HE STARTED TO move for the stairs but the Hun warriors had already spread out to block the exit. He turned around and saw Attila was on his feet, as was everyone else in the hall as well. The musicians stopped playing and Zerco stopped prancing around.
Attila pointed at Hagan then Wodnas. He shouted something in the Hun tongue.
To Hagan’s surprise Gunderic did the same. Hagan could understand his words.
‘Seize them!’ Gunderic cried.
The eight Huns came charging down the stairs and grabbed Hagan. He started to struggle but they kicked and beat him with their sword blades. One blow struck him across the temple and countless coloured stars exploded in his vision. He fell to his knees and a moment later his arms were pinned behind him and a sword blade was held across his throat.
More Huns laid hands on Wodnas.
Moments later their wrists and ankles were bound by rope.
Attila barked an order.
‘The king says take them to the bath,’ Ediko said.
Hagan and Wodnas were dragged along the floor, warriors punching and kicking them as they went. They went through another side door and down another set of wooden steps. The doors slammed behind them.
Hagan was being half dragged, half carried face down. Blood was dribbling from his nose and he could taste it in his mouth as well. Looking below him he saw the floor change from dirt to white stone. Then he was dumped without ceremony on the ground.
For a few moments he lay on his front, waiting for his head to clear. Then he looked up. Wodnas lay a little way away. They were both on a white stone floor inside what could only be the bathhouse he had seen earlier.
It was lit by torches held by some of the warriors who had dragged them in, as well as some set in brackets in the walls. The bathhouse had seen better days. The plaster of the walls was cracked, flaking and dirty. The mosaics on the floors were missing many tiles.
It looked like they were in what had once been the frigidarium. Hagan frowned, wondering if his eyes had been damaged by the beating he had just endured. Then he saw that Attila had indeed found a new use for this bathhouse.
Instead of cold water, the plunge pool was filled with snakes. They were of every size, width and colour. There were hundreds of them, curling and twisting, slithering over each other at the bottom of the pool like an obscene living liquid. The sheer sides of the pool stopped them crawling up and out.
‘This pit is where King Attila throws traitors, those who have betrayed him or those who think they can usurp him,’ Gunderic said. ‘These snakes take care of such snakes and worms.’
Hagan and Wodnas clambered to their feet and turned around. Attila, Gunderic, Gunhild and Ediko stood behind them. The Hun warriors were lined up behind them. Gunhild carried two cups of wine, one in each hand.
Ediko held up the blue bottle.
‘This is poison, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘What did you intend to do with it?’
‘Why do you think it’s poison?’ Hagan said. ‘Perhaps you should drink it just to be sure.’
‘This is treachery,’ Ediko said. ‘You planned to poison the Great King with this.’
‘Let’s stop this play-acting,’ Wodnas said. ‘This was all just a trap from the start, wasn’t it, Gunhild?’
Gunhild smiled. It was not a warm expression but one as cold as ice.
‘Of course, Wodnas,’ she said. ‘Though it does look like you’ve been very obliging by bringing this poison along with you. Which gives us an excuse to get rid of you. One of Freya’s concoctions, is it?’
She turned to Attila.
‘Great King,’ she said. ‘Considering what we are about to discuss, should we have extra ears in the room? We don’t want others hearing where the treasure is hidden, do we?’
Ediko translated to the tongue of the Huns. Attila nodded. He replied to Ediko in his own tongue. Ediko looked dubious but Attila patted the hilt of the great war sword slung under his arm.
Ediko gestured to the warriors and to Hagan’s surprise, they filed out of the room.
Still smiling, Gunhild passed a cup of wine to Attila and kept one herself. She held up her cup in a toast and took a drink. Attila did the same.
Hagan thought bitterly how it looked like they were toasting their victory.
‘So what is there to discuss?’ he said. ‘It looks like you two have decided to join Attila. Does what happened at Vorbetomagus mean nothing to you any more?’
‘The world changes,’ Gunderic said. ‘Attila has shown he is the greatest power in the world. It is only a matter of time before the Roman Empire falls. Honour and revenge are fine things, but what matters, what really matters, is power and who wields it. We can stand alone and be swept aside. We can stand with Rome and fall with it. Or we can join with the new greatest power in the world and thrive.’
‘I can understand that,’ Wodnas said. ‘But what puzzles me is why someone as powerful as Attila would bother making an alliance with a kingdom as insignificant as yours. Gunhild, despite her growing age, is beautiful but Attila has the pick of any woman across his vast realms. How many wives have you now? Nine?’
Gunhild glared at Wodnas. The veins in her neck stood out from her skin. Hagan could see the blood pulsing within them.
‘I have much to offer!’ Gunderic spluttered. ‘We are not insignificant!’
Attila noticed the obvious furore and looked at Ediko. Ediko did his best to translate what had been said.
Attila chuckled. Then he pointed at Wodnas, nodding. He held up his forefingers, rubbing them together in the air. Then he spoke a few words.
‘The Great King says,’ Ediko translated, ‘old Wodnas is wise as ever. It will be a loss when we kill him. Why indeed would one so mighty as Attila benefit from such an alliance? The answer is: gold.’
‘We have told Attila that we shall share the treasure of the Nibelungs with him in return for his favour,’ Gunhild said.
She lifted her wine cup in another toast to Attila. Attila smiled and drank. Gunhild did the same. Attila, his cup now drained, passed it back to Gunhild.
‘Share?’ Wodnas said. ‘Your father stole that treasure from the Huns. Do you really think Attila will share it with you? Do you realise who you are dealing with? He must not know where you’ve hidden it otherwise he’d already have taken it all.’
‘Of course he doesn’t,’ Gunhild said, ‘Do you think us stupid? The knowledge of where that vast treasure is hidden is the thing that makes us valuable to him. He knows he has to please Gunderic and me or he will never get his hands on the gold.’
‘He will lose patience,’ Wodnas said. ‘I know Attila. I fought him and his kind for years. When he does he will torture that knowledge out of you.’
‘Why are Wodnas and I here anyway?’ Hagan said. ‘What have we to do with all this?’
‘You helped kill Sigurd!’ Gunhild shouted. Her teeth were clenched now and eyes staring. All of a sudden she resembled the Gunhild Hagan had last seen on the battlefield of the Catalaunian plains. ‘And for that you will die. We will cast you both into the pit of snakes and watch you writhe in agony as you die. That is the favour Attila has granted us in exchange for sharing our treasure with him.’
‘If I helped kill Sigurd,’ Hagan said, ‘then your brother did too.’
Attila let out a sudden cough. He frowned. Then a look of consternation crossed his face. His right hand went to his throat.
Gunhild laid a hand on his arm, watching the Hun King’s face with fascination.
Attila coughed again and this time a great gout of froth came out through his lips. It was tinged with pink. His eyes bulged and he reached out as if to try to grab Gunhild by the throat but she stepped back. A tide of blood gushed from both his nostrils and dribbled down his chin. Attila lurched forward after Gunhild then, with a strangled cry, he pitched forward and fell face first on the floor. He gave a brief snort, then lay still. A pool of strong-smelling urine began to form around him.
Gunhild let out a little laugh. She turned to Wodnas.
‘The Lady Freya’s potions are as potent as always, I see,’ she said. ‘I poured some of the contents of that blue bottle into the wine I gave Attila.’
Ediko gasped in horror, glaring down at his fallen king. An instant later Gunderic slammed his fist into Ediko’s chin. The Hun’s eyes rolled up into his head and he too fell to the floor.
Hagan felt sudden hope. Had this all been a ruse? Had Gunhild and Gunderic carried all this out just to get close enough to Attila so they could kill him?
The thought was quickly dispelled.
‘You killed him,’ Wodnas said in a tone of voice that suggested he could hardly believe his own eyes.
‘It seems I have,’ Gunhild said. She looked at her brother. ‘Now we can rule the Burgundar kingdom unhindered, without the need to bow down to Attila or any other king who thinks he is our overlord. But I’m sorry, Hagan. You and Wodnas still have to die. Attila intended to throw you in the snake pit. We may as well fulfil his last wishes.’
Realising his hopes were forlorn, Hagan felt rage, anger, despair. ‘Why?’ he shouted. ‘What has all this got to do with Wodnas? With me?’
Gunhild crouched down beside the prone body of Attila. She undid the leather thong on a purse that hung at his belt and rummaged inside. Withdrawing something, she stood up and held it aloft between her thumb and forefinger.
She stepped closer to Hagan and he saw that what she held was a golden medal, a bracteate used to decorate horse bridles. He recognised it. While it only had the image of the bird on it, the Turul, and no horse, it was identical in style to the one Hagan wore around his throat. The amulet he had taken from his mother’s corpse.
‘This is a piece from the great treasure hoard. We gave it to Attila to prove we had it,’ Gunhild said. ‘It is Hunnish in style. Recognisably so. You see the way the bird is engraved on it.’
Hagan tried to finger the amulet he wore around his throat but his bound wrists hindered him.
‘There are countless ones like this in the hoard. They are real gold, by the way,’ Gunhild said. ‘But they have either an image of the bird or one of a horse, never both. My father, King Gundahar, gave me several over the years and he told me he had only ever seen one that had both horse and bird on it. So he wore that one himself.’
Hagan’s jaw dropped open.
‘I’m older than Gunderic so he won’t remember,’ Gunhild went on. ‘But I do. I remember my father wearing that amulet around his throat when I was young, very young. The amulet you wear, Hagan, is the same one. You said your mother took it from the man who raped her. Well, that man must have been my father. You are my half-brother.’
‘We will not share the throne or my treasure, Hagan,’ Gunderic said. ‘Especially not with a bastard.’
Hagan’s mind raced. The thought that his real father had been King Gundahar was unbelievable. But then it also made perfect sense: which one man in the kingdom had been more powerful than Godegisil, the Champion of the Burgundars? His mother had been right. Gundahar was the one man who could have had Godegisil put to death if he suspected any threat. That was why she had kept her attacker’s identity a secret all those years.
‘In fact, dear sister,’ Gunderic went on, ‘I have no desire to share the throne – or more importantly the treasure – with anyone.’
Hagan realised all of a sudden that while everyone was watching Gunhild, Gunderic had somehow unsheathed the Sword of the War God from where it lay in Attila’s scabbard. He now held it in both hands.
‘What are you doing, Gunderic?’ Gunhild said. She had caught sight of the weapon in her brother’s hands.
‘Now I wield the Sword of the War God, Gunhild,’ Gunderic said. ‘I have the blessing of Tiwass. It is he who says I have the right to rule. Alone.’
Gunderic swung the sword. Gunhild dropped the golden bracteate as both her hands flew to her face. Gunderic dealt a great, sweeping blow aimed at Gunhild’s waist. Before it landed, Hagan squeezed his eyes closed, not wanting to look on the carnage the great blade wrought. He heard the pings as the bracteate hit the floor and bounced twice before it lay flat and still. He opened his eyes again and frowned.
Gunhild still stood upright. There was a bemused smile on her face.
‘It seems the great sword is not as sharp as folk think,’ she said.
Gunhild bent forward to pick up the fallen amulet. Her fingers never reached it. As she did so, a red line opened up across her middle, then her torso fell forward, severed from her hips by Gunderic’s blow. The top half of her body tumbled to the floor. Her legs toppled sideways, jetting blood as they fell, and landed in the opposite direction to her top half.
Hagan glared in horror, looking down at Gunhild’s now lifeless eyes that stared ahead, as if still fixed on the gold amulet.
‘Now I shall rule alone,’ Gunderic said. ‘And the treasure shall all be mine.’
He stalked over to where Hagan and Wodnas stood, bound on the edge of the snake pit.
‘Which means no bastard brother who might have a rival claim,’ he said to Hagan.
Gunderic turned to Wodnas.
‘I’m afraid you will have to go as well,’ he said. ‘The ordinary folk have begun to hold you in higher regard than me, their rightful king. Your work is done now anyway. You have set my kingdom on the road to greatness. We will revere your memory. Perhaps in the future you will even be thought of as a god.’
The sword in his left hand, he raised his right hand to shove Hagan into the pool full of writhing snakes. Hagan, his ankles tied together, hopped sideways and tried to headbutt Gunderic. Gunderic jumped out of the way but looked wary of getting too close again. He raised the sword and levelled its point at Hagan’s chest.
‘Perhaps I should just do this the easy way,’ he said.
At that moment the doors burst open. Zerco and the Burgundar Bear and Raven Warriors poured into the room. They were armed and ready for war. They surveyed the carnage in the room for a moment then crowded round the three men on the edge of the snake pit.
‘I thought you might need a hand,’ Zerco said. ‘So I fetched this lot from their quarters.’
Hagan felt a dismay that hurt worse than any of the punches or kicks he had suffered. Was Zerco really helping Gunderic by bringing his bodyguards?
‘You’ve come at exactly the right time, lads,’ Gunderic said. ‘Throw Hagan in the snake pit.’
The Bear Warriors looked unsure what to do. Their king was ordering them to kill the man who had trained most of them and the man who had led them at the battle of the Catalaunian fields.
Gunfjaun and the four other Raven Warriors were less hesitant. They surged forward as one. Gunfjaun snatched the war sword from Gunderic’s hand as the others shoved the Burgundar king backwards.
With a horrified scream, Gunderic toppled back, arms flailing, into the pool filled with snakes. The shock of his landing caused many of the creatures to sink their fangs into his body straight away.
Gunderic’s back arched as their venom spread through his body. His teeth clenched and his mouth widened in a rictus grin. His cries ceased, strangled by his already constricted throat.
The Burgundar warriors freed Hagan and Wodnas from their bonds, then they all ran to the doors.
Zerco was shouting out into the main palace. His words were in Hunnish so Hagan could not work out what he said.
‘What are you doing?’ Hagan said.
‘I shouted out that the Great King Attila is dead,’ Zerco said. ‘Then I shouted that Ediko was named his successor. I waited a moment then called that Attila had said Ernas was to succeed him. Then I said it was to be Ellec. A few more shouts and they were all either fighting each other, desperate to be the one to take Attila’s crown, or running for their horses to get home before another rival tries to murder them.’
They all looked out through the door and saw the chaos in the main hall as warriors fought each other, turning over furniture and smashing the plates and cups.
‘Good work, Zerco,’ Wodnas said. ‘Now let us set fires to add to the confusion. With any luck we can slip away under their cover.’
They grabbed torches from the walls and rushed back to the main dining hall, setting fire to rugs, cushions, whatever they could find. As Zerco had predicted, there were Huns there but they were too busy fighting each other.
Running to the main door of the palace, Hagan and the others saw that the streets of the settlement were just as chaotic as the interior of the palace. The streets had become a battleground as different Hun factions fought each other either for control of the palace and its enclosure or just survival.
‘It is always this way when a tyrant falls,’ Wodnas said. ‘Unless there is a clear successor with a strong hand, every ambitious noble tries to seize the throne.’
‘And I never met a nobleman who was not ambitious,’ Zerco said.
Hagan wondered what would happen in Geneva when the news of Gunderic’s death arrived there. The council of nobles had been quick to fall to rivalry even when Gunderic was alive. Would there be similar bloodletting there?
‘We need our horses,’ Wodnas said. ‘There are plenty in a pen outside the ramparts, so we must fight our way out of here.’
‘Perhaps you would like this?’ Gunfjaun said, offering the great Sword of the War God to Hagan. ‘We all have our own weapons.’
Hagan took it. Despite its great size and considerable weight, when held in a fighting grip it was so well balanced it felt light as a feather. For a few moments he gazed at the reflections of the fires that flickered up and down the blade. Then he readied himself for the fight.
Wodnas ordered them to form up in a wedge formation, with the biggest Bear Warrior at the tip. Once ready, they stormed out the doors and down the steps of the palace as smoke from its now burning interior began to billow out behind them.
For the most part the Hun factions were too busy fighting each other to pay attention to the Burgundars, but some did stand in their way. They were quickly cut down by the power and fury of the charging Burgundars.
The most determined resistance they faced was at the gates, where the five warriors had been reinforced. After a brief skirmish the Burgundars defeated the Huns, killing eight of them, wounding five and sending the rest running. Hagan felt almost like the great war sword had a life of its own in his hands, so easy was it to handle. It was as if it were thirsty for the blood it spilled so sought out the perfect point to strike the enemy all by itself.
They ran on to the pen filled with horses outside the settlement ramparts. Moments later they were riding off into the night.