The Songs of Slaves (51 page)

             
Rufus eyed this change of tactics suspiciously.

             
“Amongst my people, spiritual power is often symbolized in triple spirals or in triangle shapes. The gods of my people often have triple manifestations or three aspects. For example, the goddess Bhrigid appears in three capacities – the Maid, the Mother, and the Crone. Bhrigid the Maid is a goddess of love, sex, joy, and life. The Mother brings bounty and fertility, protects and keeps, brings order and growth and fosters us as children. The Crone is wisdom, healing, and prophecy. Bhrigid is each of these th
ings at once, according to the D
ruids of my kind. I guess
for these
reasons when we hear
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it seems natural to us.”

             
Rufus blinked at him,
then
quickly rallied.

             
“There you see? Pagan thinking makes the swallowing of the Great Confusion easier. And your churchmen dare call us heretics?”

             
Connor sighed again, looking around at his companions – almost all baptized Christians, but few amongst them without amulets for luck or who did not make signs to avert the Evil Eye when the situation called for it; few who did not fear thunder or pour libations to their dead. To say nothing of all the men they had killed – in battle and out – and perhaps not just men; but how many rapes, how many innocents enslaved or worse? If there was no change in the way a man lived, could he really claim that he had a change in faith? And what of he, himself, Connor thought; remembering the burning of the
bacaudae
houses and the dead eyes of unarmed Lorentius.  He patte
d his horse’s neck – Merridius’
horse, he remembered – and walked on.

             
“Scouts coming in,” someone called. Four black forms approached from over the far hill. Connor could already recognize Gaiseric and Tuldin. They had taken two young warriors with them that morning. Now they were coming back fast.

             
“They’re early,” someone observed surreptitiously. It was probably only the third hour past noon.

             
Valia stepped forward. Connor saw the concern growing on his friend’s face. Valia handed the reins of his gray horse to Henric and rested his hands on his sword belt. Connor stole a glance back to
Lucia
.

             
“What’s going on?” Valia called before Gaiseric had even reached them.

             
“We are well-fucked!” Gaiseric shouted, pulling up his horse. He jumped out of his saddle, waving his arms so animatedly that some of the nearby mounts nearly spooked.

             
“A few
a
la
e
of cavalry,” Gaiseric spat, trying to catch his breath. The other three riders came up beside him. Connor looked to Tuldin, who seemed as
impassive as ever but who was sweating despite the chill wind.

             
“Where?”
Valia demanded.

             
“Quite fucking close, I’m afraid,” Gaiseric said. “They saw us. They gave chase. We tried to lose them, but that didn’t work.”

             
“Then we tried to lead them elsewhere,” one of the young scouts said. “But they were not fools. The ground is more open out there. And they didn’t have to guess that we were using the road.”

             
“Holy God!”
Rufus breathed. Voices erupted throughout the column. The first signs of panic were close behind it.

             
“Silence!”
Valia bellowed. “Are we not Visigoths? If the gods of the Alps did not kill us, then neither
will
this.”

             
At his command the roar was dissipated, but the fear did not.

             
“You say several
alae,
” Valia said, coming up closer to the scouts. “Can you give me a better number?”

             
“Five hundred,” Tuldin said.

             
“It’s hard to count them when they are trying to run you down,” Gaiseric said.

             
Valia nodded his head,
then
cast his gaze to his feet. Connor joined him at his side.

             
“I see the cloud!” a woman shouted. As one everyone looked south. An ephemeral cloud was just visible over the hill. Connor had never seen such a thing, but he knew what it was immediately – dust kicked up by two thousand pounding hooves.

             
“How long do we have?” Connor asked quietly.

             
“Ten, fifteen minutes,” Gaiseric said.

             
Behind them all was chaos. People were screaming. In the crowd, several groups of people were collecting their children and even some of their belongings, preparing to flee. It was madness – anyone could see there was nowhere to run.

             
“Visigoths!”
Valia shouted. Bred and trained to lead, his voice bellowed, sounding off the rocks and quieting the din. “Look at me. We have come this far. Are we out on a tour? Are we on a pilgrimage to some
sacred well? No! We are the kinsmen of Alaric and the worthy men who now make Rome tremble in fear! We have come all this way to fight. Fight the traitors and the murderers. Fight the corrupt sycophants and arrogant cowards and haters of our kind. We have come to make war. Now it seems war finds us. Well, I ask you – are you ready for war?”

             
Valia raised his sword as the first of the warriors cheered “yes”. He moved so that the blade caught the winter sun that gleamed through the gray sky. The jeweled
spatha
that had once been the pride of Lorentius glowed like a weapon of magic.

             
“Are you ready for war?” Valia cried again. More men bellowed. He cried out a third time, and this time everyone shouted – the women, the children, the sick and the injured. All screamed their assent on the top of their lungs.

             
Without a pause Valia pointed his sword to the north.

             
“There. One hundred meters away – the hill is steeper there, the land rises on either side. Our enemies will have trouble getting around us there. On my signal,
pull back and dismount. Leave all the wagons where they are to block the enemy charge. Those who are whole, help those who are sick. Arm yourselves quickly and then space yourselves in formation. I want a rear-guard of twenty men. I want the horses and I want families in the middle, armed as they can be. Then the rest of us – men of the Visigoths – I want a shield wall from rise to rise and as deep as we can then make it. If they charge us they will meet iron. You know what to do. Do it!”

             
There was a whirlwind of activity as the plan was acted upon. The Goths had lived this way a long time – there was little inefficiency in their preparations. Men pulled mail shirts on as they ushered their children back. The women collected the horses and rushed up the hill to the narrow pass. There was no time for goodbyes, no time for pre-battle rituals. The people shouted encouragement to each other as they hustled into position. Abandoned, the wagons with all their goods and gear not needed for the fight blocked the road. In the pass, the shie
l
d wall started to form. Then all at once, the shields slammed together.

             
Connor cursed under his breath. The dust cloud was getting closer. He stood in the front of the shield wall – his first shield wall
–
beside Valia. Gaiseric was at his left. On Valia’s other side were Henric and Tuldin. Connor glanced back, but he could not see
Lucia
. Nearby, Rufus was praying loudly and aggressively. Connor cursed again. He had heard many stories of this type of battle – the shield wall was glorified by poets and reviled by old men, but all agreed that it was the gate of hell itself. To stand side by side with your brothers, facing death in a press of bodies and edged iron. Once the wall formed there was no further strategy, no further options. There was only luck and courage and fate. Now Connor was here. He had passed all the way through the Alps, freezing and fearing, only to die here – a hundred twenty warriors on foot against a horde of horsemen, overwhelming odds,
certain
death.

             
The dust cloud was very close. Connor thought he could hear the rumble of hooves over the shouting of his comrades, over the blustering of feigned bravado or the mewing of fear that was all around him. He had a shield and he had a mail shirt, but he did not have a helmet. How was he to survive a shield wall without a helmet – the front line of a shield wall without anything
to stop a stray blade from coming over his shield and splitting his head open? He had no greaves – no protection for his legs, lest anyone sweep low and strike him down to
be
trampled to death or hacked to hell from above. He knew what to do – Titus had trained him, and he had been practicing with the other Visigoth warriors every day, but how could he be prepared to do it?

             
Then above the southern hill the first of the enemy emerged. They seemed dark – so dark under the winter sky. Their helmets were crested with horse tails or silk ribbons, some even with bird wings, horns, or animal skulls. Their mail was bright, their round or oval shields
held ready. They each carried
long spear
s
in hand
–
still upright, but
Connor knew they would level them
as one, a terrible phalanx of death to punch through the meager shield wall of the defenders. Long
spatha
bounced against the horses’ flanks as they approached. Their horses were running, powerful muscles moving fluidly, hooves pushing the ground past underneath them. Line after line of cavalry appeared – wave after wave of mounted warriors bringing death as fast as their horses could run.

             
Connor did not know why, but with the sight of the advancing cavalry the fearful words in his head stopped abruptly. He no longer thought of greaves or helmet. He no longer thought of the Alps or the days of slavery. He did not think of life, or all the promises he was su
pposed to keep. He heard Titus’
voice in his head, as the old man had quoted:
If you must fall, go forth bravely.

             
Connor shouted the words out loud. He lifted
Archangel
in the air. The force was closing in on them – it was nearly to the wagons, but Connor no longer cared. He wanted it to come. He wanted it to come faster.

             
“
In Valor there is Hope!
” Connor shouted, quoting some general from long ago. “
In Valor there is Hope!
”

             
He shouted it again in Gothic. The people around him were shouting too. Others took up his cry until it blended with the battle cry of the Visigoths in the shield wall. The cry seemed to fill the whole valley. Connor looked at his enemies as they tried to maneuver around the abandoned baggage carts. He wanted them. He wanted them on his sword. If it was going to end
here, he was going to see that it ended for many of them too. Let there be no one left to hurt
Lucia
, no one left to celebrate his defeat. Connor was screaming wordless cries now. Beside him Rufus shouted out verses from Wufila’s Bible. Behind him the host of Visigoths was alive with defiance.

             
Then suddenly, Valia lowered his sword and shield. He took a step forward, breaking the shield wall. Thinking that he was initiating a charge, Connor moved to follow him, but Valia motioned for all of them to stay. He walked towards the hundreds of enemies as they reformed on the other side of the wagons. His sword was now held relaxed, and as Valia walked he slung his shield on his back. Holding formation wedged between the two rises, his followers watched as he took off his helmet and cast his blonde hair back.

             
In the front of the enemy line, a man on a huge white charger rode forward. He was massive in frame, towering over Valia in his saddle. Like Valia he wore an elaborate helmet with cheek plates, ornate nose guard, and wide back ridge; but his was crested in black in the Roman style. Like Valia, he wore a wolf skin as a mantle. His shield was blue, with a device that Connor
had seen before, though he could not think of where. Valia still approached. The cavalry leader rode forward a few more paces and then he too dismounted.

             
“Are they going to fight in single combat?” Connor hissed to Gaiseric. If so, why did Valia take off his helmet and set aside his shield.

             
“I don’t believe it,” Gaiseric said, lowering his sword, the mask of war fury dropping away from his face.

             
“We have to do something,” Connor hissed.