‘Activity? What activity?’ he asked.
‘A lot of men moving around late at night and clanking stuff. Sounds a lot like the army of bastards we’ve had nipping our heels all the way. You wouldn’t believe how fast those bastards can move when they want to!’
‘And you said Caesar is a day away?’
‘Yes, now let us in!’
‘Where are the rest of the survivors?’
‘How the hell should I know? Some left by ship and headed for the Osismii. Others fled into the woods to hide. It was chaos. The Romans enslaved most of the survivors. A few of us got out ahead of them to bring warning to the other tribes. We’ve been running for four days.’
The armoured leader stood silent for a moment.
‘Think very carefully, stranger… when you saw the activity at the Roman camp, was it concentrated at the rear gate?’
Cantorix smiled to himself. The man was hooked now. Time to haul him in.
‘I think so. What would you say, Idocus?’
‘Yeah… off t’the other side, defnitly!’
There was another pregnant pause as Cantorix held his breath and finally, after an age of nerves had passed, the gates of Crociatonum crept slowly open.
Chapter 14
(Iunius: Sabinus’ camp, near Crociatonum.)
‘I’d say that Cantorix and his men pulled it off, then?’
Sabinus glanced at legate Galba of the Twelfth beside him and then turned his gaze back on the approaching mass and smiled.
‘I would say so, yes. How far would you say that is?’
‘About a mile I’d say, sir.’
Sabinus’ smile widened.
‘About a mile. Up a gradually steepening hill. And running.’
Galba nodded.
‘And apparently carrying piles of kindling.’
‘That’ll be the bulk to help fill in the ditches so they can get to us quicker. Sensible idea under most circumstances, but I’m not sure that if I were their leader I would have sent them running up a steep slope carrying them.’
The legate sighed.
‘I wish you’d let me use the fire arrows and set fire to them while they’re running. It’d scare the hell out of them.’
‘No. They must think we’re leaving and not prepared for this. You warn them while they’re still a mile off, and we’ll lose the small chance we have. Besides, we only have a few archers and precious little ammunition, so we can’t waste it. Stick to the plan.’
They returned to looking down the long slope, soldiers and officers of three legions stretched out along the ramparts to either side of them, mostly crouched out of sight, the occasional man standing at the wall, giving the impression of a badly defended palisade. The Unelli would expect the bulk of the Roman force to be at the rear gates, preparing to march.
The Gaulish force, enormous and chaotic, came on at a surprising speed, given the gradient of the approach. The front runners among them carried huge bundles of faggots and wood, those behind ready with their swords and spears, and all ran swift as the wind, desperate to overcome these invading foreigners before they had the chance to join with an even larger army.
The Romans stood silent behind their wall, watching.
‘Now?’
‘I think so. For the sake of realism.’
Galba turned and shouted along the wall.
‘Raise the alarm!’
Buccinas blared and, in a carefully organised manoeuvre, other soldiers appeared at the wall, standing from where they crouched, creating the illusion that the warning of attack had gone up, and men were being rushed to a hurried defence.
‘I hope this works’ Galba grumbled darkly. ‘One hopeless last stand in defence of a fort is enough in a single year.’
Sabinus nodded.
‘It’ll work. So long as the timing’s right.’
Silently they continued to watch, faked commotion all around them, and the confederation of northern tribes, along with their allied refugees, bandits and vagabonds ran ever upwards, bellowing their defiance, their anger and their determination to rid Armorica of the Roman presence. Sabinus’ gaze strayed to the ground before them, and he noted carefully the location of the marker. All along the hillside, these markers stood in a line, crimson against the green; small enough to be unnoticed by the attacking mass and just large enough for the men of the legions to locate when concentrating.
Fixing his eyes on the red mark, he nodded with relief as the front ranks of Gauls raced past it, hurrying up the hill. He risked a quick glance up to the faces of the approaching warriors and was gratified to see the heaving, laboured breaths the enemy were now taking as they approached the Roman position, their faces red and sweating with exertion.
For a moment he worried that he had lost the marked position as his eyes wandered back and forth, but it took only a moment to pick it up from the terrain, without being able to see the crimson mark beneath the stomping boots of the Celts. Almost ready… the Gauls were perhaps two hundred paces from the outer ditch.
He watched, tense, as the Gaulish throng passed over the spot he had kept in mind and, finally, squinting, he saw the bright red mark emerge once again between the heads of the charging Gauls, at the back of the mob.
Turning to Galba, he noted relief in the face of the legate.
‘First stage: loose!’
At the shout, a dozen archers, part of the small complement of auxiliaries accompanying them, rose above the parapet, the tips of their arrows already flaming, aimed and released in a smooth action before retreating below the palisade once more.
The fiery missiles arced out over the heads of the Gallic army, now so exhausted and obsessed that they hardly paid any heed to the act until the arrows came down behind them, several striking the hillside along the line of crimson markers and only a few going astray.
The swathe of ground where they struck, amid the deep, dry grass, held small pockets of pitch that had been carefully distributed the previous night, small enough to go unnoticed by the Gallic army as they ran past and across them, some inevitably coating the bottom of running boots, but most remaining in place.
In several locations across the slope, pockets of pitch caught, the fire spreading into the dry grass, quickly igniting the next and, within moments, a curtain of flame extended across the hill behind the Gauls, effectively sealing off their retreat.
Largely due to the sheer size of the attacking army and its lack of organisation, most of the enemy failed even to notice the move, the few at the back who did going unheard by the rest. A veritable sea of bodies rushed up toward the ramparts and their encircling ditches. Sabinus watched, his breath held, as the front lines cast their burdens of sticks and brush into the ditches.
‘Second stage!’
In a fluid move, a dozen legionaries along the length of the wall reached out and grasped the burning torches that had been used to ignite the arrows and climbed up to the parapet. As they emerged above, the huge Gallic army was already pouring across the filled ditches. Each legionary took careful aim, identifying a spot where a gap opened up and casting their torches almost in unison.
The flaming missiles dropped among the Gauls who were too consumed by a combination of exhaustion and desperate blood lust to pay too much attention to a small number of falling weapons. The flaming torches landed among the dry brush infill beneath their feet, and it took only moments for the fire to catch, wood and dried undergrowth spitting into orange life and spreading the fire rapidly. Within moments a swathe in the midst of the huge army was consumed by the roaring inferno, a small number of men trapped between the burning ditches and the rampart.
‘Third and Fourth stage! Sally!’
At the command, the crouched legionaries rose up along the wall and began to cast their first pilum down into the ranks of yelling Gauls. In places along the ramparts, pockets of the less exhausted enemy managed to reach the palisade, climbing the slope and thrusting upward with spears or delivering heavy, scything over
head blows with their swords.
The number of men who had reached the wall in any state to commit to action was small, however, and the legionary defenders had little trouble holding them back, pushing them away from the palisade and stabbing at them with their second pila where they could. The massive bulk of the enemy were still contained between the ditches that now roared with deadly fire, and the wall of burning pitch and grass behind them, the narrow causeway across the ditches that led to the north gate filled with howling Gauls trying to reach the Roman palisade without falling into the raging inferno to either side.
Sabinus offered up thanks to the Gods once again that the rain had held off for so many days. What they would have done if this morning had brought a downpour, he could not imagine, but things would likely be looking a great deal bleaker.
The flanks of the Gaulish force were already attempting to separate from the trapped mass, moving around the slope, trying to escape the burning traps afore and aft, and make their way into clear land around the other sides of the hill. At a call from the buccina, however, the east and west gates of the camp opened and the slow, deliberate stomping feet of thousands of legionaries issued forth.
The Twelfth remained at the wall and throughout the rest of the camp, dealing with those men who managed to find their way as far as the walls without burning, while the Ninth and Fourteenth exited the gate and moved in formation, shield walls solid and strong, around the edge of the defences and toward the Gauls as they spilled out from the flaming trap.
‘Advance!’ called centurions around the hillside, and the wall of armoured men rumbled slowly into the mass of fleeing Gauls, coming to a halt as further commands were issued. The Ninth and Fourteenth now contained the enemy in a space between them and the walls of flame, holding their shield walls as an impenetrable barrier and hacking and stabbing at those who came close enough.
The effect of the trap was impressive, and Sabinus smiled from his position atop the defences. The combination of exhaustion, frustration, and terrified surprise, had turned the mood of the enemy in moments from vicious lust to desperate panic. Far from the unprepared Romans, busy trying to decamp and move off, that the Gauls had expected, they had, instead, run straight into a deadly mix of steel and fire.
‘Surrender and mercy will be considered!’ bellowed Sabinus, his words deliberately ambiguous. He was well aware of the danger that would be inherent in accepting a surrender and leaving an intact army behind them with only the word of their leaders for assurance.
Calls went up from among the mass and for a strange moment, the fighting stopped, everything falling silent and still, bar the roaring of the flames.
Sabinus readied himself. He would offer harsh terms for their surrender, but it had to be still within the realm of acceptability. He had them now, but if they really wished, there were still enough of them that they could break through the trap at an awful cost and crush the defenders. Terms had to be preferable to the losses they would incur if they continued.
A loud voice called something out in the local language, and Sabinus watched in astonishment as the speaker, a nobleman judging by his dress and equipment, threw down his sword in a gesture of surrender, only to have his head removed by a sudden, scything blow from the man beside him. The act of defiance did something to the crowd, and Sabinus could only stare in disbelief as the Gallic army flowed like a sea crashing against the rocks, those flanks that had been contained by the legions pulling back in.
The warriors at the rear, contained by the burning pitch and holding themselves desperately back from the roaring flames, were suddenly pushed, screaming, into the inferno by their comrades, the fire rapidly extinguishing with the sheer weight of men being thrown into the flames.
As he stared in horror, he saw the rear flaming wall of the trap put out by the sizzling, melting fat of a human carpet, and the mass of ‘free Gauls’ running back down the hill toward the distant gates of their city, trampling their dead and dying comrades as they fled.
He turned his sickened gaze away to Galba.
‘I cannot decide whether that was a stunningly brave act of tribal preservation, or an atrocious act of barbarism.’
Galba nodded soberly.
‘We have to deal with them now, sir, while they’re tired and on the run. If we give them a chance to catch their breath and reform, we’re in trouble.’
‘Indeed. Can’t let them fortify against us. Have the general advance sounded. Let’s chase them down.’
* * * * *
Cantorix sighed and turned to look over the parapet once more. It had taken the rebellious tribes a matter of only a few hours to argue among themselves as to what to do about the Roman threat, to reach the conclusion that they had to be dealt with before they could leave and join Caesar’s army, and then to put their plan into action. Cantorix and his companions were untrustworthy foreigners to them and had spent that time safely locked in a dark, oppressive room deep in the oppidum, two men guarding the door.
When, just after first light, the leaders had finally assembled their men at the gate of Crociatonum and goaded them into a killing frenzy, the presence of the foreigners seemed to have been entirely forgotten, or at least ignored, the guards joining the attack and leaving the fifteen ‘Veneti’ refugees locked in their prison and unattended.
Given the background and dubious skills of some of these men, it had come as no surprise to Cantorix that someone had the lock undone and the door open within moments of the army leaving, the sound of bellowing violence dying away as the enormous force charged away up the hill.
Briefly the centurion had considered calling the unit to order and going to join the fight, but the sheer lunacy of the notion soon imposed itself as he recalled the throng of thousands of angry warriors and weighed it against the relative size of his small force. At least the enemy had not seen fit to drag the strangers along with them, as it would have been hard for his men to identify themselves before the general and his legions skewered them.
Instead, he had made his way to the gate and climbed to the walkway above where he would observe the action as best he could. Though they must be two miles away at the Roman defences, he could safely assume that the battle proper had started by now.
As he appeared over the parapet, he noted spots of flickering yellow flame appear in the haze, punctuating the rear of the distant Gallic force, a grey homogenous mass at this distance.
The other legionaries, whom he had allowed to go about their business, had begun to enter the various buildings around them, looting anything they could carry. Cantorix turned his gaze from the distant battle and glanced back down along the main thoroughfare toward the house where they had so recently been kept. One of the legionaries left a doorway, staggering under the weight of his spoils and almost bumped into a companion, similarly burdened.
It would have been comic under other circumstances. The centurion, however, was too tense to smile. Each time he saw a figure within the walls of the oppidum, he had to frown for a moment, worrying whether it was truly one of his men, dressed Gallic style, or a stray local who had been left behind. The oppidum seemed, though, to have completely emptied, as the rebel army moved on their hated enemy. At least it appeared that the rebel Gauls had moved their women and children somewhere else and used this ‘city’ as a staging post for war, else the houses would still be packed with nervous noncombatant Gauls.
‘Sir?’
He blinked and concentrated his gaze in the direction of the voice. One of the men was waving from a house a few doors down from their erstwhile cell.
Cantorix squinted.
The man was carrying a different burden to those of his mates; a body, draped across his arms and hanging limp, at least one limb mangled and beyond use, the horrible wounding evident even from up here. The figure was decked in a drab tunic that had once been red.
The centurion shook his head sadly. The officers had charged them to be on the lookout for a tribune from the Ninth by the name
of Gallus that had been sent to these tribes months ago.
‘Get him on a cart or a pallet. We’ll have to take him back to the officers when it’s all over. How long has he been dead?’
The man shrugged, a difficult manoeuvre under the weight of the body.
‘Not long. Maybe a few days. He was messed up badly first, though.’
Again, the centurion shook his head. The barbarians had kept him alive all this time, torturing and beating him, keeping him in case he became of use, but the arrival of general Sabinus and his army had diminished the need for hostages and Gallus had become superfluous.
‘Get him…’
His voice tailed off as his eyes had strayed casually back to the view over the parapet and widened. The centurion choked and scrambled to his feet.
‘Drop everything! Legionaries of the Fourteenth, form on me!’
Without waiting for an answer, he leapt down the stairs that descended the wall’s inner face three at a time, dropping the last seven or eight feet, his knees bent against the impact.
He was gratified that, despite the unsavoury nature of his unit, the past year of service had drilled the necessity of discipline into the men and, without question, the legionaries had dropped their plunder and hurried to the open space before the gate.
‘What is it, Centurion? We was only lootin’ the enemy. The general encourages that!’
Cantorix waved the comment aside as he stood, rubbing his jarred knee.
‘Get that gate closed.’
‘Sir?’
‘The Unelli are on the way back! Get the sodding gate closed or you’re going to be knee deep in your own blood.’
As he shouted, the centurion was already scanning the area, picking out anything they might use to brace the huge wooden portal. Fortunately, the Unelli seemed to be somewhat lacking in keeping their streets tidy, and various broken timbers, long beams, shutters, and ramshackle animal pens littered the settlement.
As the legionaries rushed past him to close the gate, he grabbed one of them by the shoulder and gestured to him and three others.
Marius' Mules Anthology Volume 1 Page 131