And then suddenly Atenos was motioning at him. The escapees were all out. Time to move.
Atenos reached down to the bone whistle that hung at his neck and blew three short bursts. The call was echoed up and down the dock by each centurion and, without pause, the calm night scene of Cenabum’s dock became a seething nightmare.
All thought of formation completely ignored in the circumstances, the men of the Tenth Legion poured from the boats along the whole riverfront, large forces of them closing now from each end of the dock to seal the area off. Every second soldier had his sword out ready. The rest carried their various burdens, and here and there other centurions and a young tribune burst forth from the cover of the boat onto the hard dock. As he ran, Fronto discarded the leather bag. Cupping the horseshoe fungus in both hands, he cracked it open where it had earlier been cut in half, and blew repeatedly on the core, trying to divide his attention between that task and keeping his footing.
Sure enough, the smouldering core of the fungus, which had been in a slow burn now for many hours, began to flare up, pungent smoke pouring from the odd sphere. Now, satisfied that his burden was alight, he glanced quickly over his shoulder. Across the river, Carbo and his cohort were sealing off the southern exit, cutting down the fleeing Carnutes and pushing them back across the heavy bridge towards the chaos that awaited.
Aurelius and Biorix hit the open gate as it began to move, swords raised as they crashed into the few defenders. Some quick-thinking Gaul ignored the fight and kept pushing the gate shut from close behind, using his weight against it, out of danger from the Romans. Suddenly Atenos was there, sword already coated in shimmering red as he put his shoulder against the gate and heaved it back open.
The defenders would get the gate shut… there was no doubt about that. Under normal circumstances, anyway. There were perhaps a hundred legionaries now descending upon them, but there were dozens of defenders who had the benefit of armour and defences, and all they had to do was push the gates close enough to bar them and the attack would fail.
‘Quick!’ Fronto yelled irritably, as those legionaries and singulares carrying their armfuls of combustible material threw them against whichever of the two gates was the nearest. Fronto, along with the other fire-bearing officers, waited only long enough for a supply of sailcloth, dry timber, rope and the like to pile up against the gate, then nodded to Iuvenalis, who carried the dry hay animal fodder and scattered it on the top.
With a last blow on the fungus, Fronto cast it gently into the pile.
He barely had time to recoil before the hay caught and began to roar into orange life. Everything was so dry. The benefit of such a damp, cold season was that every merchant kept his goods safe and dry and out of the rain, so that each armful purloined from the boats and cast against the gates was perfectly tinder-dry.
The flames were roaring within moments, catching the ropes that tethered the wooden posts together to form the gate leaves and turning them black as they became part of the raging inferno.
Splashes back along the bridge announced a number of bodies plunging into the river, some torn and bloody at the hands of Carbo’s men, others in a desperate bid to escape that same fate. Few would make it. Good luck to them!
The forces from either end of the dock were now converging at the gate-and-bridge area, and those men who had carried armfuls of gear to feed the fires were drawing their blades. Leaving the poor bastards on the bridge to their fate, trapped between groups of legionaries and hemmed in by the railings, he made for Atenos, who was busy hacking down a Gaul in the gateway.
Perhaps a dozen of the Carnutes had rushed into the open gateway to hold back the tide of Roman iron, others having given up trying to close a gate that was now more of a pyre than an entrance. There were shouts of natives running off to fetch water for the gates.
‘Let’s get inside and take this place,’ Fronto snarled, his eyes dancing with the anticipation of revenge. The big Gaulish centurion raised an eyebrow as his victim fell away. ‘General’s orders were to wait for the others, sir?’
‘Piss on that. Cenabum belongs to the Tenth now. Time to avenge Cita!’
With a roar, he ripped out his own glittering sword, with its decorative orichalcum hilt and Noric steel blade, and leapt for the nearest of the defenders. The man was good, but desperate. He threw his shield in the way of Fronto’s blow, but the legate saw the man’s own chop coming and his open hand shot up and caught the wrist as the blade descended, pushing it aside as he slammed the tapering point of his gladius into the man’s ribcage.
Thrust, twist, withdraw…
Even as the man fell at his feet, Fronto was running, to the urgent shouts of Palmatus nearby. Behind, he heard Atenos blowing his whistle, issuing the melee command, which would release each man from supposed formation and give him the freedom to choose a target and deal with it accordingly. The centurion, the singulares and a few legionaries were right behind him as Fronto raced into the narrow streets of Cenabum.
A Gaul came hurtling out of a side street, his weapon forgotten as he carried a bucket of water, which slopped over the side with every step. His eyes widened as he saw the Roman before him — badly-shaven, wearing only a red tunic and with a face that was a mask of furious destruction. The bucket was cast aside, sloshing across the road, but before he could raise his sword, the lunatic Roman’s gladius had slashed a deep gauge across his neck, letting out a fountain of blood and a whoosh of air in a mix of crimson froth.
‘Bastard,’ shouted the Roman at the dying Gaul as he ran on, selecting another man who had emerged from a building carrying a spear, angled ready for a thrust with all his weight. Fronto ran at the man, screaming something incomprehensible about Gauls and the Tenth.
Atenos watched Fronto use his free hand to grab the spear and rip it to one side as he delivered three quick punches of his gladius with unerring accuracy to neck, belly and groin. The spearman screamed and fell back amid a wash of blood. Palmatus and the singulares were struggling to catch up with the man they had sworn to protect, finding themselves waylaid by desperate Gauls as they followed.
A Roman arrived next to Atenos, looking haggard and panicked, his young eyes wild with his first taste of real combat. The big centurion was about to order him on into one of the buildings when he realised that the man was one of the young narrow-stripe junior tribunes of the Tenth, his white officer’s tunic exchanged for a darker red one just like the rest of the legion’s officers for this action.
‘Stop him, centurion.’
Atenos blinked in surprise. ‘Sir?’
‘He’s gone mad, man. Can’t you see that? He must be stopped!’
Atenos peered off at the shouting legate as his commander savagely ripped open a warrior who’d had the misfortune to get in his way.
‘You don’t know our legate yet, do you, sir.’
‘Centurion?’
‘That’s not madness, sir. That’s two years of frustration and the loss of a couple of good friends finding a way out. I’d sooner step in front of a ballista than try and stop legate Fronto right now.’
Another glance up the street, and he watched with interest as Fronto pommel-bashed another man and took the opportunity of a lull in opponents to put a hard, military boot into the man’s ribs half a dozen times, yelling something incomprehensible as blood slicked down his blade and ran onto the hard-packed dirt at his feet.
‘We should report to Caesar that the town is ours,’ the tribune murmured quietly, a faintly horrified tone in his voice as he watched his legate at work, a huge stone hurled by some distant Roman siege engine missing him by a matter of feet and smashing into a building nearby.