‘I’m sure you will, centurion,’ Vespasian called after him, ‘no doubt the first of many, but it’s the legate of our legion, Pomponius, you should report to, unless of course you have other allegiances.’ Whether Caelus heard him or not as he retook his place in the column, Vespasian did not know or care; he cursed himself for making it so obvious to Caelus that he had an ulterior motive.
‘When I saw him come up to you I thought I’d better come and keep an eye on him,’ Magnus shouted against the wind, sheathing his sword.
‘I had the situation under control,’ Vespasian yelled angrily.
‘Well, I won’t bother next time if you think that a centurion drawing a sword on a tribune is a situation in control.’
Vespasian turned away, furious with himself and regretting taking his frustration out on his friend. Gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes against the biting wind, he concentrated on keeping his horse moving forward. The snow was now well above the fetlocks and approaching the animals’ knees; they were all starting to struggle in the worsening conditions. Vespasian pushed his horse up next to Tinos.
‘How far do you reckon we’ve gone?’ he shouted, his voice now barely audible in what had become a gale.
‘About a mile I’d guess.’
‘With four miles to go and the snow getting deeper all the time I’m beginning to have serious doubts about making it through.’
‘One thing’s for certain: if the snow gets too far above the horses’ knees we’ll be forced to dismount and lead them whichever way we go.’ Tinos jerked savagely and then looked down in surprise at the arrow embedded in his chest. Blood began to seep from the corners of his mouth and nostrils; he slid to the ground.
Vespasian spun his horse around. ‘Get back; ambush!’ he bellowed, sensing rather than seeing or hearing another arrow pass a hand’s breadth to the left of him. Magnus and Sabinus needed no urging to turn, having been close enough to see Tinos fall but behind them the column was in chaos. Caelus, the four legionaries and the first of the Illyrians had obeyed the order to turn but were being prevented from falling back by a press of horsemen pushing forward from the rear out of the cloud of snow.
‘Turn around, spread out and go back,’ Vespasian cried as he tried to force his horse through the confusion. An arrow hammered into a legionary propelling him forward off his horse, which reared up on its hind legs, terrified by the escalating panic; its forelegs thrashed in front of it knocking an auxiliary trooper senseless. Vespasian could see that they were getting nowhere; the rear of the column was still pushing forward. He pulled out his hunting bow, notched an arrow and looked desperately around above him for the source of the attack; he could see nothing but driving snow. Sitalces appeared through the chaos, bow in hand.
‘Why the fuck aren’t you turning around?’ Vespasian shouted.
‘We’re being attacked from the rear, sir, I can’t see from where; I’ve lost one of my men already.’
It then became horribly clear to him: they were trapped in a defile by just two unseen archers, and were unable to move quickly enough in either direction to avoid losing a lot of men.
‘Dismount and get to the sides of the pass,’ he ordered at the top of his voice, leaping to the ground. The command filtered through the disordered column and men jumped from their horses and ran towards the relative shelter of the steep walls of the pass.
Vespasian’s back slammed against the bank next to Caelus and the three surviving legionaries in a flurry of snow, his breath steamed from him after the exertion of running through knee-deep drifts.
‘I hope you think this is worth it,’ the centurion spat, ‘we’re losing a lot of men because of your impatience.’
‘Now is not the time for recriminations, centurion; we need to work together if we’re going to get out of this mess.’
‘And a right fucking mess it is too.’
Vespasian could not argue, he had led them into this thinking that the Getae would be just as hampered by the conditions as they were; well, they were not and now it was down to him to save as many of the column as possible.
Sabinus, Magnus and a couple of auxiliary troopers joined them as another trooper fell to the ground just short of safety; blood from his skewered neck seeped into the powdery snow turning it bright red. Judging by the direction of the shot Vespasian could tell that it came from almost directly above him.
‘They have to be fucking close to be able to pick targets through this blizzard, so if they can see us why can’t we see them?’ Magnus puffed trying to regain his breath.
‘I saw these conditions sometimes when I was serving in Pannonia,’ Sabinus replied, as Sitalces, Artebudz and the surviving Thracians came running in, using their terrified horses as cover. ‘It’s a lot easier seeing down into a snowstorm than up or through it, there’s less glare and the snow doesn’t get in your eyes as much.’
‘Then we have to somehow get above them,’ Vespasian reasoned. ‘Sitalces, you and your men get your bows. From which side did the shots that hit the rear of the column come?’
‘From the other side, sir,’ Sitalces replied, attaching his quiver to his belt as his men did the same and removed their sleek recurved bows from the cases on their saddles.
‘Bugger it, the bastards have thought this through. We’ll have to split up. Sabinus, I’ll take Artebudz, Sitalces and Magnus and deal with the man on the other side, you take the other three Thracians and get the bastard above us.’
Caelus looked at Vespasian quizzically; he started to say something but thought better of it.
Sabinus grinned. ‘All right, little brother, it’s going to be a race, is it?’
‘Think of it in whatever terms you like, Sabinus, but we need to do it quickly before we’re snowed in; we’ll meet back here and I can assure you that there’ll be no prizes for being last.’ Vespasian allowed himself a grim smile at his brother before turning to Caelus. ‘You take the legionaries and go forward; find those bastards’ horses and bring them back here. They must be further up the pass somewhere as we didn’t pass them and they can’t have taken them up above with them, it’s too steep.’
Caelus did not argue and started to lead his men forward, hugging the bank. The two auxiliary troopers looked at Vespasian expectantly waiting for their orders.
‘You two, find as many of your comrades as you can, then send out parties to round up our horses.’ Vespasian gestured to the group of horses that was milling aimlessly around what had been the killing ground. ‘Don’t worry about those, you’ll get shot. They’re not going anywhere, just the ones that have run off forward or back, understand?’
The two Illyrians saluted and started to make their way forward.
Vespasian turned in the opposite direction. ‘Come on, let’s get this done.’
It was easier making their way back down the pass with the wind and snow howling in from behind them but their lower limbs were starting to suffer; although they were all wearing woollen socks with their sandals and had smeared a liberal amount of pork grease over their legs that morning before making the ascent to the pass, their feet were achingly cold. After a couple of hundred trudging paces, accompanied by the fear of an arrow thudding in from the opposite bank, they passed the last dead horse, just visible as a dark form through the snow; Vespasian judged that they had gone far enough to outflank the rear man. They left the semi-protection of the bank and made the crossing to the far side in an undignified manner: taking long strides and pulling their feet up as high as possible in order to move as quickly as they could over the deep powder-snow; now fearful all the time of an arrow from either direction. After a short search they found an area of the bank less steep than the rest and climbable.
‘I’ll go up first,’ Vespasian said.
Artebudz stepped forward. ‘Sir, I come from the mountains in the province of Noricum. I know about climbing and hunting in mountains, I should lead.’