Gallia Invicta

and Brutus watched with fascinated horror as waves of Veneti poured over the edge of their vessels onto the Aurora’s deck, like violent, screaming waterfalls.

The staff officer stood close to the steering oars and the trierarch, watching the attack with a glassy stare. The enemy that leapt from the two ships were not what he had been expecting. There were traditional Celtic warriors among them, certainly, but this attack was something different; something sad and horrifying. The vast majority of the boarding enemy were women, children and old men, wielding whatever weapons they could find aboard their vessel, down to even sharpened sticks.

These were no Gallic army, but the desperate refugees of Darioritum, and yet they launched themselves into a violent attack that would end with them all dead, just in a last effort to destroy the Roman flagship and ruin the pride of Caesar’s fleet.

Madness.

And yet it looked very much as though they might succeed. The Aurora’s accompanying vessels were even now reversing their oars and moving slowly back to the fight but, even when they arrived alongside the enemy vessels, they would not be in a position to help the flagship until they had first secured the two Veneti vessels, the former being trapped and squeezed between them.

The Roman crew were largely well-trained and well-armed, particularly the marines, a detachment drawn from the Ninth, but experience and equipment was only of so much use against odds of at least five men to one, which was Brutus’ estimate as he watched.

The last of the Veneti leapt down into the fray, their own vessels now abandoned to fate. The commander watched in amazement as the melee seethed across the deck ahead. The sheer number of people aboard the Aurora was making it impossible to see how things were going. There were so many bodies heaving back and forth that hardly an inch of deck space was visible. And the fighting was spreading.

Spreading his way.

Brutus blinked. The far end was already secured, with little or no activity around the ship’s bow. Yet there had been but a moment ago. And now the fighting was getting dangerously close.

The young officer shook his head in realisation as he drew the sword from the expensive, decorative scabbard at his waist. Not only were the Veneti targeting the Roman flagship for a symbolic victory, they were well aware of where the ship’s commanders would be and what a Roman officer looked like.

The fighting was getting ever closer and the bow was now empty simply because the Veneti were trying to reach Brutus and the trierarch. A really symbolic action if they could defiantly present their conquerors with the head of the fleet’s commander.

Close by, the trierarch drew a blade and stepped toward him, the celeusta joining them. A group of four marines broke from the fighting and ran toward them, forming up in front as a small shield wall.

Brutus closed his eyes for a moment and offered up a silent prayer to Juno. For all the expensive training he had, he’d very little experience in actually using his sword in combat. Staff officers rarely found themselves in life or death situations. People like Fronto and Balbus, who were just as at home in personal combat as they were on a horse giving out orders, were a rarity even in the modern army. Brutus was a strategist, not a gladiator.

Opening his eyes once again in response to a loud, guttural cry, he saw the first of the Veneti burst through the mass toward them. The action was still moving this way and the Roman forces were clearly still horribly outnumbered, a thin line of armed oarsmen fighting madly to hold the Veneti away from the stern.

The first man who broke out had been quickly and efficiently put down by one of the marines from the Ninth and Brutus looked down at the spindly figure of the old man. Ridiculous. The Gaul must have been a sixty year old civilian and he had attacked Roman legionaries with a belaying pin!

There was little time for more than a passing glance, though, as three more men burst out of the press. This time, two were civilians, but the third was a warrior, armoured in mail and wielding both a heavy axe and a stolen Roman gladius.

The three attacked the marine shield wall and Brutus watched in horror as the big warrior felled one of the marines instantly with a double blow. Another Roman disappeared to the deck beneath two young Veneti lads who combined their attack to butcher the screaming legionary with their daggers. Quickly, the remaining two marines reacted to the situation and once more got things under control. The legionaries dealt with the warrior and then leaned down and swiftly dispatched the two young men, though not quickly enough to save their compatriot, who lay on the deck in a spreading crimson pool, stabbed a dozen times and staring lifelessly at the sky.

Brutus rolled his shoulders. Was this to be their fate? Lying untended on a deck, staring at the Gods and testament to the rebellious nature of the Gauls?

Four more of the Veneti lunged through and, as they did, the remaining cordon of Roman sailors that had been keeping the fight away from the officers broke, the whole screaming melee flooding toward them.

Brutus steadied himself. The Veneti were now coming in force. The five men, two legionaries and three naval officers, retreated to the heavy rear rail of the ship, the last refuge. Among the bellowing Gauls running toward them were occasional Roman sailors or legionaries, hacking madly at the men, women and children around them, largely ignored by their victims who, in a lust driven by desperation, fixed their sights on the officers.

The trierarch watched the oncoming flood of Veneti and turned to his commander.

“Get overboard, sir.”

“What?” Brutus stared at him.

“We’re dead men now. Even if the other crews are on their way, they’ll never be in time. You need to go overboard now.”

Brutus shook his head. He may not be prepared for, or any real use in, a fight to the death, but he was damned if a Roman fleet commander was going to be seen fleeing the scene. Better to die honourably than to run away.

“Just pay attention to them, not me.”

The trierarch held the officer in his gaze for a long moment. He’d always assumed that he’d die aboard a ship and at least they’d won the war, even if they lost this particular battle. The rest of the squadron would take their revenge on these bastards, but they couldn’t be allowed to take the head of the commander first.

Brutus set himself in the stance he’d seen Fronto take, preparing for the clash.

He was totally unprepared when the trierarch smashed a sword pommel into his bared head, driving the consciousness from him instantly. Morpheus enfolded him in his arms and together they sunk into blackness.

The trierarch halted the officer’s fall and gestured to the celeusta. The rowing officer nodded, dropping his sword and grabbing Brutus, hauling him easily up. Turning his back on the attacking Gauls, he heaved the officer over the rail and watched as the young man plummeted heavily into the water, the cuirass pulling him instantly beneath the waves.

Moments later, the celeusta hit the water, his buoyancy guaranteed by his lack of armour, and he kicked down into the cold deep until his hands touched the cold steel of the officer’s chest plate. Looping his arms beneath Brutus’ shoulders, he kicked for the surface.

As he broke into open air, gasping, he wrestled with difficulty with the man’s shoulder and side straps until the cuirass came away and disappeared into the deep. A small rivulet of blood bloomed on the officer’s head where he had been struck by the trierarch.

The celeusta looked back up toward the deck above. The sounds of violent melee were clearly audible, but his fight was over for now. His job was to get the commander to safety.

Turning his back on the Aurora as its last Roman occupant fell to a scything blow, the celeusta secured his grip on Brutus and began to swim for the shore.

Chapter 12

(Quintilis: Below the headlands at the entrance to the bay of Darioritum)

White light…

Painful white light…

The taste of bile and salt…