‘You dog’s pizzle,’ snapped Critognatos. ‘I knew you were a coward, but I never thought of you as a collaborator.’
With narrowed lips and eyes, Cavarinos stood. ‘Say that one more time, brother and you will be hunting the floor of this tent for your teeth.’
Vergasillaunus stepped into the centre of the room, blocking the brothers’ line of sight.
‘Alright, that’s enough! Cavarinos merely raises the point of caution, even if he labours the point. I believe he might be right, so caution should be our watchword, and even then this plan of action might be extremely dangerous for us. But have any of you thought of what it will be like if the Romans settle into Agedincum. We have little knowledge of sieges - it is not how we do battle. We can use our grapples and fill trenches, but is there a single man in this army who knows how to build their towers? Their stone-throwers and bolt-throwers? The Romans reach the walls of Agedincum and no amount of advantage in numbers will count for us.’
There was a murmur of assent at this, though not from Critognatos, who kept his eyes, filled apparently with hate, locked on his brother. Cavarinos simply shook his head gently, which seemed only to further aggravate the man.
‘My decision is made,’ the king announced finally, standing. ‘We cannot allow them to reach their base. If we do so, they can hold against us for months, until their senate decide to send help, and we know that Rome can raise many more legions yet. So we must move on Caesar to prevent that happening. All our cavalry elements will move out in the morning, split into three contingents to match the Roman forces. Two will take the column from the rear while the third, setting out earlier, will circle their army, which marches in a tighter formation than usual and is much more compact, and will launch a separate attack on the vanguard, halting them in their tracks. We fight as hard as we can, but look to our survival more than the enemy’s destruction. We hold them as long as we can. The rest of our army is a little over a day behind us. If we can halt the Romans for one day, we can stop them reaching Agedincum and then bring them to open battle. If we can do that, victory will be all-but certain.’
‘A day is a long time to fight Romans. They are adept at keeping reserves and resting their units throughout a fight. And our men are as likely to baulk at fighting their countrymen as the enemy are against us, so you might give the men an incentive,’ Cavarinos added, thoughtfully, his gaze still locked in battle with his brother. ‘Offer rewards for the riders of all the tribes for their valour and strength. Try to overcome any hesitation among our riders at attacking other tribesmen.’
A bear-like rumble rose from Critognatos’ throat. ‘Not the right sort of incentive, my king. You are their overlord and commander. You should not need to cajole and encourage. They should be desperate to win anyway, for their own honour. You should deny shelter and support to any man who does not ride through their lines, cutting them down.’
Cavarinos paused for a moment, ripping his gaze from his brother’s eyes, and was a little dismayed to realise from their expressions that Vercingetorix and his cousin were actually considering both options. He took a breath and coughed. ‘Levelling threats and setting harsh conditions upon our own warriors?’ He sighed. ‘Do as you see fit. I am finding the air in here stale and unpleasant.’
Rising, he ignored the noise at his back and pushed his way to the tent flap and out into the warm night air. Coming to a halt on the open grass, he heaved in a deep cleansing breath. The longer this war went on, the less straightforward it became and the less honour was to be found in it.
His gaze settled on the distant bulk of Borvo, rising above the surrounding lower hills. Somewhere near there the Roman forces were gathered, as prepared to face them as they ever would be. He wondered whether Fronto was having such ethical nightmares with his own people.
‘Good luck to you, Roman. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day for everyone, it seems.’
* * * * *
Varus first became aware of the enemy when one of the scouts who had been ranging half a mile ahead of the column came hurtling back towards them over the saddle, yelling warnings. He had covered only a tenth of the distance when a spear struck him in the back and his horse veered off to the side, the scout slouched low over the neck, spear bouncing along, still wedged in his ribs.
Then, announced by the blow, the enemy horse burst over the rise - thousands of them, charging into battle howling and bellowing, spears and swords at the ready. There were so many!
Before Varus could even give the order, Volcatius seemed to have had the same thought, bellowing commands, and the musician reached for his tuba to blow the order to charge. Standing and waiting for that mob to hit them would be no good. If the Roman force raced to meet them they would at least nullify the momentum of the charge. Before the horn sounded, Varus held aloft his sword.
‘A purse of gold to the man who makes the most kills!’
The tuba touched the man’s lips. Around them, the mostly-Gallic cavalry watched their countrymen charging at them.
‘And remember: all the gods hate an oathbreaker!’
The tuba blew. The horses began to run, holding to a rough semblance of formation at best. Behind, Varus could hear the Ninth legion calling the order for contra-equitas formation - a double-height wall of shields and bristling pila, in case the enemy routed Varus’ men and made it to the column. Beyond that, perhaps a mile back along the valley, he could hear other cavalry commands being sounded. An attack on more than one front, then.
Varus kicked his horse into greater speed, racing along the low slope towards the howling Gauls. To either side of him, Gauls equipped with Roman kit as well as their own charged, heads lowered forwards, spears braced, shields presented. At least, despite the likely uneven numbers, it seemed the native levies were still fighting with, rather than against, them.
His sword held forth and shield ready to take a spear, Varus thundered on amid his men, picking a likely target in the front line. The Gaul was armoured with a mail shirt of single thickness and a helmet that looked like some kind of mythical horned beast in bronze, three fairly bedraggled feathers jutting from the top.
The man had apparently chosen Varus in the same manner, and the spear he held adjusted slightly in an attempt to find Varus’ torso. The commander narrowed his eyes. That would be foolish. The man must know the Roman’s shield would reach a defensive position in time.
He realised what the man was doing just in time, hauling on the reins and forcing his horse to lurch to the right just as the man’s spear dropped and changed target. Had Varus not moved his horse ever so slightly, that leaf-shaped point would now be sinking into the beast’s chest and he would be thrown to the ground and trampled and churned beneath a thousand hooves. Nothing in this type of fight was quite so sure an agonising death as coming off your horse to be ridden over by both sides.
As the Gaul tried to bring his spear back up to attempt something useful, the two horses hit with a crash, along with all others along the line, and chaos ensued. The Gaul apparently decided that his spear was no longer viable and let it fall from his grasp into the press, reaching down to draw his sword. Varus gave him no time, leaning forward in the saddle and bringing his own blade down in an arc that smashed into the man’s upper arm, almost severing it. The Gaul lost control of his beast instantly, and as the horse shouldered this way and that, no longer held by the rein, trying to escape the press, Varus lifted his sword and brought it down at an angle, point first this time. The blade smashed into the stricken Gaul, shattering the rings of the shirt as it punched into flesh and muscle and killed the man swiftly.
Varus ripped his blade back out and looked around. The press of men around him was nightmarish, and made all the more so by the fact that the auxiliaries were almost indistinguishable from the enemy. He concentrated. All the native levies in his force had been issued with blue scarves to allow for easy identification following the debacle at Gergovia with the Aedui cavalry. Selecting a man without said apparel, h
e heaved his steed further into the press, scything down with his sword and catching the man’s shield, ripping a corner from it.
Around him men from both sides were cleaved and impaled, a fine spray of blood almost constantly filling the air along with the screaming and the sweating of both man and beast. As he delivered a second blow, crippling the shield and leaving the man defenceless, another blue-scarfed cavalryman drove a long Gallic blade into the Gaul. Varus looked about again, forced to jerk his reins to move aside as a particularly large horse now devoid of rider and with mad, rolling eyes, pushed its way through the panic, seeking freedom.
There was a scream, and the auxiliary who had just helped him suddenly disappeared from his own saddle accompanied by a jet of blood, leaving only another panicked horse. Varus had no time and no room to do anything about it, his own steed’s hooves stamping down on the fallen soldier, finishing him off.
The situation was already looking precarious. It was hard to get a true picture of the way things were going from within the press, but already, the vast majority of the figures he could see wore no scarf. Had his own men ripped theirs off and joined the enemy, or had they just been fought back?
A strange, gurgling tune reached his ears from somewhere behind them, and it took a moment for Varus to register the meaning of the noise as his sword took another enemy rider in the neck, wrenched back in a crimson fountain.
‘Oh, shit.’
* * * * *
Cavarinos pushed his steed forward through the press, trying to reach the Roman officer who had been seemingly untouchable so far, three of his victims fallen beneath the press. From the crest of the hill, the Arvernian noble had seen the almost choreographed way in which, at the sight of the enemy, the legions had formed into an anti-cavalry wall and surrounded the wagons, from which they could receive extra supplies of weapons or ammunition as required. The Roman horse - mostly drawn from the local tribes apparently - had wasted no time in countering the attack and, though the numbers seemed already to be swinging further and further into the rebels’ favour, the infantry would be a tough nut if they managed to break the horse. But then they didn’t really need to crack that nut. If they could destroy Caesar’s cavalry, they could keep the legions pinned down and unable to move until the rest of the army arrived.
If I can take their commander down, they’ll lose heart.
Cavarinos smashed a man in a blue scarf out of the way with his bronze shield boss and heaved on towards the officer in the press. He was closing on the man when an awful gargling noise rang out across the valley from twisted Germanic horns. With a sinking feeling, the Arvernian rose in his saddle to try and see over the heads of those in front.
Another force of horsemen was hurtling across the grass towards the fight. He couldn’t quite make out the details. There were quite a few of them, and kitted out as Roman cavalry, but the curses and oaths they yelled at the sky were in the Germanic tongue. His memory dredged up a tale Lucterius had told of the German cavalry who had saved Caesar’s army before the walls of Novioduno in the north. Savages. Head-takers. And trained and equipped by the Romans.
Ignoring this unpleasant revelation, he pushed on towards the officer, who was now also heaving his way forwards. Something about the look of urgency in the man’s face as he pushed deeper into the enemy suggested that his resolve was at least as much to be safe from the Germans behind him as to take the fight to the rebels ahead.
The officer was close now. Cavarinos was forced to delay his approach as a man with a good Gallic moustache and braid tried to remove his head with a long sword. Three parries - two with his shield and one with his blade - and the Arvernian nobleman managed to slam his sword into the man’s helmetless face, the blade driving in through the nasal cavity with agonising grating and shudders. By the time he ripped it back out with some difficulty, the Roman was even closer, but was being forced to parry a series of heavy blows from an Aeduan rebel.
And then they were face to face. The Roman was not a young man, with patches of grey visible beneath his helmet brim and colouring the five-day growth upon his chin. But his high cheekbones and ice blue eyes were noble and intelligent. The man nodded, barely perceptibly, as though acknowledging the nobility of his opponent, and raised a battered and dented shield, ready to take Cavarinos’ blow, his sword coming up ready to retaliate.
Cavarinos had not led this attack. That honour had gone to Eporedirix, who had insisted on his own command. He’d not directed the attack, but he would bring it to a close by finishing the enemy cavalry’s commander.
The Arvernian noble raised his own blade to strike.
Whatever it was that struck Cavarinos from the left felt like the hammer of the god Sucellos. It was heavy enough and swung with enough power that it actually turned his helmet slightly around his head, giving him only peripheral sight. Not that that really mattered, since the ringing of the blow on his helmet and the dent that drove bronze into his skull thoroughly scattered his wits, almost knocking him unconscious.
He felt himself falling from the saddle, bouncing between two rippling, sweating horses and to the churned mud beneath. His few conscious thoughts still threading together helpfully told him that he was a dead man. On the ground here, he stood precious little chance. He was past caring.
Blackness enveloped him
* * * * *
Cavarinos opened his eyes slowly, blinking with the pain that struck him in repeated, nauseating waves. His head was pounding, and his neck seemed stiff and unable to turn far to the left. One eye felt difficult to pry open further than a crack. But as he lay there, still groggy, he ran his hand across his chest and neck and down to his groin. Nothing seemed critical. Flexing his toes and fingers, he tried to move his limbs. Everything still seemed to work.
‘You’re alive, then,’ called a familiar voice. He blinked again, trying to focus. The figure of Eporedirix leaned against a heavy wicker fence, surrounded by a multitude of dejected tribes folk, many sporting visible wounds. He could see the tips of Roman spears beyond the fence. Captivity, then. Better than death, at least. Well… probably.
‘What happened?’ he managed through the thick saliva of sickness.
The Aeduan noble wandered over, through a large crowd of captives, all unarmed and disconsolate, and crouched next to him, nursing a bloody shoulder.
‘Disaster. Some of ours didn’t seem to have the heart to fight their countrymen, but those fighting for the Romans had no compunction about killing ours. And there was confusion. I think a lot of our men were killing each other, mistaking them for the enemy. Things were getting difficult even before the Germans hit us. They were animals, Cavarinos. I saw one of them take a bite out of my signaller’s neck. I kid you not. He just leaned in, sank his teeth into the man and tore out half of his neck. It was sickening.’
‘So we lost.’
‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘And the other attacks?’
‘Fared no better than us. They were holding their own by the looks of it, but once those of us at the front had broken under the German onslaught, the ones at the rear stood no chance. This is just one prison. I saw them building four this morning, and from the hammering sounds throughout the day, there’s been more. If they’re all the same size, I’d say they took more than two thousand of us prisoner. One of the Romans said the prisons are just to hold us while they process us, whatever that means. And then there’s the dead, of course. So many dead. While we waited to be herded in here, I saw the dead being gathered in huge heaps. Not many will have made it back, I fear. Last I saw of the survivors as my captor smacked me about with his spear shaft, they were racing for the river with Caesar’s hounds snapping at their heels.’
‘It was always a risky attack,’ Cavarinos sighed, as there was a rattle and a clunk and the gate swung wide. A centurion stepped in. ‘Time to be counted, identified and allocated, you lot. Those of you who speak Latin need to translate for the rest. Form a line and walk slowly across to
the desk of the clerk, give your name, tribe, and anything you can think of that might be relevant. And remember, the legionaries on either side of you are alert and ready, should any of you get any clever ideas. Now come on.’
As the dejected captives began to form a line and move slowly from the stockade, Eporedirix reached down with his uninjured arm and helped the stiff Cavarinos to his feet. A thought struck the Arvernian as he wobbled slightly, and his gaze dropped to his waist and he breathed a sigh of relief. The familiar weight of his pouch was still there.
‘If you’re after your sword, they took them all.’
The Arvernian stretched and tried to ease his neck around as the line moved slowly out. The nausea was retreating fast, leaving a dull ache on the left side of his head and around his eye where the blow had apparently landed. As he passed through the open gate and into the Roman camp, seething with men, he noted the line ahead. The men were being interrogated as to their name and tribe quite tersely and quickly shuffled off into one of two lines. One was approaching a small enclosure, where the cries of pain and the rising waves of smoke suggested branding was taking place. The other disappeared from sight behind a line of expressionless legionaries. With typical Roman efficiency, the line was moving quickly.
His roving gaze took in the camp as he shuffled forwards. It was enormous, and something about the treelines and the slope towards a nearby rising hill was startlingly familiar. Everywhere he could see legionaries going about their business, and here and there centurions directing activity. This was it, then. The Romans had stopped running. They had demolished the rebels’ cavalry, and felt they now had the edge, so they had halted their march and built a camp. They did not need to make for Agedincum any more. And if Vercingetorix had any sense, with no cavalry element, he was looking for somewhere to hole up and defend until replacement forces arrived to bolster his.
The Great Revolt Page 38
