It could have been bloody and vicious. It could have been — should have been, really — a hard fight with a high casualty rate on both sides. But with the siege lifted, the army departing, and half their number scattered broken on the slope below, there was simply no heart left in the Treveri cavalry. Almost as soon as battle was joined at the crest, the horsemen were pulling away from the fight and trying to flee through the gaps between Roman units and down the slope to the river, their momentum now slow enough to afford them a reasonably safe descent.
But as many of them swept past, the sides of the defensive squares — a formation rarely utilised by cavalry — raked them mercilessly, bringing down two of every three riders that passed by.
As the hell of personal combat relented, the enemy either dying or fled, Quadratus paused to take in the situation. The Treveri infantry were moving his way, fleeing the field, despite the cavalry in the way. After all, sheer weight of numbers was with them, and they had to make it across the river to even begin to believe they were safe. Behind Quadratus and his men, down the slope, maybe seventy or eighty enemy riders had managed any kind of safe descent.
Quadratus let slip a loud string of curses and imprecations as he noted the standards that identified Indutiomarus’ party at the bottom of the slope, near the river, racing desperately for safety.
‘Bollocks! Damn, damn, damn and bollocks!’
With a sigh, he turned to the signifer. ‘Sound the pursuit. Full pace. I want that standard and the king’s head.’
Aware that many of the Gaulish volunteers around him were listening in, and that his scout was still relaying a translation, he raised his arm. ‘Whoever brings me Indutiomarus’ head, I will repay with the same weight of gold!’
Barely had the scout relayed the words than the auxiliaries let out wild whoops of delight and turned, directing their mounts over the crest and down the slope with as crazed and dangerous speed as the enemy had attempted, driven by their greed for the royal prize Quadratus had set.
The commander turned with the rest of his force, leaving the small parties of native auxiliaries still locked in a fight with their counterparts to finish it off before following, and began to pick his way back down the slope as fast as he dared, which was less than half the speed of the blood-and-gold crazed Gauls.
By the time he was halfway down the slope, he realised just how quickly word of his offered reward had spread, shouted between the Gauls, and many of the ones who had been farthest down the slope to begin with were even now racing out into the water in an attempt to head off the foremost fleeing enemy and capture the command group.
Quadratus slowed his descent, his gaze flicking alternately between the dangerous incline down which he walked his horse and the events unfolding at the ford in a vast tableau. As he realised what was happening, he paused and reined in to watch.
Seeing the Roman’s Gallic auxiliaries closing in on both sides and pulling ahead to seal off the ford, the Treveri cavalry had collapsed into a disorganised, panicked shambles. In the centre of the remaining enemy force, the small knot of nobles and the standard bearer were trying to push their way out ahead.
Indutiomarus — or at least, Quadratus assumed it had to be the Treveri king, given his ostentatious armour and garb, raised himself as high as possible on his steed and started throwing around commands like a man in a state of extreme desperation. Quadratus nodded to himself happily. His own riders had got ahead now and were sealing off the ford. The enemy king was doomed. He hoped momentarily that Labienus might stand the reward, rather than leaving him to pay it, but if need be, he was willing to cough up the gold. It would be worth it.
He almost bellowed out with laughter as the Treveri king yelled at one of his nobles, shaking his arm and pointing to the far side of the ford, and then failed to hold in the mirth as that same noble simply raised his sword and slid it deep into Indutiomarus’ chest.
The Treveri king — would-be architect of their destruction and aspiring hero of Gaul — gave a cry of agony that was audible even halfway back up the slope and tumbled from his horse. The mass of auxiliary cavalry swarmed in like locusts, each ignoring their own peril and leaping from their horses, rushing the disorganised and panicked Treveri in the desire to be the one to retrieve the head of the dead king. Quadratus wondered, still chuckling, whether he could get out of the reward on the technicality that the king had already been killed by his own, but shook his head at the thought. Honesty in all dealings.
The Treveri at the ford had thrown down their weapons and were begging for clemency, but the auxiliary cavalry were having none of it. The body of Indutiomarus was still in among them somewhere, and the idea of a head’s worth of gold was overcoming any of the riders’ notions of nobility in battle. Quadratus considered giving the order to accept their surrender, but he knew it would do no good. His local levies had blood and gold in their sights now, and no mere Roman order would stop them from collecting. Besides, they would have finished it before the order ever reached them and, truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to stop them.
He would take Indutiomarus’ head, and that would help put the final end to this irritating and dangerous rebellion in the east. His memory furnished him with an image of the entire Treveri force running on foot for the ford, and his heart lurched suddenly.
Somewhere down at the ford there was a whoop of delight and a Gaul was running for his horse, a heavy weight swinging from his hand by the hair, half a dozen of his compatriots chasing him angrily while the rest finished off every last Treveri soul in the river in their disappointment at failing to take the prize. It was over down there.
So, given the approaching Treveri infantry, should his small force leave, heading back the way they’d come, upriver and along the bank, or try to bring the army to a halt? He knew the answer, of course. He had the suspicion that Labienus would let the survivors go free anyway, but he would not be the one to allow the entire Treveri force to flee the field without explicit orders from a superior.
‘Signaller! We form up on the fords. Their army’s coming this way and I intend to deny them the crossing.
The soldier with the standard stared for a moment in disbelief, and then began waving the flag in an attempt to attract the attention of the rest of the cavalry. A quick pause and with a little concentration, Quadratus could hear the fleeing Treveri nearing the crest of the slope. This was going to be extremely bloody unless he could persuade them to surrender.
With a quick uttered prayer to Mars, he made his way on down the slope to the river bank, where his men were forming in the shallow water.
* * * * *
Barely had the small cavalry force assembled in the ford than the first of the fleeing tribesmen appeared over the crest of the hill, beginning their descent to the river. Some of the discipline seemed to have evaporated among the native levies with their easy victory at the ridge and the ensuing bloodthirsty executions of the Treveri commanders in the river, which even now ran with a pink tint from the numerous bodies snagged on the stones of the ford and the rocks and branches at the river’s bank.
Still, despite the elation and blood-drunk enthusiasm of the Gauls under his command, they had managed to form a rough block that defended the river crossing, some ten men deep. It was a formidable obstacle. They would be hopelessly outnumbered by the fleeing Treveri, but the width of the ford would negate much of that disadvantage, since no man in his right mind would try to cross the Mosella anywhere but at a ford. And the height advantage of a horseman meant that as long as a rider could keep his beast from harm, he was relatively free to manoeuvre, stabbing with his spear into the attack, while the enemy infantry would be hampered by the waist-deep flow and the numbing cold.