Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (13 page)

Fronto nodded slowly. There was at least a mile of that snow, possibly as much as two. It was a daunting prospect, especially for an army that was already freezing and falling foul of sickness from the conditions. ‘Well we can hardly go back, and so we must go on. You,’ he went on, pointing at the engineer. ‘How fast can you and your men manage to clear snow?’

The man tapped his finger on his chin. ‘If we have to bring it down to clear ground and wide enough for the supply wagons, it’s going to be a very slow job. Half a week, perhaps, depending on conditions as we go.’

Fronto pursed his lips. ‘And how fast if it’s for an infantry column?’

‘Two men wide, sir? If there’s no vehicles we only need to take it down roughly to a foot or so. The rest will soon get trampled down. Much faster. A day. Maybe two.’

‘Get to work. You’re in charge.’ He turned to Caesar, who was watching him with interest. ‘General?’

‘Do as you think best, Fronto.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ He pointed at the engineer. ‘You just got commissioned, centurion. It’s your project. I’m granting you the authority to use every soldier in this army if you have to, barring a couple of centuries I’m commandeering. Rotate the men for rest breaks, but get that pass opened for a narrow column of infantry.’

He turned to the general again.

‘We’re going to have to leave the wagons, sir.’

Caesar nodded. ‘It is only perhaps thirty miles to the lower slopes now. We will soon be in Arverni lands and once we are among them, we will take everything we need and burn the rest, replacing our lost provisions. Now we need to move fast.’

‘Agreed, sir. We will have to distribute the most important supplies from the wagons among the men to carry, though we can use the beasts that have been hauling the cart if we unhook them.’

‘Every effort must be made, as well as every sacrifice,’ Caesar said loudly as he hauled himself from the saddle and slid down to the ground, where his expensive gorgon-embossed boots sank into the snow. ‘Every rider in the column is hereby ordered to give up his beast for the transport of supplies. We will all walk until we are out of the snow.’

Fronto couldn’t help but smile. The general sometimes drove him to the very edge of his temper with his unyielding attitude, but on the occasions when he shone, the man shone so bright the sun would envy him.

* * * * *

Samognatos, the scout of the Condrusi tribe who had now been attached to Fronto’s bodyguard for almost a year and on this most difficult journey had become something of a preferred figure among the scouts for his intuition and inside knowledge of the workings of the Gallic mind, reined in his sweating, snorting steed and nodded to his commander and to the general.

‘What have you found?’

The scout gestured out across the rolling hills ahead, a range of green mountains sprinkled with white in the distance to the north. The dreadful conditions of the snow-clogged passage through the Cevenna had taken its toll on the forces of Caesar, and every man had been grateful and thrown up thanks and promises to the Gods when they had left behind the whitened treeline and descended into the low hills of the Arverni lands.

‘A settlement beyond the hill. Not large and without defences. Perhaps thirty houses and a few outlying farms. Something near a quarter of a mile from edge to edge. There are signs of current occupation, but not more than a hundred inhabitants at an estimate and the only horses I spotted were farm beasts.’

Fronto and Caesar both looked at Priscus, who shrugged. ‘When we came through here, we tried to stay as far away from built-up areas as possible. We came down a valley to the west of here.’

Behind him, Fabius and Furius exchanged looks and the latter cleared his throat. ‘When we were at Gergovia, I remember Pixtilos,’ he noted Fronto’s frown and paused to explain, ‘a tame Arvernian merchant we dealt with,’ and back to Priscus, ‘Pixtilos named three settlements heading south between Gergovia and the mountains.’

Priscus nodded. ‘I remember Briva. We had to give that place a wide berth.’

‘Right. And south from there are Revessio and Condate. He said Condate was in the lower mountain valleys. He used to deliver grain there. We’re past that area now, so maybe this is Revessio.’

Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘This is all very fascinating, but I am more concerned with the lie of the land than its nomenclature. We are in a race against time here, along with Vercingetorix. I have no doubt that he works to strengthen his forces, while ours remain spread thin. We have to gain the upper hand - combine our forces and harry him - to turn the tables on this Arverni rebel.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Fronto huffed in a cloud of chilled breath.

‘It begins here, gentlemen. As a concerted force, we wipe this settlement from the face of Gaul, so all that remains is a column of smoke visible for ten miles, but we make sure we allow a few to escape and carry the word of our work. I will leave the infantry here under the command of…’ he paused, his eyes on Fronto for a moment until he shook his head and moved on. ‘…Brutus. You will take the remaining seven thousand new legionaries and the Narbonensis garrison under Aristius. I will leave you a few alae of cavalry and I expect you to continue the men’s training while they work. Your remit is simple: move around the entire Arverni region, ravaging and destroying. Make sure you leave survivors to tell the tale. I want word of this wanton destruction to reach the ears of their King. He will not be able to resist coming to deal with you.’

‘Respectfully, Caesar, if he does that, we are in serious trouble,’ Brutus said quietly.

‘That is why I want you to be lightly-equipped and highly mobile. You will hit places and then run. Move on all the time. Stay out of reach of any army sent after you, but keep needling this Arvernian by destroying his people. You will need to travel light, so no supplies or heavy equipment. Live in the field and train the men in the art of forage survival.’ Brutus nodded his understanding, Aristius straight faced beside him.

‘While we do what?’ asked Fronto.

‘While we rendezvous with the rest of the army. We are now far enough north that we will be past the bulk of the enemy who watch the Rhodanus valley, and if Brutus does his job here with adequate zeal and vigour, all rebel eyes will be upon him. While he ravages, we will make for Vienna, move up the Rhodanus, picking up the legions in the two smaller winter camps and head for Agedincum where we shall mass the army. On the journey we will take only Ingenuus and his praetorians, and each of us will be mounted, so we will move much faster than the Arvernian and his force.’

‘And then?’

Caesar smiled hawkishly. ‘And then, while the rebel has been forced to halt his recruiting and deal with the trouble in his southern lands, we will begin the work of suppressing the north, removing his power bases. We will isolate him from his allies, the Carnutes, and then begin to drive south, pinning him against the mountains and our other forces. We have an opportunity here to trick the man into a dangerous position and finish him off. We will not waste it.’

He looked across once more at Brutus. ‘I will take my guard and depart now with appropriate officers. Begin your work, Brutus, and draw the eye of the rebel south.’

* * * * *

Marcus Aristius, newly-raised tribune commanding the Narbonensis garrison, leaned around the tree and peered at the settlement below. The collection of huts and houses that they had named Revessio - whether it was or not - lay peaceful, almost slumbering. No more than a hundred folk could live there, including women, children and the elderly.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Once Caesar and his officers and guard had departed, the noble Brutus had quickly taken stock of the situation and decided that it was time to begin assessing the capabilities of the new units, but in concert with one another. Aristius had been given the task of destroying the settlement and allowing no more than half a dozen survivors to flee, making sure to drive them north, towards Vercingetorix and his army.

With an estimated hundred residents, Aristius had settled upon only a small force as a first test. One century of the garrison troops under a centurion who had cut his teeth on Spanish tribal wars, one century of the new legionaries with a centurion who’d just come out of retirement, but had fought in Caesar’s first year in Gaul, and a single ala of thirty two horse. Just short of two hundred men. Plenty for the task. The place would likely have the usual contingent of fighting men found in any Gallic settlement, but not many. Most would be farm folk.

With a series of signals that he hoped were not open to misinterpretation, he sent the lighter-armed garrison troops down to the right, into the valley, held his hand up to the legionaries to remain in position, and gestured for the cavalry to move down into the other valley on their left and behind the screen of trees that bordered the stream which ran along the bottom of it.

Despite his position in the military government of Narbonensis and his apparently-advancing rank, Aristius had never yet in his career commanded a unit in action, and he found his heart racing. It was not the fear of battle or combat - he would not be expected to do any actual fighting, he was sure - it was the fear of failing in his first command. Of making a fool of himself. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched the two departing units moving into position in the valleys and as soon as both had stopped moving, he had the standard bearer wave commands to the three forces.

So far, so good.

In response to the signal, the legionaries behind him began to approach with the measured step of trained soldiers, their mail chinking and their boots crunching on the cold ground where the grass of the hilltop was still hard with morning frost. They looked every bit the veteran legion. He could only hope they fought like one.

The garrison, to his dismay, were already falling behind, unable to pull together into a cohesive unit and keep pace. He could just make out the optio smacking legs and backs with his staff, pulling the unit into vague order. To his relief, they moved to quick pace and began to catch up, slowing once more as they pulled level and forming better lines.

As per orders, the cavalry waited until the two infantry forces began to move on the village and the standard waved again, and then burst into activity, racing along the treeline and making for the outlying houses and farm buildings.

Aristius opened his mouth as he felt the gradient start to pull him at speed towards the enemy, but it seemed the centurions were already ahead of the game as the man with the transverse crest a dozen paces to his left yelled out the command for quick time.

As the cavalry raced in, converging from the left and the garrison troops picked up the pace on their right, two things happened simultaneously: a shout of alarm went up in the settlement with a bell ringing in desperation, and chaos struck the force descending the hill behind Aristius. The new legionaries marched well, but as the pace suddenly increased at the same time as the gradient, the men - unused to such activity and unable to maintain formation, suddenly broke apart. Two men in the second row lost their footing and fell, bringing down the legionaries in front of them. Those behind largely veered around the chaos, but their own change of direction impacted on other files of men and caused further falls and collisions. In moments, half the century was rolling down the hill in the clatter and crash of armour and weapons, shields splintering and chain-mail hooks snapping. The other half were leaping over fallen bodies or swerving wide to pass them.

Aristius fought the irritation at this display of novice incompetence, noting with a small spark of pride that his own garrison troops were now managing to hold tight formation as they moved into a charge and bore down on the terrified Gauls.

The centurion called out new commands and as the slope became gentler once more the legionaries who had kept their feet reformed into a tight unit and moved into a charge. The optio, left behind on the lower slope, was beating his staff down on the hapless fallen men, yelling at them to get up and run. Gradually the flounderers dragged themselves into a run with no formation at all, following on in the wake of their compatriots, hungry to redeem themselves.

Aristius found that despite his intentions of leading from the rear, he had ended up automatically running at the front, parallel with the centurion. As they leapt over narrow irrigation ditches running with icy water and through the muddy, empty wheat fields suffering the throes of winter, he saw farmers emerging from the huts with pitchforks and sickles and staves - any makeshift weapon they could produce from their farm stores.

With a slight detour to race through the open gateway in a fence rather than having to hurdle it, Aristius raised his gladius, wishing he had a large body shield like the legionaries under his command. One particularly tall man with golden hair shot through with grey and moustaches that hung to below his jaw, ran straight for him, a sickle in his right hand and some sort of small knife in his left.

As the sickle came out for a side sweep, Aristius found that despite the somewhat formulaic and rigid training his father had him receive from a retired soldier, the reactions that flowed through him in response seemed to have been born more from careful observation of the better gladiators than the
stab, twist, withdraw
he had been taught.

His body automatically shifted left and back, allowing the sickle free path through the air in front of him, though the blow was so close that it caught the baldric that held his scabbard and he felt the weight of it drop away to the ground.
Damn, that sickle must be sharp
!

The man might be a farmer, but he was quick. Before Aristius had recovered himself, the knife was coming for him and, though he desperately dodged back to the right, the blade dug a deep line across his bicep, bringing white hot pain with it.

Something happened then. Without conscious thought or intent, the tribune found his sword hand coming up. He had no room for a thrust, but his body seemed to have registered that long before his brain and his hand, apparently with a mind of its own, crashed into the man’s face. Wrapped around the bone hilt of the gladius and largely protected by the wide pommel and guard, his fist smashed the man’s nose and cheek together in one blow, as well as mangling an eye.