The Scourge of God

It was not just men but horses, thousands of them, too. By the moon I could see the corpses of soldiers and animals formed curious patterns: lines, crescents, and circles that marked where the fighting had been the fiercest. It was like the design of an intricate, macabre carpet. Some of those who survived were wandering the field looking for friends or loved ones, but most on both sides had simply collapsed in exhaustion so that the dead were swelled by vast numbers of the sleeping and unconscious. There was already the stench of blood and piss and shit. By tomorrow’s noon there would be the smell of rot as well, but for now our army nested among the fallen.

I had not the slightest idea what I should do. I’d seen so much horror in the past year that life had become incompre-hensible. I felt disconnected, drained, dreamy. Only chance had kept Skilla from killing me this time. Why? What was God’s purpose in all I had seen? I could find Aetius, but to what end? I could crawl toward Ilana, but she seemed as elusive and remote as ever. Attila’s surviving army still stood between us. I could again fight Skilla but he, too, never seemed to die. Oddly, he’d become the one warrior I felt closest to. We shared a love, battles, and a historic journey; and I wondered if, when this was over, we could stop fighting and simply share wine and kumiss in front of a hot fire, trying to remember the cocky young men we’d once been before the slaughter here.

Was he gone forever, swept away by the Visigoths’

charge? Or hunting for me still with taut bow and arrow?

I explored my body and was astounded to find no wounds despite my bloody clothing, and my bruises and sores. I was not equal to three-quarters of the warriors who had died and yet here I was, breathing, when they were not. Again, why?

I once thought experience would solve the mysteries of life, but instead it seems only to add to them.

So I sat with these foggy thoughts, as useless as my own broken sword, until finally I noticed a dark form weaving toward me through the dead, as if looking for a fallen companion. The task would not be easy. Inflicted wounds had been so brutal and the slain so trampled that many were past recognition. I admired this figure’s loyalty.

It turned out to be loyalty of a different sort, however. His form became disquietingly familiar, and suddenly my exhaustion was replaced with anxiety. I stood, swaying. He stopped, the moon behind him and on my face, and spoke softly to me from thirty paces away. “Alabanda?”

“Don’t you ever rest?” My voice quavered with weariness.

“I’ve not come to fight you. I’m tired of killing. This day wasn’t war-it was insanity. It has destroyed my nation.” Skilla gazed out at the moonlit bodies. “Ilana needs our help, Jonas Alabanda.”

“Ilana?” I croaked the name.

“Attila has gone mad. He fears final defeat tomorrow and has built a pyre of wooden saddles and his richest possessions. If Aetius breaks through the wagon wall, he intends to light it and hurl himself into the flames.” My heart hammered at this unexpected information.

Were the Huns really that desperate, or was this some kind of trick? “If Attila dies, perhaps Ilana goes free,” I suggested groggily.

“He has chained her to the pyre.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Do you think I would come to you if I didn’t have to, Roman? You’ve been a plague to me since I met you. I came within moments of killing you yesterday, but the gods intervened. Now I know why. Only you can save her.”

“Me?” Was this a trap? Had Skilla decided to win by guile what he’d been robbed of in repeated combat?

“It’s impossible to rescue her,” he said. “The pyre is surrounded by a thousand men. But Attila will still take the sword for the woman.”

So this was it. “The sword of Mars.”

“He blames its loss for the evil that has befallen our people this day. Half the Hun nation is gone. We cannot attack anymore, that’s obvious, but we can retreat as an army, not a mob. Attila’s sword will give my nation back its heart.”

“It is you who has gone insane!” I cried. “I don’t have the sword, Aetius does. Do you think he wants to give it back now that final victory is within our grasp?”

“Then we must steal it, like you stole it from Attila.”

“Never!”

“If we don’t, Ilana will burn.”

I looked out into the darkness, my head aching. Had I come so far, and fought so hard, only to see the one I loved consumed by flames because of victory? How could destiny be so cruel? And yet what Skilla was asking me to do was to risk sure Roman triumph for a single woman, to put into Attila’s hands the symbol he needed to rally his battered army.

I had no guarantee the Huns would let Ilana go if I turned over the sword. They might simply burn both of us for amusement. Maybe this was Skilla’s way of killing me-by luring me to his camp with the promise of Ilana.

Or maybe he truly loved her, too, loved her so much that this madness somehow made sense to him. So he thought it should make sense to me.