The gap between the two formations grew smaller with every passing second. Turn, you fool. Turn. He felt Felicio’s eyes on him and realized he’d spoken aloud. If Varus turned even now, Valerius could wheel his squadrons left to threaten the Vitellian right flank. It might not hold the enemy in place, but with Fortuna’s aid it would cause enough confusion for the two divisions of the Second Thracum to win free and join up with the main force as it retreated towards Bedriacum.
But it was already too late.
Only four hundred paces separated the two lines now and the bellow of Varus’s trumpeter sounding the charge scraped across the inside of Valerius’s skull like a sword point. Each individual turma in the attacking formation contained forty men, ranged in ranks four deep. Charging shoulder to shoulder the ten men in the front ranks shared an attack frontage of fifteen paces, with five paces separating each turma. But few horses, even trained cavalry mounts, would charge home against an unbroken line. Another short blast of the trumpet and Valerius saw daylight as the individual units obediently changed formation to open order and the line rippled out, increasing its length, but still only two thirds the span of the enemy’s front.
‘Wheel quarter left,’ he shouted.
‘Now we’re for it.’ Valerius barely registered Serpentius’s doom-laden prediction before the two lines struck with a tumultuous clatter of iron, shrieks of mortal agony and the squeals of dying horses. Splintered lances twisted through the air and he saw at least one horse somersault over the heads of the first line and smash into the rear ranks of the enemy.
‘Sound the charge!’ Valerius accompanied the order with a primeval scream that combined anger and fear and frustration at Varus for getting him killed. His long sword was already in his left hand, drawn without its owner’s volition. The urgent repeated trumpet call turned the ranks behind into a wall of roaring, shrieking madmen. The Second Thracum was made up of hard men born to the saddle, the third or fourth generation of their line to serve the Roman cause. They were instinctive warriors, of an ancient lineage that had learned the killing trade on the flatlands where the Danuvius flowed into the Pontus Euxinus. Valerius had calculated that to follow Varus directly into the centre of the Vitellian line would do as much harm as good. Instead, he had carefully angled his attack to come at the outer right fringe of the attacking line. But his orders were to get Varus clear, and the only way to do that was to ride directly into the heart of the carnage.
‘With me, boy. Not a sword’s length away.’ He cut across the signaller and made for the seething mass of men who were hacking and jabbing at each other in the centre. Behind him, the crashing collision between two walls of horse soldiers was repeated, but he only had eyes for the men ahead and finding Varus’s standard.
‘There.’ At his side, Serpentius pointed to a red and yellow banner that weaved and dipped in the midst of the struggling men. ‘Silly bastard’s got himself caught in the middle of it.’
‘Jupiter!’ Valerius roared the watchword, praying the enemy hadn’t chosen the same one. It would be foolish to die on the point of a friend’s spear after escaping the headsman’s sword. A trooper careered across his front, intent on spearing a wounded man on a horse with Thracian trappings. Valerius automatically swung his sword at the unfamiliar helmet and cursed as the cut clattered against metal, jarring his arm to the elbow. The half-stunned enemy cavalryman turned his spear to meet the threat, but Serpentius was already inside the point and the air sprayed scarlet as the former gladiator’s spatha took out his throat. Valerius saw Felicio’s eyes widen in astonishment at the speed of the Spaniard’s attack. ‘With me,’ he urged the boy. ‘Stay with me. Jupiter!’
He focused on the bobbing flash of red and yellow as he forced his way through a bustling herd of mounted men hacking at each other with long swords. In the whirling mass of soldiers and horses the distinction between enemy and friend became blurred. A hand clawed at his leg and he chopped downward, drawing a gurgling scream of agony. Bile rose in his throat as he realized he’d just sliced the lower jaw from a Flavian cavalryman, who fell back with blood spurting from his shattered face. ‘Jupiter. Vespasian. Varus?’
Somehow they reached the Flavian cavalry commander as he exchanged blows with the enemy in an unseeing cloud of rage and battle madness. His signaller was down, felled by a backhand cut across the eyes that left him groping blindly among the flying hooves. A bloodied standard-bearer was screaming at him to disengage, but Arrius Varus was lost in an Otherworld that only soldiers know, his heart soaring on the death cries of his enemies.
‘Varus?’ Valerius pushed his mount between the standard-bearer and his commander, grabbing roughly at the cavalry prefect’s reins and hauling the horse away from the enemy blades. Varus’s sword came round like a striking snake, but the Roman’s spatha flicked out to knock the blade away and the cavalryman froze at the feel of cold iron against his throat. The blood-crazed glow in his eyes faded.
He shook his head. ‘You? How dare—’
‘General’s orders, prefect,’ Valerius said with a formality that seemed out of place amongst the butchery. ‘You’re to withdraw and join the main force.’
‘Are you a fool?’ Varus spat. ‘This is my victory. Look at them. They’re running like rabbits. If Primus reinforces me we can chase them all the way back to Cremona.’
Valerius had been concentrating so hard on finding his quarry that he’d lost sight of what was happening on the rest of the field. Now he looked, and he realized Varus was correct. The enemy had faded away, beaten in the centre and the right, inexplicably followed by the men on the left who had not struck a blow in a fight that had lasted barely three minutes. Varus’s troops jeered at the retreating backs and cut down the few dismounted men attempting to surrender.
‘We should go back,’ Valerius persisted.
Varus shook his head like a man in a fog. ‘My victory.’
‘You’re welcome to it then,’ Serpentius snorted dismissively. He took Valerius’s reins and hauled his horse round. Cursing, Valerius tried to pull them back, but the former gladiator shook him off and nodded to where the defeated Vitellian cavalry had regathered. Valerius felt his heart freeze at the sight that greeted him less than a mile away. Line after line of glittering spear points marked the arrival of the Vitellian reinforcements; a solid, invincible mass of man, metal and horseflesh four or five times the number of the blown and battered survivors of the Flavian charge. ‘Do you want to die with him?’ the Spaniard demanded.
Valerius turned to Felicio, who hadn’t moved a sword’s length from him during the entire battle. ‘Sound the retreat,’ he said wearily.
XVI
It was a horse race and in its initial stages it seemed there could only be one winner. The Thracian mounts had been ridden twelve miles, taken part in a full cavalry charge and found themselves at the centre of an intense, fear-crazed, blood-scented battle. Serpentius looked back over his shoulder as they galloped over the open fields, leaping the occasional ditch, the causeway to their left. ‘They’re gaining,’ he grunted breathlessly. ‘But not as much as I thought. Maybe they’re scared of us.’
Valerius shook his head. ‘Their horses are almost as blown as ours.’ He saw the puzzlement in the Spaniard’s eyes. ‘The two cohorts Varus attacked would have been attached to the garrison at Cremona. The cavalry who are chasing us now must have come from their main force at Hostilia.’
‘That means the legions won’t be far behind them.’
‘I don’t think we need worry about that for the moment.’ Valerius glanced back. ‘Because they may not be gaining fast, but they are gaining.’
They concentrated on getting the most from their mounts, the grass flashing beneath the flying hooves. By now, the retreating squadrons of Varus’s Second Thracum Augusta were spread out over the length and breadth of two cavalry parade grounds. Small pockets of riders formed round the wounded who reeled in the saddle leaking blood, but as their pursuers closed the maimed were reluctan
tly abandoned to fend for themselves. Survival was all that mattered.
In the centre of the retreating Thracians, Valerius saw Varus away to their right. Beside him rode his standard-bearer and Felicio, whom the cavalry commander had demanded as a replacement for his dead signaller. At first it seemed all was well. Men grinned at each other, congratulating themselves on their escape or their prowess. Yet the thunder of hooves from the rear increased with every length and in a heartbeat the euphoria of survival turned to panic. Suddenly men who had been encouraging each other to safety cursed and fought for the swiftest course. Comrades competed for gaps in the field boundaries and priority at the easiest crossing points of streams and ditches. Their hard-ridden mounts sensed the fear of their riders and snapped at their neighbours, breath snorting from their nostrils and the foam thick on their flanks. Soon the first screams announced the moment the weakest became prey for their pursuers’ spears.
Valerius looked up to see a shadow across the fields and the causeway. A surge of relief washed through him. Primus had withdrawn to the legions, but he’d left his cavalry to act as rearguard. Ahead waited three thousand hardened fighters, more than enough to give the enemy pause and save the bulk of Varus’s fleeing men. Whoever commanded them had disposed his troops to create a gap fifty paces wide in the centre. It was a risky formation for the defenders, but one that made sense with hundreds of cavalrymen galloping to seek refuge in their midst. Better to leave a gap in the line that would allow a route to safety and could be closed at need, than hundreds of men and horses trying to claw their way through the tight-packed formations.
Valerius risked another glance towards Varus’s banner and was puzzled to see the cavalry commander without his trumpeter. He searched for Felicio in the group around the prefect and began to edge in their direction. A surge of panicked men blocked his progress, but a sharp cry alerted him and he groaned as he realized what had happened. The young signaller’s horse had snapped a foreleg and now it was limping along as the rearguard of the Second Thracum thundered past. Felicio looked round in despair towards the massed ranks bearing down on him.
‘We can’t …’ Serpentius began. But Valerius had already turned his mount and the Spaniard followed with a curse and a prayer. They swerved their way through troopers blinded by fear and past riderless horses wide-eyed with terror, trailing flecks of foam from their sweat-slick sides. Felicio was still three hundred paces away, diagonally across the enemy’s front. Valerius dug his heels into his horse’s ribs, desperately trying to ignore the fast-approaching wall of steel-tipped death. The young signaller raised his head and Valerius saw hope flare briefly in his eyes before the crippled horse collapsed, pitching him from the saddle.
‘Run,’ Valerius screamed. ‘Run.’
They were so close now that Felicio heard the cry and looked up. He hauled himself to his feet and began to fly across the rough ground to meet his rescuers. With less than fifty paces separating them the Roman saw the boy’s face relax as he raised his hands ready to be plucked to safety. In the same instant a dark shadow appeared at the edge of Valerius’s vision and with almost supernatural swiftness the trumpeter was gone, swept away in a welter of shattered bone and exposed viscera by the sword of a Vitellian cavalrymen.
With a cry of despair Valerius turned to follow the killer, but Serpentius drove his horse across his friend’s path. ‘That won’t help,’ the Spaniard snarled. ‘If you want to avenge him, do it without getting yourself butchered.’
With a last glance at the remains of the young signaller, Valerius reluctantly followed Serpentius through the chaos of retreating men. The vanguard of the Vitellian auxiliaries tore at the fleeing Thracians like wolves in a sheep pen, whooping their war cries with every kill. Valerius and Serpentius found shelter with a more or less organized group and Valerius found himself riding at the shoulder of Tiberius Simplex. The decurion’s face was a mask of defeat, but he acknowledged their arrival with a weary salute. Valerius pointed ahead. ‘Gather what men you can, form column and ride for the gap.’ Simplex looked up and his eyes came alive as he saw the breach in the cavalry line and the possibility of survival. His jaw hardened and he galloped ahead shouting instructions to his men.
Barely two hundred paces to Valerius’s right, Varus rode in a fog of confusion. He could see his standard-bearer’s mouth opening and closing, but the words made no sense. Orders? How could he give orders when his signaller had abandoned him? This was no fault of his. He was certain he had done everything he could. Now it was up to every man to save himself. The trooper was screaming something about a gap, but Arrius Varus’s whirlpool of a mind recognized no gap. All he could see was a long line of cavalry squadrons waiting to provide sanctuary. Narrow avenues showed between the individual units that might give access to two or three riders. He shut out the terrible sounds around him and set his mount for the closest break in the line.
A galloping horse will take less than a minute to cover half a mile. Already the bulk of Varus’s men were bearing down on the sanctuary of the Flavian cavalry line. Most had maintained their discipline; a few, like their commander, were consumed by panic. The one thing they had in common was a determination to survive. Behind and among them rode the great mass of enemy cavalry who had chased them from the field. Savage thrusts of their spear points pierced chain armour, rib and spine to the accompaniment of the shrill death cries of their victims. Their blood was up and they barely noticed the static line of mounted men ahead.
Valerius had seen it before. Panic is like the disease that spreads through a camp on swampy airs, carrying rashes and lung rot and showing no mercy or discrimination for rank or quality. A wave breaking on a beach inundating every shell and grain of sand until its energy is spent. Now it leapt from the Thracian riders to those they had elected their saviours.
‘Stay together!’ Valerius roared the order at Simplex. ‘Whatever happens aim for the gap and stay together.’
Three hundred paces. Ahead, the long line of cavalry seemed to ripple as they realized what was approaching. They could see the enemy’s standards mixed with their own in the confused mass rushing towards them, and beyond, the solid formations of the trailing Vitellian cohorts. They’d been told to expect an orderly retreat and disciplined columns who would take advantage of the gap in their centre. Instead, they faced a tidal wave of terrified men and horses that would break their carefully prepared defence lines and wreak havoc with sword and spear. When the first man turned his horse his decurion tried to push him back into line. By then it was too late. He was followed by first one then another of his comrades, and within a dozen heartbeats the whole line began to disintegrate.
Valerius watched it happen with a sinking heart, but his course never deviated from the gap in the line where the officers still exerted some semblance of discipline. Stern, determined faces flashed past to right and left and he was through and safe. The men Tiberius Simplex had gathered remained with him and he knew their first instinct would be to lower their guard, but he couldn’t allow that to happen. He roared above the thunder of hooves, ‘Stay together. Stay in formation.’
Serpentius had never left his side and he heard the Spaniard curse. ‘Mars’ sacred arse, what a fucking shambles.’
Valerius looked about him and was reminded of the mountain avalanche that had almost killed him the previous year. It had roared down the slope absorbing everything in its path, be it rock or snow, or tree – or man. The Flavian defensive line had absorbed the fleeing cavalry and taken on its momentum, careering blindly back towards Bedriacum. Thousands of men and horses thundering east in a confused rabble without form or discipline: a commander’s worst nightmare.
Marcus Antonius Primus had overseen the formation of his legions and was returning to join his cavalry when he saw the disorganized horde sweeping down the Via Postumia. For an instant the same panic that drove them threatened to overwhelm him. Yet the fear he felt was nothing to the realization of the humiliation he would suffer if he was d
efeated. Better to die on this field than see his name a laughing stock.
Twenty paces ahead a narrow stream with steep banks cut across the line of the road, spanned by a wooden bridge. He turned to the prefect in charge of his personal guard. ‘Tear it down and form a line on this side of the stream. This is where we make our stand. Not one step backwards.’
The men set to work and as more officers arrived from Bedriacum he ordered them to extend the holding line along the eastern bank of the stream. ‘Kill the leaders if you must,’ he instructed, ‘but stop the rout at all costs. They will be slowed by the gully. Stop them and turn them round to face the enemy.’
Then he waited.
The first fugitives were those who had fled fastest, their horses foaming and close to spent, but they ignored their general’s entreaties to stop and fight and galloped on. In desperation, Primus seized a spear from the closest of his escorts. The next man to cross the stream and top the bank was a standard-bearer, still clutching the red banner with his unit’s symbol of a rearing horse. His eyes were glazed with fear and he didn’t even hear his commander’s order to halt. Primus thrust forward and the impact almost broke his wrists as the spear took the man square in the breast and pitched him out of the saddle. An aide swiftly stepped forward to pick up the banner and set it on the bank of the stream.
Primus dismounted to heave the spear free from the dead man’s still twitching flesh. A shadow loomed threateningly over him, a tall, mounted figure silhouetted against the sun, and he turned with the point ready.
‘Well,’ he said savagely. ‘Will you fight or do I have to kill you too?’
[Gaius Valerius Verrens 05] - Enemy of Rome Page 12
