With a last motion to Carbo, urging him to wait, Fronto gestured to his century and they spread out along the line of the trees in their eight-man contubernia, each group opposite one of the waiting chariots. As soon as he could look along the line and see that they were in place and all movement appeared to have ceased, he made the motion to attack.
The chariot drivers were oblivious; all their attention locked on the battle before them, they were hopelessly unprepared for a sudden attack from behind. By the time Fronto and his eight man unit reached the nearest chariot, the man was only just turning in alarm at the sound of jingling metal above the driving rain. His yell of panicked warning was cut short and became the gurgle of a man with an opened throat as a particularly energetic legionary bounded up onto the yoke, his shield hardly inconveniencing him as he plunged his gladius into the Briton’s neck, wrenched it free, and dropped down the far side without pause into a puddle of mud churned up by the vehicle’s wheels and horses’ hooves. For good measure, a second legionary put his blade in the driver’s ribs just to be sure, dragging him down from the traces to die on the sodden turf.
Two more men from the contubernium hurriedly cut the horses free of the vehicle and smacked them on the rump, sending them running from the field in panic. This last was, strictly speaking, unnecessary, the chariots having been rendered ineffective with the loss of the driver, but the wanton destruction emboldened the legionaries and gave them much needed heart.
A quick glance left and right told much the same story all along the forest’s edge. Of the ten parties that had sortied from the trees, only two had been forced to make a fight of it, their targets more alert than the others, and three of the contubernia had already moved on to take other chariots out. One or two of the vehicles that stood to the western edge of the field were making a run for it, and Fronto briefly considered ordering that they be chased down, but reminded himself that this was about a quick win, not a thorough trouncing — let them go.
Now, Carbo’s men were moving out of the tree line, filtering between the useless chariots and forming up into shield walls one century at a time, twenty men wide and four deep. Already Fronto’s contubernium was moving on to a chariot that was busy wheeling and making to leave, but which had neither the time nor the space to evade the onslaught.
Glancing around, Fronto tried to see what was happening elsewhere. The enemy’s reserve cavalry had apparently noticed the sudden danger from the wing and were forming up to come and meet them but behind them he could see the shapes of armoured legionaries emerging from the forest to the south: Cicero had arrived.
Calls were now going up among the horde of Britons, warning of the danger from the flanks. The warriors began to turn at the edge of the mass and form a front against this new threat. The reserve cavalry, preparing to charge Fronto’s cohort, was suddenly warned of the newly-arrived force behind them and dissolved into chaos, some of the riders turning to attack this fresh army, while others kicked their steeds into life and continued their original charge.
Such it always was with a disorganised army. The reserve cavalry had still been a strong enough force to punch through either new cohort, but having become divided and without the advantage of a system of officers and signallers, the force had neatly split into two groups, neither of which would have the strength to break a Roman advance.
With a wave at the centurion of the second century, Fronto signalled him to pull the men back into formation, but the well-trained soldiers were already finishing off the last of the chariots within reach and moving towards their standard, the glinting silver decorated with sprigs of greenery from its difficult passage through the woodland.
Cornu blasts and the cries of officers from the far side of the field revealed that Cicero’s cohort were moving against the far flank at a run. Carbo, ever the long-sighted officer, had slowed his own men so that all the advancing centuries could fall into step, allowing time for Fronto and his men to catch up and join them and, above all, letting their comrades beyond the enemy horde know that they had arrived.
Even as Fronto listened, he could hear the rhythmic battering of gladius on shield from all along his cohort’s line. There would be no surprise to this attack; the enemy had had sufficient warning from the chariots’ destruction to turn and face them, and so Carbo was sending a strong signal to the beleaguered centre of the Roman lines that help had arrived.
Sure enough, even as Fronto and his century began to form up and move at a jog to plug the gap Carbo had left them, an answering roar arose from the Roman force as they fought with renewed vigour, aware that they were no longer on the defensive.
The tone in the enemy also changed, though not enough. There were cries of dismay, but as many cries of defiance as the mass of warriors turned almost inside out to present three faces, leaving a clear way only to the west.
Fronto met up with the line only ten yards from the waiting Britons and shuffled along to find a spot between his century and the next where he wasn’t ruining a centurion’s formation.
“Respectfully, sir” an optio called from behind his men, where he was busy using his stick to prod them into a straighter line, “but you need to fall in at the rear, sir.”
Fronto stared at the junior officer in disbelief.
“You what, soldier?”
The optio didn’t even bend under the malice of Fronto’s gaze.
“Orders of the primus pilus, sir. On account of your knee, sir.”
The legate’s glare simply hardened as he struggled to come up with a spiteful enough reply, but already the line had closed in front of him. Fronto was closer to his legion than most legates, but he was still a world apart, while their primus pilus might as well be Mars himself wielding a thunderbolt and no legionary would be about to defy the man.
Fronto realised he was standing glaring at a man who had already moved his attention back to his own men, and determined to have this out with Carbo the moment they were in private. His thoughts were interrupted a moment later by the tremendous crash of two armies meeting in a line of bloody violence.
Galronus, chieftain among the Remi tribe and commander of an entire wing of Caesar’s auxiliary cavalry force rubbed his hair to rid it of the excess water as his horse danced impatiently. “How far?”
“Not far” his best scout shrugged the rain from his shoulders as his horse came to a halt and it took Galronus a moment in the torrential downpour to see the grin on the man’s face.
“What?”
“You don’t recognise the ground, sir?”
“Don’t try my patience, Senocondos. I am tired, saddle sore, and now I find we’re on the trail of a damned war band!”
It had been two and a half days since he and the small cavalry command had left the lands of the Atrebates, riding as fast as they dared for the south east coastline. The local chieftain had taken some persuading and the promise of very heavy future concessions, but had not been averse to dealing with Roman commanders. Now, four hundred horsemen travelled with eight hundred mounts, changing beasts regularly to see them arrive fresh and capable for action.
Better than that, the Atrebate nobles’ sons who led the contingent under his command knew the land well enough that their return journey had been a lot shorter and more comfortable than the horrible ride into the unknown west over a week ago.
And only half an hour ago, weary and becoming aggravated with the incessant bad weather, the riders had happened upon the unmistakable trail of a large force that had recently passed by in the direction of the Roman landing site.
“Apologies, lord. This is land we scouted when first we landed. Caesar’s camp is less than half a mile distant. We can follow the trail and it will lead us there.”