Sneak preview of "The Desecration of Fortune"

Enjoy this sneak preview of "The Desecration of Fortune" due for release in July...

They came in their thousands, a great rolling horde that stretched out on the plain before us like a slow-moving tide. They came on foot and horseback, tromping through the dust amidst the sounds of creaking leather, clacking greaves, and rattling swords. They came in curious wagons topped with sheepskin tents and peaked roofs from which rippled long pennants. They came driving their livestock, swarming herds of sheep, pigs, and goats. They shepherded them along with whips and staffs, more like nomadic migrants than an advancing army. They came with their families, squealing children, beckoning mothers, and shouting men. They came with their slaves, the squalid, dejected remnants of defeated tribes, once proud men and women who had made the unforgivable mistake of asking for their mercy. They came with their plunder, wagons piled high with the treasures they had stripped from the towns and cities they had demolished, riches they had torn from the hands of weeping victims and plucked from the bodies of the dead as they stood ankle-deep in blood.

They came with their siege engines, the mighty machines of war: the fearsome onager, so called because of the sound it made when it flung its combustible 200-pound ball from its long, swooping arm, a braying shout like a jackass; and the musculus, a turtle-shaped shelter on wheels, open at both ends, that could be rolled over obstacles and trenches and pushed up against the walls so the sappers inside it could set to work undermining the structure even as they were shielded from the arrows and stones raining down from above; and the siege towers, rectangular wooden structures thirty feet tall, swaying and jolting along on wooden wheels, covered with animal skins and containing crude scaffolding designed to permit the occupants to climb to the height of the walls and throw down planks to cross over and fight the defenders on the battlements; and the great, triangular A-frame of the battering ram, twenty feet tall at its peak and equipped with an oaken crossbeam from which hung a massive log suspended by chains that, when set to swinging, could smash the wooden gates of the city like the fist of a Titan.

They came with their cavalry, a mounted host like nothing ever seen before in the green rolling hills of Gaul, an unnerving assemblage of Asiatic men in conical caps and embroidered boots riding stout ponies with black manes and bulging eyes. Each man came armed with a composite bow constructed of horn, wood, and sinew laminated together for increased force and accuracy as well as a quiver of arrows, like a basket of reeds, from which a skilled archer could snatch, notch, and shoot with the rapidity of raindrops driven by a storm.

They came with their grievances. Ever the sufferers, disdained, insulted, cheated, making use of that favored contrivance of bullies and scoundrels, the resort to victimhood that robs their victims of sympathy and appropriates it to justify evil. Poor Attila – mistreated and abused. He could not stand by while he was cruelly denied his just deserts—a ruse as transparent as it was disingenuous. He had been robbed of his tribute, deprived of his subjects, and pushed from his lands. What could he do? He must attack, if for no other reason than to salvage his dignity. He was a man, after all.

More like a beast. He would take and take and take, and when opposed, he would cry foul and go on the attack. He and his horde had to be stopped.

They numbered something on the order of 200,000, while we, their presumed oppressors, were a little under 10,000 altogether, half of us women and children.

At first sight of the enemy, some of the town’s residents wanted to sue for peace. A group of more than thirty went to the magistrates and argued that to oppose such a force was nothing short of madness. We must send an emissary to ask for terms. But the magistrates refused. Upon hearing this, some of the malcontents tried to run away and surrender, but were caught and brought before me. I ordered them detained, although it pained me to do so. If I had learned anything from Galla, it was that there were times when one could not afford to be soft. Still, detaining them depleted our numbers, which were already strained.

Some were atrophied by fear. I came upon one such cowering in the corner of his hut. He was a complete wreck. To put a sword in his hand would’ve been worse than useless. Others had gathered in the basilica to pray, hundreds of them filling the sanctuary to overflowing. They spilled out into the street, surrounding the building several rows deep and praying up at the structure as if it were a god. They sought rescue in the divine rather than in doing the hard work of defending themselves. They poured money into the collection plates, which Bishop Aignan was more than happy to pass among them. They were weak and deluded and ill prepared for what was about to happen.

I prayed as well. I prayed for the people to find courage. I prayed to God for the strength to withstand what was to come. I prayed and prayed until the men along the battlements began to stir, their black forms silhouetted against the late afternoon sun, taking up their positions, testing the resiliency of their bows. I thanked God for the arrival of Avitus’s men, the only experienced soldiers among us. Without them our defenders would not have had the discipline to hold their fire.

The Huns gathered on the plain before the city, about two hundred yards out. They paid our defenders no mind. They were organizing behind our trenches, going about it in a workmanlike manner as if they were erecting an aqueduct. They positioned their siege engines, divided into regiments, and established command posts. Before they were finished, darkness fell. Little by little, their campfires sprang to life. It was a daunting sight, a thousand rippling beacons sprinkled across the night-time plain like stars in a constellation.

Within the walls, the residents of the city could not rest. Some were so anxious they could not eat. Others wept and cried out to God. Others could be heard vomiting.

At dawn the first projectiles were slung, catapulted against the walls amid the braying honk of the onagers. Six landed in rapid succession, and then… stunned silence. Six more. The last two describing long arcs across the morning sky before smashing through the roofs of houses set well back within our walls. The opening shots were a warning. There had been no formal request for parlay, no demand for surrender. It was clear what they wanted. Twelve shots. Surrender now. Then silence. A few moments later it began in earnest.

***

It started with volley upon volley of arrows, thousands of them. They sprayed the battlements like waves bursting upon rocks. The defenders ducked and covered to no avail. The arrows fell in an unrelenting shower. Anyone foolish enough to stick his head out was pierced through. Only the protection of the arrow slits in the bastion permitted us to see what was going on. One of Avitus’s soldiers invited me to take a look.

I saw the Huns moving their musculi forward, those oddly shaped shelters on wheels commonly referred to as “tortoises” because of their rounded shells and sluggish progress. There were three of them and they inched forward as if in slow-motion. Inside each were a dozen men with shovels. They advanced to the first line of trenches and began to fill them in. From above I could see bundles of wood being lobbed out, followed by shovelfuls of dirt.

This activity was met with no resistance by us. Our men had fired barely a single shot and could not have if they wanted to, pinned down as they were. It seemed inconceivable that the deluge of arrows could keep showering down without let up, but it did, launched by rank upon rank of standing archers strung out in long rows who fired and restrung with the smooth rapidity of the spinning spokes of a wheel.

By mid-morning the first line of trenches was filled in, and the musculi trundled forward to the next. As the men inside went about their business, the siege towers and battering rams were brought up. The onagers remained well back. The second line of trenches began to fill in. At this rate it looked like the enemy would reach the wall and undermine it before we could mount a defense. I went to find the commander in charge, the chief officer assigned to us by Avitus, a man named Quirinus. I asked him what we were doing to slow the advance.

“We’re taking what they give us,” he said. He pointed to the courtyard below where thousands of arrows had fallen, littering the ground like broken twigs after a storm. A line of men was moving through them, holding up rounded shields to fend of the falling projectiles as they picked them up. “They have the advantage of us at the moment,” Quirinus said. “But if they keep contributing in such numbers, we may soon match them.”

“Are the arrows any good?” I asked. “Will they fly true?”

“They won’t have to,” he said. “By the time we use them, the targets will be so numerous, even the ones that go astray will find their mark.”

... Read the rest of the story when "The Desecration of Fortune" is published this July.