Fronto neared the lead elements and began to slow his mount as they approached the slight rise in the saddle between white-clad peaks. The men had halted at the very crest and Fronto reined in beside them, taking a moment to scan the area before addressing the hold-up. Caesar was towards the rear still, in discussion with Aristius and Priscus over the need to up the training of the troops on the journey, despite the conditions. He could hear his singulares catching up. Palmatus and Masgava would berate him for charging out ahead without them, but only nature and the gods stood to ruin Fronto’s day here, and the best gladiator in the world could not beat them.
His eyes took in the view directly ahead, where the pass crossed the highest region of the mountain range. The trail ahead, to which they had been directed by those same few locals they had managed to interrogate, was as invisible as that behind, submerged beneath a white sheet that blanketed the world, fresh flakes already beginning to fall and add to it after a three hour lull in the blizzards. To the left, a deep valley plunged down into the abyss, its lowest reaches concealed by a freezing fog that denied them clear vision. To the right, a set of jagged peaks rose one after the other, as though shadowing the beleaguered army on its journey.
‘Why have we stopped,’ he asked irritably.
‘Respectfully, sir, we don’t see how we can get past that.’
Fronto frowned at the man who had spoken. He was an ordinary legionary, though a little older than many of the recent recruits, and the ochre-coloured focale, or scarf, he wore around his neck, tucked beneath the armour and almost concealed under his heavy wool cloak, identified him as a sapper or a man with at least some engineering experience. Fronto had been about to retort angrily to the man, given the differences in rank, but years in the army had taught him that while engineers might well be the weirdest bunch ever to grace the world with their peculiar presence, if they had an opinion it was always worth hearing them out.
‘Explain.’
The man frowned as though Fronto had asked him to explain why up was above you. ‘Well, look at it, sir.’
Fronto did as he was asked, and once more saw the white blanket that had buried the landscape. ‘It looks exactly the same as the last two or three stretches between peaks. And we’re not far from the point where the descent begins according to the locals.’
‘Erm… look again, sir.’
Fronto was starting to get irritated now.
‘Snow. I’ve seen it.’
‘But in the snow, sir.’
Fronto, utterly bewildered now and wondering whether they were somehow looking in different directions, peered into the white, trying to ignore the increasing fresh deluge trying to conceal the view. ‘There’s little shrubs and bushes sticking out of it here and there. That’s good. Tells us that there’s no hidden drop.’
The engineer gave him another look as though a chicken had just pushed its way out of his ear, confused by Fronto’s apparent oblivion. One of the scouts leaned closer from his horse and cleared his throat.
‘They’re not bushes, Legate. They’re the tips of trees. Firs of some kind, in fact. Fully grown ones, too.’
Fronto turned his unbelieving gaze back to the path ahead. They did look suspiciously like treetops. ‘But if that’s true then that path is under anything between ten and forty feet of snow! That’s not possible.’
‘It’s quite possible, sir. Your own eyes can confirm it for you.’
‘It’s not quite as deep as you might think, though,’ announced the voice of Priscus as the prefect slowed his mount, arriving at the van along with Brutus, Aristius and Caesar himself, Palmatus and Masgava sitting respectfully to the side with their men.
‘I remember this part from the other direction. The path through the pass actually runs to the left of the trees and is probably only six or seven feet deep. Yes,’ he added, squinting into the snow. ‘The Helvii mark their individual territories with posts that display tribal signs — we’ve seen half a dozen of them as we passed. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I can see another down there to the left of the trees.’
Fronto nodded slowly. There was at least a mile of that snow, possibly as much as two. It was a daunting prospect, especially for an army that was already freezing and falling foul of sickness from the conditions. ‘Well we can hardly go back, and so we must go on. You,’ he went on, pointing at the engineer. ‘How fast can you and your men manage to clear snow?’
The man tapped his finger on his chin. ‘If we have to bring it down to clear ground and wide enough for the supply wagons, it’s going to be a very slow job. Half a week, perhaps, depending on conditions as we go.’
Fronto pursed his lips. ‘And how fast if it’s for an infantry column?’
‘Two men wide, sir? If there’s no vehicles we only need to take it down roughly to a foot or so. The rest will soon get trampled down. Much faster. A day. Maybe two.’
‘Get to work. You’re in charge.’ He turned to Caesar, who was watching him with interest. ‘General?’
‘Do as you think best, Fronto.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He pointed at the engineer. ‘You just got commissioned, centurion. It’s your project. I’m granting you the authority to use every soldier in this army if you have to, barring a couple of centuries I’m commandeering. Rotate the men for rest breaks, but get that pass opened for a narrow column of infantry.’
He turned to the general again.
‘We’re going to have to leave the wagons, sir.’
Caesar nodded. ‘It is only perhaps thirty miles to the lower slopes now. We will soon be in Arverni lands and once we are among them, we will take everything we need and burn the rest, replacing our lost provisions. Now we need to move fast.’
‘Agreed, sir. We will have to distribute the most important supplies from the wagons among the men to carry, though we can use the beasts that have been hauling the cart if we unhook them.’
‘Every effort must be made, as well as every sacrifice,’ Caesar said loudly as he hauled himself from the saddle and slid down to the ground, where his expensive gorgon-embossed boots sank into the snow. ‘Every rider in the column is hereby ordered to give up his beast for the transport of supplies. We will all walk until we are out of the snow.’
Fronto couldn’t help but smile. The general sometimes drove him to the very edge of his temper with his unyielding attitude, but on the occasions when he shone, the man shone so bright the sun would envy him.
* * * * *
Samognatos, the scout of the Condrusi tribe who had now been attached to Fronto’s bodyguard for almost a year and on this most difficult journey had become something of a preferred figure among the scouts for his intuition and inside knowledge of the workings of the Gallic mind, reined in his sweating, snorting steed and nodded to his commander and to the general.
‘What have you found?’
The scout gestured out across the rolling hills ahead, a range of green mountains sprinkled with white in the distance to the north. The dreadful conditions of the snow-clogged passage through the Cevenna had taken its toll on the forces of Caesar, and every man had been grateful and thrown up thanks and promises to the Gods when they had left behind the whitened treeline and descended into the low hills of the Arverni lands.
‘A settlement beyond the hill. Not large and without defences. Perhaps thirty houses and a few outlying farms. Something near a quarter of a mile from edge to edge. There are signs of current occupation, but not more than a hundred inhabitants at an estimate and the only horses I spotted were farm beasts.’
Fronto and Caesar both looked at Priscus, who shrugged. ‘When we came through here, we tried to stay as far away from built-up areas as possible. We came down a valley to the west of here.’