Priscus passed across the flask of watered wine, ready-mixed back in the prefect’s tent, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘I was surprised to see you at the wall yesterday.’
‘All hands needed,’ Fronto replied. ‘It’s was hectic, to say the least.’
‘You’re going to give your singulares a heart attack, you know?’
Fronto turned a curious look on his friend and Priscus chuckled. ‘You were busy fighting, so you never noticed. I was a sensible creaky old bugger and stayed down in the clear overseeing the resupply. And every time I looked up at your section I saw one of your men leaping around madly trying to keep the enemy from getting near you.’
‘They failed, then.’
‘Hardly. You’d have been swamped two or three times if your lads hadn’t had your back. I’d say you owe them a bonus after this.’
Fronto sighed. ‘You know me, Gnaeus. I give it everything I’ve got. No competent soldier could do less.’ He leaned on the fence top and his voice lowered conspiratorially so that it wouldn’t carry to the nearest sentries along the wall. ‘In confidence, Gnaeus, I think I’m starting to lose the heart for this, though. Do you realise there are men fighting us now who were still playing with stick games and starting to think about girls when we followed the Helvetii into this gods-forsaken land.’
Priscus gave him an odd look, and Fronto shrugged. ‘I used to think this place would be a nice place to settle when things are over, but I’m starting to think that I’ll never be able to walk Gallic soil without thinking of all the children I’ve put under it.’
‘Gods but you can be a morbid bastard at times, Fronto.’
‘I’m done after this one, Gnaeus. Time to raise the kids and maybe make a few denarii importing wine or something.’
‘You? The only place you’ll import wine is into your mouth. You’d be broke in a week!’
Fronto turned a faint smile on his friend. ‘Tell me you haven’t thought about it. We’re not young men anymore.’
‘Yes, but you’ve got Lucilia and the boys to drag you away. This is my family and has been for decades. I’ll die in a mail shirt, and I’m comfortable with that.’
‘And you call me morbid!’
‘You’d better not bloody retire,’ came a voice from back down the turf slope and the two men turned to see Palmatus, arms folded, behind them. ‘I’d have to look for another job, and there’s nothing else this interesting that pays half as well.’
Fronto rolled his eyes. Privacy was a thing of the past since his singulares had vowed never to leave him alone. Palmatus jogged up the slope, leaving Aurelius and Celer at the bottom, and joined Fronto at the other side, covering his left flank.
‘Shouldn’t you two be getting some shut-eye at your age,’ the former legionary grinned.
Priscus gave him a sour look. ‘There’s about half a decade between us, I reckon, you knob-end.’
Palmatus laughed easily and Fronto sighed. ‘This is the only thing I’ll really miss, though. Times like this with irritating knob-ends like you two.’
Priscus gave him a playful punch in the arm that he probably thought hurt less than it actually did and the three men folded their arms and leaned on the fence top, looking out over the defences, towards the hill upon which the Gallic reserve were camped.
‘Do you two notice anything different?’ Palmatus said quietly and evenly.
The two men frowned into the darkness. ‘No. All peaceful.’
‘Yes. Too peaceful. Where’s all the life on that hill? And it’s dark. Where are their camp fires?’
Fronto straightened. ‘Ah shite!’ he muttered with feeling.
Priscus turned and looked around the space between the walls until he spotted the duty signaller, lounging around on a barrel and looking bored.
‘Cornicen? Call the alarm. Stand to. All units.’
The man paused only a moment, aware of the exalted rank of the man giving the order, and then stood, taking a deep breath and blowing the calls through his cornu with all his might. Barely had the first refrain echoed around the ramparts before Fronto saw them.
No lining up on the plain this time. No cavalry manoeuvres. The enemy reserve force was coming with its eyes set solely on the walls, on foot and carrying ladders, grapples and all manner of bulky goods to fill in the ditches and allow easy crossing. Among them came large units of archers and slingers. The enemy flooded from the trees and across the mile of flat, open land like a plague.
It was eerie, watching the flood of Gauls moving through the night, charging into battle in odd silence. Then, as the single cornicen’s call was picked up by the musicians of the four legions responsible for this section, the enemy knew they’d been seen and burst into life with a pugnacious roar.
‘That’s it, then,’ Fronto sighed and turned, looking out over the gap between the ramparts, where men ran this way and that preparing to hold the walls, calls from the camps on the hills at either side urging the men there to fall in and man the palisades. Sure enough past them, beyond the inner fence and the defences below it, past the water-filled ditch and the scrub, up beyond the green and grey slope, the oppidum was bursting into life. Dying-bovine sounds echoed from the carnyxes within and flames appeared on the walls. ‘The reserve force will be here in a matter of heartbeats, but Vercingetorix’s army will be down joining in the fun in a quarter of an hour or so, too.’
In preparation for an onslaught Palmatus, Aurelius and Celer ran up to Fronto, the latter pair’s shields held protectively out. The wicker fence was excellent at stopping a blade’s edge, and made most piercing attacks difficult, but still a lucky arrow or spear could penetrate it, and the Gauls had learned the strength of the Roman defences quite well a day or so back.
As the cohorts began to appear on the hillsides, pouring out of the camps and moving down to help man the defences on the plain, the Gallic reserves reached the piles of their own stinking dead. In a shot that deserved a medal, one of the artillerists in the towers struck the first man to hurdle the pile of corpses, the iron bolt smashing a hole through the man’s chest and knocking him back down among the heaps of his former compatriots. As if taking their cue from that single shot, the artillerists all along the ramparts opened up, the twangs, thuds, thumps and rattles coming in an almost constant rhythm, the fence and tower posts shaking with each launch all along the line, the ground vibrating and small trickles of dust and gravel shuddering and rolling from the rampart.
The Gauls came on heedless of their losses which, though gruesome, were little more than a gnat bite to the army as a whole. The few small units of archers and slingers stationed among the legions rose and began to loose their shots, their actions echoed by the vastly superior number of missile troops outside the walls. The first exchanges were wild and largely fruitless on both sides as each force spent time trying to find their range. Then, just as the Roman archers were starting to pick off their opposite numbers, the enemy finally reached a comfortable range and the exchanges began for real. Fronto and Priscus ducked as the first cloud of enemy arrows swept the top of the fence. Within sight of their position alone, along the rampart beneath three towers, Fronto saw two legionaries and an archer thrown back, pierced and bloody. A centurion he didn’t recognise reached the wall nearby, using his vine cane to direct two men carrying a score of pila. Fronto opened his mouth to tell the man to duck, but as he did so a sling bullet smacked into the centurion’s temple with the dull bong of an old bell, crumpling the bronze helm inwards so deep that the man’s eye burst. As the crippled or dead officer toppled from the rampart, the two legionaries dropped their bundle of pila and ran, ducking, for the cover of the fence.
‘Grab a shield,’ shouted Fronto, and one of the legionaries grasped one of the numerous spares that lay face up on the turf slope. The other moved to follow suit, then his back arched stiffly as the wicker weave of the fence parted slightly with a rustle. The man turned, trying in disbelief to see the shaft protru
ding from his spine. Then, with an odd sigh, he collapsed and slid down the slope, where he lay face down, shaking with nerve damage. Fronto risked a look over the parapet, Celer lifting his shield to help cover his commander. Already, under the cover of their archers, the reserve foot were casting their brush and timber and the like into the ditches to allow for easier, safer, crossing. Still, all along the defences running Gauls fell screaming as their feet found hidden dangers - a sharpened stake, a metal prong or a caltrop. Yet the flood came on.
A honking noise announced the approach of the second attack from the oppidum and Fronto turned, an arrow seeking his brain thudding instead into Aurelius’ raised shield, the point scraping a painful line across the bodyguard’s forearm.
‘I’ve got this, Priscus yelled over the rising noise of battle. ‘You go take command of the inner line before they hit.’
Fronto nodded and ran for the opposite defences, his singulares forming on him as he moved, the rest of the bodyguard unit freshly arrived with Masgava at the head.
* * * * *
Priscus looked back and forth along the wall, noting the somewhat diminished number of legionaries and archers upon it. Fresh cohorts were even now running across the open ground to take up position on one rampart or the other, newly arrived from the Mons Rea and Gods’ Gate camps. As the legionaries at the fence hunkered behind their shields and the archers picked off every attacking Gaul they could sight, Priscus watched a century of legionaries arrive at his section and begin to distribute along the wall at the commands of a man with an optio’s staff. Their shields bore the ‘XII’ of the Twelfth legion, come down from Mons Rea under Antonius’ command. Priscus frowned at the sight as the optio settled his men into position and ordered them to keep their shields up and wait for the missiles to slow.
‘Where’s your centurion?’ Priscus shouted.
‘Died six towers north yesterday, sir,’ the optio replied wearily.
‘And you’ve not been given the centurion’s crest?’
‘Had no time to arrange things and get confirmed by the legate yet, sir.’
Priscus nodded his understanding. ‘Good man. Get to it.’
The optio saluted, moving along the wall with his men and Priscus found himself standing next to a soldier of not more than eighteen summers and sighed. Perhaps Fronto was right - they seemed to get younger every year. The legionary looked across at Priscus nervously though, to give him credit, the nerves may well have been more due to the proximity of such a senior officer than to the coming onslaught. After all, the lad had survived the previous fight.
‘Lean into the shield,’ Priscus said.
‘Sir?’
‘You’re holding it out like it might bite you. Lean into it. Get your shoulder up against the top, plant your leading leg.’ He paused at the look on the legionary’s face. ‘The left, man, the left!’ What was this man’s training officer doing with his time? ‘Plant your leading leg a foot from the fence and wedge the bottom of the shield against your shin.’
The legionary did as he was told, the resulting position leaving him almost entirely covered by the shield, the curved board wedged tightly against him.
‘Now anything that hits you will be blocked solidly. If you wave it around like a fairy any hit you take will just knock it back against you and probably break your pretty young face.’
The soldier nodded and shuffled his leg.
‘I know. It’s uncomfortable and it might bruise you. But it’s better than being spitted by a mad bastard with braided hair and a pathological hatred of Romans.’
Priscus took a quick look over the fence top once again and noted how much closer they were now to being under attack from the infantry. The Gauls had filled in one of the ditches entirely and had thrown rough hacked planks across the area they knew to be full of lilia pits, spikes and other unpleasantness. They were almost close enough to smell, one ditch away from a full assault. The Roman archers and artillerists were doing a sterling job picking them off as they moved forward, and already hundreds lay dead along the line, their bloody bodies adding to the potential hurdles for their compatriots.
Somewhere back among the shadowy mass beyond the outer ditch and defences, Priscus caught sight of a flicker of flame.
‘Fire arrows!’ he bellowed, and turned to look back down at the men inside the fortifications. ‘Barrels and buckets ready. Form details now.’
Leaving them to their business, he turned back in time to see fires leaping to life every few dozen paces along the length of the defences, from Mons Rea to the foothills below Caesar’s camp. Two men by each of the blazes began to dip their wadded arrows into the dancing fire until they caught fully, then turned, drew and released in fluid moves that sent dazzling golden arcs across the inky night.
They were good. Priscus had to give them that. The first few shafts thudded into the wicker fence and into the timber posts of the watchtowers.
‘They’re serious this time, sir,’ shouted the optio as he used his gladius to cut through the shaft of a burning missile lodged in a tower post and then stamped out the flame on the rampart walk.
Priscus nodded. ‘They were serious enough last time, but now they’ve got the measure of the defences.’ Across the ground-works, the Gauls were bringing forward wicker shields on stands, much like small portable versions of the Roman fence, and propping them in front of the fire archers, protecting them from counter attack.
‘When did the Gauls get so bloody cunning, sir?’
Priscus cast a weary smile at the optio. ‘Over six years of us teaching them by example, I’d guess. Watch out!’
A flaming shaft clanged off the optio’s bronze-clad brow and ricocheted into the camp’s interior. The junior officer reached up, stunned, and felt the dent in his helmet. ‘For the love of Juno…’
‘Keep your head down,’ advised Priscus, his gaze slipping to the crowd beyond the wall again. The twin ditches were now almost full of bundles of kindling and brush, simple enough for a man to cross. ‘Here they come. Get ready, lads. Shields to the fore, braced. Save your strikes for when they’re open.’
With a wicked grin, Priscus turned to look back down the slope. ‘Have we pitch?’ he yelled to the nearest supply officer. The centurion frowned. ‘There might be some here somewhere, sir. What with all the timber in the defences, we’re not putting it on display.’
Priscus nodded. ‘Understood. Find it. Have the jars distributed to each of the officers commanding on the wall.’
The centurion saluted, grabbed three of his men and ran off in search of the pitch. The optio was looking at him in bewilderment.
‘They think they’re clever,’ Priscus explained, ‘but they haven’t thought about how they’ve filled the ditches with kindling to climb over. The stuff they’ve used would go up a treat, especially with a little help.’
The optio’s eyes bulged. ‘Sir, that’s incredibly dangerous so close to the wicker walls.’
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained, optio. Let’s make their approach hotter than a whore’s crotch on a summer night!’
The junior officer grinned, a hint of madness entering his eyes.
A clunk drew Priscus’ attention, and he looked back to see the top of a ladder hit the fence. Taking a deep breath, the prefect crouched and grabbed one of the spare shields, hauling it up from the turf and sweeping it round to the front as he advanced on the fence again. The first Gallic head appeared at the top, a gleaming iron helmet with twin black feathers jutting from the crown as he climbed into view. Priscus waited patiently, sword arm drawn back, elbow bent, until the man’s face appeared, and then jabbed forward, shield turned aside to allow the blow, the slender, tapering tip of his gladius smashing into the man’s face and through the nasal cavity, into the space within.
With the instinct born of so many years of service, he quickly jerked his arm back before the man fell away bubbling, in order to make sure his blade did not become lodged. To either side, more ladders hit the wall t
op, and the legionaries were suddenly embroiled in a fight for survival all along the rampart. Priscus noted with satisfaction the legionary bracing his shield as he’d been instructed, despite the several bloody lines the bronze rim had cut in his shin.
A second man appeared over the fence top, this one bare-headed.
Priscus leaned back, pulled up his shield and held it horizontal, waiting for the man’s eyes, and then slammed forward, smashing the rim into the Gaul’s face at brow level. There was an audible crack and the man disappeared backwards into the press, howling in agony.
Readying himself for the next attack, Priscus felt something amiss and looked down.
The shaft of an arrow protruded a mere hand’s-width from his gut, barely the flights on show. The cloth and leather and mail around the shaft were sizzling and blackened from the fire they’d extinguished on entry. He blinked and winced as he moved, confirming that the shaft had passed right through, the tip resting against his spine.
‘Ah, bollocks.’
The young legionary, his attention drawn by the curse, stared in horror. Priscus gave him a savage grin, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth and running down to his chin.
‘And that, soldier, is why you keep the shield in front of you and braced.’
‘Sir!’ the man shouted and had to duck a sharp jab from the wall.
The Great Revolt Page 48
