The Romans pushed forward steadily, and the Osrhoenes launched only tentative attacks, galloping towards the enemy, but peeling off while still at long bowshot. A lot of arrows were in the air, and a fair few javelins whenever there was a chance; few hit a target, and fewer still did damage. Some of the troopers had half a dozen or more shafts sticking from their shields without any harm done.

When the leading skirmishers were barely five hundred paces from the ditch, Cerialis had the trumpets sound and the main body of ala I Flavia Britannica went from a walk into a trot. The Roman skirmishers and supports wheeled to get out of their way, and at the same time the bands of horse archers sped away, half going to the right and half to the left. The cataphracts turned about and trotted back across the bridge. Before the trumpets sounded for the leading turmae of the ala to go into a canter, the field ahead of them had cleared.

Ferox could not help grinning. It was almost like an exercise choreographed to impress a senior officer. Yet it was well managed on both sides. A mounted charge could rarely catch horse archers who did not care about their formation and would flee and flee for as long as they had to in order to escape. In time the charge would lose momentum, ranks scattered and horses blown, making them easy prey when the archers wheeled back around and came for them. It was the way the Parthians fought, and many Sarmatians as well, but it needed plenty of space and there was none if they were driven against the ditch around the city.

‘Is that it?’ Vindex asked.

‘Yes and no,’ Ferox said. He could not see which way the prince had gone. He called on his men to reform, as trumpets also halted the ala and then ordered it to pull back. Much further and they risked coming within range of any bows with the infantry behind the ditch, let alone any archers or artillery on the ramparts. Closer now, he could see that there were a few ordered and fairly uniform blocks of men standing between ditch and walls, and far more who jostled and bumped each other, carrying spears and all kinds of shields. Still, they were not a problem for the moment.

‘Are we humped?’

‘You must know the answer to that.’

‘Aye, reckon I do.’

A little later some of the horse archers probed the Romans’ flanks, but never pressed too hard and quickly retreated whenever shot at, especially by scorpiones. As the day passed, the Romans built their camp. Half of the men behind the ditch sat down as they watched, and eventually more and more drifted back inside the city, for there was no sign that much else was going to happen.

Arrian dutifully went forward to ask that a Roman force be admitted to the city, or at least that discussions begin. The answer was the same as before.