Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (34 page)

The Cretans had fallen foul of some of them. Men with ankles twisted in unseen hare-forms and badger setts, others caught by sharp protruding branches. And these were unencumbered lithe soldiers. The legionaries would hate it.

Decius narrowed his eyes. Their position gave them the only advantageous view of the settlement to be had from this side. In the coppice an ancient tumulus rose, already decayed and partially collapsed, but affording the only view that showed anything of the buildings beyond the ramparts.

The inverted 'v' shape of a thatched roof rose just enough to be visible beyond the defensive stockade of heavy timbers. It certainly could be a granary, as could the four or five more they could make out just beyond. They could equally be someone's home or an arms store. Gods, they could be a tavern or a whore house for all the Cretan unit could tell from this point of view.

"We can't rely on it" Decius sighed. "If we launch an attack against the wrong target, we might not draw enough attention from the locals. We need to be sure. I'm going in to have a look." He glanced up at the high moon in the clear black, star-studded sky. "The main attack will begin in less than an hour, and we need to have the buildings ablaze before then. Get the men into position quietly and carefully. Have everything ready, and then watch for me. When I wave my arms, light the arrows and shoot."

"Respectfully, sir, you can't do that. That's what scouts are for."

"All the archers are needed here and I don't want to rely on someone else's senses anyway. I want to check this myself. Just be ready."

Calatorius saluted and started gesturing to the other centurions and optios, moving their men into positions where they were still obscured by foliage but could see the ramparts well enough to shoot. He considered arguing with the prefect, but Decius was not a man to hide behind rank and the two of them had served together long enough for the centurion to spot a lost cause. Briefly he offered up a prayer to Mars and Fortuna that his commander be safe.

* * * * *

Decius dropped to a crouch in the undergrowth at the edge of the coppice, realising only at the last moment that it contained a patch of stinging nettles and cursing Fortuna, who clearly was not watching him tonight.

The ground from here sloped very gently downwards towards the oppidum, offering no real cover. A few saplings and shrubs dotted the grass, but even the wheat fields had not extended so close to the defences, and only turf lay before him until the ground dropped out of sight. That, presumably, was the deep ditch of which Priscus had warned. On the far side of it the rampart rose tall and imposing, topped by a fence of heavy timbers, reinforced with whole tree trunks and ancient hedges that tangled and intertwined.

"Fronto, you old goat. Wherever you are, this has all the marks of one of your stupid ideas."

Back in the woodland he had already slipped off the mail shirt and his helmet that would shine in the moonlight and attract too much attention, but now he paused long enough to remove his shiny, bronze-plated belt and drop it to the ground, unfastening his sword and holding it still sheathed. Nothing that might catch shining moonlight and nothing to make too much noise.

Dressed only in tunic and breeches, boots and scarf and with his sheathed sword in hand, Decius took a deep breath and prayed to any god that might be listening that the defenders on that rampart were busy playing dice or something.

It was a hair-raising run, especially with his legs tingling painfully from the nettle stings, and he almost lost his footing once before he reached his first objective, dropping to the ground and sliding the last ten feet into the dubious cover of a large shrub with sweet smelling flowers.

Barely daring to breathe for fear of drawing attention, Decius slowly rose to a crouch and peered between the swaying fronds of the thicket of flowery shrub-life. It took him a long moment to see the first movement: a head appeared above the palisade and moved along it a few paces before vanishing from sight. Nothing else. No cries of alarm. No warning fires. Nothing.

Thank you lady Fortuna. If I get through the rest of the night, there'll be a small altar to you when I next get to winter somewhere civilised.

Another deep breath. Decius peered ahead. Roughly the same distance again until the ditch. Now, he was closer to the defences, but he was also further down, below them. Less visible, despite the increased proximity.

Clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut for just a moment, Decius leapt out from the shrub and hurtled down the gentle slope towards the lip that hid a drop of unknown dimensions.

He kept his eyes locked on that edge as he ran, fearing even to look up for fear of seeing a spear being hefted ready to cast down at him.

And suddenly he was there. In fact, his momentum was such that he failed to pull himself up adequately and hit the edge at a run, pitching forward and having to throw himself onto his back to prevent tumbling down into the morass.

His breath coming in rapid gasps, he came to a halt gripping the roots of a tree that had recently been felled, probably to shore up the ramparts across the ditch. The slope was sharp - almost too steep to descend on foot - and it was something in the region of fifty feet deep, the lowest section showing signs of recent work that had cleared and deepened it. The far side was much the same, rising even higher to the palisade. It was quite an impressive piece of work, despite being largely invisible from a distance.

His heart thumping, Decius scrabbled down the slope as quietly as he could, taking care not to fall, using only one hand, the other gripping his sheathed sword. After what felt like an hour, he finally reached the bottom and scurried across to the far side, his feet sinking into the freshly-excavated earth at the bottom.

Another deep breath and he began to climb. His muscles strained and complained - he was not a young man these days - but he ignored the discomfort and scrabbled up the slope, gripping roots where they presented themselves or tufts of grass elsewhere to aid him. He made surprisingly good time and was starting to feel extremely pleased with himself when it all went wrong.

His hand reached out for a tuft of long wild grass and paused at a sudden sound of clinking metal above. Decius had been a military man for much of his adult life and a man could not wear the uniform for long without recognising the sound of a mail shirt being disturbed. The fact that it was so loud and clear indicated how worryingly close it and its owner were.

Holding his breath, the prefect pulled himself in to the slope, gripping the best handhold he could find and bringing his sheathed sword close to his body. Above, horribly close, there was a rustling sound and then a man whistled through his teeth.

Moments later the urine began to spatter Decius' head and shoulders. He closed his eyes and cursed Fortuna, mentally revoking his offer of an altar. Risking the stream of steaming liquid, he glanced up for a moment.

He was almost at the point where the ditch ended and the rampart began, where there was a very slight lip. The Briton stood on the grassy foot-wide ledge relieving himself, having clambered across his own barricade in order to urinate in peace.

Even as Decius looked past the man to make sure he was alone, the warrior's eyes widened as he saw the figure on the slope only feet below him. The man's mouth opened to yell a warning as he let go of his crotch mid-stream and reached for the spear he had jammed in the ground beside him.

Decius, all thought of subtlety gone, reached out with his free hand and grasped the warrior by the ankle, yanking him back so that he fell, his fingertips only just brushing the spear shaft before he hit the slope on his back, winding him. Not a sound left his lips, but he was already struggling, his hands coming round to grasp at the Roman beside him.

The prefect was faced with two choices and he recognised them as such instantly. He could either throw the man down the slope - easy enough given his position and the precarious unbalanced senses of the Briton, or he could kill him here. Both had their downsides. To throw him down the slope would likely kill him, or at least knock him flat unconscious. But he would likely scream as he fell and alert the whole settlement that something was up. Or he could kill the bugger here, but his sword was still sheathed to prevent the metal shining in the moonlight.

With a regretful sigh, Decius let go of the grass, using that hand to bat away the Briton's reaching grasp as he drew back his other hand and thrust.

He watched with irritation as the chape of the scabbard - beautiful bronze and fashioned into an image of Mars wielding a pilum - pushed against the Briton's tunic just below the mail shirt for only a moment, presenting resistance to the blunted weapon. Decius knew his own strength, though, and the Celt's eyes widened as the blunt decorative bronze work broke his skin and pushed on into his belly, followed by a scabbard of some of the best, most expensive Hispanic leather. The sword cover had cost Decius a small fortune.

As the man's hands jerked in his agony, Decius' free hand left them and clamped itself over the mouth just in time to stifle the cry. Gritting his teeth, the prefect pushed on with his other hand, feeling the sheathed blade slide through the man's innards, pausing for a moment as it encountered the spine and then sliding past it and exiting to push against the mail shirt and the ground below.

Decius kept his hand over the mouth and levered the sheathed blade left and right with some difficulty, watching, impassive, until the light left the man's eyes. As the Briton's hands fell back lifeless, Decius removed his own from the mouth which lay open in a silent scream, and fished in the small pouch that hung on a thong around his neck. Hurriedly he removed a small brass dupondius and pushed it into the dead man's mouth beneath the tongue. A habit he had picked up from his chief centurion, it supposedly kept the man's spirit from hounding him over the ignoble manner of his death.

With a deep breath, the prefect pushed himself up from the slope and pulled the scabbarded sword from the man's gut with an unpleasant sucking sound, noting the damage to the bronze work and the mess that would ruin the leather for good.

Another ten feet or so up this slope and he would be able to peer over the top of the rampart and confirm their targets. One wave of the arms and…

The warrior who appeared at the top of the slope saw Decius instantly - he must have been checking on his friend. Whatever the case, his spear appeared in his hand instantly, raised to cast down. His mouth opened to bellow a cry of warning and the prefect realised that there was no time now for stealth. Launching himself upward, he ducked out of the spear's direct path.

But the man never cast it anyway. As Decius leapt up, his dripping, gore-covered weapon brandished in his hand, an arrow, flaming with bright orange, whistled out of the darkness and thudded into the warrior's neck, the flames immediately catching his beard and hair and setting his face ablaze even before he toppled backwards out of sight.

Before Decius could turn to wave, two dozen other burning arrows streaked across the sky and disappeared within the settlement, their grouping so perfect they could only have come from his unit of Cretan veterans. Bless that centurion. Fortuna may be a fickle -
and altarless
- bitch, but Decius would definitely pour a few libations to centurion Calatorius when this was over.

* * * * *

Atenos, a huge blond centurion of Gaulish extraction with a deeply tanned face, turned to frown at his superior, the primus pilus of the Tenth Legion.

"Looks like it's started early."

Carbo, his shiny pink face running with sweat that trickled down from beneath his hot, heavy helm, nodded. "Wait for the count of a hundred and then give the signal to advance."

As Atenos turned to peer at the oppidum ahead, Carbo addressed the musician next to him. The soldier looked at a loss without his curved horn, but there was no need for an audio signal, and so his role had been shifted to that of 'messenger'.

"Get back to command and inform them that we're advancing early, as the archers have begun."

The musician ran off and Carbo turned back to Atenos to hear him counting. With irritation he realised the big centurion was talking in his native language. The primus pilus tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a pointed glare. Atenos frowned and then nodded his understanding, the count shifting from a Gallic tongue into Latin at thirty seven.

Leaving him to it and picking up the count at thirty eight, Carbo moved off to his own century and fell into position. There was an eerie silence broken only by the hooting of an owl and the distant cries of alarm within the settlement and then finally, almost simultaneously, Carbo and Atenos gave the hand signals to advance. The motions were picked up by the other officers and passed down the line, where they would be picked up by the Seventh to their left and the Ninth to their right.

The legions marched on Wheat Valley

* * * * *

Sego of the Catuvellauni danced impatiently from foot to foot.

"Why do we sit here, my chief, while they burn the granaries?"

Cassivellaunus, chieftain of the Catuvellauni and overlord of a loose alliance of Briton tribes, gestured at his youthful war leader with a placating hand.

"Calm, my young friend. Precipitous action is what ends lives unnecessarily. You seek to bring battle to those who would burn our grain?"

A nod - an impatient one.

"A brave thing - and noble too. But only a warrior can afford to be brave and noble alone. A leader must temper his bravery and nobility with planning and understanding."

"But I do
not
understand, my chief. If we keep our grain we can hold Wheat Valley for months. The Roman dogs will starve and the crows will pick their bones in our fields. But we
must
protect the grain."

"Sego, the grain attack is a diversion. And regardless, I had the bulk of it moved to the
Willow Trees
Oppidum three days ago. We have only enough here to see us through a few more days anyway."