Gallia Invicta

“It’s the lads!” he cried out suddenly and shook the man next to him by the shoulder. The legionary looked up in surprise and then grinned.

A moan of dismay flowed through the crowd of desperate Veneti as they saw the advancing lines of bronze and iron and red wool closing on them from both sides, filling the wide space between the high wall and the outer rampart and falling on the panicked rear of the fugitives.

Down in the press, the hare-lipped grin of Centurion Cordius turned to the centurion of the second whom he had rushed to support, relieved at the shouted news of reinforcements.

But the other centurion wasn’t there. The headless body lay on the ground next to him, blood pooling around the medallions and torcs on his chest harness. Cordius sighed and looked back up just in time to see a Veneti warrior gripping the head by the hair, grinning at him with a raised sword.

A thousand Gauls couldn’t have blocked Cordius’ path as he bore down to take his revenge on the grinning warrior.

Atenos rolled his shoulders, allowing the mail shirt to settle into a more comfortable position. Glancing off to his left, he did a quick mental calculation. There were perhaps thirty of his men left. They had lost more than half the century on the jetties, a fact that was equally testified to by the sight of his remaining men having to grip onto one another to prevent slipping on the bloody slick that covered the timber, and plunging into the cold bay.

Heavy casualties, but the number of Veneti dead on the decking or bobbing around in the water made him feel a little better about it. As they stood on the empty ends of the jetties, all they could do was to watch helplessly as the Veneti fleet moved slowly off into the bay, unfurling their sails in preparation to catch whatever wind there was and take flight to their next fortress.

Would Caesar be angry? Probably, but then Atenos had seen angry generals before as both mercenary and war captive. Strangely, he found himself more worried about disappointing his legate than angering one of the most powerful men in Rome. Interesting, given that he’d only served under Fronto for a few weeks and had only known him at all for a little over a month.

He looked over his shoulder and squinted at the defences back on land.

Centurion Cordius had done a good job with the resources he had: One jetty had collapsed entirely at the land end, leaving a twenty foot gap over the chilly water. Another was in fragments, a broken cart wedged among the piles that supported the broken walkway. Even the third, though intact, was largely blocked by two more broken carts. The six other vehicles jutting from the water’s surface told of the effort required to do such damage.

The fighting around the gate had looked bad the last time he’d checked, the red of Roman lines seriously outnumbered by the multi-hued Veneti garb. Now, however, he could see the glinting lines of the other legions closing on the rear of the mass. Good. At least the day wasn’t a total loss. Caesar would have his meaningful victory.

“Centurion!”

He turned to the legionary who had called him, standing at the edge of the jetty, crimson from head to foot with Gallic blood. The man was pointing and Atenos followed his gesture, gazing out across the water until he broke into a wide grin.

The wide, square sails of Roman triremes and quinqueremes were clearly visible beyond the Veneti ships.

The fleet had arrived.

Chapter 11

(Quintilis: In the bay below Darioritum, on the Armorican coast)

Brutus glanced across at the trierarch of the Aurora.

“Think we can contain them all?”

The captain clearly registered the doubt in his voice and equally clearly shared it.

“Most of them, sir. All the ships near the port are still slow and wallowing. They’ve not got their sails full yet and we can run circles round them so long as we can keep them from getting round us. There have got to be fifty or so ships out here already under full sail, though. Look: they’re already pulling out to our left to pass us.”

Brutus nodded thoughtfully. He hadn’t come all this way in good weather at last just to be bypassed again. The Veneti already under sail had the edge at the moment and would be round behind the Romans in minutes.

“Then we’ll have to split the fleet. Send out the signals. Have the first six squadrons surround the fleet at the port. They should be able to do that easily enough.”

The trierarch looked less than certain.

“Sixty ships against more than twice that number, sir?”

Brutus smiled.

“Ah, but they have them trapped. With the army at the port, it shouldn’t take much to get a surrender from them. It’s these other vermin I’m more concerned with.”

The trierarch cast his gaze soberly over the four dozen heavy Veneti ships making their way toward the other side of the immense bay. With the numerous small islands that spotted the huge expanse, it was of prime importance to keep the Veneti fleet in view, or they could quickly land any number of refugees on one of these isolated isles and tracking them down later would be near impossible.

Brutus frowned. It would take the fleet about an hour at full speed to reach the narrow entrance to the bay from Darioritum. Given the trierarch’s estimate of the difference in speed between the two fleets, the enemy could be there almost ten minutes before the Romans, though that was based on estimates from a day with strong winds. The current occasional gusts would work against the Veneti, especially loaded down with refugees as they were. Five minutes then. That was enough to keep them in sight.

He nodded to himself and then turned back to the trierarch.

“And split the remaining four squadrons. I want them in a wide cordon as we chase down the fleeing ships. When they turn to deal with us I want to be able to close the line like a net.”

The captain, his face still registering his lack of confidence in the plan, saluted and strode across to the naval signifer, standing near the long halyard that ran from the main sail along fully half the length of the hull. As Brutus watched, willing extra speed from his men, the trierarch relayed the commands and the signifer began selecting his crimson flags and running them up the line in view of the other ships.

Brutus heaved a sigh of relief when, almost instantly, the commanders of the other squadrons’ flagships relayed the signals to their own vessels and within moments the entire fleet broke up into smaller groups to tend to their individual assignments.

Tensely, as the Aurora began to turn back toward the west, he watched the majority of the fleet bear down on the helpless vessels at the dockside and offered up a prayer to Neptune that his prediction would hold.

Many Gauls might have been tempted to fight to the death; to the last man. They had seen it happen time and again over the last few years. If the Veneti fell into that category then the six squadrons would have trouble and might not even be able to hold them. The fact that the Veneti had fled every potential engagement with the Roman forces, however, suggested that they had their survival in mind at all times and, given the presence of four legions watching them from the shore and a determined fleet blockading them in, they would have to be insane to do anything other than surrender.

No. That part of the fleet was no longer an issue, Neptune willing.

It was the fifty or so ships already straining to pull ahead that were the problem.

They were trying to flee and that would not happen. And when it didn’t happen, they would have no choice but to turn on the Romans and try to fight their way clear.

Already the Aurora had come about, along with the remaining thirty five ships of these four squadrons, five having been lost to conditions out at sea over the past few months. Brutus watched with satisfaction as the pursuing flotilla spread out into a wide line, staggered to allow plenty of room for each vessel.