Gradually the rest of the column ahead slowed and then stopped, and the two mounted guards who rode alongside Olympian’s carriage wheeled and turned back to inspect the damage. They quickly concluded that the broken car would have to be pushed off the road into the forest, and the two Vandal princes would have to pack into the carriage ahead.
At that moment, Attila looked round and saw that Olympian was sitting forward, curiously hunched, with an arrow’s shaft and fletching sticking out of his vast belly. The eunuch was clutching his flesh bunched up around the arrow, and muttering, ‘I’ve been shot!’ Then he looked up at the boy and said, ‘I’ve been quite appallingly shot!’
‘It does look like it,’ Attila agreed.
Much of the arrow was still visible, however, and the boy reckoned that only an inch or two, including the head, had gone into the eunuch’s belly. Given his bulk, that would almost certainly make it only a minor flesh wound. He spared the poor man a glance of very momentary pity, and then leant out again. To the side of the window, sure enough, was another arrow embedded in the gilded woodwork of the carriage wall. As he watched, more arrows arced silently out of the dark forest and the rain, like eerie messengers from another world. Evidently the rain had done little to dampen their unseen enemies’ bowstrings just yet. One arrow struck a horse at the top of its leg; another went through a trooper’s throat and he reeled forward on his horse, clutching its neck and gargling blood all over its rain-sodden mane.
‘We’re under attack!’ cried a young optio. ‘From the left! Second squadron, to me!’
The eight cavalrymen turned and began to force their way into the dense forest, hacking at the low, spindly pine branches with their swords.
Lucius came galloping back alongside the column and reined in Tugha Ban furiously, her front hooves slithering forwards in the yellow mud. He was apparently oblivious of the flying arrows.
‘Dismount, you fucking idiots!’ he roared. ‘Get off your horses and use your fucking legs. We’re under attack from left and right, in case you hadn’t fucking noticed. And you lot, get this fucking thing off the road – now!’
Immediately the soldiers obeyed. The horses were cut loose from the shattered carriage and reined in by fresh cavalrymen called up from behind. An arrow thumped into Lucius’ leather saddle just below his thigh, but he reached down and snapped it off without even looking down. He tossed the shaft contemptuously aside and continued to bellow commands. From the front of the column and Count Heraclian came no sign of life at all.
The broken carriage was levered and poled off the side of the road, where it crashed heavily into the trunk of a tall pine and fell still.
‘You two buggers,’ Lucius yelled at the startled Vandal princes, ‘get in the car in front!’
Beric and Genseric, huddled in their cloaks, ran forward to join the next carriage.
Lucius wheeled his horse again and glared into the rain from under the brow of his helmet. ‘Jesus, what a farce. They’re only bandits, for Christ’s sake. Fucking amateurs.’
‘Under attack again!’ yelled Marco, reining to a violent stop beside him. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’
‘Me neither,’ Lucius shouted.
‘Remnants of the last lot?’
Lucius shook his head. ‘These are no ex-soldiers. They’re firing from both sides.’
Even as he spoke, arrows were slamming into shields and carriage walls around them, but the two soldiers ignored them.
‘Anyone would think,’ said Lucius, ‘that somebody didn’t want us to get to Ravenna.’
‘Is Count Heraclian…?’ asked Marco.
Lucius pushed himself up in his saddle and craned to see if there was any sign of decisive action from the front of the column yet. He sat down again. ‘Jupiter’s balls,’ he breathed with exasperation. ‘What we have here is, in technical army parlance, a bunch of fucking amateurs. And we’re running around like ants on an anthill.’ He reined his horse round angrily again and started bawling fresh orders.
‘OK, you, Ops, get twenty men, on fucking foot, and get into those trees and slot those bastards. And you there, Trooper Shit-for-Brains, dismount the rear two squadrons and do the same on the right. I don’t want to see any more arrows coming out of that forest there by the time I count to ten.’
The tough-looking trooper and two more squadrons quickly formed up on foot.
‘Come along then, ladies!’ he addressed them cheerfully. ‘Playtime in the woods. Anything you find alive, cut its guts out and hang ’em off the nearest tree.’
He and his men vanished into the trees, and soon there came loud cries and screams from the forest. Another bandit gang was indeed being despatched.
Lucius rode back and stared in at Olympian and Attila.
‘Is it bandits again?’ wailed Olympian. ‘And ex-gladiators too?’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ growled Lucius. ‘I’m quaking in my boots. Fucking amateurs.’ He glared angrily down at the eunuch and Attila from his skittish horse. ‘Trained soldiers attack a marching column from one flank only. Fucking amateurs attack from both sides simultanously.’ He leant over and spat. ‘And why do you think that might be?’
Olympian groaned that he had no idea. The boy thought for a moment and then said, ‘Because they might just as likely be shooting across into each other.’
‘But, my good man,’ wailed Olympian indignantly, scarcely able to believe his ears that this conversation about military tactics was taking place, while he had an actual arrow embedded in his person, and was actually bleeding, slightly. ‘But, my good man, I am wounded!’
Lucius flung open the carriage door and leant in. ‘One in the gut, eh? Lift your robe up.’
‘I couldn’t possibly countenance such-’
Lucius leant forward and nicked the eunuch’s robe open neatly with his swordpoint. The head of the arrow was in fact buried only half an inch into the eunuch’s rolls of flesh, and the barbs were visible under the skin.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shallow breaths – stop the arrowhead going in deeper. And clench your teeth.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said,’ repeated Lucius – he reached forward, grabbed the arrow just behind the head with his fist, and gave it a sharp tug; with an unpleasant slurping sound, the arrowhead came free of the eunuch’s stomach and Olympian began to bleed profusely – ‘clench your teeth. Ah well, too late now. It’s out anyhow. Get some pressure on that wound, and we’ll clean you up when we get out of this bloody ruckus.’
But Olympian had fainted.
Lucius looked at Attila. ‘Looks like you’ve got a job to do.’
‘You’re kidding.’
The lieutenant shook his head. ‘Just till he comes round again. Lard-arse like that will have sluggish blood – it’ll soon clot. But till then, keep your hand pressed on the wound.’ He punched the boy on his arm. ‘Tough job, I know, but someone’s gotta do it.’
And then he was away into the rain, bawling at the top of his voice to get the column organised.
Attila stared at the unconscious eunuch, blood flowing freely from the hole in his belly, and thought for a moment. Then he leant over and ripped a wide strip of silk from the bottom of Olympian’s priceless blue robe, passed it round the back of the vast, sweat-soaked waist, and tied it in front. But being silk, it was soon saturated in blood, so he made a pad from his own linen sleeve, though he didn’t think lard-arse deserved it. He ripped the robe open a little wider and bound this in a compress tightly under the silk bandage. He watched for a few moments, and, after absorbing a little more blood, the white linen showed no more sign of flow.
He dusted his hands together with satisfaction.
Then the eunuch groaned and woke up.
That wasn’t what the boy had been planning at all.