The arrows and stones coming from the trees began to slacken. Fewer and fewer bombarded the skirmisher cohort. The auxiliary troops seemed to gain spirit from this, as if their own volleys were finally having effect. At least, that must have been the impression of their Roman officer who waved his sword aloft encouraging his men to keep up the intensity of their barrage.
"Why do they put the fools in charge of the auxiliaries," Balbus muttered, and then called to one of his staff officers. "Sextus, ride to Caesar, and tell him we are engaged here. Tell him we will take position on the right. Tell him I recommend the legions take position to our left as they arrive. Ride, now! And hurry, damn you!"
The officer saluted and then galloped back up the road, disappearing amongst the eagle and front rank of the next legion in the column that was just now rounding a bend of hedgerows.
Balbus then turned to another of his staff officers and pointed to the auxiliary cohort that stood alone on the plain on the other side of the river. "Go tell that idiot to get his men back to this side of the river!"
As the officer kicked his mount into a gallop down the hill, Balbus silently hoped it was not too late. The Belgae had skirmishers in that wood, of that there was no doubt. But that many skirmishers all alone was not likely. There had been only a handful of Belgic horsemen before. Were there more still hidden?
His answer came an instant later when he heard a great cry from across the river. As Balbus watched, the distant woods that had concealed the enemy skirmishers now erupted with a horde of mounted warriors. These were not mere scouts. These were the Belgic nobles, bedecked in an assortment of mail shirts and helmets, holding spears before them, and mounted on muscled steeds. Only the nobles could afford such armory and fine beasts. There were hundreds of them, and they had been well-trained. They instantly fanned out in perfect order until they presented a single front of storming hoofs and spearpoints. As the charge bore down on the auxiliary cohort, the lightly armed Cretans and Balearics lost every trace of order. They broke and fled, ignoring the wild castigations of their officer. Alone, save for a few stalwarts, the Roman officer attempted to slash with his sword at the indomitable wave of horse flesh, but he was instantly trampled under hoof with the rest of his loyal men, hardly breaking the stride of the charging warhorses.
Balbus's officer had not yet made it to the river, and seeing the now futile nature of his task he turned in the saddle to look back at his general. Balbus waved for him to return. There was no point now. The fleeing auxiliaries could not possibly escape. Their fool of an officer had taken them too far up the hill, and now they would pay for his incompetence. The enemy horsemen overtook them, and they died. They died in clusters, and individually. Spears driven at full speed and with perfect precision skipped past the small shields slung on their backs and tore into their exposed necks and buttocks. Spears dipped and rose again with red tips all over the field. Some of the horsemen cast away their bloody spears and continued the killing with long swords of unpolished iron. The swords glimmered as dull streaks against the green plain. They swiped and flashed across the field, lopping off heads and shattering skulls in a killing frenzy that only ended when all that remained were whooping horsemen and scattered corpses.
"Move the line to the right!" Balbus corrected one of his tribunes who was directing the legion to form into three lines of battle. "The slope, Publius! Take advantage of the slope! Make ample room for the Twelfth."
Balbus could see that the Belgic cavalry was pulling up at the river's edge, and he had fully expected that. They numbered perhaps four hundred, and they would be foolish to cross the river with a four thousand-man legion waiting on the other side. Balbus’s legion sat atop a low hill that stood to the right of the road and gently sloped down to the riverbank. To the right of the hill stood a dense marsh that was unpassable, and Balbus chose to use this natural barrier as the extreme right anchor of the Roman line.
As the centurions of the Seventh finalized the order of their lines, the Twelfth legion, a relatively new legion comprised mostly of Italians, filed off of the road and into the field, moving at the double-quick to form on the Seventh's left. That made Balbus feel better than he had a few moments ago, but the bold nature of the enemy cavalry had him worried. They did not seem concerned in the least that they faced a force ten times their own. Balbus and his staff were out several paces ahead of the formed legion, and the general was easy to identify in his scarlet cloak and red plumed helmet. Some of the Belgic horsemen allowed their horses to drink from the gently flowing waters, while others shouted at Balbus, inviting him to send more troops across the river to die.
The jeering horsemen did not concern Balbus. But what did bother him was the fact that there were so many of them. Where there was that much heavy horse, there was bound to be infantry nearby. His eyes again scanned up the grassy slope where the bodies of archers and slingers dotted the landscape, and finally settled on the woods. Those woods covering the upper half of the hill could hide a lot of spearmen. He half-expected to see spear bands emerging from the trees at any moment. But instead, the Belgic horse wheeled their mounts around and rode casually back up the hill, disappearing into the woods from which they came. Had it not been for the scatter of bodies on the far slope, the other side of the river would have appeared as peaceful as it had when Balbus first saw it. But he was not fooled by it. A threat hung in the air, as thick as the mildew permeating from the marsh.
He checked the position of the sun, and then looked back up the road. Had his messenger reached Caesar yet? Would the other legions be coming on at the double-quick? As he watched the tree line on the far side of the river, he silently hoped so.
XXIII
"I see no baggage!" the mail-armored chieftain said curtly, his beard and face caked in the blue woad. A figurine of a bird protruded from the top of his bronze helmet and bobbled whenever he spoke. "I count four legions that have already taken the field. My men are growing restless, Boduognatus."
By that he meant nervous.
"Have patience, Commius," the Nervii chieftain said calmingly.
Boduognatus and Commius both peeked out through the fresh spring leaves hanging from the tangle of branches. They stood upon a crude wooden platform in one of the towering trees atop the tallest hill on the north side of the river. The platform had been constructed well before the arrival of the Romans, so that Boduognatus could view the entire battlefield and coordinate the attack of the combined Belgic tribes.
"When will you give the order?” Commius pressed him. ”Caesar’s entire army will be on the field by the time we see the baggage train, and I’ll have legions across from me."
Commius was the chieftain of the Atrebates tribe. His fifteen thousand spears were concealed in the forest below the hill on the west side of the road. They made up the extreme right of the five mile long ranks of hidden Belgic warriors. The Belgic army was concealed in the forest that ran along the north bank of the river. It was not ideal concealment, for there was a small space of open ground between the tree line and the water’s edge. Boduognatus would have preferred it if the tree line ran right up to the river, but that could not be helped. This place was still the most ideal spot for an ambush, since the Roman army, arriving on that narrow road that ran through the hedgerows on the south side of the river, was forced to file onto the sloping bank one unit at a time – just as the legions were doing now.