The watch commander, ashen faced, turned to question the courier again. Perhaps there had been a mistake--maybe he was from a diverted column rather than the main army, or had received a head wound that jumbled his memory, or even came as a ploy from the enemy to cause dismay and panic. But he knew in his heart that none of these explanations were true.
"Tell me again!" he roughly ordered the messenger.
"Well, sir, it's as I told you. We found the Spanish waiting for us. They had deployed behind some woods, but our light troops moved through those with ease--they didn't try to contest them. They stood up a line of their feeble sort of foot that our phalanx should have made short work of, and our horse began sweeping down the road to ride around their left flank.
But their general--he was a demon! He was leading their horse, and they fought like wild beasts! First they rode down some of our foot, auxilia backed by psiloi. Our commander took them seriously then, and committed our own horse and the Numidians to overcoming that flank while our warband and spears took their line apart. But they were too fast for us, and too good at broken field fighting. No sooner had we started pressing their left wing than the whole fight there got very confused. It was nip and tuck, a real swirling melee, but somehow we went in with more men and came out with fewer.
The Numidians got cut to pieces first, then the commander, he said something about how no bunch of trumped-up Spanish brigands on wild ponies were going to make fools of Punic noblemen, sons of Qart-ḥadašt, and he led the cavalry into the melee. There was a lot of cheering, sir, and it looked as if they were giving as good as they got. But then..."
His voice trailed away.
"How did it happen?" demanded the watch commander.
"I don't know, sir. I was returning from delivering a message to the foot on the far wing, who were looking set to turn the Spanish right flank and roll up their army. The fighting on our right had been fierce after the commander went in, so I was waiting for him to pull back so I could deliver the good news from the flank. Then I heard a great yell... his standard went down... what remained of our horse started fleeing away, with their cavalry chasing after, screaming like devils and cutting men down right and left. I caught one man, and he said the strategos had been killed by a Spanish cavalryman, gutted like a fish with one of their damned swords. So I went in search of the boetarch, who tried to pull the army together and retreat as best as he could. They're still on the road here, being mostly foot, but he sent me ahead to warn you to be ready. The Spanish will be out for blood now, and you know with them it's not their army so much to fear as all the bandits that lurk around our supply trains and outposts, looking for easy prey and nailing up the odd scout or straggler they capture. He said you were to pull in all the smaller outposts and be ready in case of a siege...."
A word-picture in recompense for lack of photographs. We played out the Carthage-Spain battle last night, with Frank/Kontos taking the part of Carthage and Josh commanding the Spanish. A tremendous upset victory for Spain, who won 4G-1, losing one Ax while killing off a Cav(G), LH, Ax, and Ps. Carthage will lose two additional elements for the loss of his general. Spain gains 3 prestige for the troop destruction differential plus 2 for slaying the Carthaginian strategos. That makes them, at 15, tied with Carthage for third place. Carthage's army falls back to its base in Spain 2.
I believe that makes it Spain's move.
