Fronto stood atop the outer rampart, feeling the cool night breeze rippling across his features, the slight chill cleansing and cathartic after a day filled with searing heat and the sick-sweet smell of death and charring meat, clearing the defences of the Gallic dead and burning the Roman bodies. A night and a day had passed since the attack with no sign of movement from the enemy reserve camp, nor from the oppidum. The Gaulish bodies had been cleared from the ditches by repeated Roman sorties and piled in the open land beyond the furthest hazards, where they were distant enough that their stink was muted and they would cause an extra obstacle to attackers, at maximum effective missile range. Indeed, the ditches had been cleared of all refuse - barring the water channel that had been filled in with cartloads of earth - and replanted with deadly points.
Priscus passed across the flask of watered wine, ready-mixed back in the prefect’s tent, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘I was surprised to see you at the wall yesterday.’
‘All hands needed,’ Fronto replied. ‘It’s was hectic, to say the least.’
‘You’re going to give your singulares a heart attack, you know?’
Fronto turned a curious look on his friend and Priscus chuckled. ‘You were busy fighting, so you never noticed. I was a sensible creaky old bugger and stayed down in the clear overseeing the resupply. And every time I looked up at your section I saw one of your men leaping around madly trying to keep the enemy from getting near you.’
‘They failed, then.’
‘Hardly. You’d have been swamped two or three times if your lads hadn’t had your back. I’d say you owe them a bonus after this.’
Fronto sighed. ‘You know me, Gnaeus. I give it everything I’ve got. No competent soldier could do less.’ He leaned on the fence top and his voice lowered conspiratorially so that it wouldn’t carry to the nearest sentries along the wall. ‘In confidence, Gnaeus, I think I’m starting to lose the heart for this, though. Do you realise there are men fighting us now who were still playing with stick games and starting to think about girls when we followed the Helvetii into this gods-forsaken land.’
Priscus gave him an odd look, and Fronto shrugged. ‘I used to think this place would be a nice place to settle when things are over, but I’m starting to think that I’ll never be able to walk Gallic soil without thinking of all the children I’ve put under it.’
‘Gods but you can be a morbid bastard at times, Fronto.’
‘I’m done after this one, Gnaeus. Time to raise the kids and maybe make a few denarii importing wine or something.’
‘You? The only place you’ll import wine is into your mouth. You’d be broke in a week!’
Fronto turned a faint smile on his friend. ‘Tell me you haven’t thought about it. We’re not young men anymore.’
‘Yes, but you’ve got Lucilia and the boys to drag you away. This is my family and has been for decades. I’ll die in a mail shirt, and I’m comfortable with that.’
‘And you call me morbid!’
‘You’d better not bloody retire,’ came a voice from back down the turf slope and the two men turned to see Palmatus, arms folded, behind them. ‘I’d have to look for another job, and there’s nothing else this interesting that pays half as well.’
Fronto rolled his eyes. Privacy was a thing of the past since his singulares had vowed never to leave him alone. Palmatus jogged up the slope, leaving Aurelius and Celer at the bottom, and joined Fronto at the other side, covering his left flank.
‘Shouldn’t you two be getting some shut-eye at your age,’ the former legionary grinned.
Priscus gave him a sour look. ‘There’s about half a decade between us, I reckon, you knob-end.’
Palmatus laughed easily and Fronto sighed. ‘This is the only thing I’ll really miss, though. Times like this with irritating knob-ends like you two.’
Priscus gave him a playful punch in the arm that he probably thought hurt less than it actually did and the three men folded their arms and leaned on the fence top, looking out over the defences, towards the hill upon which the Gallic reserve were camped.
‘Do you two notice anything different?’ Palmatus said quietly and evenly.
The two men frowned into the darkness. ‘No. All peaceful.’
‘Yes. Too peaceful. Where’s all the life on that hill? And it’s dark. Where are their camp fires?’
Fronto straightened. ‘Ah shite!’ he muttered with feeling.
Priscus turned and looked around the space between the walls until he spotted the duty signaller, lounging around on a barrel and looking bored.
‘Cornicen? Call the alarm. Stand to. All units.’
The man paused only a moment, aware of the exalted rank of the man giving the order, and then stood, taking a deep breath and blowing the calls through his cornu with all his might. Barely had the first refrain echoed around the ramparts before Fronto saw them.
No lining up on the plain this time. No cavalry manoeuvres. The enemy reserve force was coming with its eyes set solely on the walls, on foot and carrying ladders, grapples and all manner of bulky goods to fill in the ditches and allow easy crossing. Among them came large units of archers and slingers. The enemy flooded from the trees and across the mile of flat, open land like a plague.
It was eerie, watching the flood of Gauls moving through the night, charging into battle in odd silence. Then, as the single cornicen’s call was picked up by the musicians of the four legions responsible for this section, the enemy knew they’d been seen and burst into life with a pugnacious roar.
‘That’s it, then,’ Fronto sighed and turned, looking out over the gap between the ramparts, where men ran this way and that preparing to hold the walls, calls from the camps on the hills at either side urging the men there to fall in and man the palisades. Sure enough past them, beyond the inner fence and the defences below it, past the water-filled ditch and the scrub, up beyond the green and grey slope, the oppidum was bursting into life. Dying-bovine sounds echoed from the carnyxes within and flames appeared on the walls. ‘The reserve force will be here in a matter of heartbeats, but Vercingetorix’s army will be down joining in the fun in a quarter of an hour or so, too.’
In preparation for an onslaught Palmatus, Aurelius and Celer ran up to Fronto, the latter pair’s shields held protectively out. The wicker fence was excellent at stopping a blade’s edge, and made most piercing attacks difficult, but still a lucky arrow or spear could penetrate it, and the Gauls had learned the strength of the Roman defences quite well a day or so back.
As the cohorts began to appear on the hillsides, pouring out of the camps and moving down to help man the defences on the plain, the Gallic reserves reached the piles of their own stinking dead. In a shot that deserved a medal, one of the artillerists in the towers struck the first man to hurdle the pile of corpses, the iron bolt smashing a hole through the man’s chest and knocking him back down among the heaps of his former compatriots. As if taking their cue from that single shot, the artillerists all along the ramparts opened up, the twangs, thuds, thumps and rattles coming in an almost constant rhythm, the fence and tower posts shaking with each launch all along the line, the ground vibrating and small trickles of dust and gravel shuddering and rolling from the rampart.
The Gauls came on heedless of their losses which, though gruesome, were little more than a gnat bite to the army as a whole. The few small units of archers and slingers stationed among the legions rose and began to loose their shots, their actions echoed by the vastly superior number of missile troops outside the walls. The first exchanges were wild and largely fruitless on both sides as each force spent time trying to find their range. Then, just as the Roman archers were starting to pick off their opposite numbers, the enemy finally reached a comfortable range and the exchanges began for real. Fronto and Priscus ducked as the first cloud of enemy arrows swept the top of the fence. Within sight of their position alone, along the rampart beneath three towers, Fronto saw two legionaries and an archer thrown back, pierced and bloody. A centurion he didn’t recognise reached the wall nearby, using his vine cane to direct two men carrying a score of pila. Fronto opened his mouth to tell the man to duck, but as he did so a sling bullet smacked into the centurion’s temple with the dull bong of an old bell, crumpling the bronze helm inwards so deep that the man’s eye burst. As the crippled or dead officer toppled from the rampart, the two legionaries dropped their bundle of pila and ran, ducking, for the cover of the fence.
‘Grab a shield,’ shouted Fronto, and one of the legionaries grasped one of the numerous spares that lay face up on the turf slope. The other moved to follow suit, then his back arched stiffly as the wicker weave of the fence parted slightly with a rustle. The man turned, trying in disbelief to see the shaft protruding from his spine. Then, with an odd sigh, he collapsed and slid down the slope, where he lay face down, shaking with nerve damage. Fronto risked a look over the parapet, Celer lifting his shield to help cover his commander. Already, under the cover of their archers, the reserve foot were casting their brush and timber and the like into the ditches to allow for easier, safer, crossing. Still, all along the defences running Gauls fell screaming as their feet found hidden dangers - a sharpened stake, a metal prong or a caltrop. Yet the flood came on.
A honking noise announced the approach of the second attack from the oppidum and Fronto turned, an arrow seeking his brain thudding instead into Aurelius’ raised shield, the point scraping a painful line across the bodyguard’s forearm.
‘I’ve got this, Priscus yelled over the rising noise of battle. ‘You go take command of the inner line before they hit.’
Fronto nodded and ran for the opposite defences, his singulares forming on him as he moved, the rest of the bodyguard unit freshly arrived with Masgava at the head.
* * * * *
Priscus looked back and forth along the wall, noting the somewhat diminished number of legionaries and archers upon it. Fresh cohorts were even now running across the open ground to take up position on one rampart or the other, newly arrived from the Mons Rea and Gods’ Gate camps. As the legionaries at the fence hunkered behind their shields and the archers picked off every attacking Gaul they could sight, Priscus watched a century of legionaries arrive at his section and begin to distribute along the wall at the commands of a man with an optio’s staff. Their shields bore the ‘XII’ of the Twelfth legion, come down from Mons Rea under Antonius’ command. Priscus frowned at the sight as the optio settled his men into position and ordered them to keep their shields up and wait for the missiles to slow.
‘Where’s your centurion?’ Priscus shouted.
‘Died six towers north yesterday, sir,’ the optio replied wearily.
‘And you’ve not been given the centurion’s crest?’
‘Had no time to arrange things and get confirmed by the legate yet, sir.’
Priscus nodded his understanding. ‘Good man. Get to it.’
The optio saluted, moving along the wall with his men and Priscus found himself standing next to a soldier of not more than eighteen summers and sighed. Perhaps Fronto was right - they seemed to get younger every year. The legionary looked across at Priscus nervously though, to give him credit, the nerves may well have been more due to the proximity of such a senior officer than to the coming onslaught. After all, the lad had survived the previous fight.
‘Lean into the shield,’ Priscus said.
‘Sir?’
‘You’re holding it out like it might bite you. Lean into it. Get your shoulder up against the top, plant your leading leg.’ He paused at the look on the legionary’s face. ‘The left, man, the left!’ What was this man’s training officer doing with his time? ‘Plant your leading leg a foot from the fence and wedge the bottom of the shield against your shin.’
The legionary did as he was told, the resulting position leaving him almost entirely covered by the shield, the curved board wedged tightly against him.
‘Now anything that hits you will be blocked solidly. If you wave it around like a fairy any hit you take will just knock it back against you and probably break your pretty young face.’
The soldier nodded and shuffled his leg.
‘I know. It’s uncomfortable and it might bruise you. But it’s better than being spitted by a mad bastard with braided hair and a pathological hatred of Romans.’
Priscus took a quick look over the fence top once again and noted how much closer they were now to being under attack from the infantry. The Gauls had filled in one of the ditches entirely and had thrown rough hacked planks across the area they knew to be full of lilia pits, spikes and other unpleasantness. They were almost close enough to smell, one ditch away from a full assault. The Roman archers and artillerists were doing a sterling job picking them off as they moved forward, and already hundreds lay dead along the line, their bloody bodies adding to the potential hurdles for their compatriots.
Somewhere back among the shadowy mass beyond the outer ditch and defences, Priscus caught sight of a flicker of flame.
‘Fire arrows!’ he bellowed, and turned to look back down at the men inside the fortifications. ‘Barrels and buckets ready. Form details now.’
Leaving them to their business, he turned back in time to see fires leaping to life every few dozen paces along the length of the defences, from Mons Rea to the foothills below Caesar’s camp. Two men by each of the blazes began to dip their wadded arrows into the dancing fire until they caught fully, then turned, drew and released in fluid moves that sent dazzling golden arcs across the inky night.
They were good. Priscus had to give them that. The first few shafts thudded into the wicker fence and into the timber posts of the watchtowers.
‘They’re serious this time, sir,’ shouted the optio as he used his gladius to cut through the shaft of a burning missile lodged in a tower post and then stamped out the flame on the rampart walk.
Priscus nodded. ‘They were serious enough last time, but now they’ve got the measure of the defences.’ Across the ground-works, the Gauls were bringing forward wicker shields on stands, much like small portable versions of the Roman fence, and propping them in front of the fire archers, protecting them from counter attack.
‘When did the Gauls get so bloody cunning, sir?’
Priscus cast a weary smile at the optio. ‘Over six years of us teaching them by example, I’d guess. Watch out!’
A flaming shaft clanged off the optio’s bronze-clad brow and ricocheted into the camp’s interior. The junior officer reached up, stunned, and felt the dent in his helmet. ‘For the love of Juno…’
‘Keep your head down,’ advised Priscus, his gaze slipping to the crowd beyond the wall again. The twin ditches were now almost full of bundles of kindling and brush, simple enough for a man to cross. ‘Here they come. Get ready, lads. Shields to the fore, braced. Save your strikes for when they’re open.’
With a wicked grin, Priscus turned to look back down the slope. ‘Have we pitch?’ he yelled to the nearest supply officer. The centurion frowned. ‘There might be some here somewhere, sir. What with all the timber in the defences, we’re not putting it on display.’
Priscus nodded. ‘Understood. Find it. Have the jars distributed to each of the officers commanding on the wall.’
The centurion saluted, grabbed three of his men and ran off in search of the pitch. The optio was looking at him in bewilderment.
‘They think they’re clever,’ Priscus explained, ‘but they haven’t thought about how they’ve filled the ditches with kindling to climb over. The stuff they’ve used would go up a treat, especially with a little help.’
The optio’s eyes bulged. ‘Sir, that’s incredibly dangerous so close to the wicker walls.’
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained, optio. Let’s make their approach hotter than a whore’s crotch on a summer night!’
The junior officer grinned, a hint of madness entering his eyes.
A clunk drew Priscus’ attention, and he looked back to see the top of a ladder hit the fence. Taking a deep breath, the prefect crouched and grabbed one of the spare shields, hauling it up from the turf and sweeping it round to the front as he advanced on the fence again. The first Gallic head appeared at the top, a gleaming iron helmet with twin black feathers jutting from the crown as he climbed into view. Priscus waited patiently, sword arm drawn back, elbow bent, until the man’s face appeared, and then jabbed forward, shield turned aside to allow the blow, the slender, tapering tip of his gladius smashing into the man’s face and through the nasal cavity, into the space within.
With the instinct born of so many years of service, he quickly jerked his arm back before the man fell away bubbling, in order to make sure his blade did not become lodged. To either side, more ladders hit the wall top, and the legionaries were suddenly embroiled in a fight for survival all along the rampart. Priscus noted with satisfaction the legionary bracing his shield as he’d been instructed, despite the several bloody lines the bronze rim had cut in his shin.
A second man appeared over the fence top, this one bare-headed.
Priscus leaned back, pulled up his shield and held it horizontal, waiting for the man’s eyes, and then slammed forward, smashing the rim into the Gaul’s face at brow level. There was an audible crack and the man disappeared backwards into the press, howling in agony.
Readying himself for the next attack, Priscus felt something amiss and looked down.
The shaft of an arrow protruded a mere hand’s-width from his gut, barely the flights on show. The cloth and leather and mail around the shaft were sizzling and blackened from the fire they’d extinguished on entry. He blinked and winced as he moved, confirming that the shaft had passed right through, the tip resting against his spine.
‘Ah, bollocks.’
The young legionary, his attention drawn by the curse, stared in horror. Priscus gave him a savage grin, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth and running down to his chin.
‘And that, soldier, is why you keep the shield in front of you and braced.’
‘Sir!’ the man shouted and had to duck a sharp jab from the wall.
‘Capsarius?’ Priscus managed before his knees buckled and he found himself on the wall walk. As he let the sword and shield fall away forgotten, the slope claimed him and he was suddenly rolling down the bank into the busy supply zone. As every thump and rotation drove the shaft inside him into new nooks and crannies, shredding his innards, he recognised that he was now beyond the help of any capsarius. He rolled to a halt on the mud-churned flat ground.
His wild eyes, filled now with a painful blurring, noted two things: a medicus rushing his way, and two men carrying an earthenware jar very carefully. He held up a shaking, bloodied hand to the medicus.
‘No time. Leave me a coin and go find someone you can help.’ The medicus narrowed his eyes, briefly assessing the prefect’s condition, and then nodded, folded a silver sestertius into Priscus’ hand and then ran off. Priscus lay still, feeling his life ebbing with increasing pace like a horse desperate to reach the finish line. All he could do without spasming was to turn his head and so that was what he did, but he couldn’t see much more than the sky, dancing with glowing sparks and embers, and the night-stained turf bank. He concentrated, gritting his teeth against the pain. He could hear grunting that wasn’t him and which he ascribed to the two legionaries with the jar. Then there was a clunk and a thud. A pause gave way to a blattering noise and then, after another long moment: a roar that sounded like the most monstrous lion in the world as the ditch went up.
Priscus closed his eyes and coughed up more blood, listening to the sounds of Gauls dying in his blaze. He grinned, lips blood-slick and dark against a bleached face. ‘Ah, Fronto,’ he murmured to the empty night air. ‘Told you. In the armour just like I said. Always knew I would.’
His arms were almost too weak to lift, but he managed to push the flat disc of the coin under his tongue and then let his arm fall.
‘Come on, then boatman. You’re arseing late!’
* * * * *
Fronto staggered back, a thrown spear ripping two of the hanging leather pteruges from his shoulder and scoring an angry line across his bicep. Cursing, he almost lost his footing and toppled from the rampart top, struggling to keep his feet. The beleaguered Romans had been hard pressed at the inner defences throughout the last couple of hours, the Gauls from the oppidum launching a concerted attack on the entire length of the fence. But in the past quarter hour the entire struggle had become considerably more difficult. In the usual bright moonlight that was the norm of the season, it had been almost like fighting in daylight but then, as the musician called the last watch of the night, the sky had clouded over in a matter of heartbeats and the moon had been submerged beneath a thick blanket of cloud. In moments the battlefield had plunged into unfathomable darkness and now it was exceedingly difficult to see anything beyond a few paces. The Gauls were still launching fire arrows at the fence and towers, and the streaks of gold hurtling towards the rampart effectively night-blinded the Romans and Gauls alike, leaving them flailing.
Recovering with a hiss at the sharp pain, Fronto rushed back to the fence in time to catch a short, wiry Gaul hauling himself over the top. Pulling his arm back, the legate stabbed forward, jamming his blade into the man’s shoulder, close to the neck, driving deep into his chest and yanking sharply back out to retrieve his sword before the man fell away, screaming, into the ditch below. Another figure rose next to him and flicked out with a blade, but Masgava was there, hacking off the man’s hand at the wrist so that both it and the sword it held fell to the walkway and rolled off down the ramp. The screaming man stared at the stump until the big Numidian casually pushed him back over the fence into the mass of flesh below.
Fronto glanced right to see his singulares fighting like demons, and then left to spy the same, along with a tall, spindly legionary who took a heavy axe blow to the chest so hard that it simply carved a trench in the man’s torso, shredding the mail shirt and driving the links in through the flesh.
Another Gaul appeared at the wall and Masgava stepped in before Fronto could deal with him, slamming one of the twin razor-sharp blades he held into the man’s chest and then cleanly severing the head with the other, kicking the falling bloody orb away from the walkway. Palmatus took three steps, crossing the rampart top to join Fronto, lifting his battered and misshapen legionary shield in response to some sixth sense in time to catch an arrow meant for the legate.
‘This is getting bloody ridiculous,’ he shouted at his employer. ‘We need more men.’
Fronto nodded. ‘I know.’
‘An entire stretch of the wall between towers is held by you and your own singulares, you know that?’ Palmatus pointed at the body of the lanky legionary, whose killer was now locked in mortal combat with Aurelius. ‘He was the last regular on this stretch.’
‘I’ll go see Antonius.’
Palmatus nodded and made to follow.
‘No. You stay here and keep the wall safe. I’ll be fine down there.’
His bodyguard commander gave him a hard look, but finally nodded and turned to take on the next of the interminable tide of yelling warriors clambering over the fence.
Fronto took a deep breath and carefully picked his way down the turf bank, his knee threatening to give, the bank slick with blood and boot-churned mud. As he slid the last few feet and righted himself, he looked around in the near darkness until he spotted the standards glittering in the light of the torches. Antonius’ command post, three towers down. Gritting his teeth, Fronto jogged across the churned grass, past scurrying legionaries carrying piles of equipment and capsarii lugging stretchers - some filled, some empty - back and forth. There seemed to be considerably fewer centurions and optios now shouting and directing things in the open space. The outer wall seemed to be in just as much trouble as the inner one, and Fronto noted as he ran that there were at least three places in plain sight where a determined Gaul could force access if they’d known.
Antonius’ command post was little more than two trestle tables, one covered with wax tablets and a platter of half-eaten meat and bread, the other with a rough model of this sector’s defences dotted with wooden markers representing cohorts and supply stations. The tables were surrounded by torches on posts jammed into the ground in a ring, providing light and warmth. Six tall poles stood ready to take a small leather pavilion if the weather suddenly turned wet, which seemed unlikely, the gleaming standards of two legions within their bounds. Antonius himself stood with three tribunes in deep discussion, a number of couriers on hand to carry messages and run errands as required.
Fronto marched past the outer ring of Antonius’ own singulares unit, who gave him only a cursory glance as he approached and nodded their recognition. Antonius looked up at his approach and agreed something with an officer, who hurried off about some business. Another of the tribunes started to ask something of the army’s second in command but Antonius silenced him with a raised hand.
‘Fronto? How goes it?’
‘How do you think?’ Fronto said in low tones. ‘We’re a wet fart from losing the inner wall. We need more men, Antonius.’
The senior officer nodded his understanding. ‘I know. It’s not just you. The whole plain sector is in the same situation. I sent Trebonius off half an hour ago with orders bearing my seal to draft in every man that could be spared from Mons Rea and Labienus’ headquarters and every redoubt and camp in between.’
‘And Caesar’s orders?’
‘Can go hang,’ Antonius said with feeling. ‘I told Trebonius not to take no for an answer, and he’s no fool.’ The officer paused and grasped a wine jar that sat by his half-consumed meal, tipping a healthy dose into his open mouth without bothering to decant it into a cup. ‘Want some?’
Fronto shook his head. ‘Not right now, thanks. Maybe later.’
Antonius shrugged and took another large gulp, wiping his mouth and replacing the jar. ‘I hear your singulares are doing good work, Fronto. You must thank them for me.’
Fronto pointed at the jar. ‘Give them a few of those when it’s over and they’ll be happy.’
The senior officer nodded. ‘Same for all of us, I’d say. If we make it safe to morning, find my tent and we’ll share a few. Bring your lads with you. Varus too. He’s been stomping around the place like a petulant teenager since he can’t field his cavalry tonight.’
Fronto smiled wearily. ‘I’ll do that. Priscus will appreciate it as well.’
Antonius paused in the act of closing up half a dozen wax tablet cases and looked across at Fronto, his face dark. ‘You’ve not heard?’
A cold chill shot through Fronto and he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as a sense of dreadful foreboding flooded through him. ‘What?’
‘Happened early on in the fight. Hours ago, now. Sorry, Marcus.’
Fronto felt his legs tremble, threatening to drop him to the turf and he reached out to the table to steady himself. ‘Priscus?’
‘Yes. He was a good man. You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?’
Fronto closed his eyes. Priscus? It seemed unthinkable. He couldn’t actually picture his friend among the ranks of the fallen. The indomitable prefect had even survived that nightmare at Aduatuca five years ago, when the medicus had doubted he’d ever walk again. A picture of Priscus lying silent and unmoving just wouldn’t form. The man was invincible…
Antonius placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. ‘I gather it was fairly quick. He took a stray arrow. An incredibly lucky enemy shot that managed to penetrate the fence. His last act was to fire the enemy crossings. He took dozens of the enemy with him, in effect.’
Fronto could do nothing but stare. Words wouldn’t form in his mouth any more than a picture of a deceased Priscus.
‘Hear that, Fronto?’ Antonius tried. ‘Cornu from Mons Rea. Sounds like Trebonius succeeded.’ He looked into the legate’s hollow eyes with a worried expression. ‘That’s the Ninth’s call to advance,’ he said encouragingly, ‘so we’ll have the walls strengthened in no time. And I think that’s the First’s call, too.’
Fronto turned away, Antonius’ hand falling from his shoulder, unheeded. The senior officer watched him walk off, back the way he came, and gestured for one of the couriers to attend him. As Fronto walked away, he drew his gladius with deliberate, slow menace, and Antonius tapped the courier on the shoulder and pointed at the retreating form of the legate.
‘Find a couple of contubernia of men and look after legate Fronto. I have a feeling he’s heading into trouble.’
The courier saluted and turned to follow in the wake of the retreating officer.
* * * * *
Cavarinos wiped his blade on his own trousers, ignoring the wet, warm, metallic-smelling smears amid the other spatters of blood, and then slid the sword back into the sheath at his side, his fingers dancing across the leather pouch at his belt that held the curse tablet, as had become habit. Staggering, he clutched his left shoulder where his second flesh wound of the night burned still with hot pain, the blood from the sword cut running down his arm in small rivulets. The other wound was less impressive - though it hurt just as much - where an arrow had hit him in the chest, miraculously lodging itself in the rings of his mail shirt such that the tip only dug into his flesh by a finger’s breadth, bringing forth blood and pain but doing no permanent damage.
He was lucky, really. Very few men who’d made it to the fence had lived. A few had even got over the fence, but had been dealt with immediately by the defenders. Cavarinos had been there in the thick of it just as the Roman reinforcements had arrived from the north, bearing the banners of four different legions and filling the walls, pushing back the few incursions the rebel army had achieved.
From what he’d seen, Cavarinos had to admire the courage of his countrymen, who had managed to actually reach and cross the Roman defences despite being starved and weary and hard-pressed, while it appeared that the reserve forces outside had barely managed to touch the fence, making much less of an impression. And now he could hear the calls going up in the distance from the carnyxes of the relief army. The reserve force was pulling back.
Cavarinos looked up. The first streaks of lighter colour were staining the clouds, announcing the coming dawn. Aurora, the Romans called it: a goddess whose rosy fingers wove their light across the heavens. The Romans would be praising her shortly as they watched the relief army run back to their camp on the hill, allowing them respite again. And with their retreat, Vercingetorix would have no choice but to echo that call, drawing his own army back up into the oppidum. A second attack on both fronts against a trapped army with comparatively fewer men, and yet a second failure. Cavarinos reached up and found the figure of Fortuna hanging at his neck, open now and outside his tunic, for he had touched her in thanks after both wounds had failed to kill him. He wondered what had got into him. He’d happily managed almost three decades of conscious life without resorting to heartfelt prayer, and yet one of the enemy donates him a foreign idol and suddenly he becomes all pious?
He made a conscious decision not to be such a credulous fool, and yet his fingers still played across the cold metal of her form. The dark was retreating rapidly now, the lightening of the sky helping him pick out details. With the easing of identification, the artillerists in the Roman towers began to loose their shots once more, picking standing targets out among the multitude inside the besieged area. Cavarinos stood some thirty five paces from the rampart, back across the ditches filled with faggots and bodies, the men of the tribes still seething this way and that, some retreating for a breather after attempting to breach the walls, others fresh and pushing for the Roman fortifications. The call for the retreat would come any time, but had not yet done so.
Perhaps he should try and seek cover from the deadly scorpion shots? But then the press of men was so solid, the chances of one of the artillery pieces selecting him among thousands was so slight, he would trust instead to luck.
His hand clutched the goddess at his neck involuntarily and he cursed himself briefly, and then again, when the man standing next to him lost his face to a scorpion bolt in a shower of blood and bone which coated him and yet somehow miraculously missed the bronze goddess entirely.
His attention was drawn by an upsurge in the roar of battle, somehow discernible even over the endless din of death and destruction, and his wandering gaze picked out a section of the Roman fence, where a great deal of activity seemed to be taking place. Ignoring the wound on his arm, he began moving back towards the rampart. Figures were crossing the fence. Had they managed a proper breach? If they had then perhaps there was still a chance for tonight.
As he leapt through the mess, making for the scene along with a number of other men who seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that something was happening, Cavarinos was given cause to frown. The figures crossing the fence were not his countrymen. They were Romans! Romans were sortieing from the defences?
In moments, he was picking his way between the few sharpened points that had not been covered with bodies or torn up by the advancing rebels, just outside the twin ditches. A brutal melee was underway just outside the Roman rampart, atop ditches that were no longer visible beneath a flat carpet of corpses. Warriors from a dozen tribes, mixed in the chaos, fought tooth and nail with a small party of Romans that were somehow cutting a bloody swathe.
Behind him, the carnyxes began blowing the call to fall back.
Cavarinos stood transfixed as the world began to part around him, a few die-hards who had succumbed to the battle craze still piling into the Roman sortie, while the vast bulk of the survivors turned tail and fled back toward the slope that led up to the open gates of the oppidum and safety. His feet told him to run, and all sense agreed. Yet for some reason he stood as the ground cleared about him, watching the fight at the ditches only a few paces away.
A scorpion bolt slapped into the churned earth close enough that he felt the breeze of its passage.
His hand went down to the hilt of his sword. Perhaps he would be the last man to leave? Though he’d known he shouldn’t let it get to him, his brother’s ridiculous accusation of cowardice had rankled for the past two days. Since that fight at the end of the last attack, Cavarinos and Critognatos had not crossed paths, the former deliberately staying out of the way. Vercingetorix had tried to heal what now seemed an uncrossable rift between the brothers, but even Cavarinos had been uncharacteristically adamant, while Critognatos had explained in short, spat curses that the next time they met he would tear out his brother’s spine if it turned out that he actually had one.
To be the last man on the field and kill the last Roman of the day would disprove his brother’s accusations.
His heart leapt as the scene opened up. There were perhaps twenty Romans in this foray - no more. They faced a slightly larger force of tribesmen - perhaps forty or so, the rest of the force retreating for the oppidum. But what had caused his heart to skip was the sight of his brother amid the warriors, fighting like a furious bear, ripping Romans apart.
His questions about why the Romans should endanger themselves crossing the fence were swatted away by the irritated realisation that even the possibility of being the last man to retreat had been spoiled by his pig of a brother, who clearly had the same idea.
Anger coursing through him, Cavarinos stamped across the ground towards the fray.
And stopped.
His blood ran cold.
The torn and bloodied plume of a Roman officer came into view - the man busy fighting Critognatos at the heart of the struggle.
Fronto?
Critognatos pulled back his sword and lunged, Fronto twisting to one side out of the way of the blow and stabbing down with his own, shorter, sword, only to have it turned by the big Arvernian’s shield. The Romans were in trouble. Even as Cavarinos watched, his eyes disbelieving and his blood like ice, three more of the regular legionaries were cut down, and one of the men in the different uniform that seemed to be huddling protectively around Fronto. Another of the better-dressed Romans leaned across to try and save the legate from Critognatos, and Fronto batted him out of the way, lunging again.
For a brief moment, Cavarinos caught a clear view of the Roman officer’s face. Despite the mud and blood coating it, he could see the blazing, unrestrained fury in Fronto’s expression. Whatever had got into him, he would not stop this fight until either he or everyone around him was dead.
The scene played out in a matter of scant heartbeats. Cavarinos dithered. He could leap into the fray, of course, and it was not the fear of wounding or death that kept him from doing so. It was the knowledge that if he joined the fight, he had no idea who he would strike. He could hardly attack his own brother, after all. But to drive a blade into Fronto’s gut seemed almost as unpalatable.
Impasse. What could he do?
Two more of the better-dressed Romans were being pushed back to the rampart by half a dozen large warriors, and another of the regular legionaries disappeared with a shriek and a spray of blood. The fight was coming to an end and the Romans were losing. But Fronto was not pulling back with them. The press of rebels pushed the sortie back and back, leaving a small island of combat out in the open. Fronto and two of his well-dressed companions, including a huge dark-skinned one, fought like lions against almost a dozen warriors, though Fronto continued to concentrate on his struggle with Critognatos.
Cavarinos knew his brother. He might be truly unpleasant and utterly thoughtless, but he was also a powerful and skilled warrior and no more likely to give up than Fronto.
Even as he watched, his brother managed to smash Fronto in his head with his shield, sending the legate staggering back with a dented helmet, blood running from his nose. Fronto was fighting hard, but he was over a decade older than Critognatos - possibly even two decades - and he was losing.
Cavarinos tried to take a step forward, but his body seemed unable or unwilling to move, and he watched in dismay. His hand strayed down to his sword pommel again and he watched Critognatos reel back, his shield ripped from his arm. Fronto leapt forward, snarling, and the big Arvernian slammed forward at him as the two remaining Roman guards fought to hold their own against the enemy. One of them kept trying to pull Fronto back, but was too busy trying not to get himself killed to achieve much, and Cavarinos could hear them shouting for Fronto to pull back. Indeed, the rampart was lined with Romans not egging their friends on, but urging them to retreat.
One of the pair was about to die and he couldn’t bring himself to hope it was either. Memories of his parents attempting to keep the warrior brothers close as boys - failing dismally even then - swam into his head. His long-gone mother and father would never forgive him if he let Critognatos die when he could help. His left hand touched the figurine at his neck, and his right drifted from the sword hilt to the leather case at his belt.
Before he’d even known he was doing it, his fingers had fumbled the case open and were pulling out the tightly-wrapped bundle within. Staring at the irreplaceable, dreadfully important burden he had carried, Cavarinos began to unwrap it even as he watched his brother fall back again under Fronto’s savage onslaught. Then his brother struck a powerful hit and Fronto staggered to a knee for a moment before hauling himself back up and leaping in again.
Cavarinos lifted the thin slate tablet up to eye level, momentarily blocking the view of the deadly struggle. Strange figures and arcane words he did not recognise, even with his command of three written languages, crawled across the dark grey surface like the tracks of spiders, seeming to shift, blur and move even as he concentrated on them. He shook his head. It was his tired eyes, of course, after a long night of battle and in the surprisingly bright pre-dawn light.
The tablet lowered a little and he watched the struggle beyond.
‘OGMIOS!’ he bellowed, his eyes widening in surprise - he’d not meant to say anything really. The name of the lord of words and corpses echoed across the grass, punctuated by the crack as he snapped the slate tablet in two.
Critognatos turned, mid-combat, his eyes bulging with shock and horror.
And as the big Arvernian momentarily lost concentration, Fronto struck, that glittering, gleaming, beautiful sword which Cavarinos had so admired at the sacred spring sinking hilt-deep into his brother’s back. Critognatos arched in agony and opened his mouth to shout, instead issuing a spray of blood from his throat.
Even as Fronto struck the killing blow, the big dark-skinned Roman was pulling him back, dragging him away from the danger. Fronto’s rage seemed instantly spent, his eyes no longer on the opponent he had just killed, but now on Cavarinos. The other warriors had stopped, shocked at what was going on around them, and the big, black soldier managed to pull Fronto back. The legate desperately tried to pull his sword from the big Arvernian’s body, but it was jammed fast and as Critognatos toppled forward with a cough, the sword went with him, the big man disappearing among the endless corpses littering the field.
The big dark legionary hauled Fronto physically back to the rampart, where other Romans leaned over to pull him up, the legate’s eyes never leaving Cavarinos as he allowed himself to be removed, unresisting.
The remaining dozen or so Gauls had stopped in shock at the scene, but as the world seemed to come back to life around them a call went up from the rampart and, now that there were no Romans among the crowd, archers and artillerists concentrated on the small group, picking them off with ease.
An arrow whipped past Cavarinos’ head yet he hardly dared breathe, let alone move.
‘Run, you fool!’
Cavarinos wasn’t sure whether the words had come from Fronto or had just been in his own head, but the enormity of what had just happened suddenly came crashing down just as the scorpions in the nearest two towers turned on him, and Cavarinos turned and ran, the last figure on the battlefield to leave, and the last to have caused a death after all.
* * * * *
Fronto stood bleeding on the walkway, his head thumping from the blow he’d received that had ruined his helmet. Masgava was covered in wounds and yet was still holding him up, strong as ever. Palmatus had disappeared in that awful bloody foray, along with several other singulares. All sacrificed to the memory of Priscus.
The death of his friend had driven him mad. He barely remembered climbing over the fence. He had fleeting images of his bodyguards trying to stop him and then being forced to join him, along with a couple of squads of legionaries that had for some reason been shadowing him all the way back from Antonius’ side.
Cavarinos?
He could hardly believe it. He hadn’t recognised the animal he’d been fighting until he saw Cavarinos, and then he recognised the brothers. His rage had blinded him at first. He’d have lost. He knew he’d have lost. The man had been stronger and quicker than him, despite Fronto’s battle rage.
Cavarinos had saved him.
What the Gaul had actually done, Fronto couldn’t quite understand. He’d called the name of one of their gods while he brandished something weird and dark in the air. Whatever it was had diverted the big monster, though, and given Fronto the opportunity he needed.
‘Lucky that Gaul distracted his friend, eh?’ Masgava noted as though reading his thoughts.
‘That wasn’t luck,’ Fronto replied in a hoarse whisper. ‘Whatever he did, he did it for me. I saw his eyes.’
‘Why would he help you?’ Masgava frowned.
‘Because not all of them are savages, my friend. Not all are savages.’ Fronto heaved in a deep, cathartic breath. ‘Help me to the dead-piles. I think I want to see Priscus. And then we are going to Antonius’ tent and for the first time in many a month, I am going to drink until I can no longer remember my name.’