The Scourge of God (36 page)

“Get him! Get him! I can’t see!”

A hand slithered on his ankle. Zerco kicked, connecting with something hard, and pulled himself upward with all his might, wriggling up a passageway as narrow as a pipe. “Boost me up!” someone cried.

He could hear an arm thrashing behind him. “He’s like a damned rabbit. It’s too small! There’s no way I can follow.” 

“What is that hole?” Skilla asked.

“Who knows? Probably a vent, to give air.”

“Can he get out the other way?”

“There are grates on the outside to keep out animals. He can’t go anywhere, but we can’t get him, either.”

“Maybe if we boost up a dog . . .”

“Why bother,” Skilla said. “Aren’t men working to reinforce the walls? Get some stones and a hod of mortar. We’ll seal him in and have no corpse to explain.”

Even as they worked, Skilla felt cursed by the dwarf. The little man was grotesque and scuttled like a spider, and he seemed tied to every moment of the Hun’s torment by Jonas and Ilana. The witches had told him forest legends of squat and scabrous gnomes from the German woods who plagued ordinary men with magic and tricks. The annoying Zerco was one of these, Skilla believed, and sealing him in a stone tomb would be a gift to the world.

The warrior watched impatiently as the guards clumsily bricked. How Skilla hated it down here! No Hun liked crowded, dark, or confined spaces; and these underground passageways that the Romans had built were all three. He was proud of having been assigned the mission of conspiring with Sangibanus—it was a mark of his uncle’s growing trust in him, despite his setbacks—and he knew success would eventually bring him overdue recognition, and Ilana. But the past week in Aurelia was almost more than he could bear. It was never quiet in the city. His senses were battered with noise, color, crowds, and ceaseless clanging. How he longed for the countryside! But soon Sangibanus would betray his own capital and Aurelia would fall. Soon the Huns would be masters of everything, and the clever men who made life complicated would be no more.

The king of the Alans dared not simply surrender his city, Skilla knew. His own warlords, who distrusted their cousin Huns as much as they distrusted Romans, might turn on him. Sangibanus could not convince them of the West’s weakness without seeming a coward. Nor could he simply organize a party of traitors to overwhelm the sentries at his own gate. If too cowardly to fight Attila, he was also too cowardly to murder his own soldiers, because the chance of betrayal and civil war was too high. So instead Skilla had offered a different way. With Roman armor and a persuasive Aurelian officer, a party of Huns could seize the gate with a minimum of bloodshed, holding it open just long enough for other Huns to gallop through. With that, the battle would be over before it began, and no one—including King Sangibanus— need die.

Now they had to act more quickly than planned. If Zerco had found this hidden armory, who else might know? Aurelia must fall before the dwarf was missed.

XXIV

THE GATE OF AURELIA

T
here are few things more difficult, Zerco supposed, than listening to men brick up your tomb. He tried to laugh at his predicament, just as he had tried to laugh at his entire bizarre life. How he’d wanted to be an equal in the councils of the big people! His humor was a mask for his bitterness about his own ugliness, of course—just as it covered up his astonished wonder that he could marry a woman as fine as Julia or have a friend as promising as Jonas. Now he would pay for pride and ambition! Sealed in a little catacomb without the mercy of oblivion. Should he back out before they finished and hope for a quick death instead of torture? Or stay out of reach and suffocate instead? For a little man who depended on agility and wit, the latter seemed a particularly pathetic way to die. Yet life had taught the dwarf to keep hoping. He was a freak who advised generals and consulted with bishops. So perhaps it was not time to wiggle backward to certain death but to squirm forward. Even as the final stone was wedged into place, Zerco was climbing the steep incline of his tunnel to find where it led.

What followed, his mind would long shy from remembering. He would not recall if he had been suspended in darkness for hours or days, and if the overwhelming feeling had been of cramped heat or numbing cold. He’d simply remember wedging himself ahead. A ridge of stone could seem as insurmountable as a mountain, and he’d peck at it with his fingers, loosening key bits and letting them rattle down behind him. Then he’d shimmy, expelling all air to shrink and surge forward some impossibly small amount. He’d jam, gasp, his middle squeezed by what felt like the entire weight of the Earth, ears hammering, expel air again, wriggle forward, breathe, gasp against the pain, expel . . . again and again and again until finally his hips would be past the obstacle and he would lie panting in a tube no roomier than a cocoon, his heartbeat the only sound, his sweat the only lubricant. Somewhere, fresh air was keeping him alive. As his clothes disintegrated he left the pieces behind except for strips with which to wrap his hands. His blood made him slippery; and as it leaked, he shrank.
Never before have I wanted to be small,
he thought, drawing himself out like a snake. Occasionally he started to panic, his lungs working wildly, but stifled any scream by thinking of Julia.
"Stop sobbing and get yourself out of the hole you climbed into"
she lectured him.
"What is so hard about crawling forward? Babies can do it!”

So he did. He passed an even smaller hole, its rank smell tying it to an old Roman sewer, slimy effluent dripping down like a baptism from Hell. Praise God! It made him slicker! The worst came when he spied a glimmer of light but only beyond a narrowing of the cavity that at first seemed too small even for him.
As tight as the cunt of a virgin,
he cursed, as if he’d had all that many virgins. But what choice did he have but to be reborn? He put his arms forward as if diving, his already-narrow shoulders pressed to his ears, and kicked forward like a fish. Each rib clicked by the stones like a bead on an abacus, the pain as excruciating as if he were being flayed. Then his stomach was through and his hips jammed tight—
I’m as wide as a woman!
—until he found handholds and pulled the last inches by brute strength, jamming his teeth against the agony. Then the air was cooler and fresher, the light brighter. He came with his nose to an iron grate.

Thank the saints for rust and the laziness of barbarian conquerors. The metal had been no better maintained than Aurelia’s walls, which is why the Alans were working so frantically now. With his last bit of strength he pounded on it like a madman, on and on, until suddenly it fell away with a screech and clang. He waited for shouts but heard nothing. He was still far under the city’s central fortress. Zerco popped out into a wider tunnel, big enough to crawl on all fours, lit by light coming down from grated shafts too narrow and sheer to climb. The new passageway seemed a hopeless labyrinth, making him panic all over again, but finally there was the sweet smell of steam and the chatter of laundry girls in a fortress washroom. A pipe from the room vented the steam, and Zerco was the only inhabitant small enough to slip down. He popped out into a clothing pile, a demon sheathed in bright blood. One laundress screamed and fled; another fainted and would later tell tales of the end time. Zerco merely stole a sheet and crept back to the bishop.

“I think I know what they’re planning,” he announced.

Then he collapsed.

No wonder Romans fought so clumsily and slowly.

Skilla felt as encased as a sausage in the heavy Roman armor, his vision restricted by the hot helmet and his torso confined by the weight of mail. The oval shield felt as unwieldy as the door of a barn. The lance was a log, the sword as straight as their rigid roads, and the heavy clothing wet with sweat. Once they got inside the gates of Aurelia he would abandon this nonsense and reach for his bow, but in the meantime the disguise would get them unchallenged to the city wall. Once the portal was seized, Edeco’s division of five thousand men could follow and the hapless Sangibanus would remain blameless.

It was midnight, the moon dark, the city sleeping, and the Huns supposedly far away. Edeco had led his division two hundred miles in three days, outdistancing any warnings. Now his men waited in the woods while Skilla’s disguised company of a hundred men trotted toward Aurelia’s wall with a great clank and creak of Roman equipment. As always, Skilla found himself studying the walls with a soldier’s eye. The ramparts and towers of fresh stone glowed noticeably lighter than the weather-stained wall below, even in starlight. A few torches flickered to mark the gate, and the Hun could see the heads of Alan guards peering down as he approached.

The Alan captain, paid well to keep the armory a secret, had left the city with Skilla and came back with him now, the new gold jingling in his purse as he rode.

“A company from Aetius to reinforce Sangibanus!” the henchman cried when they came under the central tower. “Open the gate for friends!”

“We’ve had no word of Romans,” a sentry responded cautiously.

“How about word of Huns? They’re not far, you know. Do you want help or not?”

“What unit are you?”

“The Fourth Victorix, you blind man! Do we look like Norican salt merchants? Open! We need to eat and sleep!”

The gate began to ponderously swing. It was going to work!

Then it stopped halfway, giving just a glimpse of the city beyond. A voice called. “Send in your officer. Alone.”

“Now!” Skilla cried.

They charged, and even as the soldiers began to swing the gate against them the Hun horses bashed into it and knocked the sentries backward, pushing the entryway wide. Through the short arched tunnel that led through the wall was the courtyard beyond. The Huns kicked their horses.

And a wagon lurched from one side of the inner arch and rolled to block their way. A torch made oiled hay explode in a fireball of flame. The ponies reared, screaming, and warriors cursed, reaching awkwardly for the unaccustomed Roman weapons. Before they could act a dozen arrows buzzed through the fire, some igniting as they flew, and struck home. Men and horses spilled in the crowded portal. The Alan captain’s gold coins of betrayal spilled with him, rolling on the stones. Meanwhile, men beyond the flames were yelling alarm. “They’re not Roman—they’re Hun! Treachery!” A bell began to ring.

Priests were running past the burning wagon and charging at the front rank of horsemen with long pikes. The butts of the wicked weapons were planted in the ground and the spearheads set to form an impenetrable hedge of steel. Horns began blowing. In the light of the fire, Skilla could see soldiers were spilling from nearby buildings and dashing to the wall. Buckets of rocks began raining on the Huns bunched behind. Then sluices of oil came raining down and ignited. The trick had become a trap.

Skilla’s horse wheeled uselessly at the hedge of pikes. Had Sangibanus double-crossed them? No . . . who was this halfling taking aim?

On a stairway to one side of the gate, a midget was whirling a sling. Skilla cursed and reached for his bow. Could it be?

A rock whizzed by Skilla’s ear even as he drew back his bowstring. Then Tatos grabbed his arm. “There’s no time!” An iron portcullis was rattling down to cut off the Hun leaders from their followers.

“Blow the horns for Edeco!” Skilla cried.

“It’s too late!” Tatos jumped down and hauled Skilla from his horse, an action that saved his life when another volley of missiles scythed into the gateway and toppled half a dozen more men and horses. Skilla’s own horse screamed and went down. The gate had become a slaughterhouse of kicking hooves, broken legs, and discarded Roman weapons. Skilla and his companion ran to where the portcullis was descending, slid, and rolled. They made it to the outer side just as the grate bit into the causeway. Behind, the priests who had attacked his men charged with a howl and began killing the wounded with axes and scythes. Here was none of the meekness of the monastery.

Skilla stood at the outer end of the portal. Everything was chaos. Huns were on fire. Others were milling helplessly. One stone struck a warrior’s head and it exploded like fruit, spraying them all with blood. Hundreds of Alans were running to man the wall. Skilla heard with dread the thunder of Edeco’s charge and ran to turn it back. The oaken gate itself slammed shut again against them. It was all the damned dwarf!

“Fall back! Fall back! The Wolverine retreat!” Yet even as his men tried to flee out of range, Edeco’s huge division of screaming Huns swept Skilla’s stunned company forward like a wave against the wall, the formation breaking against the stone like surf. The Alans were electrified by this sudden appearance of their enemy, bells pealing and horns sounding all over the city, and any opportunity for Sangibanus to surrender had disappeared in an instant. Instead, the Huns found themselves mounting a cavalry charge against a wall fifty feet high.