S. Turney - Sons of Taranis

Varus coughed and swatted away the fly again. ‘Caesar, we cannot even get to that spring without opening ourselves up to their archers, slingers and rocks. We could conceivably reach it with a testudo without losing too many men, but the terrain is terrible and they have such an advantage. Fabius sent a half century close to the spring a week ago, to test the waters as it were, and the enemy sallied from the walls just far enough to destroy the advance. With the angle of the slope, the height of their walls and the range of their archers it was a slaughter. Of forty men, a dozen returned. They were unable to maintain a testudo in the presence of the enemy infantry, and as soon as they lowered shields to take on the warriors the archers put down more of them. There is the possibility that if we flood that slope with men, we might be able to take the spring, but we’d never hold it, and the loss of life would be crippling.’

Fabius nodded. ‘He’s right general. It’s unfeasible. There simply isn’t a way.’

Caesar gave the three men an infuriating, knowing smile. ‘I think there might be, gentlemen. I think there might.’

* * * * *

Atenos, primus pilus of the Tenth Legion, swung with his vine cane, connecting with the reinforced mail shoulder of the legionary, who jumped in shock and then stepped back, clutching the painful joint.

‘Get that helmet back on, soldier.’

‘Sir, the engineers are…’

‘The engineers are a law unto themselves, Procutus, and I am inclined to leave them to the business they know well. You are not an engineer, Procutus. You are a legionary , and a particularly dim-witted one at that. The ramp may be done but it could do with a bit more packing down and flattening yet. Now put your helmet back on and take those rocks to the slope, and if I see you doing anything other than hard work, or with one piece of kit out of place, I will be sending you up to the oppidum’s gate to ask them for a cup of wine. Do you understand me?’

The legionary saluted and scurried off, collecting his basket of rocks. Atenos watched his men work. There had been endless complaints – and not just from the legionaries, but from veteran centurions too – at having force-marched from Cenabum with just hard-tack rations only to arrive at Uxellodunon and be launched straight into hard labour.

But the general had waited impatiently six days for their arrival and was not going to put off his scheme for one morning longer. It was, perhaps, a little lacking in compassion to put the bulk of the newly-arrived Tenth and Eleventh to work on the ramp, but the Ninth and Fifth had joined them. The Fifteenth had been assigned to the engineers and had been churning out vineae, as well as a giant, ten storey siege tower, even before the new legions had arrived. The Eighth had been given the completed vineae and had created a series of safe, covered accesses to the higher slopes all around that more accessible north-eastern approach. The surroundings of Uxellodunon had been a hive of activity before the Tenth and Eleventh had arrived, but now it had intensified.

Cries up ahead confirmed that Atenos’ men were taking the latest in a long catalogue of batterings from the walls. An entire century of the Fifth had been given the huge, thick wicker shields and had formed a defence against the archers, but they were clearly proving inadequate. Every now and again, though the Gauls kept their arrow storm slow and careful to preserve ammunition, they would suddenly launch into a flurry and a dozen legionaries would be escorted back down the ramp either dead, with shafts jutting from crucial places, or gritting their teeth and hissing in pain, arrows wedged in limbs or shoulders, helmets wedged onto their heads with horrific dents from the thrown boulders.

Atenos peered up the ramp. The wicker shields moved and parted and then solidified once more. He could just make out the tall stone that marked the position of the enemy spring. This had better work. This morning alone, the Tenth had lost just shy of a hundred men, with twice that number injured. It was like target practice for the Cadurci up there. And the Tenth had got off lightly. Last night – the general had them working through the night too – the Ninth had lost one hundred and sixty two men, with more than three hundred injured. It was fast crippling the legions.

Still, they were nearly there, though what use the ramp and mound would be was beyond Atenos. Taking the spring was going to be costly and hard, even with the tower, but holding it against the enemy for any length of time, let along long enough to starve them out was just unfeasible. Last night the enemy had forayed and managed to take in three barrels of water while the Ninth were reeling from the assault.

‘What do you suppose they’re doing?’ murmured Decumius, his third centurion, pointing at the line of vineae off to their right. Several dozen legionaries were gathering beneath the shelter, not far from the works at the spring.

‘A gold coin to the man who can reveal the mind of Caesar,’ grunted Atenos.

‘Uh oh. Look out, sir. Senior officer approaching.’

Atenos turned back down the slope to see a tribune approaching, wearing a worried expression, probably due to his proximity to the enemy archers’ range markers. The two men saluted.

‘Centurions. Which of you is Atenos?’

The big Gaulish officer, senior centurion of the Tenth, took a pace forward. ‘That would be me, sir.’

‘Compliments of the general. He is pleased with your speed and asks whether the ramp is complete enough to take the tower? The sacerdos has read signs all morning and informs us that there will be a downpour this afternoon, so the general is of a mind to begin the action with all haste.’

Atenos sighed and nodded. ‘Apart from some dressing, it can be done, sir. There will be a couple of places near the top that might not be adequately compacted yet, but the engineers tell me that such things can be circumvented with the use of heavy planks. With enough manpower we’ll do it, sir.’

‘Good.’ The tribune peered up at the slope’s crest, where the arrows were now coming more sporadically once again. Legionaries were hobbling back down the slope and a few were being dragged on makeshift pallets. According to the engineers’ odd design, the ramp smoothed the more vertiginous sections of the slope, providing a steady ascent for the tower, but where it approached the spring, the ramp had been continued in the form of a wide mound in an arc around the spring, hiding it from the oppidum. The tribune smiled a condescending smile. ‘Well done, centurion. Just a little more now, eh, and we’ll have the damnable rebels on crosses, eh?’

Atenos nodded politely, catching Decumius rolling his eyes behind the tribune and biting down on a chuckle.

‘Good, good.’ Repeated the officer, one of the Fifth’s junior tribunes, he thought. A man who had been in Gaul for all of four months and already thought he knew everything. A politician. The word made Atenos want to spit. ‘Very well. Have your men take the wicker shields and form up defensively at the spring while those from the Fifth lay the planks you need on the ramp. The tower and the army will be along shortly to relieve you.’

Again Atenos saluted and waited for a count of ten until the officer was jogging back down the slope out of earshot.

‘Boys in men’s jobs.’

The other centurion laughed. ‘I’ll give you ten sesterces if we see him again until it’s all over and the arrows have stopped flying.’

‘Be kind, Decumius. He’s probably still adjusting to wearing a man’s toga.’

Another chuckle.

‘It’s all very clever,’ Decumius sighed, ‘and we’ll stop the bastards getting to the spring for a while, but every man in the army – barring chinless down there, anyway – knows we can’t hold it for more than a couple of days at most. Hours, probably.’