The plan had quickly passed down the line of archers and the wicker assault screen was left a flaming mass, surrounded by the bodies of the warriors that had borne it.
The morning wore on with regular small attempts to scale the hill. Those coming up the southern slope above the river found themselves easy targets for the defenders, who saved their missiles and dropped rocks down the steep escarpment. The brave few who took either east or west slope in full view of the walls on open ground learned quickly what Rome already knew about the quality of the slingers bred on the Balearic islands, and those who picked their way carefully through the wooded northern slope struggled as they reached the top only to be met with arrows.
As the sun began its lazy arc down toward the rear of the oppidum, Fronto once again found Decius, standing at the edge of the woods on the northern slope, where he could still make out the hordes of Belgae on the eastern plain.
“Afternoon, Decius.”
“Sir.”
“I think it might be time to start putting together your surprise. We’ve not had an assault from any side in an hour and there’s a lot of movement and organisation going on down below.”
“You think the big push is coming?”
Fronto nodded.
“I don’t know how big, but as big as we’re likely to see. That’s only a tenth of the whole Belgic army down there but, when you think about it, Bibrax is a relatively small target. I don’t think it can be that important to the Belgae or they’d have come here in all their glory. If it was only worth a small vexillation of their army, then I doubt their leaders will commit all thirty thousand or so. We’ll probably see half of them at most. If the cost of this place is too steep, they won’t buy.”
Decius nodded.
“Still… that’s going to be about five to one. We’ll have to work to make the price too high.”
“It’s all about keeping them at arm’s length. Up close these auxilia will be pretty useless. It’ll be down to the Remi to save the day then. Right!”
He took a deep breath.
“Let’s get to work.”
* * * * *
In retrospect, Fronto had to express admiration for the timing of the Belgae’s attacks. They had estimated the time taken to assault all four slopes of the oppidum and had adjusted accordingly, so that the defenders could not draw men from one sector to help defend another. The first assault to be launched was the northern offensive, hampered by the thick woods and undergrowth of that slope. The second, perhaps fifteen minutes later, was the steep incline above the river. Finally, the east and west assaults, the easiest terrain, began simultaneously five minutes later.
Fronto, commanding the main gate and the eastern sector above the camp of the Belgic army gritted his teeth and hoped that these often-overlooked and unsung auxiliary prefects were worth their pay grade, and more besides.
A quick glance back down the slope and he shook his head. The main block of the assault was coming at him; somewhere around seven or eight thousand men, all told. He’d seen a legion with its auxiliary contingent many times and that was roughly what he was looking at here: the Belgic equivalent of a standard Roman field army. If the Belgae had been innovative thinkers, Fronto and his men wouldn’t have stood a chance. If what people said about the Belgae’s fierceness was true, only their own ingenuity would save them.
He turned to look at his small groups of defenders in position along the walls, shading his eyes from the sun that sank over his left shoulder toward the now thinning treetops of the oppidum. Perhaps six hundred men, including the Remi sword and spear bearers that stood interspersed with his auxiliaries.
Shit.
Odds of more than ten to one were enough to put the wind up even the most seasoned commander. He smiled a grim smile.
Still, large numbers was no offset for monumental stupidity. They may be brave, but they were also foolhardy.
He watched the front line of the Belgae. Like most barbarian armies he’d had to deal with, the Spanish included, the Belgae gathered in large crowds, excited themselves into a frenzy of bloodlust and a need for personal glory, and then poured towards the enemy like a burst dam in no semblance of order and with no real plan of attack.
Seven thousand men or more in a heaving sea of violent lust pouring up the hill.
With a weary smile, Fronto turned to the Remi warrior nearby and made throat-slashing motions.
The man nodded and gabbled off in his own dialect with other warriors. Fronto turned back to the massed charge on the slope and watched with interest.
There was a crunch to his left and a bang, followed quickly by similar noises to his right. More noises sprang up from both sides and he nodded sadly.
It had taken a little over an hour for his men, along with the Remi, to saw down six of the beech trees at the far side of the oppidum; the southwest, out of sight of the main force. They had been stripped of branches and cut down to lengths of around twenty feet before being transported across the village and raised up onto the walls. There they had stood for the last ten minutes, just out of sight of the attackers below, until the signal was given.
The Remi warriors along the walls braced themselves on the stonework and heaved at the logs until they began to rock. A little more leverage and they tipped from the wall and began their lethal descent down the slope.
The Belgae experienced instant panic. Those at the front turned and tried to push their way back into their own ranks. Some men at the edge of the assault manage to get clear, leaping to the left or right to avoid the horrifying assault from above.
The first tree trunk hit the front line of warriors, already in chaos and trying to push in half a dozen different directions. The momentum after thirty feet of slope carried the trunk over and through the army with an almost unstoppable force. Some men were broken in half while others were crushed or driven into the ground, their limbs torn from them by the force. They had no chance to deal with the carnage before the second, third and fourth logs hit the mass.
By now, the assault had failed utterly. The charge had died in the opening moments as the remaining tree trunks hit each other and bounced around like some sort of toy, creating an unpredictable rolling hell than flattened all before it. One of the last few logs pitched as it struck something and leapt into the air, carried by its downward motion, plummeting down into the centre of the fleeing mass.
It was possible the remaining warriors might form up and try once more but, given the phenomenal losses they’d just suffered, Fronto doubted the warriors would charge again, even if their chieftains ordered it.
Prefect Galeo rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he watched the Belgae at the base of the slope on their way up, howling like wild dogs. Galeo had been in the service all his adult life and had, he believed, reached as high as he was likely to reach. The only promotion an auxiliary prefect could look forward to was perhaps as a tribune among the legions, but most auxiliary units were commanded by their native leaders. Only the longstanding units like his had reached such a point of permanency that they attracted a Roman officer. And they were then pretty much forgotten. In the field, Caesar’s staff only noticed the job done by the auxiliary cavalry.
He grunted. Look at that young ponce Ingenuus! Barely out of children’s clothes and now commanding Caesar’s bodyguard. But nobody even saw the Numidian archers or their commander.
Another grunt. Today was a chance. Make or break, as they say. A good job here and he might get commended and tagged for higher things.
And yet despite the fact that he’d been given the western slope; the best position to defend, his damned poor stagnant brain couldn’t come up with anything useful to help him. His wits had atrophied from so long babysitting these Africans that when legate Fronto had asked the officers for suggestions to even the odds, while the others had been coming up with clever little ideas, Galeo had just stayed quiet, flapping his lips worriedly like a stunned fish. Fronto had even frowned at him.