Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Under Brisca’s direction, the villagers set up a makeshift infirmary in the great hall.
Not hours after the battle started, the wounded came streaming in. Arrow wounds and axe wounds and head wounds. Water boiled in the cauldrons and physics with herb knowledge bustled among them, tying bandages and mixing poultices. Brisca oversaw it all with the energy and focus of a general.
Julia kept busy. The healers showed her how to stop bleeding, how to mix a poultice and bind a wound. She mixed pain medicine into the poultices—she knew her way around opium, at least. All the while, battle sounded outside—ballista bolts and slingstones and arrows tipped in iron, slamming into the palisade with shattering force. If Alaric failed—she shut her eyes and an image of one of those ballista bolts punching through his chest filled her sight. If he dies—
No. The gods had spoken. He would not die.
Hours passed. And then she saw Thorismund among the wounded, face gray with pain as a group of healers helped him onto a bench. Julia rushed to his side, her heart in her throat. He smiled wearily. “Not to worry. I killed the man who did it.”
“And the others?”
“Alive. Last I saw. But—” The healers were elbowing her out of the way now, arms full of bandages, and Thorismund stiffened as someone tried to help him into a sitting position.
Brisca squeezed her shoulder. “Do not worry. He has the constitution of an oak tree.”
Then a shout went up that sent a shock down her spine. Fire.
* * *
If Calthrax’s men had been Roman regulars, the defenders would all be dead by now. Alaric knew that well enough.
Roman regulars would have engineers to build ramps and tunnels under the walls; all these men had were ladders and grappling hooks. That was trouble enough. The defenders beat them off, dodging missiles, the air thick with lead. Then, in the blackest night, the ballistae announced their arrival when a bolt the size of a man’s leg slammed into a wall just feet from
Alaric’s head. Brisca’s walls were stout oak, but even they couldn’t withstand a ballista barrage all night. If they didn’t drive the attackers off before sunrise, they were dead.
Now the night was more than half-over and the attackers were by no means driven off. Alaric was at the main gate where the fighting was fiercest, his defenders dropping all around him. He prayed that the wall would hold.
“Alaric.” It was Hengist, climbing the ladder at his back. “It’s the western gate. I went to relieve Horsa and found it hanging open.”
Panic shot through him. “Where is Horsa?”
Hengist pointed down the line. There, amidst a knot of besieged defenders, was Horsa, fighting fiercely with his Hunnic hatchet and seax . “He heard you were losing the main gate. He came to reinforce you.”
Fuck. Horsa had gone against orders, again. And now the gate was open. That meant the enemy was inside. They’d be hunting for Julia. Alaric turned, bellowing orders to the men around him. The invaders had to be hunted down. He would lead the party himself.
Fire flashed in the corner of his eyes. The roof of the great hall was in flames.
* * *
Julia streamed out of the great hall, the crowd surging around her, and for a moment she could barely keep her feet. Thorismund. She turned back in a panic, only to feel a hand reach out and pull her out of the crowd.
“ Julia. Thank the gods.” It was Berig, his face smudged with ash. “Alaric is asking for you. He took a nasty wound to the head—”
Her knees buckled. “Is he dying?”
“I don’t know. There is not much time.” Berig led her away, down a dirt-packed road between buildings. He pulled her into the shadows as a pair of men ran by, armed to the teeth. “Invaders. Looking for you. They set the fires to distract everyone.”
A chill of fear shot down her spine.
Berig led her to the northwestern edge of the village, far from the sounds of battle. The houses here were deserted; frightened goats stood tethered in paddocks, calling frantically. Ahead a large barn had been set on fire, and Berig led her toward it, sticking to the shadows.
A man was standing in front of the burning barn, a shadow outlined in flame. His slit-eyed helmet was the stuff of nightmares—one side lit by leaping flames, the other in absolute darkness. It was not Alaric.
His lips peeled back over wet, shining teeth. “There you are.”
Berig halted, his hand gripping Julia’s arm painfully. “Give me the ransom you promised, Calthrax.”
Calthrax’s voice was the dark inverse of Alaric’s, rolling across the yard like black smoke. “Bring her here and I’ll give it to you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Julia hissed. “He’s going to cut you in half the minute you’re within reach.”
“Shut up.” Berig tightened his grip on her arm. “I want my money before I turn her over. And I want safe passage down the mountain. Guaranteed.”
Calthrax took out a small pouch and tossed it at Berig’s feet. “Now, bring me the princess.”
Berig dragged her across the muddy yard despite her fierce objections. Julia struggled, twisting her ankle painfully. “Take her, then,” he said, thrusting her at Calthrax. Julia staggered, almost falling to her knees.
When she glanced up, it was to see Calthrax thrusting his sword into Berig’s belly.
Berig sagged to the ground. Calthrax kicked his twitching body off his sword. Then he turned to Julia, the fire throwing stark shadows across his bronze helmet.
“You’ve no idea the trouble you’ve caused, Princess.”
She took a step back. Hot wind whipped at her hair.
“Thinking of running, are you? I wouldn’t.” He wiped his bloody sword and shoved it back in his scabbard, striding toward her with a smile vicious as a slit throat. “Stilicho wants you back unharmed. But the reward is the same if you’re dead.”
Then he grasped Julia’s hair in his fist, close to the scalp.
Julia screamed as he dragged her across the yard. Her ankle twisted again and a bright, hot pain shot up her leg. Thorismund’s dagger was in her hand. She slashed wildly, the blade glancing off knucklebone. Calthrax roared in pain and backhanded her into a stone wall, the world exploding into light. Then he stood above her, an enormous curved weapon glinting in his hand, a snarl leaping out of his face. She watched the huge arced blade descend from the spark-filled sky.
A ringing clash and Alaric stood between her and death, his seax upraised to catch the heavy blade.
* * *
Calthrax’s weapon was the terrible Thracian rhomphaia , long as a Celtic sword, affixed to a heavy oak spear shaft. Alaric had seen teams of Thracians take down war elephants with them. He caught its weight on his own upturned blade, shock resonating down his forearms.
Calthrax’s lips peeled back in a feral grin. “Took you long enough.”
“Seems you’ve taken to fighting women in my absence.” The image of Calthrax striking Julia was burned into his mind. He would die for that. “Let’s see how strong you stand against me.”
They orbited each other, blades held low. Assessing. Alaric’s focus narrowed to a deadly point. Beneath the surface, everything tense as a primed catapult.
“Give me the woman. I’ll tell Stilicho you slipped through my fingers.”
Red rage rose up in his sight. “You’ve already made that offer. My answer is still no.”
Alaric raised his blade and lunged forward. There was no more talking after that.
* * *
In Stilicho’s officers’ school, Alaric and Calthrax had been evenly matched. Not more skilled than the other boys so much as angrier , rage burning the same hole in both of their bellies. One night, they’d gone up to the roof to settle which one was better, fought to broken ribs and split lips, swollen knuckles and black eyes. Emerged at breakfast with no clear winner, sixteen years old and looking like they’d been to war.
Even now, fighting Calthrax felt familiar as an old grudge. Together they had been drilled to breaking in the finer points of the deadly armatura , forced to fight in the hot sun with wooden weapons twice the weight of a real sword. Been beaten and starved for every misstep.
Now they each pulled out every trick in lethal earnest.
Alaric held the disadvantage. His curved seax was of patterned steel, but he was missing his axe and had lost his spear on the wall. Calthrax’s deadly rhomphaia was designed for a man on foot battling mounted cavalry. He could only last so long against it.
Even so, Alaric knew every line of Calthrax’s body, every shift of weight and what it meant. It was keeping him alive. He kept light on his feet and his defenses drum tight, watching for openings as he traded punishing blows with the only man who had ever been able to mark him. The fire rose up behind them both, their shadows stretching long across the yard, and he breathed in soot and murder.
“Is she worth it? Theodosius’s thrice-cursed daughter?” Calthrax laughed. “Every man in Ravenna has spent himself between those thighs.”
“I thought you came to kill me, Calthrax. Not to gossip.”
“I came for four thousand pounds of gold. I’ve spread news of that ransom all over these mountains, Alaric. By the time you get to Noricum, even your own chieftains will have heard. How soon before your own betray you for that money?” Calthrax’s bared teeth gleamed. “Will it be before Stilicho arrives, I wonder? He’s marshalling his armies now. He’ll be in Noricum before the snows come in the mountains.”
So Stilicho would make it a war. And it would be soon. Their blades clashed and held. The sound of metal on metal careened off the walls as the fire blasted them. There. An opening. Alaric lunged —
Calthrax aimed a vicious thrust and Alaric barely twisted away, a bright-hot line opening in his side. He hissed through his teeth, his arm rising automatically to block the downward swing of Calthrax’s killing blow.
His sword shattered in his hand.
* * *
Julia crouched in the doorway and watched as Alaric’s blade shattered.
If he dies, I’m doomed.
Thorismund’s dagger was lying in the dirt. She snatched it up with nerveless fingers. How did Thorismund say to do it? Think. The point of the dagger found the place just beneath her ribs. Her breath came hard in her chest. It would hurt . Did she have the courage?
Better this than going back to Ravenna.
Julia tightened her grip on the knife’s hilt and prepared herself to die.
* * *
A grin split Calthrax’s face and Alaric knew that grin. It was the one they’d exchanged dozens of times in Stilicho’s practice yards, the two of them utterly ruling the melees, fighting back-to-back with wooden weapons in their hands.
Alaric raised his sword and caught the weight of Calthrax’s immense curving blade in the crux of his hilt. If his own broken blade slipped a finger’s length, he’d be cut in half. His feet shifted for purchase, muscles straining. Both of them sweating in the smoke and fire.
His grip slipped and Calthrax’s blade bore down on him like a judgment from the gods. Alaric let his weapon drop. Calthrax stumbled. Only the barest mistake, but it was enough. Alaric angled his body, letting the other man’s blade pass as he stepped inside his guard.
Then he drove his broken-off sword into his enemy’s neck.