Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (21 page)

‘You are sure he is in the north with his army, then?’ Vergasillaunus murmured, ‘and not to the south in our homeland?’

‘I am certain of it. But Caesar believes he has plenty of time. He will be convinced he has tricked us into running south to protect our homes. He is not coming for us, and I want the Aedui behind our banner before he does. I am not yet considering time my most pressing concern. Every day we reduce the Boii, the Aedui are watching us and our men among them twist their leaders to our cause. No, Vergasillaunus, we are under no pressure here.’

He looked up once more at the walls.

Gorgobina was a small oppidum, the home of a tribe Caesar had settled here years before in the aftermath of his victory over the Helvetii. The tribe who occupied it was a small one, but loyal to both the Aedui, who sponsored them, and Rome, who had settled them with grace rather than extinguishing or enslaving them. The walls of the place were only a few years old and had been constructed with Aedui help and Roman resources. They were powerful and high and thick.

But nature had given them only a trickle of water within, and their own unpreparedness had left them short of grain - the grain which was even now being gathered by the Arverni and added to their own supplies. If the Boii had been clever, they would have torched their fields when they retreated within the walls and left nothing for the attackers. But then, they were not warriors like the Arverni, they were Roman lap-dogs.

The pair stood silent for a moment and then the king stretched. ‘Give them an hour to drop their guard and then send another small foray in from the north. Let’s keep them nervous and exhausted. We have the numbers, they do not.’

Vergasillaunus
nodded and frowned as he saw a solitary warrior running towards them.

‘What’s this?’

The man closed on the pair and dropped to a knee, bowing his head before rising again. ‘There is a small column of horsemen coming in from the north, my king.’

Vercingetorix glanced at his cousin with an arched eyebrow.

‘Who knows?’ the man replied, and then turned to the warrior. ‘Any idea who they are?’

‘No. They’re not Romans, though. And they don’t look like Aedui. They will be here any moment.’ He rose and gestured to the north, where they could just make out a small party of cavalry cresting the low rise and moving down to the lower ground where the army had made camp.

The two commanders of the Arverni army waited patiently and watched as the horsemen approached, were met by a dozen spear-bearing Lemovice warriors and questioned before being permitted to proceed into the camp.

‘Friends, then,’ Vergasillaunus mused. They kept their eyes on the group as the two lead horsemen came on through the wide camp and the rest - clearly their escort - peeled off elsewhere. Vercingetorix was peering through the grey with narrowed eyes and trying to identify them when his cousin straightened with a smile.

‘Our favourite brothers return.’

The king frowned and gradually the creases around his eyes moved into a smile. But by the time the two chieftains had closed on the commanders’ vantage point, he could see the seriousness of the brothers’ expressions, and his smile had slipped away again.

‘My king,’ Critognatos said, sliding from the horse straight into a curt bow. Cavarinos simply nodded his head respectfully from the saddle.

‘You bring bad news?’

‘Not I,’ Critognatos said, earning him a cold look from the other rider. ‘Many thousand warriors are on their way from the Meldi, the Parisi and the Catelauni, and upwards of two thousand from the tiny unimportant tribes. The Carnutes and the Senones are with us still, and will send men in due course, the first moment the Romans turn their gaze away.’

‘And there lies the problem,’ Cavarinos said with a sigh. ‘Caesar is already abroad with his army. He has taken the grain stores of Vellaunoduno and moved on with eight legions to Cenabum, which I can assure you will by now be naught but bones and burned timbers… you
know
how the Romans hold a grudge. I wish we had got word to you faster, but we were delayed in our journey by having to avoid Aedui lands. Caesar has sent word to them, and the northern Aedui towns would sell us out to Rome in a heartbeat.’

‘The man moves with the speed and sureness of a snake,’ Vercingetorix said, shaking his head admiringly. ‘I wonder sometimes what the Romans have done that their gods gift them with such men to win their wars. Still, our own army is not led by
fools
. Caesar seeks to divide us from our northern allies? Let him concentrate on keeping the Carnutes and the Senones out of things. We already have many of their number with us. Plus we’ll soon have the Aedui - no matter what the Romans’ ambassadors can offer - and their numbers more than make up for the loss of any further Carnutes.’

Critognatos’ face took on a sour cast. ‘You would abandon the Carnutes and their neighbours to the Romans simply on a matter of
numbers
?’

‘Frankly, yes,’ Vercingetorix said, matter-of-factly. ‘We cannot afford to be sympathetic or sentimental at the cost of this war… you have seen for yourself what we are up against. Do you think Caesar would abandon pursuit of a large ally to rush to the aid of a small one?’ He rolled his neck wearily. ‘Besides, once we have the Aedui with us and we have the numbers to crush Caesar, we will move north and help our brothers the Carnutes, sure in the knowledge of our success.’

Cavarinos stirred uncomfortably in his saddle. ‘I’m afraid it might be a little more urgent than that. While at Vellaunoduno, I learned that once the Romans have destroyed Cenabum, their sights are turning to the south. Caesar seeks to enforce his alliance with the Aedui and the Bituriges. He will march upon Novioduno, and then Avaricon. And given how long we have taken to get here because of the cursed Aedui, the Romans will most likely be closing upon their first destination already.’

Vergasillaunus turned a surprised expression upon his commander. ‘Avaricon is only forty miles from here. Do we have the men yet to bring him down?’

The Arverni king affected a far-away look as he made mental calculations of strength. ‘No. I do not believe so. Not without the Aedui. Caesar has eight legions and all of them are veterans, having cut their teeth on the shields and bones of our people for years. They have no fear of us and are more than familiar with our battle skills and tactics.’ He rolled his head, his neck clicking. ‘Besides, I have no intention of rushing off to aid Avaricon and abandoning all our work here.’

‘But cousin…’ Vergasillaunus began.

‘No. Avaricon is the strongest fortress in the west. The Bituriges can hold it for many weeks. Long enough for us to raze Gorgobina, conclude matters here, enlist the Aedui, and then move west and crush Caesar against Avaricon’s walls. We stick with our plan.’

‘Unless,’ Cavarinos murmured, ‘both Novioduno and Avaricon both open their gates to him willingly. The Bituriges have long been his allies through the Aedui, and they are not yet truly bound to our cause by aught other than fear.’

The Arverni king nodded thoughtfully. ‘I agree. Both cities must be bolstered, Novioduno in strength and Avaricon in courage. Novioduno is almost twice as far away - perhaps eighty miles. We will be truly fortunate to have a force reach it before the Romans do. We will sadly be forced to sacrifice the place in order to preserve Avaricon, but it will serve a purpose in delaying Caesar.’ He turned to Vergasillaunus. ‘Lucterius frets at being here and not in open battle. Send him with three thousand cavalry to Novioduno, as fast as they can ride. He can strengthen their defences with his men, and his own courage will bring forth their own. He must hold the place as long as possible and deny the Romans their supplies even in the end. When the place falls, I trust him to burn all the Bituriges’ supplies and find a way out and back to us.’

His cousin nodded with a smile. Lucterius would relish the chance. Having been forced by expediency to abandon his attack on Narbo, he had been champing at the bit to take red war to the Romans.

‘And you two?’ the king said, gesturing at Cavarinos and Critognatos. ‘Take a couple of thousand of the best warriors you have and make at all speed for Avaricon. Help the weak Bituriges shore up their defences and prepare for Caesar. You will have plenty of time, since the Romans will be delayed by Novioduno. Hold Avaricon, whatever you do, and when we have the Aedui we will come for Caesar. If the gods are with us, we will grind the Romans to dust before its walls.’

Cavarinos looked across at his brother, whose eyes had begun to twinkle with that lust for combat that seemed to drive him above all. He sighed. After the fall of Vellaunoduno he had felt lucky to have got away without taking part in a brutal siege alongside his idiot brother. And now here he was being given a second chance.
Wonderful
.

‘What of the curse?’ he said quietly. ‘The army should know of it.’

‘They will soon enough. But let us finish building that army first.’

Cavarinos’ fingers crept unbidden to the leather bag at his belt which contained the tablet of Ogmios, and he chided himself for it as he realised.

Men and steel…
that
was what won wars.

Avaricon, then, would be the first true test of Caesar’s strength and, if things went right, his last, too.

Chapter 7

Northern lands of the Bituriges.

The oppidum of Novioduno was perhaps the oddest Fronto had seen in his time in Gaul. Less than four hundred paces across - little more than an overgrown village, really - Novioduno nestled defensively in a fork in the river, the landward approach obstructed by a canal linking the two waterways and effectively turning the place into an island, reachable only via its northern or southern bridges. Within this artificial island, the narrower, shallower channel to the north was further bolstered by a semi-circular earthwork, which contained the inhabited area and whose ends butted up against the bank of the southern channel.

Had there been a high wall of the usual form, with towers and a strong garrison atop it, the place might have posed something of a problem for the Roman forces. However, instead of the heavy timber-and-stone rampart system endemic of Gallic oppida, this place had apparently been considered so protected by nature that, barring the canal and the earthwork, the Bituriges’ only further concession to protection was a palisade fence of ageing timber.

Likely in their centuries-long disputes with their neighbouring tribes, the water and the fence had been more than adequate to keep them safe until other Bituriges could come to their aid. But then their ancient tribal enemies had not been armed with scorpions, ballistae, onagers and all the paraphernalia of the Roman army.

As the Roman column had appeared over the horizon, the inhabitants had made a spirited attempt to seal themselves off, succeeding in bringing down the bridge over the narrow northern river and turning the only method of access there into a pile of kindling - a move that had clarified the tribe’s true allegiance as far as the Roman command were concerned. Their attempts on the southern bridge, however, had been less successful, being interrupted by the cavalry vanguard of Caesar’s army before the bridge fell and being forced to retreat within the walls.

There had been a brief confab between the officers and the consensus had been that full siege works would be a waste of time and resources, given the meagre defences of the place. And so the Romans had crossed the twin rivers with ease some half mile upstream where they had become narrow and easily fordable, leaving three legions on the northern bank and one between the two channels, taking four more to the south where the remaining bridge stood. It had been argued that a single cohort could rush the gate across the bridge and crack open Novioduno like a nut, but the risk of significant losses had decided the matter. As the army set up its cordon around the town, not even bothering to raise a mound or dig a ditch, the four southern legions brought their siege engines across the fords, positioned them on appropriate flat areas of ground and, without pause, began to loose their missiles across the river and over the low palisade into the narrow streets of Novioduno. It took less than half an hour for the array of engines to find their aim and begin the systematic destruction of the place from a safe distance.

It had taken a further quarter hour for the dreadful honking - like a skein of geese trapped in a copper pipe and being slowly squeezed to death - to wail out from the city and announce the desire for parlay. Fronto had stood with his teeth gritted, listening to the horrible racket and contemplating that if ever there was a true and just cause for the invasion of Gaul, if had been to rid humanity of the inhuman sound of the carnyx. In answer to the defenders, Caesar had ordered a temporary ceasefire from the artillery barrage.

Now, as Fronto stood with the other staff and senior officers at the southern end of the bridge, Caesar looking as imperious as ever on his white horse, the gate in that palisade opened, wobbling a little from where its left-hand jamb had caught a stray rock during range-finding. A party of half a dozen well-dressed men emerged and strode manfully across the bridge in an impressive show of fearlessness, given the number of scorpions that followed their every move, training foot-long iron-tipped bolts on them as they approached.

The lead figure paused on the bridge and gave a curt bow from the waist, quickly straightening and rattling out a stream of words in his native tongue. Caesar glanced at one of the auxiliary cavalry officers - a noble of the Ambarri - sitting ahorse nearby, and nodded. The man cleared his throat and gave a brief summary of the local’s words.

‘The magistrate of this oppidum asks that Caesar remembers the Bituriges’ oath and their longstanding alliance and would ask that he spare his people, who have made no war upon Rome.’

Fronto snorted derisively, but held his tongue as Caesar responded in a clear, commanding tone.

’We are on a somewhat pressing schedule and cannot spare the time to adequately impress upon the Bituriges of Novioduno how disappointed we are that they have chosen to ignore the oath of which the magistrate speaks and instead send aid and warriors to the renegade Vercingetorix.’ He paused for the cavalry officer to translate his words, and then continued. ‘Consider yourselves fortunate indeed that we are so pressed for time and that I am a generous, merciful man, lest I decide to tarry long enough to leave your oppidum a pile of smoking rubble and corpses.’