Petreius let go of the spear and drew his dagger in his free hand, wincing at the pain in his side. The remaining two horsemen turned and moved back to skirt this Roman lunatic, and Petreius staggered for a moment, righting himself as hundreds of howling warriors descended upon him on foot.
‘Come on then, you hairy fleapits. Let me show you how a Roman dies!’
* * * * *
Fronto glanced left and right, trying to keep himself aware of everything. The Tenth had moved in dense formation at an oblique angle to the oppidum’s walls, not an easy thing to do on sloping terrain like this, but his veteran centurions had managed with relative ease under Carbo’s expert leadership. There, they had halted and borne the brunt of the refreshed Gallic attack, the cavalry now flooding the camp and coming against them hard. Had Fronto had more pila among his men, they might even have been able to fight the horsemen back, but with so few, all they were able to do was shelter from them behind the relative safety of the two-tier shield-wall, the more talented soldiers among them turning their shields slightly every time a horse got close enough and slashing out with their gladius, maiming a hoof. A dozen or more of the enemy had been brought down this way, but that was just a bonus to Fronto. The main task was to protect the Thirteenth at this point and stop this cavalry attack from getting in amongst them.
Gallic warriors were now beginning to flood the ramparts above them, and bows and slings were in evidence. Once they started using them in force, this anti-cavalry formation would no long be viable. The enemy foot were on the approach too, behind the cavalry and no more than a few hundred paces away, moving carefully to negotiate the slope as they passed their own horsemen.
Behind, the Thirteenth were beginning to form up, Caesar having somehow managed to get through to the various commanders with the aid of Sextius — red faced and distraught — and a few signifers and musicians. If they hurried, they would be out of danger before the enemy foot got here.
A honking noise rose from the east, and Fronto squinted. The Thirteenth were now pulling back down the hill in ordered centuries, but the call had come from the Aedui cavalry, who even now were racing past the Thirteenth and making for the main fight. Fronto felt a flood of relief. Thousands of allied horse would make all the difference. The Aedui could deal with the enemy cavalry and take some of the pressure off the Tenth.
‘Carbo?’
‘Sir?’ bellowed the senior centurion from the end of the line.
‘Are the Thirteenth clear yet, d’you think?
‘As clear as they’ll get, sir.’
‘Good. Let’s abandon this formation. Individual century shield-walls. We’re pulling back to reform at the bottom of the slope.’
The centurion nodded and spoke hurriedly to his signifer. Fronto looked around and spotted the nervous figure of a young tribune. Was he the one who had warned him of the assault on the large camp? He really couldn’t tell. He was young, though, and nervous.
‘You! Tribune.’
The young officer scurried across and saluted.
‘Is your horse still nearby?’ Most of the beasts had been taken back down the slope the moment the officers had dismounted and joined their units in the thick of things, but half a dozen were still nearby, grazing contentedly as though nothing untoward had happened.
‘She’s gone back down sir.’
‘Then take someone else’s. Get back to the white rocks camp. I want every pilum, auxiliary javelin and cavalry spear in camp brought out to where the army will form up at the bottom of the slope. We’re going to stop them there, or die trying.’
The tribune saluted, looking rather relieved. Fronto watched him mount up and begin to pick his way down the slope with a great deal more care than the Gauls, and considerably slower, too. His attention was claimed a moment later by the cornu blasting out commands for the Tenth, who were formed up close enough to hear them. Carbo, ever the competent professional, had taken Fronto’s basic orders and expanded upon them with additional detail. The first and second cohorts formed into blocks of four centuries, presenting shield-walls to the enemy as they began to move down the slope. The third cohort formed up on the right, at the top of the slope, presenting an angled wall with a half-roof of shields over the front three rows of men against missiles from the ramparts above, protecting the flank as they pulled back. The remaining cohorts were already moving down the slope at the fastest pace they could maintain, protected from the rear by their fellows.
And suddenly the three cohorts were moving, their pace hampered by the need to maintain difficult formations on the dreadful terrain. Fronto moved to the downhill end, away from the danger of falling arrows, taking a moment to make sure that Bucephalus had been among the horses the runners had taken back earlier and was not now being left grazing for the enemy to claim.
The journey was one of the worst manoeuvres Fronto could remember from his entire career. The sun beat down, making the legions seethe with heat, their armour almost burning to the touch, sweat running in rivers from every man, yet all their concentration was required to keep the formation as tight as possible. Once Carbo had judged them far enough from the ramparts, he allowed the Third cohort to drop their shield roof, which did little to help the rest, but was clearly a relief to the men who had formed it.
And all the way down they were harried by the enemy cavalry and infantry, men falling out of the shield-wall, caught by a spear or a flailing horse hoof as they went until finally the enemy horse vanished, pulled back uphill to deal with the newly-arrived Aedui. The men had no time to recover, though, the pressure previously put on them by the horse taken up by the foot in their absence, causing more and more casualties and gaps in the line that the Tenth managed to plug with practiced manoeuvres.
Fronto glanced along the line to find Carbo, ready to give the order for increased pace, but where the primus pilus should have been was just a conspicuous gap. His heart sank.
Worse than the terrain, the sweat, the temperature and the death toll — worse than all that together and even Carbo’s loss — was the dejection. Every man remained silent, apart from the grunts of effort or the occasional curse cast either at the enemy or the treacherous slope. And yet despite their silence, Fronto knew what every man felt like shouting about, for he felt it too. This attack should have been simple. It should have been yet another genius exercise by Caesar’s legions — a swift in and out with minimal fuss depriving the enemy of their comfortable camp, defences and supplies.
Instead, it had become a shambles. A dreadful retreat. A near catastrophe, in fact. Individually, the factors that had turned success into chaos might have been overcome. The inability of some units to hear their orders over the combination of distance and din from the oppidum above. The apparent insubordination of the Eighth, who had pushed on to the oppidum walls against their orders, and the enemy that came upon them divided, managing to turn that legion’s orderly retreat into a panicked mob. The unexpected willingness of enemy cavalry to launch down a steep slope that no Roman horseman would consider, and thereby harry the fleeing legions. The panic that had broken out throughout the Thirteenth at the sight of Gallic cavalry on their unprotected flank and not recognising them as allies. Individually: troublesome issues. Together: a seething cauldron of chaos.
As the men of the Tenth reached the flatter ground at the base of the oppidum’s hill once more, they found the three cohorts of the Thirteenth from the white rocks camp formed up protectively and fell in alongside them. The Eighth were now forming up as well, presenting a barrier.