As Galeo gave the order, he ran to join Fronto who was already jogging back down the slope. Moments later the archers were catching them up. One of the benefits of light, unarmoured auxiliaries was the speed with which they moved. Fronto stopped just outside the line of working men and pointed.
On the opposite hill, carnage was taking place. As Galeo followed his gaze, he saw a great tree trunk descend, flattening everything it rolled across, wiping out a group of panicking cavalry and then disappearing into the river with a splash.
“Where do you need to be to reach them?”
Galeo shrugged.
“We can hit them from near bank.”
“Then do it!”
As the prefect ran forward with his men, who began to stretch strings and release deadly missiles high across the opposite slope, Fronto turned and looked back and forth between the camp and the cavalry mess. Several of their shots were striking home at the Belgae, and the threat alone seemed to be making the enemy pull back to their initial line.
“Sir?”
He turned to see Decius approaching with his archers. Other units were pouring through the lines of legionary workers.
“Get your men to the bank and concentrate your fire on anywhere the Nervii are looking like they’re about to break.”
The prefect nodded.
As he turned back to the works, other prefects rushed past with their units. There was no need for further commands. The officers could see where they were needed.
Fronto grumbled under his breath. Pit traps, rolling logs, disciplined lines. These were not simple barbarians. These bastards had tactics. Possibly they’d even learned from what the Romans had done to the Belgae at Bibrax? He’d had a feeling of foreboding about today and now it was being borne out. Just from an initial glance across the river, he guessed that Caesar had lost a quarter of his cavalry in one horrible minute. Bloody ridiculous. And they’d hardly seen any of the enemy yet. There were maybe five hundred men on that ridge. And no standards or chieftains.
Turning to the men working behind him, he spotted Pomponius, measuring something incomprehensible.
“How long ‘til the basic defences can be up?”
Pomponius looked up in surprise.
“I’d say about thirty minutes, sir. It’s an enormous camp, but there’s five legions working on it.”
“I have a feeling it’s going to be a close thing at best.”
* * * * *
Paetus smiled as he adjusted the strange, yet surprisingly comfortable bronze helmet on his head and re-slung the extremely heavy Gallic blade at his side. He had asked for armour and been laughed at. Only the nobles got armour, apparently. Not the ordinary warriors. In fact, as he’d learned in the days leading up to this, their warriors often went into battle naked as the day they were born, save the whorls and swirls and other marks they daubed on their skin.
He drew breath sharply as one of his many now-healing knife wounds caught uncomfortably with his baldric. He’d assumed they were trying to frighten him by telling him they would put him in the front line of the attack, but here he was, hiding beneath the eaves of the wood, surrounded by thousands of smelly, sweaty, often disturbingly naked, Nervii. He had learned since receiving the ‘trust’, such as it was, of the chieftains that the Aduatuci were due to join them but were late and may not make it here before the Romans. He looked up at the sun. Too damn late now, for certain.
The cavalry had already met with the Viromandui and the Atrebates on the hill and Paetus’ carefully-worked surprises had devastated the initial Roman charge. Well, they’d met the visible Viromandui and Atrebates, anyway.
But the Nervii lay waiting to spring his main trap.
For a long moment, Paetus paused. He was a Roman, though dressed and armed like this few would realise it. It was his duty and pride to march, and fight, with the legions and yet here he was, about to bring about their downfall; cause the vicious deaths of thousands of soldiers and all in the name of… no. Not in the name of revenge, he reminded himself… in the name of justice, and that was what Rome should stand for!
I could call off the attack. One shout and I could save the legions and ruin the Nervii.
Just one shout.
But that would save Gaius Julius Caesar too.
* * * * *
Varus nodded in satisfaction. The second charge had been what he’d hoped for the first time. The two columns of cavalry bellowed up the safe zone where the logs had rolled down and met the forces of the Belgae just below the crest, engaging in careful, spear-thrusting combat. Once in combat, the two forces expanded out sideways to meet up, creating one heavy front again the barbarians. And then the most unexpected and peculiar thing happened.
The Belgae on the ridge dropped their spears, turned and fled. Around him, riders cried out in triumph and raced over the summit, the officers yelling encouragement. But Varus paused. Something wasn’t right here. These men wouldn’t flee. Not after what they’d managed to do. They knew damn well they could crush the cavalry if they worked it well.
Varus’s eyes bulged.
“Retreat!”
He tried to locate the cornicen but the man had joined a group heading over the crest. Once more he yelled for a retreat at the top of his voice, but the triumphant cries of the men and officers drowned him out and only a few surprised troopers nearby heard him.
“For the love of Mars, retreat!”
His heart thumping, he carefully edged his mount up so he could see over the crest in the bare area between the woodlands. His men were chasing down the fleeing thousand or so infantry from the ridge, but there was no one else there. Where was the army of a hundred thousand or more?
“Oh no…”
Guttural cries all around and behind him filled him with dread and he stared. Large groups of Belgae came running out of the woods to either side, carrying something. Each group bore between them, sweating and cursing, a fence or screen made of sharpened stakes, tightly bound together, almost like a caltrop that was six feet high and twelve long. As he desperately wheeled his horse in panic, the Belgae began to drop their horrible screens into lines, creating one long defence that would clearly prevent the cavalry from returning to the battle.
“Rally! To the camp!”
As the few hundred men he could see turned and rode back downhill, Varus scrunched up his eyes and let out a string of violent expletives. This was the problem with using Gallic auxiliary cavalry. No matter how much you tried to drill legionary discipline into them, they still had that mad Celtic need to go racing into battle and run after glory and victory. That was why most of the few regulars were still here with him and hadn’t crossed the summit alongside the auxilia.
Well, the cavalry were lost to him for now. Thousands of men were cut off and it would be some time before any of them managed to get back. If the Belgae had planned this much, damn certain that they’d made sure all easy routes of return were sealed.
As his mind raced, he heard a roar and his bones filled with cold dread. The copses and areas of woodland around the hilltop hadn’t just been home to a few careful surprises… they’d harboured to the whole bloody Belgic army. What the scouts had deemed impenetrable woodland had apparently been cleared of undergrowth and had hidden thousands of warriors. From either side of him, a sea of Belgae swarmed out from the eaves and thundered down the hill towards the river.
Fronto would never have time to finish. The legions were lucky, in fact, that he’d suggested they worked in their armour, for they’d only have time to grab their weapons and shields and then this mass of men would be on them. ‘Hell, I hope Fronto’s seen them.’
He squinted across the shallow river valley to the camp workings.