Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Vague recollections came flooding back to Fronto, slowly resolving to the memory of his horrifying realisation. ‘Verginius…’

  ‘Yes. I know. But there is not time. The Convenae are here.’

  Startled, Fronto swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, almost returning to blissful unconsciousness with the sudden movement. His arm had stiffened from the fall and the fight on the hillside, and his legs screamed as he straightened them.

  ‘Already?’

  Galronus snorted. ‘It’s been hours, Fronto.’

  ‘What? You kne w we had much to d o, Galronus. Two hours per man… t hat was the order .’

  ‘Tough shit , Marcus. You needed it. You collapsed, man. Masgava and Carbo have kept things going between them. All is well, barring the sea of Aquitanii pouring down the pass. But now you need to stretch your legs and get yourself armed up.’

  ‘Verginius…’ Fronto said again, the unbelievable truth still hammering at him.

  ‘Yes, Verginius. I have many questions, but now is not the time. If we’re alive at sunset you can answer them over wine. Now we need to fight.’

  The Remi reached down and helped Fronto to his feet. A few moments of hobbling around the room loosened up the muscles and tendons enough for Fronto to consider arming himself, though no amount of gentle waggling was going to solve the arm. Lifting it up or outwards was clearly going to be a no, as even trying brought tears of pain to his eyes. Adrenaline had carried him through the fight last night, but now, with rest, his arm had become more or less useless.

  ‘I’ll get dressed. Find me a capsarius who can strap my arm up. I’ll fight better if it can’t be knocked or wrenched around.’

  Galronus nodded and as he left Fronto crossed to the low table where someone had helpfully laid out a fresh tunic and underwear, socks and scarf for him. His armour had been polished and sat close by. He had at least struggled into the underwear and tunic by the time Galronus returned with the medic, who probed the arm and moved it enough to elicit yelps from the legate.

  ‘ It could be a frozen s houlder, which is problematic, o r it could just have been temporarily dislocated and then knocked back into the socket in one move. I’ve seen that happen and it causes similar symptoms. The legion medicus will be able to examine it later and give you a full diagnosis, but you’re looking at anywhere between a couple of days of pain and months of rehabilitation. Sadly, I can’t tell you any more.’

  Fronto nodded. ‘Just strap the bastard up so I can fight.’

  ‘I heartily recommend staying out of the fighting, sir.’

  ‘I’ll bet, but we need every man, now strap it up. ’

  Some quarter hour from his first bleary awakening, Fronto emerged from the house, one of th os e close to the hospital from whence his friends had carried him, with Galronus at his shoulder. ‘They came down the pass, you said?’

  ‘Generalising,’ Galronus shrugged. ‘They appeared in the northern valley that you crossed when you broke into the place. We had warning from the scouts, but they should be in sight now. ’

  ‘Strength?’

  The Remi warrior flexed his fingers and reached down to his sword hilt. ‘Fewer than we worried about, but more than I’m comfortable with. Maybe six thousand, including archers, but no cavalry.’

  ‘And we have a little over two thousand. That’s three to one odds and given our position, the defences negate the ir edge, I reckon. I thought we’d be facing twice that or more. The gods are in a favourable mood today, Galronus.’

  ‘The scouts reported signs that more forces were converging but have turned back. We interrogated the prisoners, and it seems likely from what they say that the Convenae alliance is faltering. If the scouts are to be believed, more than six thousand tribesmen changed their mind and turned back when the news reached them that Rectum had fallen and that we had it now. They were coming to the king’s summons, but since he’s gone south and left them hanging out to dry, only the Arenosio are still coming. After all, we’re in their land, in their fortress. But they seem to be the only ones who still care. ’

  Fronto grinned unpleasantly. ‘And that all means that the enemy spirit must be pretty low. We have the walls and the weapons even if they have the numbers. We’ v e won every engagement since leaving Lapurda and they know it, and now their allies and their king have abandoned them. If I’m any judge of these things, it won’t take much to break them. Come on, let’s go have a look.’

  The two men ran around the edge of the fortress toward the north rampart. All along the green turf bank legionaries had been hard at work. Stacks of pila and shields were abundantly evident, small medical stations set up with well-equipped capsarii, periodic fires with cookpots and barrels of water ready to feed and water the men. All had been as well prepared as time could possibly have allowed. As he passed, Fronto kept finding minor faults in the organisation, but only with much searching. He would hate to have to admit that Carbo and Masgava could prepare as well as him.

  The walls were packed with men, mostly legionaries with sword and shield, but interspersed among them small knots of archers and slingers, cavalrymen with their distinctive helmets and spears, and oddest of all – legionaries testing the pull of a bow or lining up arrows.

  The north rampart seemed to be slightly more densely-packed than the others , in response to the threat posed by the approaching enemy. They were numerous enough to peel off and surround the place, but if they did that they would stretch their own attacking numbers as much as those of the defenders.

  There might be six thousand Arenosio – Fronto would have to trust the word of the scouts on that. From the viewpoint of the north rampart they were just a carpet of moving figures filling the narrow valley from side to side and as far back as the eye could make out. There was, as Galronus had noted, no cavalry, but then horses would be of little value in war up in these peaks, so that was no surprise. Other than that, they moved in a massed mob, as had those tribes the Romans had encountered in their early days of campaigning in Gaul , before they had come up again st the more organised tribes. That, at least, boded well fr om their point of view. And the Arenosio would clearly be bringing no siege engines or suchlike across mountain passes , either, so t his would come down to a straight fight across the ramparts which, as Fronto had noted initially , would help negate the inequality of numbers.

  They were coming at speed, he realised as he watched that sea of humanity w ash down the valley like a flash flood. It took long moments for Fronto to recognise the distant rumble of thunder that was almost hidden beneath the din of thousands of thudding footsteps.

  ‘Sounds like there’s a storm coming,’ he noted.

  ‘For sure,’ Galronus said with feeling, gripping the pommel of his sword.

  ‘I meant thunder. It’s distant yet, but unless this is finished really quickly, we’ll probably b e fighting them off in a storm, and that’s a bad thing for us. Makes attacking more treacherous, but will play havoc with our archers.’ Chewing his lip he scanned the rampart. Sure enough, he caught sight of Decius some distance away. He grabbed the nearest archer and pointed at the prefect .

  ‘Go tell your commander to spare nothing in the assault. Don’t hold back ammunition. Give it absolutely everything as soon as you have range. There’s rain coming, so we might as well do our damage while we can.’

  The man ran off and Fronto watched for long moments as the Arenosio reached the flat ground opposite the gate, emerging from the sparse trees. Fronto had half expected them to stop and send out a parley group. They didn’t. There was a visible pause and a wave of rumbling across the mass as they spotted the external stake defences strewn with battered, stinking Arenosio corpses, but just as quickly the pause passed and they began to spread out in an arc around the north, east and west sides. As Fronto watched them moving into position, that same archer ran up to him with a sheepish look and cleared his throat.

  ‘Prefect Decius said “Yes”, and that he’s “not an idiot�
�, L egate.’

  Fronto chuckled and sent the relieved archer back to his post.

  ‘This will be over in an hour,’ he said quietly. ‘Look at them. They’re all - but straining at the leash. But it’s a brittle thing, this bravado, and once it breaks so will they. This is going to be short and brutal. And they’re concentrating their strength at the north, where they’re emerging. Unless they start to shift their strength, once they’re committed, we need to pull whatever manpower we can from the quiet sections. ’

  There was a howl, which cut through the general tumult, and Fronto’s eyes were drawn to a small group of warriors who seemed to have taken it upon themselves to launch an attack. Perhaps a dozen of them suddenly broke from the crowd and surged forward, whooping and brandishing their weapons as they ran. Fronto glanced at Decius, who was counting under his breath . Even as Fronto turned back, he heard the prefect give the order, and the missile troops on the rampart launched, each one aiming a missile at the small knot of warriors.

  The front one, a giant with a mail shirt and an axe and shield, held his board up as he heard the initial call, but the shield did little to save him. Even as he reached the sudis defences with their grisly décor, he was pulverised by sling stones and punctured by three arrows, falling dead and gasping to join his tribesmen on the spikes. The others with him fared no better, two more falling on the stakes and the rest to the grass before them. One, who by pure chance had taken just one arrow in the arm during the flurry, had turned and was flee ing back toward the enemy mass that was still arriving from the valley. Without being given the order, three archers picked off the man, who fell to the turf sprouting shafts as he collapsed.

  ‘Good. Let’s keep this up.’

  But it seemed that such small forays would not last long. Even as a second attack occurred further off to the west with similar results, Fronto could hear angry shouts among the tribe – leaders telling their men to stop such suicidal assaults, clearly. But there was a growing sense of urgency among them that the Romans could feel on the wall. Fronto saw knuckles paling as men gripped weapons ready, and archers kept arrows nocked and ready, slingers slowly rotating their slings with the stone in.

  The attack came with little warning. A carnyx sounded somewhere back among the warriors, gave rise to a dozen commanding voices, then a dozen more carnyx blaring out with a noise like a man suffering terminal flatulence in a tunnel. And the tribe attacked.

  There was no plan – no organisation or strategy. The tribe simply surged forward at the defences with a will and a lust for Roman blood. Despite his comfort with the defences, Fronto felt a moment of doubt. Such numbers might just manage to overwhelm the ramparts, and if they did, falling back to the redoubt formed by the houses would probably signal the beginning of the end. No, the enemy had to be held at the walls and broken there.

  The Roman missile troops let fly at a call from Decius when the front-runners were some ten paces from the sudis fence. Arrows flew in thick clouds and stones whizzed among them, falling into the ranks of the Arenosio like a flensing knife, peeling away the front layer of the army. Fronto watched in gruesome satisfaction as the tribesmen died in their hundreds before even reaching the outer defences, the warriors behind them inconvenienced by having to climb over their companions. More arrows. More stones. Decius was making the most of the dry, and another crack of thunder – slightly louder – confirmed they were doing the right thing. More and more enemies fell to the barrage. The Arenosio had their own archers among the crowd, but they were little more than an annoyance to the defenders. The numbers of the tribesmen, though, were beginning to make their presence felt. Despite the constant hail of missiles striking the front ranks, there were simply so many that they were beginning to clamber over the stake defences faster than the Roman troops could reload their bows and slings.

  Still, they were taking horrendous casualties. Fronto was pleased and impressed to note that the legionaries, who had had no formal training of missile weapons, were glorying in their ability to do such damage. They were considerably less effective than Decius’ men, of course, but even then they were causing havoc, for they didn’t have to be marksmen to hit the mob running at them, and many of their shafts struck home. Those legionaries waiting with sword and shield cheered on their mates with every hit.

  But the Arenosio were still flooding forward. Fronto turned to one of the runners Masgava had placed strategically. ‘Do a quick circuit, looking at the enemy numbers. If you find somewhere that’s not in any real danger, have their commander thin their ranks and send them here. ’ The man saluted and ran off, and Fronto peered left and right. The legion’s few bolt throwers had been set up spaced around the ramparts, each attended by their two man team. There were twenty two of them – the army had brought fewer than was standard, for they had been travelling as fast as they could and had needed to give over wagon space to the gold. Additionally, there was limited ammunition for them, unlike the archers and slingers who were loaded down with spare ammunition taken from the stores of the fortress. Even as he willed them to begin, the first weapon released its heavy bolt with a twang that was almost lost in another crack of thunder. The missile sailed down into the crowd, as well aimed as only Roman artillerists could hope to manage, and plunged through the chest of a man about to blow into a carnyx. His torso exploded in crimson and gleaming iron as the rings of his chain shirt flew in all directions , the bolt passing through him and thudding into a warrior behind. The groan that swept through the enemy ranks confirmed Fronto’s suspicion: these men would break soon. They were desperate and terrified.

  Again and again the archers and slingers on the walls launched into the attacking force, and the pile of dead Arenosio grew and grew, forming a bank where there had earlier been a spiked fence. Now, tribesmen were scurrying up the bodies of their fellows , coming ever closer to the ramparts, despite the terrible losses they were taking.

  There was yet another crack of thunder and Fronto caught something out of the corner of his eye, turning to examine what had happened. One of the bolt throwers had fallen still, both its artillerists gone. One Fronto found lying on the embankment behind the ramparts, am arrow jutting from his face. The other was draped over the parapet fence with a single shaft rising from his neck. This was not the work of random arrows from the crowd below. To take out both artillerists with such precision required care and time. Even as he wondered, Fronto saw another arrow fall square into the face of an archer. His head rose, extrapolating from the hit to locate the source. The missile had to have originated on the hillside.

  He watched, tense, as another arrow launched from that hillside and plunged down among the defenders on the walls. The enemy had sent archers to the high places where they could pick off men on the walls. The distance was frankly astonishing, and he realised then that these men were not warriors, but hunters. The archers on the slopes were men used to bringing down birds in flight in howling gales. They were loosing few shots and slowly, but each one was a masterpiece of the bowman ’s art, removing one more defender.

  ‘Protect the archers,’ Fronto shouted. ‘Marksmen on the hillsides.’

  Men turned to look and another single arrow took a slinger in the chest, knocking him back from the walls. The bolt thrower at the far corner had now fallen silent too, unmanned. Legionaries who were idle, awaiting the strength of the assault, shifted position to hold up their heavy shields protecting themselves and the archers and slingers from these pinpoint-accurate arrows. Still, the hunters managed to cause their damage, se lecting their targets carefully as the missile troops on the walls concentrated once more on removing the threat below them. Still the Arenosio came on, ever closer to the walls, and Fronto was beginning to wonder whether the scouts had seriously underestimated the enemy numbers, or whether perhaps one of those other forces had not turned back after all.

  ‘Here they come,’ shouted a centurion along the rampart , and Fronto turned to see Terpulo pointing his sword down over the wall
. Even as the lead elements were still picked off with arrows and stones, so the flood of warriors flowed over the last stretch of grass and reached the walls.

  ‘Positions,’ bellowed the centurions, and those men who had been protecting the archers now turned and fell back into place to defend the rampart. As the hunters on the hills began their deadly work once more, Galronus grasped Fronto’s arm and pointed at the hillside.

  ‘Look.’

  Fronto did so and it took a while to pick out what Galronus was indicating. Figures were moving across the scrubby slopes and, even as he watched, one of the marksmen fell to them, the threat he posed negated.

  ‘Who are they?’ Fronto breathed.

  ‘My scouts. I left a few units out there to warn us if any other forces might be coming to aid the Arenosio. Looks like they saw the archers and moved to deal with them .’

  Fronto nodded, watching another source of deadly shafts fall silent.

  ‘When this is over, give those men a bag of coins and a jug of wine each.’

  Galronus grinned, but there was no more time to pay attention to such distant troubles, for now the main problem was at their doorstep. The endless cries and shouts of consternation in the hard native tongue had been joined by occasional Latin cries. The enemy had no plan, nor ram, nor siege ladders, but what they had in abundance was numbers, and they flooded up the walls like a plague of locusts, clambering upwards using the gaps between stones for handholds, some climbing with just one hand while clutching a weapon, others using both hands, their weapons still sheathed.

  All across the defences, legionaries began their work, hacking down at the rising force. Among them, the dismounted cavalry jabbed down with their spears, proving themselves oddly more effective in this position than Rome’s heavy infantry with their pila and short swords. Every other legionary used a pilum to lance down, almost as well as the spears , though more prone to bending and breaking. Others retained their gladius to deal with those who actually reached the parapet.