The Scourge of God

His seriousness retreated. “You’re the one who is going to cut his way through the entire Hun army. I’m going to stay on Aetius’s shoulders, like I said.” The landscape we traversed was rich and rolling, fat with lush pastures, ripening fields, and once-tidy villas. In many ways it was the loveliest land I’d ever seen, greener and more watered than my native Byzantium. If my body was to fall in Gaul, it would not be such a bad place to stay. And if I were to survive . . .

That night I stood in the background of the headquarters’

tent as Aetius received reports of each contingent and its direction. “There’s a crossroads called Maurica,” Aetius told his officers, pointing to a map. “Any armies crossing between the Seine and the Marne will pass there, both the Huns and us. That’s where we’ll find Attila.”

“Anthus and his Franks are drawing near that place already,” a general said. “He’s as anxious to find his traitorous brother as that boy there is to find his woman.”

“Which means the Franks may stumble on Attila before we’re ready. I want them reined in. Jonas?”

“Yes, general.”

“Exercise your own impatience and go find impatient King Anthus. Warn him that he may be about to collide with the Huns. Tell the Franks to wait for our support.”

“And if he won’t wait, general?” I asked.

Aetius shrugged. “Then tell him to take the enemy straight into Hell.”

I rode all night, half lost and nervous about being acciden-tally shot or stabbed, and it was mid-morning before I found Anthus. I had snatched only a little sleep, and felt I needed hardly that. Never had I been so anxious and excited. Lightning flashed without rain, leaving a metallic scent, and when I dismounted to rest my horse I could feel the ground quivering from so many tramping feet.

The Frankish king, helmet off as the day’s heat rose, listened politely to my cautious message and laughed. “Aetius doesn’t have to tell me where the enemy is! I’ve run into some already, and my men bear the wounds to prove it! If we strike while the Huns are still strung out, we can destroy them.”

“Aetius wants our forces collected.”

“Which gives time for the Huns to do the same. Where is Aetius? Are the Romans mounted on donkeys? He’s slower than an ore wagon!”

“He’s trying to spare the men’s horses for the battle.” Anthus put his helmet back on. “The battle is here, now, if he would just come to it! I’ve got the enemy’s butt in my face! Not Huns, but other vermin.”

“Gepids, lord,” one of his lieutenants said. “Hun vassals.”

“Yes, King Ardaric, a worm of a man hoping for a scrap of Hun favor. His troops look like they’ve crawled from under a rock. I’m going to put them back.”

“Aetius would prefer that you wait,” I repeated.

“And Aetius is not a Frank! It isn’t his homes that are being burned! It isn’t his brother who has gone over to Attila! We wait for no man and fear none. This is our land now.

Half my men have lost families to these invaders, and they starve for vengeance.”

“If Attila turns-”

“Then I and my Franks will kill him, too! What about it, Roman? Do you want to wait another day and yet another, hoping the enemy will go away? Or do you want to fight him this afternoon, with the sun at our backs and the grass as high as the bellies of our horses? I heard you boast you’d cut your way to your woman! Let’s see it!”

“Aetius knew you wouldn’t listen to me,” I confessed.

“Which means he was sending you to battle!” He grinned, his eyes glinting beside his nose guard. “You’re lucky, Alabanda, to taste war as a Frank.” Ram’s horns were lifted to begin the call. Heavy Frankish cavalry trotted forward, each kite-shaped shield bearing a different design and color, their lances thick as axles and tall as saplings. The knights’ hands were gloved in dark leather, and their mail had the leaden color of a winter pond.

Their helmets were peaked, and the cheek guards were tied so tightly against chins that those who shaved in the Roman fashion had white lines pressed into their faces. Barbarian long hair and beards, I realized, served as padding.

As I joined them a hundred smells assaulted me-of horseflesh and droppings, dust and sweat, high hay and tim-othy, honed metal and hardwood shafts. War is a stink of sweat and oil. It was noisy in a cavalry formation, too, a vast clanking and clumping as the big horses moved forward, men shouting to each other or boasting of their prowess in war or with women. Many of the words had the high, clipped sound of men under tension, afraid and yet master-ing their fear, waiting for the charge they’d trained their whole lives for. They were as different from the Huns and Gepids as a bull from a wolf: tall, thick-limbed men as pale as cream.

Only a minority of the Franks could afford the expense of horse and heavier armor. Thousands more were paralleling the wedge of horsemen by loping on foot across tall grain.

Their mail shirts ended at thigh instead of calf and their scabbards rocked and banged against their hips. These would take the Gepids on the ground.