four legions finding their range right now. If you listen hard, you can hear them.”
“I thought that was just my head” the general said with a small laugh.
“Tetricus reckons that he can topple those towers and flatten that gate in about half a day with the full weight of the artillery. And there’s free stone knocking around here for ammunition, so that’s no worry.”
The general nodded.
“So by the next low tide, we might be able to manage?”
Fronto nodded.
“I’d have hated to be down there when the tide came in. It’s not like standing on the beach at Antium and watching the line slowly licking towards you. With the storms and the choppy sea, the tide came in here in about ten minutes. It was like watching a dam burst.”
Caesar nodded wearily.
“We might need to repair the morale damage of that first attack. Perhaps if I march with the men? Always boosts morale when the officers take a risk.”
Fronto nodded.
“And you’ll also be pleased to hear that our scouts have reported sighting Brutus’ fleet a few miles away. Looks like he’s taken advantage of the lull and come out to meet us.”
“Very good. That could give us an edge.”
“Perhaps”. Fronto looked less certain.
The general sighed.
Fronto strode up the slope at the head of the army in the gentle drizzle. The Tenth, having led the first, abortive attack, had been given the honour of being the first legion through the breach. The walls had crumbled swiftly under Tetricus’ constant deadly barrage and the Gauls lining it had fled after the first few shots found their range. Despite the stone, timber and packed earth of the ramparts, the artillery of four legions made swift work of them, reducing the gate to rubble and toppling the towers more than an hour before the tide had receded enough to allow troops to cross the causeway.
As soon as the water level dropped, the general gave the order and the legions marched before even the artillery fire had ceased. The general, resplendent in his red cloak and gleaming cuirass, joined the vanguard as they crossed the gap and began to climb the incline toward the shattered walls.
The broken defences reached toward the boiling clouds like stumps of sawn trees, small sections of wall at full height, interspersed with yard after yard of rubble, spreading down the hill. As the legion approached the walls, Fronto glanced across in the other direction to Carbo, marching strong at the head of the Tenth. The man was already looking at him and, as the two men’s eyes met, Carbo nodded, sharing an unspoken thought, and addressed the legion in a steady voice.
“Be prepared, now, lads. Anything could await us up here.”
Fronto nodded quietly to himself, imagining the traps the Veneti could have set up behind the broken walls. It had been many hours now since the last figure had dared climb the walls to look at the attackers, and the quiet was eerie. He hefted his sword.
“Secure the walls” Carbo barked as they crossed the rubble, slowing their pace accordingly. Two centurions began shouting out orders and a century peeled off the column in either direction as they reached the line of the defences, rounding the shattered wall carefully, not knowing what to expect. Fronto and Caesar continued alongside Carbo and the front line of the first cohort and passed between the remains of the gate and into the fortress of the Veneti. As the two centuries rushed along the line and into position, checking the defences for any traps or lurking Gauls, the bulk of the army marched on up the slope and into the centre of the large headland stronghold.
This was far from the usual Gaulish oppidum or settlement with which Fronto was familiar. Rather than the unplanned, rambling streets of a Gaulish town, with trees rising from the roadside for summer shade and gardens in front of each house, this was a utilitarian arrangement, designed purely to protect a people from harm. There was no subtlety or joy in the layout, with squat, dark buildings for shelter all gathered close around a square at the highest point, with bare, windowless facades facing the outside, one end of the central square given over to granaries and storehouses.
“So where the hell are they?” Fronto asked no one in particular as they crested the hill and approached the silent, strangely deserted-looking buildings.
The general, beside him, bore a puzzled frown.
“Perhaps they hide within?”
Fronto shook his head.
“I don’t think so, general. These people aren’t the sort to cower without even trying to fight. But the question does remain: where are they?”
Again, Carbo barked out orders to his men and two centuries split off the main group as they approached the square and began to check out the buildings surrounding it. Behind the Tenth, the Eighth crested the hill, Balbus leading his men fast to catch up with the front line. Farther back, Crispus had split the Eleventh and sent them in two groups around the lower edges of the headland, above the cliffs, to meet up at the far end. The fourteenth had played rearguard, remaining with the artillery for their protection.
Fronto and the general watched with growing unease as the legionaries of the first cohort entered and exited the buildings, shrugging, nonplussed at the strangely deserted fortress.
“Is it possible that we were mistaken?” Caesar frowned. “That this is not a principal fortress and there were only a few dozen men here on the walls after all and they’re hiding somewhere. A distraction? A decoy?”
Again Fronto shook his head.
“No. This is a major fortress and if you look at the mud here you can see hundreds of tracks. The ground’s been churned up recently by a
They suddenly became aware of shouting. Squinting into the fine mist of rain, Fronto spotted an optio waving from the edge of the grassy slope ahead, toward the sea; one of Crispus’ men from the Eleventh. The man waved both arms above his head and then pointed out to sea. Fronto felt his heart sink. Somehow, he knew what had happened. Gesturing at Carbo, he beckoned the general and the three men strode speedily between the storehouses and across the grassy headland toward the man.
They saw it before they caught up with the optio, as soon as they reached the area where the ground began to fall away down toward the cliffs. Ships. Dozens of dark, heavy ships, their huge rectangular sails unfurling as they watched, were making their way out toward the open sea, hundreds of jeering Gauls lining the rails and gesturing up at the Romans in the empty fortress.
Caesar, next to Fronto, stopped in his tracks, grinding his teeth in angry frustration.
“No.”
Fronto looked across at him.
“Brutus and the fleet can get them. Look… the triremes are already moving.”
The three men watched intently as other officers joined them at their vantage point. Behind them, three legions spread out across the stronghold, searching every inch.
Fronto found that he, too, had his teeth clenched as he watched the sea below. Despite the fact that the storm had died to a gentle drizzle, the sea still rose and fell dangerously, huge waves crashing against the rocks where they breached the surface. The Veneti galleys were moving slowly as yet, a mere hundred yards from the cliffs, their sails only just beginning to catch the wind, whereas Brutus’ ships, powered by banks of oars, were already tearing at high speed toward them.
“They can’t get away” Fronto noted as he watched. “There’s not enough time.”
Caesar nodded as he continued to peer down into the roiling waves in intent silence. Beside them, Carbo made a strange rumbling noise. Fronto turned, frowning, to look at his primus pilus. The man was shaking his head.
“What’s up?”
Carbo unstrapped his helmet and, removing it, mopped his brow.
“It’s not going to work. If the commander doesn’t pull his fleet back, they’re in trouble.”
