Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (29 page)

The shout of alarm went up on the wall top at the sight of the first ladder arriving and the defenders were immediately struggling to push the ladder out, shouting for their comrades to aid them on the walls and to bring the forked sticks to push away the offending siege equipment.

The left-hand of the two ladders among the Tenth began to push away from the wall, rising to the perpendicular, causing shouts of panic from the legionaries halfway up it. The engineers were busy hammering the pitons into the visible ends of the logs that formed the framework of Gaulish city walls. As two of them helped pull that swaying ladder back against the wall, other men fed thick ropes through the iron ring-pitons driven into the wall, then looped the ropes around the ladders and pulled them tight, tying them off and effectively holding the ladders against the walls, no matter how hard the defenders pushed. It was a satisfying technique put forward by Mamurra - the siege master - using the Gauls’ walls to anchor the ladders that would scale them.

And then in the press of men, Fabius found himself at the ladder and stepped aside as best he could in the press to allow Furius up first. The second tribune nodded his thanks and slammed his foot on the rung, ripping his sword free as he climbed since he, like his fellow tribune, carried no shield as a standard part of his uniform.

The two men swept up the ladder as fast as they could. A scream echoed from above and a flailing body fell past, his shield following on, to crash down to the ramp, where he thrashed and twitched. The tribunes paid him scant attention, concentrating on climbing up towards the cacophony of battle above. Fabius glanced up past his friend and spotted the Second century’s standard bearer two men above them.

The ladder shook wildly as the defenders renewed their attempts to push it away from the wall, and for a panicky moment Fabius lost his grip, quickly recovering it. The man above them was less fortunate, slipping and disappearing past them with a cry that ended in a thud and silence.

The standard bearer reached the top and Fabius was surprised to see the man disappear over the parapet suddenly with a squawk, pulled there by the defenders, presumably.

And then the world exploded into frantic action.

Furius was up and clambering over the top, Fabius right behind him. The ladder to their left was still in trouble, the men clambering up it meeting stiff resistance at the top and failing to make headway onto the wall. At the top of
this
ladder an arc of dead men - both Gaul and Roman -surrounded a killing zone, in which blades clashed and shields crashed. More and more of the Bituriges were arriving from the city below, joining the fight, though more Romans reached the ladder top every moment, evening the numbers as they grew. Fabius saw the standard bearer take a horrible blow to the face from a broad-bladed sword, slicing deep, horizontally through nose, cheeks and eyes and leaving a trench in the dying man’s head.

The standard fell, and Furius was straight at it. Fabius leapt after him, parrying a blow that should have taken Furius’ head off as he ran with single-minded purpose. The warrior lunged at him again and Fabius was forced to sidestep to deflect the blow, almost toppling back over the wall until the next legionary over the parapet pushed him back away. Three more clashes of blades and Fabius saw his opening, dipping low and driving his blade in just above the man’s hip, through his gut and up to pierce his heart.

He looked up to see Furius in trouble, turning aside blow after blow, mostly through blind luck, as he worked to free the standard from its dead bearer’s fingers. Leaping forward, Fabius slammed his sword into the attacker’s side, giving his friend a moment’s respite. The Gauls seemed to be pulling back under the onslaught, the wall top clearing and a space opening around them.

As he glanced about, he saw a wide area beginning to open around the other ladder, too. Sure enough, many paces over to their right, above the vineae at the far side of the ramp, the other two ladders were in place and men were securing the wall above them. He became aware, over the din of battle, of the cacophonic honking of carnyx in the city below, and realised the Gauls were pulling back, abandoning the walls.

Furius had the standard now and was struggling to find his feet.

‘
The corona
!’ someone shouted. ‘
The corona is won
!’

Fabius glanced round to see a blood-slicked legionary standing above the other ladder a few paces to their left, waving a standard from one of the centuries at that position. His gaze turned slowly back to Furius, to see his friend’s face drain of colour. The tribune rose slowly from his crouch, the standard slipping from his loose fingers. His gaze was fixed on the ecstatic legionary waving the other standard in a welter of blood. As Furius took an angry pace forward, Fabius stepped in front of him.

‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

Furius pushed his friend roughly out of the way, but Fabius grabbed his sword hand and pulled at the fingers until he dropped the blade. At least the tribune wouldn’t gut the victorious legionary, now.

He followed his friend, wiping the rain from his eyes and gesturing for the legionary to lower the standard, but the oblivious man was too busy celebrating as he waved it. The blood-soaked veteran reeled as the tribune’s punch connected with his jaw, sending him back two steps before he righted himself.

‘What…?’

‘That was for
Jerusalem
…’ Furius snarled, drawing a look of utter incomprehension from the legionary. He was still frowning in confusion as the tribune’s uppercut sent him back and onto his arse, the standard clattering away through the rain to the wet wall-top.

‘And that was for
Avaricon
, you pisspot!’

Furius sagged as Fabius grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backwards, uttering polite excuses to the legionary who lay on his back, massaging his face.

‘You are a mad bastard at times,’ he grinned at his irate companion.

* * * * *

Critognatos thrashed his sword around in the air in angry impotence, the rain ricocheting from his face and armour in a fine spray.

‘The cowards! The gods-forgotten cowards! Who sounded the recall? The walls could have been saved!’

Cavarinos nodded silently. Much as he hated to agree with his brother, it was true. The walls had fallen needlessly, and with them Avaricon had gone. But it was not cowardice, whatever Critognatos said. It was laxity. It was over-confidence and negligence on the part of the leaders of the city who had not insisted on a full complement on the wall regardless of the terrible weather. Had the wall held its usual number of men and been on proper alert, the Roman ladders would never have succeeded and the legions would not have managed to achieve a foothold on the parapet.

Still, it was all moot now. The wall
had
fallen.

‘We must rally the warriors. We can fight them still,’ Critognatos snapped. ‘We know these streets and Roman tactics will not work here. We can make them pay for every foot of ground they take.’

‘Pointless,’ Cavarinos replied sadly. ‘The city has fallen. All you will do is get more men killed.’

‘Then you advocate
flight
?’ his brother snarled.

‘Not for the Bituriges, actually. It’s up to the people of Avaricon what they do. Hide? Fight? Run? It is no longer our concern… it
cannot
be. We have to get back to Vercingetorix and the army.’

‘I will not run when the fight is upon us.’ Critognatos spotted a man with a carnyx over his shoulder running in the direction of the oppidum’s main square. ‘You!’

The man paused, his face flushed with panic, and jogged across to the two Arverni nobles, shaking his head to dislodge the water-logging from his wild hair and moustaches.

‘Here’s what I want: sound a call for your people to muster here. Then form into a wedge. It works for the Romans. Men with the biggest shields to the front, spears...’

‘Crit, he’s just a musician.’ Cavarinos turned to the man. ‘Just muster your warriors here.’

As the man began to honk, boo and squawk through the tall instrument, the noise somewhat dampened by the endless batter of rain, Cavarinos grabbed his brother by the shoulders, looking deep into his eyes. ‘We cannot stay. If we stay, we die.
Everyone
here is going to die. Caesar will not take slaves this time… he cannot feed them! Worse, perhaps, that Roman - Fronto - will recognise us and we will be interrogated before we die. Form them up to fight, but then we must leave them to it and run.’

The heavier-set of the pair looked back at his calm sibling and finally nodded, regretfully. ‘You’re right, of course. These cowards will have to die on their own now.’

As the first of the Bituriges warriors began to turn up in the street, Cavarinos watched the Romans filing along the walls, effectively surrounding the city using its own ramparts. ‘We have to go soon, or there will be no escape.’ He frowned. ‘But as we go, we need to fire the granaries, leave the Romans nothing.’

Critognatos grinned nastily and grabbed a local warrior by the shoulder. ‘Form into a wedge as the Romans do. Put your strongest men in the front with the biggest shields to hold the legionaries off. Have spearmen behind in the third or fourth row. As soon as the Romans come into the square, they will form into their usual line. Then you charge. As soon as your wedge breaks their formation, you can kill hundreds easily.’

The warriors looked uncertain but nodded anyway and began to organise all those who turned up. The brothers watched for a while as the wedge formed somewhat chaotically, the constituent warriors’ faces betraying their uncertainty and fear. They would never stop the Romans, but they would do a lot of damage if they held it together.

‘Time to go,’ Cavarinos whispered to his brother, and the pair moved to the rear of the formation and slipped into a side street.

As soon as they were gone the muttering began, and after only a few heartbeats men began to abandon the wedge, scurrying off into alleys, searching for an adequate hiding place. As the formation splintered and dissolved from within, a figure shouldered a spear and ran for a particular alley.

* * * * *

Cavarinos peered at the granaries - two tall timber structures that rested on stilts some three feet above the damp ground, allowing air to circulate and prevent both rot and rats from getting to the precious supplies within. As was usually the case, a loading block stood at the end of each with steps down the side to allow carts to unload their cargo directly into the buildings. The fact that they were by necessity kept so dry made granaries a terrible fire risk, but for once, that played to their design. Critognatos hefted the burning torch he had found in the doorway of a house as they ran, the sizzling pitch defying even the torrential rain to extinguish it.

‘We have to be thorough,’ Critognatos murmured.

‘We have to be
quick
!’ Cavarinos replied, listening to the sounds of the legionaries moving through the streets like an iron tide rolling over the Bituriges and drowning them in blood.

His brother nodded and clambered up the steps of the first loading block, wrenching at the door of the granary and hauling it open. As the door swung wide, the big man sighed. There was enough grain inside to feed an army for weeks, and this was only one of two granaries. If only they could work out how to get the grain out to Vercingetorix…

But they couldn’t. They’d be lucky to make it away themselves, and the Romans must not have the supplies.

Cavarinos watched his brother standing in the doorway and hissed ‘hurry up.’ His eyes were drawn to a narrow side-street where an older man came running around a corner screaming and then pitched forward, face-first, into the dirt, a pilum embedded deep in his back, bent at the end of the iron shaft.

‘They’re coming, Crit. Get it done!’

Critognatos hurriedly touched his torch to a couple of the dry grain sacks and watched them spring into flaming orange life, wincing at the sharp pain in his shoulder every time he did so. As he left the building, he spotted a small party of legionaries charging down the alley towards the granaries. A tell-tale racket betrayed the approach of more along the main street, too.

‘We have to go!’ he shouted as he jumped from the block. A crack of thunder split the grey air just above the city.

As Cavarinos ducked out of sight of the advancing Romans, Critognatos spotted one of the locals dithering at the corner. ‘You!’

The man ran across, his spear wavering, a look of confusion on his features which only increased as the big Arvernian thrust the sputtering torch into his hand and pointed at the sealed granary.

‘I’ve lit one. You do the other.’

The man stared down at the torch, but nodded fearfully, and in answer to his brother’s shout, Critognatos turned and ran for the northern edge of the city, leaving the granary street and fleeing for his life.

* * * * *

Samognatos looked down at the torch in his hand and then up at the retreating back of the two enemy chiefs as they disappeared. The Romans had paused in the alley to loot a couple of the houses and butcher whoever they found within, the screams testament to their vile activity.

The Condrusi scout had only a moment of doubt. There was always a possibility the Romans would ignore anything he said and simply butcher him as a local. If only Fronto and his singulares were here. With a swallow of his nerves, Samognatos cast aside his spear and scurried over to the water trough opposite the granaries, placed strategically for just such a circumstance. Without a moment’s pause, he thrust the burning torch into the water with a hiss and a column of steam and, leaving it floating, picked up one of the three buckets, scooping a copious quantity of water into it.

The left-hand of the twin granaries was now catching badly, the interior lit by an orange glow. The other building would probably be safe. The torrential rain would save the second granary if the first burned away, but every sack of grain that could be saved was crucial.