Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (35 page)

The legionary’s sword fell from loose fingers as he collapsed to the ground, still spraying lifeblood and gurgling a blood-filled scream.

Fronto drew his pugio with his free hand and advanced on the Gaul, but the man was both big and quick, wrenching his long sword from the dying Roman’s neck with a horrible cracking sound and bringing it up ready. The warrior had a body shield, a mail shirt and a killer’s blade. The only thing he lacked was a helmet, which no doubt rested somewhere nearby where he had been crouched. Fronto, conversely, wore a fine quality russet woollen tunic and held two short blades. He felt woefully inadequate and eyed the long blade nervously.

Memories of his many training sessions with Masgava flashed into his mind. ‘
If a man has a long sword
,’ the big Numidian had explained, ‘
he is limited at close range. Do not be afraid to close on him. The closer you are, the harder it will be for him to use his blade, and he will be limited to using body parts against you
.’

Instead of hesitating and keeping out of reach of the long blade, Fronto picked up his pace, throwing himself at the Gaul and praying that the man didn’t have time to hold the sword forth to impale him.

Sure enough, the unwieldy size of the blade prevented the warrior from bringing it to bear in time, and Fronto hit the man as hard as he could, putting all his weight into the charge. The man recoiled only slightly, his foot pushed back to brace himself as he hunched behind the shield. Fronto felt the collision as though he’d been sideswiped by a chariot at full speed, the shield’s rib, which ran down its length, bulging out to a metal boss at the centre, cracking a rib and bruising him instantly.

He had no time to recover. Although the Gaul had been barely shaken by a charge which had already hurt Fronto, the legate knew it had given him a brief advantage, making the man’s sword effectively useless until he could back-step out of the press. He allowed his gladius to fall from his right hand and reached up in a fluid move, gripping the top of the man’s painted blue shield and dragging it down with every ounce of strength he could muster, ignoring the throbbing of his ribs and hip.

Gods, but the man was strong. Fronto felt the shield coming down, but the Gaul was fighting him every inch of the way, the big sword seemingly forgotten as the struggle for the shield raged.

But gradually, finger-width by finger-width, the shield dropped, revealing the chest and shoulder of the warrior behind, the doubling of the man’s mail shirt at the shoulder giving him extra bulk. Up came Fronto’s other hand, gripping the pugio.

The warrior was not done yet, though. Seeing the knife approaching, he ducked his head to the side, away from the weapon, simultaneously bringing up his right hand. As they had struggled, the man had somehow reversed his grip on the sword and now brought it up pommel first, smashing it at Fronto’s face. The legate saw the blow coming and tried to dip his face out of the way but, without releasing the shield, he was limited. The blow landed, not centrally on the bridge of his nose as intended, but on his cheek. He felt the heavy pommel smash into his back teeth and scrape up his cheek bone, drawing blood. Waves of agony washed through him and he felt blood and tooth fragments on his tongue as his mouth opened in a cry.

But he was not the only one yelling out. Just as the Gaul’s pommel had smashed into his cheek, so Fronto’s other hand had found its mark, the dagger driving into the warrior’s neck just above the mail shirt’s collar and driving down above the collar bone into unprotected soft flesh. Through the pain, Fronto could barely see what he was doing, but even blinded by the agony and the rain, he raked the blade and twisted it, ripping it back up through what felt like a tendon.

He faltered and almost fell as the Gaul collapsed, Fronto’s fingers still clamped around the shield rim, and he staggered back, shaking, the rain still blurring his eyes as much as the pain in his mouth. Taking a ragged breath, he spat and felt pieces of tooth come out with the saliva and blood.

Shaking like a leaf, he reached up, wincing at the pain in his ribs as he did so, and wiped the rain from his eyes.

The Gaul was still alive, but was convulsing and jerking as blood pumped from a wide, savage and ragged hole above his clavicle. Fronto stared down at him. The warrior was younger than he’d thought, seventeen or eighteen summers old at most.
Ridiculous
. When Fronto had been in Spain with Caesar, standing at that statue of Alexander the Great, this man who’d nearly killed him today had been a howling babe! When the Tenth had first followed the Helvetii into this land, the dying Gaul here had probably been running around the fields and playing war games with his friends, using sticks and wicker shields. How long had they been in Gaul now?

He felt very old all of a sudden.

Taking care to knock the sword away from the Gaul’s twitching hand he crouched, turning his head to spit out another gobbet of blood. He looked down into the young warrior’s eyes with an empathy that surprised him, given what had just happened. The young man wore a perplexed expression, as though he simply could not fathom what had happened. Not the defiant dying gaze of a seasoned warrior, but the innocent bewilderment of a boy.

‘I know,’ Fronto said quietly, wincing at the pain in his jaw as he spoke. ‘It’sh all shuch a damn washte.’

He sighed, the last of his aggression ebbing away at this sight. At Cenabum he had released all the tension that had built up for months - years, even, and since then it was becoming harder to find the heart for such killing with every fight. This campaign could not be over soon enough.

The boy tried to speak, but the pain was too much, and he gritted his teeth against it.

For the first time since winter, Fronto actually found himself thinking about that agreement he’d made with Lucilia. Retirement. No more blood and pain. No more living like this. Most importantly, no more watching the light go out in the eyes of mere children.

‘I’m shorry,’ he added, and reached down, quickly and expertly slicing the young warrior’s throat, putting him out of his misery. The Gaul gasped for a moment, his eyes bulging as air and blood issued from the wound, and quickly the life fled from his gaze. Fronto reached down to his belt, felt for the leather pouch attached, and withdrew two small bronze coins, fastening it again. With care, he placed one on the Gaul’s tongue and pushed the mouth closed.
Charon’s obol
. The coin to pay the ferryman.

Rising, with the pain throbbing in his side, he staggered across to the still form of Quietus and repeated the act. The sounds of fighting back in the woods still echoed across the ground, but it was dying away. He had no doubt that the Romans had won the day - with Palmatus and Masgava in there, the Gauls stood no chance. And the horses were now wandering around the field, eating happily, keeping a distance from the bloodshed.

Straightening, he tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and felt the rain washing his face clean. Two teeth. Possibly three. He yelped slightly as his tongue explored the damage.

Yes, this war could not be over soon enough, now.

* * * * *

Caesar peered down at the Tenth’s legate, who sat on a log with a skin of water, taking swigs to swill out his mouth and then spitting it back out to the grass, tainted with the dark stain of blood in the mix.

‘You have looked better, Fronto.’

The legate looked up and winced. ‘I’m too old for thish.’

Caesar laughed mirthlessly. ‘Aren’t we all, Marcus. But soon it will be over. We have the rebels now. We’ll soon be on them. I’ve set the men about building the bridge, and the recall order has already gone out to Antonius and the rest of the army. By the time Vercingetorix knows we have crossed, two legions will be on this bank and well-entrenched, while the others file across to join us. As soon as we’re assembled west of the river, we can move against him. If he has any sense now, he’ll run for his walls at Gergovia, though I am still hoping he has the pride and guts to meet us on the plain.’

Wincing and grunting with the effort, Fronto rose. ‘He’ll make for the oppidum. Hish numbersh are not enough to enshure him victory in the field, sho he’ll retreat to the shafety of hish wallsh.’

‘I think you need to see my dentist, Marcus.’

‘I think I need a shtrong drink and a lie down.’

‘And you’ve earned them,’ the general smiled and looked around at Palmatus who stood nearby, blood running down from a cut on his brow and making him blink repeatedly. ‘Perhaps you should have the legate’s tent raised quickly and then all of you report to the medicus before you go off duty. Well done, all of you.’

As the general moved on with his praetorians at his heel, and the coterie of staff officers hurrying alongside, Rufio appeared, looming over them with an impish grin.

‘This is why as we age, we let the young men fight our battles for us, Marcus.’

Fronto merely grunted, carefully keeping his opinions of that statement locked behind his teeth, though they be fewer than usual. ‘Where’sh your wine flashk?’

Rufio frowned at him. ‘What makes you think I have one on me?’

Fronto merely answered by twitching his fingers, indicating the need for a flask, and with a grin, Rufio reached beneath his cloak and produced the desired object, passing it across.

‘You drink to your success?’

‘To the fallen,’ Fronto grunted.

Whoever they fight for
, he added in the silence of his mind.

Chapter 12

Gergovia

Fronto whistled through his teeth - a habit that had recently become considerably easier - as he looked up at the vertiginous site of the Arvernian capital, sweat running down from his helmet brow, the felt liner soaked. Instinctively, at the twinge of his nerves through his three missing teeth, he reached up under the cheek-piece and massaged his jaw and discoloured cheek. Five days had passed since the fight at the bridgehead, and he still had not had the opportunity to consult Caesar’s dentist, the man seemingly constantly busy. Consequently, the Tenth’s chief medicus had removed the broken roots from his jaw - quite far back as they were and consequently extremely troublesome. Fronto had made sure he was thoroughly inebriated beforehand, and yet had still wept like a baby at the pain. He’d spoken in passing about the matter of false teeth, but at the mention of root-moulds and casting iron replacements that would need hammering into the jaw, he had quickly decided he could learn to live with chewing on the left side only.

‘A difficult proposition,’ Antonius noted, dragging his attention back to Gergovia to the nodding agreement of the other officers present.

The legions were busy over a mile to the west, on a low rise with adequate space, creating and fortifying a camp large enough to hold eight legions, working on the hope that Priscus would soon put in an appearance with Brutus, Aristius and the Narbonensis forces. While the men toiled, however, the senior officers and their assorted guards and attendants had come for a closer look at their objective, a mile and a half from the enemy oppidum, and only half a mile from the nearest Gallic forces.

Once more, Fronto cursed the need to delay for the baggage and artillery. They had moved fast but, unfettered as they were, Vercingetorix and his army had moved faster, securing themselves at Gergovia before the Roman forces could arrive on the scene.

And Gergovia was more than ‘a difficult proposition’. In fact, Fronto would go so far as to label a man mad if he felt the urge to attack the place.

The main walled oppidum was probably the largest he’d seen in all his years in Gaul, covering the surface of a plateau of impressive dimensions: a mile long, half a mile wide and towering at least a thousand feet above where the officers stood, surrounded by steep slopes on all sides - barring the west, which was protected by two conical hills, each impressive in their own right. A man would be exhausted before he was even half-way up that slope. Add to that the heavy arms and armour he would be carrying and Fronto could not picture any force still being in fighting shape when they reached the summit. Moreover, in the past five days the temperature had risen continuously, and that storm at the bridge had cleared all hints of rain - and indeed moisture - from the sky, leaving azure blue with occasional puffs of high white cloud. In short: it was hot, and getting hotter all the time.

Clearly Vercingetorix had not evacuated the civilians of Gergovia, for the town seemed alive with chimney smoke, noise and activity, yet the entire Gallic army lay camped around it, rather than within. The bulk of the forces lay outside the ramparts to the south, on the gentle slope high up, near the summit, spread out over the mile length. More of them were visible on the twin high peaks to the west, too. And a further camp occupied a similar plateau lower down and further south, close to where the Romans watched. This latter rose from the lowest slopes like a fortress itself, upon strong, chalky cliffs, pock-marked with caves.

‘I have no idea how we’re going to take this place,’ Fronto said finally.

‘Ramp?’ suggested Plancus.

‘Too high,’ Antonius countered. ‘For a slope shallow enough to get anything useful up, it would have to be miles long. It would take months to complete. A year, perhaps. My advice would be to secure ourselves a closer position - a sort of bridgehead.’

‘The campsite we selected is the closest unoccupied hill large enough to support a force our size,’ Caesar mused wearily.

‘Then we’ll have to use an occupied one; a smaller one.’ Antonius pointed at the lowest enemy camp, far below its counterparts, yet still some three hundred feet above where they sat astride their horses. ‘Let’s drive them away and take that. There’s room up there for… what, two legions?’

Fronto started to smile, but stopped himself quickly. Smiling was still an excruciating pain.

‘And it guards access to the stream. He’s right. That’s the first step.’

* * * * *