Read Marius' Mules: Prelude to War for Free Online

where he could jab and thrust with his blade. His free hand, reaching up from his purse with the dupondius, slipped the coin into his mouth, beneath his tongue. After all, no one would do him the honour in a few moments’ time.
    His sword lanced out with all the professionalism of the other soldiers, despite his lack of martial experience, and when the first wound came it took him a couple of heartbeats to realise that he’d been struck, blood pumping from his savaged upper arm. He gritted his teeth and as he heard a cry of pain, looked up just in time to see a bloodied Bennacos tumble from the rafters, an enemy warrior at a hole in the thatch above laughing with victory and brandishing a crimson sword.
    It was over, then. Hopeless. The army would have no warning. If this was more than a simple revenge rising, then they stood every chance of suffering the same fate as the shattered legion of Cotta and Sabinus last winter.
    The second wound, he did notice, as he lost his hand and the glistening sword that had briefly become a natural extension of his arm plunged away into the darkness.
    A tear welled up in the corner of his eye and the legionary at his side suddenly disappeared under a dreadful blow from a powerful axe.
    Cita died in a manner befitting a Roman officer, coated in the blood of his enemies and denying them to the last, his brief command obliterated by the rage of the Carnutes. Even as the enemy hacked at him, defiling the body, a strange smile spread across his face. The coin had not dislodged. The ferrymen had come. No doom to wander Cenabum for Caius Fusius Cita, for his eternity lay in Elysium.
     
    * * *
     
    Cotuatus of the Carnutes, cousin of the wretched deceased and scourged Acco, stood in the ruins of the Roman depot, his blade running with blood, mud and gore spattered across him, and a glorious feeling of accomplishment and freedom coursing through his veins. It was done. The first blow struck. The fire-arrow that would signal the end of Rome and the retaking of his land had been loosed into the air for all of Gaul to see.
    ‘Glory this day, Cotuatus.’
    He turned to see his other cousin and co-commander of the war-band, Conconnetodumnus, stepping over bodies, a dripping axe in his hand.
    ‘We are the first, cousin. When the bards sing the tales of the day Rome died and the day Gaul rose, our names will be the first to be sung.’
    ‘I only wish we were moving on to take their cursed legions.’
    ‘Patience, cousin. Trust Vercingetorix. The man knows what he is doing. Even the druids bow to him. The legions will do nothing without their general, but will sit tight in their forts with no knowledge of what has happened here. By the time they know what has occurred, they will be cut off and that pig-pizzle Caesar will be trapped in his palace, cut off from his men.’
    ‘Still, I would take Agedincum had I the chance.’
    ‘I too. But we swore an oath to do as we were commanded. Be content that we have struck the first blow for freedom and with such overwhelming success and have word sent to Vercingetorix. Tonight, in Cenabum, we drink good beer and toast our victory and the doom of Rome!’
     
    * * *
     
    Darkness cloaked Cenabum and the charred ruins of the Roman outpost. The Carnute warriors, with the blessings of their leaders, had raided the Roman supplies of anything useful, retrieving their hard-farmed grain from the invader’s hand and eschewing the Roman weapons as womanish and small. The honoured dead had been carried out and laid in lines ready to be dealt with properly once the night had passed and the sun rose over a newly liberated Gaul. The Roman dead and their pet southerner servants had been heaped unceremoniously into a shallow ditch where they could rot in their own time.
    The leaders and great warriors of the war-band had entered Cenabum where they feasted on meats and fruits and bread taken from the Roman supplies and drank frothy Gallic beer. Others, who had fought like