Other Nervii were trying to bring weapons to bear and shout out a warning, but Masgava was faster than any of them, dispatching one with a backhanded strike across the neck as he ran and then ploughing the other down to the wall top, knocking all the breath from him and killing him with one masterful blow. Behind him, legionaries moved to take care of others. Palmatus was pointing out targets before he himself slammed open the door to the tower above the gate and rushed inside.
They were here! It had sounded like an impossible task, as far as Antonius was concerned.
A cry went up from the wall at the far side, but they’d reached the tower above the gate. The game was up and they were discovered, but it no longer mattered. Two legionaries were busy putting down another guard.
‘Now!’ he yelled.
With the professionalism and discipline of the Roman military, his force split off and splintered. The archers and the slinger disappeared into the tower, along with another legionary, fast on the heels of Palmatus. Two brief squawks within announced the success of the Roman officer, and then two of the missile troops appeared at the openings, loosing arrows and bullets down at any defender they could see. The third was not visible for a long moment, but then finally appeared, his arrow blazing with golden fire as he drew his bow string back and released. The fiery shaft shot up into the air, trailing smoke like a comet.
Fronto and the engineer took up positions on the wall, to either side of the tower, preparing to hold the gate top from any more Nervii coming along the wall, which they would be doing in force as soon as the alarm had spread throughout Avenna and they had mobilised a stronger defence. The three Remi were now on their way to lend a hand, and the remaining legionaries split into two groups of four and descended the rear slope of the rampart, Masgava leading them as they rushed the men on duty at the gate below. The four Nervii on the ground had no chance, and were butchered with little resistance. Fronto peered over the edge and realised that he had lost two of those men in the assault, but Palmatus and three others were standing in an arc, preparing to meet the Nervii from the city, who were approaching with a roar, somewhere back among the houses, while the other two heaved open the gates.
A pained cry drew his attention and he looked along the wall to see that the three Remi scouts had run into a little trouble, one of them on the floor, yelping and clutching his stomach. The other two finished off their attacker and then granted their companion a mercy blow, finishing him off before running on to join Fronto at the gate,
The sound of the approaching legions began to rise above the action at the walls, and the rhythmic beat was a balm to him. Antonius, true to his word, had had the Ninth and Tenth poised ready to move at the signal, and even before the fire arrow had touched the ground the first cohorts were approaching the gate.
The Nervii were coming from inside. The legions were coming from outside.
It might appear to be a race, but Fronto knew better. The Nervii were unprepared and would be coming in dribs and drabs as they armed. The gatehouse and its killing zones were designed for easy defence and it would be just as easy for them to defend as for the Nervii. They would hold until the army were through. And then it would be easy. And bloody.
Fronto laughed like a man possessed.
Chapter Seven
It took less than half an hour for the elation of swift victory to wear off.
Fronto stood in the main public forum-like area at the centre of Avenna, before a large stone-and-timber construction that seemed to have served as some sort of crude curia for the Nervian ‘senate’, with a temple to one of their hairy, hammer-wielding Gods off to one side and a number of shops around the periphery, a well — where they had gathered — in the centre.
Carefully, he examined the beautiful blade in his hand, lifting it so that the pale watery sunlight gleamed on the perfect Noric steel. There was no trace of the gore that had encrusted it half an hour ago — Fronto had always been careful to clean his blade after a battle, but since acquiring the murderous tribune Menenius’ astounding gladius, he had become almost obsessive over the matter. The great Gods of Rome smiled approvingly from faces of perfect glittering orichalcum. With a sigh, he slid it into the sheath and tried to block out the activity all around him.
‘Not pretty, is it?’ Palmatus muttered, and Fronto looked around in surprise at the statement only to realise that the former legionary — now officer of singulares — was actually speaking to his counterpart, Masgava.
Palmatus had dealt with the removal of the tower’s occupants with the casual brutality of a veteran legionary with experience of more than one war, and had then returned to help hold the wall top until the army broke through the defences and began the systematic destruction of Avenna. The result was that he now stood here in his drab, dun-coloured tunic, the same as the rest of theirs, so liberally splashed and spattered with mud and blood that it was difficult to tell where material ended and skin began.
Masgava, conversely, had stood in a line of soldiers — a fighting style totally unfamiliar for an arena trained combatant — and defended the gate from all comers until Antonius’ men had swept past them and relieved the small attacking force, and yet the only marks on him were three small lines and splashes of red. His gut wound had held up and stayed closed throughout his first real action, though he complained of discomfort. He did, however, look somewhat hollow-eyed and angry. Not at the battle — death was an old friend and constant companion to the big Numidian gladiator. No… what happened afterwards was the cause of his concern.
‘Why is this being allowed?’ the big man replied with his own question.
‘Because the general wills it.’ Fronto replied in a weary voice. ‘It is in the nature of the career soldier to take every opportunity to make the most of a situation for financial gain. And beyond simple loot, some are simply too blood-drunk to stop. Their centurions will eventually take control of them and instil order, but without the general specifically forbidding it, a little looting and destruction is almost expected. In fairness, Caesar is generally quite humane in this respect. He doesn’t often approve of wanton post-battle chaos, but in light of Ambiorix and Caesar’s need for revenge, the standing orders now have changed. At least he’s forbidden random rape and murder.’
‘Some of the things I’ve seen in the last quarter hour might challenge that.’
Fronto shrugged. ‘Random, I said. The orders to hold back only applied to those who surrendered willingly. Those who choose to resist have no defence, and Caesar won’t blink twice at their fate.
Masgava still seemed unimpressed.
Fronto turned and took in the havoc he had been blocking out. Already, sizeable portions of Avenna were aflame. While legionaries had herded the captive survivors into the smaller squares here and there and roped them together for transport to Samarobriva and then the slave markets, others had begun the systematic looting and impounding of anything of use or value. Once an entire neighbourhood had been emptied, it was fired.
Here and there warriors, women, or even children fought back. Most of them were killed on the spot by the legionaries, who had little interest in struggling with a difficult native when loot was there to be had. Many of the struggling children had escaped where the legionaries had simply let them go rather than wrestle and then murder a minor, but the women had been treated worst, as was always the case in the aftermath of a siege.