The Scourge of God

Attila is a tyrant, and as long as he lives he can keep his coalition of Huns and subject tribes united by fear. My power, in contrast, is simple persuasion, and only the threat of Attila has persuaded our nations to unite. Even as Attila threatens to destroy the Western Empire, he has perversely welded it together. If he’s annihilated in our attack tomorrow, our own unity disappears instantly and with it the influence of Rome. Our allies won’t need us anymore. Attila is as necessary to Aetius as Satan is necessary to God.” I was puzzled. “You want him to prevail?”

“I want him to survive. Neither of us can afford an attack tomorrow. But if he withdraws crippled but with face, I have the tool-fear of the Hun-that I need to keep the West together. Two days ago, his existence was the greatest threat to Rome. Tomorrow, his absence would be the greatest threat.

I’ve held this Empire together for thirty years by balancing one force against another, and it’s how I’m going to hold it now. I need him to retreat, demoralized, but not lose.”

“Then you’ll give me a chance to try this?” The general sighed. “It is risky. But the sword has done what it can in my hand.”

I grinned, dizzy with relief and fear.

Zerco laughed at my expression. “Only an amateur fool, exhausted by battle and heartsick with love, would come up with an idea as absurd as yours, Jonas Alabanda!” He nodded, to confirm this judgment to himself. “And only a professional fool, like me, could think of absurdities to improve it!”

XXIX THE LAAGER OF ATTILA

Skilla and I struggled across a battlefield as treacherous as a marsh. The moon had set to a deeper darkness but now the sky was blushing in the east, giving barely enough light to illuminate the grotesque path we must take. We stepped carefully to avoid the blades, arrows, spear tips, shards of shattered armor, and bodies. On and on the havoc stretched, thousands upon thousands upon thousands. Worst were those who were still alive, twitching feebly, crawling blind as snails, or begging pitifully for water. We had none, so we passed quickly by. There were too many! By the time we drew near the Hun encampment, I was finally and forever done with war.

Once more I had strapped the great sword of Mars on my back, but this time it felt like I was carrying a cross. Could this gamble possibly work? I was about to find again, and possibly lose forever, the one person I truly cared about.

Having once escaped the lion’s den, I was walking back into it. Fool, indeed.

Skilla had tethered his pony on the field’s edge, a dark silhouette with neck down as it munched dew-wet grass, oblivious to the historic carnage. Nearby was another horse with a form that seemed gladly familiar.

“We will ride, not walk, to see Attila,” he said. “I brought your horse.”

“Diana!”

“I added her to my string after you fled.” He turned to me in the pearl gray light and grinned that familiar flash of teeth. “She’s only good for milking, but I kept her anyway.” Suddenly I felt a rush of a feeling of brotherhood with this man, this Hun, this barbarian, that so flooded my body that it felt disorienting. My most hated enemy had become, after Ilana, the one I felt closest to: closer, even, than Zerco.

We were partners trying to save a life, instead of taking one.

And yet I was planning to betray him.

We mounted and rode. My Roman dress drew attention, of course, but Skilla was well known even in this vast army, and the light had grown strong enough that he was easily recognizable. Huns sentries rose warily from the meadow grass but stepped aside to let us pass. We reached the great circle of Hun wagons, a laager half a mile in diameter with similar, smaller laagers scattered about it like moons. Weary Hun ponies grazed between in vast herds. Ranks of Hun archers still slept in the shadow of the wagons, ready to be roused if the Romans advanced.

Our horses jumped one of the wagon yokes and we went on, encountering a second line of wagons inside it, like the second wall of Constantinople. I wondered if Edeco had recommended this from his memories of my home city. We jumped that as well and came to the tents and the awful, carefully prepared funeral pyre of Attila. The pyre towered twenty feet high, a riotous jumble of saddles both fine and plain, silks, tapestries, carved furniture, furs, robes, jewelry, perfumes, staffs, and standards. Much had been looted in just the past few months. Clearly the kagan intended to not only take his own life if the Romans broke through but also prevent them from capturing his possessions.

I recognized Ilana, huddled against the heap of saddles, and my heart was wrenched. She was asleep, or at least slumped, with her eyes closed. I had expected a beaten and emaciated slave, but instead she was dressed in a spectacu-lar silken gown and dotted with jewelry. What did this mean? Had Attila taken her as a wife or concubine? Was this last journey for nothing?