“Alright. The artillery are well hidden, everyone knows what they’ve got to do and it’s almost dark. Time to start getting into position.”
The officers beside him saluted as best they could and then shuffled back down the slope. Fronto remained for a moment, studying the small fort. So much could go wrong tonight, beginning with crossing the intervening space to the walls. He briefly offered up a half-hearted prayer to both Nemesis and Fortuna and then shuffled back on his elbows until he was out of sight of the target.
Curtius beckoned to him from his section and the legate crawled down the slope to the forty-strong force. They hardly even looked Roman. Due to the nature of the mission, the legionaries had left their armour, helmets and shields in the carts with the artillery, now dressed only in tunic, breeches and dulled cloak with a belted sword.
“Alright. Remember: a crawl at most. You have to be virtually invisible from the walls. Stay close to scrub and rocks for cover and only move when you think they’re not looking. It doesn’t matter if we take an hour or more to get there, so long as we’re not seen.”
There was a quiet murmur of understanding among the men.
“Good. The light’s almost gone now. Let’s get moving. When this is over, you can all have two days’ leave to drink yourself into a stupor.”
Without waiting, he nodded to the optio and the group began to move slowly up the slope toward the crest. Fronto’s heart thumped noisily in his chest as they reached the rise and slid gently over, slowly, like a tide of men. Making small hand gestures, he motioned for the men to separate and slow down.
The next minute was nervous enough to age Fronto several years as the men of the Second cohort moved across the most open section of ground, far too tightly-packed, fast and obvious for his liking but, after that heart-stopping minute, they began to settle into a strange, broken rhythm.
Each man would wait until there was no movement close by, and would then shuffle slowly to the nearest piece of unoccupied cover. As soon as he was in place, someone else would move up to his unoccupied position and, gradually, the entire half-century moved forward at a barely noticeable speed.
Fronto grinned with relief as he realised it was possible. Other options had been quickly pushed aside, leaving this as the only feasible means of advance. Boats would be too obvious, and even swimming and then climbing the cliffs would draw too much attention. For all the openness of this approach, the defenders would be paying most of their attention to the water and the channel between the headlands, and much less to the remaining strip of land that connected them with the mainland.
With infinite slowness and care, the men of Curtius’ unit crossed the space, descending to the lowest point, close to the beach, where the scrub petered out but left them with dunes and large jumbled rocks instead.
Fronto paused as he pushed his back up against one of the great boulders of granite-like stone. He ran his fingers across the hard surface and nodded. Seems like Tetricus knew what he was talking about. Casting his eyes across the spur of land, he could see the other groups of men, slowly trickling across the ground toward the walls in much the same fashion as this group.
They had crossed fully half the distance to the walls, by his reckoning, in just a little over ten minutes, way ahead of his expectations. He glanced over the top of the rock and could just make out the faint shapes of the men on the wall in the darkness.
Once more, he was grateful that Fortuna had seen fit to give them high clouds that hardly moved in the still air, hanging helpfully in front of the moon and stars and hiding their light.
He realised that nobody nearby was moving and, taking a quick glance around the side of the boulder, dipped forward and crept across the sand and scrubby grass to the next low pile of rock. As he came to a halt and allowed himself to breathe once more, he watched one of the men behind steal forward into the place he had just vacated.
How was Balbus faring at the other side, he wondered?
The sound of a night bird drew his irritated attention for a moment before he realised that the noisy creature was, in fact, Curtius, trying to get his attention from a nearby boulder.
He gestured with a shrug and the optio pointed over the top of his stone shelter. Fronto turned and looked at the walls again. Two of the four figures he had been able to spot last time he looked had vanished and, as he watched, the other two converged on a spot close to the gate and gradually disappeared from view.
Fronto scratched his head. Had they left the walls for some reason? Had they seen something and were heading for the gate to come out and investigate? He winced and rubbed his scalp nervously. What to do?
A short distance away, Curtius flashed him a wide grin and, making a couple of expansive gestures to those behind them, ducked out from the boulder that covered him, and ran in clear view across twenty yards of open grass, ducking briefly behind a bush to make sure the wall was still empty before running on.
Fronto stared at him. What was the idiot doing? What would happen if the guards suddenly came back into view? Fronto ground his teeth, but his irritation at Curtius blossomed into full blown panic as the rest of the unit, having seen the optio’s gesture, broke cover at a run and hurtled past the legate toward the fortress.
“Oh bloody hell!” Fronto grunted in a loud whisper and then, taking a deep breath, left the boulder and joined the running men.
Over the grass and sand he padded, willing the wall to remain empty as he neared the point where the men were gathering behind Curtius, not ten yards from the bottom of the defences. Fronto, snarling and frowning, ignored the helping hands that were thrust out to him from behind rocks and ran past the men until he ducked behind the low bush that sheltered the optio.
“You damn idiot!” he hissed. “I nearly died when I saw you running. What possessed you to do that?”
Curtius shrugged with a faintly apologetic smile.
“Sorry, sir. Saw an opportunity and took it.”
“What would have happened if you’d been seen?”
Curtius grinned.
“Ah, but we weren’t, sir. And now we’re here.”
Fronto continued to grind his teeth as his glare bored into the junior officer but he didn’t trust himself to say anything else without shouting.
“You and I are going to have words when this is over.”
“By all means, sir. Shall we have a look at the wall for now, though.”
Fronto’s glare remained for a moment and he pointed a warning finger at the optio. A quick glance upwards confirmed the footsteps he thought he’d heard a moment ago. Figures were reappearing on the wall. Must have changed the guard for the next watch. The unit was, indeed, ridiculously lucky that they’d stopped running when they did. Fronto held his hand up, warning the others to stay still and, silently and slowly, ducked out from the bush, trying to avoid any noisy undergrowth.
It was only when his hands touched the chunks of rock that formed the face of the wall that he allowed his breath to escape. This was it.
Slowly, keeping close enough to the wall that he would be out of the defenders’ line of sight, he ran his hands across the surface.
Tetricus was right, the clever little bastard. He’d have to buy the tribune a whole cartload of drinks for this. The fort walls were constructed in much the same way as most Celtic defences. A frame of heavy timber beams formed the shape of the wall, faced with tightly fitted smooth stones and then filled with compacted earth. Very defensible. All very laudable. But these walls had been here for a very long time and, just as the tribune had predicted, decades, if not centuries, of salt water and wind had had a profound weathering effect on the sawn wooden ends of the beams as they punctuated the stone of the walls, while the hard, solid rock had hardly suffered a mark at their hands. The end result was that the periodic beam ends had shrunk back into the surface, creating ready-made hand holes in the otherwise unscalable walls. Nature, for once, seemed to be giving them a helping hand.
Fronto heave
d a silent sigh of relief and turned to the men behind him, hidden in numerous places.
With a smile, he gestured with his thumb.
* * * * *
Fronto glanced once more with irritation at Curtius. The man seemed determined to do things his own way, regardless of the consequences. The legate had made it clear that the rest were to stay behind him, lower down, until he had reached the parapet and peered over and yet, as he pulled his face up to the edge, the optio was already level with him to his right and doing the same.
Again, he glanced past the man to see the other units further along the wall, slowly and quietly scaling the surface. Angrily, he waved an arm at Curtius, while clinging tightly to the parapet with his free hand. The optio, thankfully, saw the gesture and ducked back down. One of the defenders, wrapped tight in his woollen cloak, strode past perhaps five feet from where the legate clung.
Moments passed until finally he heard the distinctive night-time call of the corn crake from down near the water; nothing unusual enough to attract the guards’ attention, despite being replicated on this occasion with two notched sticks by one of the legionaries remaining at the beach on watch.
Fronto nodded. The call was short and singular and told him that all four units were in position along the walls.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to the optio and hauled himself up onto the wall.
The guard had walked past him and almost reached Curtius’ position. As quietly as he could, as he got his knees on the top of the wall, Fronto drew his gladius. A few yards away, the optio’s hand shot out across the surface and grabbed the Gaul’s ankle, yanking it forward. The guard gave a gasp and fell heavily backwards. Fronto lunged forward to silence the man with his sword, but the fall had cracked the man’s head hard and driven the consciousness from him before he could shout.
Along the wall, the other guards were disappearing with quiet gurgles and gasps. Fronto immediately dropped to a crouch and turned to examine the fort interior and the other walls, as the men of Curtius’ unit began to arrive at the top. The only buildings in the Veneti fort were at the high, central point of the fort, just as they had found in all the coastal strongholds and the only visible figures within were milling around in the central open space, around a small fire, largely hidden between the buildings.
There were more guards along the other walls and they would likely be the big problem. Not the most important one, though…
Fronto’s eyes were drawn once more to the central buildings. At the far side of those, a small artificial mound had been constructed, crowned by a wooden platform upon which stood a beacon of dried wood, rising like one of the great ancient obelisks of Aegyptus.
Now that was the important target. If that warning beacon sprang into life, the whole plan was for naught. Subtlety was the key…
The legate almost bit off his tongue in panic as a warning cry went up from a particularly alert guard along one of the other walls.
“Bugger it.”
Fronto stood and waved his arms madly.
“Go!”
Without waiting, he grabbed Curtius and stepped forward. The interior face of the wall was much lower than the exterior and was backed with a slightly-sloping earth rampart. Still clinging to the optio, he jumped from the wall, landing heavily and awkwardly on the turf, jarring his ankle and cursing. To add insult to injury, Curtius, next to him, landed lithe as a cat and grasped the legate’s tunic to steady him.
“Thanks” Fronto said sourly as the first of the men behind him dropped from the wall to the turf. Around them, the camp burst into life as the occupants realised they were being attacked.
As planned, the first and second Roman groups split left and right and raced around the walls, securing all points of access and the main gate, dispatching the remaining wall guards and enclosing the whole complex before beginning to descend into the interior.
The third group formed up as they descended the stairs near the gate and began to move at a run to meet the first groups of defenders who were appearing between the houses, racing to meet the Roman attackers.
Fronto and Curtius, aware that their men were hot on their heels, however, moved off without pausing to form up, charging up the slope on a course to bypass the square and its surrounding houses, making directly for the beacon.
Fronto swore with every step as his sore ankle thudded to the floor, though he was damned if he was going to slow down and pander to it with the irritating figure of Curtius running alongside.
As they approached the level of the first buildings, six men burst out from a narrow alleyway, armed and shouting. Four turned to face the oncoming Romans, while the other two ran the other way, waving burning torches.
“Oh shit.”
The four Veneti warriors, two with strange decorative helmets, leapt forward into the fray, two at Fronto and two at Curtius. The legate lurched to a halt, raising his sword just in time to deflect the blow from a heavy Celtic blade. As he ducked back, looking for an opening, he glanced at Curtius, only to realise that the optio wasn’t there.
The confusion didn’t have long to take hold as he was forced to parry yet another heavy blow. Three more men joined him from behind, two of them taking up the position where Curtius had been moments before.
Fronto growled as he ducked a vicious, scything blow and, grinning, stabbed the man in his shoulder where he had over-extended his attack. While the Gaul stumbled forward in shock, Fronto blinked as he saw Curtius over the man’s shoulder, already way ahead of the fight and racing off into the darkness after the torchbearers. How in the name of a dozen Gods had he managed that?
Fronto readied himself for the next blow, but it never came. The man he had lightly wounded had suffered a horrendous blow at the hands of a legionary who had just appeared on the legate’s left. The two Celts who remained standing were now hard pressed as over a dozen Romans lunged and stabbed at them, more arriving all the time.
Another seven Veneti appeared around the nearest building and made for the fray, bellowing harsh war cries. The legate grimaced and turned to the men around him, just as another Gaulish warrior collapsed in a heap alongside the dying legionary he had attacked.
Grabbing the nearest men, he yelled “You two with me. Everyone else, get stuck in!”
He pointed at the approaching Veneti and the legionaries roared as they ran to meet the enemy. Leaving the fight behind and hoping that his men would be able to hold off what could very well be a superior force, Fronto and his two companions ran on into the darkness toward the looming deeper black of the signal beacon.
They rounded the corner of the last building just as the first orange flames licked the timbers at the base of the tower.
“Oh bollocks!”
Curtius was being held at bay by two warriors, swinging madly with their long blades, while another ducked in and out of the beacon with his flaming torch. Wherever he touched it to the dry kindling, orange flames burst into life.
“Get those bastards!” Fronto barked, and the three of them leapt forward to join Curtius. The sudden arrival of reinforcements quickly turned the tide of the scuffle and the two warriors, hard pressed, went down one after the other to sharp, efficient blows.
As soon as the men were no longer barring his way, Curtius leapt forward and clambered up the small mound. The remaining Veneti warrior turned to meet this new threat, waving his flaming torch defensively.
Fronto and the other two men started up the slope, but they were clearly too late. Orange fire was racing up the kindling that formed the heart of the beacon and already the heavier timbers were beginning to burn. There was nothing they could do, now.
Almost derisively, Curtius knocked the torch from the man’s hands and drove his gladius deep into the man’s chest, pinning him to one of the strong wooden beams that formed the corners of the obelisk-shaped beacon.
“Get back, man” Fronto yelled.
Curtius let go of the sword, leaving it on the pinned man, glanced at the l
egate once, a crazed grin on his face, and then stepped across the wooden platform. There was a loud bang and the central mass settled slightly, a small explosion of fire and shards of burning wood bursting out of the beacon, setting light to the fringe of Curtius’ tunic. The man reeled back, the sudden intense heat blistering his face and arm.
Fronto watched in horror as the tunic caught fully, fire racing up the man’s back as the optio stepped to the next corner.
As the next moments unfolded, Fronto watched one of the most astounding acts of individual stupidity he would ever witness, his jaw hanging open and his eyes drying out with the ever increasing heat this close to the beacon.
Curtius, his hair frazzled, reached around the beam at the corner and gripped it hard in a tight embrace, the extreme heat of the wood blistering and ruining his arms. The optio, afire and sizzling, wrenched at the beam with all his might and, after a moment’s pause, there was a crack and a deep rumble.
The huge timber bole and the optio grasping it came away at the same time, falling back away from the beacon and tumbling down the slope. Fronto and his two companions stepped out of the way, still staring in astonishment as the entire beacon collapsed and rolled down the grassy artificial slope, the fire dissipating as the pyre disintegrated.
The legate blinked and leapt forward to the still form of Curtius on the grass. To his further amazement, as he reached sadly toward the prone, burning, figure, Curtius spun around onto his back and continued to roll for a moment until the flames on his tunic were out. As Fronto stared down at him, Curtius grinned through a blackened and blistered face, his white teeth a sharp contrast, and reached out.
“Mind helping me up, sir?”
Fronto stared and then burst out laughing as he reached down for the optio’s hand. As the junior officer rose to his feet, shakily, smoke rising from his burned hair and clothes, Fronto turned to the other two.
Marius Mules III: Gallia Invicta (Marius' Mules) Page 22
