The army marched in high spirits, eager to smite a loathsome enemy on behalf of a beautiful woman. It was a theme fit for the bards to set to verse, but so far not even Ferox’s scouts had seen a single one of those enemies. On the second day a bitter east wind began to blow, at times knocking the breath from men as they struggled along a route that was becoming steeper. They did not set out as early, for it took longer than usual to break up camp. On Neratius Marcellus’ orders twelve were expected to sleep in tents meant for eight, and four more were expected to be on sentry duty or otherwise awake while the rest slept. He had also instructed that the roads in each night’s camp and the intervals between the tent-lines were to be made narrower than usual. This meant that the ramparts enclosed a much smaller space and helped to make the force look smaller, but it also made it harder to form up ready to march on the next morning. They made barely ten miles on the second day.

On the third day the east wind brought in thick cloud to cover the whole sky. Not long after dawn the rain came, turning to sleet and then snow as the day wore on before switching back to sleet later in the afternoon. Men’s cloaks became soaked and heavy as they plodded along. Neratius Marcellus had nearly nine hundred horsemen under his command, three hundred and fifty apiece from Aelius Brocchus’ ala Petriana and his own singulares, and the rest made up of detachments from the cohorts, a contingent of mounted legionaries and the exploratores. Then there were six hundred pack mules and ponies, and a few oxen for the handful of carts carrying essential equipment too bulky to put in a pack.