The four men nodded, saluted, and scurried off towards the nearest supply dump. He turned to his singulares. ‘We’ll stand ready in case they break through the gate while the other lads are still working, but I think we have a short while yet.’
Leaving Masgava distributing the men in a semi-circle, Fronto jogged forward and put an eye to a crack in the gate. The enemy force were spreading out, only a few dozen paces away, but perhaps a hundred of them were making for the causeway that would lead them to the flimsy gate. A command above sent a flurry of pila out against them, dropping a score of running men at distance. Fronto blinked as a familiar figure pushed his way from the throng to the fore of the attack, his face a bleak and tragic mask.
‘Bollocks!’
* * * * *
Back along the inner rampart, as the artillery continued to thud and crunch and twang their deadly rain on the attacking Gauls, Vercingetorix stood tall amid the death, his winged helmet marking him as easily to his men as the red-robed figure on the white horse he could occasionally see behind the Roman defences did to his legionaries. Caesar was constantly on the move, encouraging and cajoling his men. Vercingetorix nodded in respect for his enemy, wishing there was some way he could magically transport himself to the old general’s side to face him in honourable combat.
‘We’re being thrashed,’ an old, cracked voice said from close by, and the Arvernian king turned to see the blood-spattered, aged figure of Teutomarus of the Nitiobriges, rubbing his sore back and standing with a slight stoop, leaning on his sword.
‘We are taking heavy losses, but so are the Romans, and we are but one hammer of three that pound them.’
‘If we keep this up for another hour or two there will be few of us left to boast of our glory,’ Teutomarus groaned and tried to straighten. Vercingetorix looked his ally up and down. The man was too old and weary really to be fighting. He should be at home, leaving this to his sons. But who was the king of the Arverni to deny a chieftain his right to glory. Instead he nodded.
‘We do what we must. Look to the hill,’ he pointed at Mons Rea and Teutomarus followed his finger. ‘See how my cousin has found their weakness. Vergasillaunus presses home an attack on the Roman camp there. That is where this battle will be won or lost. Like those on the plain outside, we do what we must to keep the Romans from sending reinforcements there.’
Teutomarus nodded and lifted his sword in a tired arm. ‘Then let us hope your cousin knows what he’s doing, my young Arvernian king. And we will go and kill some more Romans.’
The old man lurched off, staggering, towards the ramparts and Vercingetorix lingered for just a moment, looking up at the brutal fight going on at Mons Rea. As soon as he saw that north wall fall, he would pull his men in that direction and make for the camp to combine forces. Victory was almost in his grasp; so close he could almost taste it.
Chapter 23
Vergasillaunus of the Arverni exulted. Commius would writhe in humiliation when he realised how precisely the plan had fit its intention. His scouts had been absolutely correct: when viewed from the crest of Mons Rea, the Roman defensive lines had looped up the slope from the plain, encircling two of the smaller redoubts, but descended again to converge on the Roman camp, as had the twin lines at the far side. The camp itself, no more difficult a proposal than any Roman temporary installation, presented the only obstacle separating him from the trapped rebel force.
Moreover it was clearly under-manned, with much of its personnel engaged on the plain against the other attacking forces. Oh, he’d heard the desperate calls of the Roman horns as his thirty thousand hand-picked warriors descended towards the rampart. He could hardly identify one Roman call from another, but their tone and speed suggested more than a little urgency, and he knew them for a desperate command to reinforce the camp against this new threat.
They would be too late and too few to do anything much about it.
As his army flooded towards the camp’s north wall, the ground continued its gentle descent, giving the men an easy charge with no real danger of stumbling or falling, adding to their momentum and to their sense of triumph.
But the reason for the senior chieftain’s confidence was not based on numbers or surprise or terrain, though all three played their part. It was largely down to the fact that his men had been far too agitated to sleep since they had arrived in position during the dark of night, and instead of resting and eating throughout the morning, knowing that they were out of both sight and hearing of the Roman lines, they had practiced manoeuvres repeatedly.
Vercingetorix had reasoned time and again that if they were to succeed, they should be learning from their deadly adversaries; adopting whatever tactics they could make work. It had been uphill work much of the time with the unruly leaders and their fractious tribes.
But these were the best the army had to offer, and he had been careful to bring only those chieftains and nobles in command who were open to his ideas and who he could trust to carry them out without argument. The morning had been an eye-opener as to what the tribes were capable of if they only put aside their arguments and committed to an act.
And so, rather than a rag-tag mass of howling warriors running down the hill, aiming for their own individual glory-hunting duels, the army of Vergasillaunus descended on the Roman ramparts in a more disciplined formation than even many Romans might manage, slamming blades on shields in a rhythmic beat.
Eighteen thousand of his men moved in eight blocks, four-wide and two-deep, each in ordered lines, with the best-armed and — armoured men at the front, presenting a solid shield-wall, heads lowered to protect the face. Behind the shield wall, the next two rows held spears out ready, while two of the rear blocks were constituted entirely of archers and slingers. And following the blocks of infantry and missile troops, some forty paces to the rear, came the reserve force of nine thousand men, ready to take the place of the dead, the wounded, and the exhausted in the ranks as required. The remaining three thousand moved between the army and the reserves with their burdens, ready to tip the balance in this assault.
It was an army such as the tribes had never fielded and, because he had so carefully chosen the men and their commanders and five solid hours of planning and training had ensued, they carried out the manoeuvres with all the discipline and grace of a legion.
Fifty paces. Some of the men were already twitching to attack, their spear-tips wavering. But they held, despite the urge to cast. Good. Too early yet, but at least they were eager and prepared. Range had to close yet though.
Forty paces. Vergasillaunus could see the Romans tensing all along the rampart, ready to throw their own pila. There seemed to be more of them now than there had been a moment ago. As he watched, more men filed onto the defences, filling the gaps. Someone had managed to rally extra men into the fray, but still they were too few and hidden behind too poor obstacles. Time was running out for the men of the Mons Rea camp.
Thirty-five paces. The centurion he could see on the wall, identified by his red transverse horsehair crest, raised an arm. That was it, then.
‘Cast!’ Vergasillaunus shouted.
The second and third ranks barely faltered in their advance, hurling their spears up and over towards the defenders. Vergasillaunus saw the centurion’s arm falling to echo the manoeuvre and did not even pause for the last spear to leave before he bellowed his second command on the heel of the first.