Attila watched his riders drag the Roman into camp through the mud. The man wore legionnaire armor, torn and bloodied across the chest. His hands were bound with leather cord. Attila had crossed half the continent to bleed Rome dry, to take what the empire had hoarded for centuries. Every city that opened its gates lived. Every city that resisted burned. Two riders dismounted and shoved the soldier forward. He stumbled but did not fall. Behind them, three more captives shuffled in chains — a woman in torn robes, an older man, and a boy no older than twelve. The soldier's eyes stayed down until one of the riders grabbed his hair and yanked his head up. Attila stepped closer. The man's armor bore the markings of a messenger unit, the kind that carried orders between generals. This was not a common legionnaire. This was someone who knew where Aetius was moving his forces, and when. Attila smiled. Rome had just handed him the map to its own throat. One of his warriors pulled a sealed scroll from the soldier's belt and held it out. Attila took it. The wax seal showed the eagle of Rome pressed into red. He broke it open and unrolled the parchment. Latin script filled the page in neat rows. Orders from Aetius himself, laying out troop movements, supply routes, and the position of Roman forces along the frontier. The general was dividing his army to protect three cities at once. Attila read it twice to be certain. Then he looked at the messenger, still kneeling in the mud. The man had carried Rome's strategy straight into his hands. Attila rolled the scroll closed and turned to his captains. He would strike where Aetius was weakest, before the general could regroup. Rome's gold was closer than he thought. Attila pointed to the wooden cage where other Roman prisoners sat huddled against the bars. His warriors dragged the messenger toward it and shoved him inside. The cage door slammed shut. Attila turned away and walked back to his command tent. His captains followed. The scroll had changed everything. Aetius thought dividing his forces would protect more ground. Instead, he had given Attila three weak targets instead of one strong defense. Tomorrow they would ride south. The nearest city would fall in two days. After that, nothing stood between his riders and Rome.

The city walls rose ahead, grey stone stacked higher than three men. Attila sat on his black stallion and watched smoke drift from the Roman settlement beyond the gates. His riders had killed every scout and patrol they found on the road. Now the gates stayed shut, iron-bound wood reinforced with crossed beams. Towers rose at each corner, red clay tiles catching the afternoon light. He could see faces peering down from the ramparts — not many. The scroll had been right. Aetius left this city with half the defenders it needed. Attila raised his hand and his riders spread wide, encircling the walls. They would not charge. Not yet. Let the Romans count his forces. Let them see no relief column coming down the road behind them. A single arrow flew from the tower and fell short in the dirt. Attila did not flinch. He turned his horse and rode slowly along the wall's length, close enough that the defenders could see his face. He wanted them to know who had come for their city. Behind him, his warriors began dragging timber and rope from their carts. They would build siege towers by nightfall. The walls were high, but walls only mattered if men stood willing to die on them. Attila had seen enough sieges to know when a city would break. This one would open within three days, or it would burn. Either way, the plunder inside belonged to his men now. Rome's gold was no longer a distant prize — it waited just beyond those gates, and nothing Aetius had written on that scroll would save it. One of his captains rode up beside him and pointed to the field beyond the city's south wall. Bodies lay scattered there — Roman legionnaires in full armor, cut down before they reached the gates. Among them sat a catapult, half-built, the wood frame carved with Roman letters. Attila rode closer. His warriors had caught the Romans trying to assemble it outside the walls. Now it stood abandoned, ropes still coiled beside the throwing arm. He dismounted and ran his hand along the frame. The wood was solid, the design sound. His men could finish what the Romans started. He turned to his captain and gave the order. By dawn, they would have the catapult working. The defenders would watch their own weapon tear holes in their walls. Attila looked back at the city gates. The Romans inside thought stone would protect them. They were wrong. The siege had already turned — not in three days, but tonight. The city would fall faster than he planned, and his riders would feast on Roman gold before Aetius even knew this place had fallen.

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.