The sun had not yet risen when the horns sounded. This time they didn't announce battle, but march.
The XIII Gemina rose with groaning bones and swollen feet. Their shields were dented, tunics filthy, and most still had blood —their own or someone else's— under their nails. But no one complained. The enemy was still alive. And Caesar was not a man who left tasks unfinished.
"How far ahead do you think they are?" Atticus asked as he tightened his gear.
"A day, maybe two," Sextus replied. "But they're dragging their wounded. And we, though battered, are still standing."
Scaeva joined them halfway through the formation, limping slightly but armed and resolute.
"I'm not missing the grand finale," he growled when he saw Sextus's expression. "I've marched with worse wounds in Hispania."
The column began to move at the second blast of the horn. This was no light march — it was a pursuit. Along the way, they found remnants of burned-out fires, crusts of old bread, broken tools, even corpses the Helvetii hadn't been able to carry with them.
Tension stretched like a taut cord among the soldiers. The enemy hadn't surrendered. They had merely fallen back. And Caesar would not let them choose where and when to fight.
By midmorning, at a fork in the lower woods, the column halted. A rider approached at full gallop, followed by a small group of scouts. His helmet bore a red plume.
"Line, stand to attention!" a centurion barked.
From the group of horsemen dismounted a man with sharp features, piercing eyes, and the bearing of a commander. His tunic was clean, but his face was weathered from countless campaigns. Titus Labienus dismounted without haste, inspecting the line as if he could read each legionary's spirit with a single glance.
Sextus recognized him without introduction. Everyone in the camp knew who Caesar's long arm was.
"The Thirteenth?" Labienus asked, voice clear but dry.
"Present, sir," Scaeva replied, stepping half a pace forward.
Labienus nodded.
"Caesar entrusts you with the right flank in the pursuit. You, along with the Eighth, will press on the Helvetii column from the rear. They want to reach Bibracte. Don't let them."
His gaze moved across the men. It paused briefly on Sextus.
"That the boy who held the line on the hill?"
"The very one," said Scaeva.
Labienus nodded again, unsmiling.
"Good work. But you haven't won this war yet. Stay sharp."
He mounted again with the same ease with which he had dismounted. A flick of his hand, and the riders turned into the woods, resuming their path.
"Do you realize?" Atticus murmured. "Labienus himself. Caesar doesn't send just anyone to watch over his favorite legion."
Sextus said nothing, but something inside him tensed. The war wasn't over. It had just become more serious.