A cheer rose around the redoubt, rippled along the length of the wall and into the distance like a wave. Fronto smiled. ‘This is what he’s good at’ he thought. ‘This is why he’s a great leader, not just a great strategist.’ Even Fronto’s blood was pumping now, and he sensed the eagerness around him. Even that donkey Longinus had his sword out and was inspecting the edge. A swell of pride flowed through the legate. He was Roman, as were all the men around him, and if the mountains themselves moved against the wall, the legions would hold them back.
Velius stood on the raised platform behind the palisade and looked along the wall toward the lake. That would probably be where they hit first. They might even be fighting for control of that now. With the lake being eight or nine miles away, he couldn’t see anything but quiet and peaceful countryside. The word had come down with a rider ten minutes ago that Caesar had refused access to the Helvetii and that they had threatened the Eighth before pulling back and gathering the tribe. Velius couldn’t believe that in the face of such defences any army would try to take them, let alone a bunch of unwashed, hairy barbarians. The officers seemed to think they would come, and they should know their business. Still, Fronto had said that he’d try and spend as much time as possible with the two new legions, and Velius wished that he’d hurry up and get here.
The grizzled centurion knew how to command the unit; knew what to do and that the legion would obey his orders, but he knew they wanted a legate here. He wanted a legate here. Deep in a reverie, it took Velius a couple of minutes to realise that one of the centurions of the Twelfth was waving and shouting from a few hundred yards upriver. Shading his eyes and looking in that direction, Velius saw the centurion alternately waving at him and pointing down into the river. Following his pointing digit, Priscus felt a quickening of his pulse. A thin, diluted stream of red appeared in the centre of the river and as he watched the icy Alpine water rush past, the pigment filled out and diluted more until the river in its entirety was tinted a rosy pink.
The training centurion drew himself up and took a deep breath. “This is it lads. It’s started upriver, but it won’t be long before it comes our way. The legate will be here with us as soon as he can, but the barbarians might just get here first.”
Velius looked back along the line toward the lake again.
Hooves thundering beneath him, Fronto felt a mix of excitement he had not experienced for some time and trepidation over the delay he had suffered at Caesar’s command post. The Eleventh and Twelfth awaited him only a few miles away, and some of the Helvetii were busily engaged with the Eighth, hurling missiles across the river, generally harmlessly, against the palisade and occasionally trying in small groups to swim across, despite the icy cold of the water. A large group of the barbarians had split off early on and made their way downriver, out of missile range of the Roman defences. In general Fronto found the barbarians’ position laughable. Unprepared, they had no hope of tackling such a force as Caesar had gathered. Regardless of Caesar’s orders to maintain a presence everywhere along the wall, Fronto intended to ride straight to the new legions and help Velius and Tetricus with any serious tactical decisions. Balbus would have no trouble commanding this end of the wall.
Riding at full pelt down the slight slope of a seasonal stream and then back up the other side, Fronto suddenly registered the activity around him. The sounds of shouting and the clash of metal weapons gradually reached him over the din of the horse. Reining in, Fronto cast his eyes around the site. One of the redoubts, filled with soldiers of the Eleventh, lay about five hundred yards ahead, and the previous, occupied by the Eighth, lay around a mile behind. Here was just a knot of soldiers based on the embankment itself, men of the newly raised Eleventh. It would be a good few miles before he reached any of the Twelfth, or even the command unit of the Eleventh. Balbus had assumed that a four mile gap between the cohorts of the fully trained legion was reasonable and could be covered by the green legions under view of the units on either side.
Fronto trotted up to the embankment just as a flurry of missiles whistled over the top of the palisade. Hurling himself from the horse just as a spear covered the intervening space, the legate landed in wet, slightly muddy grass and came rolling to his feet. One of the legionaries reached for his horse’s reins and led the beast back toward the redoubt and safety. Two more legionaries came to help Fronto to his feet, but he shrugged them aside.
“Where’s your centurion. What’s going on?”
A figure appeared from the top of the bank, chain mail remnants hanging in tatters all that remained of his armour. His helmet was gone and not all of the blood in which he was drenched was his own, despite gaping wounds in his arm and side.
“Sir, I’m Bassianus, commanding this century.”
“What the hell is happening?”
Bassianus stood straight, wiping a stream of blood out of his eye. “We didn’t get no warning sir. They got archers. Damn good ones too, better than them Numidians we used to have with us, sir. They’re in the scrub on the other bank. Must’ve been there since last night. They took more than half my men on the wall with the first volley, before we even knew they was there. Then, while we was ducked down and sortin’ out the troops, a whole bunch of ‘em came across in small boats, under cover of the arrows. This whole thing’s a bastard setup sir. They’d no intention of arguing with Caesar!”
“How does it stand now, Bassianus, and where’s tribune Tetricus?”
“I dunno where the tribune is sir. The bastards is under the wall sir, on this side of the river. We got ‘em pinned down for now, but them archers is still thinnin’ out my men, and they’re still ferrying theirs across. Sooner or later we’ll be outnumbered. We could call in other centuries from the Eleventh, but that’d stretch us somewhere else. We’ve stationed about sixty percent of the legion close by the Eighth’s redoubt on Caesar’s orders, so we’re a bit thinner here than we’re supposed to be.”
The centurion lowered his voice to a whisper.
“And beggin’ your pardon sir, I know they’re new men, good lads all of ‘em, but they’re not strong enough trained to handle dirty fighting sir.”
Fronto nodded. He shouted to the man leading his horse.
“Soldier, get on that horse and ride upstream to the first fort. Find the centurion in charge there and tell him to send help. Any surplus troops they have from the Eighth, and the unit of Cretan auxiliary archers and Spanish slingers I saw in reserve. Tell him legate Fronto of the Tenth requested it.”
He turned back to Bassianus. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Get every reserve man here to collect the shields from the dead. You’re going to get your men back up onto that wall, with every second man using two shields, protecting the ones in between. The soldiers in between are going to take all these long spears that have been thrown over the wall and use them to stab down at the barbarians below. You only have to keep them occupied and keep their numbers down and your own men protected until the archers from the Eighth get here. Then use them in the same way to take out their archers on the other bank. I’m going to head on toward the Twelfth. If I find anyone else that can help, I’ll send them back. If the Twelfth aren’t too pressed I’ll arrange relief.”
As Fronto set off west at a jog, the men of the Eleventh around him began collecting up spears and shields.
Velius was beginning to wonder if the legate would be turning up at all. He was starting to get very tense. About ten minutes ago, a whole load of Helvetii had been seen on the other bank, moving between the trees and undergrowth. There was something going on, and it must be going on all the way down the line. The tint in the water was still going strong, and it was far too concentrated to be coming from miles away by the lake.