‘We’ve missed our chance,’ he yelled as they rode, the cavalry keeping pace behind, the infantry falling away further back, yet running as fast as they could.
‘What?’
‘Missed our chance. They’re pulling back.’
‘Oh, my friend,’ Vercingetorix smiled, ‘we have time yet.’
As Cavarinos frowned, his king turned and waved the cavalry on and down the slope after the retreating Romans.
‘Are you mad?’ Cavarinos yelled. ‘That’s too steep for cavalry!’
‘Not for Lucterius’ men. And look: the Romans are in disarray. Their middle legion is holding together well as they fall back, but the nearest one is all over the hillside, split up. And the far one…’ The king chuckled. ‘See the Aedui cavalry coming in from the east? Lack of communication can lose a battle. See how the farthest legion panics. They think the Aedui are ours!’
Cavarinos stared. It was true. At first glance, the Romans were pulling back well, but closer attention brought forth all the weaknesses. It looked like the legions to the east and west were not heeding the calls their commanders had put out, fleeing in all directions, so long as it was down, some even forming up to fight their own allied cavalry.
‘And look how slow they move,’ Cavarinos added. ‘They’re exhausted from the climb.’
‘Let us make them wish they had never set foot on our mountain,’ the king laughed and kicked his horse into action alongside the cavalry, who were now descending on the heels of the slower Romans, whooping and shouting with glee.
* * * * *
Fronto paused on the slope, heaving in gulps of air, sweat running into his eyes and soaking his helmet liner. Caesar was looking distinctly disgruntled.
‘The Eighth are falling back, but they’re in trouble. It looks like the enemy horse are riding them down as they retreat. A few of the better officers are trying to form the contra equitas, but they just can’t do it properly on this terrain and with no pila. They obviously weren’t expecting a cavalry assault. Who would? What mad bastard rides a horse down that slope?’
The sight of centuries trying to pull together further across the slope and create angled shield-walls was bad enough, but few men still had a pilum, so the formation would be unlikely to stop the enemy horse anyway.
The general rubbed his bare head angrily, his helmet long-since cast to the ground, sweat sprinkling his bald pate. ‘And yet note how few of them fall. They are good. The Eighth will remain in great danger until they reach level ground and can form against cavalry.’
‘There are a few centuries trapped at the top, too,’ Fronto noted, pointing to where several Roman figures were visible actually on Gergovia’s own rampart top.
‘And the Thirteenth are ignoring the call and forming against the Aedui, for the love of Venus!’
Fronto nodded. ‘They’re new to the army, most of the Aedui. They’re baring the wrong shoulder to signify they’re friendly, and our men don’t recognise their standards, so they resemble the enemy more than anything else.’
‘If the Thirteenth don’t hurry up and fall back, they’ll be cut off when the main Gallic force arrives,’ Caesar despaired. ‘See how more of their cavalry already close on them beneath the rampart wall? I am incensed, Fronto. I am quite livid. Someone’s head will roll for this!’
‘Later, sir. For now, we need to sort this mess out.’
Caesar nodded and turned to the cornicen standing nearby waiting to receive new orders. ‘You know the calls for the Thirteenth?’
‘Some of them, sir.’
‘Point that thing down at the valley, take the deepest breath you can, and give the cohorts back in camp the order to support the Eighth and form the contra equitas on the lowest slope. And do it loud. No one can hear the calls on this hill.’
The cornicen saluted and turned, blowing the staccato codes.
‘That should prevent the enemy from pushing their advantage and hopefully allow the Eighth to reform.’
Fronto nodded. ‘We need to advance the Tenth again, sir. Give the Thirteenth time to sort themselves out and begin to retreat. Shame we can’t get a message to the Fifth in those woods.’
Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance as he watched enemy warriors both on horse and on foot flooding back across the ruined camp, closing on the legions even as they tried to pull back. ‘Do what you need to here, Fronto. I am bound for the Thirteenth to have a few choice words with Sextius.’
* * * * *
Marcus Petreius, chief centurion of the Eighth legion, stepped back, his bloodied sword trembling in his weary hand. There were less than a century’s worth of men remaining below the wall, from the initial three. They had been unable to retreat as the enemy cavalry raced past them through the camp, making for the bulk of the Tenth and Thirteenth legions and racing down the slope after the rest of the Eighth. Wave after wave of the horsemen had stopped to engage the trapped Romans below the wall, and each fresh attack drastically reduced their numbers.
Above, on the wall top there had been a furious fight, as they could hear. Against all odds, that madman Fabius had secured the top of the rope and sent all three back down for others to climb. Five men in total had reached the top, but the increased shouts in the Gallic tongue and the growing desperation of Fabius’ imprecations in Latin spoke volumes as to how things were going up there.
As Petreius kicked away the flailing hand of the last enemy rider he had dispatched, he glanced around. The slopes were chaos, but not as bad as they were about to become. The main enemy force had finally arrived from the twin hills, thousands of warriors on foot, all screaming for blood. The cavalry had harried the Romans and caused the chaos, but the infantry would finish them all, given the time.
‘We have to go,’ he bellowed to the man clutching the century’s standard in crimson fingers, the signifer himself one of the many fallen in this disaster.
‘What about him?’ the man wheezed, clutching his side and looking up at the unseen fight on the wall top. Petreius turned his own gaze upwards, just as a shape launched out from the rampart. The two men stepped a few paces apart hurriedly as the body hit the ground between them with a wet thump. Centurion Fabius had died hard, his left arm gone at the elbow, his head at an odd angle, neck half severed through, his face partially caved in by some heavy blow and holes and slashes all across his front. He must have been dead before he hit the ground.
‘I think that’s our sign,’ Petreius breathed. He turned to see that more horsemen had appeared along with the infantry, and were racing towards them, whooping as they went.
‘Sir…’
‘I see them. Get that standard and the rest of the men back down to the camp.’
‘But sir?’
‘Go. While you have time.’
Casting his eyes around, Petreius spotted a pilum still jutting from that fallen nobleman’s back. Gripping it, he hauled it with a sucking sound from the body and pushed the tip against the turf to straighten the neck before raising it against the onrush of four horsemen.
‘Go!’ he bellowed, bracing himself.
The legionary, gripping the precious standard tight in his red, slippery hands, turned and began to run down the slope, shouting the call to fall back. The rest of the men were not slow to follow his lead, pounding off down through the enemy camp towards the relative safety of the valley below.
Petreius saw one of the horsemen turn, aiming for the standard bearer, and drew back his arm. ‘No you don’t, dickhead.’
With a heave and a grunt, he threw the missile, striking the horseman in the shoulder and knocking him from his mount where he rolled over and over on the grass, convulsing as he came to a stop. Petreius reached for a cavalry spear that lay nearby, snapped down to less than two thirds of its usual length, and raised it just in time to meet the next horseman face to face. The spear point took the Gaul in the chest as he swung his sword wide, but the Gallic blade came on unstoppably even as its wielder faltered, the edge smashing into the centurion’s mail shirt, splintering his ribs.