The Sword of Attila Read online

  Also by David Gibbins

  ATLANTIS

  CRUSADER GOLD

  THE LAST GOSPEL

  THE TIGER WARRIOR

  THE MASK OF TROY

  THE GODS OF ATLANTIS

  PHARAOH

  TOTAL WAR ROME™: DESTROY CARTHAGE

  PYRAMID

  TOTAL WAR ROME™: THE SWORD OF ATTILA

  THE SWORD OF ATTILA

  DAVID GIBBINS

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS

  ST. MARTIN’S PRESS

  NEW YORK

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Historical Introduction

  Glossary

  Characters

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: CARTHAGE, NORTH AFRICA

  1

  2

  3

  4

  PART TWO: ROME, ITALY

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  PART THREE: THE RIVER DANUBE

  11

  12

  13

  14

  PART FOUR: THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS, GAUL

  15

  16

  17

  18

  EPILOGUE

  Author’s Note

  Sources for the Novel

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Historical Introduction

  The fifth century AD was one of the most momentous periods in history, a time of violent upheaval and war that marked the transition from the ancient to the early medieval world. Almost five hundred years after Augustus had become the first emperor, and eight hundred years after Rome first embarked on her wars of conquest, the Roman Empire was a waning star, no longer on the offensive but struggling against barbarian invasions that threatened to consume it. Already the unthinkable had happened: the city of Rome itself had been sacked by a marauding army of Goths in AD 408. Much had changed from the glory days of empire three centuries earlier. Rome was now Christian, with a new hierarchy of priests and bishops. The empire had been split in half, with two emperors and new capitals in Constantinople and Milan, both of them riven by dynastic feuds and infighting. The Roman army had changed almost beyond recognition; gone were the legionaries of old, replaced by men likely to have been of barbarian origin themselves. And yet there were still those among the Roman officer class who harked back to the days of old, men steeped in the traditions of the Caesars and the great generals of the Republic, men who believed that the ancient image of Rome could be thrust forward one last time to marshal the army against the forces of darkness that were bearing down upon her, so that if there were to be one final battle they would march forward, upholding the honour of those legionaries and generals of old.

  For many, only death and destruction lay ahead. The bishop Augustine forsook earthly pleasures and looked only towards the promise of heaven, to the City of God. The monks of Arles believed that the biblical Apocalypse was upon them. And yet, for the first time in Roman history, we see writers of the day absorbed in what we might term ‘grand strategy’. Should Rome appease the barbarians, offering them concessions and land, or should she stand up to them militarily? This debate preoccupied all levels of society, involving even the lowliest soldier in a level of strategic thinking that had been rare among his legionary forbears. The main commentator on the years covered in this novel, Priscus of Panium, was himself a diplomat and much concerned with this issue. His work only survives in fragments, and he had little interest in military detail – my reconstruction of the great sieges and battles of this period required even more imagination than the second-century BC battles described in my previous novel, Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage. Nevertheless, just as the historian Polybius was an eyewitness to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, so Priscus himself went to the court of Attila the Hun and gives us an extraordinarily vivid picture of what he saw. It is from him that we learn of the myth that the Huns were born of Griffons, of their bloody funeral rituals, of the cult of the sword, of all the reasons Rome had so much to fear from this terrifying new enemy that brought the western empire to the precipice in the middle years of the fifth century AD.

  A more detailed summary of this period and of the late Roman army can be found in the Author’s Note at the end of this novel, where there is also a note on the historical and archaeological sources.

  Glossary

  Late-Roman terms used in this novel:

  Caesars – Generic term for the early emperors, up to Hadrian

  Centurion – A time-honoured rank for the senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) of a numerus (see below)

  Comes – ‘Count’, the commanding officer of a limitanei (frontier) army

  Comitatenses – ‘Companions’ a field army

  Dux – ‘Duke’ the commanding officer of a comitatenses army

  Foederati – Barbarian war bands allied to the Romans

  Limitanei – A frontier army

  Magister – General in overall command of the armies of a diocese or province

  Magister Militum – Commander-in-chief

  Numerus – Military unit varying in size from under a hundred to several hundred men

  Optio – Rank similar to corporal

  Sagittarii – Archers

  Saxons – Generic for the north Germanic invaders of Britain

  Tribune – The officer commanding a numerus

  Characters

  These are actual historical characters unless otherwise indicated.

  Aetius – Commander-in-chief of the western Roman army

  Anagastus – Roman general under Aetius, along with Aspar

  Andag – Gothic henchman of Attila

  Apsachos – Fictional Sarmatian archer in Flavius’ numerus

  Ardaric – Commander of the Gepids, under Attila

  Arturus – Semi-fictional British warrior monk

  Aspar – Roman general under Aetius

  Attila – King of the Huns

  Bleda – Eldest son of Mundiuk

  Cato – Fictional optio in Flavius’ numerus

  Dionysius – fictional Scythian monk, teacher of Flavius (and grandfather of Dionysius Exiguus, to whom AD dating is usually attributed)

  Erecan – Daughter of Attila

  Eudoxia – Wife of the emperor Valentinian

  Flavius – Fictional tribune, nephew of Aetius

  Gaiseric – King of the Vandals

  Gaudentius – Goth grandfather of Flavius and father of Aetius

  Heraclius – Greek eunuch in the court of the emperor Valentinian

  Macrobius – Fictional centurion, friend of Flavius

  Marcian – Emperor in the East who succeeded Theodosius

  Maximinus – Cavalry tribune in the eastern army

  Maximus – Fictional soldier in Flavius’ numerus

  Mundiuk – King of the Huns, father of Attila

  Octr – Brother of Mundiuk and Rau

  Optila – Hun bodyguard of Erecan, along with Thrastilla

  Priscus – Scholar and emissary of Theodosius to Attila

  Quintus – Fictional tribune, nephew of Flavius

  Quodvultdeus – Bishop of Carthage

  Radagaisus – fictional Visigoth commander under Thorismud (and grandson of Radagaisus who invaded Italy in 405)


  Rau – Brother of Mundiuk and Octr

  Sangibanus – King of the Alans of Orléans

  Sempronius – Fictional soldier in Flavius’ numerus, a veteran of Britain

  Theodoric – King of the Visigoths

  Theodoric – Youngest son of King Theodoric, and brother of Thorismud

  Theodosius – Roman emperor in the East

  Thiudimer – Visigoth commander under Thorismud

  Thorismud – Son of King Theodoric of the Visigoths

  Thrastilla – Hun bodyguard of Erecan, along with Optila

  Uago – Fictional senior fabri tribune in Rome

  Valamer – Ostrogoth commander under Attila

  Valentinian – Roman emperor in the West

  When a certain cowherd beheld one heifer of his flock limping and could find no cause for this wound, he anxiously followed the trail of blood and at length came to a sword it had unwittingly trampled while nibbling the grass. He dug it up and took it straight to Attila. He rejoiced at this gift and, being ambitious, thought he had been appointed ruler of the whole world, and that through the Sword of Mars supremacy in all wars was assured to him.

  JORDANES

  (c. AD 550), XXXV, 83, quoting the fifth-century historian Priscus, an eyewitness to the court of Attila

  They are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action; they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter … you would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles … then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight hand-to-hand with swords, regardless of their own lives, and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sword-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs.

  AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS

  (c. AD 380), XXXI, 2, 8–9, on the Huns

  PROLOGUE

  The Great Hungarian Plain, AD 396

  The two Roman prisoners lurched forward, their chains dragging through the wet snow on the slope leading up to the meadow. A harsh wind whipped across the plateau that surrounded the ravine, bringing a sharp bite of winter to those gathered for the ceremony. High above them eagles soared, flown free from the wrists of their masters, waiting for the flesh and gore that would be left for them when the ceremony was over. Around the edge of the meadow great bronze cauldrons sizzled over open fires, the steam from their contents rising to form a thin mist over the people. The rich aroma of cooking meat, of beef and mutton and venison, wafted down the ravine over the circular tents of the encampment, past the spring where the holy water began its journey to the great river two days’ ride to the west, at the place where the land of the hunters ended and the empire of Rome began.

  The younger of the two prisoners stumbled forward and leaned against the other man, who shouldered him upright and spoke harsh words of command in a language unknown to most of those watching. They wore the ragged remains of what had once been Roman milites tunics, stained brown with rust where the chainmail had been, their feet unshod and bloody from days of marching shackled to each other. The older man, grizzled, gaunt, his white stubble broken by long-healed scars on his cheeks and chin, bore weals on his forearm where long ago he had cut the mark of his unit, ‘LEGII'. He stared defiantly ahead as his captors pushed him forward; it was the look of a soldier who had stared death in the face too often to be afraid of what he knew must lie ahead of them now.

  A horn sounded, shrill and strident, setting off the eagles far above, their raucous cries echoing up and down the ravine. A wagon lumbered into view pulled by two bullocks and surrounded by horsemen, their lances held upright and their bows slung over their backs. They wore leather trousers and tunics, the fur turned inwards against the cold, and they sat on saddles cushioned by slabs of raw meat that oozed and trickled blood down the horses’ flanks; the meat protected the animals from saddle sores and provided tenderized food for the men on the long hunt into the steppe-land that would follow the ceremony. The horsemen also wore gleaming conical helmets over wide-rimmed hats of fur with earflaps that could be tied down against the bitter wind of the plateau; over their tunics lay elaborate armour made from small rectangular plates sewn together, acquired by exchanging rare pelts with traders from far-off Serikon, the land the Romans called Thina. From those traders too came the silk that the women in the gathering had wound around their heads, and also the fiery magic that the archers would launch into the sky to signal the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the great feast that would follow far into the night.

  The lead rider cantered past the cauldrons through the throng of people, coming to a halt in front of a towering brushwood pyre, not yet lit, that rose to twice his height in the centre of the meadow. He pulled on his reins, the embossed gold leaf on the leather flashing as he did so, and turned around to face the approaching wagon, leaning forward and whispering to his horse as it whinnied and stomped, calming it. When the wagon had stopped he thrust his lance into the ground and took off his helmet, holding it by his side and staring impassively. His forehead was high and sloped from where he had been bound as an infant; his dark hair was tied tightly on top of his head, his long ponytail now falling loose where it had previously been coiled under the conical peak of his helmet. His skin was deeply weathered, and he had the narrow eyes and flat nose that were characteristic of his people; wisps of beard fell from the corners of his mouth. A livid scar ran diagonally across each cheek from temple to chin, long healed but mottled and purple in the frigid air.

  He drew himself up on his saddle, his hands on his hips. ‘I am Mundiuk, your king,’ he said. His voice was harsh, grating, like the cries of the eagles, the words ending in the hard consonants of a language meant to be heard and understood above the howling of the wind. He pointed at the cart. ‘And today, if the signs are right, you will see your future king.’

  He reined his horse aside, and the boys who were leading the bullocks coaxed them forward until the cart was within the circle of people. It had high wooden sides, its interior concealed from view. As the boys unhitched the bullocks and led them away, four men approached from behind; two held burning torches, another, the firewalker, was dressed in protective leather and carried a heavy bucket, and behind him came the shuffling figure of the shaman, his eyes white and unseeing, dragging the sun-bleached scapula bone of a bull. The firewalker went up to the pyre and tipped from the bucket a load of the heavy black tar that bubbled up from the ground in the ravine, walking around the bundles of brushwood until the bucket was empty and then returning to stand beside the shaman.

  Behind them came Mundiuk’s personal guard: Alans, Saxons, Angles, renegades from the West, men who would be loyal to the highest bidder, whose fealty he had bought with the gold he had received from the emperor in Constantinople in payment for staying east of the great river. Employing mercenaries was something he had learned from the kings of the Goths, rulers he had courted before crushing them. Once he had become more than a chieftain, once he had become a king, he had learned to trust no one, not even his own brothers. The horsemen of the great plain, his Hun warriors, were the best fighters who had ever lived, but each one of them was a king in the making, used to ruling all that he could see across the steppe-lands stretching to the horizon. And mercenaries would fight to the death, not because of loyalty but because they knew that for a mercenary, surrendering meant certain execution.

  The boys who had led the bullocks away had returned and now stood on either side of the cart. Mundiuk nodded, and they unlatched the wooden sides, letting them fall down. Inside, two women crouched in front of another lying on her back in the last stages of labour – Mundiuk’s queen. Her face was covered by a veil and she made no sound, but the veil sucked in and out with her breathing and her hands were clenched and white. The other women in the gathering began ululating, swaying to and fro, and the men began to sing
in a deep-throated chant, rising in a slow crescendo. There was a movement on the cart, and then one of the women suddenly knelt up and stared at Mundiuk, pointing at the pyre. He put on his helmet and cantered his horse backwards. It was time.

  He took a burning torch from one of the men and reined his horse around towards the pyre. In one swift movement he swung it over his head and released it, watching it crash and disintegrate in a shower of sparks. At first nothing seemed to happen, as if the pyre had absorbed the flame, but then an orange glow suffused the centre and lines of flame licked out along the splashes of tar, racing around the edge in a ring of fire. The flames leapt up the brushwood and reduced it in seconds to a smouldering mound, revealing an astonishing sight. In the centre, as though it had risen in the clutches of a god, was a gleaming sword, its long blade pointing up to the heavens, its gold-wrapped pommel held on a scorched stone pedestal carved in the shape of a human hand. It was the sacred sword of the Hun kings, brought here by the shaman for the ceremony of renewal, ready to be spirited away again and to await rediscovery just as it had done a generation before when Mundiuk himself had been the future king.

  Mundiuk reined his horse around again, the gold trappings resplendent in the reflected flames. The women were still huddled down over the recumbent form in the cart, but in front of it one of the boys who had been standing on either side had stepped forward. By tradition, the task ahead would go to this boy, Bleda, the king’s eldest son, whose birth had not been accompanied by propitious signs, but who would be the sword-companion of the future king. Bleda stood uncertainly, his head still bound in coils of wool, his right eye drooping where Mundiuk’s sword had slipped on the boy’s tears while he was making the cuts on his cheeks borne by all Hun warriors. His arms and legs were swathed in damp cloths, and he looked fearfully at the fire. ‘Go,’ one of the other boys urged. He began to run forward, yelling in the cracked voice of an adolescent, and then leapt into the embers, his yell turning to shrieks of pain as he scrambled through the flickering pile to the sword. He slipped, and then grabbed the hilt, wrenching it off the pedestal and turning back, stumbling out of the embers towards Mundiuk. He was gasping, his eyes streaming and his hands scorched, but he had done it. A woman hurried out and tossed a bucket of water over him, leaving him sizzling and steaming. He held the sword by the blade and lifted the pommel up to Mundiuk, who took it by the hilt, raised it high and then bellowed, the sound echoing up and down the ravine. It was the Hun battle cry, a cry that brought terror to all who heard it: a cry of death.