Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate

by S. J. A. Turney

  He watched, fascinated for another quarter hour as Cicero and his tribunes climbed the rampart, the latter helping the ailing legate as much as possible without making him feel useless. In the meantime, Pullo came along the rampart from the south gate, frowning.

  "What do you suppose they want timber for?"

  Felix rolled his eyes. Of course! That was what the bunch had disappeared into the woods for. He'd wondered whether they were trying to reposition their forces without his being fully aware, but it did seem farfetched, and they hadn't taken all their gear with them either. Almost as if in answer came the first sounds of axes striking trees. Logging on a fairly impressive scale, given the number of men who had gone to carry it out. As many as Felix had sent into those very woods to gather lumber when they'd first arrived.

  "Well it can only be two things, surely" he replied. "Attack or defence. Are they building their own enclosure or some sort of siege machine? Do the Gauls really know siege-craft? It's not something I've heard of."

  Pullo shrugged. "Me neither, but they've had four years or more of watching us. If they've been observant, they'll have learned a few things. Jove, a few of them probably served with us at times."

  Cicero slumped against the palisade and rested his elbows on it to keep him supported in relative comfort.

  "They're building a wall."

  "Sir?" Pullo and Felix both turned to the legate.

  "They don't want anyone to escape. There's been no news of Sabinus' defeat and we're the closest legion encamped to them. That heavily suggests that no one got away. They made damn sure they didn't let any of our messengers get away, so they intend to do the same to us. They fadh…."

  The two listening officers lurched forward as Cicero slumped almost to the floor, the strength in his legs giving up totally. With their help he pulled himself upright again.

  "You have to go rest, sir. The medicus was right."

  "I have to stay here. Help."

  "You'll be no help if you kill yourself, sir."

  Cicero studied his officers' faces for a moment and finally nodded. "Alright. I'll do that. But keep a close eye on them. They want us contained and to kill every last one of us. That means they're working their way through the camps, obliterating one at a time."

  Felix nodded. "At least that means the others are safe as long as we still stand. They can't move on until they've dealt with us."

  Pullo pulled a face. "It also means we're doomed. There's no way they're going to let a single man live and they won't give up and run. They can't. And they're getting strengthened after each loss. We need to get a message out whatever else we do."

  "I just don't see how" Felix sighed, looking back over the rampart.

  A wall. They were going to surround the camp with a rampart. No escape. Something would have to be done.

  But what?

  * * * * *

  The sun rose on the eighth day to reveal a breath-taking sight. Even Felix, a battle-hardened veteran centurion with decades of experience and a fatalistic approach to life was taken aback by what the night had wrought.

  It very much appeared that the Gauls had learned more of Roman siege craft than any of them had anticipated.

  Already the circumvallation of the Roman camp was complete in its early stage. While not as neat or well-constructed as a Roman rampart, the raised earth bank that surrounded the winter quarters of the Eleventh was twice the height of a man and in places a good timber palisade was already being completed. There was no need for a ditch, of course, as they had left only a short berm before the rampart, making use of the Roman ditches - enough to gather an attacking force. Gates in the Gallic rampart faced the solid sections of Roman wall and the sections of ditch outside those had been filled during the darker hours.

  There had been a few incidents during the night as the sentries watching the Gauls' progress had decided that they were coming a little too near and picked off the front men busy shovelling earth into the dip, only to come under attack in turn from Belgic archers, though the winds had gradually picked up through the hours of darkness, making arrow shots difficult to direct.

  Felix's standing orders during the night were only to attack or raise the general alarm if the enemy reached the inner ditch. In their situation, with no end to the siege in sight and no way to send for help, ammunition was as precious as food and water and should not be expended on anything less than a major attempt to breach the walls.

  But it was not the surrounding ramparts that drew the breath and much of the remaining hope from the Roman watchers. It was what had occurred in those strange empty squares to the rear. In the distance, unseen during the night among the chaos and the campfires of the Gauls, some clever devil with a good knowledge of Roman techniques had constructed three siege towers - shorter than usual, but high enough to overcome the Roman defences - as well as a number of Vineae - rolling roofed enclosures to protect attacking troops. With an almost superhuman effort, the enemy had managed to complete their builds during a single night and already they were starting to move forwards from the construction grounds.

  It seemed that the Gauls were serious now about their mission.

  "Time for a short, sharp prayer to Mars, I'd say, sir."

  Felix turned to see Pullo standing at his shoulder, shielding his eyes with his hand as he viewed the scene unfolding before them.

  "It's our best choice" the prefect agreed. "Fortuna's clearly abandoned us." He frowned and rubbed his neck. The short sleep he'd managed had done nothing to refresh him, but had given him an irritating crick in the neck and the howling winds buffeting at him were doing nothing to improve it. "What's your professional appraisal of the situation?"

  Pullo rolled his shoulders.

  "We're in trouble. Our best chance now is to take enough of them with us that they can't present a serious threat to any of the other legions - to declaw them with attrition."

  "Arrows!" bellowed a legionary just along the wall and Pullo and Felix ducked instinctively.

  "What in Jove's name are they doing? It's too windy for arrows. They'll have trouble hitting anyone."

  Pullo raised his head to peer over the palisade top. "Not if they loose enough of them." He ducked down again. "I don't want to ruin your day any further, prefect, but you won't believe what I've just seen."

  Felix narrowed his eyes and rose to peer over the top. A shower of arrows were pattering against the wood and humming over the ramparts to fall into the camp's interior. But Pullo was not worrying about the small lethal missiles. Felix instantly picked up on what had drawn the centurion's attention.

  "Oh shit."

  "Think they looted them from the Fourteenth, then?"

  "Where else?"

  Both men rose again to watch the Roman ballistae and onagers being moved into position along the Gallic ramparts. The bastards were laying a Roman siege almost by the manual.

  "They won't have trained artillerists so the shots will be fairly random, I reckon" Felix said, though his voice held an underlying note of uncertainty.

  "They certainly won't be of a Roman skill with them" Pullo agreed. "But it's that which worries me."

  Felix focused on the subject of Pullo's pointing finger. The Gauls were bringing up braziers and carts of flammable missiles. Even as they watched, the Gauls began to load the weapons and ignite the ammunition.

  "It's going to take them a while to find the range. Even a Roman engineer would take a shot or two. They'll need half a dozen. And it's at least clear there's no expert doing it, else they'd be using rocks to range-find, not precious burning pots."

  Pullo nodded. "That said, we've a lot of timber and straw buildings. Best organise the water chain parties."

  As the primus pilus dropped back down from the walls to issue the commands, Felix watched the siege engines preparing their first shots, the towers and Vineae moving up to the gates ready for the assault.

  At least if they were following Roman techniques, they wouldn't actually send in the
men and the towers during the artillery barrage. Not that the thought was much consolation.

  * * * * *

  Lucius Vorenus, centurion of the Second century, First cohort, turned and bellowed to the line of walking wounded who ferried buckets of water back and forth from the barrels near the granary. As soon as it had become obvious that the enemy's fire attacks were aimed at the straw roofed structures, he had ordered all supplies moved out of them and into the tile roofed headquarters building and commanders' quarters.

  Even as he reprimanded a legionary for carelessness, slopping too much water from his bucket before he reached the blazing former granary, another flaming bundle smashed through the straw roof, this time taking with it enough ceiling timbers to bring the whole roof down in a fiery mass. The granary was an inferno. Vorenus ground his teeth as he made the decision: no point in wasting any more water trying to save it. He gestured to the men and bellowed at them.

  "Stop there. Save the water." His eyes took in the nearby buildings. The armoury - also now emptied of goods - stood too close for comfort. Already, with the strong winds, sparks were leaping across to its roof and smouldering in the straw, and beyond that building were three others that still stood full of salted meat, water barrels and other goods.

  "Tear down the armoury. I want that building nothing but rubble by the time I count a hundred!"

  The wounded legionaries immediately placed their water buckets on the ground and scurried across, picking up mattocks and axes to hack at the walls and pull down the timbers before the fire could spread too far. This wouldn't do. They could hardly just sit here and watch as the camp was burned to the ground around them.

  Behind him, a particularly lucky shot smashed into the wall of the building that served as quarters for both the legate and the camp prefect. Luckily, Felix was at the wall and Cicero in the makeshift hospital, but as their building exploded in a blazing morass Vorenus realised that most of the officers' gear was gone in the conflagration.

  Whether the Gauls realised what they had hit or simply registered another good shot, a roar of triumph rose from the masses beyond the walls. Vorenus turned away from the duty he had assigned himself and looked at the south wall. Most of the shots had been coming from the north and east, while the siege towers and Vineae were manoeuvring out of the gates of the enemy rampart to the south and west.

  His gaze caught the unmistakable shape of a siege tower looming close to the south wall. The bastards had managed to fill in a causeway across the triple ditch remarkably fast.

  His eyes narrowed and he turned back to the mess behind him as legionaries dragged the already burning mess of the armoury to the ground. His gaze moved from the fiery wreckage to the onager nearby. All the smaller artillery was kept on the walls. This onager had kept up a valiant attack for several days, dropping hefty stone balls onto the massed ranks of the enemy outside, but the ammunition had run out on the fifth morning and the beast had stood silent since then. Bolts and small stones for the ballistae had been abundant enough, but the legion had only amassed so much stone for the onager and were unable to leave the camp to fetch more.

  His eyes strayed across to the near-a-hundred walking wounded serving as a fire-control team.

  "Anyone here an engineer?"

  Three of the men paused in their work and turned, raising their hands. Vorenus grinned. "Can you use that thing with any accuracy?"

  The men nodded. "Be sure" he reminded them. "You need to hit spot on, first time, despite this wind. Can you do that?"

  Two of the men looked at each other nervously, but the third stepped forwards with a nod.

  "We can, sir."

  Vorenus' grin widened.

  "Alright. You!" he shouted, pointing at a random legionary. "Go tell the commander of the Third cohort to pull back from the ramparts. Keep the men well away from that siege tower!" Turning his predatory smile on the engineer who still stood saluting, he cleared his throat. "Here's what I want you to do…"

  * * * * *

  Pullo tapped Felix on the shoulder, unable to attract his attention over the tumultuous noise of the battle and the cheering of the Gauls beyond the ditches. The prefect turned in surprise.

  "What do you suppose Plutius is up to?" the primus pilus mused, watching as the Third cohort began to pull back from the south western quadrant, leaving the defences unmanned as the nearest of the siege towers closed on it implacably. The wind ripped at the centurion's horsehair crest, bending it back as he gestured.

  Felix frowned as he watched. "He'd better have a good reason, else when I get hold of him, I shall tear him a new arsehole."

  The pair watched the tower as it crept over the filled-in remnant of the closest ditch and then blinked as a blur of molten gold appeared from nowhere, streaking through the post-dawn air and suddenly turning the impressive siege tower into an exploding inferno of fiery destruction.

  A dozen flaming bodies hurled themselves from the walled platform at the top, dropping into the ditch, breaking arms, legs and necks as they sought to escape the conflagration and roll around on the ground, trying to extinguish the agonising flames.

  In a couple of heartbeats the top half of the tower was gone, the rest roaring with flames as the wind carried a roiling column of black smoke off to the east, choking the mass of warriors gathered with ladders and waiting to accompany the tower.

  As Pullo and Felix stared in wonderment the Third cohort returned to the walls, jeering at the Gauls. One legionary even paused on his way along the rampart to display a naked backside at them. He should be disciplined for such an act really, but all Felix could do was laugh. The pair followed the rough trajectory of the fiery missile to see the onager - out of action for days now - being turned towards the other siege towers while legionaries carefully manoeuvred a mass of flaming material to load it as soon as it was in position. Roughly halfway between the artillery piece and the two watching officers, centurion Vorenus was striding towards them grinning from ear to ear.

  "Taste of their own bloody medicine" he declared as he mounted the stairs.

  "Nice" Felix replied, nodding. "Bought us a little time. Question is: to do what?"

  "We're doing an excellent job of holding them off" Pullo agreed, looking at the ladder men as they retreated in confusion once more. They were temporarily discouraged, but already the Gallic leaders were moving forwards, urging their forces to rally and attack. Ambiorix and his cronies were shrewd enough to recognise that despite the failure of the first siege tower and the likely fate of the others, they had enough momentum now to get men onto the walls and to allow their men to retreat and panic would destroy any advantage they had.

  "Problem is: we can't hold them off forever. The leaders are turning them round already. We could have done with a bit more discord flowing through their ranks first."

  The two centurions looked at one another and grinned.

  "You always thought you should have been the first to reach primus pilus" Pullo said with a raised eyebrow. "Care to prove it?"

  Vorenus laughed. "With respect to your rank, my friend, I could fight my way through that lot before you even got your sword unsheathed!"

  "Come on then."

  Felix shook his head. "That's suicide."

  "Never underestimate a Sardinian, prefect. Tough mountain men, we are." Vorenus grinned as he drew his gladius.

  "Has to be done" Pullo nodded. "We've got to give them something to think about - something that'll frighten them and make them think we're too dangerous to attack. I don't know whether you're aware, prefect, but we're almost out of ballista ammunition, and the reserve pila are already at the walls. You know as well as us that if we run out of both of those it's only a matter of time until they get over this wall, and then we're dead men."

  Felix nodded. "You're right, of course. And maybe - just maybe - if you can cause enough trouble, we can get a messenger through and out to Caesar." He tapped his lip. "In fact, this might be the time to start doing something underhande
d and devious. You two get your centuries formed up and ready to sally. I'm going to find Vertico and his cavalry."

  As the prefect descended the steps, the two centurions looked at one another.

  "He thinks you meant to take the men with you."

  "That's 'cause he's never seen a Sardinian fight. Besides, we need a nice little gesture to put those two tribunes of the Tenth in their place."

  * * * * *

  Felix looked back at the couriers as he approached his customary position on the south rampart. It was one of the most unpleasant aspects of command, to send a man knowingly to his death, and this was worse than most. The nine men gathering by the west gate were doomed not only to death at the hands of the Nervii, but likely a most agonising, gruesome death by torture.

  Well, eight of them.

  Once again, he peered at them - eight men in light armour, four on horseback and four on foot, each ready to issue from the gate, fanning out in an attempt to make it through the enemy lines and to the open ground beyond to carry their sealed messages to the general. None of them would make it, and they likely knew that but brave as they were, they were prepared to try, for the survival of the legion.

  And hovering in the shadow of the gate, close by, was their only true hope - and a damn dangerous hope it was too.

  The last messenger of the nine was one of the auxiliary natives under the command of Vertico the Nervian. He was of a blood with the men outside the walls and dressed identically.

  As the messengers dispersed and made their own attempts to make it through the army, the Nervian would disappear among his own people, able hopefully to make his way through and to the safety beyond. Felix's main worry was not for the man's survival, but for his loyalty. He prayed to Fides - a Goddess he rarely bothered with - that the man didn't simply discard the message and join the besiegers.