Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (22 page)

And so at sunset the bulk of the Roman force had marched west, leaving a caretaker garrison to guard the ships. Quintus Atius Varus had clearly been disappointed to be left commanding the beachhead, though he had not said as such. Caesar had assigned Roscius' Thirteenth and much of the cavalry to the beach head. The expanse of woodland in the region - attested from visits the previous year - rendered the use of cavalry less effective, and so Varus' talents would be of little use. And so he and Roscius were charged with refortifying the camp and protecting the ships that bobbed about in the water, riding at anchor.

The journey since then, deep into the forest, had been both irritating and nerve-wracking.

Night fighting! Priscus' face took on an extra level of sourness. Next to him Carbo gave a legionary a crack round the back of the helmet with his vine cane, causing the bronze bowl to ring like a bell and half-deafen the soldier.

"Pick your feet up, Plotius. You fall over and you'll bring a dozen men down with you." Turning, he frowned at Priscus, his rosy face - usually given to a humorous good nature - full of concern. "You alright, sir? You've looked pained ever since we left."

A legionary in the column whispered something to his companion and Carbo delivered another ringing blow to the helmet of the transgressor without even looking around. More than a decade of experience as a centurion gave a man a sixth sense and an unerring accuracy with his vine staff.

Priscus nodded. "I'm fine. Not happy, though. Night campaigning's barbaric. Stupid. No one can see the standards move. People mistake calls and whistles and cornu blasts from other centuries' signallers. Soldiers get lost. Tree roots become snares and traps. It's unremittingly horrible. And the locals know this ground as well as they know their own pimply arses. We outnumber them about ten to one, but they're tucked up in a fort, so that changes the odds, and the dark and unfamiliarity halves it again. I reckon we'll effectively be at about a two to one advantage."

"It's still an advantage."

"But not a good one. We should have waited 'til morning."

Carbo shrugged. "The general was probably right about that, though, sir. With their scouts compromised, they'd probably be gone by morning and retreated to some other, unknown place. Gods, they might even have gone already. If they have, this is just a nice walk in the woods."

"Nice?"

"Figuratively speaking, sir."

Priscus tried not to voice his opinion any further. The legion would already be grumbling and it was unseemly for them to hear a senior officer moaning too. He had chided Fronto enough about it over the years and now here he was doing exactly the same. Was it something that legionary command did to you, or was it too much exposure to the scion of the Falerii?

He glanced around in the dark. They must have come seven or eight miles now. The sun had set two hours ago, leaving a chilly, oppressive darkness surrounding them. Not above, of course: the sky was still as clear as it had been through the day, the crescent moon and myriad stars twinkling merrily away, while the strong winds had not let up yet and caused a constant rustle of leaves and eerie howling. But even with the track wide enough for eight men to march abreast, the silvery light glinting off their armour, the gloom among the trees to either side was worrying - given what it might harbour.

Though they had followed a series of wide roads and tracks, Priscus would easily admit that he was turned around and lost and would totally fail to find the beach again if left to his own devices. They had taken side paths and turned at junctions more than a dozen times, and every meeting of paths in this endless woodland looked identical.

"Did you hear that?" Priscus said suddenly. Carbo frowned. "Heard all sorts, sir."

"The owl."

"Heard owls hooting all evening in these woods, sir. About the only thing you
can
hear over the damn wind. Nothing unusual there, though."

"There is with
that
owl. The call's faintly reminiscent of a snowy owl such as you get all over the north, even down to Cisalpine Gaul, but much more like the spotted owl that's common to the south of the Mare Nostrum. Either we have an owl that's well and truly lost, or we have another native scout who doesn't know the difference between species!"

Carbo nodded and gestured to his optio, who jogged forward. "Sir?"

"Get ahead to the officers of the Seventh and tell them we might be about to have company."

The junior saluted and ran off to the Seventh, who were leading the column. Behind them came the Tenth, then the Ninth and the Eleventh, with Caesar's staff and then the cavalry tagging along at the rear, the latter ineffective as scouts in dark woodland.

As Priscus scanned the pitch black boughs of the forest for the hidden scout - something he was unlikely to spot with the branches waving about in the wind like this - the column marched on. From ahead came the sounds of the Seventh splashing down into deep water, crossing a narrow but fast-flowing river. Another hoot drew his attention, this time from ahead, across the river. His eyes tried to pick out details in the darkness. Ahead, the land rose to a wide prominence - a hill that stood out from the surrounding woodland like the bald-spot on an old man's crown. As they emerged at the river's edge, however, he could see a stretch of open ground from the river to the summit.

It was a hill fort. Not like the walled and gated oppida they had faced in Gaul - such places were clearly the Gauls' version of a Roman civitas. The defensive ring around this hill consisted only of high ridges and dips designed to wear down attackers while the defenders poured missiles down upon them. There could well be a small palisade at the top, of course, but it was a far cry from the heavy defences of say Bibracte or Aduatuca. More of a fortified gathering place then than a permanent defended settlement - a place to retreat in times of danger, which is just what the Britons had done.

"Carbo! Look ahead. That must be where they're hiding."

"Then why all this hooting? They must know we're here by now."

Priscus nodded. The same question had occurred to him. "Well it confirms that they've not fled, anyway."

The last men of the Seventh dropped into the chilling waters of the river just ahead, holding their shields over their helmets with their weapons atop it to prevent rust damage. Pausing only long enough to allow the stragglers of Cicero's Seventh to clamber up the far bank and rearm, separating the two legions by a healthy thirty paces, Carbo gave the order to cross and the men of the Tenth drew their blades and placed them and their pila onto their shields, hoisting them over their heads and stepping down gingerly into the freezing flow. Priscus, at the head of the legion and bearing no shield, simply raised his sword high and plopped down into the water, clenching his teeth as the biting cold flowed around his crotch and thighs.

The following journey, struggling across, almost armpit deep at the centre, was among the least comfortable moments Priscus had endured in recent years and it was with audible relief - accompanied by chattering teeth - that he clambered up the north bank of the river and lowered his sheathed sword to hang on its baldric once more.

This side of the river, he noted as he stamped his feet to bring some life back into them, the edges of the forest lay some three hundred paces away to either side, leaving a wide swathe that opened up like a broad avenue leading all the way up the ever-increasing slope towards the hilltop fort. Ahead, the gap was opening up between the Seventh and the Tenth as the latter slowed to negotiate the river and reform on the north bank.

Three owl hoots came in quick succession from the edges of the woods to left and right. Priscus' head snapped round, the cold instantly forgotten.

"Carbo…"

"I heard, sir." Turning, Carbo eyed the men crossing the river. There were two full centuries on the north bank now, but the bulk of the legion were still on the south side.

"We're in trouble, sir."

"I know." Even as Priscus swept his eyes to the woodland on either side, figures began to issue from it. Eerie in the silver light, the figures of the Britons moved like ghosts, mostly naked to the waist and painted with patterns and images, their arms covered with swirls of dark paint and lines and dots that made the pale flesh almost vanish among the dappled moonlight. They were hard to concentrate on, difficult to precisely locate while they stayed close to the trees, especially with the branches and leaves waving in the winds and covering much of the movement. One thing that was instantly obvious to Priscus was that every last one of them was armed with a bow, drawn ready to release or a sling whup-whupping around their hand.

"To arms!" Carbo bellowed. "Look to the woods!"

All around, centurions began to bellow orders to their men. The two centuries that had already formed up on the north bank formed hasty testudos with their shields to protect from the missiles that were already being loosed. The century busy crossing the river was already doomed, arrows and sling stones smashing into men unable to bring their shields to bear. The choppy waters were a scene of carnage instantly.

Priscus looked this way and that from his position of dubious shelter between the two testudos. It was chaos. The question was: what to do about it?

The eerie figures that had emerged - several hundred of them - were standing at the edge of the woodland where they could easily retreat and melt away into the forest. The small force of legionaries would never catch them. On the other hand, the following legions had faltered in their crossing, the rest of the Tenth forming a shieldwall on the south bank to protect from arrows, so Priscus' diminished force could hardly wait for the rest of the legion to cross. The Seventh were already moving away at speed up the hill. For a moment, Priscus wondered what in the name of Janus' anus Cicero thought he was doing, but the reasons came clear soon enough. Ahead left and right a second force was pouring from the forest edge: horsemen and chariots. Cicero had his own troubles.

Again, Priscus regarded the shieldwall that marked the lack of advance by the rest of the legions. As long as the crossing point was under the attack of those sling and bow men, no centurion was going to have his men wade across nipple-deep and largely unprotected. Nine of every ten men would fall before crossing, as was evidenced by the number of bodies from the third century already disappearing beneath the surface of the water, concussed, wounded, or dead and dragged to the river bed by the weight of their mail shirts.

Two centuries. It would have to be enough.

"Carbo! Satrius! We need to break that missile attack. Carbo: go left. Satrius: right. Don't stop until you've secured the bank."

The two centurions gave the orders and the testudos separated, peeling off left and right, heading towards the missile shots at the forest edge. Even as the Romans moved toward their targets, half the Britons turned their shots from the shieldwall on the far bank to the mobile tortoises that bore down on them.

Priscus, shieldless, ducked inside the shielded formation as the century's optio opened up the rear and made room. This would be bloody work; and fruitless. Given the number of archers and slingers they faced, they would lose anything up to a dozen men to stray shots on the way - at least one man from each tent party - and when they finally got to the treeline, the Britons would melt away out of reach and disappear into their familiar forest. But at least the rest of the legions would be clear to cross.

Biting down on the inside of his cheek - a habit he had recently recognized in himself when faced with an unpleasant but unavoidable task - Priscus marched with his men into the storm of arrows and stones, trying to ignore the crack of missiles on wood and leather that came so thick it sounded like rain and the periodic cries of pain as a shot found a hole in the defensive formation.

It was a noble sacrifice. What more could be asked of a soldier of Rome?

* * * * *

Titus Pullo looked left and right at the vehicles and horses pouring out of the forest's edge. They presented a very real threat to the Seventh and it was abundantly clear that the legion was on its own with no hope of support from the rest of the army. The Tenth were split and in trouble at the river and the rest trapped off to the south somewhere. Cicero, somewhere in the press of men nearby, was bellowing orders to reform and stand fast.

Pullo had no such intention.

Turning to Vorenus, the second most senior centurion in the Seventh, he pointed at the hill fort that loomed ahead, above them.

"Get the men up there. The cavalry and chariots won't pass that first ridge, 'cause of the slope. We'll be safer there."

As Vorenus nodded and exhorted the men to a fresh turn of speed, running up the slope with little attention to formation, Pullo singled out the legate, easily recognised due to his position on horseback amid the infantry and accompanied by standard bearers and musicians.

"Sir! We have to get high enough up the slope to get away from the chariots!"

Cicero guided his horse forward, fury and desperation fighting for control of his face.

"We can't let ourselves get trapped between the fort's defenders and the cavalry, centurion!"

"Sir, the numbers we had are wrong. There's enough chariots and cavalry there to turn us into minced meat. They'll just ride over the top of the men and break our formation."

Cicero glared at him, aware of the fact that his legion was surging fast up the slope already, fleeing the vehicles.

"We cannot get trapped between…"

Pullo pointed at the hill. "I'm not going to get us trapped, sir. I'm going to take the bloody hill!"

Cicero stared at his senior centurion as though the man were mad. Pullo's jaw twitched defiantly. "Do you think…?"

"Legate Priscus can handle things here, sir. They just have to clear out those archers and then the army can cross. The chariots and cavalry will be little use to the Britons at the water's edge - no room to manoeuvre. We need to get up the slope and safely out of their way too."