‘Here we go, lads. No heroics. Try and stay out of too much danger.’
The two cavalry forces met like a tide smashing into a harbour wall, pieces of armour, broken spearheads, blood, mud and sweat thrown into the air like spume. The immediate clash was carnage and Varus found himself an almost immediate victim. As he slashed down again and again with his Gallic-style long-and-broad sword, smashing his shield into another man with wild abandon, a stray spear point drove into his steed’s neck and his horse went down with a scream, dragging him into the mess of thrashing hooves and dying beasts, thrown bodies from both sides and blood and mud mixed together.
As he fell, he managed with the practiced ease of the veteran cavalryman to extricate himself from the saddle so as not to become trapped under the dying horse. He tried to stay close to the animal’s front, avoiding the flailing, kicking rear legs, but the press was too tight to do anything other than pray to Mars and Minerva - and Epona, the native horse goddess he had recently added to his devotions - that he would not be crushed in the chaos. Something struck his shield and he fell back over his thrashing horse, a flailing hoof smashing his shield to pieces and leaving him clutching a ragged plank with sheared bronze edging. He rose and cast it aside but before he could turn, he was struck by a horse’s shoulder point and thrown back again.
He was starting to consider himself lost when an opportunity presented itself. Somehow, in the press as he turned, he found himself staring at a riderless horse, its back covered with a Gallic blanket and a saddle not dissimilar to his own. The horse milled aimlessly, unable to do anything in the crush, and by way of an explanation of its availability, the reins hung to one side, weighed down by the severed hand that still gripped them.
With speed born of desperation, Varus pried the dead fingers from the leather and hauled himself up into the saddle, settling easily between the four leather horns. His lifetime’s experience with horses immediately told him how exhausted this animal was. The beast was close to collapse. It must have been ridden hard for some time before they had joined battle.
A slow smile spread across his face.
‘Give ‘em hell, lads!’ he bellowed above the chaos. ‘Their horses are shattered! And they’re alone.’ For that was the clear conclusion. If they had been the vanguard of Vercingetorix’s army, they would be fresh and ready. That they were this tired meant they had not travelled along with infantry, but run fast. They were a solitary force, and they should by rights have fled and not engaged the Romans. Their commander must have seen the exposed command unit and decided it was worth the chance. Thank the gods the Tenth’s officers had been quick to move to defensive formation.
Unable to tell what was going on beyond the immediate press, Varus drew his dagger with his left hand and began to go to work, his sword slashing out wide and down as he lanced out sharply with the pugio any time he saw flesh come close.
Of course, he could not distinguish friend from foe, given the fact that nine tenths of his own force consisted of native levies, but there was a four to one chance of any Gaul he stuck being an enemy, and in the circumstances he could not spend time shouting challenges with every blow.
‘Varus!’
He looked up and craned his neck to see the source of the call, but was suddenly forced back again as he had to deflect a blow from a snarling Gaul. Sparks flared from the blades as they raked down one another, each tiny flash a fragment of steel cut from the edge. The Gaul’s face moved from haughty anger to surprise as he registered Varus’ dagger pushing through his mail, puncturing leather, flesh and kidney in short order.
The shocked Gaul sagged back in his saddle, his sword flapping wildly, and Varus was surprised - and somewhat grateful - to see the serious face of Aulus Ingenuus, Caesar’s praetorian commander, behind the slumped man.
‘They’re breaking,’ Ingenuus bellowed, as he jabbed his blade into a Gaul and drew it back and across, using the edge as it came up to carve a deep line across the enemy’s face.
‘They’re tired,’ Varus yelled back. ‘They’re alone. No infantry!’
Ingenuus gave a rare smile as he registered the meaning of that. He turned to the man behind him, casually batting aside an opportunistic blow from a random horseman. ‘Sound the call for the Germans.’
The trooper reached for the horn hanging on a leather baldric around his middle and blew a short melody of ten notes, repeating it swiftly. Varus grinned. Though as yet untried in combat, all the army’s cavalry commanders knew of the thousand strong horse unit formed of hired Cherusci from across the Rhenus that had been recruited the previous autumn and had trained for the winter under Quadratus and two of the Praetorian officers. Rumour held that they were like ancient horse-borne titans, afeared of nothing save failure.
Varus laughed as he heard an answering blast, and swung his sword once more, dealing havoc in the press.
* * * * *
Lucterius felt his failure like a hammer blow to the chest.
He had ridden as hard as he could for the command party. Had his men and their beasts been fresh, he might well have taken them and killed Caesar on the spot, but the three and a half thousand Cadurci were exhausted from their ride, and by the time they were close enough to engage, the legions, who had recovered themselves so much faster than Lucterius had believed possible, had formed a wall of shields, bristling with spears that denied any chance of the cavalry breaking them.
From that point, Lucterius knew that he had failed in both his prime and secondary objectives. He had not reached Novioduno fast enough to provide extra strength, for Caesar somehow moved at unbelievable speeds across the land and, thwarted in that goal, he had then failed also to deliver a dreadful blow to their commanders.
He had almost sounded the retreat then, but one last chance to pull something from the disaster had presented itself. The legions had remained in position, not moving to intercept. He had realised then that he was only faced with the Romans’ cavalry contingent, who were at poor four-to-one odds. And so he had turned his Cadurci from the solid legion lines and taken them against the horsemen. Their levels of success had been difficult to judge, given the fact that most of the Roman force consisted of levies from the tribes anyway, but it had appeared to be going heavily their way for a short time.
Then, however, his men had started to flag, their reserves of strength used up, their adrenaline from the attack exhausted. He had been struggling against the urge to call his men off when the decision had been made easy for him. As if from nowhere, several hundred more horsemen had arrived - this time the rare Roman regular cavalry, well-armed and well-trained, fresh and calm. Their effect on the tired Cadurci had been dreadful and in only moments before his very eyes, Lucterius had watched the tide of battle begin to flow the other way.
He had waved at his standard bearer, who also carried a small horn to sound commands, but the man’s head had been split neatly in half even as he turned to answer, so the retreat went unsounded. Then, when it had looked as though matters could get no worse, another call had gone up, and a third horse unit had thundered across the field, on its way to engage.
Lucterius had been astonished to hear Germanic battle cries emanating from the new unit, though they were as well-equipped and armed as any horseman he had ever met, bearing the best steel and mail Roman armourers could provide.
They had hit his Cadurci like a hammer on a block of soft butter. It had been simply astonishing. Lucterius had watched in horror as his cousin - a commander in his own right - had his head severed with three blows, at which the German had paused in his advance to tie the grisly prize to his saddle horn by the hair, tendrils hanging from the neck and blood pouring down his leg and the flank of the horse.
There was utter chaos. No chance to call the retreat. No music. No standards. Just Latin and Germanic voices raised in bloody triumph and the sound of his Cadurci shrieking and gurgling their last. And he had taken the only option left open.
He had dispatched the man who w
as trying to kill him, wheeled his horse, and raced for the hill and for freedom. He knew that he could only keep this pace for half a mile at most before his horse collapsed, but that would have to be enough. The Romans would not venture too far from their army and the captive oppidum.
He never looked back as he ran from the disaster.
He had reached the edge of a wide swathe of woodland which would grant them hope of safety when his horse stumbled to a halt and he dismounted in an attempt to save it from collapse. Only then did he pause to take stock.
Those who’d had the chance had followed him from the fight, but they looked all too few.
He had taken three and a half thousand cavalry against the Romans and he was now returning to Vercingetorix and the army with only tidings of failure, supported by considerably less than a thousand of his tribesmen.
Twice now, Caesar had bested him.
If Vercingetorix ever trusted him with a command again, he would make damn sure it did not happen a third time.
* * * * *
Fronto climbed up onto the low walkway behind the palisade fence, which afforded him a meagre view of what was going on over the river to the south. While the fine detail of what was happening eluded him, one thing was clear: Rome had won the bout. A rag-tag force of broken cavalry fled over the rise to the south. Fronto watched as the insane German horse - who had only been champing at the bit for a little action these past few engagements and had finally been committed - raced after the fleeing enemy, cutting them down and turning them into grisly ornaments as they ran, until finally the calls, cries, whistles and mad waving of standards drew them back.
Things had been going reasonably easy in the oppidum also. Somehow, despite being outnumbered, an optio who deserved a field promotion had managed to take the gates from the natives who had tried to close them, and had held them until a combined force of the Tenth and the Twelfth, led by Fronto and the other legion’s veteran primus pilus, Baculus, had crossed the bridge and secured the oppidum.
His own senior centurion, Carbo, had managed to secure a large arms cache in a nearby building, and with only ten men had managed to defend the house and prevent the arming of half the tribe in short order.
Nearby, Atenos sat on a low wall, blood trickling from both ears, his face grey and his eyes unfocused as a capsarius checked him over for damage. There was a bruise the size of an apple on the centurion's temple where his helmet had been dented inwards by a blow, and the medic was carefully peeling off a mail shirt and cutting away a tunic to show a shoulder that was already purpling all over. Atenos was always in the thick of it, yet consistently escaped unscathed. Still, the capsarius was working steadily and showing no sign of overt alarm, so Fronto was confident that the powerful officer had suffered nothing life-threatening.
Two legionaries emerged from a side alley, dragging a wounded local between them. Fronto narrowed his eyes at the man’s attire and was fairly sure that the man was one of the nobles who had negotiated the initial surrender. He looked broken and hopeless.
And well he should.
‘Poor judgement, that attempt to shut us back out,’ he said quietly, smiling unpleasantly at the noble. ‘Sadly, you have now forfeited all rights to negotiation. Here are my new terms, delivered on behalf of Caesar.’
He straightened and folded his arms.
‘Everyone in Novioduno will now surrender themselves to the legions. You will all be roped in a slave convoy and escorted by armed column to Agedincum, whence you will be taken to Rome. Anyone who has not left the oppidum within half an hour will be considered to have refused my terms and will find themselves at the tender mercies of the legionaries as they search the town. Be sure that, though the Tenth are honourable soldiers in war, they will not be under any command restriction then, and the fate of anyone they find will make slavery look truly desirable. Am I understood?’
The nobleman opened his mouth to bluster, but sagged with the realisation of utter hopelessness, and simply nodded.
‘Go and tell your townsfolk. And remember: half an hour.’
‘It is almost as though you read my mind, Marcus,’ said a quiet voice from behind, and Fronto turned to see Caesar, Priscus and Marcus Antonius standing together.
‘Do we leave the place, or reduce it, general?’
Caesar opened his mouth to reply, but turned at a groan to see Atenos struggling to stand upright and salute, despite the fact that he was clearly still barely-conscious and unbalanced and the capsarius was trying to hold him down.
’For the love of Mars, centurion, stay seated.’ As Atenos sagged again with relief, Caesar turned to Fronto. ‘Level the place and burn the ruins. I do not want it usable by the Bituriges after this. I will not allow an enemy to fortify behind us. And now that we know the Bituriges are definitely with the rebels, I will not delay in moving against Avaricon.’ He breathed in the afternoon’s chill air and stretched. ‘Time to remove the Bituriges from the game entirely before we move on Vercingetorix and his army.’
* * * * *
‘How long has it been?’ Vergasillaunus asked, his voice dark.
Lucterius sagged, his eyelids heavy, the dirt of his journey still caking him, along with the sweat of flight and the gore of battle. He sighed. ‘Two and a half days. We would have been quicker, but our horses were spent. Only stealing replacement mounts from farms that we passed got us here this fast.’
‘We know that it takes legions time to move along with their siege engines, and they will have matters to conclude in Novioduno first. Perhaps they have not moved yet?’ Vergasillaunus hazarded, though his expression confirmed that he did not truly believe his own words.
Vercingetorix shook his head. ‘Caesar has moved speedily and decisively at every turn. Far more so than we had ever believed possible. He will not have delayed at Novioduno. In fact, with more than two days gone, there is every chance that he is already at Avaricon.’ He turned an inscrutable gaze on Lucterius. ‘What say you?’
‘The man is always ahead. You can be assured that if we ride for Avaricon he will be there awaiting us. He certainly will not tarry while he believes we are close.’
‘I agree. So we have decisions to make.’
The nobles and chieftains of the allied tribes and the three druids present leaned closer to the communal fire, hanging on their commander’s words. No one would dare put forward a suggestion before he spoke further.
‘The Romans have the grain they took from Vellaunoduno. Be sure that they supplied their men from the ruins of Cenabum also. Now they have taken Novioduno, and any supplies there have been added to the Roman wagon train. Their main supply station is in the north at Agedincum. We have severed their supply lines to their own lands, but Caesar outmanoeuvres us by resupplying in the field through forage and captured goods. We had hoped to meet him at Avaricon with our full force and defeat him there, but he moves too fast and is too well supplied. If we hope to defeat him in open battle, our best hope to weaken him first is to deny him food.’
There were nods all round at this piece of clear wisdom. That Rome was made strong by their own grain, which had been meant for this army, rankled, and every man here begrudged them that.
‘We must begin a campaign of refusal. Wherever Caesar turns he must find nothing of use. No crops. No livestock. No grain stores. Nothing.’
‘How do we go about gathering it all and transporting it?’ asked one of the lesser chiefs curiously. ‘That could take months, by which time there will be a fresh harvest waiting.’
‘We do not gather it. Our stores are secure and we will continue to draw extra food into our powerful fortresses, such as Gergovia and Gondole, Corenduno and Carenedia. We continue to work on the Aedui. Now that Caesar crushes the Bituriges, we may be able to use that to tip the scales with the Aedui leaders. Anywhere else that is endangered and could be of use to Caesar must be destroyed.’
‘What?’ another of the chiefs yelped, his eyes wide. ‘You would destroy our own settlements?’
‘Yes I would. And I will. Better to watch our own homes burn than to allow the Romans a night’s rest within them. From this point on, I will assign cavalry units the task of clearing out the land ahead of Caesar’s army, burning settlements, crops and farms and even the livestock. The Romans shall find no succour wherever they go. Thus, by the time we have reduced Gorgobina and the Aedui are with us, Caesar’s army will be poorly-provisioned and weak. Ripe for the picking.’
‘But you cannot mean to fire our homes?’ asked another incredulous chief - one of the Bituriges from a minor town to the west, Vercingetorix seemed to remember.
‘That is exactly what we must do. No house must be saved. We must all sacrifice of our personal property to deny Rome what they need to succeed.’
‘That’s fine for you to say,’ snapped another of the Bituriges. ‘Your home is Gergovia, way to the south, out of harm’s way. You are not required to sacrifice of your own, just of ours!’
‘Rest assured that should Caesar march south, I will burn Gergovia as readily as I would burn any other place that might be made to work for Rome. And the more Rome starves, the more Caesar will be forced to send out parties over great distances to search for provisions. These overextensions will be at clear risk of raids, and those same cavalry units who are abroad, burning anything of use, can use their best judgement to deal with any forage parties they come across. We will erode the edges of Caesar’s army and leave the centre to starve, and then, in time, when we are stronger, we will move upon him and crush him utterly.’
‘And what of Avaricon?’
Vercingetorix glanced across at his cousin, who had filled the uncomfortable silence. Vergasillaunus was scratching his chin thoughtfully.
‘Avaricon is out of our reach for now. We must hope that it holds without us and that if it falls our best and brightest manage to escape alive, including Critognatos and Cavarinos.’
The Great Revolt Page 17
