Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Fronto tapped Pulcher on the wrist, recoiling automatically as that remarkably ugly face turned to him, and then pointed at the fortress. He gestured to the centurion and then sought out with his finger the north-east gate that faced the small valley they had just crossed. He held up both hands and flashed his fingers four times, to indicate forty men. Pulcher nodded. Fronto now moved his finger west until he came to a projecting section of wall, almost like a bastion in the defences, atop which stood a brazier and a small knot of men. He then flashed his fingers three times and pointed to himself.

  It was agreed. Pulcher would take forty men against the gate and make a lot of noise. With luck, the distraction would draw enough attention that Fronto would have less difficulty getting over the wall further along. That bastion was a strong point in the defences by day, well-manned and heavily walled. The enemy would be unlikely to expect an attack there. But better still, what was strong during the day provided a useful weakness by night. The heavy projecting bastion formed an area of deep shadow where it met the wall, and that gloomy corner was Fronto’s goal.

  ‘Alright you cunning bastard,’ Fronto whispered under his breath, ‘let’s see just how clever you are.’

  * * *

  ‘Aurelius,’ Fronto hissed in the quietest whisper, ‘if you get any close r to me I’ll be more or less wearing you, now back off.’

  The bodyguard, who had been doing his utmost to cover Fronto from all angles, stepped slightly away, his face disapproving, though the expression changed moment s later at a shrill squeaking above the tr ees as the small local bats flittered and swooped. With every tiny noise, Aurelius ducked as though they were diving at him and not somewhere high up, largely oblivious to his presence. Four years on from that harrowing time in the Forest of Arduenna the strapping, solid legionary still shat himself when something squeaked in the dark .

  Thirty men came along behind Fronto, four of them carrying coiled ropes and four more bearing heavy, four-pronged grapples , all of which had been strapped tightly to their belts as they travelled . As Fronto edg ed just that tiniest bit closer his men closed on him, and Aurelius once more almost clung to him, forcing the legate to shrug and heave his guard slightly further away. Honestly, it was like launching an attack with your mother at your shoulder.

  Crouching, he peered out from the last line of trees, across thirty paces of ground to the walls. Guards were spaced periodically along the ramparts along with blazing torches, which rose b ehind them rather than in front so as not to ruin their night vision. Consequently, the grass below was lit well, with the wall shadow stretching out from its foot, intermittently broken up with the shadow of men on the parapet. As yet there was no sign of movement off to the left, where the north gate sat silent and quiet.

  As the legionaries dropped into position in the undergrowth, they attached the grapples to the ropes and tied the ends tight, t esting them by pulling them apart between two men. In a matter of heartbeats the whole forest edge was silent, pensive, as the men waited for the off.

  Everything changed suddenly as Pulcher burst from the forest with his men, running at the gate and bellowing invocations to Mars, Minerva, Jupiter and half a dozen lesser gods. Fronto held his hand up to steady the men and keep them in place. They watched as Pulcher’s legionaries reached the walls, the enemy surprised enough that they managed to loose only two or three arrows before the Romans were below them and climbing the rough st one walls, hand and foot grips made easy by the gaps where the stones had been stacked rather than mortared. Legionaries were surging up, but Arenosio warriors were also flocking to the gate and jabbing down with their weapons, trying to hold off the onslaught. For a moment, Fronto considered the very real possibility that Pulcher and his men might actually take the gate in the process of creating a diversion, and that Fronto’s own assault would be entirely unnecessary. He could only imagine, thinking of Pulcher, what the baffled defenders must be thinking when they looked down and saw that hideous, ruined visage glaring back up at them calling them filthy names and snarling as it climbed. Shit, an assault from Pulcher would frighten Fronto out of his wits, and he knew the man.

  But more and more warriors were appearing at the wall top near the gate, rapidly answering the urgent ‘sick bovine’ calls of the carnyx warning the fortress of an attack to the north. Fronto clenched his teeth and watched the bastion. There were four men on the top and other guards every ten paces or so along the wall to either side , and not one of them seemed to be moving in react ion to the threat at the gate. So , the king was clever enough , then, to have drilled into his men the necessity of holding their positions. Many Gallic-type armies would by now have run to help their comrades, abandoning their posts. It was irritating but at least the reinforcements pouring onto the gate top were all men who wouldn’t be at the bastion to meet Fronto and his legionaries.

  Clucking his tongue irritably , Fronto held his men in position, aware that every two or three heartbeats there was a scream of agony from the gate. Yes, some of those cries would be Arenosio, but at least one in three would be Roman. He couldn’t wait too long. Every few heartbeats the centurion’s force diminished slightly, yet still Fronto waited.

  His prayers were answered when there came another shout, and the men on the wall near the gate ran off to bolster their friends, taking one of the warriors from the bastion with them. As they moved away and momentarily every eye on the wall swivelled to watch their comrades move, Fronto gave the signal and started to run.

  Thirty paces m ight sound a lot, but in action it passes in t he blink of an eye. There is no time to worry, nor to form any sort of coherent thought. Fronto’s mind was simply filled with a jumble of violent images and possibilities as he cr ossed the open ground and dropped into the shadow formed by that bastion. He had hoped that Pulcher’s distraction would be enough to momentarily draw away all defending manpower, leaving him with the opportunity to move his entire unit into the shadows unobserved. Clearly the enemy were too well commanded for that to happen, but at least the shadow also served a secondary purpose.

  Even as Fronto and the lead men of his unit dropped into the darkness at the foot of the wall where the bastion joined it, the enemy above had recognised a second threat, spotting the legionaries hurtling from the treeline into the shadows. The few men up there with slings and bows moved to the parapet and began to load and loose their missiles into the shadow, but with the torches atop the wall and a deep shadow below, they were releasing blind. Nine in every ten missiles thudded harmlessly into turf as Fronto and his men pressed against the wall, hidden in the pitch black. While the stragglers were still crossing the open ground, one of them picked off and hurled aside with a well-placed arrow through the neck, the men in the shadows nodded to one another and stepped back from the wall, swinging their rope s twice each before releasing the grapples upwards.

  One of the four was unlucky, a sling stone striking him hard on the helmet, denting the bronze and sending him falling away, his brains fogged and his ears ringing, the cable he’d been holding flapping loose. Fronto leapt for the r ope, but with no pressure on it the Arenosio above merely detached it from the wall top and the whole thing came back down, almost braining Fronto in the process. The other three men with grapples had immediately tugged on the rope, throwing all their weight into it to prevent the same thing happening, and swung back to the wall, their feet thudding into the stone as they began to climb.

  The enemy above were shoutin g now and the pointless missiles stopped while the defenders con centrated on trying to dislodge the grapples. The legionaries, old though they might be, a scended like lizard s on a warm sunny wall, speedy and effortless . Only moments after the assault had first started, a man reached the parapet and tried to pull himself over, receiving an axe to the shoulde r for his effort. With a scream he fell away, plunging back down into the shadows, landing close to Fronto with a crunch and a squelch . The defenders had given up trying to dislodge the grapples themselves now, having discove
red that with a man’s weight hanging on the ro pe they were simply immovable. Instead, f our warriors were now at the occupied grapples , using their blades to hack at the ropes.

  The third rope was loose due to its fallen climber and a man went to shift the grapple, but already another legionary had grabbed the bottom and was climbing. Good. All three ropes were being dealt with by the defenders, and it seemed they didn’t even need the fo urth. The enemy had fallen for yet another distraction.

  Once, long ago, when discussing tactics and the value of diversions and surprise attacks, Verginius had expressed his opinion to Fronto that the very best plans were made like an onion, with layer upon layer protecting the heart. And so here they were. The legion was the outer layer, sitting threateningly across the valley, blinding the enemy to the threat from the north, where a single century would make the vital push. That second level, a century of tired men , was split in two, with half the legionaries under Pulcher distracting the enemy from the third layer of the onion: Fronto’s force. And finally, Fronto had sent up a few brave lads with grapples, their brutal straightforward attack and the distinct danger posed by the ropes blinding the enemy to the fourth and final layer of the onion.

  A wave of legi onaries tipped over the parapet, taking the defenders utterly by surprise, a second wave right behind them where they climbed the wall using the gaps in the stones as grips. After all, who needed to climb a rope when the very walls were made with handholds? The enemy had been so busy hacking at the ropes they had not noticed the main threat until it fell upon them with gleaming blades. The onion was unwrapped.

  Some of the legionaries had climbed with free hands and drew their swords as they emerged onto the wall top. Others had ascended with their pugio in their teeth and fell straight into the nearest enemy, bellowing and stabbing in a frenzy. Chaos reigned on the wall top, and Fronto smiled and swung the last, fourth, rope twice, releasing the grapple. It hit the wall top with a satisfying clunk and he dragged it toward him until the prongs bit into stone and the rope went tight. Aurelius was there in a moment, trying to take his place, but Fronto launched himself upwards before his bodyguard could get in front of him, and Aurelius, his expression irritated, ran across to the wall close by and started to climb , gasping and wincing with every stretch of the arm he had hurt earlier in his fall . He would pay for the ongoing strain later. Tomorrow he’d hardly be able to move it, but at the moment there were more important things to concentrate on.

  By now, more and more men were flooding to the wall top, but the extra pressure put on the defenders here at the bastion had drawn away some of the men facing Pulcher, and now legionaries were starting to cross the wall top there too.

  Fronto emerged onto a rampart in the midst of a battle. The century had suffered rather a lot of casualties, and Fronto estimated their current numbers at less than forty, but they were in . The legate took stock of the situation on the wall and turned back , gesturing down into the shadow, where Arcadios , who had been given strict instructions to stay at the back and out of danger, nodded and began to climb.

  So far, so good. Now they just had to get to the other end of the fortress and open that gate. Two Arenosio warriors came barrelling along the bank , making for Fronto, marked out by his officer’s plume and white tunic, and a legionary leapt forward to head them off, his sword jabbing and whirling as he kept them both busy. Fronto turned his attention to the interior of the fortress as Aurelius clambered over the parapet beside him and grunting sounds announced the arrival of Arcadios at the top of the rope. Aurelius immediately joined the troubled legi onary, evening the odds quickly while Fronto fretted.

  The wall was backed by a grassy embankment and the whole place was not particularly large , with perhaps thirty structures, mostly small and tightly-packed in a rather random, haphazard fashion, as though a settlement had sprouted on the hill like a cluster of mushrooms and then someone had walled it in. Which was, of course, very likely what had actually happened. One symptom of this odd shambling nucleus and formation, however, was a total lack of recognisable thoroughfares. Getting to the south gate was already a tricky proposition. Following the walls would be the simplest solution, but the ‘L’ shape of the place would make that journey a long way round, and would put them very much in the open and make them clear targets for the defending Arenosio. Running between the houses was a safer plan in many respects, but finding their way to the gate would be more difficult, and it would be very easy to become turned around down there.

  His decision was made for him by a gruff shout of alarm that drew his attention along the wall. A small flood of warriors had emerged perhaps twenty paces away and were rushing up to the parapet, scaling the bank as they shouted native imprecations at the Romans. Among them, a standard was wavering, some sort of metallic decorations clonking around beneath. That meant a chieftain – maybe even this king? And that meant that the knot of warriors there would be the best in the fortress. Given that they also seriously outnumbered Fronto’s small force , running into that lot would end this fight long before it truly began. Whoever it was seemed to be making for the most direct open space – the wall top – to cut off Fronto and his insurgents.

  ‘That must be their bastard king,’ Aurelius shouted over at him as he used his foot to push a dead warrior off the end of his blade.

  ‘Yes, but we can’t fight him now. We have to open the gate for the rest. ’

  The legionary beside Aurelius , overhearing, shouted across his shoulder ‘Avianus? Fonteius? Over here!’ He then turned to Fronto. ‘Go, sir. We’ll occupy them.’

  Fronto blinked in disbelief as the two named men ran across to join their friend and at a nod the three of them set off, pounding along the wall top toward the knot of wealthy and dangerous warriors beneath the enemy banner. Mad. Fronto wouldn’t risk his diminished century against that core of strong warriors, and yet three legionaries were happily whooping as they ran to certain death. They were as bad as Arruntius. In fact this whole legion was clearly barking mad. Shaking his head at the three men running at an enemy ten times their number, Fronto gestured to Aurelius and Arcadios . ‘Come on.’

  Half a dozen legionaries managed to detach themselves from the fighting on the wall and the ever-increasing number of enemies there and joined Fronto and his companions as they half ran, half slid down the embankment and toward the gap between two l ooming, dark timber buildings. Th ere, the meagre moon and starlight that had granted so much clarity of vision in the night-time attack would be nullified by the narrow passage between houses, and Fronto felt his nerves rising with each footstep.

  More shouts were coming from that group of nobles and warriors along the walls now, and Fronto risked a sidelong glance as he ran. T he Romans’ departure from the walls had been noted and the mob had split, a few of them running to take on the three legionaries on the walls, while the rest veered off with their banner, once more descending the bank and making straight for Fronto and his men. It had to be the king .

  It’s me , Fronto thought. I knew he wanted me – wanted the Caesar they thought me to be. I should have been prepared to attract the fury of every warrior in the place. Another shout drew his attention and turning he saw Pulcher, one arm hanging limp, a gore-coated sword in the other as the centurion ran toward him with another four legionaries.

  ‘The king!’ Fronto yelled, pointing at the approac hing warriors.

  Pulcher rolled his working shoulder. ‘Open the gate, sir. Leave this lot to me.’

  Fronto simply nodded, clasped a comradely hand on the centurion’s shoulder and squeezed for a moment. It still made his eyes water to leave his gaze on that hideously ugly visage for too long, and he flicked his sight back to the dark alleyway. ‘Come on, lads.’

  Before he could run into the darkness Aurelius barrelled past him, taking his place at the front, sword in hand and expression of impending violence on his face. Arcadios fell in behind the legate , and the other legionaries followed on at the rear . As they
moved into the gloom, Pulcher and his men sealed off the alley, preparing to hold it against the king’s warriors, and Fronto could hear the angry shouts of the Arenosio as they closed. Leaving the capable Pulcher to buy him time, Fronto concentrated on the way ahead. He would have to keep heading south as best he could, attempting to maintain his sense of direction in the warren of native buildings.

  The small group of insurgents passed those first two houses and looked around. To the right, someone had parked a small wagon that still held several barrels. It effectively sealed the alley, which could only be a good thing, since that was the direction the king’s men had come from and it would provide almost as good a delay as Pulcher , should some of the warriors try to come round that way. Left, the alley went a short distance then turned to the right as it reached another building, and a third narrow way doglegged ahead.

  In that moment, Fronto realised three things. Firstly, that he had seriously underestimated the number of buildings in the fortress. There was only room for thirty structures placed sensibly as a Roman would, but the way they had been crammed in close together in a higgledy-piggledy fashion would allow for perhaps even twice that number of houses , which might support a population of over a thousand if they were all given over as barrack space, which seemed likely in this austere and militaristic place . Secondly, that holding on to his sense of direction in this maze would be a matter of pure chance and nothing more. Thirdly, with the exception of just a few structures, almost every building in the fortress was more or less identical to its neighbours. Simple dark timber structures with daub filling the gaps and a roof of thatch that overhung so that the eaves almost met above the narrow alleys, adding to the air of gloomy oppression . The similarity of almost all the fortress’ buildings would just add to the confusion of the place. All in all, the nine-man force would be damn ed lucky to do more than wander round in circles in the place until the enemy finally trapped them.