The Scourge of God (22 page)

“You should not have interfered, Roman!” Skilla called. “Now you will be dead!”

I ignored the taunt.

“Look at him, armored like a snail,” someone from the crowd observed.

“And as slow.”

“And as hard to get at,” a third cautioned.

There were other shouts: about my ancestry, my manhood, my clumsiness, and my stupidity. Strangely, I began to draw strength from them. I hadn’t slept since fighting for Ilana, knowing the coming dawn could be my last. My mind had become a whirlwind of regrets and misgivings, and I spent these last hours cursing myself for bad luck. Every time I’d tried to think of the actual combat my brain seemed to shy away from any intelligent planning or useful tactics, skittering away into memories of my race with Skilla, my kiss with Ilana, or that embarrassing but intoxicating glimpse of her bare breasts. I hadn’t rested, hadn’t concentrated, and hadn’t prepared. But now I realized that if I were not simply to be a target as simple as those melons I’d watched the Huns practice on, I must use my head or lose it.

I watched dourly as Skilla loped along the line of cheering barbarians, waving his fist in the air and crying in a high yip-yip-yip like an irritating dog. The Hun would shoot me and my horse from a hundred paces, shaft after shaft plunking in until I resembled a field of spiky flowers. It was not so much a fight as an execution.

“Are you ready?” Edeco demanded.

Was I going to sit as target for slaughter? What advantage could I find?
Fight your battle, not theirs,
Zerco had said. Yet what was my battle? “Wait,” I said, trying to think. At least, I decided, I could make myself a smaller target. I let the butt of my spear strike the earth and used it as a pole to lever myself off Diana’s saddle, landing heavily.

“Look, he’s backing out!” the Huns called. “The Roman is a coward! Skilla gets the woman!”

Hefting my shield and squaring my shoulders, I addressed Edeco. “I will fight on foot.”

He looked surprised. “A man without a horse is a man without legs.”

“Not in my country.”

“But you’re in ours.”

I ignored that. Striding fast to hide my tremors, I made for the center of the makeshift arena, a circle two hundred paces across formed by the wall of thousands of barbarian bodies. There could be no escape.

“Yes, he’s a coward!” the Huns called to one another. “Look at him stand still for execution!”

Skilla had pulled up short and was looking at me in bewilderment. Did I hope simply to spare my fat mare from arrows? Diana was in no danger. Skilla’s intent, he had promised, was to slay me as quickly as possible and claim the mare for his own.

I stopped at what appeared to be the exact center of the field.
Skilla, you will have to come to me.
I looked back. Attila was seated on a hastily constructed platform, Ilana and the other women pressed against its base. The great iron sword of Mars, pitted and black, was across the tyrant’s knees. A man in Greek dress was at his shoulder, whispering commentary. This, I assumed, was the Eudoxius whose return had initiated the
strava
. Why was he so important? The kagan pointed his arm straight up at the sky and then brought it down. Begin! A roar went up from the assembled crowd, where skins of drink were being passed freely.

I watched as Skilla on Drilca made another long loping circuit of the ring, cheers rising as he passed. He seemed to hesitate to attack, as if wondering what I intended to do. I simply followed him by turning in a slow circle, my mail shirt hanging to my knees, my oval shield covering all but my feet and head, my eyes hidden by the shadow of my helmet. My sword was sheathed and my spear remained planted on the ground. I stood like a sentry, not crouched like a warrior, but still well covered. Finally the Hun decided it was time to finish things. He reached and, in a practiced motion almost too quick and smooth to be followed, plucked an arrow from his quiver, drew, and shot. He could not miss.

Unlike a battle, however, where a sky full of bolts and arrows make evasion impossible, I had the advantage of being able to follow a single shaft. I jerked to my left and the arrow passed harmlessly over my right shoulder, flying on toward the crowd. The spectators there surged backward with a yell, some toppling each other, and the missile landed harmlessly at their fringe, plowing into the dirt. The rest of the audience laughed at them.

“One,” I breathed.

Skilla, annoyed at my evasion, shot again from the ring’s periphery, and again I had time to dodge and duck, the arrow making a sucking sound in the wind as it buzzed by my ear. I cursed myself for the imagination that allowed me to picture it striking home.

“Two.” My own voice was firmer now to my ears. I spat and swallowed.

Now a new chorus of yells and catcalls came up from the crowd, which was beginning to back up in order to make a larger arena in respect for the wayward arrows. “The target is the Roman, not us!” Others wondered aloud if my punches had blinded him.

Angry at this mockery, Skilla kicked Drilca into a gallop, still making a broad orbit around me. This time his action was almost a blur. With a speed that seemed almost superhuman but which was practiced until it was second nature to the Huns, Skilla launched a succession of arrows too quickly for me to evade them singly, while riding the circuit at full tilt. They came at me in a fan. Now I crouched beneath my shield and then at the last moment fell into a ball. Three arrows flew over me entirely and three struck my shield at an oblique angle, plowing into it but not penetrating. No sooner had the volley stopped than I bounced up, reached around, and snapped in half the shafts that had stuck in my shield.

“Eight.”

Skilla had settled his horse into a lope again, seemingly as baffled by this evasion as he had been by my boxing. He made for where one of his arrows was jutting from the ground and leaned to scoop it up, but a Hun ran forward, yanked it out, and broke it in two. “You only get one quiver!” he shouted.

Sensing the sport, the crowd pulled up and shattered the other spent arrows as well. “A quiver only! Strike home or be damned, Skilla!” Some of the sentiment was beginning to swing to me, I realized. “You couldn’t hit your mother’s ass!”

Zerco the dwarf had bounded down from his wife and was capering in front of the crowd, crowing excitedly. “The Roman is invisible!” he cackled. “The Hun is blind!”

Scowling, Skilla galloped by and almost ran the dwarf down. At the last moment Zerco scampered back into the safety of the crowd, hooting and turning a somersault as he tumbled to safety.

So the Hun fired again, singly this time, and then again in almost absentminded fashion, giving me time to dodge the arrows.

“Ten.”

Yet even as I evaded the tenth shaft, Skilla abruptly changed tactics and kicked his pony straight at me. This time he drew and held, leaning toward me as Drilca neared, the hoofbeats kicking up a blur of clods, clearly intending to shoot from a distance of a pace or two and pinion me once and for all. There would be no time to dodge. Yet as he drew near I stopped pivoting around my planted spear and hefted it, and just before I judged he’d shoot I threw as hard as I could. The spear sailed. Now Skilla was forced to jerk the reins, his horse cutting away; and while the spear missed, so did his arrow, which this time went so high that it soared over the heads of the Huns. A great shout went up, both of excitement and derision, at this near miss by both opponents. Skilla wheeled his horse around, and I ran to retrieve my weapon.

The exchange was repeated, with no different result. Neither of us had yet drawn blood.

“Twelve,” I counted, panting now. Sweat stung my eyes.

Edeco stepped out from the mass and grabbed Drilca’s bridle as it trotted by. “Are you trying to cool him with the wind from your arrows?” he demanded. “This is not a game, it’s your reputation. Use your head, boy.”

Skilla yanked away. “I will give you
his
, uncle.”

Now he sped by again, but this time at a distance that was too far for me to heave my spear. Again he loosed three arrows in quick succession so that no matter which way I dodged, I could not escape. This time two arrows thudded home on my shield with enough force to pierce it. One broke through but was spent enough that it merely punched against my mail shirt, not penetrating it. The armor saved my heart. The other arrow struck, however, where my left arm held the shield straps, and pierced my forearm. I was pegged to my protection. The shock was enough to make me stop for what was almost a fatal moment, and another arrow flew singing toward my eye. I ducked just in time so that its head clanged and skipped across my helmet, jarring me with a blow to the head. I staggered.

“Sixteen.” I winced, my ears ringing. A rivulet of blood dripped from my shield.

The crowd noise fell briefly to a disconcerted murmur. Skilla had clearly struck his target, but my Roman shield and armor was stronger than they had expected. What witchery was this? As derisive as they were of defeated opponents, any prowess or good equipment earned their respect.

Still the pony cantered around, the crowd screaming encouragement and abuse at both of us now. Skilla reached around and then hesitated.

He had only four arrows left. How to end this frustration?

With a howl he directed Drilca straight at me again in a thunderous charge, and as I raised my spear he suddenly veered sharply to the left. My throw sailed wide, and Skilla cut back to come at my undefended side before I could turn, his bow drawn. This time I simply fell in panic, and the arrow sizzled by my ear just before the Hun pony ran over me. Hooves slammed down on my shield, cracking it, and one hoof struck my side and kicked me along the ground in a spinning skid. It was as if the world had been robbed of air. I felt disoriented and in agonizing pain, a rib cracked. The horse danced, and then it was beyond me, neighing in confusion while Skilla hauled to turn its head around. The sound of the crowd was like a roaring ocean, buffeting both of us with rising emotion.

I had to fight back, but how?

Skilla rode toward me even as I crawled to get my spear. I grabbed it and then twisted around, using my shield like a rock to hide beneath in a desperate attempt to defend myself, as Skilla shot downward again from murderous range. The powerful bow sent the arrow through the shield like paper. Yet the pony was skittering away from my wavering spearhead, and so this shaft missed my chest and plowed through my shoulder instead, driving down with such force that it went completely through and stuck me to the ground. I was more helpless than ever. Skilla drew again, Drilca sidestepping closer. He couldn’t miss. This would finish it. I glanced sideways along the ground. Ilana had emerged from the crowd at Attila’s dais and had run a few steps into the field, her hand at her mouth.

I would not let him have her.

With an awkward heave I desperately lurched my spear upward and it stuck in the pony’s belly. The horse screamed and bucked and Skilla’s next to last arrow went at an awkward angle that merely stuck in my shield. Drilca trotted fearfully away, the lance dragging from his underside, blood and piss draining as it weaved. The pony’s head shook.

The Huns were going wild, but who they were cheering for and who they were despising could no longer be discerned in the tumult. This had been a far better fight than they had hoped.

I felt as if a horse had fallen on me, so heavy did my shield suddenly feel, and my vision was blurring. It was the shock of wounds. I had to get up! Skilla was getting his horse back under control, and my spear had dropped away from Drilca’s belly, kicked and broken in half by the anxious pony. I could hear the spatter of its blood.

I still was pinioned to the ground by that arrow, afraid to move because of the pain. But I had to! Summoning all my courage, I heaved and sat up with a shout that pulled the feathered shaft clear through my shoulder, leaving me dizzy with agony. Then I used my good right arm to lever the shield from my left, wincing as the other shaft through my forearm broke in two as the straps fell away. I kicked, and the shield skidded free, an empty, bloody platter. My mail had a sheen of bright blood now, my shoulder bubbling like a spring, and my head ached from where the one arrow had struck my helmet. Yet somehow I got to my knees and then my feet, staggering, and I marveled at what I could make my body do. “Nineteen.” It was a wheezing gasp.

I watched as Skilla drew his final arrow.

Skilla kicked, but Drilca came on at barely a trot, wary now of this man who had wounded him so grievously. The pony’s eyes were clouding. The Hun looked triumphant. Noise enclosed both of us like a box, a delirious buffeting; and yet I could see nothing but my opponent, weaving closer. I drew my sword. Skilla’s grin grew contemptuous. He would never come close enough to give me a chance to use my weapon.

“Finish him!” Edeco’s roar came floating through the cacophony.

I could see Drilca’s breast, his high, lathered neck, and Skilla peering just beyond it down the shaft of his arrow. He was only ten paces away.

So I threw, hurling my sword with my right arm and grunting through the pain.

It whirled end over end, a steel pinwheel, and struck Drilca full in the chest, the horse buckling to its knees and tumbling forward. Skilla lurched and lost control of his arrow, which went low. Then Drilca was sprawling, his rider flying out of the saddle and over the horse’s head, my sword embedded and lost under the kicking, screaming horse.

Skilla skidded on the grass and dirt, cursing.

I ran past him, a stumbling run, and picked up the half of my broken spear that bore the head.

Skilla still had his sword, but his instinct was for archery. His quiver was empty, but his last arrow jutted tantalizingly from the ground. He crawled for it, even as I staggered in pursuit, my spear poised to strike if I could reach him before he could retrieve the broken arrow and shoot. I was bleeding freely now, and my opponent was largely unhurt. All he had to do was wait for my collapse! Yet that wouldn’t fit his pride. Skilla’s hand closed over the arrow shaft and plucked it like a flower. He would have one last, clear shot at my chest. Lying on his back, he fitted arrow to bowstring. I braced myself to die.