Marius Mules III: Gallia Invicta (Marius' Mules) (59 page)

The alarm went up in the clearing before the century even came within sight. There was a certain advantage to the alarm, in a way, since the non-combatant folk of the tribe would have time to stop milking goats and flee before they became involved in a brawl.

The century of Gallic legionaries rounded the slight bend in the track and the forest opened up ahead. Somewhere in the distance, beneath the canopy of the woods, a deep horn blow sounded.

The century marched out of the trail, four abreast, into the open and shouted commands went up. A column of men led by the optio picked up the pace to treble time and ran off to the left, toward the animal pens.

Another call from the centurion led a second group to peel off to the right. Fronto veered away with them, watching the centurion run straight ahead with his men, doubling their speed as they made their way through the middle of the clearing toward the group of tribal warriors who had been on watch and who were now hurriedly arming themselves and taking up a defensive stance.

The ground in the clearing was uneven and, though cleared of undergrowth, still plagued by hidden rocks and the gnarled, bulging roots of the cleared trees. The sounds of commotion in the near distance, muffled by the trees, spoke volumes about the sudden activity of the tribes. Their camp must be close, given the proximity of the noise, clearly caused by the tribes rallying their warriors to run and defend the supplies.

Fronto and his men reached the nearest wagon and the legate scrambled up onto the tree stump next to it, just high enough to afford him a view over the carts. Behind him, men started hauling the cart back, grunting and groaning with the exertion as they pulled the vehicle back into the open toward the track. As it passed slowly by, Fronto lifted the rain-proof cover and nodded in appreciation at the many sacks of wheat that were stored beneath; enough grain for an entire tribe for at least a week.

He was busy mentally congratulating himself for the speed and efficiency with which they had shifted the first cart and was beginning to believe that he had overestimated the work and that the whole job would be over quicker than he had initially thought when his face fell. A quick glance across the clearing, taking in the number of carts and how some of them were wedged in narrow spaces swept that thought aside. Yes, they had moved the first vehicle easily, but then it was in the easiest position to begin with.

As the cart cleared the tree stumps and more of the men ran in to approach the second cart, it became clear that already this one would be trouble, wedged sideways. He frowned and scanned the tops. They would have to move two other carts into the edge of the wood just to free up the space to move this one along. The whole thing was like some child’s wooden puzzle.

A crash across the clearing, followed by the grating and jarring sounds of steel on steel announced that Cantorix and his men had engaged the guards. The amount of shouting in guttural tongues, however, clearly showed that reinforcements were on the way from the camp deeper in the woods. Briefly, Fronto wondered whether it might have been a better idea just to attack their camp, but he quickly brushed the idea aside as potentially suicidal. Three centuries could probably hold the clearing against the enemy and shift the goods, but that was fighting a purely defensive action with no expectation of victory. A full attack would be a whole different matter.

He gradually became aware, as his men moved the next cart, that there were more metallic sounds, coming from a different direction. For a second he held his breath, tensely, but the sound was a familiar one: that of a century of men in mail, their weapons and shields out and ready. He craned to see over the carts.

One of the other centuries from the Tenth was pouring into the clearing from the eaves of the woods past the carts. Fronto grinned. He couldn’t tell which century it was from here, but he could see the centurion’s crest at the front as it disappeared among the carts, leading the men into the fight.

Good. He had been starting to worry whether the others would get here. If all had gone according to plan, they’d have been here already, ready to come in as pincers and close the trap. Clearly that had not happened, since only one century had arrived at all and
they
were late.

Still, better now than later when they were all dead.

Gesturing to the men to keep working on the carts, Fronto clambered up from the stump and onto the nearest wagon. Standing high, he took in the scene. As ordered, men were roping the animals together ready to lead them back along the track, while a pair of oxen were being brought forward to lead the first cart away. The irritating and befuddling puzzle of which carts to move to free the others was gradually being unravelled by three particular legionaries from the Fourteenth, who were arguing and pointing, the one called Villu making strange angry noises with his tongueless mouth as he jabbed his finger at another legionary’s chest. In the distance, at the far end of the clearing, Cantorix was struggling with his two dozen men to hold the wide track that led back toward the enemy encampment. Already he was facing odds of three to one, though the century from the Tenth were closing for support.

Fronto nodded in satisfaction and was about to drop back down from the wagon when he saw the enemy reserves beginning to arrive. Between the trees and along the track, Gauls were flooding toward the clearing. His plan for a quick attack, in and out with the wagons, was looking extremely foolish now. As he watched, the flood of reinforcements poured into the fight, meeting the fresh steel and muscle of the Tenth’s century as they came up from the wagons. The struggle was becoming bitter and hard-fought.

There had to be something he could do to tip the situation? Something that would stop the madness or at least speed up their capturing of the goods. If the Gauls…

His attention was drawn to the other side of the clearing as a pig screamed. Fronto frowned as he tried to see what had happened, but as he surveyed the animal pens, his vision refocused on the arrows falling among them. The Gauls were shooting into the clearing indiscriminately, careless of whether they killed animals or men!

Fronto shook his head in disbelief. Were these people so blinded and stupid that they would kill the animals needlessly rather than let them fall into enemy hands? The policy of deprivation that had plagued the early days of the campaign?

As he raged mentally over the stupidity of it all, he realised that more arrows were issuing from beneath the boundary of the wood and the archers hidden therein. These, though, flashed orange and flickering through the air, soaked in pitch and burning bright. He stared in disbelief as the first successful shot hit a wagon of grain and flour nearby, sending flames racing out across the material and sacking.

The danger hadn’t occurred to him until he realised that the missile blow that punctured the sack had also sent a cloud of white dust into the air, which, catching the flame from the arrow, exploded with a powerful flash that seared his face and left him with purple and green blotches obscuring his vision.

Shaking his head and blinking, Fronto jumped to the next cart, a low grumble beginning in his throat. From wagon to wagon he hopped, the grumble growing into an angry growl and threatening to become a roar as he picked up pace, moving across the clearing toward the fight, ignoring the deadly flaming shafts that whipped past him.

The fighting was becoming more deadly and vicious as the reinforcements from both sides turned it from a skirmish into more of a small battle. Screams and clanks filled the air as Fronto jumped from a cart to a wagon and, reaching the edge of the affray, threw his arms up.

“Disengage!” he bellowed.

The command was such a surprise that it took a while for the legionaries to obey and pull back. The Gauls seemed as astonished as the Romans and hovered for a moment, uncertain as to what was expected of them. Even the arrow fire faltered and slowed to a stop.

“I know
some
of you understand me, if not all. Now disengage. Stop this stupidity at once!”

The Gauls stared, and low conversation broke out in confused tones. Fronto became aware that Cantorix and Carbo were both looking up at him expectantly.

There was a good deal more conversation and argument and finally a warrior with a mail shirt and a spear, a torc around his throat, standing somewhere in the centre, looked up at Fronto as a circle opened around him.

“You? Good. I don’t care whether you’re a King, a chief, a druid or whatever. This fight is ridiculous, as is this whole rebellion. You spent over a year living quite happily alongside the Roman forces at Nemetocenna, less than fifty miles from here. I expect you traded with them? It’s very likely that soldiers from the garrison there have been helping construct important structures on the borders of your lands: aqueducts? Drainage channels?”

He paused and realised that all conversation had stopped as they listened.

“And now you revolt, like sheep following the other tribes of the north. The Veneti have a problem with the commander in their region and discontent spreads out like ripples in a pond until over here on the opposite side of Gaul, you throw off the imagined yoke of a non-existent oppression and rise up in pointless anger.”

He gestured in irritation at the armed men from both forces before him.

“We came to settle things and in your first attack you lost so many men that you’ve done nothing but run around in the forest picking at us and jabbing at us like an irritating mosquito. You cannot win this, as I’m sure you are all now very well aware. All you are doing now is putting off the inevitable end of this uprising and with every day you drag it out, you make a conclusion favourable to yourselves less and less likely.”

He pointed back along the track.

“The general can be a merciful man if he is given the room to be so, but often he is pushed to the edge and has no choice but to punish. Don’t make him punish you just because you were foolish enough to rise up for something that wasn’t your cause to begin with. I came here today to take away your supplies and try to force a quick end to this, but that is clearly not the way it must be done. I see that, with boundless stupidity, you would rather starve yourself to death than make peace, so I must force the issue a different way.”

“Here is what will happen now. I state this for a
fact
since, though you will initially argue, in time you will see that there is no other logical choice. The soldiers present with me will return to our camp. We will leave your supplies here and do no further damage.”

He glared at the leader.

“In return for us leaving you your food and your lives, you will pack up and return to your lands and your farms, live like sensible and peaceful people, raise your children, grow your crops and go back to trading with general Labienus and his garrison at Nemetocenna, for which he will continue to protect you from Germans crossing the great river and standing on your neck like they used to.”

He fell silent and folded his arms.

An uneasy quiet descended, broken only by the lowing of the cattle and the twittering of birds. No one moved. Fronto sighed and waved his arms in a dismissing motion.

“Go home!”

He dropped from the wagon to the rear of the legionaries and shrugged as Carbo frowned at him.

“Get the men formed up and take them back to the camp. Hopefully the other century will turn up some time soon. If they appear at the enemy camp and attack, we could be in the shit, so we’d best send the rest of the scouts out to find them. In the meantime, I fear I have to go and explain a few things to the general.”

* * * * *

“What amazed
me
was the way they actually listened to him and did what he said. I swear that as I looked across at them, even big hairy bastards with an axe that could split a tree down the middle managed to look uncomfortable and embarrassed. It was a sight to behold.”

Brutus laughed and sat back, taking another swig of his wine. Across the tent, Crispus smiled as he poured himself a drink.