A Gaul thrust a spear up at the wall top, the blade coming perilously close to Fronto’s helmet, and he ducked before lunging out and stabbing the man in the chest.
There seemed no end to the opposition. They had killed hundred upon hundred of the Gauls, and taken a steady stream of dead and wounded in the process, the poor bastards dragged or helped back from the redoubt by medics or the dead-patrol accordingly, only to be replaced by their weary tent-mates.
But it was not the numbers or the defences as such that worried Fronto. What gave him serious pause for thought was that there had been cracking and banging noises from fore and below for a while now, and that signified that some of the more astute Gauls had given up trying to flood over the barrier and were now busy pulling apart the carts plank by plank to get through to the Roman defenders. And they would, in due course.
‘You’re looking tired, Fronto. Are you getting enough sleep?’
Fronto delayed only long enough to put his utilitarian military gladius through the temple of an unhelmeted warrior who’d made it to the top of the barricade and turned with a frown.
Titus Labienus, Caesar’s senior lieutenant and one of the most successful and respected generals of Rome, sat astride an impatient looking bay a few paces away.
Fronto blinked and looked past him.
Legionaries in seeming hundreds and thousands were busy pulling what they needed from the supply dumps and filtering onto the rampart and to the barricade as their centurions commanded. Finally, after weeks of maintaining their position in the Alesia lines, the First and the Seventh had finally committed.
‘You are a sight for fucking sore eyes, Labienus. About time. Got sick of all the baths and the snoring did we?’
Labienus smiled indulgently, but the way his expression slid quickly into serious and troubled worried Fronto.
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t get over excited, Fronto. Estimates put your opposition at about five thousand, and I’ve brought six cohorts.’
Fronto heard a clunk and looked over his shoulder to see a grapnel over the wall top, the timbers up there already straining, the centurion sending legionaries over to deal with it before some behemoth of a Gaul ripped the wall apart. The bastards were serious and only a heave or two away from success, then. ‘Six cohorts is better than a kick in the teeth, Labienus.’
‘Then get ready for me to put the boot in. Five of them are for the north rampart. Caesar’s trying to bring in reserves to help here, but he’s got other troubles down on the plains. The Gallic reserves are pushing him to the limit, so he’s being careful with his own troop assignments. For now I’ve got only one cohort for you, I’m afraid.’
Fronto nodded tersely. ‘I’ll make them worthwhile.’
‘You do that,’ the staff officer replied. ‘And here’s a little something extra for you: new orders agreed by the general. Have a cornicen so close you can hear his arse squeak when he walks. If the walls are breached anywhere unrecoverable, have the man blow the Bacchanalia chant. As soon as that chant goes up anywhere along the walls, every century available is to form up and prepare for a sortie against the enemy.’
Fronto stared at the man. Sortie beyond the walls? The man was mad. But Labienus was nothing if not an inventive tactician, and had yet to be beaten in a campaign, with a success rate even surpassing Caesar’s.
‘Alright. You’d better know what you’re doing, Titus.’
‘For the love of Juno, Fronto, I really hope so!’
* * * * *
Caesar felt the icy thrill of uncertainty. Throughout his entire command of Gaul, which had taken him from governor of three provinces to becoming a conqueror and all-but-governor of a fourth new one, he had rarely been caught off-guard. When he had, he had usually had systems in place to recover the situation as quickly as possible, and had never truly felt that strange excitement of being on the cusp of losing everything until Gergovia. And now here he was, mere months later and feeling it again. It was strangely intoxicating. Much more so than the smug knowledge that he would overcome whatever the odds, which had been his gut feeling throughout his career, even in that ridiculous business with the pirates so many years ago.
But Gergovia had been a disaster and he’d chosen to turn it into a hurdle rather than a wall, withdrawing and deciding to regroup. Then somehow, despite his best plans, he’d found himself in almost as poor a position now. He had besieged his enemy and in turn been besieged, and he’d been sure of success even then. But while the Arvernian king on the hilltop had been predictable and ineffectual, some nobleman among the enemy reserves had proved to be at least as intuitive and inventive a commander as the rebel leader, and had in the end put the Roman forces to the test, at the very limit of their strength.
He knew that Mons Rea had proved to be a weak point, and had committed Labienus with six cohorts to aid them. He knew as well as any man that such an act was akin to jamming a single rag into a failing dam. Mons Rea would need more men. And yet the Gallic cavalry and their infantry support on the plains were in serious danger of breaking into the outer rampart, the defenders truly hard-pressed, and if that line fell then Mons Rea would be irrelevant, for the entire system would be swamped under the enemy bodies which even now outnumbered the Romans by perhaps three or four to one in total.
And the Gaulish reserve was well-fed and well-rested, while the beleaguered Romans were to a man hungry and exhausted. Things were dangerous here on the plain, and would only get worse as his men continued to tire until the rampart fell and the whole siege collapsed in annihilation for the legions.
His men needed encouragement and heart, and Caesar had spent the last hour in a frantic rush of action, all along the plains defences, from the foot of Mons Rea to the lowest slopes of Gods’ Gate. His white horse and red cloak marked him out wherever he went, and his continual cries of ‘For Rome!’ had made his voice hoarse and scratchy and left him shaking. Every now and then, he’d paused to take stock, rattling out a series of orders to whatever officer he could find — usually Antonius, who seemed to be everywhere at once, encouraging and organising like some sort of Mercury in human form. And between such confabs Caesar had been one with his men, at the fence, driving his priceless blade into Gallic bodies as he shouted for his men to hold, at the gates of the cavalry enclosures, helping keep the enemy from felling the timber leaves with axes, on the towers with the artillerists, helping them sight to pick off the most important of the enemy horsemen, his own steed tied to the posts below. And everywhere he had been, he had spoken to the men as equals with words of praise and reassurance — that they had held in more trying times and situations than these. That they must hold for the love of Rome and of victory. That this would be the last fight and with it Gaul would be theirs to loot. That by the time the sun touched the horizon, the rebels would be beaten.
Everywhere. He had not stopped, and he felt so tired. He kept suffering involuntary visions of his bed and a platter of fruit his slave would have waiting when he retired to it. And with every passing hour and the constant tiring activity, the fear increased that he might have one of his attacks in public, where it could not be contained and hidden. He stifled a yawn.
The afternoon was beginning to wear on, the sun slipping lower and lower in the sky, threatening to turn this fight into a night attack.
He paused at one of the small command posts where a supply centurion was giving out orders and receiving requests from an endless stream of runners, and took a swig of water from one of the open barrels from which buckets were being carried around the defences.