Marius Mules III: Gallia Invicta (Marius' Mules)

by Turney, S. J. A.

  The Twelfth and their cavalry counterpart had taken control of the so-called ‘upper’ town and evicted the natives, forcing them to take up residence down the valley. The better of the squat stone and timber buildings had been requisitioned as the headquarters, armoury, store, watch office, and the various senior officers’ quarters. The town’s granary lay on the far side of the river, but the men were busy converting a building on high ground to do the job. The rest of the structures had been divided up among the men as barrack blocks.

  The situation was hardly perfect and it would take days or even weeks before the buildings were clean and comfortable and serviceable as fort structures. Galba glanced back over his shoulder once more, narrowing his eyes at the dark corners of the house with their piles of unknown objects. The idea of burning the damn thing down and building a new one was appealing. It would take weeks just to get rid of the smell in there.

  A voice surprisingly close by cleared its throat and Galba grimaced as he jumped a little in a very unprofessional manner. Whipping round to see who had been lurking at the corner of the legate’s quarters when they should have been busy working, he was relieved to see the battered and worn figure of Baculus, the primus pilus, sitting on a large half-buried block of stone and tapping his bronze greaves with his vine staff. His helmet lay on the grass beside him.

  “In the name of Jupiter’s balls, do you have to sneak up on me like that?”

  Baculus raised an eyebrow and Galba chortled at himself.

  “You startled me. How can a man like you be so quiet?”

  The primus pilus started pulling himself respectfully to his feet. Galba waved the man back down and wandered across to take a seat facing him on a similar stone nearby.

  “Sit, man. You’re still supposed to be on light duties at best. The medicus keeps telling me that you’re a long way from healthy again and that you’re overdoing it. In his opinion you should be back in Rome for the next season recuperating.”

  Baculus shrugged.

  “Too much to so, sir. And you’re already under-staffed. Frankly if I wasn’t here, the whole collection of adolescents and near-cripples that pass for the officer class might just collapse into a blubbering heap.”

  Galba frowned.

  “Harsh, centurion, don’t you think?”

  Baculus curled his lip and waved his vine staff expansively at the town around them.

  “Respectfully, sir, there are four officers left in the legion that I would consider veterans. Apart from myself there’s Herculius, who’s damn near due for retirement, and Petreius who suffered a blow to the head at that hill fort with the rolling logs last month and keeps forgetting words and misplacing things. There’s the one tribune left who’s good but exhausted from having to perform the duties of several men. Other than that, the entire officer class is filled with centurions who’d been immunes legionaries with perhaps three years of service in other legions before being drafted across to us, or even green recruits who couldn’t have told you one end of a gladius from the other two years ago.”

  He sighed and settled back on the rock.

  “Don’t get me wrong, legate. They’re good lads, all of them. They’ve fought like monsters through this campaign, despite their youth and lack of experience, and they’ll do whatever you ask, they’re so damn loyal to the banner. They’ll be an excellent cadre of officers in time; best I could ask to serve with. But that’s at least two or three years of campaigning away yet. They’re trying hard, but they’ve just not got the experience to carry out this sort of operation without older, steadier hands holding them in place.”

  Galba nodded and stretched his arms out.

  “Good job they have you to advise them, then.”

  The two men fell silent for a time, nodding, until finally Baculus raised his face and cast a meaningful glance at his commander.

  “I assume you’ve put a fairly urgent request for men in that report, sir?”

  Galba nodded.

  “Couched it in the best terms I can, but you know as well as I that, even if we get these reinforcements, they’ll be raw and untrained. We’ll be very lucky indeed if the command in Cremona can rustle us up a few veterans who are bored of their retired farming lives and feel like taking up the stick again.”

  “Indeed. But at least it would give us a little more manpower.”

  Silence descended again for a long moment.

  “How are the works coming on?”

  Baculus looked up again at his commander and leaned forward, his hands on the end of the vine staff, standing point down in the turf.

  “Getting there. They should be basically ready by noon or mid-afternoon tomorrow. We’ve got the ditch and breastworks complete around the west, south and east sides, and the palisade is being produced at the moment. I’ve got the men working in shifts cutting timber on the valley side and working on construction, and they’ll continue through the night. If everything goes according to plan, the gates and palisade should be up not long after first light. I’ve got them planning towers, lilia, a fortified bridge and various other things as well, though.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “We may have these bastards officially subdued and hostages and all that, but I wouldn’t trust any of those carrion-feeding dogs further than I could spit one. I won’t be able to relax until I have at least three levels of defence between us and them.”

  Galba sighed and leaned back.

  “I know what you mean. Things are theoretically quite settled here and yet I just can’t shake this impression that something is going on that we don’t know about.”

  “It’s like that with Celts, legate. After all, Caesar’s conquered them twice and they still rise up and complain. They just won’t stay conquered.”

  That last comment drew a throaty laugh from the stocky, barrel-chested legate.

  “I wouldn’t say that too close to the general.”

  Baculus reached down to the hardness on his chest and stroked the shiny phalera and golden corona decorations that hung from the leather.

  “You think he’d take these back?” the grizzled veteran grinned. “I’d hate that, having just become accustomed to the extra weight.”

  Galba laughed and scratched his chin.

  “We’ll see soon enough. At least we’ll have the defences up soon.”

  Baculus nodded again.

  “I wish we still had Calvus or Ruga with us. The few remaining engineers we’ve got don’t have between them half the experience of either of those poor sods. Still, as you said: we’ll see soon enough.”

  * * * * *

  Galba blinked twice and tried to reel in his whirling thoughts. A knocking; heavy and fast. Urgent. Blink. The room was dark. Yes, middle of the night.

  Blearily, the legate pushed back his blankets and rubbed his eyes as the hammering on the door began once again.

  “All right. I’m coming!”

  Pulling down his ruffled tunic and wishing the Gauls had discovered heated floors, or even just smooth floors, he shuffled to the entrance and undid the latch, swinging the heavy wooden door open. A legionary barely old enough to shave stood at attention outside, a look of heavy concern weighing down his features.

  “What is the meaning of this, soldier?”

  The young man looked panicky, but also red-faced and exhausted. He’d been running. Alarms were triggered in Galba’s head as he realised this must be one of the perimeter guards, since no one else would have cause to be armed at this time of night. With a snap the blurred fuzziness of waking from a deep sleep evaporated and Galba straightened, his eyes straying to the periphery as he listened.

  “Sir… beg to report sir that the Veragri have gone!”

  More alarms. The legate’s eyes darted to the native settlement on the far side of the river, behind the red-faced legionary.

  “Gone? From the town?”

  “Yessir.” The legionary was calming down now and Galba realised the lad was still standing stiffly to atten
tion.

  “Stand at ease. Details, man. What’s happened?”

  “Watch centurion sent me to find you sir. He sent a patrol to check out the town and it’s completely deserted, sir.”

  Galba frowned and rubbed his stubbly chin.

  “Why in Minerva’s name would he be sending out patrols in the middle of the night?”

  “Sir?”

  Galba shook his head.

  “Wait here.”

  Leaving the bewildered legionary in the dark road, Galba rushed back into the squat stone building and grabbed his sword belt and boots. Pausing inside the door, he hurriedly pulled the boots on. The night was chilly but dry, much as the last two days had been, and he could get by without his cloak for the sake of a few minutes. Strapping on his belt, he strode back out into the night air.

  “Take me to the watch centurion.”

  The soldier saluted and started to march off at high speed down the road toward the bridge. As they strode forth, Galba peered ahead into the darkness. It may have been dry, but the sky was filled with fast clouds that hid the stars from view and it was hard to pick out detail at any distance. The bridge was the only area of the camp defences that was still under construction. The old Celtic bridge of heavy wooden piles with no rails had been upgraded, given a new surface and sides, but also incorporated into a new fortified gate system at that end of the camp. It appeared, as he squinted into the darkness, that work was almost complete.

  Beyond, past the narrow, swift waters of the Dranse, the settlement of the Veragri lay silent and dark. It would have been eerie, but for the fact that, since the arrival of the Twelfth Legion, the native settlement had been silent and dark every night.

  The pair approached the gate and bridge to see a small group of soldiers at the entrance, two of them bearing officer’s crests.

  “Centurion?”

  The men turned and saluted as their legate came to a halt before them.

  “Legatus. You’ve heard the news, sir?”

  Galba nodded.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, sir” the centurion said, tapping his vine staff idly on his leg, “one of the lads thought he saw something out there in the fields about an hour ago. We didn’t think much of it. Picket guards is always seeing things in the dark and this was on the other side of the river, way out past the town…”

  Galba frowned.

  “What did he see?”

  “Said he thought he saw maybe a half dozen people running off toward the valley side, sir. Well we watched for another twenty minutes or so, sir, but saw nothing more. No one else appeared and no other guard saw them.”

  The irritation was welling up in Galba. Baculus was right. These men were too inexperienced to be commanding a campaign like this.

  “And this seemed unimportant enough to go on watching without having any kind of alarm raised?”

  The centurion flinched.

  “Well sir, it was only a few folk and they was running away, not coming toward us; and that’s even if he wasn’t mistaken about it anyway.”

  “Centurion, we are in hostile lands, surrounded by a treacherous bunch who would outnumber us a hundred to one if they all pull together. What else happened?”

  “Well, I looked hard at the town and realised that there was no smoke coming from the roofs and it’s quite a cold night, sir. If they was just settled in for the night, they’d be keeping warm sir.”

  “And this didn’t push you to raise the alarm?”

  “I sent a patrol across the bridge to check the town, sir.”

  Galba rubbed his temples as he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “And they discovered the town was completely deserted. And then you decided to send for me?”

  “Yes sir. They must have run away.”

  Galba stared at the man. Clearly, he was an idiot. The legate was winding himself up to deliver a tirade when he noticed the startled looks on the faces of the soldiers around them and forced himself to relax, exhaling slowly. The officer class were still very inexperienced, but they were all he had and hauling them over the coals in front of their men would hardly serve to improve matters at this point. He nodded to himself and kept a straight face as he turned to the optio beside them.

  “Raise the alarm, but do it quietly. No buccinas or shouting. Just pass the word and get every man awake, dressed, equipped and to the wall as fast as you can.”

  The optio saluted and ran off, taking several of the legionaries with him to help spread the word and Galba turned back to the centurion.

  “I want a dozen of your fastest men out of their armour and split into groups of three. Send one group down each branch of the valley, past the town. I want a three mile search down there and then they can report back. The other two groups need to get up the valley sides and to the top of these hills. I want a clear picture of what’s going on here.”

  “You think there’s trouble, sir?”

  “You’re damn right I think there’s trouble. They’ve not run away; they’ve no reason to. And if they’re not running away that means they’re organising; massing somewhere. We could be knee deep in the shit any minute now.”

  The centurion nodded, a hunted look about his eyes, and sent one his men to rouse the soldiers of his century and bring them to the gate.

  Galba ignored the quiet activity going on around him as the camp burst into silent, eerie life. Instead, he climbed the steps to the rampart by the bridge gate and turned slowly, casting his gaze over their surroundings. The town had emptied under the cover of darkness, and that meant that they were gathering somewhere secretly. There were seven hundred or so left of the Twelfth and at least twice that number of enemies had just left Octodurus. There was no doubt in Galba’s mind that the Veragri from the town had met up with a much larger force somewhere. His uneasiness of the last few days seemed to have been well founded.

  Squinting, he peered off down first one valley and then the other, straying up the slopes and…

  He stopped dead. Silvery moonlight had just, for a fleeting moment, flickered through the fast scudding clouds and there had been reflections, high up on the hills above the valley. Galba found he was holding his breath. Sharply, he reached out to the legionary nearby, who stood fast, watching the empty settlement across the river.

  “Soldier, look up on the hills above us. What can you see?”

  The legionary, startled at being addressed directly by his senior commander, turned and cast his own gaze up the vertiginous valley side. There was a long moment of silence and the legionary made some uncertain noises in his throat before finding his voice.

  “I can’t see anything, sir.”

  But he had.

  Before the sentence was fully out there was another brief flicker of moonlight and this time they knew what they were looking for. Only one thing could produce that effect; like the myriad points of light as the moon reflected on calm seas, there was a scattering of reflections along the mountain top. Spinning round, already knowing what he’d see, Galba focused on the matching force of glittering men on the opposite side of the valley.

  “Shit.”

  Ignoring the shocked stare of the legionary as he gawped at the huge force that loomed over them, Galba scoured the camp. The watch centurion was returning to the gate with a dozen men from his century while Baculus, already armoured, strode down the street toward them. As he turned, he spotted the tribune, Volusenus, hurrying out of one of the buildings, strapping on his belt and carrying his helmet. Furrowing his brow, Galba gestured down to the watch commander.

  “Belay my earlier orders, centurion… no time for that now. The hills above us are swarming with Celts. Get every man to the walls; we’ve not got long.”

  Shaking his head in irritation, he beckoned to Baculus and Volusenus and the two most senior officers of the Twelfth hurried across the space before the gate and joined their commander on the rampart.

  “Bad news, sir, I take it?”

  Galba nodded a
t the tribune.

  “They’re all over the hills above us. If they charge, they’ll be on us in minutes. Our only advantage right now is that I’ve kept the buccinas quiet and I’m hoping they haven’t paid too much attention to all the activity in the camp. Thing is, as you know, we’re vastly outnumbered, so I need your opinions. Can we hold out, or is it worth trying an ordered retreat before they attack?”

  Baculus shrugged.

  “We can hold out for a while, but not forever. There’s a lot more Celts around here they can call on and precious little chance of us getting any support. It’s a ‘gates of fire’ situation, legate: glorious, but suicidal.”

  Beside him, Volusenus was nodding.

  “True, but there is some value in certainty. Here we have the defences and we know the land. If we pull out, we’re essentially marching into the unknown and will likely end up joining battle somewhere much less advantageous. We have no idea how many there are of the enemy or their disposition and we don’t know the territory in any direction well enough to plan ahead. My heart is already running for home, but my head says stay and fight where you know what you’re doing.”

  The primus pilus raised an eyebrow as he regarded the tribune for a moment and he finally nodded.

  “I concur, legate. I don’t like it, but he’s right.”

  Galba sighed. He had reached much the same conclusion, but had hoped for a flash of inspiration from his two veteran officers.