A minute or so passed and then the shouting began. At first, shouts of alarm, and then some of panic. The blaze tore through the dry woods, leaping from tree to tree like a wave.
As the Romans sat tensely, the first desperate warrior burst from the undergrowth. The look of relief on his face quickly slid away to be replaced once more by panic. Having escaped the dreadful fire sweeping through the thicket, he now found himself facing hundreds of angry Roman cavalrymen. He opened his mouth to shout a warning back into the woods and the first javelin caught him full in the face before he could issue a sound. The second javelin took him through the chest and hurled him back to the grass.
“Don’t waste your throws! One at a time, and mark your man.”
Another figure appeared from the woods, and then another. Quickly now, warriors began to emerge, some choking from the effects of the smoke that roiled under the green canopy. And yet it was less like a military action or even a punitive attack than like a hunt, or even a game. Not a single figure managed to break the tree line and walk four steps before he was hit by a javelin; sometimes two.
The steady flow of men escaping the flames grew over a minute or so and then began to decline. Certainly there must be a lot of corpses there by now. The front rows of cavalrymen had cast their javelins and more that had been passed from the rear ranks. Probably four hundred javelins had gone. Allowing for wasteful throws and misses, there would likely be two hundred and fifty to three hundred barbarians littering the grass before the woods. Likely more had been consumed by the flames that were now visible. Almost the entire wood was ablaze at this point, and the firing units with their extinguished torches were now riding to rejoin their commander.
Varus smiled coldly. On the assumption much the same had happened at the other side, behind them, that would be six or seven hundred dead barbarians. A fitting revenge for the hundred and fifty or so Roman dead below the hill. Caesar would be pleased, anyway.
He waited until his men were ready and then gave the order to form up.
Before he turned his horse away from the field, he gave a last regretful look at the littered heaps of men and horses. If only they could sort out a burial detail, but that was a job for the infantry, and after the danger was over. With a sigh he gave the command to return to camp.
Prefect Lucilius gritted his teeth and briefly regretted accepting command of the right flank. His thousand horsemen, almost entirely composed of Gaulish auxiliaries, stamped and snorted and chattered behind him. The other prefects and decurions watched him expectantly.
Lucilius had commanded more than one ala of cavalry before. Indeed, at Vesontio last year, he’d been one of Varus’ most favoured officers, but that was in battle. This seemed wrong. Cavalry were used as part of a grand battle plan or to harry and mop up. No Roman general in his right mind pitted cavalry alone against a solid enemy force with no infantry support.
He shook his head. It was well known that Caesar thought in curves and not straight lines. The general assigned officers to largely permanent positions, which seemed to suit the infantry. He maintained a regular cavalry attached to his legions, which was unheard of, even among the great innovators like Marius and Scipio. But sometimes the general’s decisions seemed just a little too dangerous; even bordering on the insane.
“How am I going to do this?” he asked himself quietly, glad that the rest of his officers were far enough back to allow him thinking room.
The terrain allowed for a safe riding width of perhaps seven or eight hundred yards; not much room to manoeuvre a large cavalry force, certainly. And even from here he could see the glistening and glinting of the streams and pools that dotted and crossed the grass. He offered a quick prayer to Fortuna that Varus knew what he was doing and that what faced him was just standing water and not swamp.
So… how to arrange a trial assault on the Belgae on a narrow strip of land between a reedy river bank and a swamp; a narrow strip of land that might, itself, be marshy and treacherous. And all of this in front of a waiting force of Belgae who had a clear view of them coming. Caesar and Varus must be mad! And Lucilius must be an idiot for accepting this command.
He frowned. On the bright side, given the narrowness of the assailable area, they would only be facing a thousand Belgae at a time. An idea was beginning to form. Turning, he waved to the nearest of his prefects, a thoroughly Romanised Aedui nobleman. The man rode out forward and joined him on the rise. In full Roman uniform, with short hair and a clean shaven face, the slight accent to his Latin was the only thing that marked the prefect as a non-citizen. He’d even taken a Roman name.
“Septimius… you know the tribes of Gauls and Belgae, yes?”
The prefect nodded soberly.
“Most of them.”
“And these Belgae are supposed to be the most dangerous, violent and warlike of the lot, yes?”
“Them and the Germanic tribes, yes. When they’re not fighting someone else, they fight themselves. It’s all they do: fight.”
“So…” Lucilius frowned. “It shouldn’t be too hard to goad them into a fight then?”
Septimius laughed.
“I suspect it would be harder to force them to stand still.”
“Alright, then.” The commander smiled. “Let’s go give them a fight. Sound the advance.”
The prefect saluted and returned to his men. Moments later the musician on his horse at the rear blew out the call to advance and the alae walked their steeds forward. Lucilius remained stationary until the line reached him and then kicked his horse into action, falling in with the front line. Slowly, like the inexorable tide, the cavalry poured down the gentle slope toward the flat open ground before the Belgic lines.
Manoeuvring carefully in order to maintain formation, the cavalry stepped onto the flat, rotating into blocks that fitted the terrain.
“Here we go” muttered Lucilius quietly to himself as they moved into the damp, glinting grass. The first fifty yards or so were tentative, each rider warily watching the shallow pools and trickles as they walked their horses.
Lucilius glanced ahead, squinting to make out the lines of the Belgae. The barbarians were rushing around, gathering several men deep in a front line. As the prefect watched, spears were raised defensively. Any direct attack could be very short and very unpleasant.
His confidence grew as the cavalry trotted through the shallow puddles and pools and splashed across small streams. Varus had been right: the ground between the marsh and the river had dried out fairly well in the last few weeks.
The decision made, he smiled a determined smile and turned to the officers beside him.
“Sound the charge but rein in at a hundred yards for a volley. Pass the word; and no calls on the horn in case anyone there knows our signals.”
The officers nodded and shouted the commands down the line to their decurions, who relayed beyond. Within a few seconds the entire cavalry broke into a run, the front lines pulling away first, but the rest gradually falling in and catching up like a landslide. Lucilius laughed as he rode. This was the kind of mad stunt that old Longinus used to pull.
Rapidly, the intervening space between the two armies narrowed and the commander found himself so into the rhythm of the charge that he almost shot out ahead as his troopers reined in to a sudden halt. Clicking his tongue in irritation, Lucilius turned his mistake into a show, wheeling his horse sideways and flicking an insulting hand gesture at the Belgae. To either side of him along the lines of horsemen, the front two ranks let fly with their javelins.
The Belgae, confused as to why the Romans had halted their charge so suddenly, stared wide-eyed at several hundred javelins that suddenly arced out from the front lines. All along the wall of men, warriors shrieked as they were pierced and flung back into the crowd with the force of the blows. They were so tightly packed the Romans couldn’t have missed.