Attila: The Judgement

by William Napier

  He gave one final, terrific heave, and the barrel, blazing more furiously than ever, the very spars beginning to darken into charcoal from within and disintegrate, was sent over the side. No direct hit - that would have been too lucky - but it crashed to the earth with the force of an explosion, spitting burning splinters and flecks of blazing tar into the rumps of two or three terrified horses, which reared and then rolled to the ground, screaming, to extinguish their burning hides. The stench of singed horsehair filled the air. The Hun riders slipped free, staggered to their feet in a daze, looked around - and one, then two were struck through with arrows. They pitched forward and died. The third had begun to run, a fellow warrior galloping in close to scoop him up onto the back of his own sturdy little mount. But another arrow hit him square in the back and he dropped down dead. His would-be rescuer wheeled dismissively and galloped out of range again.

  It was Arapovian, shooting without mercy from the battlements. He ducked as a riposte of Hun arrows clattered around him. Then the horsemen below galloped into a full retreat. The little field-machine was dragged away behind.

  ‘Now douse the roof, what’s left of it!’ shouted Sabinus. ‘Clean up that tower and get it back in order. Jump to it!’

  Auxiliaries ran.

  Knuckles shambled over to the Armenian and hit him on the back.

  ‘Not bad, that,’ he growled.

  Arapovian turned to look at him, saying nothing. His eyes widened a little. Knuckles’s complexion was charcoal. Half an eyebrow was burned away. His shaggy fringe was noticeably shorter than before, and his hair appeared to be smouldering. The Armenian glanced down and saw worse: those giant, spade-like hands were badly blistered and seeping blood. He silently produced a little bottle from within his robes and passed it to him.

  ‘One mouthful,’ he said. ‘Armenian brandy. The finest.’

  Knuckles grunted and obediently took the delicate little bottle, looking like a giant holding a lady’s thimble. Sipped delicately. It was good.

  ‘That’s it, is it?’

  Arapovian took the bottle back. ‘That’s it.’ He pushed the cork in and stowed the bottle back in his robes. ‘We’re going to need more later.’

  ‘“We”, is it now?’

  Arapovian looked back over the plains of war. Perhaps the shadow of a smile passed over his aquiline features. He cranked his injured left arm up and down, blood oozing through the bandages again, but his face betraying no hint of pain. Then he nocked another arrow to the bow and waited.

  Knuckles made his way back along the battlements, until Tatullus stood in his way.

  The centurion regarded him. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘for a deserter.’

  ‘Thank you kindly, Your Honour.’

  ‘Show me your hands.’

  Knuckles showed him, with commentary. ‘I don’t need medical attention, sir, really I don’t. I got a bit of a problem with doctors, the truth be told, ever since that time back in Colonia, when I caught a nasty dose off of a certain young lady of nevertheless very obligin’ disposition, and the doctor there made me—’

  ‘To the hospital,’ said Tatullus. ‘That’s an order.’

  Looking anxious for the first time that day, Knuckles made his slow and reluctant way down to the hospital.

  He needn’t have worried. The legionary doctor, a young and apparently diffident fellow from Thessaly, knew his stuff. He larded Knuckles’ hands with goose fat infused with garlic to prevent the blisters becoming putrid. Stung like hell at first, but then, he had to admit, felt not so bad. Less like his palms were about to split open to the bone at any moment. Altogether very different from that unfortunate experience back in Colonia.

  There was little time for self-congratulation.

  Sabinus called Tatullus over and they watched as the Hun lines began to move forward again. The front ranks broke out into two huge loops, revolving circles of galloping archers spiralling in closer.

  ‘Very pretty,’ muttered Tatullus.

  Light cavalry? Arrows? Sabinus was puzzled. ‘What are they up to? You don’t take a Roman fort with horsemen. ’

  The Huns came wheeling in, and then as one body loosed a volley of arrows. They flew in high arcs, none of them aimed for anything in particular, just the fort in general. But there were thousands of them, darkening the sky like strange birds. The air was filled with iron sleet.

  ‘Take cover!’

  They came arcing down onto the wooden roofs of the towers, the exposed battlements, the scrambling men. Cries rang out. An unlucky crossbowman rolled down the narrow stone steps.

  ‘Medics!’

  ‘Another volley coming in!’

  Some dashed for the towers, others huddled tight in against the low wall, shields pulled over heads and shoulders. Safe enough, for now, but rendered useless: pinned down, unable to return fire or lob so much as a rock. The artillery were as good as spayed, too. The south-west unit tried to fire heavy bolts into the whirlwind of horse-warriors, but were immediately picked off over the low battlements. Hun archers were able to take careful aim, even at full gallop, and fire flat shots straight through the narrow niches of the towers. There were distant screams. Christ, they were good. Sabinus had heard that a Hun warrior loosed his arrow only in the moment all four hooves of his horse were off the ground, to fly smooth and straight. Absurd, of course. But now he saw them in action . . .

  Another soldier, an artilleryman, fell forwards over the wall. A Hun horseman immediately rode in and lassoed him, and dragged him away across the plain, yowling, the body swerving and flayed in the dust. Hector before the walls of Troy. Sabinus saw even the brute Knuckles cross himself at the sight, and prayed the soldier was dead already. He gave the order for the artillery to cease firing.

  The iron sleet did not cease, and those who sent it into the air and over the walls did not cease moving. They made an impossible target. It was an appalling revelation. Two vast, galloping circles, well spaced, gracefully avoiding the twin obstacles of the ruined, still-smouldering siege-towers. The Roman crossbow units crouched below in the guard towers, protected better at their narrow niches, did their professional best, but too few of their bolts struck anything but whirling dust. And there was a limit to how many bolts they had in store. Sabinus gave them the ceasefire, too, and pondered. No, you don’t take a Roman fort with cavalry. But you clear its walls and neuter its defenders with arrow-fire this intense.

  Then the next stage of the battle became clear. The galloping horde below the walls had them immobilised, unlike previously with the towers. They stopped firing and galloped three or four hundred yards off again, out of effective range. They could be back in a flash once they’d reloaded their quivers from the wagons. If any of the defenders stood, tried to fire back, he would be stuck with a dozen arrows. With only five hundred good men to lose, that was bad maths. Meanwhile, there was still another machine to come. And it was coming now.

  They had a ram.

  Sabinus thanked the stars the west gate was well bagged up. He ordered the pedites to bag up the south gate too, in case they switched direction. The east gate they must keep free for their own cavalry.

  As the pedites ran across to the gate, a detachment of horsemen came galloping in fast by the wall, and another slew of arrows went up and came down almost vertically. How did they know? The very ground of the fortress was studded with feathered barbarian arrows. So too were several pedites, struck down or screaming. Too many. Sabinus winced. The poor runners dragged bags and lumber into the shadow of the south gate as best they could, but still the arrows fell. Finally he gave the order for them to run for cover again. Of the twenty who had gone out, eight came back. He ground his teeth in anger.

  The horsemen turned and wheeled away as one, like a flock of starlings, before they could take any damage. They vanished into the last of the morning mist, shot through with eastern sunlight.

  8

  THE RAM

  The legate took a quick tour of the north wall. Out there on
the river, not far from the shore, lay the stolen ships manned by Hun archers. He kept low. His north wall was secure. No need to man it. They couldn’t get out that way, and flee downriver to Ratiaria. Nor could the Huns get in. He’d done the right thing to neglect it. The battle would take place at the south and west walls, and out on the flat plain. They didn’t like water. And, he reflected, they wouldn’t like mountain warfare, either.

  Now here came the ram - an altogether more threatening proposition than the tall, unwieldy towers. It was a low-slung beam shaped from a single fir, with a brutish bronze head, and sheltered under what looked, from this distance, like an expertly shaped and crafted iron-plated tortoise. Already, Sabinus could see that this time the big wheels were entirely sheltered. Then he could see that they weren’t wheels at all this time, but solid rollers made from single trunks of fir. Unbreakable.

  No one came in support. He guessed that the Hun way was to force a breach in the gate, and then the cavalry, having waited safely out of range until then, would come zigzagging in like lightning.

  The great engine turned and the monstrous ram under its armoured shelter began to trundle towards them. The west gate was strong but not that strong, even with its double oak bars. Bagged up though it was, it needed more. Sabinus looked around in desperation.

  ‘Every auxiliary off the walls. Stack up the west gate as much as you can, low-angled. Find column drums, barrels of sand, anything. I want that gate rock-solid. Move it!’

  Without the auxiliaries, the legionaries ranged around the walls looked sparse indeed.

  Tatullus grimaced. ‘We can’t afford to lose any more.’

  On the tower roofs, one scorched and blackened but the other still intact for now, the artillery units worked tirelessly. Fat hanks of twisted skein were cranked back on mighty torsion springs. Barrels of tar burned low - carefully supervised. The long bow-arms of the arrow-firing machines were taut in readiness. An iron-tipped bolt from one of those sleek machines could go through armour plate, if it struck at a right-angle.

  Then, to Sabinus’ surprise, came the distant, dull clunk as the two Hun onagers kicked back and spewed forth their titanic loads again. The long, low hum of their missiles. And twin thunks into the dust. Activity out there, as they ranged again, shooting as their own men advanced. They must be damnably confident of their accuracy.

  ‘Skilled?’ he muttered. ‘Or stupid?’

  Arapovian nearby interrupted. ‘The Huns have never been stupid. Ask King Chorsabian.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Arapovian, tight-lipped. ‘He had a kingdom once, in the Zagros Mountains. And then the Huns came.’

  Yet Sabinus had hope now. The ratio of his men to the enemy was ridiculous, but what did that matter? Rome had always been outnumbered by her enemies, and never dismayed by it. They were winning so far. No barbarian had ever taken a legionary fortress, and he was damned if his was going to be the first.

  As for their siegecraft, it was there, but wanting. Tatullus suggested they had formed an alliance with a bunch of Alan mercenaries, some wandering Iranian or Sarmatian people. Or perhaps renegade Vandals, a motley crowd of deserters. There had even been talk of the Huns forming a dark confederacy with King Genseric and his people in North Africa, who had learned so quickly the arts of both sailing and siegecraft from their own enemies.

  Perhaps. Well, let ’em come. The VII Legion was ready for the next wave, all five hundred of them - perhaps down to four eighty or four sixty now. The army of an entire people was besieging the fort - an entire nomad empire. And fate, or the gods, or whoever, had appointed the VIIth to fight them off on its own.

  He called for another glass of wine, well-watered.

  Tatullus drank nothing.

  The great shorn trunk of fir with its crude but doubtless brutally effective bronze head - no more than a lump of dully shining metal - reminded Sabinus of Knuckles’ club. No elaborate carving of real rams’ heads for this army on the move.

  He ordered a first volley. The Roman arrows clattered uselessly off the iron plates of the tortoise - what else, at this angle? - and Sabinus raised a thick forearm to hold fire again. The ram came on.

  The Hun onagers thunked again. This time the south-west tower took a huge hit near the base. The entire west wall shivered at the shock. Hell.

  ‘Decurion! Gimme damage and bag it up!’

  The second onager wasn’t far off target, either, now.

  Time to reply.

  He ordered a couple of the sling-machines to lob a few missiles in a high trajectory and drop them on the waiting Hun cavalry quarter of a mile off, just to keep them on their toes. The slingballs flew up and over in rainbow arcs, and the horsemen watched them coming and skittered aside. Some of the slingballs were painted pale blue so they wouldn’t be so easily seen against the sky as they came, but the keen-eyed steppe warriors still followed them all. The slingballs fell to earth. He told the men to fire again.

  What would a heavy cavalry charge do to those light, unarmoured horsemen, though? An iron wedge punching into them at full gallop? Seeing what it did to the drivers behind the siege-towers . . .

  Here was the gang of Hun horsemen driving forward the ram-tortoise. Their leader was a snake-haired, wild-eyed young fellow on a white gelding. He encouraged the captives with song, and a whip. Those dragging the ram against the fortress that had once been their greatest protection were, once again, the enslaved and expendable captives of Viminacium town, panting at the drive poles, bloody under the flail.

  Arapovian stepped near. ‘You need to take that out.’

  ‘I know it.’ Sabinus eyed him. ‘You fit, man?’

  ‘I breathe.’

  ‘Still draw a bow?’

  ‘Never better. Pain concentrates the mind wonderfully. ’

  Sabinus grimaced.

  ‘I take their leader?’

  Sabinus shook his head. ‘Wait. Bring ’em in close. We will have them at the gates. They’ve got no chance there.’

  And for the enslaved captives, alas, it would be another bad day.

  But the tortoise was changing tack again, pulled round from the inside. Away from the massively baulked west gate. The cunning swine. Sabinus was momentarily nonplussed.

  ‘Crossbow unit III only,’ he roared. ‘Pick off what you can. Whichever way they go, keep at ’em.’

  He had few men, but plenty of arrows. Storehouses full of ’em.

  ‘And pedites, I want to see you sweat!’

  Poor buggers looked exhausted already. But they’d look a whole lot worse if that ram came though the gates, followed by ten thousand tattooed horsemen.

  The tortoise shifted slowly and clumsily to the right, towards the trajectory of one of the Hun’s own onagers, smacking boulders into the south-west tower. Idiot barbarians. They’d smash their own ram at this rate.

  But no. As Arapovian had cautioned, they weren’t fools.

  The tortoise straightened up again and the ram was aimed dead centre at the bottom of the fortress wall, only twenty yards or so from where the onager was hitting. They were indeed damnably confident in the accuracy of their own artillery, and they knew about rams and stone walls.

  During the Persian wars against that hard nut Shapur, the Eastern Army had quickly discovered, to their surprise, that the walls of fortresses on the Euphrates, like Nisibis, held well against rams. Built of no more than cheap bricks of mud and straw, baked hard in the Mesopotamian sun, they gave off clouds of red dust, but they absorbed the shock. Whereas beautifully laid walls of finely dressed stone shivered and shattered: far more expensive, a lot better looking - and vulnerable.

  Like the walls of Viminacium. Finest dressed Illyrian limestone facing a rubble hardcore. As soon as the facing was gone, the core would collapse, leaking out of the ruptured stonework like grey gore. But how did they know? That scarred and tattooed leader. He knew too damn much.

  So they were concentrating their attack on the corner. Not bad strat
egy. The onager missiles were coming into the south-west tower at a steady rate, fifty or sixty pounds of missile every minute or two, from maybe four hundred yards. As the ram came closer, Sabinus could see how well built it was. Even the brutish great lump of ram’s-head was protected by a projecting roof. A common mistake to forget that feature. The Goths always used to get it wrong. Bring a ram up to the enemies’ walls, all beautifully shaped and slung, beneath a steep, sloping roof - and with the ram’s head sticking out the front. It comes in close, ready for the first swing, and your men roll a big rock over the wall. It smashes down onto the protruding ram’s-head, the head drops down, the rest of the beam flips up, probably kills a couple of the team with it, slams upwards into its own protecting roof, often half demolishes it. Or snaps its own ropes, or gets tangled coming down again - all sorts of trouble. But not this time. The ram was perfectly protected. They were already swinging her back on good long suspension ropes, all very expert. Sabinus could almost have cursed the grandstand view he had from this damn west gate-tower.