Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Fronto had only a moment to realise that slingers had risen from among the cracks and dips in the rocky banks, loosing their heavy stones at the Roman party.

  ‘Shit,’ was all he could manage before Aurelius was there, covering him with his shield , and grabbing Fronto’s reins with his free hand, pulling back hard so that the bit jerked deep into the horse’s mouth. Quick as he could, the bodyguard forced Bucephalus to walk backwards . ‘Sit deep and pull,’ Aurelius shouted and then cried out and let go as a sling stone caught him on his left leg with an unpleasant meaty thud. Fronto took over, obeying without question, walking his horse backwards as fast as he was able. Aurelius, his shield still rattling and thudding its protection , was keeping pace, pulling his own beast backwards.

  Galronus was having less luck. His horse had been struck in the head with a heavy stone and was rear ing now. The Remi was still winded from the first stone that had struck him in the chest. The mail shirt had spread much of the impact and though there would be an enormous bruise across Galronus’ chest, at least nothing had broken. However, even as Fronto and Aurelius moved back to the end of the bridge, Galronus’ horse shied in pain and panic and the cavalry commander su ddenly found himself at such an angle that the horned saddle no longer held him tight. With a dazed squawk, Galronus slid from the horse and fell to the bridge’s timbers with a thud. Stones rattled off the wooden struts at the side and one hit the Remi in his mail-armoured shoulder, knocking him heavily and painfully to one side.

  Even as Fronto and his bodyguard managed to pull back off the bridge, Fronto knew the dreadful danger his friend was in and was shouting Galronus’ name in warning. The man’s big white horse was being pounded with numerous heavy stones, breaking bones and drawing blood , and then it fell. Somehow, miraculously, Galronus , even dazed , had managed to pull his legs up so that the falling beast did not crush them as it landed in thrashing agony. He could do nothing more though than lie there in stunned pain as the horse tossed and kicked , and stones clattered across the timbers, occasionally catching the dying horse or clipping Galronus’ limbs or mail. The Remi wore no helmet, and the first blow that caught him on the head would likely kill him .

  The slingers were good. Even though the Romans had pulled back to the near bank, the stones were hitting men. Aurelius, his leg bleeding profusely and hanging limp, grabbed at Fronto and yelled ‘back! Further back. Get out of range.’

  Another stone thudded into Aurelius’ shield and then one clanged off the very crown of his helmet, knocking his head painfully to the side. Already two of their cavalry escort were down, screaming as their horses kicked and shrieked, stones clanging off iron an d bronze.

  ‘Galronus!’ Fronto shouted in desperation as Aurelius guided him further and further from danger .

  The situation was going from bad to worse as Fronto’s professional command eye took in everything. The three nobles who had lured them onto the bridge had crawled back across the timber and out of the storm of flying stones, where they had risen and begun to shout orders. Perhaps twenty or thirty slingers were still standing among the rocks, their repeated shots easily crossing the narrow river and playing havoc with the Roman honour guard. Barely a man had escaped injury already, and even as he looked, another horseman fell to the ground with a cry, his head stoved in. Galronus lay on the bridge beside his horse, which was kicking its last, though whether the Remi was alive or dead, it was now impossible to tell. Worst of all, in response to the nobles’ shouted commands, the Preciani were pouring from the treeline all around the far side of the river, rushing toward the bridge, the front-runners pulling bows from their shoulders. What was already a disastrous situation was about to get much worse.

  ‘Get out of the way of the fucking stones!’ bellowed Aurelius, pushing Fronto hard.

  ‘Galronus!’

  ‘I’ll get him,’ snapped the bodyguard .

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Fronto snapped , though already Aurelius was dropping from his horse, battered and dented shield held ready. Fronto watched helplessly as the former legionary tested his wounded leg and almost fell as it gave way. With a grunt, he pressed on regardless, limping badly, but forcing himself on into the cloud of deadly missiles. In a moment, two of the cavalry guard were with him, their hexagonal shields held high protectively, forming the world’s smallest shieldwall as they closed on the bridge. Two other riders joined Fronto as he finally reached a safe distance. One of them was badly wounded and the other had lost his shield, his arm running with blood and hanging limp. Four riders lay dead along with their horses.

  Fronto realised with an odd start that neither Bucephalus nor he had taken a single strike. Either Fortuna was being unusually helpful or something else was going on. He watched helplessly as the three men, crouched behind their shields and at the centre of a storm of stone that clunked, clattered and clanged, moved to the end of the bridge .

  A series of buccina calls, centurions’ whistles and urgent shouts drew his attention back over his shoulder and he glanced up the slope to see that the legion was now in close sig ht – the lead elements at least – and that Decius had clearly noted what was going on. The auxiliary prefect was hurtling down the slope, his own Balearic slingers and Cretan archers at his heels. Fronto’s gaze went back to Galronus. The Remi’s horse was now still, its only movement an occasional quiver as a stone thudded into the carcass . Galronus had also not twitched.

  ‘Stay put, sir,’ Decius yelled as he ran past , alongside his men. Moments later, the norther n branch of the Aturrus River became a small slice of Hades as archers from both armies settled into position and arrows and slingshots began to fly from both banks. Into this endless multidirectional hail of steel, wood and stone the three soldiers pushed, countless missiles of both types pounding at them.

  Fronto wanted to shout, to call Aurelius and the others back. A good commander should. It was terrible tactical sense to send three men into a deadly storm in a hopeless attempt to save one man, especially when that man might already be dead. But this was Galronus. Fronto had known him for seven years, and for most of those the Remi prince had been almost a brother. He could no more let Galronus pass from the world on that bridge willingly than he could throw away his own life. If nothing else, what would he tell Faleria? That he had led the two men she had loved into battle only to leave both dead on foreign soil. It would kill her.

  His will hardened with that realisation. He would rather die himself than leave Galronus and go home. Just how happy was Fortuna feeling?

  Aurelius and the other two were at the end of the bridge, but had pushed no further. The archers and slingers in Decius’ auxiliary unit were assiduously avoiding the trio, but the enemy were making no such attempt and all three had stopped and were huddled behind their shields, each of which resembled a hedgehog, with all the arrow shafts jutting from it.

  Why was I not hit? Fronto mused. Even with Fortuna’s cloak about his shoulders the chances of him having braved that storm without even a scratch were minimal. Unbelievable, really.

  Narrowing his eyes, he slipped from Bucephalus and handed the horse’s reins to one of the two cavalrymen. The soldiers stared at him in surprise.

  ‘ I am considering the very real possibility that I am indestructible,’ he said with a grin that, if he’d been able to see it, he’d have been the first to note was made four parts in five of madness.

  Turning, he marched toward the bridge.

  ‘Sir?’ the cavalryman lunged after him desperately.

  ‘No. Absolutely not. You stay here out of danger and you keep my horse safe. I inherited him from the best cavalry commander you’d ever meet and he’s worth more than a turma of riders to me.’

  ‘But sir…’

  Yet Fronto was gone, marching with purpose back to the bridge. Archers paused in their onslaught to stare as he walked past into the shower of missiles. Decius was suddenly next to him, tugging at his arm.

  ‘Get down here you mad bastard.’

  �
��Leave… me… alone,’ Fronto replied, pulling himself free of the prefect’s grip and stomping onwards into the hail, toward the three men hunkered down at the bridge end. Even as he approached, one of the two cavalry men accompanying Aurelius took an arrow in the calf, just around the edge of the shield. The man cried out in pain, but each and every soldier in this army was a veteran, and there were no cowards or idiots. The man gritted his teeth, left the arrow in place, and pulled his leg back further behind the shield, remaining in position.

  Fronto strode on toward them like Jupiter himself pushing aside the clouds as he brandished his thunderbolt. His theory was correct, and he almost laughed aloud. In fact, he probably did a little. For in the very midst of a storm of missiles, he walked unharmed. Yet this was no trick of Fortuna’s. The enemy were deliberately not targeting him. In fact, as he moved, he could see the men on the other bank shifting their aim.

  Oh, sooner or later he would take a hit purely by accident, but it would not be a deliberate attempt to kill him. He’d had the nagging feeling that that was the case since they ’d pulled back from the bridge and of all those eleven men present, only he and one other ha d not sustained a wound. And that other man had been at the back. Fronto had been at the very fore. A blind man should have been able to hit him .

  With a crazed laugh, he walked onto the timbers, straight up to the three men huddled behind their shields. He was impressed at how many arrows had hit those painted boards, and the seemingly unwounded one was in fact no such thing. An arrow had punched through his shield and his arm in one, pinning the two together, its barbed point jutting out inside. Pointing down at the wounded trooper s , he addressed Aurelius. ‘Get them to a capsarius as quick as you can.’

  Aurelius stared up at his commander and seemed to realise suddenly that the hail of missiles had dropped away to almost nothing with the legate beside him.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Go.’

  Aurelius, catching the look in Fronto’s eye, nodded and , between them, the three men began to slowly retreat from the bridge, keeping their shields to the fore at all times. Fronto watched them go, and an arrow whipped past him, close enough to score a thin red line across his arm. Hurrying now, aware that it was only a matter of time before he took a serious hit even by accident, he closed on Galronus. The man was lying still, blood blossoming through mail and tunic on both arms and torso.

  ‘Galronus?’ He closed and kne lt, his heart lurching coldly. Gods, n o. Not now.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, reaching down to the man’s neck to feel for a pulse.

  ‘How in the name of Taranis are you not covered with arrows?’ grunted the Remi, one eye snapping suspiciously open. Fronto almost burst out laughing.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘ I can’t understand how you aren’t! ’ the Remi noble retorted, but let Fronto help him up.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Walk? Here? No, but I can bloody run.’

  And with that he was moving. Fronto, still laughing, fell in close to him, but made sure to keep behind his friend, shielding him from any stray missile. The enemy might not want to hit Fronto for some reason, but they would happily kill Galronus, he was sure. A few dozen heartbeats and they were back off the bridge. The army was arriving in force now, and most of the senior officers were closing on the scene. Several centuries of veteran legionaries were hurtling forward, holding up their large curved shields, and as Fronto and Galronus passed the auxiliary archers and slingers, they found themselves protected by a large force of burly veterans. Aurelius was suddenly with them again, then Decius, then Atenos and Arruntius.

  ‘I honestly thought you were dead,’ Fronto said between gasps of breath. ‘You weren’t moving.’

  ‘First rule you need to learn facing archers, Fronto. If they think you’re down and you’re no longer a threat, don’t disabuse them of the notion. I stayed down and played dead and they felt no great urge to fill me with arrows. My poor horse saved me from most of the barrage after that.’

  With the threat to any personnel diminished, the archers and slingers were now pulling back out of enemy range, and within mere moments the barrage had stopped altogether. The bridge sat like an invitation to suicide between the two forces. Whoever moved onto the timbers now would put themselves in danger from enemy archers, and so a stalemate was forming.

  ‘How do we get to them?’ Fronto murmured.

  ‘Cross the river as well?’ Atenos replied.

  ‘No. It’s not wide, but it’s deep and fast and with high, rocky banks.’

  ‘Extend the bridge,’ Biorix said, appearing as if from nowhere. ‘Cut huge timbers and make ramps. Ferry them down and use them to bridge the waters.

  ‘Possible,’ Fronto conceded, ‘but we’d still lose a lot of men to their missile troops. ’

  ‘I have an idea,’ Galronus said quietly, ‘but I’m having trouble thinking and breathing in this mail. Someone help me.’

  Atenos quickly helped the Remi peel off the mail shirt, as delicately as he could manage. The gathered officers drew in excruciated breaths as the tunic rode up with the mail to display a huge black, red and purple welt that stretched from side to side and from collar bone to diaphragm.

  ‘Crap, that must hurt.’

  ‘A little,’ Galronus shrugged it off, but the hissing and wincing as he moved to smooth out his tunic told a different story.

  ‘Your idea?’ Fronto nudged.

  ‘ I’m going to draw the cavalry off a way and try something, but I don’t want the enemy to see.’ He turned to Carbo. ‘How slow and noisy and messy can you make the job of setting up camp?’

  ‘How noisy do you want it?’

  ‘Enough to cover the departure of the entire cavalry. Make camp and wait.’

  ‘What for? How will I know what to do?’

  ‘You’ll work it out. Doesn’t matter how long I take, just wait and watch, ’ grinned Galronus, and then hissed with pain and began to wander back toward his riders, who were gathering up the slope.

  ‘There goes a complete madman,’ Fronto said quietly.

  ‘This from a man who walked into an arrow storm with nothing to protect him but a mad grin.’

  * * *

  Fronto was up early and out in the fresh, cool air, despite the damp mizzle that filled the world from horizon to horizon under steely grey skies. He knew something was building. Like the crackle of static in the air before a thunderstorm, and the slow building of pressure that causes headaches, he’d been awake in the middle of the night, feeling expectant and tense. He had done a couple of circuits of the camp ramparts in the damp air before even the first strains of light began to filter in through the darkness to the east.

  All was perfectly normal, which was in itself odd, given the strange tension. The men on guard stood quiet and pensive, watching the enemy across the river, camped in their own ground, roughly equal in numbers to the legion though with only a few sentries and no other thought to defence. Over the last hour and more of darkness, Fronto had contemplated more than once sending a foray across the river. The bridge would constrict any attack , but perhaps – just perhaps – a swift enough and unexpected attack could secure them the bridge and put enough men on the far bank to deal with that enemy force .

  In the end he had clenched his knuckles in frustration and held back the order behind barred teeth, for there was the strong possibility that this was not the main enemy of his campaign that he faced, but a smaller force on the periphery . He could not afford to commit to such a potentially dangerous action when he might yet need every available man further on in the campaign.

  And so he had stood and watched as the sky began to lighten above the layer of solid cloud, the sun a pale orb barely visible. The enemy seemed as content to stay encamped as they . The legions were now answering the calls of their officers and the bleating of the horns dragging them from their cots. They scurried from tents with their tunics loose and unbelted, hanging down to their shins, h
urrying over to the water butts and dipping their heads in , blowing snot from nostrils, squeezing the water from their hair and rubbing weary eyes. Some were faster than others and were already beginning to belt their tunics or slip into their leather subarmalis, the protective vest that kept the rings of the mail from pinching flesh or ruining linen. Here and there chosen men were already kneading bread dough or cooking up salted pork or eggs , preparing the morning meal for their tent party. It was, all in all, a scene of domestic camp life he had seen a thousand times in a thousand places.

  And across the river, the locals – the Preciani, it seemed – were beginning to stir and dress, eat and prepare. Would there be a battle today ? It seemed likely, given the building of expectation that infected the air, and yet neither side could easily cross that bridge in the face of enemy aggression without risking total destruction.

  Standing at the northern gate of the camp, Fronto glanced across at a carefree, tuneful whistle to see Terpulo swaggering toward him.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Good morning, sir. Taking the air?’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ Fronto replied quietly. ‘Feels like something’s building.’

  ‘Felt it myself, sir. Pressure. Like I’d pinched my nose and closed my mouth and blown. I swear my ears popped just now, and we’re not that high up yet.’

  Fronto nodded. If Terpulo felt the same, then probably so did the others in the camp. There was definitely a certain expectancy about the men, who were getting themselves ready but without the normal morning laughs and banter.

  ‘The Dis -damned horns are giving me a headache,’ Terpulo complained. ‘It’s the fact that each one echoes half a dozen times around the countryside, so there’s a constant ringing.’

  Again the legate nodded. His own head felt tight and strained, though he put it down more to the pre-action tension than to the sounds of the buccinae , cornua and tubas being blown around the camp.