The Scourge of God

There was a distant, distinct call of a Roman lituus; and the Huns milling below us looked at one another in consternation. Reinforcements? Our survivors, recognizing the sound, began to cheer.

Skilla was using a small trestle table to shield himself from whatever we hurled at him. Now I saw him hesitate in an agony of indecision. His enemy and Attila’s sword were so close! Yet if the Huns were penned inside this fort by a fresh force of Roman cavalry, all would be lost.

One last attack!

“Tatos! What’s happening!” he called anxiously.

“Romans are coming! Many of them, on horses!”

“We still have time to kill them!” Skilla lifted the table.

I took a crossbow and shot. The bolt punched through its surface, narrowly missing his nose, and his head jerked backward.

With his face turned, he saw that his men were melting.

“We have to flee!”

“The sword! The sword!” Eudoxius was pleading.

Skilla still hesitated.

I was cranking desperately.

Finally he leaped downward as I fired again, the bolt missing him by inches. Then he was running out of the shattered doorway, hurtling the bloody mess. The badly wounded Huns were left to Roman justice while the rest ran for their ponies that had been picketed outside the wall.

Skilla jumped from the parapet and landed neatly on his horse’s back, slashing to cut its tether. Even as we hooted in triumph, the Huns were getting away.

I craned out a window to look. There was a flash of armor in the rising sun, and an unusually well-uniformed and well-armored company of cavalry began to round the brow of a hill to the south, where the high mountains lay. Skilla lashed his pony and rode north the other direction, back the way the Huns had come. His retreat was downhill, and no soldiers anywhere were better at melting away than the light cavalry of the People of the Dawn. By the time the Roman cavalry had thundered up to the beleaguered tower the Huns were a mile distant and galloping fast, scattering until they could regroup later.

The battle was over as suddenly as it had begun.

We gaped. The leader of the reinforcements was on a snow-white stallion, his cape red and his helmet crested in the old style. His breastplate bore an inlaid swirl of silver and gold, and it seemed for a moment as if Apollo were descending from the rising sun. He galloped through the fortress gate and up to the wrecked door of its central tower with a turma of cavalry behind him, reining up to stare in wonder at the havoc. We defenders staggered out to meet him, and what must he have thought: a woman whose sweaty hair hung in tendrils on her face; a grimy dwarf; and me, bearing in two arms a great old iron sword almost bigger than I was.

The officer blinked in recognition. “Zerco?” The newcomer’s surprise was no more than the dwarf’s.

He, too, let his mouth open in shock and then fell to one knee, displaying a humility he had never displayed to Attila.

“General Aetius!”

“Aetius?” Silas, bleeding and triumphant, stared as if he were indeed observing that rumored unicorn. “You mean this fool was telling the truth?”

The general smiled. “I doubt it, from what I remember of his slyness. So what in Heaven and Hell are you doing here, Zerco? I got your summons, but to actually find you . . .” Aetius was a handsome and weathered man, still hard muscled in his fifth decade, his face lined with care and authority, his hair an iron gray. “We saw the signal fire. You always did have a knack for trouble.”

“I was looking for you, lord,” the dwarf said. “I have decided to change employers again, since Attila has tired of my company. This time, I brought my wife with me.” Julia bowed.

“Well, the saints know we need laughter at perilous times like these, but it doesn’t look like you’ve been joking, fool.” He looked at our bloody mess with a grim kind of satisfaction. “It appears you’ve started what I barely have hopes of finishing. I’m inspecting our alpine posts because of your warnings of war, in case Attila advances on Italy. Your message of escape caught up with me two days ago.”

“More than warnings, general. I’ve brought you dire news from Attila’s camp. And I’ve brought you a new companion, a Roman from Constantinople who almost killed the kagan himself.” Zerco turned. “You have a gift for him, do you not, Jonas Alabanda?”

I was happy to be rid of it. “Indeed.” I walked up to his horse with the sword.

“You tried to kill Attila?”

“I tried to burn him, but he has the devil’s luck. My luck was this talisman.” I raised the pitted relic. “A gift, General Aetius, from the god of war.”

XX

THE DRUMS OF ATTILA

A.D. 451

Snow came, and the world seemed to slumber. Yet from the capital of Attila on the frozen plains of Hunuguri, a hundred couriers were sent to a thousand barbarian forts, villages, and camps. No mention was made of the loss of the fabled sword. Instead, Attila evoked other magic, telling his followers that Rome’s own prophets had foretold the city’s final end.