Free The Scourge of God by William Dietrich

gravel flying, and after another mile I had the Hun in sight again. Skilla’s horse had once more settled into a rhythmic pace and so now I was gaining, the drum of hoofbeats forcing Skilla to look behind. Yet the Hun’s horse didn’t mimic Diana’s gallop, staying instead in his easy canter. Diana pulled abreast . . . and then the Hun grinned and kicked. We raced together now, neck and neck, our mounts galloping along the ancient road, but my horse began to fade. Diana was losing her wind. I could feel her straining. Not wanting to harm her, I reluctantly let her fall back again, Skilla’s dust swirling over us. Drilca’s tail became a taunt, its hooves a receding blur. Beaten!
    I slowed and glumly patted my horse’s neck. “Not your fault, girl. Your rider’s.”
    At a small stream where we planned to camp, Skilla was lounging in the grass.
    “I told you she’s for milking.”
    Drilca was tired, too, I saw, its head down. In war, I knew, Skilla would switch to a new mount. Each warrior took four or five horses with him on campaign. Here the lack of endurance was more apparent.
    “My mare has more stamina.”
    “Does she? I think she’s longing for her stable. Drilca is more at home out here under the sky, eating anything, bearing me anywhere.”
    I flipped him the solidus. “Then race me for two of these tomorrow.”
    Skilla caught it. “Done! If your purse gets light enough, maybe the pair of you can go faster. By then I’ll have enough coin to wed.”
    “To a woman who scratches you.”
    He shrugged. “She’ll think twice about scratching when I return from Constantinople. I am bringing presents! Her name is Ilana, she is the most beautiful woman in Attila’s camp, and I saved her life.”
    * * *
    That night I brushed my mount down, checked her hooves, and went back to the baggage train to fetch oats I had packed in Constantinople. “A Hun can’t feed what he can’t grow,” I murmured as she ate. “His horse can’t draw on strength it doesn’t have.”
    Skilla boasted of the day’s victory to the others around our fire that night. “Tomorrow, he promises me two gold coins! By the time we reach Attila, I’ll be rich!”
    “Today we ran your race,” I said. “Tomorrow we run mine. Not a sprint but endurance: whoever goes farthest between sunrise and sunset.”
    “That’s a fool’s race, Roman. A Hun can cover a hundred miles in a day.”
    “In your country. Let’s see it in mine.”
    So Skilla and I set out at dawn, the others in the party making their own bets and cheering us as we departed, joking about the frisky foolishness of young men. The Rhodope Mountains were to the left and Philippopolis ahead. There I first encountered Attila’s destruction. We skirted the devastated city at mid-morning; and while Skilla scarcely glanced at it, I was stunned at the extent of the ruin. The roofless metropolis looked like a torn honeycomb, open to the rains. Grass grew in the streets, and only a few priests and shepherds resided around a church the barbarians had somehow spared. The surrounding fields had gone to weeds, and the few villagers peered from huts like kittens from a den.
    I had to beat the Huns who had done this.
    The road crossed the Hebrus River on an arched stone bridge, crudely repaired by the locals, and became rougher, side hilling along the river’s valley. With the rising terrain, my confidence grew. Still we kept within sight of each other: sometimes the Hun riding ahead, and sometimes my determined mount passing him. Neither of us stopped for lunch, eating in the saddle. In the early afternoon we crossed the river again and then the land began to steepen as the road climbed toward the Pass of Succi.
    Skilla cursed at the grade.
    His lighter pony could keep an easy pace on level ground. On a slope its gait was less even and the horse’s lighter muscles and lungs began to strain. My mare was bigger in relation to her rider, her lungs giving her a reserve of air and her