"Look!" she said, grasping the shofet by the shoulder and shaking him. "You are being flanked!"
He shook off her hand. "They can accomplish nothing! There are not enough of them."
She knew now that Hamilcar was seeing only the ideal battle in his head, the battle that he wanted to see. Immediately, she determined to extricate her men from this disaster. Hamilcar did not even glance in her direction as she walked to the rear of the platform and leapt upon her horse. Her bodyguard rode behind her as she pelted northward, toward the cavalry action. Beside her rode her standard-bearer. Atop a long pole he bore a golden dragon, its long, waving tail a silken tube that filled with air as he galloped, making the queen conspicuous to her men.
She rode through thousands of wounded men, seeking to put distance between themselves and the battle. She saw that not all were wounded. Idly, she axed a few of these deserters down when they strayed too near. She did not plan to stay on this field, but neither was she deserting. She knew when it was time to withdraw an army to fight another day.
She found her men engaging the Roman cavalry. They were greatly frustrated that the smaller Roman force refused to engage them in a mass and obligingly allow themselves to be slaughtered. Teuta shouted and her trumpeter sounded his horn, and swiftly, the Illyrian horsemen rallied to their queen's banner.
"Come with me!" she yelled to them. "You are needed in the south!" Without question they obeyed, ignoring the dismayed cries and jeers of the other cavalry. They followed their queen, not some foreign king. They cared nothing for his hired lackeys and their fate.
While they assembled, she studied the progress of the battle. The Greeks at this end were now at the stream, able to spear with contemptuous ease the men still trying to cross. When their enemy gave up and ceased trying to cross, the Greeks raised their spears upright, then performed an elegant left-facing maneuver and lowered their spears once again. This time the formation, and its spears, faced south. Then the Greeks began their slow, inexorable push.
They have us, boxed! she thought. There is no way out but south. Now she could see what Norbanus intended. Why he was doing it remained a mystery. With her men behind her, she made a wide half circle around the now-disintegrating army. Whole units were pulling away and retreating to the west, unwilling to cross the stream into what was now nothing more than a slaughter yard. With just a few more men, he could have bagged this whole army, she realized. Yet another doubt assailed her on this day full of doubts. She had a suspicion that the utter destruction of the Carthaginian army and its shofet was the last thing Norbanus wanted. But why?
She found Hamilcar pacing on his platform. His face was worried, his glance straying every few seconds to the city on the southern horizon. She dismounted and climbed to the carpeted deck. "Hamilcar," she said quietly. "It is time to go. You are doing nothing to harm them. You still have the bulk of your army. Break off and retreat. Fight this man somewhere else, some other time. You won't beat him here, today, no matter how many men you sacrifice."
"It cannot be!" he cried. "He has a paltry little army and I have a great host. He should be at my feet begging for his life!"
"That is not going to happen. If you stay here, he will grind all your men to blood sausage and then it will be your turn to beg. Get away from here, now!"
Abruptly, his face went slack. "How did this happen?" he said with little expression.
"You allowed him first to destroy the army of Mastanabal, that otherwise would have been here this day, making you truly invincible. You allowed Norbanus to choose the time and the ground for this battle, then you gave him all the time he needed to make his preparations." She saw no reason for merciful words. Now she was sure that she had chosen the wrong man. Perhaps that could be rectified. In the meantime, it was up to her to salvage what she could from this debacle.
He said nothing for a while, then: "You are wise. I should have listened to you."
She nodded. Perhaps he was beginning to show some sense.
"But that cannot be all of it," he said further. "I must have offended the gods in some fashion. When I return to Carthage, I shall order a Tophet. The children of the highest families of Carthage shall be sacrificed in the fires of Baal-Hammon."
She rolled her eyes. Like every other man who could not face the reality of his own failure, he was passing responsibility to the gods. "Then let us go now. Back the way we came. The Romans will pause here to loot your camp. With your men reorganized, we can make a fighting retreat."
"No," Hamilcar said. "Do you not see that the way south is unimpeded? My fleet is in the harbor of Cartago Nova. We will take ship from there."