Brasus was walking near the front, with just a few of his own band of warriors a little ahead as scouts. Suddenly they stopped and word came hissing back that there were people ahead of them. Cautiously, Brasus went forward just in time to see one of the guides coming back towards him. He was at the head of the second column and they were hopelessly lost, which meant shouts and anger and trying to sort everyone out. Eventually they started going once again, and he kept the other column moving within bowshot of his men and parallel to them. Soon after that they all walked into a mist that became a thick fog and the true chaos began.

By the end of the night Brasus felt that he had walked three or four times as far as the distance he was supposed to have travelled, even allowing for his earlier mistake. Men got lost and confused and now and again there were shouts as they tried to find each other. Then as suddenly as all the other surprises he found that he was walking on the planks of the bridge below the fort and had no real idea of how he had got there. There were barely fifty men with him and he guessed that it was two hours before dawn, long after he had meant to attack.

Brasus told his men to wait and walked to where the others were supposed to be. There were a couple of dozen men from the first column sheltering behind the building where the Romans performed their ritual bathing, but as yet no sign of the second or fourth columns. The fifth was to threaten the east gate and there were more than a hundred of them where they should be, joined by a score or so more almost as soon as he turned up. Resisting the temptation to take some of these to reinforce the rest, Brasus trusted to faith and the guidance of the Lord Zalmoxis and told the chieftain in charge here to wait for the signal for the attack would still go ahead before dawn. By the time that he was back by the river things were more encouraging. More than two hundred men from the first column had arrived and a few score men for his own force, including thirty Bastarnae, wild folk as cruel as they were brave and unpredictable since they were either loyal to the death or lightly treacherous.

Brasus waited and more men came in, and if all were weary at least they were here. Three-quarters of the first column were just where they should be, although barely a third of his own men. Then a panting runner arrived to say that the second column was on its way and ought to be in place before very long with a good half of their numbers. Brasus stood on the bridge, hearing the water flow underneath and stared at where he knew the fort was, even though he could not see it. Fate was strange, and the guidance of Zalmoxis a mystery for now the fog that had confused them was in their favour because it would hide them from the Romans just as well as the veil of night. There was still time.