Gallia Invicta

“It is good to know that someone of apparently good honest sense has a commanding role in this campaign. This role is not one of my choosing. I would have been back among my own people serving under Labienus if commander Varus had been willing to take this command instead.”

Again, the older tribune gave a light laugh.

“I must return to the others. I may be required when we meet up with these new reinforcements. Remember my words, though, Galronus of the Remi.”

The cavalry officer smiled and nodded.

He would remember.

The army had been travelling through the lands of the Sotiates for a day now and Galronus had begun to feel distinctly tense, jumping at each unexpected sound. The officers in their accustomed position in the vanguard seemed to be treating the whole expedition as some sort of jaunt through the country, laughing and joking, pausing the army’s march to take a meal on a hill with a particularly splendid view and riding out on small forays to hunt as the army travelled.

The Remi commander had met a number of men like this in his winter sojourn in Rome with Fronto, men more interested in themselves than their assigned task. Men who were heading for a fall.

The scenery here was stunning, though, he had to admit. As a man from the largely low and flat lands of the Remi, Galronus had little experience of terrain like this. Aquitania seemed to consist largely of deep valleys and gorges, thick woodland and high waterfalls, separated by high rock formations and bald moorlands. The landscape reminded him of the folds and dips in a cloak cast uncaringly to the floor.

Also, since leaving Vindunum and separating from Caesar’s army, the weather had been improving the further south they travelled, leading to blue skies and warm sun among the Aquitanian hills, the buzz and hum of bees and the twitter of birds a constant companion.

But no amount of breathtaking scenery or stunning weather could shake the mood from the cavalry commander.

Three days into what was considered to be Aquitania and no sign of anything but a few small hamlets and lonely woodcutters’ huts. One full day into the lands of the Sotiates, the largest tribe of this land, and nothing to show for it but a tanned face and the smell of summer flowers.

Galronus had approached the legate and suggested a number of measures, almost all of which had been ignored out of hand.

Crassus did not deem these woodcutters worth interrogating, though Galronus had seen the look in their eyes as they’d watched the legion pass. They knew something and each gaze he met set his nerves a notch higher. The legate refused to reorganise the army’s marching order so as to be less predictable; the Seventh were apparently invincible in Crassus’ eyes. Even the suggestion that they change their route and make for some of the smaller tribes first to gain more of an idea of what they were facing fell on deaf ears. Finally the two men had agreed on roving scouts provided by the Gallic auxiliary cavalry, but even that seemed but a tiny measure to the Remi commander.

A noise cleared the cobwebs from his head.

He was relieved, as usual, to hear the double blast on the Gallic horn that announced the return of the scouts. To his left, the hillside sloped away sharply, becoming a gradient far too steep for horses as it plunged down to a narrow river valley. Ahead, a more gentle and civilised slope led down the valley side, their route to the river they would be following to its confluence.

The scouts appeared to the right flank of the column, where the hillside continued to rise to a lush, grassy moor, punctuated by white rocks that created unusual and fascinating formations on the crest.

From among those white rocks the riders returned, scattered rather that in formation, and at a casual pace. The two blasts on the horn indicated that they were rejoining the column to report, and that the land hereabouts was still clear.

Despite the news, Galronus’ heart still pounded; something was going to happen. He could feel it in his bones and in his blood… something was up. He turned to the cavalry officers trotting along behind him at the head of their units.

“Be prepared.”

The men, mostly Gallic auxiliaries themselves, a number of them from the Remi tribe, looked at one another in confused concern. While they had no reason to suspect trouble, they knew, to a man, how much they could trust and rely on their commander.

Quiet commands were passed out among the cavalry and Galronus picked up a little speed on his mount, riding ahead to the van.

Tertullus sat at the rear of the tribunes and smiled at the Remi commander as he approached.

“Good morning, Galronus. You have news?”

Crassus turned and cast a look of supreme disinterest at the horseman.

“Something is happening” Galronus said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I don’t know what it is, but there is something in the air. The legion should stand to, legate.”

Crassus sniffed and turned away again.

“Take your superstitious mutterings back to the cavalry, Gaul.”

Galronus ground his teeth again and, narrowing his eyes, made a suggestive motion to Tertullus before turning and riding back to his men, each of whom now had a firm grip on his spear, shield strapped on ready for combat.

The scouts were now trotting down the hillside toward the column and Galronus began to become angry with himself. A sense of foreboding was no use without a direction for it. The scouts had given the all clear to the right and the landscape was visible in all other directions. Unless the legends of old were true and the sky was about to fall, there was no evidence of trouble. The scouts would…

He frowned.

The scouts had been circling in units of a dozen men, three out at all times, covering the landscape ahead and all around them. How the three units had met up to their right and…

“Sound the alarm!” he bellowed.

Men all around him stared.

“They’re not our scouts! Sound the damn alarm!”

As chaos broke out around him, Galronus kicked his horse to life and rode ahead. Sure enough, there were more and more riders pouring over the crest of the hill. A hundred or more men already, and the numbers were thickening all the time. And here the legion and their support were trapped, the hill from which the enemy poured rising to their right, a steep drop to their left which no man with a sense of self preservation would attempt with anything other than critical, slow care.

The enemy had learned their call code, which means they had already captured and interrogated the scouts and had waited until the Roman force was at its most vulnerable.

By the time Galronus reached the vanguard, the fighting had already begun. The tribunes and their legate were busy bellowing desperate commands, the cornicens and signifers relaying the orders as the legion tried to reorganise from a line six men abreast, into a solid shield wall facing the enemy. By sheer chance, either happy or unhappy depending on the viewer, the bulk of the cavalry were travelling on the army’s left flank and were now cut off from the enemy by the beleaguered legion, trapped between the Seventh and the steep drop to the valley below.

“Legate: pull the legion back to the brink of the precipice and I’ll have my cavalry ride out to the rear out of the way.”

“What?”

Crassus sounded incredulous.

“The enemy riders will have to be very careful on horseback close to that drop. Your men can arrest their fall quickly if they go over the edge, but a mounted warrior has no such chance.”

Crassus glared at him.

“I will not take the brunt of a battle against an enemy that used your own cavalry to surprise us while you take your men and slink off somewhere safe!”

Galronus blinked and the legate snarled at him.