Thinking of cavalry, he admired the horsemen who rode as his escort. They were Queen Teuta's Illyrians, and they
provided not only his immediate guard, but rode as flankers and forward scouts as well. Their bizarre appearance had the
locals gaping wherever they rode. The tattooed men were as
fair as Gauls, but they wore tight-fitting trousers and soft boots with pointed, upturned toes. They had long-sleeved jackets and tall, pointed caps with dangling ear-flaps, and every bit of their clothing was stitched with colorful embroidery in fanciful designs: flowers and twining vines and elongated animals writhing into poses of knotted complexity. In their hands were long lances from which streamed
banners, and at their belts they carried cased bows and quivers of arrows. Across their backs they carried short sabers in
sheaths of figured leather and tucked into their sashes were
curved daggers. They did not wear armor and regarded it as
unmanly.
Their queen rode beside him, and she looked as fearsome
as her men. Her clothing was similar to theirs, but made of gold-embroidered silk, her trousers voluminous, her jacket fitting like a second skin. Instead of the native cap, a lightweight crown of thin gold encircled her brow. The jeweled dagger at her waist was not an ornamental weapon, and at her saddlebow was slung on one side a circular buckler of
thick hide faced with bronze, and on the other an axe with a
long, slender handle, its head bearing a crescent blade on one side and a cruel, downcurving spike on the other.
Once, Hamilcar had asked if she could actually use this odd weapon, and she had only smiled. Later, a hare started from
beneath her horse's hooves. She had given chase, then unlimbered the axe, leaned from her saddle and beheaded the creature in mid-leap, her own horse at a full gallop.
Hamilcar reminded himself to ask her no more idle questions.
The weather was splendid, clearly a gift from the gods of
Carthage to their favorite. The days were sunny but cool, the evenings just slightly rainy, so that the marching feet and hooves raised little dust.
Their route was along the coastal road. Sometimes it
passed behind ranges of hills, and there were days when they
were out of sight of the sea, but each time the water came into view again, so did Hamilcar's fleet, keeping easy pace
with the army. As they approached prearranged harbors, the
ships would speed ahead, so that when Hamilcar and his army reached that spot, the supplies he needed would already have been unloaded, supplies levied from the allies,
subjects readied to be carried aboard and new rowers drafted
from the locals. All was orderly and in the well-organized
fashion that had given Carthage dominion over sea and land
for so many years.
"I never knew that so great an enterprise could be run so smoothly," Queen Teuta said when they came in sight of the Pillars. "My chieftains would be hopeless at such a thing, and
even the Greeks were not so well ordered in their glory days."
Hamilcar nodded with smug satisfaction. "It is our special gift from the gods. We are not truly a race of warriors, despite our military supremacy. We are sailors and merchants and explorers. These are activities that cannot prosper without close cooperation, discipline and careful planning. Alexander accomplished wonders, but his army marched hungry and thirsty much of the time. It did not occur to that glory-hungry boy to find out whether there
was forage, or water, along his route of march. He depended
instead upon inspiration, and the love of the gods, and the fanatical loyalty of his men.
"We know that such things are not to be depended upon.
The favor of the gods must be purchased with continuous
sacrifice. Men must be paid well and regularly. The supplies
required by a marching army and a sailing navy must be arranged for down to the last detail before the first trumpet is sounded. Only thus does one gain an empire, and sustain it through generations."
"I shall remember that," she said.
At the Pillars, the fleet was waiting to ferry the army
across. Triremes, cargo vessels and great, wallowing barges,
many of them built since the fire in the harbor, were ready to take them across the narrow waters. The operation took
more than ten days, with ships plying back and forth, carry
ing men and animals and supplies. Hamilcar found his confidence waning, his nerves assailing him.
"What troubles you?" Teuta asked. They watched the crossing from the tower erected on his personal warship: a huge vessel made of two ordinary triremes With a single deck spanning both.
"We are vulnerable here," he told her, an admission he would have made to no man. "If the Romans arrive, they could catch me with half my army on one side of the strait, half on the other. Even their contemptible navy could give us great trouble, with most of my fleet overloaded and dedicated to transport."
"Still, your might is sufficient to deal with them."
"True, though it would be a great bother. But what I truly dread is a change in the weather. At this time of year great storms can appear on the horizon and be upon us be
fore we can seek shelter. Entire fleets have been lost to such
storms, and there would be no way to rebuild here. I would have to march such of my army as I could salvage back to Carthage, and then I could not resume the war for at least a year, perhaps two. And that would mean waiting for a Ro
man army to cross from Sicily and besiege us."
"Worry does no good," she assured him. "You must trust
your destiny."
Somehow, her words did not inspire him as usual. It was
not her empire in the balance here, imperiled by every puff of wind and the whim of the gods. What if Zarabel was
right and the gods were angry because he had not dedicated
them a
Tophet?
Norbanus found the army of Mastanabal in a valley south of the Pyrenees. His outriding Gallic cavalry located a foraging party and returned with prisoners to con
firm what lay ahead. These men were local Gauls, of a breed
heavily interbred with the old Spanish natives, impressed
into the Carthaginian forces to make up for the heavy losses
inflicted by Rome. They said that Mastanabal was drilling his new army just miles away, near the confluence of the rivers Iberis and Secoris.
Immediately, Norbanus gave two orders. First, the land forces were to redouble their marching speed. Second, his
warships were to speed westward and catch any naval force
supporting Mastanabal's army. Not a single craft was to be allowed to escape.
He wanted to achieve complete surprise, but knew that this was unlikely with an army the size of the one he led.
Sooner or later a patrol of Mastanabal's cavalry must detect
them and speed back with warning. No help for that. But
he could be assured that the Carthaginian would have as lit
tle time as possible to prepare.
The land was hilly and wooded, very different from the lands of the East his men had seen on the long march. But the Romans felt at home here. It was not greatly different from the country where they had been fighting for generations, since the Exile.
He was tense but exultant. At last, he would be tested in a real battle, against a formidable army led by a general of proven experience and skill. Not that he had any doubt of the outcome. Clearly, Mastanabal could not be accounted a
general of the first rank. He had allowed himself to be badly
mauled by an inferior Roman army, indifferently led. This was no Hannibal. The situation was ideal. Norbanus's army could be blooded here, at no great risk. Victorious, they would believe themselves to be invincible always. And he knew that true victory lay not just in arms and skill, but in the minds of men.
With a small band of his officers, he rode ahead of his army. They rode cloaked to cover the gleam of their armor, keeping away from the skyline. It was risky, but Norbanus wanted to examine the ground personally before committing his troops. Reconnaissance was an art that a commander neglected at his greatest peril.
The smoke from hundreds of campfires told them they were near the main army, and from this point they proceeded with caution. Eventually they found a spot of high ground and rode just short of the crest. Then they dis
mounted and went on foot to peer over the ridge at the huge
camp below. It spread along the river for a great distance, behind an earthen rampart set with stakes and patrolled by sentries.
"It's a pretty well-ordered camp, for barbarians," noted Niger.
Norbanus had Selene's gift out and was using it to scan the camp, counting standards. "He has his Greek troops on the south end. You can tell by the way their tents are lined up. The rest must be Gauls and Iberians and other savages. They have no idea how to encamp. I'm amazed he got them to stay behind the wall." He passed the instrument to Cato.
Cato looked over the camp and passed the thing to Niger. "The important thing is: He hasn't linked up with Hamilcar yet." Word had come to them that Hamilcar had crossed the strait and that meant they would meet him in Spain.
"Close to our numbers," Niger said. "I'd say we have a slight superiority, unless he has some sizable elements out
foraging." That was a matter for concern. The sudden return of a large party after a battle was joined could be disastrous.
"We'll chance it," Norbanus said. "We'll never have a
better chance. I want our men in battle order on that field at
first light tomorrow, even if it means moving them around all night to get them in position."
What he proposed was risky and difficult, but his subordinates made no protest. They had confidence in their leader now.
Just before sundown a party of scouts rode in
and informed Mastanabal that they had seen elements of an approaching Roman army. The scouts were Edetani, black-
haired warriors with legs formed to the barrel of a horse.
"What were these Romans doing?" the general asked.
"They behaved very strangely," the head scout said. "Almost as soon as we saw them, they halted at a piece of flat
ground. Some men took odd instruments from their shoulders and stuck them into the ground. They looked along the
tops of these instruments and waved their arms and shouted
to the others. Then many men ran about the field and stuck colored flags into the ground. We think it was some sort of
religious rite, although we saw no sacrifices."
Mastanabal and his senior officers chuckled. They had seen the elaborate Roman system of encampment many times during the Alexandrian campaign. These Spaniards were too primitive even to post sentries, much less recog
nize the nature of such a proceeding. The general made sure
that he had the exact distance and location of the Roman force and dismissed the scouts.
"Excellent!" Mastanabal said. "They will break that
camp before first light and will be here by late afternoon to
morrow to find us blocking their way."
"So, will we give battle the morning after?" asked a subordinate.
"Why wait? If there is as much as an hour's light left
when they arrive, I intend to give battle immediately! These Romans rely heavily upon their formations and battle order. We will strike before they can deploy fully."
In the blackness before dawn Mastanabal was
awakened by the sound of trumpets. His eyes snapped-open
and he knew something had to be wrong. His groom held his horse ready and he mounted. As he pelted through the camp, men were tumbling from their tents, demanding from one another what was happening. Roman soldiers would already be armed and on their way to their posi
tions on the rampart, Mastanabal thought enviously. He had
seen the Romans' night drills, how every man tented in exactly the same spot in every camp and manned the same
spot on the wall, so that no matter where they were, the Ro
mans were in the same fort as always.
Not for the first time, Mastanabal wished he had an army
made up solely of Carthaginians, instead of this polyglot rabble. But that would not be the Carthaginian way, he thought resignedly. He came to the tower over the main gate and ran up its wooden stair. "What is it?" he barked.
"If this is a false alarm, I'll have you all crucified!" The sol
diers looked fearful, knowing this was no idle threat. Their officer seemed unimpressed.
"Movement out there, General," he said. "They're being quiet, but it's no scouting probe." He gestured to a rope ladder that lay coiled at his feet. "I went down the wall and walked out a way to be sure. Couldn't see anything, but there's a sizable force gathering on the field to the east of
us." The officer, a Spartan professional, knew his business. Mastanabal began to have a very bad feeling.
His senior officers gathered behind him on the platform. No one spoke while their general held his silence. He was
not about to speak until he knew exactly what he faced. The
coming dawn would tell him all he needed to know. Dawn was not long in coming.
Shouts of wonder rah up and down the rampart; men babbled in a score of tongues and called upon a hundred gods as growing light revealed what had appeared upon the field be
fore them. A huge army stood there, drawn up in great rectangles, standard-bearers to the fore. The most terrifying thing about them was not their numbers, which were no
greater than those of the Carthaginian army, or their perfect order, for the Greeks and Macedonians were as disciplined.
What struck Mastanabal's men with fear was their eerie, ut
ter silence. It was like beholding an army of ghosts.