The winter thus far had been remarkably mild, with just a damp hint of a chill to separate most of the endless repetitive days from those of autumn.

Caius Fusius Cita leaned on the hard lip of a barrel and let the latest stream of complaints and irritations wash over him like the small reedy island he could see straining in the strong current of the wide Liger River. He’d stopped listening to the details anyway. He’d learned a week ago that with this lot it was only worth listening for the first dozen heartbeats - all the important information in any of their conversation was passed across then. After that it was just muttered complaints and bitter invective.

His eyes strayed from the small green island to the far bank, where the Roman depot stood - though even the word ‘depot’ was perhaps too grandiose. An old stone structure that had apparently been something to do with the local druids but had fallen into disrepair some years ago had been repaired and reroofed with local thatch to form a large storage shed, while two more wooden structures - lean-tos really - had been added to either side, then a small barrack room of rough-hewn timber installed, along with a larger accommodation block for the numerous ‘passers-through’. The meagre collection was bounded by a wooden stockade which ran between each building to form a ‘fortified’ enclosure. The only real fighting platform was at the gate, and that was little more than a mound large enough to hold two men.

But then this was a supply depot, not a fort. And had a grand garrison of eighteen: two contubernia of legionaries, along with an optio, and Cita himself - Caesar’s senior supplies officer and chief quartermaster for the Gallic legions.

The enclosure stood on the south bank of the strong river, at the far end of a wooden bridge of native construction that Cita had been initially doubtful would even take the weight of an empty wagon. It was perhaps three hundred paces long, seemed to be constructed mostly of rope, and swayed alarmingly in a strong wind. Still, the locals seemed satisfied with it, and no one had died on it this week.

At the near side of the river, the bank was less rambling and overgrown on its slope than its far twin, and the area near the bridge was revetted and recessed to create a quayside for the fishermen of Cenabum and the numerous Corbitae trade vessels and barges that ran goods upriver from the west coast and downriver all the way from the Liger’s upper limits near the border with Roman Narbonensis.

Beyond this bank - behind Cita, and across the seemingly featureless flat plain of the middle region of the Liger River - the Carnute tribe’s oppidum stretched, its defences low but strong, its main gate facing the bridge, staring resolutely across the rushing waters at the small Roman enclave.

And here, between the two settlements, stood the undefended quayside upon which Cita waited amid the organised chaos that was endemic of any situation where military stores were reliant upon civilian trade.

A passing bird relieved itself of a burden on his left boot, spattering his shin with something that struck Cita as an excellent metaphor for the entire Godsforsaken region.

He was quite regretting coming to Cenabum.

The problem was that since he had returned to Caesar’s army after a hiatus of more than a year in Rome, he had discovered that Priscus, with a typical centurion’s directness, had messed about with the entire supply system to such an extent that Gaul would likely be settled and in no need of an army long before he managed to get the supply routes back in order. And while he could leave certain matters in the hands of subordinates, others needed his personal attention. Back at Samarobriva, as well as at Vesontio, Durocortorum and Gesoriacum, the entire business of supply, transport and storage was in the hands of the military and Cita could be reasonably certain that all was proceeding appropriately without the need for personal appearances.

But here…

‘…so I really must put my foot down, Prefect, and demand accommodation on a level that befits our status as citizens of Rome. Not to mention the need for a bath house.’

Cita heaved in a breath of damp river air and squeezed it back out as a patient, long-suffering sigh as he pointed at the rushing torrent before them.

‘The Gods have provided you with a more than adequate bath - constantly refreshed water supply included. If you’re not fussy it even doubles as a latrine! If you can’t work out what to do with it I’ll happily have one of the men throw you bodily in. I daresay what you need to do will come back to you sharpish!’

The merchant, standing huddled in a thick wool cloak against the very temperate winter weather, bridled and his eyes flared.

‘I am a citizen of Rome, as are my peers here, and I will not be spoken to in such a manner by a soldier.’

Despite having promised himself that he would not rise to the comments of these fools, Cita found himself turning at the tone applied to the word, his own eyes narrowed and his ire beginning to rise.

‘Listen to me, citizen of Rome: I am equites - a knight of Rome, whose lineage includes consuls, praetors, generals and quaestors. If I choose to have you thrown in the river, I will do so, with little regard for your moneyed status, and I will feel no remorse if the hard-earned gold in your pockets drags you down to the deadly, sucking mud at the bottom.’

The merchant leaned back in the face of the prefect’s anger and his face paled.

‘You are free to leave any time you desire, citizen Titus Brocchus. Hop aboard one of your corbitae and head deep into Gaul… or brave the winter seas - though I doubt you’ll find a sailor who’ll take you beyond the river’s mouth until the spring. You are here, like all the rest of the vultures, because you smell profit.’

Straightening, Cita’s lip curled into a small sneer.

‘This region is abundant in the summer, gold with crops, filled with enough grain to stuff every mouth in Rome for months on end. The Gauls’ cattle are fat and healthy and their eggs yellower and richer than yours. The army could rely on forage alone if it so needed, so bear in mind that you are involved in these lucrative affairs on my sufferance alone!’

That was a bending of the truth at best, of course. The army could live on the goods available here, but only if the natives starved and the legions took a near one hundred per-cent tax of all goods. He needed these merchants, but it was better that they didn’t know that.

‘Because it is our policy to Romanise these natives, it is our wish to introduce as much Roman trade as possible. That is why you are here: because it profits you, while it serves our designs. You will supply us with grain throughout the winter and spring months, taking your huge, ungainly profits, and then, when the harvest comes and there is abundance here, you will take one third of all our taxed and donated grain and sell it at your even higher costs to the merchants in Rome. It works well for you, as you’ll make more profit in one season than in three normal years, and for us. Since we will not be required to maintain so many winter stores and will be less reliant on our granaries, allowing the legions freedom of movement.’

The merchant started to recover himself. ‘Yes, well…’

‘You have a bunk, sharing your room with only one other civilian, unlike my men who are four to a room, and even I share with my native factor. Space is at a premium. If you are unhappy with the arrangements, I suggest you spend some of your mounting profits on accommodation in the Carnutes’ oppidum. I imagine someone will give you a hut, and probably a blade in the gut while you sleep.’

The merchant peered fearfully over his shoulder, his face paling again. The Carnutes were dealing with the Roman merchants as respectfully as necessity demanded, but there was no social interaction, and everyone - right down to the children, the women and the elderly - glared evilly at the Romans in their midst. Even Cita had to admit that he felt about as popular as a turd in a bath house here. The Carnutes - and their neighbours the Senones - had been quietly seething over the months since the chieftain Acco had been scourged to death in front of the leaders of Gaul in a showpiece of Roman savagery. Whatever Caesar had intended to come from such an act, what it had actually done was to infuriate the tribes, causing an ever widening rift between them and their would-be conquerors.

Not for the first time, Cita wondered why he’d been foolish enough to come to Cenabum himself. At the time of planning, he had become convinced that the presence of a small Roman depot and the overshadowing threat of six legions less than a hundred miles away at Agedincum would prevent any trouble arising from the tribes’ bitterness.

Every time he saw the steely glint in the eye of a local, he became less certain, and things seemed to have been getting colder and less friendly by the day. Now…

His eyes narrowed.

Something was wrong.

The quayside was still filled with men working, but it didn’t take much observation to note that all the grunting, sweating labourers were Romans, or Romanised Gauls from Cisalpina or Narbonensis. Not a single local was visible among them. And the men at whom Brocchus had been fearfully looking were busy returning to their houses, moving up inside the defences of Cenabum.

Cita’s heart skipped a beat. The noise and activity hadn’t changed. There was no smell or sight of anything alarming. But Cita had served in Gaul since they’d followed the Helvetii. And he had a sense for these things. The atmosphere had changed entirely.

‘Brocchus…’

‘I apologise if I seem demanding and unreasonable, Prefect, but…’

‘Brocchus, gather your friends and have your men start moving back towards the enclave across the river.’

‘What?’

‘We’re in trouble. Get across that bridge.’

The merchant frowned, his brow wrinkling as he failed to understand the officer’s order.

‘Listen, Prefect…’

But Cita was now ignoring him entirely, having turned his attention to the landscape. A narrow strip of land, some fifty paces across, separated the defences of Cenabum from the river and its bridge to the Roman stockade. A narrow clear area for the convenience of the quay users and which was currently filled with Roman merchants and their men. Out to either direction, along the bank, the land hereabouts was uniformly flat farmland.

Thus the figures were clearly visible even at some distance, partially because there were no undulations in the landscape and no woodlands to obscure them, and partially because of the number of them.

‘Shit.’

‘Prefect, I really must…’

Cita, without turning back, reached out a hand and grasped Brocchus by the shoulder, hauling the man closer as his own chubby finger pointed off into the scrubby, ridged fields, separated by hedgerows and shrubs, ditches and paths. Hundreds of figures were visible moving towards them.

‘Who are they?’

‘They, Brocchus, are the enemy.’

‘The enemy?’

‘The Carnutes, or the Senones, or their friends. Time to move.’

As the merchant peered off into the distance with narrowed eyes, Cita turned, already expecting what he saw next. Far from shutting the oppidum’s gates and lining the defences in preparation to receive an enemy, the population of Cenabum were moving through the streets towards the gate. Having drawn back like a wave that has struck the beach, unarmed and passive, the Carnutes were now washing back towards them, this time bristling with a spume of blades.

‘Across the bridge!’

He was already moving as his eyes now took in the smaller groups on the far side of the river. There were fewer attackers on the far bank, but still enough to deal with less than a score of Romans. They were moving in from all sides, tightening like a noose on the stockade depot.

‘We should make for the ships!’ Brocchus shouted at him as he ran. ‘We can flee downstream!’

Cita paused as he found his aide and factor, Bennacos, marking off scratches on a wax tablet as the merchants’ men unloaded amphorae from a small barge into a Roman cart. Slapping the Boii auxiliary on the arm, he gestured at the groups of men closing in on them.

‘Get across the bridge.’

Bennacos needed no further words of encouragement, nodding and secreting away his tablet as he ran. Cita turned to see panic and indecision on the faces of Brocchus and the other merchants.

‘Across the bridge!’ he reiterated.

‘We should leave on the ships!’

‘Don’t be stupid - you don’t have time to put to the water. Get across the bridge.’

Some of the merchants were already moving, the combination of familiar command and urgency in Cita’s voice enough to ensure their capitulation. Five of them were making for the bridge, bellowing for their teamsters, labourers and aides to follow. Men began to drop their crates, amphorae and bales and pound on desperate feet along the quay toward the end of the rickety wooden bridge.

Brocchus, along with a number of the others, was dithering, looking this way and that between the swarm of warriors pouring across the fields, the gateway to the oppidum - towards which more enemy warriors ran - the smaller groups closing in on the Roman stockade across the river, and finally the trade ships and barges.

They broke, making for the boarding planks. Cita shook his head at the madness. They saw only immediate danger, with the eyes of civilians, believing the vessels a safe haven and a route away from here. Cita knew the truth: there was no way away from here.

Disregarding the ships, that left only the stockade. Against more than a thousand angry Carnutes, what chance did a score of Romans stand, even with a stockade? But at least there they would be armed. They could make a stand, and it would take the Gauls a short while to get the bulk of their men across the narrow bridge, so that would buy them some time.

He was at the end of the bridge a few heartbeats later, diving between two men in pale yellow tunics from the port of Narbo, running as fast as the press of men on the narrow bridge would allow. Almost a third of the way across he stopped, moving to the side and letting the desperate men pass him. One of the merchants - a fat man with a hare-lip - paused next to him.

‘What do we do?’ he begged in a nasal, frightened tone.

‘Get everyone into the stockade and find the optio. Everyone needs a shield, a helmet and a sword. Armour will be too time consuming, but everyone can be armed in moments.’

The merchant stared. ‘What?’

‘Get yourself armed and ready to face a siege.’

‘But we’re not legionaries!’

‘Would you rather be legionaries or corpses? I fear that’s your choice.’

As the man stared, bulge-eyed, Cita pointed back the way they’d come. The last men were rushing for the bridge, but already the enemy had issued from the gate in the defences of Cenabum and were overtaking them. Even as Cita watched with a sinking heart, a Roman merchant fell, his leg smashed to pieces at the knee with a sweep from a heavy, long blade. His limb mangled beyond repair, the merchant screamed and tried to raise himself onto his one good foot, but already two of the Carnutes were on him, one hauling him up by the hair while the other began to hack and slash at him. Cita felt his blood run cold as he watched the screaming man’s mutilation. None of the blows were deep enough to kill. They were torturing him - shredding him for amusement. A grisly echo of what Rome had done to their own leader, Acco.

There was nothing he could do about it, though, and moments later he’d lost sight of the unfortunate merchant amid the flow of howling warriors. A lucky labourer managed to slip the grasp of one of the lead Gauls and ran onto the bridge, yelling for help. From somewhere behind, a cobble sailed through the air and hit him square in the back - between the shoulder-blades - throwing him forwards onto the timbers of the bridge.

Desperately, crying out in pain, the young labourer tried to rise, but now the enemy was on the bridge and the mob’s advance was momentarily blocked as two more men beat the fallen worker, smashing bones and rending flesh. Cita took a deep, steadying breath and his gaze fell on the ships.

For a heartbeat he wondered whether perhaps Brocchus had been right and he wrong after all. One of the barges began to move away from the quay, trying to use a combination of desperate physical strength and the fast current to move into the centre of the river, where they would be able to safely clear Cenabum and make for the coast.

But, no. He’d been correct after all. They’d had no time. The barge barely made it two paces from the quay when half a dozen Carnute warriors leapt aboard, one misjudging the jump and plunging into the freezing waters of the Liger, where he floundered for a while, before swimming back to the bank. The remaining five howled with glee, a man in expensive armour and gold adornment among them.

The barge was a simple affair with a single square sail that was as-yet still furled, unoccupied oar spaces to each side, and a wide, flat deck with a no shelter, providing plenty of storage room for goods.

Perhaps ten Romans had made it aboard the barge, including one of the merchants, who was now shouting for his men to repulse the invaders and unfurl the sail. None of his men were soldiers, though; none of them were armed, beyond a few knives or timber belaying pins.

Cita watched in silent helplessness as the Carnute warriors dispatched the sailors, closing on the merchant at the steering oar, who was screaming desperate offers of coin and treasure for his safe passage. The man’s last scream remained locked in a silent ‘O’ as the head was brutally hacked from the body, one of his killer’s hands gripping his hair and tearing the grisly orb away from the neck to which it was still attached by tendrils of flesh. Laughing, the warrior - probably a chief or noble from his attire - thrust the Roman head in the air and stared bellowing something in his native tongue to his compatriots on the shore.

The slogan that he finished upon was picked up by the rest of the warriors, who fell into a rhythmic chant as they worked their way through the moored vessels in their violent harvest. Behind the chieftain, the rest of the crew’s heads were taken as prizes.

Shaking his head at such waste and at the stupidity of those who’d sought safety on the water, Cita turned to find his native assistant, Bennacos, standing patiently beside him.

‘What do they shout?’

‘It’s a little difficult to translate, sir. Essentially: Gaul, not Rome. Or not a province of Rome. Something like that.’

‘You might be safer joining them, Bennacos.’

The native frowned as though Cita suggested he spread his arms and fly away. ‘I am Boii, sir, with an oath given to the general!’

Cita smiled. ‘Good man. Let’s get in the depot then, and shut the gate before we’re overrun.’

The last of the fleeing sailors passed them, with the front men of the Carnute horde not far behind. Cita turned his ample frame and pounded along the bridge, with Bennacos at his side, across the short stretch of churned mud and through the stockade gate, which was hastily slammed shut behind him.

Cita paused in the open ground, where the civilians milled about aimlessly, panic infusing their voices. Leaning over with his hands on his knees, he heaved in a few deep breaths to recover from the run and then straightened, his gaze playing across the rudimentary defences of the depot. All bar two of the soldiers were already at the stockade, pila and shields in hand, swords at their side, armoured and prepared. The other two he could hear, along with the optio over by the barracks. As the crowd parted, he saw the two remaining legionaries, bearing the heavy timber weight of a scorpion bolt thrower as they carried it to the defences. Behind them, one of the sailors who’d managed to fight down his panic and had been suborned by the optio was carrying a case of ammunition for the weapon.

Good. Not that the scorpion would do them much good. They were still horribly outnumbered and these defences would not hold for long. But at least it gave them a little heart and something to do as they waited to be overrun. And it was something the civilians were focusing on too, helping them to overcome their own panic.

‘Crow’s feet!’ bellowed the optio, and the legionaries around the stockade began to reach down into the bags at their sides and haul out the excruciating weapons, casting them over the top of the defences and onto the turf beyond. The tribuli, or ‘crow’s feet’, were tetrahedral caltrops a few inches across, which when thrown to the ground always presented a single point on the upper side.

Cita nodded his approval. The devices had been manufactured in Narbonensis and sent here down the Liger, where they had been stockpiled in preparation for distribution to the army. Tomorrow afternoon they’d have been on their way to Agedincum and Samarobriva. Here, they were more useful.

Even as the legionaries cast the last few tribuli over the top, mining the ground beyond the defences with painful obstacles, half a dozen labourers who had been singled out by the optio were bringing a second bag to each man. There was no doubt whatsoever in Cita’s mind as to the inevitable outcome of the next hour or so, but he would damn well make the Carnutes pay for every foot of ground.

Bennacos appeared again as if from nowhere, carrying Cita’s helmet and sword, which he delivered heavily before running off to find his own mail shirt and arms.

‘Optio!’

The officer looked up, saw Cita and nodded a professional greeting as he sent two more men into the lean-to for something. ‘Sir?’

‘Have weapons and armour dished out to every living soul here. I don’t care whether they’re Roman or Gaul, sailor, servant or merchant… every last one’s a soldier now!’

The optio threw him a quick salute and then sent two more workers inside to begin sorting the shields and weapons. ‘We’ve another scorpion, but no one else trained to use it. Hundreds of bolts and stones for it, though, sir.’

Cita frowned and threaded his way through the remaining panicking civilians, though there were considerably fewer now that the optio had put some of them to work. One of the merchants - a man with three chins that wobbled hypnotically as he talked, grabbed Cita on the way past.

‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ he asked desperately, a strained hope adding an odd inflection to his voice.

‘They are. They’re falling into position, spreading out to surround us and still bringing the bulk of their force across the bridge. Juno knows why they’re bothering, given that they could overrun us with a tenth of that number.’

‘Why wait? Why surround us so thoroughly?’ begged one of the sailors.

‘They’ll want to seal this place tighter than a Vestal’s underwear. I doubt they want anyone to escape. If word of this reaches the legions… well you can guess what’ll happen. So they’re moving into place to completely cut us off before they attack, making sure they don’t drive anyone through a gap and off to freedom.’

The merchant and his sailor both sagged, their hope extinguished by Cita’s flat explanation. For a moment he felt he should say something positive - something hopeful, uplifting - but he had nothing. If it had been Caesar here, or even Fronto, they’d have had the civilians roaring with venom and the naked hunger for battle. They both had the charisma of a true commander. Cita had a good understanding of the mechanics of command, and a lot of experience of war despite not being much of a fighter himself, but he’d devoted his long career to the logistics of the military. He was no real leader of men. Even the optio was motivating the men better than he could. Perhaps it was for the best, then that he could find no helpful words. Any hope he could give them would be a hollow thing, after all.

However, what he could not give them as a leader, he could give as an organiser. Striding with purpose across the compound, he stopped next to the optio. ‘Strongest building here, optio? Defensively, I mean.’

‘Main store room, sir. Stone walls with small slit-windows for air circulation - roof’s a weak point, but not worth panicking over. The whole pissing place is one big weak point. Shame we pinned the lean-tos on either side, but it’s still the strongest place. After that it’s the barracks, then the guest quarters.’

‘Agreed. The main store will be our fall-back position when the outer stockade falls.’

The optio’s eyes swung back and forth at the civilians who were listening in. ‘If the outer stockade falls, sir.’

Cita took his meaning and nodded. ‘If they fall, yes.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I can hear them moving off to the south already. We’ve got less than a quarter of an hour before they begin the push - probably a lot less. They’ll come slow at first because of the crow’s feet, and we can make them a little more hesitant with pila. We should have plenty of those in store, eh?’

‘At least a dozen a man, sir,’ the optio smiled.

‘Then get every last one distributed. Three to each civilian and the rest stacked up evenly next to the legionaries. Let’s give ‘em hell when they move. Any bows in there?’

‘No sir.’

‘Fair enough. Doubt we’ve anyone who could use one anyway.’ He turned and glanced at the gate, where the artillery piece was being set up on the fighting platform. ‘Get the other scorpion up onto the roof of the barracks. I wish the store had a flat roof, but the barracks will have to do. Have the two men on the gate scorpion split up, one with each weapon, and put one of the less panicked civilians with each as an assistant.’

‘He’ll be as exposed as a whore’s arse up there, sir.’

‘We’ve got an entire lean-to full of grain sacks, if I remember rightly. They were taken from the granaries in town this morning, but the grain barge hasn’t arrived yet. Have them hauled up to the roof and make a small ring defence. In fact let’s have the rest of them as a fall-back redoubt in front of the stores. Simple work for the civilians and as soon as it’s done they’ll be needed at these buildings.’

The optio nodded and began to point out men among the crowd. ‘You: go get Servilius from the scorpion by the gate and send him to me, then stay there and ask how you load and aim the thing.’

As the optio turned to the next men, assigning grain sack removal, Cita spotted Bennacos rushing from the barrack building, his mail shirt flapping heavy and loose about his thighs, spear in hand and sword at his side, hexagonal shield painted with bright native designs. He had foregone a helm, his braided hair framing his serious face and moustaches twitching with anticipation.

‘Bennacos? I’ve got the civilians building a redoubt of grain sacks outside the store entrance. I want you in charge of defending it until - and possibly after - we pull back there.’

One of the Roman merchants near his elbow, struggling with a sack, paused, frowning. ‘But he’s a Gaul!’

‘And one of the few men I trust to do the job.’ Paying the merchant no further heed, but flashing a raised-eyes incredulous look at the Boii auxiliary, Cita began to scrabble his bulk up onto one of the barrels stacked against the barracks and grasped the flat roof, hauling himself up and onto the top. Already one of the workers was there, waiting for grain sacks to be heaved up to him.

‘I don’t think we’ve time to do this, sir.’

Cita rose and looked around. ‘I see what you mean, but we’ve no choice. Try not to get killed. My staff records are already a mess.’

The man smiled, and Cita frowned. Perhaps he’d inadvertently issued a joke? Shrugging, he ignored the man and took in the situation. Time to offer up a few heartfelt prayers and make sure everyone had coins to put under the tongues of the dead. He’d hate to be refused by the boatman and be doomed to wander this shithole for the rest of time.

They were evenly-spaced now - a ring of vengeance, righteous fury and death around the supply depot, dozens deep. He wouldn’t bother counting - didn’t have time - but there would be over a thousand of them and even now the carnyxes were blarting out their ‘deflating bull’ noises as they called the horde to attack.

With mere moments to spare, Cita turned and peered down at his command. The first sacks were being hauled onto the barracks roof, and the scorpion was on its way up. If they were lucky it might even get a chance to loose a few shots before it was overrun. The other artillery piece was swinging back and forth, trained on the approaching mass, selecting a target. The legionaries each hefted a pilum, with a stack of others waiting. More civilians stood between the soldiers at the stockade, each with a couple of pila, bolstering the defences. A small group ferried sacks from the store while another distributed them to either the barrack roof or the storehouse redoubt. The optio was on the way to the gate where he would stride the perimeter, offering advice and encouragement - the latter with the business-end of his staff of office as was the wont of his breed. Bennacos was directing the construction of the redoubt.

At a headcount, in all Cita commanded maybe fifty men, though more than half of those were civilians who’d never held a blade. It didn’t take a master mathematician to do the arithmetic. It would all be over soon enough. But at least Cita would give the rebellious bastards a taste of what was to come if they continued to revolt. Six legions waited less than a hundred miles away and the general, when the news of this mess finally reached him, would be pitiless in his chastisement.

‘Here they come!’

As the horde of Carnute warriors swept towards the defences on all sides, the optio roared out his commands and the men at the stockade drew back their throwing arms, pila steadied and angled for the cast. The civilians matched the legionaries with varying degrees of success, and the optio paused as he stomped around the perimeter, knocking a sagging pilum shaft back up into position with his staff.

‘Keep your arm up and steady, lad. This ain’t the games… this is serious business.’ He turned and looked up at Cita, who held up his hand showing two fingers with his thumb across his palm in the lookout’s standard sign for ‘two hundred paces’.

‘At thirty paces, lads,’ the optio announced. ‘Then at twenty, and then at will. Let’s give ‘em something to listen to, eh? Volcatius, you’ve a voice like a lark… give us a tune.’

The legionary he gestured at grinned and cleared his throat.

‘Wine is better than women,’ he sang in a lilting but loud tone. ‘Oh wine is better they say. I’ve had a whore in every door, but the beer never made me pay!’

The soldiers among the defenders joined in with the ditty and Cita, who’d heard enough marching, digging and fighting songs in his time of service, turned his attention instead to his immediate locale. Sacks of grain were now coming up and a second man had arrived and was stacking them in a half-circle to protect a small area from missiles. As he turned, Cita saw the tip of the scorpion arrive over the lip of the roof and rushed over to help the artillerist and his civilian assistant haul the thing up and then move it into position.

As the engineer shuffled the machine into a good firing situation and began to turn the windlass, Cita helped the assistant bring up the box of ammunition. It would be touch and go whether it would be of any real use. The enemy were almost at the stockade.

Leaving them to it, Cita moved to the edge of the roof and slid down to the ground. The soldiers had finished their bawdy song and at the instigation of the optio begun chanting ‘Minerva, Minerva, Minerva,’ in a menacing tone. At the sixth repeat, the optio dropped his raised hand and pila arced up around the defences, coming down with varied success, most of the legionaries hitting their chosen targets and even one or two of the civilians actually reaching the mass of the enemy and scoring a blow.

Cita strode across to the redoubt of grain sacks that was already three feet high and stepped on an upturned bucket to give himself a clearer view across the scant defenders and the low stockade. The legionaries at the perimeter had a height advantage over their enemy, since the defences had been designed with a slight embankment of turf behind the stockade. The rise allowed the defenders to strike over the top with their swords, the timbers protecting them from the chest down, while the ground beyond the palisade was some two feet lower, meaning the Carnutes would have to stretch and leap to strike over the top.

It was small advantage, given the odds, but at this point Cita would take every edge the Gods granted him. Another three repeats of ‘Minerva’ and the second volley of pila launched from the defences.

Cita’s slight height advantage on the bucket allowed him a reasonable view of the attack to the south, where no buildings existed to aid defence, and where the beleaguered Romans were reliant upon a simple stockade alone. The enemy, as he’d hoped, had faltered as they reached the scattered caltrops, the iron spikes gouging holes in feet, heedless of any booted protection, disabling and crippling the front runners who fell to the dirt in agony, only to find themselves speared in other places by more of the nightmare mines and then trampled to the ground by the tribesmen following.

Cita watched as the front men collapsed in a screaming heap all around the defences, then a second wave from behind fell afoul of the same weapons, howling and falling only to be trampled by their fellows. The wave came on but at a slower pace, men regularly collapsing with wounded feet. The command had now been given for free throws and the legionaries cast their remaining stack of pila in a continual stream while the civilians each took their remaining pilum and steadied it to defend themselves against the first men to make it to the stockade.

Cita felt for them, he really did. He was hardly a seasoned warrior himself, but at least he’d had the training and experience of battle. They were poor sods with no experience or training, put in a hopeless fight for their lives, which the officer knew plainly that they couldn’t win.

More than one of the civilians was standing in a small puddle of their own urine, their tunics sodden with fear. Many were shaking, their pilum points dancing with the involuntary movement.

‘Minerva!’ he yelled.

The optio glanced around at him and Cita gave him an encouraging nod, gesturing to the men at the stockade.

‘Minerva!’ he bellowed again, this time with the optio joining in. By the third shout a few legionaries had added their voices. Then more and more until every soldier in the compound was chanting the Goddess’ name. Even some of the civilians began to join in, the union of the chant diverting their mind a little from the fear that ravaged them, steadying their javelin points even as it steadied their voices.

‘Minerva!’

Cita reached into his own tunic and pulled out the small silver figurine of that same Goddess, who he personally revered above all, and kissed it before tucking it away, silently vowing the biggest altar his purse could afford if there was any hope of victory here; any hope of survival.

There wasn’t, of course, but it never hurt to ask the Gods anyway.

There was a crash, followed by a bellow of panic as the first of the Carnutes reached the stockade and a legionary had to break position slightly to help the nearest civilian drive the man back.

It had begun.

The scorpion at the gate had already been loading and releasing as fast as the operators could work it from the moment the enemy had come near range, but now the second machine on the barrack roof began to cough iron death, though the Carnutes must be almost at the wall beneath it already.

Time to deal with the buildings themselves, then. The stockade would hold for a short time, until the casualties thinned out the defences too much, but the barracks, the accommodation block and the stores were now potential weak points. If the enemy could scale a wall and reach their roof, they would have open access to the whole compound.

The redoubt was now four feet high, and the remaining grain sacks in the store numbered few. The ten civilians labouring to position the sacks under Bennacos’ steady eye were flagging, panting and slow. They would be precious little use at the stockade now, but the job he had for them - while equally vital - was less exerting.

‘Right, you lot. Form up! You, you and you get over to the merchants’ accommodation block. There are no external windows, and the walls are pretty smooth, but you can guarantee the enemy will manage to scale them. Get onto that roof with your pila and stick any living thing that appears over the eaves. Got that?’

‘What if they have archers?’ one of the men asked with panicked, dancing eyes.

‘They do. Stay low until the enemy start to appear over the edge. Then you can stand safely. They won’t be stupid enough to loose arrows at the roof when there’s three of you and dozens of them. The chances of them hitting their own would be too high.’

‘Dozens?’

‘Perhaps you’d prefer a position at the stockade?’

The three men exchanged nervous glances and suddenly Bennacos behind them smacked the butt of his spear on the ground. ‘Move!’

The civilians ran off, holding their javelins in the ungainly manner of the reluctant soldier. Cita nodded his thanks to the Boii auxiliary and pointed at more men.

‘You, you and you. Same task, but on the barracks roof. Make sure you don’t get in the way of the scorpion crew, but keep any climbers off the roof and don’t let them get to the artillery.’

The second team exchanged equally fearful looks, but kept their arguments to themselves at the sight of Bennacos’ humourless face. As they ran off, javelins wavering, towards the barracks, Cita nodded at the others.

‘You four are with me and Bennacos. We’ll take the stone building and the roof. You are in pairs, one in each lean-to. There are small cracks, holes and windows in the place. Be selective and careful. Stick your weapons through those holes into anything you can hit, but prioritise on those who look like they’re trying to climb. Bear in mind they’ll be doing the same to you, so keep alert; eyes open and watch every crack for a weapon coming at you. Good luck and Minerva go with you.’

Leaving the civilians to their task, Cita gestured at Bennacos and thumbed in the direction of the main store’s door.

‘Mind telling me what we’re going to do, sir?’ the auxiliary asked as they entered the dim interior.

‘Same as everyone else. It’s a weak spot from the outside.’

The gloom was only slightly lessened by the three narrow, slit-like apertures in the rear wall. The sides of the room - and indeed much of the centre - were filled with rough wooden racks that held the supplies bound for the army in neat rows. Above, in the darkness, the thatched roof was supported by a system of beams and struts that crossed the open space.

‘I’m too old and fat to get up there, so I’m afraid the roof’s yours. You know what to do. I’ll take the three windows and try to stop anyone getting up there in the first place.’

Bennacos nodded, his eyes straying around the room. ‘There’s amphorae of pitch, here. We could have used that if we’d had time.

Cita nodded. ‘With time there’s all sorts we could have done, but it doesn’t help us now. I daresay everything in here has its use, but sadly, we’re out of time.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Bennacos?’

‘Yes, Prefect?’

‘When things become untenable and all is lost, someone needs to get word of this to the army. The nearest garrison is the better part of a hundred miles from here at Agedincum, so it’s a hard task.’

‘You’ll be up to it, sir.’

Cita laughed despite himself. ‘Bennacos, I get out of breath climbing out of bed. My leg weighs more than most legionaries. No, I would never make it. No Roman would at the moment, in fact. But a few miles from here is the territory of the Boii: your people. If you can make it those few short miles, you will be in allied lands - if such a thing still exists - and you should be able to reach Agedincum.’

‘I’ll not leave you here to die, Prefect.’

‘You’ll not have a choice, I fear. In fact, I cannot see a realistic way for you to get out either, but whatever happens, get out you must. This might be another isolated rising occasioned by Caesar’s punishment of their king, but there is every possibility that this is the start of what Priscus has been predicting for years, and my heart leans towards the latter. Caesar is back in Aquileia dealing with his own troubles. The only officer in the field in Gaul who has the experience and ability to keep control in his absence is Labienus, but even he will be unable to do so if he is taken by surprise by the whole of Gaul. Warn the army.’

There was a long pause and finally Bennacos nodded and began to climb one of the newly-emptied weapon racks.

‘Just don’t die, Prefect.’

‘Not dying, Bennacos, is rather high on my list of priorities. Sadly, I suspect it’s not on theirs.’ He gestured with a pointed finger towards the seething mass of barbarians outside the narrow slits.

As the Boii auxiliary climbed up to the rafters, Cita sighed, took a deep breath and drew his expensive, decorative gladius from its sheath. In five years of campaigning in Gaul he’d never had cause to bloody it, such was the safety of his role far behind the lines of combat. Today would be his test in so many ways, not least his courage.

It seemed, as he approached the wall, that he might have overestimated the time they had before the enemy breached the defences, or possibly he’d underestimated the time it took to build the redoubt? Either way, men were already scaling the rear wall of the stone storeroom, raising their cupped hands to provide steps for the booted feet of their comrades above.

With a heaved breath, Cita raised his blade and chose one of the three narrow windows at random - given the similar sight through each. Tensing, he rammed the sword into the gap and felt rather than saw it bite into a hard protective cover and punch through into flesh, grating off the rib bones and into the vital soft parts within. He was so unprepared for the ease of the blow that he almost lost the blade as the warrior fell away from the wall with a gurgling cry, and only managed to wrench the gladius free at the last possible moment.

The man his victim had been supporting in his climb suddenly fell past the window with a shout - a simple blur of colours as he crashed to the ground, felling several of his fellows in the process. With an invigorating feeling of achievement, Cita stepped across to the next window and, seeing a similar tableau beyond, thrust his blade again. Once more the feeling of resistance gave way quickly to a soft sinking in of the sword and he felt something hot spray up his arm and wash across his knuckles. As the warrior yelped and fell back clutching his wounded chest, the man who had been using him as a step clung onto the eaves of the building desperately, legs waving in the open air. Cita watched the blue-trousered limbs swinging back and forth in the gap and, timing it as best he could, jabbed out at them. The first two thrusts missed and the man had just managed to achieve a solid handhold and start pulling himself up when the blade finally smashed into his calf, tearing through the muscle. The climber bellowed out in pain but managed to haul his feet up out of the way.

The prefect had little time to consider matters, however, turning his attention to the third window, where a man had apparently just passed and another was busy putting his foot into the cupped hands of a friend. With gusto, Cita lashed out, smashing his sword at the cupped fingers, breaking a wrist and almost severing a hand before withdrawing and running back to the first window.

As he dashed across the room he spared a glance upwards for Bennacos, who was now sitting astride the main room-length beam in the rafters, his ankles locked together below to grant him stability as he stabbed up through the thatch with his spear. The roofing was good and thick and waterproof in order to protect the stores below, so there was no hope of the auxiliary seeing any figures above, but fortunately their numbers were currently so few that he could identify where they traversed the roof by the dust and chaff that fell from the thatch beneath their knees - they would all be crawling, since the roof’s pitch would be far too steep for them to walk.

The sporadic screams from above testified to Bennacos’ success rate, and with his central position and the long reach of the spear there was hardly anywhere on the roof safe from his thrusts.

With a smile, Cita moved back to the window and began the task of halting the climbers again. He could only hope the men in the barracks and the civilian accommodation and the pairs in the wooden lean-tos at either side were having a similar rate of success. He was under no illusion as to their chances of survival, but he would make the bastards earn this victory with a lake of their blood.

The process became mechanical: window one - thrust - window two - thrust - window three - thrust - quick glance upwards - cross room and repeat.

He could not have said how long he’d been at the grisly business when the situation changed.

A cry came from outside and, though he couldn’t hear the details, the tone made the call’s subject clear: a breach. The stockade or one of the other buildings had fallen. In confirmation, a moment later he heard the optio bellowing the order to fall back to the redoubt.

‘Bennacos? They’re in the compound. We’re the last resort now.’

Whether or not the auxiliary heard he couldn’t say, as the man was far too busy lunging with his spear into the thatch again and again, almost every time fetching a cry of pain from a victim. That boded somewhat and suggested a worryingly high number of figures on the roof now.

‘I’ll be back, Bennacos. Be careful. You have to survive this, remember?’

With a deep breath, white knuckles tightening on the ivory handle of his sword, Cita dashed out of the store room and straight into Hades. The compound was filling with screaming natives, waving their weapons in anticipated victory as they broke through the stockade in three places, a fourth group securing the roof of the civilians’ quarters as they dropped down to join their fellows.

The remaining legionaries and civilians were running across the clear area of compound for the relative safety of the grain-sack redoubt. Even as Cita scanned the ranks for a rough headcount he saw the optio, bringing up the rear and waving the men on with his staff of office, fall prey to a thrown spear, the bronze leaf-shaped blade emerging through his chest in a spray of crimson, his eyes bulging as he pitched forward suddenly, mid-curse.

Cita was now the last officer. He could count four soldiers and six civilians, though he might have missed the count by one or two, at speed and in the confusion.

Off to his right the second scorpion suddenly fell from the roof, along with a couple of the defensive grain sacks, signalling the end of the barracks as a defensive position. The other scorpion had stopped firing before Cita left the building, its crew fleeing to the redoubt with the rest. It was one small blessing that the enemy were so charged with victorious energy that they had not considered turning the defenders’ high places into their own missile platforms, but really, with the numbers now so hopelessly uneven, it hardly mattered.

Despite Cita’s original intentions, Bennacos could not command the redoubt - he was busy inside, trying to prevent the roof falling into enemy hands. With a resigned swallow, he knew he was in charge. He, and he alone. In charge of a doomed command with only a few short heartbeats of existence left.

Even as he tried to think of something encouraging to shout, he turned at a crash to see that the outer wall of one of the timber lean-tos had collapsed under the pressure of the enemy. The remaining of the two men inside was almost instantly hacked to pieces by the Carnutes as they swarmed inside.

That was it, then. The redoubt was already useless before its defence had begun. The enemy had gained access through the building. The depot had fallen and all that was left was to die like a soldier.

‘Everyone inside. We can limit the number that come at us through that door!’

The pitiful remaining force pushed their way into the stone store house, the rear-most men clambering over the grain-sack wall and flopping down to the inside. Despite the example of the optio who had died at the back, chivvying on his men, Cita was somewhere in the middle, pushing into the building in order to preserve his life as long as possible.

The last of the retreating men - the incredulous fat merchant with the hare-lip from the bridge, he noted - fell as he clambered over the redoubt, a Carnute long-sword slashing down and smashing into his back, splintering bones and carving meat. The man shrieked in pain and tried to claw his way on, but already the rest of the enemy were on him and the last Cita saw of him was the panic on the wounded civilian’s face as he was dragged back into the mass of warriors. A small knot of warriors paused at that position, their sword-arms rising and falling, as the tide of Gauls swept on past.

Cita braced his feet and noticed that the few remaining legionaries took up similar positions nearby while the civilians retreated into the darkness in panic. He shouted an order for them to fall in with the defence but they reacted no more than he’d expected, hiding among the wooden racks for the most part. A quick glance up and he could see that Bennacos was in trouble too. The roof now bore large holes and much of the thatching had been hacked away so that the men above could get at the warrior busy sticking them with a spear from below.

Time was up.

‘Minerva be with us. Sell your life dearly, lads.’

With a last sigh of resignation he reached for the coin purse at his belt and withdrew a single dupondius.

‘There’s pitch in here, sir,’ one of the legionaries said quietly. ‘We could destroy the whole bloody place and take a load of them with us?’

Cita shook his head. It was not the horrifying prospect of burning to death in this place that stopped him, though. After all, he could easily put his own bloodied blade through his chest before the flames licked his skin. It was the knowledge that if everything here burned then there was no hope of word getting out.

‘No burning. Just take as many of them with you as you can!’

The doorway filled suddenly with the shapes of Carnute warriors as they ran in to take down the last Roman defenders. The legionaries presented the best shield wall they could, the shieldless Cita taking one end where he could jab and thrust with his blade. His free hand, reaching up from his purse with the dupondius, slipped the coin into his mouth, beneath his tongue. After all, no one would do him the honour in a few moments’ time.

His sword lanced out with all the professionalism of the other soldiers, despite his lack of martial experience, and when the first wound came it took him a couple of heartbeats to realise that he’d been struck, blood pumping from his savaged upper arm. He gritted his teeth and as he heard a cry of pain, looked up just in time to see a bloodied Bennacos tumble from the rafters, an enemy warrior at a hole in the thatch above laughing with victory and brandishing a crimson sword.

It was over, then. Hopeless. The army would have no warning. If this was more than a simple revenge rising, then they stood every chance of suffering the same fate as the shattered legion of Cotta and Sabinus last winter.

The second wound, he did notice, as he lost his hand and the glistening sword that had briefly become a natural extension of his arm plunged away into the darkness.

A tear welled up in the corner of his eye and the legionary at his side suddenly disappeared under a dreadful blow from a powerful axe.

Cita died in a manner befitting a Roman officer, coated in the blood of his enemies and denying them to the last, his brief command obliterated by the rage of the Carnutes. Even as the enemy hacked at him, defiling the body, a strange smile spread across his face. The coin had not dislodged. The ferrymen had come. No doom to wander Cenabum for Caius Fusius Cita, for his eternity lay in Elysium.

 

* * *

 

Cotuatus of the Carnutes, cousin of the wretched deceased and scourged Acco, stood in the ruins of the Roman depot, his blade running with blood, mud and gore spattered across him, and a glorious feeling of accomplishment and freedom coursing through his veins. It was done. The first blow struck. The fire-arrow that would signal the end of Rome and the retaking of his land had been loosed into the air for all of Gaul to see.

‘Glory this day, Cotuatus.’

He turned to see his other cousin and co-commander of the war-band, Conconnetodumnus, stepping over bodies, a dripping axe in his hand.

‘We are the first, cousin. When the bards sing the tales of the day Rome died and the day Gaul rose, our names will be the first to be sung.’

‘I only wish we were moving on to take their cursed legions.’

‘Patience, cousin. Trust Vercingetorix. The man knows what he is doing. Even the druids bow to him. The legions will do nothing without their general, but will sit tight in their forts with no knowledge of what has happened here. By the time they know what has occurred, they will be cut off and that pig-pizzle Caesar will be trapped in his palace, cut off from his men.’

‘Still, I would take Agedincum had I the chance.’

‘I too. But we swore an oath to do as we were commanded. Be content that we have struck the first blow for freedom and with such overwhelming success and have word sent to Vercingetorix. Tonight, in Cenabum, we drink good beer and toast our victory and the doom of Rome!’

 

* * *

 

Darkness cloaked Cenabum and the charred ruins of the Roman outpost. The Carnute warriors, with the blessings of their leaders, had raided the Roman supplies of anything useful, retrieving their hard-farmed grain from the invader’s hand and eschewing the Roman weapons as womanish and small. The honoured dead had been carried out and laid in lines ready to be dealt with properly once the night had passed and the sun rose over a newly liberated Gaul. The Roman dead and their pet southerner servants had been heaped unceremoniously into a shallow ditch where they could rot in their own time.

The leaders and great warriors of the war-band had entered Cenabum where they feasted on meats and fruits and bread taken from the Roman supplies and drank frothy Gallic beer. Others, who had fought like lions today, ravaged their way through the Roman trade ships and barges, drinking the wine they found to their taste and tipping the rest into the river. Debris of all kinds floated downstream towards the sea.

The depot itself had been torched as soon as the honoured dead were removed along with anything of use or value. Now, the smouldering timbers were falling in on themselves, throwing up ash from the charred pile beneath.

Rome had been extinguished, here.

In the cold, glistening moonlight, a hand twitched.

Among the ordered lines of the honoured Carnute dead, a cold, grey arm, covered in the mire of the battle, moved, found purchase and pushed. A body slowly rose to a seated position, the head looking this way and that, checking for movement. No one nearby. The place was… well, as quiet as a grave.

Bennacos clutched the wound at his side. It had bled profusely, but was little more really than a flesh wound. The real pain he’d suffered had been landing on the compacted earth floor after the dramatic and convincing fall. It had been the hardest, tensest thing he had done in his life to lie still, temper his breathing as shallow and slow as possible and appear utterly limp and lifeless as two Carnutes had carried him out of the building alongside the other victims of the Roman war machine.

The wound had stopped bleeding and clotted.

Staggering painfully to his feet and rubbing his other arm - the one that had been dislocated and possibly fractured during the fall - he scrambled away from the enemy dead and towards the pit where he’d seen the Romans thrown.

It was not hard to find the body of Cita, chubbier than the rest and turned out so well, even in bloody death. It struck him as comforting that his former commander seemed to have a smile on his face in the grave more genuine than any he’d ever seen while the man lived.

Pausing only momentarily to check that a coin was in place beneath the tongue, he quickly screwed the officer’s signet ring, bearing the ‘Castor and Pollux’ seal of his family, from his finger and tucked it away into his own pouch as evidence of his identity.

With a last, lingering look at his commander, Bennacos of the Boii - loyal oath-man of Caesar and only survivor of the massacre at Cenabum - trotted off into the night, heading for Boii lands and the path to the legions.