Marius' Mules: Prelude to War (4 page)

Leaving the civilians to their task, Cita gestured at Bennacos and thumbed in the direction of the main store’s door.

‘Mind telling me what we’re going to do, sir?’ the auxiliary asked as they entered the dim interior.

‘Same as everyone else. It’s a weak spot from the outside.’

The gloom was only slightly lessened by the three narrow, slit-like apertures in the rear wall. The sides of the room - and indeed much of the centre - were filled with rough wooden racks that held the supplies bound for the army in neat rows. Above, in the darkness, the thatched roof was supported by a system of beams and struts that crossed the open space.

‘I’m too old and fat to get up there, so I’m afraid the roof’s yours. You know what to do. I’ll take the three windows and try to stop anyone getting up there in the first place.’

Bennacos nodded, his eyes straying around the room. ‘There’s amphorae of pitch, here. We could have used that if we’d had time.

Cita nodded. ‘With time there’s all sorts we could have done, but it doesn’t help us now. I daresay everything in here has its use, but sadly, we’re
out
of time.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Bennacos?’

‘Yes, Prefect?’

‘When things become untenable and all is lost, someone needs to get word of this to the army. The nearest garrison is the better part of a hundred miles from here at Agedincum, so it’s a hard task.’

‘You’ll be up to it, sir.’

Cita laughed despite himself. ‘Bennacos, I get out of breath climbing out of bed. My leg weighs more than most legionaries. No, I would never make it. No Roman would at the moment, in fact. But a few miles from here is the territory of the Boii:
your
people. If you can make it those few short miles, you will be in allied lands - if such a thing still exists - and you should be able to reach Agedincum.’

‘I’ll not leave you here to die, Prefect.’

‘You’ll not have a choice, I fear. In fact, I cannot see a realistic way for you to get out either, but whatever happens, get out you must. This
might
be another isolated rising occasioned by Caesar’s punishment of their king, but there is every possibility that this is the start of what Priscus has been predicting for years, and my heart leans towards the latter. Caesar is back in Aquileia dealing with his own troubles. The only officer in the field in Gaul who has the experience and ability to keep control in his absence is Labienus, but even he will be unable to do so if he is taken by surprise by the whole of Gaul. Warn the army.’

There was a long pause and finally Bennacos nodded and began to climb one of the newly-emptied weapon racks.

‘Just don’t die, Prefect.’

‘Not dying, Bennacos, is rather high on my list of priorities. Sadly, I suspect it’s not on
theirs
.’ He gestured with a pointed finger towards the seething mass of barbarians outside the narrow slits.

As the Boii auxiliary climbed up to the rafters, Cita sighed, took a deep breath and drew his expensive, decorative gladius from its sheath. In five years of campaigning in Gaul he’d never had cause to bloody it, such was the safety of his role far behind the lines of combat. Today would be his test in so many ways, not least his courage.

It seemed, as he approached the wall, that he might have overestimated the time they had before the enemy breached the defences, or possibly he’d underestimated the time it took to build the redoubt? Either way, men were already scaling the rear wall of the stone storeroom, raising their cupped hands to provide steps for the booted feet of their comrades above.

With a heaved breath, Cita raised his blade and chose one of the three narrow windows at random - given the similar sight through each. Tensing, he rammed the sword into the gap and felt rather than saw it bite into a hard protective cover and punch through into flesh, grating off the rib bones and into the vital soft parts within. He was so unprepared for the ease of the blow that he almost lost the blade as the warrior fell away from the wall with a gurgling cry, and only managed to wrench the gladius free at the last possible moment.

The man his victim had been supporting in his climb suddenly fell past the window with a shout - a simple blur of colours as he crashed to the ground, felling several of his fellows in the process. With an invigorating feeling of achievement, Cita stepped across to the next window and, seeing a similar tableau beyond, thrust his blade again. Once more the feeling of resistance gave way quickly to a soft sinking in of the sword and he felt something hot spray up his arm and wash across his knuckles. As the warrior yelped and fell back clutching his wounded chest, the man who had been using him as a step clung onto the eaves of the building desperately, legs waving in the open air. Cita watched the blue-trousered limbs swinging back and forth in the gap and, timing it as best he could, jabbed out at them. The first two thrusts missed and the man had just managed to achieve a solid handhold and start pulling himself up when the blade finally smashed into his calf, tearing through the muscle. The climber bellowed out in pain but managed to haul his feet up out of the way.

The prefect had little time to consider matters, however, turning his attention to the third window, where a man had apparently just passed and another was busy putting his foot into the cupped hands of a friend. With gusto, Cita lashed out, smashing his sword at the cupped fingers, breaking a wrist and almost severing a hand before withdrawing and running back to the first window.

As he dashed across the room he spared a glance upwards for Bennacos, who was now sitting astride the main room-length beam in the rafters, his ankles locked together below to grant him stability as he stabbed up through the thatch with his spear. The roofing was good and thick and waterproof in order to protect the stores below, so there was no hope of the auxiliary seeing any figures above, but fortunately their numbers were currently so few that he could identify where they traversed the roof by the dust and chaff that fell from the thatch beneath their knees - they would all be crawling, since the roof’s pitch would be far too steep for them to walk.

The sporadic screams from above testified to Bennacos’ success rate, and with his central position and the long reach of the spear there was hardly anywhere on the roof safe from his thrusts.

With a smile, Cita moved back to the window and began the task of halting the climbers again. He could only hope the men in the barracks and the civilian accommodation and the pairs in the wooden lean-tos at either side were having a similar rate of success. He was under no illusion as to their chances of survival, but he would make the bastards earn this victory with a lake of their blood.

The process became mechanical: window one - thrust - window two - thrust - window three - thrust - quick glance upwards - cross room and repeat.

He could not have said how long he’d been at the grisly business when the situation changed.

A cry came from outside and, though he couldn’t hear the details, the tone made the call’s subject clear: a breach. The stockade or one of the other buildings had fallen. In confirmation, a moment later he heard the optio bellowing the order to fall back to the redoubt.

‘Bennacos? They’re in the compound. We’re the last resort now.’

Whether or not the auxiliary heard he couldn’t say, as the man was far too busy lunging with his spear into the thatch again and again, almost every time fetching a cry of pain from a victim. That boded somewhat and suggested a worryingly high number of figures on the roof now.

‘I’ll be back, Bennacos. Be careful. You have to survive this, remember?’

With a deep breath, white knuckles tightening on the ivory handle of his sword, Cita dashed out of the store room and straight into Hades. The compound was filling with screaming natives, waving their weapons in anticipated victory as they broke through the stockade in three places, a fourth group securing the roof of the civilians’ quarters as they dropped down to join their fellows.

The remaining legionaries and civilians were running across the clear area of compound for the relative safety of the grain-sack redoubt. Even as Cita scanned the ranks for a rough headcount he saw the optio, bringing up the rear and waving the men on with his staff of office, fall prey to a thrown spear, the bronze leaf-shaped blade emerging through his chest in a spray of crimson, his eyes bulging as he pitched forward suddenly, mid-curse.

Cita was now the last officer. He could count four soldiers and six civilians, though he might have missed the count by one or two, at speed and in the confusion.

Off to his right the second scorpion suddenly fell from the roof, along with a couple of the defensive grain sacks, signalling the end of the barracks as a defensive position. The other scorpion had stopped firing before Cita left the building, its crew fleeing to the redoubt with the rest. It was one small blessing that the enemy were so charged with victorious energy that they had not considered turning the defenders’ high places into their own missile platforms, but really, with the numbers now so hopelessly uneven, it hardly mattered.

Despite Cita’s original intentions, Bennacos could not command the redoubt - he was busy inside, trying to prevent the roof falling into enemy hands. With a resigned swallow, he knew he was in charge. He, and he alone. In charge of a doomed command with only a few short heartbeats of existence left.

Even as he tried to think of something encouraging to shout, he turned at a crash to see that the outer wall of one of the timber lean-tos had collapsed under the pressure of the enemy. The remaining of the two men inside was almost instantly hacked to pieces by the Carnutes as they swarmed inside.

That was it, then. The redoubt was already useless before its defence had begun. The enemy had gained access through the building. The depot had fallen and all that was left was to die like a soldier.

‘Everyone inside. We can limit the number that come at us through that door!’

The pitiful remaining force pushed their way into the stone store house, the rear-most men clambering over the grain-sack wall and flopping down to the inside. Despite the example of the optio who had died at the back, chivvying on his men, Cita was somewhere in the middle, pushing into the building in order to preserve his life as long as possible.

The last of the retreating men - the incredulous fat merchant with the hare-lip from the bridge, he noted - fell as he clambered over the redoubt, a Carnute long-sword slashing down and smashing into his back, splintering bones and carving meat. The man shrieked in pain and tried to claw his way on, but already the rest of the enemy were on him and the last Cita saw of him was the panic on the wounded civilian’s face as he was dragged back into the mass of warriors. A small knot of warriors paused at that position, their sword-arms rising and falling, as the tide of Gauls swept on past.

Cita braced his feet and noticed that the few remaining legionaries took up similar positions nearby while the civilians retreated into the darkness in panic. He shouted an order for them to fall in with the defence but they reacted no more than he’d expected, hiding among the wooden racks for the most part. A quick glance up and he could see that Bennacos was in trouble too. The roof now bore large holes and much of the thatching had been hacked away so that the men above could get at the warrior busy sticking them with a spear from below.

Time was up.

‘Minerva be with us. Sell your life dearly, lads.’

With a last sigh of resignation he reached for the coin purse at his belt and withdrew a single dupondius.

‘There’s pitch in here, sir,’ one of the legionaries said quietly. ‘We could destroy the whole bloody place and take a load of them with us?’

Cita shook his head. It was not the horrifying prospect of burning to death in this place that stopped him, though. After all, he could easily put his own bloodied blade through his chest before the flames licked his skin. It was the knowledge that if everything here burned then there was no hope of word getting out.

‘No burning. Just take as many of them with you as you can!’

The doorway filled suddenly with the shapes of Carnute warriors as they ran in to take down the last Roman defenders. The legionaries presented the best shield wall they could, the shieldless Cita taking one end where he could jab and thrust with his blade. His free hand, reaching up from his purse with the dupondius, slipped the coin into his mouth, beneath his tongue. After all, no one would do him the honour in a few moments’ time.

His sword lanced out with all the professionalism of the other soldiers, despite his lack of martial experience, and when the first wound came it took him a couple of heartbeats to realise that he’d been struck, blood pumping from his savaged upper arm. He gritted his teeth and as he heard a cry of pain, looked up just in time to see a bloodied Bennacos tumble from the rafters, an enemy warrior at a hole in the thatch above laughing with victory and brandishing a crimson sword.

It was over, then. Hopeless. The army would have no warning. If this
was
more than a simple revenge rising, then they stood every chance of suffering the same fate as the shattered legion of Cotta and Sabinus last winter.

The second wound, he
did
notice, as he lost his hand and the glistening sword that had briefly become a natural extension of his arm plunged away into the darkness.

A tear welled up in the corner of his eye and the legionary at his side suddenly disappeared under a dreadful blow from a powerful axe.

Cita died in a manner befitting a Roman officer, coated in the blood of his enemies and denying them to the last, his brief command obliterated by the rage of the Carnutes. Even as the enemy hacked at him, defiling the body, a strange smile spread across his face. The coin had not dislodged. The ferrymen had come. No doom to wander Cenabum for Caius Fusius Cita, for his eternity lay in Elysium.

* * *

Cotuatus of the Carnutes, cousin of the wretched deceased and scourged Acco, stood in the ruins of the Roman depot, his blade running with blood, mud and gore spattered across him, and a glorious feeling of accomplishment and freedom coursing through his veins. It was done. The first blow struck. The fire-arrow that would signal the end of Rome and the retaking of his land had been loosed into the air for all of Gaul to see.