The big Remi and his two legionary companions reached the end of the hedge and paused as one of the Eburones moved past a ruined aperture in the wall, taking a moment to peer out but seeing only what he expected: nothing.
Then they were moving again. Fast but careful across lush grass that kept their footsteps quiet. Just as a second warrior appeared at that broken wall with its wide hole, taking a slug from a water-skin and spitting out onto the grass, the three singulares ducked and hid beneath the raised floor of the granary - necessity of design keeping it raised from the ground for healthy air circulation.
They were in position, and now crawling around to get ready for their attack.
Fronto watched as they disappeared into the darkness below, gave them the count of ten to get to their places, and then broke cover, waving the other four along with him - somewhat redundantly, given each man’s knowledge of the plan.
Such was their stealthy approach down the stream bed and their proximity to the farm that they had covered more than half the intervening space before one of the watchers in the granary managed to get out a brief word in his dialect which was quickly muffled as Iuvenalis appeared immediately in front of him and ran a gladius through his neck, jerking it this way and that to make sure the man died as quickly and quietly as possible.
No other sounds arose from the granary, attesting the speed and success of the other two, and the five singulares reached the main hut without any obvious sign that an alarm had been raised. Masgava was there first. Despite everything. Despite the training regime that Fronto adhered to these days and the speed of the legionaries with them. Masgava was and always would be faster and stronger.
The big Numidian hit the door like a battering ram, sending the wooden portal inwards in several splintered pieces, a single plank remaining to one side, smashed back on the hinges.
Fronto was in behind him, immediately followed by Palmatus, Quietus and Aurelius.
The interior of the hut was dim, especially after being out in the summer sun-dappled woods, and even as they barrelled in, their eyes were adjusting to the shade. The windows were closed, shuttered against discovery, and the hut’s occupants seemingly relied on their outside pickets and guards. But all five or six of those guards were gone.
Sure enough, there were seven figures in the hut.
It had never occurred to Fronto until this point how he would identify Ambiorix. He’d never met the man, and the lack of any kind of strategy for this issue displayed the most horrendous lack of foresight. But there was no time to think. Fronto singled out three figures who sat at the far side and who even now were standing and drawing weapons. Ignoring anyone else, those three were the clear leaders. The druid he discounted, hoping that whoever dealt with him would have the presence of mind to take him alive. That left two men who could be Ambiorix. One was clearly a chieftain or king, his gold in plain evidence draped about his body and his mail shirt of extremely high quality Gallic manufacture.
But it wasn’t him, whoever he was. The last figure - Ambiorix - had betrayed his identity with the most blasé and obvious of symbols. The helmet he thrust upon his head as he stood was that of a Roman officer, for all the native crest that had been wedged on the tip. Fronto had seen that helmet before many times, with its embossed bronze scene of the battle of the Caudine Forks, on the head of Quintus Titurius Sabinus. Had shared a flask of wine with its owner. Had counted him friend.
Fronto’s blood surged. So many deaths and betrayals. So many friends lost, some of them unavenged. The image of poor young Crispus, run through with a Gallic spear flashed past as Fronto dived for Ambiorix, snarling imprecations as he leapt, sword out and ready.
Quietus, off to the left side of the hut, found himself immediately faced down by an Eburone warrior with lank flaxen hair and a short-handled, basic-but-sharp axe in each hand. The man immediately began to whirl them in a strangely hypnotic manner in an almost figure eight fashion. Quietus frowned, bringing his shield round to take any blow that might come from them, while he readied his gladius for that single moment he knew would come, when he would spot the gap in the man’s defence.
Aurelius, mirroring him, moved off to the right as he burst in, diving for the first man. His heart was pounding as though he’d run a hundred miles to get here, and his skin prickled cold. He could feel the wrath of the bitch Goddess as he entered, and knew without any need for visual confirmation, that the beamed roof of this dim hut was home to bats. He could almost feel them flitting about him, almost hear them squeaking in the back of his mind.
His preoccupation with the ceiling was almost his undoing as his eyes flicked upwards into the darkness at exactly the wrong moment. The Eburone warrior lurking at the hut’s periphery brought his spear around and lunged as Aurelius saw the flicker of disturbed wings in the rafters.
Aurelius was lucky beyond belief. Though Fronto had ordered the singulares to strip their kit of Roman accoutrements, Aurelius had had the foresight to bring along his shoulder-doubling in his pack and, once it had become clear that subterfuge was not required, he had reapplied the extra thickness of mail over his shoulders. Thus it was that the spear point, aiming for the gap between his collar bones, instead glanced off the iron hook that held his shoulder-doubling fastened and smashed into his shoulder, scattering rings as it drove in deep through muscle until it scraped the inside of the shoulder blade.
Aurelius reacted in a manner that surprised him. Despite the intense pain that ripped through his shoulder, despite the bats preparing to deluge him, and the tangible presence of the evil Goddess, something had protected him, turning aside a killing blow and merely wounding him in his shield arm.
Instead of pain-freeze or panic, what suddenly coursed through his veins was pure fury as he lunged forward again, the spear jerking out of the Eburone’s hands with the movement, still jutting from the Roman’s shoulder. The warrior barely had time to scream before Aurelius set about him with his gladius, taking out on the man every ounce of irritation that had built since he’d entered this damn forest. A second of the hut’s occupants stepped forward to try and halt the fury and instead fell in turn to Aurelius’ terrifying onslaught.
Catharsis!
Palmatus, beside Fronto, leapt for the decorative, golden chief, noting with satisfaction Masgava beside him, aiming for the druid. His blade held high and shield presented for protection, Palmatus lunged. The ‘king’ was no warrior, young and uncertain. Despite the quality of his arms and armour, the sword he raised was in defence only, prepared to block Palmatus’ own strike. He would be able to deal with this little prick easily enough.
Palmatus felt rather than saw the space opening up beside him as Masgava disappeared from the attack and, as he feinted and lunged beneath the raised defensive royal sword, the singulares’ commander was suddenly smashed to one side when the druid slammed the iron-shod heel of his staff at his chest. Staggering, Palmatus righted himself, realising that with Masgava gone he was now facing both king and druid alone. Neither would be a tough concern, but together they might have an edge.
Gritting his teeth he moved in for the fight.
Masgava blinked. He’d had the druid in his sights when his windpipe had suddenly closed and he’d been hauled to one side in a stranglehold. With regret, the result of an instant decision: he dropped both sword and shield, his left hand going up to the cord around his throat and fingers prising beneath it to give him air, while the other arm came forward and then back again, folded to present a sharp elbow behind.
There was an explosion of fetid breath by his ear as his blow stuck home, and the pressure on the cord loosened enough for Masgava to rip the thing free and turn.
The man facing him was a killer. Masgava recognised the type instantly. He’d fought a few in the arena over the years. Not a warrior. Nothing so honourable. And not a murderer. Nothing so base. A killer. An assassin perhaps? Certainly a man who knew his craft and was comfortable with it.
The barbarian let go of the
cord and reached into his belt, ripping out two long knives which immediately came for Masgava’s face. The big Numidian leaned sharply to the side to avoid the first strike and almost into the path of the second, stepping back sharply to gain some room. The knives whirled in a confusing, blinding cartwheel of shining steel. The killer grinned as the blades flipped out and back in the blink of an eye, scoring two lines on Masgava’s arm, then two on his tunic, two on his other arm. Nothing debilitating, but stinging and angry. Not a blow intended to kill - from the whirling to the strike the man couldn’t possibly have built up the power to drive a killing blow home - but enough to enrage an opponent… to drive him to foolhardy action and doing something stupid.
Masgava knew better. The man thought he was playing with a legionary: an automaton of drills and manoeuvres whose rigid adherence to tactics and discipline would render him unimaginative and somewhat at a loss against such an unusual opponent. But Masgava was no legionary, and unusual opponents had been his daily fare for years.
As the man prepared for a fourth and fifth strike with the blades, Masgava kept his eyes locked on the killer’s hands, but his foot was moving unnoticed in the shadows beneath them, seemingly independent of his calm upper exterior.
He brought the hob-nailed sole down as hard as he could on the killer’s foot, aiming to avoid most of the man’s boot and concentrate all his weight and pressure on the toes alone. He heard the smashing and cracking of bone and saw the man’s eyes widen suddenly at the realisation of what Masgava had done. One of the knives, momentarily mishandled in his realisation, flew from his fingers and skittered across the floor. The man reacted quicker than Masgava expected, dropping all his weight onto his other leg and flicking out with the remaining knife, drawing an angry line up Masgava’s forearm. Even as the Eburone struck the blow, his eyes streaming from the pain in his mangled toes, he was reaching up with his spare hand and pulling something from a hiding place on his back. The light steel throwing axe glinted in the gloom as the man hefted it ready to strike.
But Masgava had anticipated each move. He’d crippled the man’s left foot and naturally the killer had shifted all his weight to his right. As the axe came up gleaming, Masgava’s kick took him in the right knee. There was an unpleasant crack and the killer screamed as his leg gave way, the knee bending in an unaccustomed direction.
The axe, like the blade before it, fell from his fingers and clanged across the floor.
One foot mangled and one knee snapped, the man collapsed, useless, to the ground. Masgava glanced left and right for a moment. Only for a moment, to take in the situation. And suddenly he was on the floor. The man, despite the agony in his legs, had managed to grab his foot and unbalance him. Even as Masgava tried to roll back, the crippled killer was on him, one hand closing on his windpipe while the other reached into the clasp of his cloak and withdrew a slender, short blade from a secret sheath. The blade glistened with something dark running down its length.
Poison!
Masgava’s hand flew up and grasped the killer’s wrist, halting the downward momentum of the poisoned knife a finger’s-breadth from his eye. As the two men remained locked in the deadly embrace, the battle in the hut raging around them, Masgava felt himself becoming light-headed as his oxygen flow failed. One hand round his throat and the other struggling to strike home with the knife, the killer grinned.
‘Garo never fails.’
Masgava, keeping the blade steadily away from his eye, reached up with his free hand.
‘Assassins, Garo,’ Masgava rasped through the restrictive grip, ‘never keep blades like that alone. There’s always a twin.’ His free hand fumbled for only a moment at the killer’s cloak clasp before it found the hilt of the other tiny knife. In a fluid motion, he whipped free the second poisoned blade and jammed it into Garo’s neck.
The killer stared, his eyes wide as blood began to gout from around the needle-knife. The pressure suddenly loosened on Masgava’s throat and the grip on the knife. Masgava casually turned the man’s wrist until the blade pointed at Garo’s own face and then pushed, driving the blade into his eye.
With a heave, he pushed the killer off him and stood, glancing only once at Garo as he shook spastically and coughed up a black froth from both mouth and nose, as well as from around the knife in his throat.
A quick glance to one side and he noted Celer busily cutting pieces off a warrior who desperately tried to defend himself with an axe in his remaining hand. Similarly at the far side, Aurelius seemed to be having a good time, bathed to the elbows in crimson and spattered with gore and brains as he repeatedly beat a man’s shattered head on the floor, yelling something about bats.
Stepping over to the far end of the hut, he found Palmatus busy, too.
The grizzled veteran’s left hand, now divested of its shield and wielding his pugio, was fending off the feeble attempts of the young unnamed king, while his right was busy dealing with the druid. The man’s white robe was already blossoming red in four places and a steady trickle of blood ran from beneath it down the man’s leg, where it pooled on the floor. Yet the druid fought on with only the severed two-foot remains of his staff, hoping to deliver a strong blow to Palmatus whenever his gaze had to flicker to the young king.
With a smile, Masgava stepped forward and reached past his friend. His hands grasped the feeble king’s sword arm and he snapped it hard, so that wrist hung at a right angle to the arm. The Segni king screamed and Palmatus glanced at his friend for a moment with irritation.
‘I didn’t need any help.’
‘Just kill him. Always the last to finish, you… even at dinner.’
‘The way you eat, that’s no surprise,’ Palmatus snapped as he turned both weapons on the druid, feinted once and then slammed the larger of the blades through his heart.
‘You took your time, anyway,’ he snorted as he ripped the gladius free. ‘Spot of trouble?’
‘I was held up for a moment. Come on.’
They turned to Fronto.
The hut was done. Celer and Aurelius had finished the rest, while Masgava had put down the assassin and Palmatus dispatched the druid. The Segni king was busy clutching his smashed arm and weeping like a young girl.
Fronto appeared to have had a hard fight. Three small wounds bloomed red on his arm and torso, but Ambiorix had come off the worst. The man was battered around the side of the face and slicked with blood, one eye closed and puffed up from repeated pummelling. Ambiorix was a mess. Palmatus almost laughed as he realised that the unpleasant wound in the man’s cheek faintly displayed a mirror image of the Caudine Forks battle embossed on the helmet, from where Fronto had hit him with it. Hard.
Ambiorix was done for, though Fronto was still venting some of his frustration on the king’s body.
‘Fronto, stop!’
‘Don’t worry. He’ll live. He’ll live to sing like a little bird and tell us all about his traitorous friends.’
‘Mflhr…’
Fronto grabbed the limp king by the shoulders and lifted him closer. ‘What?’
‘Vthgtras…’
‘A little clarity, if you please.’
Ambiorix took a deep breath and formed the word slowly and agonisingly through his ruined mouth and between his shattered teeth.
‘Vercingetorix.’
‘Never heard of him,’ Fronto replied with a raised eyebrow.
‘You will do,’ whimpered the other king, nursing his broken arm and flooded with tears.
‘’What?’
Fronto flinched as something whipped past his face, and he stared in surprise as the feeble Segni king slammed back against the wall, a knife standing proud from his chest. The man gurgled and coughed up a wad of blood which spouted down onto his decorative golden torc.
In shock, Fronto turned, along with his companions - barring Aurelius, who was busy smashing up what was left of the warrior who’d apparently offended him somehow, bellowing curses at Goddesses and bats.
Magurix stoo
d in the doorway, almost blocking out the light.
‘You daft sod,’ Fronto snapped. ‘He might have been as useful as Ambiorix!’
‘Sadly, yes,’ sighed Magurix, and with a deft flick of the hand sent another thrown blade across the room, where it narrowly skimmed past Fronto’s nose and slammed into Ambiorix’ throat, hammering in so deep that only the hilt projected as the blood began to pump from the king’s throat. Ambiorix sighed, apparently with relief, as he began to fade.
Fronto, shocked beyond action, simply let go of the dying fugitive and turned in confusion.
‘But why?’
‘Oh, Fronto. Can you not guess? Have you understood nothing about this great war of yours?’
A horrible realisation sank into Fronto as he stood and stepped forward.
‘My war?’
‘I am Remi, and my tribe serve the general. But I am also Belgae, and the general exterminates us. Do you not realise your army is riddled with auxiliaries who hate you? Who hate what you have done? Tribes that call you friend over a peace table plot your death with a dagger beneath it for your extermination of our people. But at last we have a chance. At last our lands can be freed of your menace. Not by that piece of filth over there who barely has the right to call himself Belgae, but by a Gaul, of all people. And I will not see all our hope flicker and die at the hasty confession of a petty king like Ambiorix.’
‘You? This was you?’
‘You’re so short-sighted, you Romans. And so trusting. A little misdirection here and a little nudge there and you do exactly as you’re told.’
‘Vercingetorix.’ Fronto said the name flatly, as if trying to commit it into his memory like carved stone.
‘Never heard of him,’ Magurix shrugged.
‘You’re a bad liar, Magurix. Despite all the times you’ve pulled the wool over our eyes, I saw that flicker in your eyes. You know who he is. He’s your Gaul, isn’t he? He’s your one hope for a Roman-free future? I’d be willing to place a hefty wager that he and this Esus we’ve heard tales of for two years now are one and the same?’ Fronto paused with a frown. ‘I’d also be willing to bet he’s an Arvernian prince. A tall one.’
Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow Page 46
