for the riches of Milan and Cisalpine Gaul, but the Huns opted to go north for Celtica, and had crossed the river barriers of the Rhine, Moselle, Meuse and now, the Seine, where they were possibly preparing winter quarters, and for now at least, halting their advance west.
Rivers that defeated other armies were never an obstacle to the Huns. Every warrior carried inflatable skins on which he could float, or would swim his horse across even the greatest width of water. If it was a whole horde of nomads, not just fighting men, they simply built rafts to carry their wagons or heavy equipment across a water barrier and continued their unstoppable progress.
Now, the rumour was that Khan Busfeld was planning to sweep south across the Pyrenees into Iberia next spring. This, for me, was a wonderful opportunity. The Caesars would be torn. The Romans were attempting to suppress barbarians on the Rhine and Danube and now, in their rear Milan, the city in which Maximian himself maintained his chief palace was under threat from the Ostrogoths. I knew I should hasten to find Busfeld and bring him into our unlikely alliance so we could meet the emperor with only part of his forces, on Gallic soil.
Chapter XII - Huns
Our journey across Gaul was as the augur had predicted, swift and smooth. This was because we covered much of the distance on the vast rivers of that territory. We used the Meuse until it closed on the Marne, portaged our two galleys on commandeered farm wagons, then sailed the Marne right down to the Seine.
We saw the smoke from the cookfires of Busfeld’s army from 15 miles away, so many were there of the Huns, and after sending an emissary ahead to announce our intentions and identity, we made our approach openly, in full daylight. Busfeld responded by dispatching a party of horsemen to escort us into the camp, a directive conveyed to me in crude Latin by the cavalry commander.
I eyed the escort curiously. They were short, stocky Asiatics, swarthy and with thin beards. They had small eyes, flat noses and savage, weathered faces. Huns practised cranial deformation, shaping their skulls with flat boards to elongate their heads and inspire fear, and most of our cavalry guides had such misshapen skulls. Many of them also carried multiple scars on their faces. I later learned that they slashed their own flesh when mourning a dead leader or comrade, to weep blood instead of salt tears.
The horsemen’s equipment was unimpressive. They wore pointed caps, baggy leggings made from goat or deerskin and tunics of linen or rodent pelts. Much of their clothing seemed to be disintegrating and looked to be held together only by the embroidery and small coloured stone beads that adorned it. In cold weather, they wore felt or fur great coats, and often smeared their faces thickly with animal fat as protection from the cold or wet.
For weapons, they carried reflex compound bows made of wood, bone and sinew that were almost as tall as they and that could kill at 200 paces or more. I noted that some of their arrowheads were not metal, but were shaped from animal bone or horn. The warriors all wore a large curved dagger horizontally across the belly, and carried an iron sword, long, straight and double-edged, hung vertically from the belt.
Elite soldiers ornamented their sword hilts and bow staves with gold, and adorned their horse trappings lavishly. I saw that they all rode with careless ease, had full-foot leather-covered wooden stirrups, which gave them a steady platform from which to fight or fire their arrows and were so much in tune with their steeds that I wondered if they were the real half-horse, half-man centaurs of legend.
Their horses, bred for endurance, were hairy little mounts with wide hooves and long heads, bushy tails and extravagant manes. They could live on the thinnest forage, and were trained to slash with their hooves or bite with their big yellow teeth, on command.
In battle, the Huns wore metal-framed
Rivers that defeated other armies were never an obstacle to the Huns. Every warrior carried inflatable skins on which he could float, or would swim his horse across even the greatest width of water. If it was a whole horde of nomads, not just fighting men, they simply built rafts to carry their wagons or heavy equipment across a water barrier and continued their unstoppable progress.
Now, the rumour was that Khan Busfeld was planning to sweep south across the Pyrenees into Iberia next spring. This, for me, was a wonderful opportunity. The Caesars would be torn. The Romans were attempting to suppress barbarians on the Rhine and Danube and now, in their rear Milan, the city in which Maximian himself maintained his chief palace was under threat from the Ostrogoths. I knew I should hasten to find Busfeld and bring him into our unlikely alliance so we could meet the emperor with only part of his forces, on Gallic soil.
Chapter XII - Huns
Our journey across Gaul was as the augur had predicted, swift and smooth. This was because we covered much of the distance on the vast rivers of that territory. We used the Meuse until it closed on the Marne, portaged our two galleys on commandeered farm wagons, then sailed the Marne right down to the Seine.
We saw the smoke from the cookfires of Busfeld’s army from 15 miles away, so many were there of the Huns, and after sending an emissary ahead to announce our intentions and identity, we made our approach openly, in full daylight. Busfeld responded by dispatching a party of horsemen to escort us into the camp, a directive conveyed to me in crude Latin by the cavalry commander.
I eyed the escort curiously. They were short, stocky Asiatics, swarthy and with thin beards. They had small eyes, flat noses and savage, weathered faces. Huns practised cranial deformation, shaping their skulls with flat boards to elongate their heads and inspire fear, and most of our cavalry guides had such misshapen skulls. Many of them also carried multiple scars on their faces. I later learned that they slashed their own flesh when mourning a dead leader or comrade, to weep blood instead of salt tears.
The horsemen’s equipment was unimpressive. They wore pointed caps, baggy leggings made from goat or deerskin and tunics of linen or rodent pelts. Much of their clothing seemed to be disintegrating and looked to be held together only by the embroidery and small coloured stone beads that adorned it. In cold weather, they wore felt or fur great coats, and often smeared their faces thickly with animal fat as protection from the cold or wet.
For weapons, they carried reflex compound bows made of wood, bone and sinew that were almost as tall as they and that could kill at 200 paces or more. I noted that some of their arrowheads were not metal, but were shaped from animal bone or horn. The warriors all wore a large curved dagger horizontally across the belly, and carried an iron sword, long, straight and double-edged, hung vertically from the belt.
Elite soldiers ornamented their sword hilts and bow staves with gold, and adorned their horse trappings lavishly. I saw that they all rode with careless ease, had full-foot leather-covered wooden stirrups, which gave them a steady platform from which to fight or fire their arrows and were so much in tune with their steeds that I wondered if they were the real half-horse, half-man centaurs of legend.
Their horses, bred for endurance, were hairy little mounts with wide hooves and long heads, bushy tails and extravagant manes. They could live on the thinnest forage, and were trained to slash with their hooves or bite with their big yellow teeth, on command.
In battle, the Huns wore metal-framed
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