Above, the riders started to wave to someone unseen, and then turned and left the edge of the slope.
‘They’ve definitely seen us,’ Brutus smiled. ‘Job complete. Have the Fifth draw up and wait in formation in the woodland. Let’s keep their focus on us.’
* * * * *
Fronto stood between his fellow legates, feeling older than usual, given the company, despite his current level of vigour and the warm weather giving him relief from knee trouble. Seven years ago, he had come to Gaul in the company of his future father-in-law, and Balbus had been the old man of the army. Strange that these days he had become the elderly officer, Sextius to his left and Fabius to the right both more than ten years his junior.
The three legates straightened as Caesar and Antonius stepped out of the tent at the centre of the white rocks camp. Things had been crowded here last night with the arrival under the cover of darkness of the Thirteenth, and despite what was about to happen, every man was looking forward to moving out of their sweaty, tight, cramped quarters.
‘My scouts tell me that the Gauls have been flooding across to the twin hills for the past half an hour, gentlemen. It appears that they have fallen for our ruse. Brutus and Aristius have their attention riveted on the Fifth. Now is our time to ravage their camp. Are the men supplied?’
The three legates nodded. Every century had been given a dozen pitch-soaked torches and a slow-burning horseshoe fungus, barring three cohorts of the Thirteenth, who were to remain behind and guard the camp.
‘Remember that this is a raid, not an assault. Their camp is seriously undermanned now and with surprise we can deal the enemy a dreadful blow, but we are not attempting to take and secure that camp. Lying just below the oppidum’s walls, we cannot hold the camp and to do so would lead to disaster. We storm to stone wall….’
Fabius coughed, surprise overriding his good sense and leading him to interrupt the general.
‘We, sir?’
‘Yes. We. I shall be accompanying the raid, among the ranks of the Tenth.’
‘Is that wise, general?’
Caesar gave his legate a hard look. ‘Fabius, I am no stranger to battle. But this should not be a hard fight anyway. This is a swift raid only. I wish to have a closer look at the enemy positions and their defences, and this will give me the perfect chance for that.’ He paused and rubbed his chin. ‘As I was saying, we storm the stone wall and, as soon as we are in their camp, I want every remaining occupant killed. We do not have the time or resources for prisoners. Kill anyone you find. Take anything that stands out as valuable, useful, or informative, and then burn the rest. Every tent. Every cart. Every crate or sack. I want that camp a mile-long field of ash when we leave. The Aedui riders will be coming up the slope from the main camp to our right. They will hold back and not engage, but are there to provide support should it be needed.’
The general rubbed his hands together in a business-like fashion. ‘Are we all clear?’
‘Yes, general.’
* * * * *
Teutomarus, king of the Nitiobriges, was not a young man. Indeed, his sons had urged him time and again not to lead their tribe’s contingent in the war against Rome. But he had refused. It was his duty and right as king, and when they destroyed Caesar and his legions and pushed Rome back to its home peninsula, it would be his name that was sung in the halls of the mighty alongside Vercingetorix and his generals, and not that of a son or nephew whose only real concern for him was not for his health, but that he not hog all the glory.
He stretched out languidly. His joints had stopped aching with the change in the weather, at least, but the weariness refused to leave, and the protracted periods in the saddle were playing havoc with his back, which had plagued him since a hunting accident over a decade ago.
His bed was comfortable, transported for him by cart and stuffed with the finest down to soothe his ageing bones. And his tent was larger than the rest of the Nitiobrige nobles’, well-appointed with Gallic and stolen Roman goods. Outside, he could hear his horse whickering, but all else was the sound of nature at work. Comforting.
The bulk of the tribes had rushed across to the twin hills at the Arverni king’s call to hold the heights against a legion or two that were said to be moving on them. Teutomarus had been perfectly willing to take part, but when Vercingetorix had asked that the Nitiobriges remain at the oppidum to continue the fortifications, he had been secretly grateful. The men of his tribe toiled up at the oppidum’s west gate and inside, strengthening the walls and digging ditches as best they could until they hit white rock. But their king, who would hardly be expected to endure such manual labour, had taken the well-deserved and much-needed opportunity for forty winks.
He rolled onto his side, but that brought back the dull ache in his lower spine so, with a groan, he settled onto his back again. It was too warm, even this early in the day, to be covered up, and he lay there bare-chested and bare-footed, his tunic, cloak and boots, as well as his gold and bronzeware, lying on a purloined Roman chest nearby. With a sigh of pleasure, he folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes again, enjoying the tent’s dim interior, which kept the worst of the heat at bay.
And then, as he lay relaxing, his ears picked something out of the symphony of nature’s activity. It took his tranquil mind precious moments to discern the sound of an urgent voice among the strains of animal and bird life and the daily routine noises of the oppidum above.
For a moment, he didn’t believe what he was hearing, but there it was again: a shrill, desperate call. His ears focused on the call, blocking out all the other sounds as best he could.
Romans?
Scratching his head, he sat up - slowly, to save further back trouble - and blinked away the fuzziness of his rest. There were half a dozen shouts now, and close. Frowning, not quite sure what was going on, Teutomarus hauled himself to his feet with a long groan, whitening fingertips gripping a high cupboard to help him rise. He stood, stooped by his sore back, and slowly, carefully, straightened.
He tried to roll his shoulders to loosen up a little, but the movement hurt too much and he settled for at least standing straight. Were the voices shouting louder, or were they closer? Both?
Rubbing his chin and moustaches, he stepped gingerly to the door of his tent, his feet feeling every nuance of the soft grass beneath him. Still somewhat bleary, he threw back one flap of his tent door. His quarters were almost perfectly central in the long camp, half a mile along, and halfway between the stone wall and the oppidum’s rampart. And he had made sure the tent door faced south, partially to prevent the sun pouring in at any time of the day, and partially to afford him a view of the valley below…
…or of several thousand clattering, clanking, roaring and swearing legionaries charging across his camp. His eyes widened in shock. More and more were pouring over the undefended stone wall. Two legions? Three? Four? He could see the flag and even the eagle of one of them making straight for him, an ‘X’, which he knew meant ‘ten’ to the Romans. And they were already in the camp, swarming among the tents and supply dumps, some pausing to light torches, preparing to burn the place.
The Nitiobrige king found himself using language that his wife had almost succeeded in suppressing over their long years of marriage as he tried to decide what he could do. He needed his sword; his armour; his boots; something to eat and a lie down for preference…
What he actually had time for was to swear in a manner that would have his wife hitting him with a spoon and to run for his life. With a backward glance at the fine sword standing in the corner, which had been his father’s before him, Teutomarus ran from the tent door, his bare feet feeling every pebble and twig on the slope as the sun blasted his bare torso. His hand came round at a dreadful twinge to press on the sore spot at his back as he reached his horse, which was busy munching the few longer tufts of grass left here.
Nearby, a Roman officer, close to the ‘X’ standard, caught sight of him and ran towards him, half a
dozen of his legionaries pelting alongside. The elderly king felt a moment of panic and, ignoring the sharp wrench across his lumbar region, bent double and wrenched out the iron piton that tethered his beautiful horse.
With a yelp of pain, he tried to straighten again, but discovered that his body would not allow him, limiting him once more to a stoop. With difficulty and pain, the old king grasped the reins and hauled himself up to the beast’s back. His saddle was in the corner of his tent too, and he hadn’t ridden bareback since his youth. Grasping the reins and whimpering, he tried to gee the beast up. His horse seemed to be having the same sort of morning as him, and it took a lot more effort than he was really willing to put in to get the beast moving.
The Roman officer was close now, his shining cuirass and red tunic bright in the morning sun, as was the fine, decorative blade he held high.
The horse moved. To a walk. To a canter.
He was going to make it.
One of the legionaries around the officer paused for a moment, his arm coming back, and he cast a pilum with surprising accuracy. Teutomarus, craning with pain as he rode to keep his eyes on the attackers, saw the throw and jerked the reins desperately. The iron point scored a line along the horse’s flank in its passage, causing the animal to bolt. He barely registered the Roman officer berating the legionary for his throw for some reason. Instead, he held on tight as the animal’s instincts took it and its rider away from danger at breakneck pace, sending wave after wave of agony through his back. He was in a tremendous amount of pain, but he was alive and moving out of danger. Now to find his men, present a force against the Romans and get a signal to Vercingetorix as fast as possible.
* * * * *
Furius and Fabius roared with rage as they raced up the gentle grassy slope and across the Gallic camp. The Eighth had been given the left flank, closer to the west and to the Gauls who were currently massed on the twin hills nearby. The former tribunes, now centurions once more and carefully placed in charge of men who had not been present at the mess that had resulted in them being here, led their centuries with the fierce voracity of men with something to prove.
A number of Gauls remained in the camp, mostly the sick or injured, though there were a few hale and hearty types who put up as stiff resistance as could be expected given their scant numbers and the strength of the army pouring up the hillside towards them, swarming over the stone wall and flooding the camp, already torching tents.
There were signs, to the trained eye, that the Gauls had not been quite as complacent as the Romans had initially imagined: scrape marks where crates and barrels and sacks of goods had recently been removed to the safety of the oppidum walls, bald spots where pack animals had been grazing before they’d moved, discoloured patches of grass where supply tents had been taken down and shifted to safety. But still there were plenty of targets for the torches.
‘Spread out,’ bellowed Petreius, the Eighth’s primus pilus, making sure his legion covered as much ground and caused as much destruction as possible. His musicians began to blast out those commands but they were hard to discern, given similar tunes being blared by the other legions across the slope and the honking and farting of the Gallic carnyxes up on the oppidum in response to the Roman attack. The sheer web of conflicting notes from numerous sources was headache-inducing.
A small group of the camp’s occupants had caught sight of the men of the Eighth, grabbed their weapons and run back up the slope towards the oppidum wall. Where they planned to go was anyone’s guess, since in both directions other units from the Eighth were in evidence, going about their destructive work.
‘Come on,’ Fabius shouted across to Furius, pointing his sword in the direction of the dozen or so enemy warriors rushing for the oppidum’s rampart, towering above them. Two of the men glinted with gold and bronze, marking them as nobles or commanders among the enemy, and Fabius grinned, recognising the means of their redemption in the eyes of their commanders. The order had been to kill, not capture, but Fabius felt certain that there was an implicit clause in the case of enemy commanders. Surely they would be too valuable to Caesar to kill out of hand.
And so, as the Eighth spread throughout the western third of the camp, burning tents and supplies, killing the few men they came across and taking whatever they could, two centuries raced on towards the upper slopes.
The dozen enemies were at the wall now, even as the legionaries hurtled after them. Fabius watched with a dawning of clarity as three ropes were lowered by unseen men above, atop the ramparts, the lower part of each rope looped and tied to provide a foothold. Even as the hundred and more legionaries closed on the scene, the first three men began to rise up the wall’s face, their feet in the loops, gripping tight as they were hauled upwards. Above them on the ramparts more native signallers were blaring out horrible melodies over the general din of the oppidum and work being undertaken to strengthen its walls, drowning out the more distant Roman musicians back down the slope.
Few legionaries had brought pila. The officers had given the order before the assault that only soldiers who felt comfortable carrying the bulky missile on the climb need do so, and most had left them back in camp to allow for an unencumbered ascent. Additionally, most of those who had bothered had cast them while crossing the wall in the initial surge. Yet one man in Furius’ century still carried his and the man paused, drawing back his arm and casting the pilum. The missile sailed true, striking one of the rising figures in the back. The fleeing Gaul cried out, his back arched around the weapon as his grip loosened and he fell from the rope.
Fabius almost laughed as he heard his friend turn to the pilum-throwing legionary, admonishing him. What if he’d hit the noblemen? ‘Make sure you take the two nobles alive,’ Furius yelled above the din and chaos as Fabius concentrated on the enemy group ahead. ‘I don’t care about the rest,’ Furius went on, ‘but those two come back with…’
The centurion’s voice trailed off, and Fabius had to turn his head considerably to see what had happened, his missing left eye narrowing his field of vision.
He lurched to a halt, his men still running past him.
Furius was standing, still waving with his sword as if berating his men, apparently not even noticing the wet crimson shaft of the arrow protruding from his throat-apple. The flights had prevented the missile passing straight through his neck, becoming lodged in his spine at the back.
Fabius felt his blood run cold as his old friend turned slowly towards him, a look of utter incomprehension spreading across his face, trying to look down and see what had happened, but the motion impossible as the arrow kept his jaw up. The mortally wounded centurion tried to call over to his friend, but all that came out was a gobbet of blood. Furius frowned as his sword fell from suddenly limp fingers and he collapsed to his knees, his chin bouncing off the arrow shaft with the movement.
He tried to shake his head in dismay, but it wouldn’t move. The dying centurion’s soldiers were now pulling to a halt in distress, not sure what to do.
‘Bastards,’ snarled Fabius with a vicious edge and, tearing his eyes from his stricken friend, pointed at the wall. ‘Get the fuckers!’ he bellowed to the men of both centuries. A dozen paces away, Furius, finally succumbing to the dreadful wound, toppled forward, where he lay face down with his legs kicking out spasmodically.
Somewhere above the din of battle and destruction and the thunder of his pulse in his ears, Fabius could vaguely hear the sound of a cornicen blowing calls to the legions. It mattered not. His men, and those of Furius, were now at the wall, stabbing and smashing at the Gauls as they attempted to flee. Two of the enemy were now two-thirds of the way up the wall and still rising. The third rope had been lowered again, and one of the nobles was struggling onto it as the men of the Eighth hacked away at his guards.
‘Fabius!’
He turned, his face pale and stony, to see Petreius, the primus pilus, waving at him.
‘That was the call to fall back.’
‘No
.’ He’d heard a call, but hadn’t been able to hear precisely what command it carried. Not that it mattered to him at this point.
Petreius jogged over. ‘Don’t be stupid, man. We’ve done what we came to do. Now come on.’
‘No.’ Fabius turned his back on his commander, who raised his voice over the clamour.
‘Retreat, centurion. That’s a direct order.’
His words fell like droplets of water from the back of Fabius as the man ran on for the wall, unheeding.
’Shit,’ sighed Petreius, watching the vengeful veteran heading for the oppidum wall where his men were busy killing the last of the fleeing Gauls. For a moment, the primus pilus dithered. There were other blasts now, and not from Roman instruments. He couldn’t afford to wait. No one could. The Gauls were coming back.
Turning, he spotted his second centurion watching him intently.
‘Get the rest of the legion back away, out of here.’ As the second centurion saluted and began confirming the order to fall back among his men and the other centuries as best he could, realising he would not be able to rely on cornu calls in the din, Petreius took a deep breath and waved his own century on after the two at the wall.
The legionaries, weary from the climb and suffering the extreme effects of the heat in current conditions, shouldered their burden with fortitude and slogged on up the slope after the wayward Fabius and his men. Petreius cast a brief look at the still form of Furius as they passed, taking in the sight with mixed feelings. The man had been a veteran and clearly a daring soldier, but he had been unpredictable and carried a reputation for disobedience, and Petreius had argued against the man’s transfer in the first place. It was looking distinctly as though the man’s friend was cast from a similar mould, too.
At the wall, Fabius watched as his men dispatched the last of the locals, two legionaries trying desperately to slash at the noble on the third rope, who was just out of their reach.
The Great Revolt Page 33