‘Then I think you will be pleased by that sound.’
Antonius frowned and cocked an ear. Over the hiss of the falling rain – warm rain, even the downpour wouldn’t make the sticky heat any more bearable – he could hear rumbling. Not the first peal of thunder he’d heard while he watched the legions falling like reaped wheat on the slopes of Uxellodunon. They should have ridden out the siege, even if it took a year.
‘Thunder. Very helpful. Their archers will be less trouble. And I can see some of the fires going out. It’s not going to help. You’ve committed the legions to their death for what? To buy time?’
‘Precisely,’ Caesar smiled. ‘And the moment is upon us.
‘Thunder is…’
‘Not thunder, Marcus.’
Antonius blinked and his gaze rose to the spring along with Caesar’s pointing finger.
‘Sacred Venus, mother of man, what in Hades is that?’
* * * * *
Atenos blinked. His world was a red blanket. Reaching up in automatic panic, he balled his fists and rubbed his eyes, squeezing the sheet of blood from them. Again and again he blinked. His hand went up to his forehead. His helmet was gone and someone had thoughtfully tied a wrapping around his wounded head, but the blood was free-flowing and that wrapping was now crimson and saturated. Beneath the wrapping he could feel a lump the size of a hen’s egg.
He deflated. In the press of men, he’d been certain that that was his death blow. He’d been waiting for one for over a year now. The centurionate had a ridiculously high mortality rate and though he continually claimed invulnerability on account of his Gallic bones, there was a saying among Caesar’s legions since Alesia.
Lead the Tenth to glory, but put a coin in your mouth first
. Priscus, former primus pilus of the Tenth, had fallen at Alesia. Carbo, latest in that role, had fallen in the disastrous retreat at Gergovia. How long until the latest incumbent fell? He was sure the other centurions in the Tenth were running a lottery on when it would happen, though he’d never caught them at it yet. But it seemed that the spring at Uxellodunon would not be his time. He had a thundering headache and had seemingly lost quite a lot of blood, but he was able to think and move. He was, to all intents and purposes, intact.
He sighed as another rivulet of blood blinded his left eye. Unseen hands suddenly loosened the wrapping and the blood came again. Then there was the feel of something slimy being slapped on the wound. Honey. Dear goddess Minerva let it be honey and not one of the dung-based poultices used by some hopeless medics. He felt some relief as a fresh dressing was tied in place, and a damp sponge – not a shit-sponge, please – wiped away the blood from his face.
A concerned, young face appeared in front of him.
‘What is your name, centurion?’
‘Atenos, primus pilus of the…’
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
‘Four, if you count the thumb as a finger.’
‘You’re fine,’ the capsarius pronounced. ‘Took a bit of a knock there, centurion. You might want to stay seated for a while until your brain stops rattling around in your skull.’
Atenos wanted to berate the young medic for any implication that he had a small, wizened brain, but as he turned sharply, he felt suddenly very sick and had to concede that perhaps the man had a point.’
‘How’s it going?’ he asked, wincing.
The medic shrugged. ‘Into Hades by the moment. ‘Scuse me, but my talents are required.’
Atenos nodded at him, and the man was gone.
He took a moment to look around himself. Whoever had pulled him out of the fighting line had not only got him back to safety and a capsarius, he had thoughtfully kept him in the vicinity of the fight. He sat with his back to the earth mound, the creaking, smouldering tower looming above him, the ropes maintaining its stability passing above him, anchored there at the other side of the spring.
He was next to the spring.
Finally he registered the fact that it was raining very heavily. The angle of the rain was such that the tower was keeping it from him and he sat in its lea, a small, dry island in a land of downpour. The surface of the spring’s pool seethed. Last time he had seen it, it gurgled with small ripples as the flow poured from the rock, and the excess flowed out over a lip into a channel that distributed it into the earth down towards the woods, where it became one of the numerous tiny streams that fed the river below. Now, however, the surface of the water churned and stippled as a million raindrops pounded it.
Somewhere across the mountainside, he could hear the general order to fall back being called.
At last the general had seen sense.
But could he not have done so without such dreadful loss of life?
He glanced back down at the surface of the water. Above him the sky clashed with the sound of Vulcan’s hammer striking. The storm was in full flow and would not be abating any time soon. He sighed and tipped his head rather painfully back – his neck had apparently taken a jolt from the blow. The rain battered his face and he was rather grateful for the experience.
At least he wasn’t dead.
Now, the Tenth and Fifth were sounding their recall. All around him the men were moving. He could hear them even if he couldn’t see them, preparing to abandon the hard-won ground and retreat down to the camps. Presumably someone would come and help him down. He wasn’t at all sure he could stand unaided without throwing up.
Another rumble of thunder.
And another.
His brow furrowed in concentration, and that hurt more than he could possibly have imagined. The previous peals of thunder had been perhaps a count of twenty apart. Those last two had been so close together there was hardly time to count at all.
Another rumble.
What in the name of divine Taranis was going on?
His eyes widened in disbelief and alarm as the ground gave a shudder and suddenly all the water drained from the spring as though someone had removed a plug at the bottom. Despite his pain and discomfort he leaned forward, peering into the depths. Amid the dark rock, the slimy green weed and the coins thrown in as offerings, Atenos could see a number of wide fissures that had opened in the rock.
What in Hades?
And now the mouth of the spring itself was sputtering, odd gouts of brown water leaping from it into the empty pool. And then nothing. The spring was gone.
There was another rumble and the ground bucked like an unbroken horse.
Hands were suddenly beneath his arms, helping raise him to his feet. ‘Time you were away from here, centurion,’ announced the unseen helper. Atenos could not agree more, baffled as he was. As he struggled upright, the ground gave another ominous creak and groan and in a moment that almost stopped his heart, a swathe of woodland vanished into the earth in a long avenue down the hill.
As he boggled at the sight, the capsarius at his side helping him down the slope, he spotted the water seeping and saturating the ground down at the end of that flattened avenue. With a slightly painful grin, he spotted the figures there and finally understood.
Engineers, one officer, and perhaps two centuries of legionaries, all covered in earth and muck. Sappers.
All the time the tower at the top, the desperate fight of Atenos’ men and even the general advance had been keeping the defenders busy, the general had been undermining the hill. And finally, all at once, the tunnels had broken through to the spring’s underground source and diverted it way down the hill. And then the tunnels had been collapsed as the miners left them.
The only readily accessible source of water for the oppidum had been denied them. Where the water now came up from various places it would be undrinkable for some time, but would regardless be too close to the Roman lines for safe use and too far from the walls of Uxellodunon for the locals to defend.
The old goat had done it.
Atenos was grinning from ear to ear all the way down the slope and the appearance of the limping Decumius carrying his fallen phalera only made it all the wider.
* * * * *
Antonius glared at Caesar.
‘Isn’t it bad enough that you keep your surprises even from your senior officers without being unbearably smug about it as well?’
The figure of Aulus Hirtius was busy striding up the hill towards them, his lean, gaunt figure gangly and ungainly, as though he had too many knees for one human being. The pinched face had an odd expression that might be a mix of satisfaction and abhorrence. He’d somehow managed to get himself drenched, and the sopping white tunic and cloak clung to his frame making him look all the more like a crane fly.
‘All goes well, then, Hirtius?’
The man stopped and saluted. While Antonius and Caesar stood in the shelter of the porch of the general’s forward observation tent, Hirtius remained in the torrential downpour, sheltering his forehead as though that made the slightest difference in his soaked state.
‘The engineers and men of the Fifteenth acquitted themselves well, Caesar. The nearest accessible flow to the walls now is around a third of the way up the slope,’ he turned and pointed. ‘Somewhere near that large elm. We can cover the site with both artillery and archers with little difficulty from our lines. The enemy will not be able to get within fifty paces of water.’
‘Excellent.’ The general turned to Antonius. ‘Might I be allowed just the slightest hint of smug, now?’ he winked.
Antonius rolled his eyes. ‘If Fronto were here he would be standing a foot from your face, bellowing by now.’
‘If Fronto were here, Antonius, he would have been the one at the mines.’
Caesar peered up through the torrent and spotted Varus wending his way down the hill towards them. Turning, he spotted an older soldier, unarmoured and with a voluminous, hooded oiled-skin cloak wrapped tight around him against the rain. His favoured sacerdos. The priest of the Tenth, with the knowledge of ritual and some skill at divination. With a crooked finger, he beckoned.
‘Sir?’
‘Can you tell me what Jupiter Pluvius has in store for us?’
‘Of course, General. Despite the current downpour, I expect the sky to clear before sunset and lead to several days of dry heat. The
ass’ manger
last night was bright and unobstructed, and that speaks of good weather. Also a crow gave three distinct calls above the camp at dawn, which I thought to be at odds with the coming deluge, but now I see presaged a good period to follow. In the…’
‘A simple ‘good weather’ would have done, man. Thank you.’
The old soldier nodded and retreated five steps and into his hood once more.
‘We have to assume that they have good residual water supplies in the oppidum, and every cistern and reservoir they have will be uncovered to catch the storm rain. Still, they have many thousands of warriors up there in addition to the general population and the large number of animals to provide sustenance. They cannot have been expecting to lose their water supply, and this will be a very final blow to them. Their water will soon run dry in fine weather.’
Varus approached and saluted rather soggily, his face tired but satisfied.
‘What’s the lie of the land, Quintus,’ asked Antonius.
The cavalry commander stretched and rolled his shoulders. ‘We took serious losses near the spring. It was a good call assigning the Tenth under Atenos. That man would hold the gates of Hades itself against Cerberus if you asked. I hear he took a place in the front line and suffered a head wound, but is in no danger. The general estimate is somewhere around eight hundred dead. Wounded are few. Nearly anyone who engaged the enemy is gone, rather than injured. As soon as the spring disappeared, the enemy lost heart and pulled back. The other varied assaults suffered minor casualties, but never really got the chance to involve themselves before the mines did their job.’
He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. ‘The enemy are already starting to come down the slopes in twos and threes, testing our resolve and trying to get close to either the new spring spouts or the tributary rivers. They’ll get a nasty surprise. I watched one of the scorpions finding their range and the artillerist put three bolts into the same tree way beyond the water, so unless our men fall asleep there will be no water for Uxellodunon.’
‘Shame we can’t get anyone inside to ruin the water supplies,’ Antonius mused, and Varus nodded his agreement.
‘No matter, gentlemen,’ Caesar smiled. ‘In my experience, Gauls are impetuous, and only a strong leader can impose any true order, in the Roman sense, over their forces – they are too individual in their ways. They have no leaders, for Lucterius is fled and Drapes is ours. The Gauls will drink their water in desperation, without thought for a long-term plan. Where their supplies might be made to last weeks, in current conditions I would expect it to manage only days.’
Somewhere behind Varus, in the trees at the lowest slopes of the oppidum, the distinctive sound of artillery at work cracked and thumped and echoed, their victims adding counterpoint with screams and cries of alarm. The Cadurci were learning a hard lesson, it seemed.
‘There will be a night and a day of such attempts, I think,’ Caesar mused. ‘They will want to try the cover of darkness, and will hope that we become complacent the next day. We must continually rotate the units of archers and artillerists on watch and make sure we plug any gaps, and then the day will be ours, gentlemen.’