The Scourge of God

I felt as if a horse had fallen on me, so heavy did my shield suddenly feel, and my vision was blurring. It was the shock of wounds. I had to get up! Skilla was getting his horse back under control, and my spear had dropped away from Drilca’s belly, kicked and broken in half by the anxious pony. I could hear the spatter of its blood.

I still was pinioned to the ground by that arrow, afraid to move because of the pain. But I had to! Summoning all my courage, I heaved and sat up with a shout that pulled the feathered shaft clear through my shoulder, leaving me dizzy with agony. Then I used my good right arm to lever the shield from my left, wincing as the other shaft through my forearm broke in two as the straps fell away. I kicked, and the shield skidded free, an empty, bloody platter. My mail had a sheen of bright blood now, my shoulder bubbling like a spring, and my head ached from where the one arrow had struck my helmet. Yet somehow I got to my knees and then my feet, staggering, and I marveled at what I could make my body do. “Nineteen.” It was a wheezing gasp.

I watched as Skilla drew his final arrow.

Skilla kicked, but Drilca came on at barely a trot, wary now of this man who had wounded him so grievously. The pony’s eyes were clouding. The Hun looked triumphant.

Noise enclosed both of us like a box, a delirious buffeting; and yet I could see nothing but my opponent, weaving closer. I drew my sword. Skilla’s grin grew contemptuous.

He would never come close enough to give me a chance to use my weapon.

“Finish him!” Edeco’s roar came floating through the cacophony.

I could see Drilca’s breast, his high, lathered neck, and Skilla peering just beyond it down the shaft of his arrow. He was only ten paces away.

So I threw, hurling my sword with my right arm and grunting through the pain.

It whirled end over end, a steel pinwheel, and struck Drilca full in the chest, the horse buckling to its knees and tumbling forward. Skilla lurched and lost control of his arrow, which went low. Then Drilca was sprawling, his rider flying out of the saddle and over the horse’s head, my sword embedded and lost under the kicking, screaming horse.

Skilla skidded on the grass and dirt, cursing.

I ran past him, a stumbling run, and picked up the half of my broken spear that bore the head.

Skilla still had his sword, but his instinct was for archery.

His quiver was empty, but his last arrow jutted tantalizingly from the ground. He crawled for it, even as I staggered in pursuit, my spear poised to strike if I could reach him before he could retrieve the broken arrow and shoot. I was bleeding freely now, and my opponent was largely unhurt. All he had to do was wait for my collapse! Yet that wouldn’t fit his pride. Skilla’s hand closed over the arrow shaft and plucked it like a flower. He would have one last, clear shot at my chest. Lying on his back, he fitted arrow to bowstring. I braced myself to die.

But when he tried to pull the string, it flapped uselessly.

Skilla gaped. The fall had broken his bow.

I charged. Before he could reach for his sword my Roman boot was on his chest and my spear point was at his throat. The Hun started to twist and the tip began to cut. He stopped, frozen, finally knowing fear. He looked up.

I suppose I looked like a great, metal monster, chest heaving, blood droplets from my two arrow wounds spraying us both, my face still mostly lost behind my helmet but my eyes bright and lusting for revenge. Impossibly, I had bested him. The Hun closed his eyes against the end. So be it. Better to die than bear humiliation.

Now the crowd had surged forward, dramatically shrinking the battlefield to a tiny ring, its sound and excitement clamoring, the smell of the pressed bodies rankling. “Kill him, kill him!” they screamed. “Now, Roman, he deserves to die!”

I looked at Edeco. Skilla’s uncle had turned away in disgust. I looked at Attila. The Hun king grimly put his thumb down, in mocking copy of the Roman gesture he had heard of.

It would not be a combat kill anymore; it would be an execution. I didn’t care. These Huns had crucified Rusticius, enslaved Ilana, slain her father, and trapped me. Skilla had taunted me from the day we’d met. I knew this was not what the priests of Constantinople expected. The final thrust would be a relic from the old world, not this new, saved, Christian one, supposedly so close to Apocalypse. But none of this mattered in my hatred. I squeezed the shaft of my broken spear in preparation.

And then something slight and frantic hit me, butting me aside before I could thrust. I staggered, outraged, and howled with pain. Who was this interloper?

She loomed in my vision. Ilana!

“No.” She was weeping. “Don’t kill him! Not for me!” I saw Skilla’s eyes blink open, amazed at this reprieve.

His hand closed on the hilt of his sword, still undrawn. He rolled to one side to clear it.

And then all went black. I had fainted.

PART TWO RALLYING THE WEST XV

THE WINE JAR