Read Online The Sword of Attila by David Gibbins - Free Book Online

and then dropped his arm.
‘Now!’
he bellowed.
    Flavius was conscious of the whistling of arrows just as the leading dog reached the front of the parapet and hurled itself towards them. The arrow from the Sarmatian behind him sunk itself up to the feathers in the mouth of the beast, too late to stop the animal in its death throes from barrelling into the man and ripping out his throat, a snarling, shrieking tangle of limbs and gore that writhed and then fell still in the dust. Other dogs had fallen as they ran, skewered by arrows and tumbling to the ground, but some had come too quickly for the archers to reload and aim, throwing themselves on the men with their fangs laid bare. Macrobius fell back against the rear of the trench with his sword pommel jammed into the ground and caught a dog on its point, disembowelling it as it hurtled over him. Another knocked Flavius sideways and tore its claws into his forearm, leaving four streaks of red that quickly welled up with blood. It scrambled up the side of the trench and was gone, pounding past the artillerymen and the
onagers
towards the walls of Carthage, the new leader of a pack that was disengaging itself from the melee and following, as if the scent of Carthage was an even greater draw than the blood and gore around it.
    Flavius dragged himself upright, his arm dripping red, and in a blur saw the heaving forms of the Alan wolf-masters coming next, followed by the Vandal horde no more than two hundred paces distant.
Now was the time.
He turned towards the artillerymen, raised his arm, feeling the blood spatter his face, and then dropped it. ‘Let fly!’ he yelled. The artillerymen dipped their tapers to light the fireballs and struck the retaining pins with their wooden mallets. Slowly, gracefully, the arms sprang upwards, swinging their pouches in a wide arc until the arms hit the blocking beams with a dull thud and the pouches released their missiles. The catapults burst into flames as the fireballs flew forward, their clay cracking on impact, spewing out gobbets of fire. The first one hit an Alan warrior full in the chest, igniting his furs and hair in a jet of flame, and yet still he came, staggering and pirouetting like a moving bonfire until he fell heavily into the dust. The other balls crashed among the first line of Vandals, creating a continuous wall of flame that the men tried desperately to shake off, some falling and writhing in the dust, trying to put out the fire, and others running forward blindly like human torches, shrieking and dropping their weapons as the archers behind Flavius tried to pick them off.
    The Alans ahead of the fire stowed their whips and advanced holding only their war clubs, terrifying weapons hewn from a single limb of oak, embedded with iron spikes that glinted in the sunlight. The nearest one charged directly towards Arturus, who stood on the parapet with his hood down and his
gladius
held ready. Flavius saw the artillerymen advance towards the ditch in front of the catapults, their tapers ready to ignite the naphtha and create a barrier of fire behind the surviving men of the
numerus
to allow them to retreat. He was aware that arrows had begun to whistle overhead from the Vandal ranks, some clattering harmlessly over the parapet and others finding their mark. Macrobius turned to him, his chainmail dripping with entrails from the dog, and together the two men turned and bellowed down either side of the trench.
‘Fall back! Fall back!’
    The order came too late for the men to the left of Flavius. An Alan had appeared on the parapet, an immense man, his forearms almost as thick as his club, and with a single swing he took off one man’s head and then swung the weapon back around into the belly of another, the impaled head crushing against the man’s chainmail as the blow broke his back, causing a gush of blood and innards to fall down his legs. The Alan moved down the trench, still swinging, the men