The dozen enemies were at the wall now, even as the legionaries hurtled after them. Fabius watched with a dawning of clarity as three ropes were lowered by unseen men above, atop the ramparts, the lower part of each rope looped and tied to provide a foothold. Even as the hundred and more legionaries closed on the scene, the first three men began to rise up the wall’s face, their feet in the loops, gripping tight as they were hauled upwards. Above them on the ramparts more native signallers were blaring out horrible melodies over the general din of the oppidum and work being undertaken to strengthen its walls, drowning out the more distant Roman musicians back down the slope.
Few legionaries had brought pila. The officers had given the order before the assault that only soldiers who felt comfortable carrying the bulky missile on the climb need do so, and most had left them back in camp to allow for an unencumbered ascent. Additionally, most of those who had bothered had cast them while crossing the wall in the initial surge. Yet one man in Furius’ century still carried his and the man paused, drawing back his arm and casting the pilum. The missile sailed true, striking one of the rising figures in the back. The fleeing Gaul cried out, his back arched around the weapon as his grip loosened and he fell from the rope.
Fabius almost laughed as he heard his friend turn to the pilum-throwing legionary, admonishing him. What if he’d hit the noblemen? ‘Make sure you take the two nobles alive,’ Furius yelled above the din and chaos as Fabius concentrated on the enemy group ahead. ‘I don’t care about the rest,’ Furius went on, ‘but those two come back with…’
The centurion’s voice trailed off, and Fabius had to turn his head considerably to see what had happened, his missing left eye narrowing his field of vision.
He lurched to a halt, his men still running past him.
Furius was standing, still waving with his sword as if berating his men, apparently not even noticing the wet crimson shaft of the arrow protruding from his throat-apple. The flights had prevented the missile passing straight through his neck, becoming lodged in his spine at the back.
Fabius felt his blood run cold as his old friend turned slowly towards him, a look of utter incomprehension spreading across his face, trying to look down and see what had happened, but the motion impossible as the arrow kept his jaw up. The mortally wounded centurion tried to call over to his friend, but all that came out was a gobbet of blood. Furius frowned as his sword fell from suddenly limp fingers and he collapsed to his knees, his chin bouncing off the arrow shaft with the movement.
He tried to shake his head in dismay, but it wouldn’t move. The dying centurion’s soldiers were now pulling to a halt in distress, not sure what to do.
‘Bastards,’ snarled Fabius with a vicious edge and, tearing his eyes from his stricken friend, pointed at the wall. ‘Get the fuckers!’ he bellowed to the men of both centuries. A dozen paces away, Furius, finally succumbing to the dreadful wound, toppled forward, where he lay face down with his legs kicking out spasmodically.
Somewhere above the din of battle and destruction and the thunder of his pulse in his ears, Fabius could vaguely hear the sound of a cornicen blowing calls to the legions. It mattered not. His men, and those of Furius, were now at the wall, stabbing and smashing at the Gauls as they attempted to flee. Two of the enemy were now two-thirds of the way up the wall and still rising. The third rope had been lowered again, and one of the nobles was struggling onto it as the men of the Eighth hacked away at his guards.
‘Fabius!’
He turned, his face pale and stony, to see Petreius, the primus pilus, waving at him.
‘That was the call to fall back.’
‘No.’ He’d heard a call, but hadn’t been able to hear precisely what command it carried. Not that it mattered to him at this point.
Petreius jogged over. ‘Don’t be stupid, man. We’ve done what we came to do. Now come on.’
‘No.’ Fabius turned his back on his commander, who raised his voice over the clamour.
‘Retreat, centurion. That’s a direct order.’
His words fell like droplets of water from the back of Fabius as the man ran on for the wall, unheeding.
’Shit,’ sighed Petreius, watching the vengeful veteran heading for the oppidum wall where his men were busy killing the last of the fleeing Gauls. For a moment, the primus pilus dithered. There were other blasts now, and not from Roman instruments. He couldn’t afford to wait. No one could. The Gauls were coming back.
Turning, he spotted his second centurion watching him intently.
‘Get the rest of the legion back away, out of here.’ As the second centurion saluted and began confirming the order to fall back among his men and the other centuries as best he could, realising he would not be able to rely on cornu calls in the din, Petreius took a deep breath and waved his own century on after the two at the wall.
The legionaries, weary from the climb and suffering the extreme effects of the heat in current conditions, shouldered their burden with fortitude and slogged on up the slope after the wayward Fabius and his men. Petreius cast a brief look at the still form of Furius as they passed, taking in the sight with mixed feelings. The man had been a veteran and clearly a daring soldier, but he had been unpredictable and carried a reputation for disobedience, and Petreius had argued against the man’s transfer in the first place. It was looking distinctly as though the man’s friend was cast from a similar mould, too.
At the wall, Fabius watched as his men dispatched the last of the locals, two legionaries trying desperately to slash at the noble on the third rope, who was just out of their reach.
‘Testudo!’ Fabius yelled at the top of his voice. While the majority of the men looked back in confusion or kept trying to catch the rising noble with their blades, nine or ten men reacted with the discipline bred into them and hunched down, bringing their shields up into a temporary roof.
Without pause, Fabius ran and jumped, landing on top of the testudo and racing across three shields with steady feet as the men beneath tried to keep formation under his weight. At the last step, the centurion leapt into the air, his sword lashing out even as his arm reached for the rope.
His gladius sank into the small of the Gallic noble’s back. His free hand missed the rope, but grasped the Gaul’s shoulder, and he clung tight to the thick wool of his tunic. The man screamed at the pain, arching, his fingers slipping from the rope.
For a desperate moment — a heartbeat, two at the most — Fabius was in the air, clinging to the stricken Gaul. But somehow his hand found purchase on the cable and he clung on with all his strength as the nobleman fell with a thud to be finished off by the legionaries below. The rope was still rising, the Gauls above oblivious to the fact that the burden on it was now a Roman and not their own noble. Hurriedly, Fabius dug his foot into the loop and held tight, readying his blade for the moment he reached the top.
Furius was gone. But Fabius was about to be the first man on the walls of Gergovia. His friend was gone, but he would be buried with a corona muralis!
* * * * *
Cavarinos raced alongside Lucterius and Vercingetorix, his horse’s hooves pounding as the three commanders raced ahead of the Gallic force. Upon hearing the call of the Carnyx that had come from a musician of the Nitiobriges, the leaders had realised too late that the gleaming legion in the woods and the supply wagons had been naught but a ruse. Those same Nitiobriges, presumably urged on by their king, who had remained at the oppidum, were now racing along Gergovia’s southern rampart and making for the point where the Romans were still fighting in small groups. Most of the legionaries were on the retreat now, making their way back towards the camp below, though with considerably less order than Cavarinos was used to seeing.