‘Why don’t you go do that now, sir? I’ve got some Carnutes to kill.’
With the wild grin of the unfettered warrior, Atenos turned, yelled some dreadful Gallic war cry that ended peculiarly with a Latin reference to the Tenth legion, and barrelled on up the street in the gory wake of his commander, men of the Tenth yelling and running after him in support.
* * * * *
Fronto looked up at the sound of his name, the first word he had heard to which he’d felt remotely inclined to pay any attention over the last hour. The faint strains of sunlight were threading their way through the weave of the inky sky, forming the earliest tapestry of morning. The streets were muddy, yet tinted red with the blood of the Carnutes, their life’s essence pooling in hollows and forming moats around cobbles where the roads had been paved. The air was still murky and indistinct in the early light, fogged with the roiling smoke from a dozen charred buildings.
His singulares sat recovering in a huddle a few paces away, one or two sporting gashes and slashes. Across the small public square, a small party of legionaries was busy leading a line of a score of roped Carnute prisoners towards the city gate, while a similar party threw ragged native corpses into a commandeered wagon. Despite their work, the dead in the square still outnumbered the living.
How many of them had he killed personally, he wondered.
A group of legionaries burst from a doorway, laughing, their arms weighed down with plunder.
And there, in the middle of the square and walking towards him, was Marcus Antonius, senior officer of Caesar’s command… and friend.
‘Don’t start with me, Antonius.’
The curly-haired officer let out a strangely carefree laugh. ‘Hardly. Caesar will do that later. He takes it personally when one of his officers disobeys direct orders, though it’s such ingrained habit with you, I doubt he’ll do more than snap at you.’
The senior officer came to a halt a couple of paces from where Fronto sat on a wide, oak bench stained with the blood of the man that had died on it. He looked at the empty seat next to the Tenth’s commander and decided against it. With a shake of the head, he produced a wine-skin seemingly from nowhere and uncorked it, proffering it to Fronto.
‘No thanks. Don’t think I really need that right now.’
Antonius laughed. ‘On the contrary, Marcus, you need this right now. Have you taken a look at yourself lately?’
Fronto shook his head and Antonius looked around for a moment until he spotted a fallen Gaul, whose shiny, well-polished iron axe had not had time to see action before his untimely death. Crouching, he picked up the weapon and held it in front of the seated officer, such that the polished head acted as a mirror.
Fronto blinked at the sodden crimson demon that looked back at him in the blade, and reached up, wordlessly, for the flask.
‘I lost control.’
‘I know. Everyone knows. Three cohorts of men watched it happen. I hear you are to thank that silver goddess around your neck that you’re alive. Apparently half a dozen times our own artillery nearly did for you before they received the order to stop the barrage.’
‘It’s not a good trait in an officer. A legate should always be in control.’
Antonius chuckled. ‘Control is not all it’s cracked up to be, Marcus. Sometimes a little wild abandon is good for a person. Besides, this has been building in you for some time. And I’ve been told you have form. Apparently something similar happened in Britannia?’
Fronto nodded, remembering his berserk madness on that distant, misty isle.
‘What happened? I only saw a small part of the action.’
Antonius wandered over to the well a few paces away, retrieved the bucket of water and flung it across the blood-slicked bench before casting it aside. He crouched and took an intact cloak from a dead native, using it to dry the bench before he sank to the wood next to the legate.
‘The rest of the Tenth followed you in. The Eighth and the Eleventh both managed to get themselves involved before it was all over — they were the two legions nearest the gate. The last resistance was about an hour ago, in some native temple. A druid was stirring them up to kill, as though they still stood some kind of a chance. Stupid.’
‘Casualties?’
‘Theirs, or ours?’ laughed Antonius. ‘No idea how many their dead number, but we’re looking at about two thousand slaves to send back to Agedincum. Maybe a hundred got away, but we’re leaving them to spread the word to the rest of the tribe. As for ours? Well, we took the Carnutes by surprise. They hardly managed to raise a sword. About two hundred dead and critically wounded, and maybe a hundred walking wounded. Negligible, though sadly most of them were your lads.’
Fronto nodded absently.
‘And now it’s time for you to get back outside, get out of that grisly tunic, have a dip in the river and clean yourself up, and I’ll send someone with fresh clothes for you.’
‘I’d rather sit for a while longer,’ Fronto muttered. ‘My legs don’t seem to work.’
Antonius chuckled again and slapped him on the knee. ‘We have to go. The men are all being pulled out. The buildings have almost all been looted now, and the last bodies are being heaped into one of the granaries we emptied. As soon as we’re finished, Caesar’s given the order to burn the place to the ground. Cenabum is gone. The depot’s personnel are avenged.’
‘And next?’
‘Next?’ Antonius breathed, rising to his feet and reaching out a hand to his fellow officer. ‘Next we move to Novioduno as planned. The rumour is that the Bituriges have forsaken their oath to both us and the Aedui and thrown in their lot with Vercingetorix. Before we march on Avaricon, which is said to be impregnable, we need to test the water, as it were. Novioduno is small and no great threat, and we can confirm the nature of their allegiance there before we move to Avaricon.’
‘No rest for the weary,’ Fronto sighed as he reached up and took the proffered hand, using it to pull himself to his feet, his gore-soaked tunic sticking, cold and unpleasant, to his skin.
‘To the river, Antonius. Then before we move on, I would like to sample a little more of that wine!’
* * * * *
The Boii oppidum of Gorgobina.
The latest assault pulled back rapidly down the gentle slope and Vergasillaunus sucked his teeth in consternation, watching the Arverni warriors and their allies as they retreated in disarray towards the large camp seething with men and animals. Without taking his eyes from the retreat and the jeering forms of the Rome-supporting Boii defenders atop the high walls, he cleared his throat and addressed Vercingetorix.
‘Why do we not commit a sizeable force and simply swamp them? It disheartens our warriors to attack again and again with no true hope of success.’
The king of the Arverni gave his cousin that usual knowing smile. ‘Gorgobina’s walls are high, for all its low slopes, and its inhabitants are fighting for their very existence. Any committed assault will cost us dearly, and I am in the process of building this army, not demolishing it.’ He saw his cousin readying to reply, and cut him off. ‘Gorgobina has only one well which, according to our sources, is not plentiful. Most of their grain is held in the farms that harvested it and are now under our control. And the oppidum is full to the brim with desperate Boii. Their food and water will not last long, and then we can simply walk into the place and claim it without risking many men. We just have to keep sending small forays to tire them out and help them lose hope.’
‘But the delay?’
‘What is a delay of a few weeks now? Caesar will take time to move with his army. The legions have been scattered in winter quarters, and getting them together and ready — let alone supplied — to move on us will take time. And we will hear from our northern allies when he starts to move.’
‘You are sure he is in the north with his army, then?’ Vergasillaunus murmured, ‘and not to the south in our homeland?’