Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (53 page)

Lucterius nodded and Vercingetorix peered down at the manoeuvring Romans again.

‘Every man who can fight.’

‘Sorry?’

‘We need every man old enough to carry a blade without the tip dropping. We want horse. We want swordsmen. We want archers. We want spear-bearers. Even the greybeards. Every man the tribes can provide. And if they do this, I will give them victory over Rome. If they do not, then we cannot fight our way out of Alesia and more than eighty thousand chosen men of the tribes will be sacrificed on Caesar’s altar.’

‘It will take time to gather the men of whom you speak.’

The Arvernian king nodded. ‘Even though the Mandubii are still in residence, with no cavalry to maintain we have grain for perhaps thirty days. If we agree to suffer hardship, that can be dragged out. Be quick, though, and urge the assembly to be quick.’

Lucterius nodded, his face serious. ‘I will bring you your army, my king.’

The Cadurci chieftain turned and strode off into the oppidum proper, hunting those leaders whose tokens he would need to convince their countrymen, and the king turned to the other two with him. ‘Thank you for your understanding and your hospitality, my friend,’ he addressed the Mandubian chieftain. ‘I would ask that you and my esteemed commander here,’ a gesture made to Cavarinos, ‘divide up the cattle and grain stored in Alesia and distribute it as fairly as possible between the tribes encamped here and the Mandubii population. Cavarinos is a good man. He will not attempt to feed our army at the expense of your people. But if we are to win here and to free our land of the nailed Roman boot, we must pull together as far as possible.’

Almost as an afterthought, he frowned and addressed the local before the two left. ‘I believe we have near two thousand Mandubii among our forces. I would ask that you follow the plan I have set for all the tribes. Any man old enough to lift a sword and young enough to still run would be valued among our army.’

The chieftain bowed his head, and Cavarinos could feel the nerves twanging in the man as he walked alongside away from the western bluff.

Finally alone, Vercingetorix looked down at the forces once more. Several legions had moved off along the valleys to either side of Alesia, taking up position on the hills facing it, but the bulk of the force remained on that wide plain before him. He fancied he could almost discern a white horse and a red cloak moving about among the rank and file, and he smiled coldly.

‘Your time has come, Gaius Julius Caesar, child of Venus and Proconsul of Rome. You came to our land hunting fractured tribes, but in your time here, you have turned us into one Gaul, strong and proud like the boar we revere. And this boar has razor tusks.’

* * * * *

Fronto stood on the low rampart of the large westernmost camp, which rose upon the slopes of a hill known among the scouts as Mons Rea - the
mountain of guilt
. The name did not sit well with him as a site for such a major base of operations, but Caesar had been set in his design. The general would command the Tenth and Eleventh in a camp on the apex of the southern ‘
mountain of the
gods’ gate
’ hill as well as a second camp further round that same range, housing the Eighth and Thirteenth. Labienus commanded a third camp on the north-eastern hill, known as ‘
the maw
’, with the First and Seventh in residence. In the shallow valley to the north, a smaller camp would house the Ninth and Fourteenth under Trebonius. Here in the
Mons Rea
camp, the Twelfth and Fifteenth would guard the plain, with Antonius in command of both that and Varus’ three cavalry camps spread across the wide plain before Alesia. The plan neatly encircled the Mandubian city in a ring of iron and flesh.

Each officer and unit had its place and its hierarchy, though this evening Caesar was present at the site of the Mons Rea camp, overseeing the first phases of the work. Despite granting him a good view across the plain, this camp still looked up at the towering bulk of Alesia, which resembled an upturned boat with its prow pointing at the concentration of Roman forces on the plain. Caesar moved among the men constructing the camp, encouraging and providing heart, even sharing a crass joke here and there with the legionaries as though such talk came naturally.

Antonius produced his ever-present wineskin from the folds of his cloak as the two men moved towards the fire that burned just inside the camp perimeter, holding back the increasing gloom and providing heat against the chill breeze that seemed to come from nowhere to whip across the plain. Varus huddled by the fire, looking bored.

Masgava and Palmatus hovered nearby. Since that damned Priscus had let slip to them that Fronto had wandered off out of camp in the close company of one of the enemy, the singulares had never let him out of their sight and he was beginning to get sick of the admonishment and disapproval that flowed from the men in waves and the way they clung to him like a bad smell. He’d even found it near impossible to crap, with the sound of his bodyguard waiting patiently beyond the leather wall.

‘I’ve never seen a system like it,’ Antonius said between pulls on his drink.

‘It’s certainly one of the most impressive engineering plans I’ve heard come out of that command tent,’ Fronto agreed. ‘On a par with the Avaricon ramp, at least.’

Varus, his cavalry divided between the quarters on the plain and guarding the construction work, was left at something of a loose end and looked up from the warm glow of the fire. ‘Eleven miles of rampart and ditch.
Eleven miles
! That’s more than a mile for each legion.’

‘Don’t forget the palisade, the towers and the camps,’ Antonius reminded him. ‘It’s days of work at least.
Twenty three
redoubts, he wants, connecting the main camps.’

‘Caesar is clearly serious about pinning the rebels down this time,’ Fronto noted, warming his hands and gratefully accepting a drink from Antonius. ‘Vercingetorix has been too mobile and troublesome. Now the general has him trapped, he’s not going to give him the chance to slip away and run again.’

‘More than that,’ Antonius mused, ‘I think he’s still smarting from the beating we took at Gergovia. He’ll not let it happen again and he won’t leave this place until he has redeemed both himself and all of us.’ He looked down into the flames. ‘Truth be told, with the ongoing situation in Rome, he cannot afford to. Word of Gergovia has probably already filtered back to the city. I know the lines of communication are cut, but bad news spreads faster than you’d believe and can jump breaks in communication. Rome’s confidence in him will be shaken. He can put that right now, but if he lets the rebel slip away again or win one more fight, it might well be the end of his political career. Pompey will use the failure to destroy him. A lot rides on this fight.’

Varus shook his head. ‘I remember the general saying at Gergovia that we couldn’t afford the time it would take to lay full siege to the place. It would require a vast ramp that would take many months. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this place doesn’t look a whole lot different to me.’

‘There’s one major difference, though,’ Fronto said, passing the wine over to the cavalry commander. ‘Vercingetorix had always allowed for his capital to be a fall-back position, I think. It was extremely well supplied in preparation. The rebel army could have lived a year or more there without worrying unduly, and still had forage opportunities and water. Alesia is not his place, though. Indeed, this city was a peaceful, out-of-the-way town, a long way from the war. They cannot have expected to be besieged, and so there is little likelihood that they have anything more than their own declining granaries for supplies. And now he has a larger army to support. He’s going to start getting hungry fast, and when that happens he’s going to have to choose between starvation or coming down from his mountain to fight us.’

Antonius smiled wickedly. ‘I hope he does. It’s about time we got the chance to crush the man’s balls. My main concern is that they might try to break out before we construct the ramparts.’

The general had given the order for the circumvallation of the oppidum to proceed at the quickest pace possible. The army was moving in shifts, cohorts resting and on guard duty while others worked, all under the watchful eye of a few legionary guards and cavalry scouts. Then at the next watch the cohorts and guards would swap. But still, eleven miles would take quite a while.

‘Vercingetorix will not commit his entire army to that,’ Fronto replied. ‘If he was willing to meet us in battle he’d have done it before now. He might test us a few times, though.’

‘Sooner rather than later, too,’ coughed Varus, dropping the wine bag and leaping up to the low, unfinished rampart a few paces away. The other two joined him, picking out the faint strains of a cavalry tuba blowing a desperate call a mile or two out across the plain.

It was dark enough now that it had become tough picking out individual detail down on the plain, excepting the camp fires dotted about providing focal points for the legions at work and at rest. But there, perhaps a mile and a half across the flat grassland, something was happening. A flood of large shapes was moving from the lower slopes towards where the Roman presence was thinnest.

Cavalry
!

Varus turned to the legionary who was tending the fire, adding roughly-hewn logs from a nearby pile.

‘Bring my horse over here and sound the general alarm.’ His narrowed eyes fell upon Antonius. ‘And where are the Germans quartered?’

* * * * *

Lucterius of the Cadurci clung tight to his reins, urging on his horse to an even greater turn of speed. It had quickly become apparent, as he had stood at the walls of Alesia with his best warriors, that the plain was the only option for a breakout, despite the concentration of forces there. No sensible cavalry commander would try and take his force north, south, or east, for the hills they would have to cross were high and surmounted by fortifying legions. The horses would be too slowed by the gradient to present a show of strength at the top. And the two river valleys that ran northeast and southeast were too narrow for comfort. If the Romans had already set defences there - which any sensible besieger would - then they would be riding into almost certain death.

That had left the plain which, at almost three miles in length, was good ground for cavalry, and a little careful observation had easily picked out the weakest point. Here at the centre, perhaps two cohorts of men worked at digging a trench, the bulk of the forces concentrating on the main camp to the north end of the plain and the area below it.

The hooves of the seven hundred beasts conveying his force thundered down the lowest slopes, every man keeping their silence. It seemed odd, at least for the Cadurci among them, to be riding into a fight without their traditional whooping war cries, but their hope of overcoming the encircling forces relied as much on surprise as it did on strength. They had lost only a dozen or so men on the horrific, helter-skelter plunge down the steep hillside. Maybe a score. Astounding, really, considering the terrain in the dark.

Ahead, on the plain, the legions were now beginning to spot something happening. The odd native horsemen stationed around the place as scouts had noticed the force sweeping down the slope towards them. A horn blew to warn the Romans.
Too late
, thought Lucterius with a savage grin.

His horse was the first to reach the enemy, as was appropriate for a respected war leader, and his steed easily leapt the four foot ditch and the panicked legionary busy with his pick, tearing out chunks to deepen the defences. The mound behind it, made with the spoil from the ditch, was no more than three feet high yet - nowhere near enough to deter Lucterius’ forces.

His arm came out and back while his horse jumped and he swept it forward as a legionary rose from his digging, trying to present his tool as a defensive weapon to parry the blow. The long blade, its edge honed sharp for just such cavalry manoeuvres where thrusting was useless and backed by immense momentum, carved straight through the man’s arm as though it were naught more than butter, on and into his neck, where it bit deep, severing arteries and muscles and tendons. He felt the familiar tug as the dying body clung on to the blade wedged in it, but with a twist of the elbow, Lucterius changed his sword’s angle and it ripped out, already held to the rear and ready to sweep for another kill.

The Cadurci chieftain realised he was laughing maniacally, and had to force himself to remember that this was not a cavalry charge into battle. He was not here to maim and kill Romans. He was here to make it to freedom and carry the urgent request for reinforcements. His men seemed to be suffering a similar urge to kill. The first few men who had touched turf behind the defences alongside him had actually reined in their beasts and were busy laying about them with their blades, cutting down exhausted Romans.

More were arriving in the oppressive darkness and taking to the battle with glee.

There were so few enemies here really - just a few tired engineers building a wall. Perhaps he could allow his men the freedom to spend their time killing Romans for a few moments before they made for the south-western horizon?

No. This was no time to indulge their whims. Time now to get the Arvernian king’s message to the gathering at Bibracte. The army was relying on them, and Lucterius was once more a respected figure among them. He would not risk failure and ignominy again.

Turning, he spotted his standards - two men bearing the boar and the dragon - and near them the man with the horn on a strap round his neck. ‘Sound the signal to move out. This is not a fight, but a break out.’

As the three men did so Lucterius defied his own orders, aware that it would take a number of heartbeats yet for his entire force to cross the ditch and rampart, and devoting the time as he watched them jump down onto the flat turf to unleashing his fury upon the poorly-armed Romans. They had been digging, not preparing for the fight, and only one man in four was armoured and had kept his shield, most of them labouring away in just their russet tunics and unarmed apart from their tools. With a snarl of pure hatred, Lucterius hacked down with his gleaming, red-stained blade, cleaving through tunics, skin and muscle again and again, killing men with wild abandon.