“All life is a fight between light and darkness, between right and wrong, between civilization and barbarism, between the order of law and the enslavement of tyranny. Now that fight has come to Aurelia.”
Men unconsciously straightened. Fingers flexed. Jaws tightened.
“You cannot fail because the Holy Church is behind you, and I say to you this morning that God is on the side of our legions and that Heaven awaits any man who falls.”
“Amen,” the Christians rumbled. They put their hands on the hilt of sword, mace, ax, and hammer.
Anianus smiled at this ferocity, his gaze circuiting the room and seeming to rest for a moment on each man in turn. He spoke softly. “And you cannot fail, brave warriors, because a messenger came to us last night with great tidings. Theodoric and the Visigoths have joined the alliance against Attila, and even as we speak they are riding with Aetius to the relief of Aurelia. They are just days, perhaps hours, away. That is why you hear the drums, because the Huns are panicking and wish to conquer us before reinforcement arrives. They will fight desperately to get inside these walls, but they will not succeed because you cannot allow them to succeed. You need only fight and win for a little while, and then deliverance will be at hand.”
Now the assembly in the church was stirring and whispering, realizing that in an instant the entire complexion of the war had changed. Without Theodoric any resistance was desperate. With him, there was a chance to defeat Attila’s entire horde.
“Can you fail?” Anianus asked in a whisper.
“No!” they roared.
And then the bells and trumpets began sounding the alarm as the barbarian horns rang out from beyond the walls. The great attack was beginning.
The Huns had outridden their best mercenary engineers and couldn’t make a proper siege. What they did have were arrows, ladders, and an abundance of courage.
They attacked Aurelia from all sides but the river, a wild rush designed to stretch the defenders thin. As the scale of the attack became apparent, it was necessary for nearly every inhabitant of the city—from unarmored women to children as young as ten—to join the men on the ramparts and hurl down stones, tiles, and cobbles. The air was thick with flying shafts, each side shooting back some of the arrows shot at them; and there was an ominous humming in the air like the sound from a hornet’s nest. Scurrying priests and nuns gathered spent Hun shafts in baskets to carry back to their city’s own archers; and occasionally a plunging arrow would catch one of the clergy in the crown of the head, plunging with such force that its point would jut through the lower jaw and sew the mouth shut so tightly that the dying couldn’t scream. He fell, but another priest picked up his burden.
As the missiles flew, the barbarians surged, boling, across the ground outside the city, hundreds struck by the defenders’ salvos but thousands more bunching at the base of the walls. Pots of oil and boiling water, poured from the ramparts, cut swathes of fire and pain in the ranks. Plunging stones snapped limbs and shattered helmets. Yet all this seemed a dent. There were simply too many Huns. Scaling ladders soared skyward like an uncurling fist of claws. Hun archery began in earnest, each volley of arrows timed to follow the last so that it was impossible for the Alans to poke their heads above the protective stone crenellation without being killed. At the same time, attackers swarmed up the ramparts. So the Alans crouched and pitched rocks over the lip of the wall blindly, waiting for that cease in the hiss of arrows that would signal when the first Huns reached the top. Then a great shout went up, and they rose in their iron and leather to clash with the snarling attackers, wrestling on the lip of wall. Here a ladder was overthrown, there the Huns gained a toehold; and desperate battle raged back and forth on the parapet.
The ferocity of the fight made the combat in the lonely tower of Noricum seem leisurely in comparison. Here was battle of an entirely new scale—men swinging, chopping, and biting like animals because even a moment’s pause meant instant death. Some of those wrestling toppled off the wall together, throttling each other as they fell; and if a defender somehow survived such a plunge the Huns waiting below dismembered him and hoisted his limbs as bloody trophies.
I’d borrowed armor to join the battle, now that my message had given hope. I felt more practiced at this grim craft now, rising after the arrow volleys to slash with sword and club with shield, sinking out of sight when more arrows came, and then rising once again. A misstep in this rhythm and I was dead. There was no courage to it because there was no time to be afraid. To lose meant death, so I did what all of us did, what we had to do. We fought.
Soon the parapet was littered with the fallen, defender and attacker alike, some groaning and some already still, festooned with arrows. Many of the dead were women and children, yet new ones constantly clambered up the steps on the city side to drag them aside and bring fresh stones, arrows, or pots of hot oil and grease. At the base of the wall many of Attila’s men were thrashing on the ground and twisting in agony from cruel burns or trying to crawl away on broken legs. The luckiest rocks we dropped struck the ladders themselves, snapping enough in two to seriously limit the routes the attackers could take. Yet to aim a rock was to invite a dozen arrows, and many a broken ladder was purchased at the price of a defender’s life.
On the eastern side of the city where I was stationed and where the Hun concentration was greatest, the defenders had erected a Roman tolleno, a huge pivoting beam with a hook on its end that could be manipulated by a counterweight to swoop down outside the walls like a bird of prey. The hook whistled down, snared a Hun, and hoisted him, kicking, high into the air before the wetness of his entrails made him slip off. The machine did not kill that many, but the huge whir it made as it dived was cruelly effective in throwing the attackers into disorder.
Yet all this furious fighting was really a mask for the primary Hun assault, which was the advance of a wheeled battering ram to destroy Aurelia’s main gate. What the attackers had not gained by stealth they would break open by brute force. The ram rumbled forward, surrounded by a swarm of upended shields like an undulating roof, and our arrows against it were feeble as rows of Hun archers suppressed our own.
The ram, we knew, could spell disaster. Shouts of warning attracted our bishop, and Anianus waved his cross like the standard of a general to draw more troops to this crisis point. Yet what could we do? And then Zerco appeared. Where he’d been I had no idea, but just as he’d shown at the Roman tower in the Alps, he seemed to have a presence of mind in battle the rest of us lacked. Now he stayed below the wall’s lip, busily tying a huge grappling hook to a rope stout enough to tether a ship with. “What are you doing here, little friend?” I wheezed when the fighting momentarily slackened. “You’re likely to be stepped on.”
The dwarf smiled. “But not shot. Envy me, Jonas. I do not have to duck.”
“Don’t try to be a hero in a sword fight.”
“Hero! I scuttle between their legs, and they dance like chickens. Here, let the others hack at the Huns while you help me finish my toy. My brain is as big as anyone’s, but I’ll need a broad back like yours to make this work.”
“What is it?”
“A ram snagger. The tolleno gave me the idea.”
The battering ram traversed the last few yards, running over broken bodies; and then with an ominous boom it slammed into the oaken gate. The entire wall trembled. Our garrison let loose a small avalanche of rocks and they crashed on those pushing the log, momentarily stunning or scattering some of them; but then the wounded and injured were dragged aside, new hands took the handles of the wheeled device, and it struck again. Inside, yellow cracks appeared in the gate like the ruptures of an earthquake. We were running short of stones; and those defenders who rose to hurl what we had left were picked off by arrows.
“They’ll pull it back in a moment to get some momentum for the next attack,” Zerco said. “When that happens, be ready. Anianus! Get us some strong backs to help!”
The bishop quickly understood wh
at the dwarf was trying to do. He shouted for men to stand in a line along the rope, his clear, earnest voice quickly assembling a company.
I, too, saw what the dwarf intended. “We’ll be skewered by arrows.”
“Not if our archers aim for theirs. Get them lined up and ready.”
The dwarf scuttled along the parapet, line uncoiling as he dragged the heavy grappling hook. He was counting his paces as he walked. Finally he got to a point as far from the gate as the wall was high, and stopped. At his direction, I drew the line taut. Other men crouched behind me, holding the hemp. The dwarf was looking at an angle through the crenellation, watching what the Huns were doing. Finally we could hear the hoarse shouts as the ram was readied to be hurled against the gate again, perhaps breaking it this time.
“Ready?” Zerco shouted.
I nodded, wondering if this could possibly work.
“God be with us,” Anianus intoned.
The Huns roared a command to advance, and we used it as a signal to fire a volley of arrows. They flew toward the Hun archers, momentarily spoiling their aim. Zerco took the brief opportunity to stand on tiptoes and push out the hook while I held the line above the gate. The grappling hook clanged on the outside wall, bounced, skipped past a ladder, and dropped in a predictable arc for a point directly below where I held the rope. Just as the battering ram surged forward, the hook slipped neatly into the side of the pointed log like a hook in a fish.
“Now!” the dwarf cried.
We heaved, straining backward. The rope came up and with it the snout of the ram, jerking it clear of the gate. The rear end swerved, and Huns cursed as they lost their grip on their weapon. Higher and higher the front of the ram rose as we pulled, the attackers milling in consternation and leaping futilely to cut our rope. We’d bested them. Only one brave and clearer-thinking Hun started scrambling up a scaling ladder, since our trick had momentarily robbed a stretch of wall of defenders as we pulled. Clearly, he meant to cleave the rope from above. I left my own place to intercept him.
I got there as he was coming over the wall, and we met on a charge, swung, clashed, and recoiled. I swung again, the man parried, we pushed off each other with a grunt and then crouched to duel, sweating. This one had rare courage, I acknowledged.
Then I recognized him behind his captured helmet, as he did me.
“You!” Skilla breathed.
“Zerco thought maybe he’d killed you,” I said.
“As I thought I had killed your little rat friend.” He edged sidewise, looking for an opening. “Where’s the sword you stole, Roman?”
“Where it belongs—with Aetius.”
Skilla attacked, swinging, and I blocked the blow, my hands throbbing from the ring of steel. Again we swung and again, and then we were apart once more, looking for weakness. I’d lost all thought of the main battle.
The Hun grinned. “When I kill you, I will once more have Ilana. Attila has her ready with him, in a cage.”
That cost me my concentration. “She’s alive?”
It was enough for the Hun to charge before I was ready. My parry now was one of desperation. I stumbled backward over a body and fell as Skilla swung down. But then Zerco came from behind, stabbing with a dagger, and Skilla howled in frustration to turn and swat at the little man who had cut his leg. I scrambled up as Skilla retreated, and risked a glance over the wall.
Now the wheeled ram was completely vertical, its end dragging in the dirt as fifty men strained to take the weight.
I looked back at Skilla. He had frozen, too, watching this contest.
Hun arrows started slicing toward the suspending rope, fraying it. Finally it snapped, spilling the hauling crew backward but letting the ram fall sideways. It hit with a crash that snapped all its axles. Wooden wheels rolled like scattered coins.
Taking advantage I lunged at Skilla. He leaped back, his eyes flicking with doubt. He was alone on the wall, and Hun horns were blowing retreat. Free of the rope, Alan soldiers ran up to support me, forming a half ring around my opponent. I stayed their attack.
“You’re on the wrong side, Skilla,” I gasped. “Aetius is coming. Don’t fight for your monster.”
“I want Ilana!”
“Then help us rescue her!”
“I can rescue her only by killing you.” It was near despair. And then, knowing the odds had become impossible, he turned and leaped.
I thought it might have been to the death and ran to see, surprised by my sudden feeling of dread. I didn’t want to be robbed of this Hun. But Skilla had caught the fragment of rope where the ram had broken and was swinging now, halfway between the top of the wall and the ground. He let his sword drop at one end of the swing and then dropped at the other, falling thirty feet and rolling, even as arrows and spears tried to pin him. Hun arrows arced up to cover his retreat, catching one defender in the eye and another in the shoulder; and then the fighter was up and limping back to his own lines, pausing to help a comrade carry one of the wheels that had sheered from the battering ram. They would fix it to a new one, I knew. Skilla would never give up.
I could see him looking back at me as he withdrew. The other Huns were drawing off into the trees as well. Had we beaten them?
“We should have killed him,” Zerco said.
I looked around. The parapet was a charnel house. Bodies littered it so thickly that rivulets of blood were running down the gutters and spouts like rainwater. Half Aurelia seemed in flames; and everyone was blackened, bloody, and exhausted.
We could not survive such an assault again.
So we slumped, wondering how long it would take the enemy to prepare a new ram. Women and old men clambered up to bring skins of wine and water. We drank, blinking at a sun that seemed to have gone stationary. Then someone shouted about glitter spotted in the trees to the south, and we heard Roman horns. Aetius!
XXV
A GATHERING OF
ARMIES
The Huns melted away like snow. One moment it seemed as if Aurelia was being strangled by enemies, and the next as if the death grip was an illusionary nightmare. Siege engines were abandoned, a new ram undone, campfires left to smoke unattended. The barbarians mounted their horses and rode back northeast, away from the tramp of Roman and Visigothic troops approaching from the opposite direction. We looked at our retreating tormentors almost in disbelief. Yes, our bishop had promised deliverance, but who in his deepest heart had really trusted? And yet there from the southwest came Aetius as promised, with tramping legions, Gothic cavalry, old veterans, and raw teens. I had tears in my eyes as I watched them approach. Zerco capered gleefully, singing a nonsense song.
I watched the allied leaders march through the battered gate with a combination of pride and impatience. Yes, my mission to Tolosa to convince the Visigoths to join the alliance had been a success. Yet this vast maneuvering of armies seemed suddenly inconsequential compared to Skilla’s momentous news. Ilana was alive! How, and where, the Hun hadn’t said, but the news set afire my whole being, making me realize how quietly her loss had been gnawing at me since escaping from Attila. A burden of guilt was lifted, and a burden of worry replaced it. I knew how selfish such sentiment was in this time of peril, and yet in turning over Skilla’s brief statement, uselessly picking at it for meaning, a hundred memories came rushing back. She had saved Skilla at the duel, yet nursed me afterward. It had been her idea to set the fire and steal the sword for Aetius. Her voice, her manner, her eyes . . . I wanted to ride after Skilla right now, trailing the Hun as the Hun had once trailed me. Perhaps I could disguise myself as a barbarian again, skirting Attila’s armies while I gathered information . . .
“Jonas Alabanda?” A centurion had found us on the wall.
I stood, stiffly.
“The general is waiting for your report.”
The council of war that evening gave only brief thanks for lifting the siege of Aurelia. All knew a far greater task lay ahead. Some of the Alan captains who had been present at the morning asse
mbly were now missing, having died on the walls. Their place was filled by men from neighboring barbarian kingdoms. Most had never joined in alliance before. Aetius was our acknowledged leader, and yet there were few present who hadn’t fought or quarreled with him at some point during his decades of maneuverings. Each tribe was proud of its individuality, even while assembling for the unity of Rome. Theodoric and his Visigoths were the most numerous and powerful military contingent. Sangibanus and his Alans were the bloodied hosts of the gathering, the heroes of Aurelia. But there were also the Riparian Franks from the banks of the Rhine; the Salic Franks; the Belgicans; the Burgundians; the Saxons of the north; the Liticians; the Armoricans; and the Roman veterans, the Olibriones. Their weaponry was as varied as their tactics and origins. We Romans fought in traditional fashion, with shield walls and war machines, but the barbarians were as individualistic as their clothing and armor. Some favored the bow, some the ax, some the stout spear, and some the long sword. Hired Sarmatian bowmen would match their expertise with the Huns, and slingers from Syria and Africa would add new missiles to the fray. There were crossbowmen, light infantry with javelins, heavy cataphract cavalry who depended on the shock and weight of their armored horses, sturdy infantry with long pikes, and fire wizards specializing in tipping missiles with burning pitch.
All this expertise depended on our combined will to stand up to Attila. That’s what Aetius wanted to cement this night, in the afterglow of our first great victory. “Attila’s foremost column is retreating,” Aetius told the kings and warlords around him. “He’s lost control of his broader army, scattered across northern Gaul. If we strike now, fast and in concert, we can defeat him once and for all.”
“Is he retreating or regrouping?” Sangibanus asked warily. “Let’s not risk losing the victory we’ve already won.”
“A war half fought is a war almost certainly lost,” Aetius replied. “The Huns exploit every hesitation. Is that not right, Zerco, you who have lived among them?”
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