He rolled onto his side, but that brought back the dull ache in his lower spine so, with a groan, he settled onto his back again. It was too warm, even this early in the day, to be covered up, and he lay there bare-chested and bare-footed, his tunic, cloak and boots, as well as his gold and bronzeware, lying on a purloined Roman chest nearby. With a sigh of pleasure, he folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes again, enjoying the tent’s dim interior, which kept the worst of the heat at bay.
And then, as he lay relaxing, his ears picked something out of the symphony of nature’s activity. It took his tranquil mind precious moments to discern the sound of an urgent voice among the strains of animal and bird life and the daily routine noises of the oppidum above.
For a moment, he didn’t believe what he was hearing, but there it was again: a shrill, desperate call. His ears focused on the call, blocking out all the other sounds as best he could.
Romans?
Scratching his head, he sat up — slowly, to save further back trouble — and blinked away the fuzziness of his rest. There were half a dozen shouts now, and close. Frowning, not quite sure what was going on, Teutomarus hauled himself to his feet with a long groan, whitening fingertips gripping a high cupboard to help him rise. He stood, stooped by his sore back, and slowly, carefully, straightened.
He tried to roll his shoulders to loosen up a little, but the movement hurt too much and he settled for at least standing straight. Were the voices shouting louder, or were they closer? Both?
Rubbing his chin and moustaches, he stepped gingerly to the door of his tent, his feet feeling every nuance of the soft grass beneath him. Still somewhat bleary, he threw back one flap of his tent door. His quarters were almost perfectly central in the long camp, half a mile along, and halfway between the stone wall and the oppidum’s rampart. And he had made sure the tent door faced south, partially to prevent the sun pouring in at any time of the day, and partially to afford him a view of the valley below…
…or of several thousand clattering, clanking, roaring and swearing legionaries charging across his camp. His eyes widened in shock. More and more were pouring over the undefended stone wall. Two legions? Three? Four? He could see the flag and even the eagle of one of them making straight for him, an ‘X’, which he knew meant ‘ten’ to the Romans. And they were already in the camp, swarming among the tents and supply dumps, some pausing to light torches, preparing to burn the place.
The Nitiobrige king found himself using language that his wife had almost succeeded in suppressing over their long years of marriage as he tried to decide what he could do. He needed his sword; his armour; his boots; something to eat and a lie down for preference…
What he actually had time for was to swear in a manner that would have his wife hitting him with a spoon and to run for his life. With a backward glance at the fine sword standing in the corner, which had been his father’s before him, Teutomarus ran from the tent door, his bare feet feeling every pebble and twig on the slope as the sun blasted his bare torso. His hand came round at a dreadful twinge to press on the sore spot at his back as he reached his horse, which was busy munching the few longer tufts of grass left here.
Nearby, a Roman officer, close to the ‘X’ standard, caught sight of him and ran towards him, half a dozen of his legionaries pelting alongside. The elderly king felt a moment of panic and, ignoring the sharp wrench across his lumbar region, bent double and wrenched out the iron piton that tethered his beautiful horse.
With a yelp of pain, he tried to straighten again, but discovered that his body would not allow him, limiting him once more to a stoop. With difficulty and pain, the old king grasped the reins and hauled himself up to the beast’s back. His saddle was in the corner of his tent too, and he hadn’t ridden bareback since his youth. Grasping the reins and whimpering, he tried to gee the beast up. His horse seemed to be having the same sort of morning as him, and it took a lot more effort than he was really willing to put in to get the beast moving.
The Roman officer was close now, his shining cuirass and red tunic bright in the morning sun, as was the fine, decorative blade he held high.
The horse moved. To a walk. To a canter.
He was going to make it.
One of the legionaries around the officer paused for a moment, his arm coming back, and he cast a pilum with surprising accuracy. Teutomarus, craning with pain as he rode to keep his eyes on the attackers, saw the throw and jerked the reins desperately. The iron point scored a line along the horse’s flank in its passage, causing the animal to bolt. He barely registered the Roman officer berating the legionary for his throw for some reason. Instead, he held on tight as the animal’s instincts took it and its rider away from danger at breakneck pace, sending wave after wave of agony through his back. He was in a tremendous amount of pain, but he was alive and moving out of danger. Now to find his men, present a force against the Romans and get a signal to Vercingetorix as fast as possible.
* * * * *
Furius and Fabius roared with rage as they raced up the gentle grassy slope and across the Gallic camp. The Eighth had been given the left flank, closer to the west and to the Gauls who were currently massed on the twin hills nearby. The former tribunes, now centurions once more and carefully placed in charge of men who had not been present at the mess that had resulted in them being here, led their centuries with the fierce voracity of men with something to prove.
A number of Gauls remained in the camp, mostly the sick or injured, though there were a few hale and hearty types who put up as stiff resistance as could be expected given their scant numbers and the strength of the army pouring up the hillside towards them, swarming over the stone wall and flooding the camp, already torching tents.
There were signs, to the trained eye, that the Gauls had not been quite as complacent as the Romans had initially imagined: scrape marks where crates and barrels and sacks of goods had recently been removed to the safety of the oppidum walls, bald spots where pack animals had been grazing before they’d moved, discoloured patches of grass where supply tents had been taken down and shifted to safety. But still there were plenty of targets for the torches.
‘Spread out,’ bellowed Petreius, the Eighth’s primus pilus, making sure his legion covered as much ground and caused as much destruction as possible. His musicians began to blast out those commands but they were hard to discern, given similar tunes being blared by the other legions across the slope and the honking and farting of the Gallic carnyxes up on the oppidum in response to the Roman attack. The sheer web of conflicting notes from numerous sources was headache-inducing.
A small group of the camp’s occupants had caught sight of the men of the Eighth, grabbed their weapons and run back up the slope towards the oppidum wall. Where they planned to go was anyone’s guess, since in both directions other units from the Eighth were in evidence, going about their destructive work.
‘Come on,’ Fabius shouted across to Furius, pointing his sword in the direction of the dozen or so enemy warriors rushing for the oppidum’s rampart, towering above them. Two of the men glinted with gold and bronze, marking them as nobles or commanders among the enemy, and Fabius grinned, recognising the means of their redemption in the eyes of their commanders. The order had been to kill, not capture, but Fabius felt certain that there was an implicit clause in the case of enemy commanders. Surely they would be too valuable to Caesar to kill out of hand.
And so, as the Eighth spread throughout the western third of the camp, burning tents and supplies, killing the few men they came across and taking whatever they could, two centuries raced on towards the upper slopes.