The Sword of Attila by David Gibbins

history not as the dying gasps of an army, but as a final act of valour and fury.
    Macrobius had come upon to the parapet beside him and was listening to the eerie howling coming from the hills in front of them. ‘I’ve heard that sound before,’ he growled. ‘It was while I was serving under your uncle on the Danube frontier twenty years ago, when the Vandals first came out of the forests.’
    â€˜They’re called the Alaunt,’ Arturus said, coming up on the other side of Flavius. ‘Massive hunting and fighting dogs, trained solely to kill. Gaiseric keeps them leashed until the last moment, until their eyes are red and their mouths are foaming, and then he releases them along with the Alan warriors. When the howling turns to barking, that means they’re coming.’
    Flavius felt chilled to his core. Now he knew that the howling was a sound not of the desert, but of the northern forests, of a place where the dogs were really wolves and where those who had tamed them, the wolf-masters, came roaring with their charges out of the forest as one, bringing with them the darkness that had been sweeping over the western empire for more than fifty years now. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to concentrate.
He must not lose his nerve.
He looked again, scanning the horizon, still seeing nothing. The howling had stopped, and had been replaced by a strange, unearthly silence, like the lull before a storm.
    Arturus turned to him. ‘What is your plan?’
    Flavius took a deep breath. ‘You’ll have seen the catapults and the ditch with the naphtha pots beyond the watering hole. After the pyrotechnics it’ll be a matter of archery and hand-to-hand combat. This ridge overlooks the road to the western gate of the city. It’s the route that any attacker would try to force first. From our positions on higher ground we should be able to defend the defile long enough for any who still remain in Carthage and wish to flee to get to the harbour and embark on the last remaining galleys. When the time is right we will fall back to the city walls.’
    Arturus looked back to the city walls. ‘Gaiseric will let his men rape and pillage to satisfy their need, but he will spare the lives of the leading citizens and offer them generous terms. He intends to settle in Carthage, and their tax revenue is his future wealth. But he will spare nobody bearing arms.’
    â€˜You know much about Gaiseric,’ Macrobius muttered.
    â€˜Gaiseric employs foreign mercenaries as his personal bodyguard. They’re safer for a king than his own men, as the loyalty of a mercenary is assured by gold. Before I took up the cassock, I was captain of his guard.’
    Flavius saw Macrobius stiffen. ‘I knew our trust in you was misplaced,’ he growled, his hand back on his sword pommel.
    Arturus put up his hand. ‘That was ten years ago, after I left the northern field army. We were a small group of Britons who made up the
Cohortes Britannicus,
a
foederati
unit, but we had been ill-used by the
comes,
ordered to put down a peasant revolt in northern Gaul by massacring the population and burning the land. We deserted, yes, but we had no longer been fighting for Rome. Some of us returned to join the resistance in Britain, and others went to the barbarian kings as mercenaries. I was not yet ready to return, so sold my skills to the Vandal king. And have no fear. My cousin Prasutagus had come with me into Gaiseric’s service, but the king decided that there should be no kinship loyalties among his guard and had him murdered. I may be a Christian, but I am still bound by the ancient
wergild
oath of the Iceni and am bound to avenge my cousin, in this world or the next. Gaiseric is no friend of mine.’
    Macrobius grunted, his hand still on his sword. There was a commotion down the line, a rustling and a whispering among the men, and then a sentry came running up and spoke. ‘There are