Sons of Taranis (38 page)

Then to Serpent Ford and the supply dump.

As he waited for the rest of the five hundred to reach the trees and relative safety, he could feel Tarbos’ eyes on him and he turned to meet the man’s gaze. There was something troubling there. It was not just the distrust and sneering dislike he’d so far experienced from the idiot. This was something else. Why was he continually watching Lucterius? Why were he and his ten men even
with
Lucterius among the Cadurci contingent, instead of back with his huntsman master and the Senone warriors?

Did Drapes really distrust him so much that he’d set this shaved ape to watching him? If so it was a poor choice of spy.

He resolved to make damn sure he did away with Tarbos as soon as Drapes was no longer a factor.

* * * * *

Varus yawned and rubbed his face vigorously. Years of waking early on campaign still never made rising in the pre-dawn hours any easier. Plus, he had to admit in the privacy of his own mind, he was not as young as he once was. His gaze slid up through the endless, soul-sapping mist to the golden sky above, the first mackerel-skin stain of morning having already given way to the early sun that hit the ground and raised the ubiquitous mist. Every dawn and every dusk this place issued a white cloud like the breath of some giant subterranean creature.

Within an hour it would be properly light.

He could have relied on a lesser officer, of course. Doing the rounds was something that most commanders left to their lessers. Caninius certainly wouldn’t be strolling around his camp at the moment. He rarely rose from his cot until the sun was above the horizon. But Varus had learned from the best. Caesar knew the value of the personal touch. And Fronto too. A few others. Not like this new breed of officers that seemed too distant to be a part of the army proper.

But the importance of a personal appearance could hardly be measured. Varus’ men knew him and valued him already, but it was handy to have the respect of the infantry, too. Often in such situations the two branches of the military would have to work in concert, such as at Alesia last year. And a personal appearance from a senior officer made men feel valued. Especially the poor bastards who had done the last night shift of watch in the cold and the dark and the early morning mist.

‘Morning, lad.’

The sentry looked around. Good man. He’d had his gaze locked on the ground ahead of him and left and had not noticed the lone horseman walking up behind him from the Roman side. But then, unlike many of his fellows, this poor sod had a troublesome spot to watch. At the edge of the irritating marsh that spread like a suppurating wound from the twin waterways, the lad had to watch not only the forward ground, but also whatever he could of the tree-covered, mist-soaked marsh.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Nothing doing, I take it?’

The young soldier shook his head. ‘About an hour before dawn the fires were stoked and lit up there. Heard the slaughtering of animals for breaking their fast, sir. Not a pleasant noise, but I’ll be buggered if it didn’t sound damned tasty down here.’

Varus laughed. It was good to hear such light humour being tossed about on such a dark subject. The Roman forces were getting very hungry indeed, living on half bread rations and hard-tack biscuits. Soon, hopefully, Fabius would arrive with extra supplies. Certainly there was nothing to be found in the local farms and settlements. Whatever they had managed to produce in the area – probably not a lot after last year – had clearly already been taken into the oppidum before they arrived.

‘I’d certainly not argue with any man who plonked a plate of mutton before me right now,’ grinned Varus. ‘Gods, I’d eat a dog’s arse if it were cooked with enough onions!’

The soldier burst out laughing and Varus’ grin widened. This was what men like Caninius missed out on by not consorting with the lower ranks. Oh, it did something to a man. Somehow it cracked the noble outer that coated the patrician class and many of the equites and injected something of the common man. And that created men like Fronto, who were sometimes disapproved of by the higher echelons of the army. But by the gods it made good leaders and fighting men.

He crouched next to the young soldier.

‘Do you know what I had when I woke this morning?’

The lad cleared his throat nervously. Varus was well aware that even in times of privation the officers were treated to foods denied the men. The lad would be trying not to imagine what delicious foods Varus had tucked into in his tent. In actual fact, he had eaten only plain bread with a little salty butter. The boy was nervous.

‘Go on. Guess what I had when I woke up.’

The lad cleared his throat. ‘I… I have no idea, sir.’

‘A boner,’ Varus announced with a grin.

The young soldier dropped his shield as he exploded with laughter.

The other noise was so quiet that Varus almost missed it, but years of dealing with Gauls and their clever, wily ways made his ear twitch and the hair stand proud on the back of his neck. His spine shivered as though a hundred ants traversed it.

Quietly, he leaned forward and whispered in the lad’s ear.

‘Tell me a story. A loud one.’

The lad frowned, so Varus urged him with a hand gesture. As the young soldier began to recount some fairly dull tale of training, Varus rose from his crouch and padded as quietly as he could over to the trees nearby.

He somehow thought he knew what he was going to see, but was surprised by one aspect of it. The splash he’d heard could have been any animal in the marsh, but the quiet, almost inaudible curse clearly wasn’t. It had been too quiet to identify as non-Latin but, accompanied by a splash, it was no sentry. He’d known even before his eyes picked out the movement in the mist that it was Gauls sneaking through the marsh. What he hadn’t been expecting was that they were heading
to
the oppidum, rather than
from
it.

And they were carrying bundles of grain and sacks and bags. They were resupplying the oppidum! And they were moving very slowly.

He did a quick calculation. He had no idea how many men there were in the marsh, but surely they wouldn’t try and sneak more than a few hundred through here, else it would be too risky? The sentries were placed in the Roman cordon every two hundred paces. While it would take a while to gather enough men from the sentries to fight the Gauls, he could drag in maybe a dozen quickly enough to hold them off, while the garrison of the camp at the confluence was alerted. In a matter of two or three hundred heartbeats half a legion would be bearing down on this place. That was, after all, the point in sentries and strategically placed camps. He crept back to the young soldier and gestured for him to arm up and stand. As the lad did, clearly aware something was up, Varus took a deep breath and filled his lungs.

‘Alarm! Gauls in the marsh!’

Waving for the lad to follow him, he ripped his sword from its sheath and ran towards the tree where he’d seen the Gauls. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that away across the grass the next two sentries were already moving, converging on his position.

Good.

Now all he had to do was not die until the rest got here.

Tense and vibrating with that nervous energy that comes at the start of battle, Varus raced into the marsh, the young soldier behind him.

The Gauls had been taken by surprise and seemed to be suffering a lack of command cohesion. Some of them dropped their precious grain in the marshy water where it would be instantly ruined, drawing blades. Others grasped their heavy burdens over their shoulders, drawing a sword with a free hand and preparing to fight while horribly encumbered. Yet more simply shouldered their supplies and ran like hares for the safety of Uxellodunon.

Taking advantage of their disarray, and heedless to the danger, Varus picked a big man who had dropped a sack and drawn a sword and simply ran at him like an enraged bull. The big warrior raised his sword to bring it down on the charging Roman but at the last moment Varus dropped to a running crouch, swiping out with his blade as he passed. He was a cavalryman. The Gauls would be expecting legionary manoeuvres, using the traditional thrusting gladius of the infantry. But Varus’ sword was a horseman’s blade. Long, honed for slicing, and much more like the Gaul’s own blade, the sword sliced into the man’s legs at the top of the knees, below his tunic’s hem. Though the sword bounced from the bone and came away clean, the man issued a high pitched keening noise and fell into the swampy water on agonised legs.

Varus was already up, slashing at the next man, who was having trouble wielding his long sword while trying to maintain his grip on the heavy sack at his shoulder. The man’s extended arm was smashed to pieces by the blow, the wrist and hand that held the blade all-but severed, hanging by a thread as the man screamed and dropped the sack.

Again Varus was off like a demon, low again this time, his sword taking a man in the calf down to the bone, wrenching it back out as the Gaul pitched face first into the brackish swamp. A cut up that took a man in the side before slicing through the sack he carried, releasing a torrent of grain that fell like a pretty cascade into the green murk. A slice high again, bouncing back from a shoulder blade, but effective enough to send the man flying into the water.

Varus stopped as he realised there were no more Gauls. He had actually fought his way to the front of the resupply column. With immense satisfaction that penetrated even the fog of war, he turned and looked back through the mist. There were screams and calls. He stood for a moment, shaking slightly and taking stock. Two enemy blows had landed during that frenetic run, though he’d not noticed either at the time. One was a flesh wound in his upper left arm – had he taken a shield from his horse his left arm would not now be coated in sticky red – and the other was a nick in his hip that had touched bone where the flesh was thin, but had actually miraculously done no real damage.

Satisfied that not only would he live, but that he was in fact still in fine fighting condition, he turned and ran back towards the sound of fighting. As he saw the first shapes in the mist, he halted. Better he stop them getting any closer to the oppidum than get too bogged down fighting at the centre. He could hear shouts in Latin and see the shapes of legionaries, so several sentries were clearly now involved and, thankfully, over the top he could hear the whistles of centurions fairly close – evidence that reserves were pouring from the camp.

A desperate shape emerged through the mist, bloodied sword in hand and sheaf of grain over shoulder, and the Gaul’s eyes widened as he realised that he’d not achieved freedom as expected, but had, in fact, met the Roman officer who had demolished the front of their column.

Varus snarled and leapt at him, his sword flicking out and taking the stunned man in the throat.

Two more figures appeared behind as the first fell gurgling away, and Varus readied himself. All he had to do was hold the marsh and stop them getting away one at a time. These two were clearly nobles, from the quality of their clothes, weapons and few trinkets. The taller of the two, with a shrewd, instant recognition of the danger, pushed his friend towards the Roman officer and turned, barrelling off through the mist at a tangent towards where Varus and the lad had so recently been discussing food.

He had no chance to follow. The blocky, wide-shouldered noble who had been pushed at him knocked him backwards and he staggered. The noble was unencumbered with food and swiftly drew a sword, brandishing it at Varus and jabbing with it once, twice, thrice.

Varus watched the brute’s eyes. He was squat but strong. In a fair fight he would be a difficult proposition to take down. Years of fighting against men like this alongside men like Fronto had taught Varus the value of an
unfair
fight, though. There was no glimmer of intelligence in those flat, dark eyes.

Ripping his pugio dagger from his belt, Varus made sure to brandish it obviously. The bull-necked noble’s eyes flicked to the dagger and back twice. Content that he had the man’s attention, Varus threw the dagger off to the side a few feet, where it disappeared with a ‘plop’.

The thug’s gaze followed the arc of the weapon and stared mystified at the ripples in the unpleasant water. He only began to recover his wits as Varus hit him in the chest with his shoulder, knocking him back against the bole of a tree that rose from the gurgling water, driving the breath from him. The cavalry commander gave his stocky opponent no chance to recover, bringing down the sphere at the base of his sword hilt on the big man’s wrist with a hard crack.

He heard more than one bone shatter and the thug let out a pained cry as his sword fell away into the water.

Varus was irritated now. His sword came up horizontally, the blade just beneath the man’s chin, the keen edge resting on the man’s throat apple.

‘Don’t nod unless you want to die. And swallowing’s probably inadvisable, too.’ He noted the man’s widening eyes and grinned. ‘Ah good. You speak Latin. That’ll make things easier. Here’s how things stand.’

He took a breath and lifted the blade’s edge a finger’s breadth so that it rested on the flesh below his chin and not on his neck, allowing him to speak without injury. ‘Your little resupply mission has failed completely. If you listen carefully you will now note that nearly all the voices you hear are Roman, not your own people. Your own people are mostly under the surface of the water now, mouldering. You, however, appear to be a nobleman. I will give you my word that if you answer all my questions truthfully, you will be ransomed back to your tribe for an appropriate figure. Do you understand?’