The Scourge of God

“Bathed in holy water, blessed by high bishops, and anointed by a vial of blood from the savior. Do you think Aetius is fool enough to let this youth give back a tool of Hun power in exchange for a single woman! This is no longer the sword of Mars, Attila. It is the sword of Christ.

For you, it has been cursed, and if you take it with you, your people will be utterly destroyed.” Attila twisted angrily, so I pressed the blade anew. “Let us go and I let you go,” I whispered.

“You dare come here to offer bad prophecy?” the king challenged the bishop.

“I come here to offer fair warning. Think! Could this young fool steal the sword from the tent of Aetius? Or did the general let him have it? Ask him.” Attila twisted his head. “What is true?”

“Aetius said he wanted you to survive-”

“Think!” interrupted Anianus. “That sword has brought you no luck, Attila.”

I could almost feel the king calculating. “Then it curses the Romans as well,” he tried. “Look at the battlefield, warlords. They lost more than we did.” Zerco laughed. “Which is why you cower in your laager!”

Now Edeco’s sword was half out of its sheath, but I shouted warning. “Don’t!” I bent to the king’s ear. “My life for yours. Ilana for the sword. I can’t hold you much longer.

I must slice and kill us both, or leave.” There was silence. Sweat spotted us both. Ilana seemed to have turned to marble. Skilla seemed dazed by all that was happening.

Finally Attila grunted. “All right.” None of us moved, not certain we had heard him right. “Go. You and the witch. Go, and be a plague on Aetius instead! You’ve both cursed my camp since you came to it. Leave the sword and I give you safe passage.”

I sensed movement at the edge of the pyre, coming behind me. We didn’t have much time. “I have your word?”

“You have my word. But if I see you in battle again, I will kill you.”

I released him and stepped away, holding the old sword at the ready and careful of treachery. Attila’s eyes were like the point of a spear, but he made no move toward me and issued no command. Eudoxius, I saw, had been trying to sneak behind the pyre to get a shot at my back with a bow and arrow, but now he stopped, too, the arrow half drawn.

Attila rubbed the red welt at his neck. “The sword, Roman.” Stooping carefully, I laid it in the grass, then began backing for Diana. “I need a horse for Ilana,” I said.

“Give her one,” the kagan growled.

I swung up onto Diana and Ilana mounted her horse.

Skilla looked at us with quiet sadness, finally accepting that he’d never have her.

“Skilla, come with us,” I tried.

He straightened then, proud, contemptuous, confident. “I am a Hun,” he said simply.

“Skilla . . .” Ilana spoke, her voice breaking. “I know what you’ve-”

“Get out of here,” Attila interrupted, “before I change my mind.”

Skilla nodded. I wanted to offer my strange enemy-friend something, but what? Not Ilana. She was quietly weeping, tears running down her cheeks.

“Go,” Skilla said in a choked voice. “Go, go, Romans, and stop corrupting us.”

“Now!” Zerco whispered urgently.

I was dazed that I was alive, that Ilana was behind me, that Anianus had appeared, that the sword I had carried so long lay untouched in the grass. Our horses began to move, Huns reluctantly stepped aside, our own lines glinting on the horizon. It might work!

I heard a familiar voice. “Here’s a better ending, kagan.” Our heads swiveled and I saw Eudoxius, his face con-torted with hatred, draw his bow. The iron of the arrowhead trembled slightly as he aimed at Ilana.

“No!”

He shot as Skilla leaped without thinking, trying to spoil the aim. Instead the arrow struck him and the Hun was pitched forward by the impact, falling onto his back. He looked in disbelief at the shaft jutting from his breast.

Eudoxius gaped in horror.

“A Hun keeps his word,” Skilla gasped, a red froth at his lips.

There was a roar of outrage, and the Greek turned and flinched. Edeco’s sword came whistling down and cleaved the doctor nearly in two.

“Now, now!” Zerco cried. “Ride! Ride for our lives!” Attila howled and picked the great iron sword out of the grass with two hands and came running at us like a madman.

I kicked my horse between him and Ilana, and he swung, hard, and narrowly missed. I felt the wind of the passage.

The massive blade cracked the rim of my saddle, nearly buckling Diana.

And broke. The old iron shattered into fragments that flew like a broken glass, spinning at the circle of startled Huns and making them duck in superstitious horror. The Hun king looked at the iron hilt in disbelief.

“You have cursed yourself!” Anianus shouted.

Then we kicked and bent low over our horses. A Hun had stepped out to grab my reins, and I rode over him. Then another caught at Ilana, dragging. I looked. The German girl Guernna! My love clubbed with her fist and the slave dropped away, braids flapping as she rolled.