Attila the Hun's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Attila stood before the catapult and watched his men work the ropes and timbers. They knew siege engines, but this Roman design was different — heavier, built for stone walls instead of wooden palisades. His warriors had worked through the night, fitting beams and testing the throwing arm. A rider came hard from the east, his horse breathing steam in the cold air. The man dismounted and pointed back toward the hills. Attila turned and saw them — torches moving in a long column across the dark landscape, hundreds of them, maybe more. The relief force Aetius had promised this city was coming now, tonight, not three days from now like the scroll said. Attila looked back at the catapult. The frame stood complete but the throwing arm hung loose, the counterweight still on the ground. His men needed another hour, maybe two. He had no siege weapon and no time to finish it. The Roman column would reach the gates before dawn, and his riders would face a fortified enemy with fresh troops behind stone walls. Attila walked to the catapult and gripped the throwing arm. His warriors stopped working and watched him. He could order them to finish it — throw every man at the machine and hope it held together for one shot before the Romans arrived. Or he could pull back now, preserve his force, and find another weakness in Aetius's divided army. The plunder behind those walls was real, close enough to smell the smoke from Roman hearths. But losing riders for one city would cost him ten more. He released the wood and turned to his captain. The order came quiet, final. Mount up. His men scattered to their horses without question. Attila climbed onto his black stallion and rode past the unfinished catapult, leaving it standing in the field like a broken promise. The city would keep its gold tonight. But Aetius had made a mistake — he sent his relief column to the wrong place at the right time. That meant two other cities still waited, undermanned, with no one coming to save them. His riders split into two groups and wheeled away from the walls, moving fast across the open ground. They would circle north and strike where the Roman general had left his army weakest. Attila had come here expecting an easy siege, but he left with something better — proof that Aetius moved faster than the scroll suggested, and proof that the general could not defend everywhere at once. One city had escaped him tonight. The next two would not. He looked back once at the torches approaching the gates and smiled. Let them celebrate their relief. By the time they learned what happened to the other cities, his carts would already be heavy with Roman gold.