Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

  The thug’s gaze followed the arc of the weapon and stared mystified at the ripples in the unpleasant water. He only began to recover his wits as Varus hit him in the chest with his shoulder, knocking him back against the bole of a tree that rose from the gurgling water, driving the breath from him. The cavalry commander gave his stocky opponent no chance to recover, bringing down the sphere at the base of his sword hilt on the big man’s wrist with a hard crack.

  He heard more than one bone shatter and the thug let out a pained cry as his sword fell away into the water.

  Varus was irritated now. His sword came up horizontally, the blade just beneath the man’s chin, the keen edge resting on the man’s throat apple.

  ‘Don’t nod unless you want to die. And swallowing’s probably inadvisable, too.’ He noted the man’s widening eyes and grinned. ‘Ah good. You speak Latin. That’ll make things easier. Here’s how things stand.’

  He took a breath and lifted the blade’s edge a finger’s breadth so that it rested on the flesh below his chin and not on his neck, allowing him to speak without injury. ‘Your little resupply mission has failed completely. If you listen carefully you will now note that nearly all the voices you hear are Roman, not your own people. Your own people are mostly under the surface of the water now, mouldering. You, however, appear to be a nobleman. I will give you my word that if you answer all my questions truthfully, you will be ransomed back to your tribe for an appropriate figure. Do you understand?’

  The man whispered ‘yes,’ trying not to move enough to draw blood on the blade beneath his chin.

  ’Good. How many men are there in this column?’

  ‘Just over two hundred.’

  ‘All your men?’

  ‘No. Mostly Cadurci under that traitor Lucterius!’

  Varus pursed his lips. The tone of his voice made it fairly obvious that Lucterius had been the man who’d pushed him and run off. Inwardly, Varus cursed. Lucterius was, seemingly, the man behind all this. If only he’d got the bastard. Still, perhaps one of the others had.

  ‘Where are the supplies from?’

  The man’s eyes darted left and right but, resigned, he sighed. ‘The river bends four times about six miles away. There is a fortified farmstead there. It was a store house.’

  ‘And if we go there now, what will we find?’

  The man remained nervously silent.

  ‘Because of you I’ve lost an expensive dagger. If you don’t answer my question, I will carve its weight out of your stinking hide. Talk to me.’

  The man growled. ‘Another three hundred men under Drapes. Mostly his Senones.’

  Varus nodded his satisfaction. The other major leader of this army, then. Even if they’d lost Lucterius, perhaps they could destroy this small force and capture Drapes. He grinned. It had turned out to be a surprisingly good morning so far. He wondered whether Caninius had emerged from his tent yet. A figure barrelled out of the mist, clutching an arm across his front. A legionary, sword in hand but shield missing, blood trickling down that limb. It took him a moment to realise that it was the young lad he’d been talking to at the start of all this. He grinned, genuinely pleased to see the fellow. Other legionaries were coming up behind him. It seemed the fight was over.

  ‘Here you go, lad. This noble’s yours to ransom. I suggest you pluck him of valuables before you send him to the stockade.’ He then looked across at the next figures. ‘There’s no more this way. Get word to Legate Caninius. Tell him we need to send a cohort upriver and that I’ll attend him when I’ve gathered my cavalry. We’ll find a fortified farm with a few hundred Gauls and perhaps some more supplies.’

  The soldiers saluted and turned, running off. Varus looked at the legionary. ‘You alright dealing with him?’

  The young man looked the stocky Gaul up and down and with virtually no warning, smashed him in the temple with the hilt of his gladius. Varus only just managed to pull his blade away in time and prevent the slicing open of the noble’s throat as he slid unconscious to the murk below. The legionary sheathed his sword and reached down, stopping the Gaul from being submerged with his good arm before hauling him up and, with a little difficulty, throwing him over his shoulder. He grinned.

  ‘I’ll manage, sir.’

  Varus laughed and saluted the young legionary as he staggered away with one broken arm and a stocky prize over his shoulder. The cavalry commander dipped his blade in the water and then wiped it on his tunic before sheathing it.

  Now to run off and find his horsemen. There was a small force of Germanic riders attached to his wing who had formerly been part of Caesar’s dreaded German horse. Only fifty or so of them, but the evil bastards spent every day around the corrals with their horses ready for action, simply awaiting the opportunity to cause mayhem. It would take time for Caninius to get his men moving, and for Varus to have a cavalry ala ready to join them, but he didn’t want word of this reaching the farmstead and the Senones there running away with all the food. They needed to be kept busy until the main Roman force could get there. He pictured their leader’s face when he heard he was slipping the leash with free rein to cause bloodshed.

  Varus shuddered.

  * * * * *

  Lucterius staggered past a low hedge and down to the river bank. He was furious. Never in all his years of fighting had he encountered such incompetence. Drapes had insisted that he bring the squat moron Tarbos with him back to the oppidum – yet again, mistrust leading to dangerous incompetence. Lucterius had argued, but the fact remained that Tarbos was coming with him whether he wanted the man or not and it wasn’t worth arguing a lost cause.

  They had made their slow and irritating way back in his unbearable company, arriving back at the plain below Uxellodunon just before dawn. The mist would allow them to get back even though the darkness had now passed.

  And then it had happened. As before, Tarbos had been so close to Lucterius that anyone would think they were lovers. And the stunted turd had dropped his sack of salted meat into the water. Even as Lucterius had paused and listened for a moment to make sure they hadn’t been discovered through such idiocy, the moron had actually sworn out loud. Lucterius had hit him, hard, with the flat of his sword, but the damage had been done. Moments later a Roman ran into the mist, followed by another, and then all Hades broke loose.

  It had been surprisingly satisfying to throw Tarbos at the Roman – the only bright side to this debacle. Then he had run. And not towards the oppidum. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew that now the alarm had gone up the Romans would be swarming and the oppidum would be closely watched. And so, despite everything, he was running on his own. Separated from his army by the might of Rome and the idiocy of his peers.

  There was only one hope, now. He had to find a relief force and break the Roman siege before they managed to get their own reinforcements from somewhere. If he could break the siege, he could still take the army south.

  And he had one last gambit to make. Because there was only one tribe left in this part of Gaul that could provide the manpower to fight a legion. Caesar had left the Arverni unpunished after Alesia, presumably to make them unpopular with the other tribes. But that meant the Arverni could still field an army, unlike most survivors of Alesia. And the Arverni were like brothers to the Cadurci, living beside them and sharing a history and many combined bloodlines. He hadn’t wanted to approach them until he had Vercingetorix free again, but this mess had changed that.

  Hardening himself as to the fate of Drapes and the others, Lucterius kept his head down and followed the line of the river east, making for Nemossos and the home of the highest ranking Arverni left their freedom.

  The Arverni would turn the tide.

  * * * * *

  Varus drummed his horse’s flanks, driving it up the slope. Behind him came Caninius and then scouts, the tribunes of the Fifth and the mounted musician, in case orders needed to be relayed urgently. Since they had marched out of camp at the fastest sensible pace, unencumbered by pac
ks, the river had gradually become more and more snakelike, carving its way southwest through the landscape in great loops this way and that, each loop harbouring an area of rich farmland and a once-thriving farmstead, long since abandoned. And every time Varus crested a rise at the outer bend of the river to see such laid out before him, he drew in a tense breath, expecting it to harbour a few hundred rabid Gauls. Each time he had exhaled calmly.

  This time, however, they had clearly reached the correct loop.

  The farmstead before them was surrounded by a low palisade and contained a large building at the centre along with perhaps half a dozen other structures scattered about the place. An irrigation ditch in an adjacent field had been extended to loop around the place, forming a minor moat.

  The Germans had been at work.

  Though unable to form a concerted attack on the three hundred men in the farm behind their defences, the Germanic cavalry had the enemy pinned in that stockade, riding around just outside arrow range. The evidence of earlier clashes lay about the scene: German horses and riders here and there who had come too close to the palisade and had fallen foul of Senone arrows. A small group of six Germanic bodies in a heap at the water-filled ditch, where some kind of assault had obviously been attempted and repelled.

  The remaining thirty five or so riders had taken to keeping the enemy contained, waiting for the rest of the army. Varus’ gaze swept from there to take in the rest of the landscape.

  ‘Do you see the ford?’ Caninius asked, pointing off into the distance. Varus nodded. At the next loop of the river, where the flow curved back this way, the shallow water could easily be made out by the change in colour. The winter meltwaters had gone, and the warming of the world had lessened the depth and flow of such rivers so that seasonal fords were beginning to show again.

  ‘Now look at the farm,’ the legate urged him, and Varus squinted into the sunlight. While the German cavalry were riding in circles around the place and a few of the trapped Senones were in defensive positions around the circuit occasionally loosing a desultory arrow at them, the bulk of the enemy were concentrated around a closed gate at the far side of the enclosure.

  ‘They’re going to make a run for it,’ he said, spotting what Caninius had cleverly picked up on.

  ‘We lost Lucterius in the marsh,’ Caninius grumbled. ‘I’m damned if I’ll lose this Drapes too.’

  Varus shot a sidelong glance at the legate, but the comment seemed to have been delivered in a matter-of-fact, objective manner with no blame attached to Varus for being the officer in command of the fight that had lost Lucterius. He nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll take the horse and seal off that route. You ring them in with infantry.’

  Caninius turned to the musician and gave his orders, and Varus simply gestured at his standard bearer who waved the banner and got the cavalry moving. As the cohorts began to cross the hill and move down towards the fertile farmland in the loop of the river, Varus’ horsemen raced to catch up with him and then achieved a loose formation as he led them at a safe distance from the farm around the hills at the valley side and to the high ground that rose beside the ford.

  As he and his riders thundered their way along the valley, the warning went up in the enemy camp and that gate was thrown open, enemy warriors running for the ford at the base of the hill. Varus urged his men on, noting as he did so two more groups that had peeled off left and were running for the river bank at the furthest extent of the curve. He could see no gleaming of mail on those groups. Sharp buggers they must be, running for the river rather than the ford, hoping to swim to safety and trusting that the Germans behind them would not risk their mounts in the deeper, faster water. Varus had watched those Germans for a year or more and was fairly sure that they would ride off a cliff if it meant taking an extra head.

  Still, they were making a run for it and doing well.

  It was, however, going to be a race for the ford. The enemy, though on foot, had been considerably closer to the ford and were running for their lives, which always gives a man a turn of speed of which he didn’t previously know he was capable. Varus urged his men on, kicking his own steed into an ever faster pace. If the Senones achieved the ford, they might just be able to hold off the cavalry there – where they would be so much less effective – until their leader and his best could get away. It would certainly be a hard fight.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, Varus veered his horse slightly to the left, aiming to cut off the fleeing Senones and secure the high ground by the ford. The better horses and horsemen kept pace with him. Others were beginning to string out along behind. The ford was now maybe fifty heartbeats away and Varus was almost close enough to the enemy to smell their sweat. The front man of the fleeing Gauls turned to look back over his shoulder and Varus could see his eyes, bright and desperate, yet defiant and brave. The man gave two quick gestures and a small group of the running Senones suddenly halted and turned, their blades out.

  Varus focused on that man giving the orders. If he was not Drapes then he was at least another noble or chief, for he was clearly in charge here and the warriors supported him so blindly that they had turned into their certain death to save him. That group of two dozen or so men holding their ground in the face of the charging cavalry would most certainly die, but they might just delay the cavalry long enough to allow the leader to make it across the ford and into the woods beyond.

  Trusting his men to take care of the problem, Varus gestured to the decurion following him – one of his oldest and most trusted riders. While the bulk of the horse – composed in the main part of Remi, Allobroges, Mediomatrici and other allied tribes – rode directly at that small group of defenders in an effort to take that high ground and prevent the rest of the fleeing Gauls from achieving freedom, Varus and his single turma of riders slewed off sharply to the left, arcing around that small defensive group.

  He could sense the decurion staring at him as if he were mad, which he would clearly have to be to do this. His face set in the rictus of battle, Varus cut across the line of enemy flight, behind the leaders who were nearing the ford and the line of men trying to prevent pursuit, but ahead of the bulk of the fleeing Senones. Across, and to the river.

  With little chance of reaching the ford in time by forcing through the enemy and achieving that spur of high ground, the only option open had been a direct line. Consequently, he cut across the path of the men, straight down the bank and into the river, making for the middle of the ford downstream through the deeper water.

  He winced as his horse jumped from the bank and plunged into the cold torrent, which came to midway up its flanks. He had been lucky, he knew. He’d reasoned that upriver of the ford and this close, centuries of sediment and dross would have built up, making the river shallower than it would be downstream, and he’d been borne out. The men around him had probably expected to find themselves in deep water, their horses swimming and panicking, but instead, the beasts would be able to touch the river bed and walk, though the surface of the water was high and the beasts would find it hard going. At least the current was with them, helping propel them towards the ford rather than fighting them every step of the way.

  A tremendous splash behind him announced the arrival of the decurion, and he was followed by more as the cavalry jumped, whooping, into the river, racing as best they could for the ford.

  The enemy gambit had worked. A quick glance to Varus’ right, and he could see over the riverbank that the small wall of enemy warriors had arrested the advance of the horse, Varus’ cavalry busy fighting to pass them. They were dying, as were the other Senones fleeing behind them, running foul of the horse who had now achieved the high ground and were denying escape to the rest.

  But the leaders were beyond them now, already at the water’s edge and ploughing down into the ford. Varus urged his mount on, pushing through the water, targeting the centre of the ford and praying to Fortuna and Mars both that he had calculated correctly.

  As he forced his way forw
ard, he watched intently the party of eight warriors, including their noble or chief, wading out into water that reached above their knees. They were strong and fit and were making surprisingly good headway, considering the difficulty. But Varus had been accurate with his estimates. Even as he felt the horse beneath him move faster and easier, he saw the water’s surface gradually receding down his legs, past his shins, his feet and then below the horse’s belly, freeing the animal up to move more easily. The rise to the ford, formed of years of pebbles, sand and mud carried down by the current and drifting up against the crossing.

  Behind him, he could hear the eager shouts of his men, gleeful that his gamble was paying off and that they had survived the deeper water with no trouble and would now reach the mid-point of the ford before the fleeing enemy.

  Varus watched the Gauls come to the same conclusion and despite their already surprisingly fast pace across the river, still they managed to pick up speed, slogging through the water like Titans, desperate to get ahead of Varus and his men. The far bank presented only a very short grassy slope before the valley side rose sharply, covered with woodland and undergrowth. If the enemy leaders reached that treeline they were as good as lost. Cavalry were less than useless in forests.

  Once again the enemy leader – Drapes he presumed – gave a command and five of the eight refugees turn and sloshed back through the water, drawing their blades and preparing to stop Varus’ pursuit.

  ‘Oh no you bloody don’t.’

  With a gesture of his own, Varus sent his own men against those five while he recalculated, veering slightly left and running along almost parallel with the ford. His horse was faster in the water than the men on foot and he quickly outpaced those five who were trying to stop him, and who instead now concentrated on the bulk of the cavalry riding directly at them.