vercingetorix and the army.’
‘I will not run when the fight is upon us.’ Critognatos spotted a man with a carnyx over his shoulder running in the direction of the oppidum’s main square. ‘You!’
The man paused, his face flushed with panic, and jogged across to the two Arverni nobles, shaking his head to dislodge the water-logging from his wild hair and moustaches.
‘Here’s what I want: sound a call for your people to muster here. Then form into a wedge. It works for the Romans. Men with the biggest shields to the front, spears...’
‘Crit, he’s just a musician.’ Cavarinos turned to the man. ‘Just muster your warriors here.’
As the man began to honk, boo and squawk through the tall instrument, the noise somewhat dampened by the endless batter of rain, Cavarinos grabbed his brother by the shoulders, looking deep into his eyes. ‘We cannot stay. If we stay, we die. Everyone here is going to die. Caesar will not take slaves this time… he cannot feed them! Worse, perhaps, that Roman - Fronto - will recognise us and we will be interrogated before we die. Form them up to fight, but then we must leave them to it and run.’
The heavier-set of the pair looked back at his calm sibling and finally nodded, regretfully. ‘You’re right, of course. These cowards will have to die on their own now.’
As the first of the Bituriges warriors began to turn up in the street, Cavarinos watched the Romans filing along the walls, effectively surrounding the city using its own ramparts. ‘We have to go soon, or there will be no escape.’ He frowned. ‘But as we go, we need to fire the granaries, leave the Romans nothing.’
Critognatos grinned nastily and grabbed a local warrior by the shoulder. ‘Form into a wedge as the Romans do. Put your strongest men in the front with the biggest shields to hold the legionaries off. Have spearmen behind in the third or fourth row. As soon as the Romans come into the square, they will form into their usual line. Then you charge. As soon as your wedge breaks their formation, you can kill hundreds easily.’
The warriors looked uncertain but nodded anyway and began to organise all those who turned up. The brothers watched for a while as the wedge formed somewhat chaotically, the constituent warriors’ faces betraying their uncertainty and fear. They would never stop the Romans, but they would do a lot of damage if they held it together.
‘Time to go,’ Cavarinos whispered to his brother, and the pair moved to the rear of the formation and slipped into a side street.
As soon as they were gone the muttering began, and after only a few heartbeats men began to abandon the wedge, scurrying off into alleys, searching for an adequate hiding place. As the formation splintered and dissolved from within, a figure shouldered a spear and ran for a particular alley.
* * * * *
Cavarinos peered at the granaries - two tall timber structures that rested on stilts some three feet above the damp ground, allowing air to circulate and prevent both rot and rats from getting to the precious supplies within. As was usually the case, a loading block stood at the end of each with steps down the side to allow carts to unload their cargo directly into the buildings. The fact that they were by necessity kept so dry made granaries a terrible fire risk, but for once, that played to their design. Critognatos hefted the burning torch he had found in the doorway of a house as they ran, the sizzling pitch defying even the torrential rain to extinguish it.
‘We have to be thorough,’ Critognatos murmured.
‘We have to be quick!’ Cavarinos replied, listening to the sounds of the legionaries moving through the streets like an iron tide rolling over the Bituriges and drowning them in blood.
His brother no
dded and clambered up the steps of the first loading block, wrenching at the door of the granary and hauling it open. As the door swung wide, the big man sighed. There was enough grain inside to feed an army for weeks, and this was only one of two granaries. If only they could work out how to get the grain out to Vercingetorix…
But they couldn’t. They’d be lucky to make it away themselves, and the Romans must not have the supplies.
Cavarinos watched his brother standing in the doorway and hissed ‘hurry up.’ His eyes were drawn to a narrow side-street where an older man came running around a corner screaming and then pitched forward, face-first, into the dirt, a pilum embedded deep in his back, bent at the end of the iron shaft.
‘They’re coming, Crit. Get it done!’
Critognatos hurriedly touched his torch to a couple of the dry grain sacks and watched them spring into flaming orange life, wincing at the sharp pain in his shoulder every time he did so. As he left the building, he spotted a small party of legionaries charging down the alley towards the granaries. A tell-tale racket betrayed the approach of more along the main street, too.
‘We have to go!’ he shouted as he jumped from the block. A crack of thunder split the grey air just above the city.
As Cavarinos ducked out of sight of the advancing Romans, Critognatos spotted one of the locals dithering at the corner. ‘You!’
The man ran across, his spear wavering, a look of confusion on his features which only increased as the big Arvernian thrust the sputtering torch into his hand and pointed at the sealed granary.
‘I’ve lit one. You do the other.’
The man stared down at the torch, but nodded fearfully, and in answer to his brother’s shout, Critognatos turned and ran for the northern edge of the city, leaving the granary street and fleeing for his life.
* * * * *
Samognatos looked down at the torch in his hand and then up at the retreating back of the two enemy chiefs as they disappeared. The Romans had paused in the alley to loot a couple of the houses and butcher whoever they found within, the screams testament to their vile activity.
The Condrusi scout had only a moment of doubt. There was always a possibility the Romans would ignore anything he said and simply butcher him as a local. If only Fronto and his singulares were here. With a swallow of his nerves, Samognatos cast aside his spear and scurried over to the water trough opposite the granaries, placed strategically for just such a circumstance. Without a moment’s pause, he thrust the burning torch into the water with a hiss and a column of steam and, leaving it floating, picked up one of the three buckets, scooping a copious quantity of water into it.
The left-hand of the twin granaries was now catching badly, the interior lit by an orange glow. The other building would probably be safe. The torrential rain would save the second granary if the first burned away, but every sack of grain that could be saved was crucial.
Running across the street with his bucket, he leapt up the steps and flung the water into the doorway. A half dozen legionaries appeared from the alleyway nearby, shouting imprecations at the native with the bucket. One drew back his arm, levelling a pilum.
‘Roma Victrix!’ bellowed Samognatos, waving the bucket, the slogan enough to stay the man’s arm. As the soldiers paused, he pointed at the granary. ‘Help me save the grain!’ he bellowed in barely-accented Latin.
* * * * *
Cavarinos and his brother reached the north-western gate to discover that half the city had had the same idea and were crowding through the open portal. The Romans were nominally in control of the gate - they certainly dominated the wall above it - but the sheer number of fleeing Bituriges was like an unstoppable tide and no matter how many the Romans killed, more managed to get past them. The soldiers above were hurling down pila, rocks and other missiles, killing the escapees even outside the walls.
There was nothing for it. The brothers shared a look, took a breath, and then plunged into the crowd, trusting to luck or the gods, each according to their nature.
The next hundred heartbeats for Cavarinos were among the worst in his life. The sweaty shoving and pushing and the smell of expelled urine and faeces from the terrified natives, some of it let loose in blind, bowel-loosening panic, more from the dead who were unable even to fall to the ground as the crowd shoved around them, keeping them upright in death. And among the press, the regular shrieks and messy spatters as a falling missile struck a target and killed a man or a woman or a child mere feet away from them. The blessed moment of relief as they passed from the torrent of rain and missiles, beneath the wall. And then the resuming of both as they reached the outside.
The fleeing Bituriges were everywhere. Their bodies littered the ground outside the gate, lying in mud and blood, washed clean in death by the downpour. Other, living and panicked locals were struggling through the marshy ground. Some were already sinking in the worst parts. And somehow, a small band of cavalry, clearly belonging to the Roman force, had picked its way round to this side. Not enough to help the attack, but enough to kill dozens and dozens of the fleeing unarmed citizens of Avaricon.
Grabbing Critognatos, Cavarinos pulled him away from the main crowd, scurrying along below the walls, slower than his brother would prefer.
‘What are we doing?’
‘Following that,’ Cavarinos replied, pointing down. Critognatos looked down at the muddy ground beneath them and could just make out the twin-pointed cloven-hoof tracks of a young deer. If a deer had been here then its tracks would lead them to safety through the marshes - a trick known by the locals yet forgotten by the mass in their panic.
‘You should have used the curse,’ Critognatos muttered as the pair threaded their way deeper into the mire.
‘On who? Who was responsible for that defeat?’ Cavarinos’ fingers went once again to the leather bag at his belt. Not for the first time, he considered just undoing the thongs and letting the superstitious piece of junk fall away to be lost forever. In this marsh, who would know?
With a sigh, he withdrew his hand and concentrated on following the tracks.
Avaricon was a setback, but not a critical one. After all, Vercingetorix had not wanted to come here in the first place.
And Caesar’s army was gradually weakening as the weeks wore on.
Chapter 10
Avaricon
Vercingetorix looked around at the assembly of chieftains. A number of faces were painted with bleak hopelessness - mostly those closely tied to the Bituriges, of course. Others showed signs of anger and a thirst for violent revenge. None of the nobles or high-born of Avaricon had made it out to the camp, of course, and only a few hundred survivors had arrived through the endless marshland, including - to the king’s lasting gratitude - Cavarinos and Critognatos, both sodden and mud-soaked, the latter sporting a shoulder wound that put him in no danger but in a miserable mood.
‘Why the sour expressions?’ he asked, a hint of steel in his voice.
Two of the Bituriges nobles exchanged a look. ‘Avaricon is fallen,’ one said as though the world should be in mourning.
‘And so did Vellaunoduno, Cenabum and Novioduno. What makes your city more worthy than they that you expect the Senones and the Carnutes to commiserate with you, yet you speak nothing of their losses.’
He straightened in the strained silence that was their only reply.
‘Avaricon was never my prime concern. It could never have been the prime concern of any man who planned this war with forethought and care. Remember, when you pin me with harsh looks, that I did not wish to come here. I did so because of your hounding. I assure you that had we stayed at Gorgobina, that city would now be ours and the Aedui would be with us. In fact, by now we would outnumber Caesar two to one, and would be ready to come west and avenge what has happened here. Instead, because you insisted that we came so soon, we are weaker than we were, not stronger, and we still have nothing to show for our efforts.’
Again, the stilted silence echoed across the hilltop, give
n bleak counterpoint by the post-storm rain dripping heavily from the leaves, the world giving off that metallic tang of rain’s aftermath.
‘But those Bituriges among us need not be dispirited. Remember as you watch that city burn,’ - the king gestured to the high walls a few miles distant from which rose a hundred columns of smoke - ‘that Rome did not win this day by valour or right. They won because of their own deviousness and your deceased leaders’ carelessness. We will not allow such an event to occur again. Avaricon should have been burned by us to prevent Rome using it. No. Rome won here because they are treacherous of mind and have surpassing skill at overcoming walls, while we are too noble for such guile and have little knowledge of siege, given that we prefer to meet an enemy on the field of battle and look him in the eye while we stab him in the heart.’
There was a general murmur of appreciation at that succinct - if not quite accurate - summation.
‘I will, however, now reveal to you the one positive piece of news that I have received over these few dark days.’ He waited for the expectation to build and when the room almost vibrated with tension, he smiled. ‘My contacts within the Aedui tell me that we are on the verge of success. Despite our withdrawal from Gorgobina, my spies and agents have done their work well. The Aedui are in a power struggle, with the faction that supports our war on the ascendance. As soon as that decision is made and our man is put in control at Bibracte he will bring to our cause both the Aedui and a dozen other strong tribes. While Caesar still hungers and his army languishes, our army hovers on the verge of becoming an unstoppable force.’
The Great Revolt Page 22