Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (68 page)

Similar stories were playing out along both sides of the street. Here and there a legionary had fallen foul of a well-aimed arrow or slingshot, or a sword or spear thrust from a better prepared defender. It seemed, though, that the ambushers had not expected such an efficient and organised reaction, and only one
Gaul
had taken position at each window. With only seven men down, the small Roman force had quickly taken control of the street’s edges, nullifying the dangerous crossfire. The last few stones and arrows bounced down to the ground and allowed the hiss of the rain and the roar of the pursuing Morini to fill the air once more.

Brutus had pushed his way through the centre of the mass of legionaries, most of whom were still holding to an almost testudo formation until further orders came. Arriving at the rear of the small force, he strained his ears, listening out. After a few tense heartbeats, during which the Morini began to rain blows down upon the shields of the rearmost legionaries, he finally heard Fronto’s call that the missile fire had been nullified.

Taking a deep breath, he gripped his sword tight in his hand and looked about.

“On my command, everyone but the rear four ranks will turn and break towards the fort, taking further orders from legate Fronto when you reach him. The rest of you will hold with me until we have room to manoeuvre.”

Fixing his thoughts arbitrarily on a number that would give Fronto plenty of timeonsolidate further up the hill, Brutus counted to ten and bellowed “Now!”

Almost two thirds of the force in the street, some two hundred men, broke from the party and began to hurtle up the incline toward the looming shape of the fort walls, their passage now safe, legionaries from Fronto’s vanguard holding the windows against further assaults.

“Right!” Brutus yelled. “On my next command, the entire force will take three quick steps back and reform as a solid shield wall three men deep that fills the street. Mark your position in advance. There cannot be any gaps!”

Even as he prepared to give the order, the legionary in front of him suddenly exploded like a ripe melon, a Morini axe finding its way over the top of the unfortunate soldier’s shield and cleaving both helmet and skull in its descent. Brutus spluttered for a second, stunned and coated in blood and brain matter as he saw the axe man withdraw his weapon with the grating of bone and a slopping sound, pulling it back for another blow. There was little room in the press to react with the sword which was held down by his side and he bore no shield.

“Reform!” he bellowed, bracing himself.

As the axe reached its apex and began its extended descent towards the Roman officer, Brutus felt the press of men around him suddenly give as they shifted into position and he found himself almost manhandled back out of the way as a legionary stepped in front of him and brought his shield up high. The axe buried itself in the wood, becoming lodged only six inches from the boss. Grimly, the legionary heaved the heavy, cumbersome shield and trapped weapon to the side a few inches – enough to drive his gladius into the pit beneath the man’s extended arm.

Not even waiting to see him die, the soldier pulled the blade back and closed the gap. Some of the weight on his shield fell away as the warrior expired and released his grip on the axe, though the weapon itself remained wedged.

Brutus, his heart pounding a tattoo in his chest, stepped back a few paces and took stock. The seething mass of the Morini tribe were now held back by a thin shield wall. It would do for a while, but not for long.

“On my command, the line will begin to withdraw in good order up the street towards the fort.”

He took a deep breath and raised his voice enough to double as a signal for Fronto back up the street.

“On the count of five, strike and then take two paces back and reform.”

“One… two… three… four… five!”

En masse the thirty men angled their shields and stabbed out into the mass of howling Gauls, took two steps back and locked shields again.

“Good!” Brutus bellowed. “Now we repeat the move until we reach the fort. And I can’t afford to lose the line, so any man who dies will get docked a week’s pay!”

A laugh rippled through the desperate defence despite the situation, and Brutus straightened.
“Here we go… One!”

Further up the street, Fronto heard Brutus’ shouted commands and sighed with relief. They might pull themselves out of this after all. Watching the approaching men who had broken from Brutus’ force, he felt a lurch of worry again as he realised how few soldiers his fellow legate had left himself to bar the way to the enemy.

“You men” he addressed the legionaries guarding the windows. “You will hold position until the rearguard reaches you and then fall in and join their line as they pull back.

Pinching his nose, he looked down at the blade hanging from his hand. He’d not even drawn blood yet. Was this what it felt like to be a normal commander? Ordering men around with no personal involvement? Blinking, he refocussed on the large force of soldiers slowing as they reached him. No time to muse on the nature of command now.

“You men come with me. I want you formed into an advancing shield wall. The bulk of the enemy may be behind us, but there could yet be Gauls between us and safety. Someone was trying to burn the gate, after all. Form up and prepare to advance in good order.”

The legionaries, a confused mix of the Seventh and tenth, quickly formed into a column ten men wide, the front line holding their shields up ready to meet any resistance.

“Advance at the steady march.”

With the slow, determined tramp of a marching legion, the column of protected and armed legionaries began to stomp up the road towards the camp. Up here, the houses of the Morini townsfolk – rebels? – petered out with no archers in windows threatening them, and were replaced by small orchards, vegetable gardens, animal pens and patches of waste ground.

Closer they moved until finally the path curved slightly and gave them their first clear view of the fort. Fronto grinned. Rufus had really gone to work on his fortifications. An extra ditch had been dug around the fort, and the joins between it and the new settlement ramparts had been severed and cleared, the ditches extended through them.

The smoke that had appeared to be from an attempted burning of the gate proved instead to be the charring, smouldering remains of the Morini’s attempt at creating a vinea – a protective mobile shelter – that they’d apparently used to cover a battering ram. The ram itself was now a huge, black cinder in the centre of the smoking pile, hissing in the rain.

The fort had held and held well. The amount of churned mud and destruction around the outer ditch and the bodies piled within it suggested that the siege was probably in its second or even third day now.

“Come on, lads. We’re clear” he shouted to the legionaries.

A few figures appeared at the top of the gate, on the parapet. A man with a transverse crest on his helmet, visible in the light of a guttering torch, turned and bellowed out commands. Fronto couldn’t quite hear what the man had said, but the words ‘Roman’ and relief’ were definitely among them.

The fort’s gate began to swing open and the duty centurion and his men issued out in full battle array, looking about as relieved as Fronto had ever seen a man. The advancing force came to a halt and Fronto strode out ahead.

The centurion saluted and grinned. His face was streaked black with soot and dark circles hung under his eyes.

“It’s very good to see you, sir. Can I ask what legions you bring?”

Fronto sheathed his sword and coughed quietly.

“Just four centuries of the Seventh and Tenth returned from Britannia, I’m afraid. We’re not so much a relief force as fellow prisoners.”

The centurion tried to hide his disappointment, his face hardening. “Then it’s good to see you back, sir. Legate Rufus is in the headquarters building. I assume you’ll want to see him straight away?”

“I will. Legate Brutus is on his way up the hill with the rearguard, followed by a sizeable force of Gauls. Get these men fell in with your own and prepared in case they decide the night can stand another attack yet.”

The centurion nodded as Fronto strode in through the gates.

* * * * *

“Legate Rufus sends these with his compliments, sir.”

Fronto turned, taking some care on the slimy timbers of the rampart walkway, to see an optio from the Ninth saluting him, two legionaries behind him carrying a bundle of javelins some twenty-odd in number, bound into a sheaf with leather ties.

“Thank you. I suspect we’ll need them. Looks like they’ll coming back for another try any time now.”

The two soldiers struggled up the ramp to the parapet with their burden and then upended it to rest against the palisade wall, saluting as they caught their breath before turning and jogging back the way they’d come. The junior officer threw out another salute and marched back to his duties.

Geminius, a hard-bitten ginger haired centurion with a flat nose and a hare-lip that showed failed stitch-marks, grinned his ugly grin along the palisade.

“Shall I distribute them, sir.”

“Go ahead.”

Fronto watched Geminius as he began the task. The centurion was one of the two from the Tenth who had disembarked with him last night, the other having fallen foul of a particularly vicious sword wound in the retreat up the street from the port, and currently waiting to greet Hades in person in the makeshift hospital. The wounded centurion’s optio had only been made up in Britannia and was, as yet, not ready to take full command and so Geminius had combined the survivors of the two centuries into one outsized unit that had been given the northeast sector of wall.

“Lounging about again?”

Fronto turned at Priscus’ voice, too tired to anger – he’d found that since his explosion of untamed rage in Britannia anger was slow to come and less common, or possibly he was deliberately making it so. He’d had less than an hour’s sleep since leaving Britannia and the fatigue was beginning to wear him down. The rain had stopped at dawn to the great relief of the men, clearing the sky and bringing a cold wind and pale sun that totally failed to dry up any of the standing water. For the thousandth time, Fronto wished he was in Puteoli with a bunch of grapes and the timetable for the races. It seemed so far away in both distance and probability.

“Haven’t you got to be annoying somewhere else, Gnaeus?”

“I am free of duties for a grand total of twenty minutes in order to halt my steady descent into starvation.”

The prefect produced a cloth-wrapped bundle and opened it to reveal two small loaves of freshly-baked bread, half a cheese, and a small bowl of meat chunks the origin of which Fronto was not about to question. It was common knowledge that cheese was in ridiculously short supply and that meat had run out before they had even arrived.

“I hope you shaved the rat first.”

Ignoring the meat, he gratefully tore off a piece of bread and a chunk of cheese, only realising as he bit down on them how hungry he was and how much his stomach was growling.

“All quiet?” Priscus enquired lightly

“Sort of…”

The Morini had given them a period of grace after the column had reached the fort, pulling back out of range of the walls to change tactic. The new arrivals had had little time to rest, though. After an hour’s meeting with Rufus, Brutus and Priscus, Fronto had managed maybe forty-five minutes of shut-eye before the alarm sounded and the army rushed to the defences to prepare for the next onslaught. Rufus had explained unhappily that this routine had been going on now for days, the locals never giving them more than four or five hours of rest.

“They’re not going to rest until they have the fort.”

Fronto shook his head. “They know there are still several Roman legions out there, as well as the cavalry. It’s a matter of time. They need to wipe out this garrison and then disappear into the woods before another army appears. I can see what they’re planning; I just can’t see why they’ve gone this far. I just can’t figure what triggered it?”

Priscus swallowed his mouthful and cleared his throat. “I talked to Rufus about it. I gather the Morini were never truly under Caesar’s thumb by the end of last year. To expect them to sit by and let us use their main settlements as a campaign base was maybe a little short-sighted.” He leaned closer. “Personally, I think they were expecting you to come back from campaign rich and loaded down with slaves. I think it was an ill-coved and opportunistic attempt to essentially rob the victors of their spoils. It’s all gone wrong for them though, as only two ships made it back to harbour. I expect they’ve looted your ships and are still hungry for more.”