Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

  Brutus slumped over the fence. ‘We’ve fallen on our own sword here, then. We’ve forced them into a corner from which they can’t escape, but which is going to cost us the world to take. At least, gods-willing, there’s no reserve army coming to help them this time. Last thing we need is another Alesia. The people may praise Caesar for that victory, but we all saw how damn close that was.’

  Varus nodded his agreement. If Alesia had turned the way Gergovia had, Caesar and his army would have been back in Cisalpine Gaul now, hanging their heads in defeat. But there was still time for a failure to cripple the general’s reputation, so close to his consulate. He could hardly afford a defeat, or even a desperate pyrrhic win, here and now.

  ‘Looks like they’re lighting more fires. Must be colder up there than it is down here, I guess.’

  Varus nodded, peering up at the defences atop the slope. A golden tongue of flame was rising into the night, sparks flying to the heavens to warm the gods. Even as he watched, another large bonfire burst into life.

  ‘That’s odd.’

  Brutus frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Those fires are outside the enemy ramparts. They’re not camping out front, so why…’ He straightened. ‘You don’t think…?’

  Even as they considered the meaning of the new fires, four more began to roar into life across the hillside. Again and again conflagrations exploded into golden light all along the top of the hill, before the enemy defences. By the time a general cry of alert had gone up in the camp, there was a solid line of fire all across the hill.

  ‘They’re going to send them down to the camp,’ Brutus coughed, staring at the conflagrations. ‘These wicker fences won’t stop them. Damn it.’

  Varus nodded distractedly, but his eyes were narrowed suspiciously. More fires were rising, extending the line of flames down the slope to either side, to meet the morass below.

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  Behind them, the camp burst into life. Men moved back away from the ramparts at the watch centurion’s command in case the burning mass rolled down the hill against the Roman defences.

  ‘Come on,’ Brutus said, grabbing at Varus’ shoulder.

  ‘I don’t think that’s what’s happening,’ the cavalry commander breathed as the last few enemy fires ignited, forming a solid line that divided the hill into two sections, uncrossable without passing the furnace between.

  ‘You want to risk it?’

  Varus shook his head. ‘If they were going to send burning matter down at us, they’d have done it differently. They would have lit all the fires at once in order to give us no warning. And there would be no point to the ones on the low slopes to either side. And the fires would have taken time to grow. They wouldn’t have been so instant to bloom from nothing to inferno. They were lit slowly and sporadically, as though by only a few…’

  Varus pursed his lips. ‘Go tell the general the enemy have abandoned their position.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just do it, Brutus.’

  Without pause, the cavalry commander ran across to where the small corral stood, two dozen horses restless within at the commotion. A pair of troopers stood on guard there.

  ‘You two. Mount up bareback and follow me.’

  Varus slid into the corral, located his steed and threw a blanket over the back before slipping up onto the beast’s back. There was no time for saddling. By the time he walked his horse from the corral the other two were similarly mounted, the last trooper leaning down to fasten the gate behind them.

  ‘Come on.’

  The fortification was long and narrow, nestled at the base of the slope between the steep rise and the swamp, with only two gates. One entrance led onto the bridge back to the far hill, where part of the large force remained in garrison awaiting the arrival of Trebonius’ legions. The other sat facing the enemy at a break in the wicker fence, and was now manned by a single nervous legionary, the rest having pulled back from the defences at the centurion’s command. As Varus and his troopers approached, the legionary looked frightened and a little confused.

  ‘Open the gate, soldier.’

  The man looked as though he might argue for a moment, but then stepped forth and unbarred the wicker gate, swinging the leaf in to allow the three riders access. Varus nodded his appreciation and led the two troopers out at a trot and then broke into a run, veering left and racing along before the Roman walls, parallel to both lines of defence and the fiery wall.

  ‘Where are we going, sir?’

  ‘To find out how deep the mire really is. Whoever you pray to best, do it now.’

  As they raced towards the edge of the hill, where the continuous line of fire met the swamp, Varus took his own advice. His family patron, drawn through a claimed descent from Aeneas and therefore ties to legendary Troy, was Apollo, and so to Apollo he cast a desperate prayer that he and his steed not fall foul of the sucking mire.

  Moments later they converged on the spot he sought and the two troopers, unsure of their task and fearful of the terrain fell back slightly in support of their commander. Varus slowed only a little, still riding at perilous speed, hugging the line of conflagration so close that he could feel the blistering heat on his right side, his horse’s hooves plunging into the soft, giving mire at the base of the slope.

  Though he recognised the danger of riding a horse at speed through the uncertain and horribly dangerous muck, his attention was drawn more to the fire, and what he saw went a long way to confirming his theory. The fire was not one heavy timber that would easily roll down a hill into enemy defences. It was a true bonfire, built up with scrub and then with many timbers at the heart, which would allow the inferno to burn for hours before it died down.

  His horse baulked at the heat and veered out dangerously into the swamp, sinking to the knee in the mire for a moment and almost breaking its leg as its speed was torn from it. The two men behind were having similar problems, one fighting with the murk beneath, the other trying to stop his horse rearing at the proximity of the roaring flames.

  Varus pressed on, his horse plodding back out of the deeper muck, blessedly unharmed. Behind him, one of the troopers closed the gap between them but the other had fallen, his horse bucking wild in fear and the rider unable to stay seated on just a blanket. The man had slopped into the mire and now rose painfully and staggered this way and that, watching his horse which had turned and bolted back towards the Roman camp away from the fire.

  And that, of course, was the purpose of the fire, Varus griped, grinding his teeth as he and his trooper left the dangerous swamp and regained the turf of the lower slope at the far side of the blazing barricade. Without waiting or answering the desperate questions of his man, Varus angled his horse to the right and began the painstaking climb up the hill to the enemy position, once more parallel to the fires, but on the enemy side.

  The trooper had drawn his sword, but Varus hadn’t bothered. He was certain now what he would find at the top and, as he crested the hill and ploughed on towards the enemy ramparts, his suspicions were confirmed.

  The fiery line had exploded so sporadically because it had been the job of the last few people on the hill. Now, the huge camp stood empty, and silent apart from the spit and crackle of flames. He slapped his fist into his palm in irritation, but then sagged with the realisation that this was no failure, really. This was, in fact, what he’d somehow hoped would happen. Despite being trapped, the enemy had managed to find a way to flee. They had known they didn’t have time to move such a large army out without being seen and harried by Caesar’s cavalry. And so they had waited for dusk and begun to evacuate across the swamp by their secret paths. They had lit fires in their deserted camp to make it appear inhabited from below, and those brave few who had played rear-guard had wandered back and forth with torches to complete the illusion. Varus remembered that since nightfall the only sight he’d had of the enemy was those few guards on the rampart. And while he and the rest of the Romans had watched those torch
es bob back and forth, the bulk of the enemy had been filing off through the swamp, escaping the coming conflict.

  He laughed, drawing a concerned frown from his trooper.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘They won’t all have gone yet, of course. Their army was so large they’ll be an hour or more yet getting into the swamp and I doubt the stragglers will be across before dawn starts to break. But the cavalry can’t harry them as they flee, because the blazing screens frighten our horses and it’ll take too long for the men to ferry water across to douse the fires. They’ve covered their own retreat and rendered us ineffective, thank the gods.’

  At a leisurely pace, he walked his mount out across the enemy camp to the far side where, for the first time, he looked down upon the wide, swampy valley of the Axona behind the enemy’s hill. Oddly, he realised, they had fought one of the most brutal battles of the whole campaign against the Belgae by this very river some six years ago, and probably not too far upstream.

  His tired eyes quickly found the enemy. In small groups they moved through the swamp, following their guides, and some thousands still waited on the near slope for their turn to enter the mire. He couldn’t quite see, but he could easily imagine how the nearest of those figures would be black, sweaty and soot-stained from their tasks atop the hill.

  He chuckled again.

  ‘How do we stop them, sir?’

  ‘We don’t, soldier. We go back and report this to Caesar, and we watch him sag with relief too.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Don’t you see? We’ve been saved from having to assault their camp. Now they move on to some new location and we’ll follow at our leisure and bring the war to them somewhere a bit easier.’

  ‘We can’t follow them through there, sir?’ the man said, pointing at the swampy river valley.

  ‘No, but there are crossings upstream that our foragers have used for days. We’ll pick up the enemy’s path in the morning. A trail left by so many thousand men is hard to miss. Come on. Let’s go back and report.’

  As the trooper nodded uncertainly and followed him, Varus smiled. Thank you, Apollo, Mars and Minerva, for your guiding hand. Wherever the enemy were now bound, it could hardly be worse than where they’d left, and with the legions snapping at their heels they would have precious little time to fortify again.

  It was a relief. It seemed there would not now be another Alesia.

  * * * * *

  ‘They seem entirely oblivious,’ Decurion Annius murmured from his position in the trees, peering between the greenery. Varus nodded his agreement.

  In the day that had passed since the enemy had fled the hilltop under cover of darkness, Caesar had moved his own forces out and followed, just half a day behind them. The scouts had confirmed just an hour ago that Commius’ and Correus’ rebel force had taken up a defensive position on a hilltop in the woods – a location that would prevent the mass approach of a legion and would bring any fighting down to the level of innumerable clashes between small groups amid the trees, favouring the enemy rather than the grand formations of the Roman army.

  Still, there was little to be done about it, and at least Caesar’s army was more flexible than most Roman forces. The revolt would be over soon enough, and Trebonius’ relief legions were a matter of a few hours behind as was continually established by outriders to the rear.

  But the issue of supplies, even on the move, was still a pressing one, and so the Roman forces had constantly sent out foraging groups with heavy cavalry guards, scavenging what could be found in the few farms and settlements they hadn’t already ravaged. It was slim pickings. But then almost on the heels of those riders who brought word of the enemy’s current location, another scout party brought the best news of all…

  A cornucopia, hidden in the cold green of the Bellovaci forest.

  Enough supplies to keep Caesar’s army in the field for weeks, as well as numerous other sundry spoils for the taking.

  The scouts had found the enemy’s supplies. Those carts that had departed the hilltop the night before the army fled had been drawn up in a hidden dell in the woods with only a few warriors to guard them and a small force of Belgae civilians dealing with the wagons and sending out supplies to the enemy as required.

  And now that Varus had his eyes on that very location, he had to admit that it had been a brilliant move by the enemy – a manoeuvre worthy of Caesar himself. The hilltop the Bellovaci occupied was above a steep escarpment and nicely defensive, rising like a bald man’s pate above the forest of his hair. But it was also too steep from all angles for wagons or carts to attempt, not to mention tight on room given the size of the resident army. So Commius – or Correus, whoever was in overall command of the enemy – had located the supplies in a valley that was so perfectly hidden and away from the site of their camp that it should have gone unnoticed. Indeed the Roman scouts had only stumbled on it entirely by accident when they followed an enemy rider. From the valley, a narrow defile ran almost all the way to the enemy hill, which meant that supplies could be ferried to the army without drawing Roman attention.

  It had been perfect.

  But the Romans had found it now.

  Varus counted two hundred and eleven vehicles and three pens of animals, each vast and well populated with fat, well-foddered animals.

  ‘What do we do sir?’

  Varus glanced across at Annius, a strange knowing flash in his eye.

  ‘Under normal circumstances, we would return to the army and confirm the location of the enemy supplies. I would then gather our men and put up the defensive cavalry screen while Caesar chose the legionary vexillation that would come to gather the supplies. That would be the normal and sensible order of things.’

  The decurion looked confused.

  ‘And we are not doing that?’

  ‘No, we are not, Annius.’ Varus shifted slightly in his saddle. ‘Are you a subtle man, Annius?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘When you play latrunculi on the steps of the basilicae in Rome, do you often win?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then count to fifty and turn and look at your standard bearer, then briefly, without noticeably doing so, glance up and right from him to the small rock pile in the woods and tell me what you see.’

  The cavalry soldier did as he was bade and there was a long pause.

  ’Rider, sir.’

  ‘Details?’

  The decurion looked rather crestfallen. ‘A Gaul sir?’

  Varus smiled indulgently. ‘A single rider. He is likely Bellovaci. He is certainly Belgae from the colours. He watches us watching his own supply caravan. How many of us are there here, Annius?’

  ‘Less than thirty, sir.’

  ‘Indeed. We pose little threat to him. We know that there are more than a hundred Belgae riders down there with the wagons, and their men could swamp us if they wished. They know the terrain better than us and they outnumber us four to one. We are in grave danger. Certainly, that man should have ridden down to the warriors in the valley and by now we should be watching the enemy streaming up at us. Yet he just watches. Why, Annius? Imagine you’re playing latrunculi and transpose the positions.’

  The decurion frowned.

  ‘He’s an observer but… he was expecting us?’

  ‘Very good. No surprise as he watches us. No panic on behalf of their supplies. He was expecting us. Why?’

  The decurion peered into the woodland, remembering how the scouts had followed a fortuitous lone rider out here. He coughed. ‘Because we were led here sir?’

  ‘Top marks, Annius. Take an extra ration tonight. And why were we led here, then?’

  .Because… because… it’s a trap?’

  ‘Exactly, decurion. Now, what I would like you to do is this: as soon as I gather the men, ride back to camp, but don’t report to Caesar until I arrive. I want you to depart with enough visibility that the rider follows you, leaving me free to move unobserved. I will come back to camp and rejoin you shortl
y.’

  The decurion looked less than happy, but nodded nonetheless. ‘Be careful, sir.’

  ‘You can buy me a drink when I get back.’

  Varus waved over the cavalry, moving to a thicker area of woods nearby. As the riders gathered, he nodded to Annius and, with a last look at the lone Belgic rider, slipped behind a large area of scrub, trees and undergrowth, hiding from sight. A moment later the Roman cavalry moved out, and Varus continued to peer between the greenery as the enemy observer followed the group at a discrete distance. The moment the Belgic rider was out of sight and there was no further sign of Varus’ men, the commander moved out into the open, carefully, half expecting another trap.

  For that was what this whole thing was.

  A trap. Engineered by Commius and Correus, this was just too tempting a target for the Romans, and had been handed to them on a platter.

  Once he was satisfied he was alone, Varus walked his horse through the open spaces in the woodland, keeping in sight the rock where the enemy watcher had been. As he reached that spot and peered around, he was unsurprised to find the signs of more than one rider. A number of men had been stationed here. And while it had not rained for two days now, the ground was soft enough from the preceding downpours that the tracks might as well have been painted by a vase painter in red and black. Numerous hoof prints led off towards the north. Slowly, keeping an eye out for other watchers, he followed.

  These hoof prints took him two and a half miles into the forest, where finally he rounded a menhir – one of the strange religious stones of the old Gauls – and was afforded an impressive view of what awaited them.

  He gave up counting after a hundred and, using that block as a guide, estimated the number of the enemy warriors gathered in the woods ready to fall upon the Romans as they gleefully commandeered the Belgic supply wagons.

  ‘Not today, my friend,’ he whispered as he scanned the enemy force.

  Six thousand, he reckoned. Based on that initial hundred-count, there were around six thousand men waiting to ambush a Roman forage party. Moreover, among the group he could see a small group of Gallic nobles and an honour guard of tough warriors. The ambush had been laid by either Correus or Commius himself and one of those two rebel leaders was part of the force.