A tremendous, high-pitched, wailing scream suddenly filled the world. Nicholas ducked down, hearing the hissing passage of hundreds of arrows fill the air. Men started shouting and screaming. There was a rippling sound of heavy blows striking meat. Nicholas scrambled away to the Wall, under the falling body of the soldier. A black-feathered bow shaft had transfixed the man, spilling bright blood out of his back and mouth. Nicholas grabbed the man's arm and hauled the body over his own as a shield. A horse hoof, driven by pain-maddened rage, smashed into the soldier's breastplate, cracking the metal, and Nicholas grimaced, turning his head away as the body jerked in his hands. More blood spattered on the side of his face. He wedged himself into the corner of the Wall. Now there was a wailing war cry from beyond the gate.

Nicholas could hear the company of knights, caught half in and half out of the gate, being slaughtered by arrow fire. Shafts continued to whip through the open gate, into the mass of dying men and horses in the passage. Behind the gate was loud confusion as men milled aboutsome trying to get into the passage, others to get away. The bullvoiced shouts of centurions rallying their men and raising the alarm rang in the air. Too, there was fighting outside, in the space before the Wall. The war cries of Avars echoed off the high vault of the gate. A horse, rearing, was struck down by two black arrows and fell across the body of the man that partially covered Nick. He twisted away from the impact, but felt it like a titan's slap against his back.

Outside, horses galloped away, neighing in fear. The whistling of arrows faltered and then stopped. There was a rush of running feet and Nicholas grimaced, pushing the leaden body away from him with all his strength. The dead legionnaire, his eyes still round with surprise, fell away, and Nicholas scrambled up. His right hand, slimy with sticky red mud, dragged the length of his long sword out of the gore covering the floor of the passage. Dark figures filled the gateway, rushing forward with axes and long spears in hand. Nicholas sprang up onto the unsteady welter of corpses- both man and horse- and bright sparks rang from his sword as he parried the first stroke of an Avar axe.

The Avar noble was broad in the shoulder and clad in heavy capes of ermine and fox. Scale mail glinted under the fur and rose up to his neck, circled by a thick torc of gold, and down to his biceps. His eyes were slanted over high cheekbones, and his nose was broad and flat. The axe whipped around again, driven by dark-skinned arms thick with matted hair, muscle, and a thin sheen of sweat. Nicholas stumbled aside, his foot slipping on the flank of a fallen horse. The iron wedge carved air where his arm had been. Nicholas dropped his shoulder and bulled into the Avar, crashing iron rings against scale. A hand with long dirty nails clawed at his face, cutting his cheek. He grappled, pinning the nomad's free hand between their bodies. Stiff fingers stabbed at the barbarian's eye. The Avar fell backward, clouting Nicholas on the side of the head. Nicholas pushed into the fall and drove his left knee into the inside of the Avar's thigh. The man gasped in pain, feeling his leg go numb. Nicholas lashed down with his right elbow, catching the man on the neck. The torc deformed- soft gold twisting under the blow- but it prevented the barbarian's larynx from being crushed.

More Avars swarmed past through the gateway. As they ran forward they fired short but heavy bows with an odd, long, top stave into the milling crowd of legionnaires who had fallen back into the street. Men staggered and fell as the heavy arrows punched through their leather and chain-mail armor. Behind the Avar veterans, a great crowd of Slavs was pushing forward, their red and blond hair standing stiff with grease, their shields bright with geometric patterns in black and red and blue. A forest of spear points danced over their heads. They were running forward, raising their voices in a great shout when they saw the gate standing wide.

The noble squirmed under Nicholas like a Danube eel and threw him to one side. Nicholas slipped and skidded away on the gore-smeared floor. Another Roman corpse stopped him. His sword was gone, lost among the still-dying horses. The Avar sprang up, his right hand already filled with the mirror brightness of a long knife. Nicholas felt a chill, seeing that he was cut off from the rest of the defenders. He rolled backward and then came up, stripping the remains of his shirtsleeve from his left arm. The Avar dodged in, making short, controlled, stabs with the knife. Nicholas skipped back again, over the body of a bay horse, and flexed his left fist outward from his arm, pulling the exposed wire-ring with his thumb.

There was a sharp metallic twang, and a six-inch steel bolt punched through the Avar's right eye and rang off the inside of his conical helmet. Blood and white flakes of bone smeared the right side of the nobleman's face as he crumpled soundlessly back into the welter of other bodies.

Nicholas half saw a blurring shape in the air and threw himself forward. One of the long arrows whickered over his head and glanced off the inner gate post with a shrill tang. He crawled hurriedly, searching among the bodies for his sword. More arrows flicked past, hunting him. He bellied down behind one of the dead horses and scuttled forward.

Behind him, in the street, was a confused melee. More Avars and Slavs poured through the gateway and piled into the Romans trying to hold the boulevard against them. Legionnaires atop the wall were throwing javelins and stones down into the mass of men struggling on the pavement. The masons and engineers who had been working behind the Wall rushed up, spears and great hammers in their hands. Nicholas heard the bellowing voice of the blond centurion ringing above the din of steel and iron, rallying his men to him.

Nicholas breathed a sigh of relief; Brunhilde's engraved hilt was barely visible, jutting from under the carcass of a sandy-colored mare. The grooved leather binding on the hilt met his fingers like a well-loved friend. The four-foot length of rune-carved Scandian steel stuck for a moment, but then slid free with a greasy popping sound. He ducked aside from another arrow, but the Avar archers were now occupied exchanging missile fire with the Romans on the Wall and on the battlements. Nicholas sprinted across the killing ground to the foot of the nearest wooden stair tower.

Taking the plank steps two and three at a time, he leapt to the second level of the tower, fifteen feet above the battle raging in the street. Two Avars had also climbed up before him and were firing arrow after arrow into the ranks of the Romans fighting below. Nicholas shifted one hand back on Brunhilde's long hilt and, taking her twohanded, ended his rush with a hard horizontal chop that bit deep into the neck of the Avar on the right, sending his body sprawling into the other archer. Bright arterial blood gushed out, spraying down on the men below, and the Avar's head lolled at an obscene angle. The other Avar staggered up in time for Nicholas to shatter his outthrust kneecap with a sharp kick. The man was still howling in pain as Nicholas heaved his body over the railing.

Arrows thrummed through the air, spiking into the pillars of the tower. He dodged again, this time up the stairs to the next platform. The tower shook with the weight of more Avars swarming up the steps. Nicholas skidded back on the undressed planks of the third platform, swinging Brunhilde into guard position. Four Avars in glistening ironscale tunics, their furs cast aside, showing long mustaches and lank black hair, stormed up the stairs. Luckily, they blocked the view of the archers behind them for a moment.

The first Avar rushed onto the platform, his axe a blur of short cuts at Nick's midriff. The Roman slid aside, falling back a step, and then feinted overhand with the long sword. The Avar parried up with the head of the axe, and Nicholas reversed his stroke, catching the nomad on the outside of his left arm. Brunhilde bit deep, cleaving the muscle and tendon. The Avar cursed and fell back, switching the axe to his off-hand. Nicholas rushed in, keeping the wounded man between himself and the others at the top of the stairs. The axeman tried to block with the haft of his weapon, but Nicholas was inside his guard and jerked his blade upward, punching the triangular tip through the bottom of the Avar's jaw. There was a gelid sound and then a tinny ringing as the point ground on the inside of the man's helmet.