The overturned vehicle was floored with rope matting stretched on a dovetailed wooden frame. While the mat supported and even cushioned the broad, bare feet of the warriors, it was woven too loosely to provide safe support for a booted Roman. Clodius Afer's left foot plunged through an interstice which snared his knee like that of a hapless rabbit.

The file-closer cursed and stabbed at the matting, handicapped by his own shield. His point, bright already with warriors' blood, glanced from the tough fibers of the mat and gouged his calf. He raised his sword again.

Vibulenus hopped to an angle of the frame so that his feet were splayed outward but had firm support. The quality of the woodwork would not have disgraced a senator's bed. "Wait!" shouted the young tribune without realizing that he had just given the veteran non-com an order on the battlefield and that he instinctively expected to be obeyed. Clodius looked up in surprise- and he did not for the moment strike again at the ropes trapping him.

Hundreds of additional war cars had drawn up short of the wreckage of the first wave, delivering more warriors to the battlefield. The giant spearman came on in clots, four or five together as they jumped from their vehicles. They made no attempt to form a shield wall, nor did the mass of naked infantry advance from the position it had taken at dawn just below their encampment.

Individually, the warriors were as skilled and strong as they were deadly. A quartet of them, leaping from a car whose driver immediately lashed it toward the rear again, saw Vibulenus and the trapped file-closer. Raising their shields and their fifteen-foot spears, the warriors advanced at a lumbering trot.