Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow by S.J.A. Turney

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