Swiftly the rest of his force assembled around him, and Quadratus paused as they arranged themselves into their tribal sub-units, his veteran regulars forming up on him, bearing their banner to relay his orders to the rest, no signal horn in evidence in case its blasts led to their discovery.
As soon as the various sections were ready he nodded to the signifer, who waved the red vexillum flag in the approved signals. In moments the entire force was moving along the bank of the river, following it downstream in a northerly direction towards the ford at the rear of the Treveri army. It was a measure of the skill and competence of the cavalry, both regular and native levy, that they managed to maintain their unit cohesion and move at speed given the narrow confines afforded by the raging torrent to their left and the slope that hid them from the enemy to their right.
The horsemen raced on blindly, able to see only the gentle curve of the river valley, the location of the Roman camp and the Treveri army pin-pointable by the sounds that echoed across the landscape. The first gamble had been whether the other cavalry force would commit as intended. They would soon know the answer to that. The second gamble was that Quadratus’ own unit could leave the river and move up onto the enemy-controlled plain in just the right position to reach the commanders from the rear without engaging the entire force.
Evicaos, one of the more senior native mounted scouts, had assured him that if they followed the river as far as the ford and then turned back directly south, they would fall upon the unprepared and lightly defended Indutiomarus with ease. Quadratus hoped the man was right. There was still every possibility — even if they made the right position to leave the river — that his small cavalry unit would arrive at their turning point, rush up the hill and find themselves confronted by the entire Treveri cavalry force defending their leader.
* * * * *
Lucius Annius Gritto clung to his spear and shield tightly as he steered his nervous steed with his knees in the fashion taught by Roman cavalry trainers. His mail shirt felt as though it weighed more than he did, dragging him down to the ground, but he clenched his teeth and held on.
How he had drawn the duty of second in command of the native cavalry attack, he was still unsure. He was certainly not the most senior decurion in the camp, and far from the most experienced. He was lucky with dice and had fleeced a number of his peers recently, including the commander Quadratus, and it was tempting to blame that as a reason, though he hoped he owed this dubious honour to something more substantial than his affinity with lady Fortuna, bless her shapely breasts. He wished he had a free hand to grasp the pendant of his favourite Goddess hanging around his neck, but settled for a mental prayer — short and to the point.
The briefing had taken mere moments and was simple:
Make sure the native prince and chieftains kept to the plan and didn’t either race off into the open ground and freedom or launch against the first warrior they saw. It sounded simple, anyway.
In reality, given the lack of regular cavalrymen in the force and the absence of Roman officers or Roman training, what he actually found himself part of was a headlong, disorganised charge in true Gallic style, with a lot of shouting and screaming, threats and promises, some crazed laughter, more than a little jostling between the riders, occasional falls and mishaps and so much noise that it felt as though his ears might turn inside out. It had occurred to him within only moments of leaving the camp that his presence was about as pointless as tits on a bull, since even if any of them could hear his orders and calls over the general din, none of them seemed to be paying the slightest attention to him anyway.
His initial fears were first realised when he shot out of the gate like some sort of projectile, squeezed through among the Gauls, only to see the remaining western force of Treveri running towards the open gate. There were not many of them, given the size of the Gauls’ army — perhaps three hundred, which was minimal given that until the desertions had begun there were more like two thousand outside this gate. They were rabid and wild, just like the horsemen he was riding amongst, and they sought blood, but they could easily be avoided, given their numbers.
Indeed, the prince in charge, one Messirios — identified by the dragon standard that rode alongside him — immediately took the lead units out and swept around the Treveri group, as the plan had dictated.
Two of the other chieftains leading their auxiliary volunteer regiments seemed to have different ideas and turned their forces directly on the small besieging mob, rushing to meet them and crashing into them like two opposing waves.
Gritto had shaken his head in exasperation, realising there was virtually nothing he could do about it, and rode on with the bulk of the force, hoping that the loss of a hundred or more cavalry to this unintentional engagement would not alter their chances of the main objective.
Then they had found themselves in the clear, riding hard to circumvent the main enemy force. It had been exhilarating, momentarily. They were on-task. The discordant honking and lowing of the carnyx horns and some frantic waving from the Treveri command group confirmed that they had been seen and were being taken seriously, just as intended, and even the enemy cavalry began to move as if to intercept them.
And then things had gone wrong.
Another bunch of the chieftains among the cavalry had apparently decided that they liked the look of the nearest bunch of Treveri scum and had peeled off with their units, heading directly towards the main force. As Gritto had shouted himself hoarse, his voice totally lost in the noise of the attack, he’d felt his heart sink as he watched two more of the native units peel off to support them.
A very quick rough estimate in his head now suggested that almost half the attacking force had separated to wage their own private wars, and not only was it therefore not a given that the enemy would consider the attack enough of a threat to engage their own horse, but it was also now a worrying possibility that the Treveri might come after them and win…
Ahead, what was left of the main cavalry attack was still skirting the main force, heading for the Treveri horse and their commanders at the rear, and Gritto scanned the crowd of his own men as he rode until he spotted the standard that betrayed the position of Messirios.
It was dipping to the left!
Though he had absolutely no idea of the signalling systems the natives used, if indeed they used any kind of signalling at all, given their propensity to chaos, an intentional dip of the standard to the left could only signal a move that way, as it would with a Roman unit.
And that meant straight into the bulk of the infantry.
Gritto felt his spirits sink even further — if that were at all possible, since they were already bounding along at ground level and cutting a furrow in the grass. If the prince turned against the main force, so would all his men and his allied chiefs. Then they would be engaged with the wrong group. Very likely the enemy cavalry would not even bother to commit and would just watch the fun, given that the infantry that would be dying would be the mercenary bandits anyway, and not their own tribesmen.
How could that Mediomatrici moron be so short-sighted? He would cost them the battle.
In the most futile of gestures, Gritto tried desperately to shout for them to hold their course, waving his spear and almost gutting one of the nearest Gauls in the process. He might as well have been throwing mouldy cabbages at the walls of Rome for all the difference his attempts were making.