All along the cliffs men were spidering up the red rock and disappearing into the caves, swords and daggers in hands and looks of sheer bloody murder on their faces.
It would be over in a matter of heartbeats. Quadratus’ shoulders sagged, and he leaned back against a thick sapling. A veteran cavalry commander, he had been dubious about being given command of an infantry force, but Caninius had been insistent. He’d not had enough senior officers to assign to the various separate cohorts in this action, and Quadratus had been needed.
One thing was certain: when they turned back north to Cicero’s camp, and the senior command decided to admit that Ambiorix was gone, he would be damn well returning to a cavalry command. Screw this walking lark!
Somewhere above, a legionary shouted some joke about Icarus with a raucous belly laugh, and a shrieking Eburone warrior emerged at speed from the cave mouth, plunging to his doom.
* * * * *
Venitoutos was proud. Generations of his family had borne the pride of the Belgae in their blood, defending their lands from their ancient ancestors across the Rhenus or from Gaulish incursions or, of course, the interminable internecine wars the Eburones fell prey to with their neighbour tribes.
He was no king or noble. He was no druid or warrior with an arm full of rings and a glittering blade. He was a farmer, and a father, and a grandfather. But he was Eburone, and any time his king or his people had called, he had hauled on his grandfather’s torn mail shirt and hefted the spear resting in the corner of his hut, bade the women farewell and marched off to teach the enemy what it meant to be Belgae.
Venitoutos was proud.
Four years previously, he had been at the Sabis River when the great Belgic alliance had stood firm in the face of Caesar’s army, and had almost stopped the general. The scar all down his left arm was a daily reminder of that almost-victory. Last winter, he had been called on by his King to wipe out the Roman forces who had the gall to winter in Eburone lands. His lack of hearing in his left ear and the ache in his left knuckles hearkened back to that battle.
The Romans had learned time and again what it meant to face the Belgae.
Yes, Venitoutos was proud.
But he was also a father. And a grandfather. And heartily sick of death. It was one thing to bring war to Rome or a belligerent neighbour, in defence of his people. It was another to provoke the Roman bull that stomped around their lands, grinding the people beneath its hooves. That would be inviting Caesar’s war machine to murder his family, and the twins and the others deserved better.
For while Venitoutos was proud, he was also willing to see reason. The Eburones had lost all, no matter what their most noble leaders believed. Now all the ordinary folk could do was stay out of sight of the armoured monster crunching across their land, protect their loved ones, and wait for everything to settle down and Caesar to turn his sights elsewhere.
If he’d known anything about King Ambiorix or his location, he would gladly have given it to the Romans in return for his family’s ongoing safety. But even that was no use. He knew nothing.
And so he and his kin hid, in a manner most unfitting of the Eburones.
The Romans had passed through here three days ago in force, their steel and crimson ranks laying waste, executing every Eburone they found and burning the farms and villages. In this very valley three other farms had been fired, the bodies of their owners cast into the flames. And the settlement at the river head had gone the same way. Venitoutos had crouched in the bushes near the main road with his wife and children keeping the grandchildren quiet with hands over their mouths as he watched old Aneunos die miserably and their general — Labienus, apparently — ordering the death of his children with a detached coldness.
Somehow the Romans had moved down the valley quite thoroughly, burning and killing, but had missed two farms, one of them being Venitoutos’. He had given thanks to Arduenna for her shelter and protection and had promised to carve a stone to her when this was all over.
Then, yesterday, the Romans had returned. He’d found it hard to credit such bad luck, but listening in from a hiding place close to the main track, he’d heard the Remi scouts talking — he had not a word of Latin, but the Romans employed so many of his own people that he needed none. The scouts had talked about crossing the path of Labienus’ army and the fact that they’d found only one intact farm in the valley. Caesar, who himself seemed to command this second army, had burned that other farm and crucified the family, leaving them to die at the beaks and claws of the birds or the growling hollowness of starvation, their limbs gradually dislocating as they hung. The scouts had muttered about the other two Roman forces in the forest and about turning north again to the cursed camp of Sabinus and Cotta, where the wagons waited, and Venitoutos had felt a small thrill at the memory of his tribe’s victory over that camp.
Venitoutos had waited until the army had moved on, offered up yet more prayers to the great Goddess, passed his farm — now the only one surviving in the valley — and painstakingly took down the crucified family. Only the old man and one of the children would survive, and Venitoutos had taken care to deal with the dead in the old way.
Three armies.
Romans everywhere!
It was hard to credit, and it certainly sounded the death knell for the Eburones.
And this morning, as he stood in the doorway of his hut and breathed in the warm summer air of the forest, Venitoutos found himself wondering what he had done that had so angered the unseen powers? For all Arduenna’s protection, the valley had succumbed to two Roman armies and now he watched his family scurry down the bank to their last-ditch hiding place by the stream and closed his eyes.
This army was making straight for him. Though they were likely bound for some unknown location, they would be unable to pass without spotting the farm.
That they were not Roman hardly mattered.
Venitoutos had seen them at dawn, two miles from here where they had stopped to check out a burned farm and had felt a surge of hope at the sight of his fellow warriors, gathered together into a warband. He had almost rushed from the trees to welcome them when he had spotted the differences. These were not Eburones. Not even Belgae. They were the Germans from beyond the great river.
And that meant, if anything, more danger than the Romans.
It was common knowledge, spread by word of mouth in a matter of days, that the Romans had offered up the Eburones’ throats and purses to any tribe who wished to take them, with Caesar’s blessing. The tribes beyond the river had generations of hate and strife in common with the Eburones and being offered their carcass to pick over would be more than tempting for them. For all the Germans hated Rome, they were not above performing her dirty work for her if it meant loot and murder and a little revenge on an age-old enemy.
And what they would do to the Eburones would make crucifixion look like mercy. The gut post, the burning rack, the skinning knife. And, of course, raping all the women regardless of age, and often the men and boys too. It would make a clean Roman death look like paradise.
And so here they went once more, hiding in the woods.
Even as he heard the first sounds of the approaching warband, he gave his hut a regretful glance, wishing he could have preserved more, had there been time, and scurried off down the bank towards the stream and the copse where their few prized possessions were stored.
Sliding down into the undergrowth, he kissed his wife’s head and pulled the inquisitive twins down from the upper foliage and into better cover. The family held their breath.
The raiders burst from the far side of the farmstead’s clearing like water from a shattered dam. Hundreds of men, tattooed and painted, decorated with torcs and arm rings, mostly bare-chested, but occasionally clad in mail, poured from the trees and into the hut and the barn and the store house and even the hen coup. Their sounds of disappointment were audible even from this distance as they found the farm deserted and poor. One or two took out their anger on the few remaining chickens, smashing them against the wall of the hut and even tearing at their feathered flesh with jagged teeth.