Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (44 page)

The horse moved. To a walk. To a canter.

He was going to make it
.

One of the legionaries around the officer paused for a moment, his arm coming back, and he cast a pilum with surprising accuracy. Teutomarus, craning with pain as he rode to keep his eyes on the attackers, saw the throw and jerked the reins desperately. The iron point scored a line along the horse’s flank in its passage, causing the animal to bolt. He barely registered the Roman officer berating the legionary for his throw for some reason. Instead, he held on tight as the animal’s instincts took it and its rider away from danger at breakneck pace, sending wave after wave of agony through his back. He was in a tremendous amount of pain, but he was alive and moving out of danger. Now to find his men, present a force against the Romans and get a signal to Vercingetorix as fast as possible.

* * * * *

Furius and Fabius roared with rage as they raced up the gentle grassy slope and across the Gallic camp. The Eighth had been given the left flank, closer to the west and to the Gauls who were currently massed on the twin hills nearby. The former tribunes, now centurions once more and carefully placed in charge of men who had not been present at the mess that had resulted in them being here, led their centuries with the fierce voracity of men with something to prove.

A number of Gauls remained in the camp, mostly the sick or injured, though there were a few hale and hearty types who put up as stiff resistance as could be expected given their scant numbers and the strength of the army pouring up the hillside towards them, swarming over the stone wall and flooding the camp, already torching tents.

There were signs, to the trained eye, that the Gauls had not been quite as complacent as the Romans had initially imagined: scrape marks where crates and barrels and sacks of goods had recently been removed to the safety of the oppidum walls, bald spots where pack animals had been grazing before they’d moved, discoloured patches of grass where supply tents had been taken down and shifted to safety. But still there were plenty of targets for the torches.

‘Spread out,’ bellowed Petreius, the Eighth’s primus pilus, making sure his legion covered as much ground and caused as much destruction as possible. His musicians began to blast out those commands but they were hard to discern, given similar tunes being blared by the other legions across the slope and the honking and farting of the Gallic carnyxes up on the oppidum in response to the Roman attack. The sheer web of conflicting notes from numerous sources was headache-inducing.

A small group of the camp’s occupants had caught sight of the men of the Eighth, grabbed their weapons and run back up the slope towards the oppidum wall. Where they planned to go was anyone’s guess, since in both directions other units from the Eighth were in evidence, going about their destructive work.

‘Come on,’ Fabius shouted across to Furius, pointing his sword in the direction of the dozen or so enemy warriors rushing for the oppidum’s rampart, towering above them. Two of the men glinted with gold and bronze, marking them as nobles or commanders among the enemy, and Fabius grinned, recognising the means of their redemption in the eyes of their commanders. The order had been to kill, not capture, but Fabius felt certain that there was an implicit clause in the case of enemy commanders. Surely they would be too valuable to Caesar to kill out of hand.

And so, as the Eighth spread throughout the western third of the camp, burning tents and supplies, killing the few men they came across and taking whatever they could, two centuries raced on towards the upper slopes.

The dozen enemies were at the wall now, even as the legionaries hurtled after them. Fabius watched with a dawning of clarity as three ropes were lowered by unseen men above, atop the ramparts, the lower part of each rope looped and tied to provide a foothold. Even as the hundred and more legionaries closed on the scene, the first three men began to rise up the wall’s face, their feet in the loops, gripping tight as they were hauled upwards. Above them on the ramparts more native signallers were blaring out horrible melodies over the general din of the oppidum and work being undertaken to strengthen its walls, drowning out the more distant Roman musicians back down the slope.

Few legionaries had brought pila. The officers had given the order before the assault that only soldiers who felt comfortable carrying the bulky missile on the climb need do so, and most had left them back in camp to allow for an unencumbered ascent. Additionally, most of those who
had
bothered had cast them while crossing the wall in the initial surge. Yet one man in Furius’ century still carried his and the man paused
,
drawing back his arm and casting the pilum. The missile sailed true, striking one of the rising figures in the back. The fleeing Gaul cried out, his back arched around the weapon as his grip loosened and he fell from the rope.

Fabius almost laughed as he heard his friend turn to the pilum-throwing legionary, admonishing him.
What if he’d hit the noblemen?
‘Make sure you take the two nobles alive,’ Furius yelled above the din and chaos as Fabius concentrated on the enemy group ahead. ‘I don’t care about the rest,’ Furius went on, ‘but
those
two come back with…’

The centurion’s voice trailed off, and Fabius had to turn his head considerably to see what had happened, his missing left eye narrowing his field of vision.

He lurched to a halt, his men still running past him.

Furius was standing, still waving with his sword as if berating his men, apparently not even noticing the wet crimson shaft of the arrow protruding from his throat-apple. The flights had prevented the missile passing straight through his neck, becoming lodged in his spine at the back.

Fabius felt his blood run cold as his old friend turned slowly towards him, a look of utter incomprehension spreading across his face, trying to look down and see what had happened, but the motion impossible as the arrow kept his jaw up. The mortally wounded centurion tried to call over to his friend, but all that came out was a gobbet of blood. Furius frowned as his sword fell from suddenly limp fingers and he collapsed to his knees, his chin bouncing off the arrow shaft with the movement.

He tried to shake his head in dismay, but it wouldn’t move. The dying centurion’s soldiers were now pulling to a halt in distress, not sure what to do.

‘
Bastards
,’ snarled Fabius with a vicious edge and, tearing his eyes from his stricken friend, pointed at the wall. ‘Get the fuckers!’ he bellowed to the men of both centuries. A dozen paces away, Furius, finally succumbing to the dreadful wound, toppled forward, where he lay face down with his legs kicking out spasmodically.

Somewhere above the din of battle and destruction and the thunder of his pulse in his ears, Fabius could vaguely hear the sound of a cornicen blowing calls to the legions. It mattered not. His men, and those of Furius, were now at the wall, stabbing and smashing at the Gauls as they attempted to flee. Two of the enemy were now two-thirds of the way up the wall and still rising. The third rope had been lowered again, and one of the nobles was struggling onto it as the men of the Eighth hacked away at his guards.

‘Fabius!’

He turned, his face pale and stony, to see Petreius, the primus pilus, waving at him.

‘That was the call to fall back.’

‘No.’ He’d heard a call, but hadn’t been able to hear precisely what command it carried. Not that it mattered to him at this point.

Petreius jogged over. ‘Don’t be stupid, man. We’ve done what we came to do. Now come on.’

‘No.’ Fabius turned his back on his commander, who raised his voice over the clamour.

‘Retreat, centurion. That’s a direct order.’

His words fell like droplets of water from the back of Fabius as the man ran on for the wall, unheeding.

’Shit,’ sighed Petreius, watching the vengeful veteran heading for the oppidum wall where his men were busy killing the last of the fleeing Gauls. For a moment, the primus pilus dithered. There were other blasts now, and not from Roman instruments. He couldn’t afford to wait. No one could. The Gauls were coming back.

Turning, he spotted his second centurion watching him intently.

‘Get the rest of the legion back away, out of here.’ As the second centurion saluted and began confirming the order to fall back among his men and the other centuries as best he could, realising he would not be able to rely on cornu calls in the din, Petreius took a deep breath and waved his own century on after the two at the wall.

The legionaries, weary from the climb and suffering the extreme effects of the heat in current conditions, shouldered their burden with fortitude and slogged on up the slope after the wayward Fabius and his men. Petreius cast a brief look at the still form of Furius as they passed, taking in the sight with mixed feelings. The man had been a veteran and clearly a daring soldier, but he had been unpredictable and carried a reputation for disobedience, and Petreius had argued against the man’s transfer in the first place. It was looking distinctly as though the man’s friend was cast from a similar mould, too.

At the wall, Fabius watched as his men dispatched the last of the locals, two legionaries trying desperately to slash at the noble on the third rope, who was just out of their reach.

‘Testudo!’ Fabius yelled at the top of his voice. While the majority of the men looked back in confusion or kept trying to catch the rising noble with their blades, nine or ten men reacted with the discipline bred into them and hunched down, bringing their shields up into a temporary roof.

Without pause, Fabius ran and jumped, landing on top of the testudo and racing across three shields with steady feet as the men beneath tried to keep formation under his weight. At the last step, the centurion leapt into the air, his sword lashing out even as his arm reached for the rope.

His gladius sank into the small of the Gallic noble’s back. His free hand missed the rope, but grasped the Gaul’s shoulder, and he clung tight to the thick wool of his tunic. The man screamed at the pain, arching, his fingers slipping from the rope.

For a desperate moment - a heartbeat, two at the most - Fabius was in the air, clinging to the stricken Gaul. But somehow his hand found purchase on the cable and he clung on with all his strength as the nobleman fell with a thud to be finished off by the legionaries below. The rope was still rising, the Gauls above oblivious to the fact that the burden on it was now a Roman and not their own noble. Hurriedly, Fabius dug his foot into the loop and held tight, readying his blade for the moment he reached the top.

Furius was gone. But Fabius was about to be the first man on the walls of Gergovia. His friend was gone, but he would be buried with a
corona muralis
!

* * * * *

Cavarinos raced alongside Lucterius and Vercingetorix, his horse’s hooves pounding as the three commanders raced ahead of the Gallic force. Upon hearing the call of the Carnyx that had come from a musician of the Nitiobriges, the leaders had realised too late that the gleaming legion in the woods and the supply wagons had been naught but a ruse. Those same Nitiobriges, presumably urged on by their king, who had remained at the oppidum, were now racing along Gergovia’s southern rampart and making for the point where the Romans were still fighting in small groups. Most of the legionaries were on the retreat now, making their way back towards the camp below, though with considerably less order than Cavarinos was used to seeing.

‘We’ve missed our chance,’ he yelled as they rode, the cavalry keeping pace behind, the infantry falling away further back, yet running as fast as they could.

‘What?’

‘Missed our chance. They’re pulling back.’

‘Oh, my friend,’ Vercingetorix smiled, ‘we have time yet.’

As Cavarinos frowned, his king turned and waved the cavalry on and down the slope after the retreating Romans.

‘Are you mad?’ Cavarinos yelled. ‘That’s too steep for cavalry!’

‘Not for Lucterius’ men. And look: the Romans are in disarray. Their middle legion is holding together well as they fall back, but the nearest one is all over the hillside, split up. And the far one…’ The king chuckled. ‘See the Aedui cavalry coming in from the east? Lack of communication can lose a battle. See how the farthest legion panics. They think the Aedui are ours!’

Cavarinos stared. It was true. At first glance, the Romans were pulling back well, but closer attention brought forth all the weaknesses. It looked like the legions to the east and west were not heeding the calls their commanders had put out, fleeing in all directions, so long as it was down, some even forming up to fight their own allied cavalry.

‘And look how slow they move,’ Cavarinos added. ‘They’re exhausted from the climb.’

‘Let us make them wish they had never set foot on our mountain,’ the king laughed and kicked his horse into action alongside the cavalry, who were now descending on the heels of the slower Romans, whooping and shouting with glee.

* * * * *

Fronto paused on the slope, heaving in gulps of air, sweat running into his eyes and soaking his helmet liner. Caesar was looking distinctly disgruntled.

‘The Eighth are falling back, but they’re in trouble. It looks like the enemy horse are riding them down as they retreat. A few of the better officers are trying to form the
contra equitas
, but they just can’t do it properly on this terrain and with no pila. They obviously weren’t expecting a cavalry assault. Who would? What mad bastard rides a horse down
that
slope?’

The sight of centuries trying to pull together further across the slope and create angled shield-walls was bad enough, but few men still had a pilum, so the formation would be unlikely to stop the enemy horse anyway.

The general rubbed his bare head angrily, his helmet long-since cast to the ground, sweat sprinkling his bald pate. ‘And yet note how few of them fall. They are good. The Eighth will remain in great danger until they reach level ground and can form against cavalry.’