the rear of the distant Gallic force, a grey homogenous mass at this distance.
The other legionaries, whom he had allowed to go about their business, had begun to enter the various buildings around them, looting anything they could carry. Cantorix turned his gaze from the distant battle and glanced back down along the main thoroughfare toward the house where they’d so recently been kept. One of the legionaries left a doorway, staggering under the weight of his spoils and almost bumped into a companion, similarly burdened.
It would have been comic under other circumstances. The centurion, however, was too tense to smile. Each time he saw a figure within the walls of the oppidum, he had to frown for a moment, worrying whether it was truly one of his men, dressed Gallic style, or a stray local who had been left behind. The oppidum seemed, though, to have completely emptied, as the rebel army moved on their hated enemy. At least it appeared that the rebel Gauls had moved their women and children somewhere else and used this ‘city’ as a staging post for war, else the houses would still be packed with nervous non-combatant Gauls.
“Sir?”
He blinked and concentrated his gaze in the direction of the voice. One of the men was waving from a house a few doors down from their erstwhile cell.
Cantorix squinted.
The man was carrying a different burden to those of his mates; a body, draped across his arms and hanging limp, at least one limb mangled and beyond use, the horrible wounding evident even from up here. The figure was decked in a drab tunic that had once been red.
The centurion shook his head sadly. The officers had charged them to be on the lookout for a tribune from the Ninth by the name of Gallus that had been sent to these tribes months ago.
“Get him on a cart or a pallet. We’ll have to take him back to the officers when it’s all over. How long has he been dead?”
The man shrugged, a difficult manoeuvre under the weight of the body.
“Not long. Maybe a few days. He was messed up badly first, though.”
Again, the centurion shook his head. The barbarians had kept him alive all this time, torturing and beating him, keeping him in case he became of use, but the arrival of general Sabinus and his army had diminished the need for hostages and Gallus had become superfluous.
“Get him…”
His voice tailed off as his eyes had strayed casually back to the view over the parapet and widened. The centurion choked and scrambled to his feet.
“Drop everything! Legionaries of the Fourteenth, form on me!”
Without waiting for an answer, he leaped down the stairs that descended the wall’s inner face three at a time, dropping the last seven or eight feet, his knees bent against the impact.
He was gratified that, despite the unsavoury nature of his unit, the past year of service had drilled the necessity of discipline into the men and, without question, the legionaries had dropped their plunder and hurried to the open space before the gate.
“What is it, Centurion? We was only lootin’ the enemy. The general encourages that!”
Cantorix waved the comment aside as he stood, rubbing his jarred knee.
“Get that gate closed.”
“Sir?”
“The Unelli are on the way back! Get the sodding gate closed or you’re going to be knee deep in your own blood.”
As he shouted, the centurion was already scanning the area, picking out anything they might use to brace the huge wooden portal. Fortunately, the Unelli seemed to be somewhat lacking in keeping their streets tidy, and various broken timbers, long beams, shutters, and ramshackle animal pens littered the settlement.
As the legionaries rushed past him to close the gate, he grabbed one of them by the shoulder and gestured to him and three others.
“You four go get some beams and timber; biggest and strongest you can find and carry them back to the gate. We’ve got maybe five minutes before that lot get here.”
As the men ran off about their task, Cantorix turned to see the other ten men busy heaving the heavy gates closed, their shoulders to the timber, grunting and groaning as they pushed. Nodding with tense satisfaction, he strode across to them.
“Alright. You men: get those bars across and locked down. Idocus and Dannos, get running round the walls in both directions. I didn’t see any other gates, and I doubt there’s much, but we can’t ignore the possibility there’s another way in. Be quick, cause we’ll need you.”
The two men ran like hares along the inner face of the oppidum’s defences, searching for posterns or other main exits, and Cantorix took a deep breath. Four minutes, he thought as he made himself breathe calmly. The remaining eight men had easily manoeuvred two heavy oak bars across the gate and into their cradles, bars designed to protect the Unelli against the Romans… an irony not lost on the centurion.
“Alright. Two of you get up on that parapet. I want to know when they pass the quarter mile and around two hundred yards.”
As the force split once more, Cantorix nodded and rubbed his temples.
“Four more of you gather any stones or anything heavy or pointed you could drop on the enemy and fill some of these abandoned baskets. Get them up on the wall. You’ve got four minutes to shift as much ammunition as you can.”
As they ran off, the remaining four legionaries turned to him.
“Good” he said, rubbing his hands. “Now go find anything heavy and strong you can use to help brace the gates.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his tired eyes, he wished he’d felt relaxed enough during the previous night to have slept in their prison, like some of the more conscience-free of his companions. Exhaustion was no good in a soldier, but in a commander during a battle it was potentially catastrophic and therefore unforgivable. He turned to see the four men he’d sent off first approaching with a long, heavy oak beam, struggling under the weight.
“Good. Let’s get it into position.”
He hurried over to help the men and between the five of them, they manoeuvred the beam into position.
“It ain’t gonna hold against a push, sir.”
Cantorix nodded and pointed at the floor, drawing a line in the dust with the toe of his boot.
“Dig a pit over a foot deep there and when you’ve done, slide the beam across and jam it into the hole. That’s about as braced as we can get. I’d like to see anyone short of
As the four men lowered the end of the beam to the dust and began to dig the pit with their heavy, Gallic, knives, Cantorix turned to see the others carrying various beams and poles.
“Follow this example. Let’s have that gate harder to move than the walls either side.”
A voice above called something and the centurion looked up, holding his hands out, palms up while he shrugged.
“Quarter mile or less” the soldier shouted again.
“Shit.”
He fretted again, rubbing his face as the legionaries hauled rocks and chunks of timber up to the wall top, dug small pits and sunk great beams into them. Time was hardly on their side.
“Can you see what’s happened up at the camp?”
There was a brief pause and then the legionary shouted again.
“Looks like the enemy are panicked. Our lads are chasing them down, but slower. I think the three legions are all on the way behind them, but one bunch is way off at the back.”
“Probably ours” muttered Cantorix. “Alright. Get ready. We’ll have to hold this gate for about five minutes. After that the enemy’ll be in enough trouble with the rest of the lads pounding on them without worrying about us.”
He shook his head.
