But the leaders were beyond them now, already at the water’s edge and ploughing down into the ford. Varus urged his mount on, pushing through the water, targeting the centre of the ford and praying to Fortuna and Mars both that he had calculated correctly.
As he forced his way forward, he watched intently the party of eight warriors, including their noble or chief, wading out into water that reached above their knees. They were strong and fit and were making surprisingly good headway, considering the difficulty. But Varus had been accurate with his estimates. Even as he felt the horse beneath him move faster and easier, he saw the water’s surface gradually receding down his legs, past his shins, his feet and then below the horse’s belly, freeing the animal up to move more easily. The rise to the ford, formed of years of pebbles, sand and mud carried down by the current and drifting up against the crossing.
Behind him, he could hear the eager shouts of his men, gleeful that his gamble was paying off and that they had survived the deeper water with no trouble and would now reach the mid-point of the ford before the fleeing enemy.
Varus watched the Gauls come to the same conclusion and despite their already surprisingly fast pace across the river, still they managed to pick up speed, slogging through the water like Titans, desperate to get ahead of Varus and his men. The far bank presented only a very short grassy slope before the valley side rose sharply, covered with woodland and undergrowth. If the enemy leaders reached that treeline they were as good as lost. Cavalry were less than useless in forests.
Once again the enemy leader – Drapes he presumed – gave a command and five of the eight refugees turn and sloshed back through the water, drawing their blades and preparing to stop Varus’ pursuit.
‘Oh no you bloody don’t.’
With a gesture of his own, Varus sent his own men against those five while he recalculated, veering slightly left and running along almost parallel with the ford. His horse was faster in the water than the men on foot and he quickly outpaced those five who were trying to stop him, and who instead now concentrated on the bulk of the cavalry riding directly at them.
Varus found himself chasing down three men on his own and threw out joyous thanks to Fortuna as one of the two brutes accompanying the chief lost his footing in the water on some misshapen stone, plunging with a squawk into the current and disappearing underneath, rising with difficulty a few moments later, coughing out water, his sword lost and wits befuddled.
Dropping his reins and using his knees to guide the horse like the well-trained Roman horseman he was, Varus drew his pugio dagger from his belt with his offhand. He carried no shield, being an officer, and now that free hand was of great value.
He was no marksman. He’d used a bow once or twice to no great effect, and he’d practised with the scorpion bolt throwers of the legions with at best moderate success. But throwing… ah well. Throwing was different. A boyhood spent skipping stones across water had given him an eye for range and a shoulder for the throw.
He glanced briefly, regretfully at the dagger. He’d only picked the damn thing up from the supply wagon before they’d set off to replace the one he’d lost in the swamp. To lose two pugios in one day would seem careless. The quartermaster would find a nickname for him when he went again, helm in hand like a beggar, requesting another replacement.
Still…
Biting his lip and concentrating, he drew his arm back high and threw the dagger with all his might.
The weapon was most certainly not designed for throwing and it spun in the air, but his aim was surprisingly true, and the dagger clonked into the back of the other big warrior’s head. It hit badly, at the crosspiece below the grip, but with enough force to knock the man forward into the water, where he floundered in panic, trying to rise.
Varus, his sights still upon the leader, simply rode over the struggling warrior, cracking his bones and pulping him under-hoof as he bore down on his man. The second warrior disappeared beneath the surface with a scream.
The leader was at the bank. Varus watched him climbing up onto the grass and preparing to sprint for it. Kicking his horse’s flanks, forcing it to run even faster, Varus rose from his saddle, prising himself out from between the four horns that kept him safely settled in even the worst conditions.
The Gaul had his blade out and was running. Varus felt the change in rhythm as his horse moved to dry ground, no longer fighting the water. In a straight race, the man would reach the trees and flee.
This was not a straight race.
His horse was now no longer under his control, his hands busy balancing rather than gripping reins and his feet now on the seat of the saddle as he rose like those Greek acrobats that danced on horses and bulls. The beast beneath him was a trained war horse and stayed on course despite his lack of control.
He tensed, bent his knees, and leapt.
His head clonked into that of his quarry as he hit and the pair went down on the grass in a tangle. He hissed as the pain from this morning’s hip wound lanced through him at a particularly bad twist in the fall, but what was filling most of his mind was a ringing sound.
As the pair rolled to a halt, Varus tried to clear his head, his eyes blurred with the shock. Reaching up and only missing twice, he undid the leather thongs that kept the cheek plates of his helmet tied, and ripped the helm off, casting it away, where it rolled across the grass.
He could feel the tender part of his head where they had collided. It felt dangerously soft and even a gentle prod felt like someone driving a tent pole through his brain. Jove, but that hurt!
He realised that the man beneath him wasn’t moving, and tried to focus. The Gaul’s chest was rising and falling, so he was still alive. But as Varus none-too-gently turned him over, the huge lump and welt on the man’s head came into view. Of course. Varus was helmeted – the Gaul was not. He examined the man’s head briefly, but it didn’t appear to have cracked like an egg and there was no blood leaking from nose or ear to betray a serious internal injury.
The man would be seeing three of everything for a while though, and when he awoke it would feel like those same Greek dancers were cavorting inside his skull.
The man wore good bronze and gold torcs and arm-rings, the latter twisted into the shape of an ‘S’ with intricate design. His middle left finger bore a ring with the shape of a pentagram, and the one next to it a horse, again with an ‘S’ above it. Tell-tale designs of the Senones. There was little doubt in Varus’ mind that this was Drapes, the other important leader of the revolt. Grimly, still shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear it, Varus hauled the unconscious noble up and carried him across to his horse, where he threw him unceremoniously across its back behind the saddle. Gathering his helmet and the fallen swords, he arranged everything and mounted once more, turning to look back across the river.
The high ground near the ford was occupied by his cavalry, herding a few prisoners into a line. The riders in the river had finished off all but one of the fleeing men and were playing some sort of brutal game with him, batting him back and forth with the flat of their blades. The farm itself was now swarming with legionaries, who had also pushed a few die-hard Senones down to the river bank. The Germans, true to form, were finishing off those who had run into the river. The poor bastards had thought to swim away and achieve safety from the horsemen, but the Germans feared nothing, from gods through wars to even fire from Hades itself. He’d once seen a group of Caesar’s German cavalry leaping their horses over blazing kindling and beneath burning branches with very little clearance, just for sport.