Chapter Thirty-Six
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Alaric stood at the crumbling wall and watched the dust rise to mark Ataulf’s passing across the wreckage-strewn plain with his followers. An upwelling of grief rose in his chest and he forced it down. He could not afford such feelings now.
He’d gone straight from Julia’s bed to roust Ataulf out of his own. Memories rose up in the back of his mind—he and Ataulf in the camps, their people starving all around them, their bodies churning into the deep mud that came with the rains. He barely remembered his elder sister now, but Ataulf had been a living connection to her, and a world vanished. No one else spoke the tongue of the pine-tree island. Losing Ataulf was like losing his own right arm.
But the way Ataulf had treated Julia, there was no place for him in this city. Alaric thought of Ataulf’s efforts to convince him to drag Julia through the streets like a war prize. He’d refused, and Ataulf had done so anyway. The thought of it hardened his heart.
His mind turned to Julia. She’d wrung a promise out of him this morning to let her rule at his side, but it would be long before she was safe here. His own siege had wreaked havoc on these walls, and he’d left orders for their repair while he was in Ravenna. But the walls had not been tended to. The plain below was crawling with marauders, and all they had to do was look up to realize this place was an easy target. Already it was midsummer, and the seasons would turn in a blink. Soon the autumn would come, and so would Stilicho.
“What we need is building stone,” Sigeric was saying. “The only mine within a three-day ride is Roman-controlled. If we attack it—”
Alaric shook his head grimly. “The last thing we need is a war on our doorstep. Not with Stilicho threatening.”
“If we cannot win against their single legion, how will we win against Stilicho?” Sigeric sighed heavily. “I know this advice is not welcome, King Alaric. But I think you ought to reconsider negotiating with Rome. If we do that, we can halt this coming war. Perhaps even gain access to that quarry.” He paused. “Surely one woman is not worth—”
Rage rose up in his chest. He would not use Julia as coin for his future. “Sigeric, if we ally with the Romans again, there won’t be a people.” The fact that he even had to explain this set his teeth on edge.
Sigeric frowned. “I followed you faithfully when you broke with the Romans. But if Stilicho comes over the mountain now—” His voice trailed off. He was staring at some point over Alaric’s shoulder. “Fuck.”
Alaric turned. A pack of dogs had gathered in an alley, the size of small ponies. He recognized those dogs. There had been plenty of their kind in the camps. Corpse dogs.
“They’ve multiplied since we took this city.” Sigeric picked up a stone and threw it; the dogs danced out of the way, red tongues lolling between sharp teeth. “I heard a rumor that a pack of them took down a cow yesterday. It’s only a matter of time before one of them kills a person.”
Hoofbeats rang off the cobblestones. Sigeric muttered a curse beneath his breath.
It was Riga, galloping up the wide road. He pulled his horse to a halt and swung off. “I have news,” he said quietly. “For your ears only, Alaric.”
“Do not send me away.” Sigeric spoke in cavalry Vandal so Riga would not understand. “You need someone at your back to weigh his words. You cannot trust mercenaries.”
Riga fixed Sigeric with a cool, dead-eyed stare that had the man backing up a step.
“Enough.” Alaric bit back a curse. Sigeric had proven his loyalty with that assassin, but that did not mean he would take the man’s orders. “Go, Sigeric.”
“The Huns are moving,” Riga said when he had gone. “They’ve plundered Pannonia and burned the Roman fort at Carnuntum.” Riga glanced down at the gathering refugees, moving like ants across the plain. “Those are fleeing the violence. The Huns will be here in ten days or less.”
Huns. In the back of his mind flashed a scene from old nightmares. An oak tree, set ablaze. Smell of corpses burning. Ash coating his throat. “So it will be a siege, then.”
“My men are restless. I doubt I can keep them behind walls for a siege.”
Alaric’s chest tightened. If he lost Riga’s Huns, they’d never survive the coming war with Stilicho.
“You won’t find plunder to match what I pay.”
“If we stay within Pannonia. But there are other hunting grounds.” Riga grinned. “Come with us. Pillage and burn where the plunder is thickest and become a bandit king. You’d excel at it.”
Alaric shook his head grimly. “My responsibilities are not only to the warriors and their plunder.”
He heard running feet behind him and turned to see Hengist slide to a panicked stop. “Come quickly,” he said, gasping for breath. “It’s the grain.”