Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (39 page)

‘Apion,’ he croaked, his tone hurt and desperate.

‘Shut up!’ Apion glanced all around. Good, they were enclosed within the earth ridge as he had hoped. ‘Someone could come at any moment. So shut up and listen, for your sake and mine. Do you understand?’

Nepos slackened a little in his struggle and nodded briskly. Carefully, Apion let go. Nepos staggered back, his face white in panic at the sight of Apion’s dagger. ‘Apion?’

Apion shook his head firmly, thumping a fist onto his heart, tucking the blade away. ‘Never, Nepos, my friend. I just had to make it look real. Here, have this.’ He pulled his satchel from his shoulder and lifted a package of salted meat, a portion of hard tack bread and a water skin from it.

‘Rations? What is this?’ Nepos shook his head.

‘You told me that first day I came to Argyroupolis that you had come here to get away from a situation at home. Well I know what happened; that man you beat, he was an agente!’

Nepos’ eyes widened. ‘How do you know of my past? Only I knew that man was an agente!’

Apion grabbed the Slav’s shoulder. ‘Because Bracchus is an agente, he is the master agente, he controls them all! He knows all about you. You’ve got to trust me. You need to get out of the camp. Tonight!’

Nepos started. ‘Bracchus? All this time I have been living under the gaze of one of the men I have been running from?’ Then the Slav’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then what does he have on you, Apion? Ever since that day we defended Bizye, you have seemed cowed under his influence.’

Apion gripped the Slav’s shoulders. ‘There is no time, Nepos. You have to trust me, and despite all of this I know you do.’ He held his gaze firmly on Nepos’ eyes.

At last, Nepos’ gaze softened and his shoulders slumped. ‘You are correct.’ He touched a finger to his lips, his eyes darting in thought, then he nodded. ‘So I have to disappear tonight? Then it starts here. Only you leave this pit. The rest – slipping from the camp – I will make good.’

‘You will need my help in slipping out of the camp . . . ’

‘No, I can manage that, but there is one thing you can do,’ Nepos urged. ‘Go to Blastares’ tent, give him a nudge, press his bladder or tell him to go take a shit. Tell him it’s cold and to take an extra cloak – a dark one. Then return to your tent. I will do the rest.’

Apion nodded. ‘I get it, but where do you hide until then?’

‘Well I’m not hiding in the pit, that’s for sure.’ Nepos rolled up his half-sleeves and rubbed his hands together, then nodded to the earth bank. ‘I tell you though, Blastares is going to get one hell of a fright when he does come by this way.’

Apion looked to the loosely-piled earth; easily shifted by hand to allow the Slav to hide under a thin coating of the stuff until Blastares arrived. He turned back to Nepos. ‘When you escape, head back west and north, past Argyroupolis. Then stay true to the valleys until you reach the source of the Piksidis.’ Apion described the route back to Mansur’s valley, the hill with the beech thicket, the cairn marked with the
Haga
and the cave. He took the carved wooden chariot rider shatranj piece from his satchel and pressed it into Nepos’ palm. ‘Mansur will know you are genuine if you give him this. He will provide you with food and anything else you need, but you must be discreet, stay in the cave and visit Mansur only at night, for Bracchus has contacts everywhere. I will come for you when the army stands down, when Tugrul’s army is defeated,’ he grinned, then his words trailed off and shame overcame him at the troubled look in the Nepos’ eyes. ‘You, Sha, Blastares and Procopius trusted me, supported me, lifted me on your shoulders for me to become your komes. Then one of my first acts is to force you to desert, like a criminal or a coward – as far from the truth as possible – all because of that black-hearted whoreson.’

Nepos gripped him by the wrist. ‘I trust you, lad, like a younger brother. Go and be safe in that knowledge.’ Nepos held out a hand.

He clasped his hand into Nepos’. ‘I will sort this out, Nepos, I promise you that.’

‘We will meet again, Apion.’ Nepos stepped back towards the earth rampart.

With a last look, the pair parted and Apion hurried from the latrine and made straight for the tents.

***

Stood by the marching camp’s western gate, Peleus felt his eyelids grow heavy and he pushed the tip of his dagger into his palm. At once he was awake again. He glanced across to Stypiotes by the opposite gatepost, whose eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness but at least he was awake. Peleus suppressed a chuckle; his friend had been in a foul mood ever since the two had been chosen to go on guard duty. God help any Seljuks who might attack this entrance to the camp, he mused.

‘Tomorrow night, Stypiotes, we eat then we sleep,’ he croaked, ‘deep, dark sleep!’

Stypiotes scowled at him. ‘Stop talkin’ about it!’

‘But I need to do something; every time I stare out at the darkness I start to nod off,’ Peleus stopped, noticing Stypiotes’ eyes widening. ‘Stypiotes?’

‘Somethin’ moved, behind you!’

Peleus spun on his heel, nothing was there, but a small, round pebble spun on the spot, slowing then stopping. Stypiotes stalked over to Peleus’ side of the gate and the pair braced, holding their spears out, eyes prying into the blackness.

They did not notice the black-cloaked, and stealthy figure that climbed to perch on the edge of the gate. Nor did they hear the figure drop silently out of the camp and then sprint, bare-footed, into the night.

‘Ah, it’s nothing,’ Peleus said, pointing back into the camp, ‘look, it must have been one of the lads acting up.’

Stypiotes screwed his eyes up to peer at the shadowy figure that stood just to the side of the central walkway. ‘Who’s that?’ He barked, unable to make out the features of the man.

But the shadow melted into the darkness without reply.

***

Night passed in a heartbeat and Apion did not sleep, instead lying, eyes wide open, bathed in a slick of sweat. Packs of wild dogs howled in the brush and every one struck panic into his heart. Then the buccina cry had split the air at the first orange of dawn, but instead of the usual morning roll-call, it was the emergency call for muster. At once the camp sprung to life in a rabble of shouting and clattering of iron.

‘To your feet!’ Apion shouted to the nine men of his kontoubernion.

Footsteps, panting and a gruff horking up of phlegm sounded outside and then came a familiar voice. ‘Where’s the pointy-faced bastard?’ Procopius croaked, poking his head into the tent, wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘He’s not in his tent. A bit keen to get promoted is he?’

Apion pushed out from the tent, heart thumping. ‘What do you mean?’ He shot a furtive glance to each side of the camp. Good, he thought, no commotion and no sign of Bracchus.

Sha was there, pulling on his klibanion, looking round, face wrinkling. ‘Nepos? No, I haven’t seen him either.’

Blastares stumbled from his tent, frowning, lifting a finger to point at Apion.

Panicked, Apion cut in. ‘Blastares?’

‘My head is pounding!’ The big man groaned, rubbing a hand over a purple lump on his temple. ‘If that’s not bad enough it looks like some bugger stole my cloak as well. Last thing I remember is staggering to the latrines. And before that I had this disturbing dream about you, pressing my bladder!’

Apion disguised his relief.

‘Bloody ale!’ Blastares continued. ‘Though if I see some whoreson nicking around in my cloak I’ll fuc . . . ’

A second buccina cry pierced the air, drowning out his words.

‘It’ll have to wait,’ Apion said. ‘Come on, something big is happening!’

***

By the time dawn was fully upon them, the Chaldian Thema stood in formation, the only noises were of horses scuffing and snorting and the iron rattle of armour. The ranks were tense; nobody knew for sure why the emergency muster call had been used, but many craned their necks to scan the horizon outside the camp. Empty.

Then Cydones and Ferro strode to the front of the army. ‘This morning, we seize our destiny!’ The strategos gave one of his customary pauses before continuing. ‘The dawn scouting party has returned. The Seljuk army has been located. Some eight miles to the south. We are in fine shape, men. Fine shape to seize victory. We march to victory, and God marches with us!’

Apion’s eyes narrowed. The strategos’ rhetoric seemed to rouse the ranks, but he knew that if the numbers of the Seljuk horde were to be believed then the wives and mothers of Chaldia would lose a lot of husbands and sons today. The Colonea Thema numbered not much less than the army mustered here today, he shivered, remembering the swarm of carrion birds that had feasted on their corpses. Then something caught his eye. He glanced over the ranks. There, about twelve men to his left, stood Bracchus at the head of the tourma
.
The tourmarches stared dead ahead, face pointed and cold, no hint of emotion.

He closed his eyes and prayed that Nepos was far to the west by now. He had his story ready: he had slit Nepos’ throat in the darkness and dropped his body into the latrine pits. Now he just had to avoid Bracchus until the latrine pits were filled in, so his story could not be refuted.

Then realisation sparked in his mind; it could all end today – the clash with Tugrul’s hordes presented the opportunity he had been waiting for. He flexed his fingers on his scimitar hilt and prayed that the battle would see him and Bracchus in close proximity.

20.
The Falcon’s Hordes

The war drums rumbled in the intense morning heat and Tugrul’s Seljuk horde shimmered like an ethereal mirage across the plain.
By God let the heat be exaggerating their number
, Apion thought as he studied their ranks. At least twenty five thousand, they didn’t just blanket the horizon, they seemed to be swallowing it, arcing around the land to cover three sides of the Byzantine square formation. The Seljuk flags with the golden bow emblem licked at the sky like an inferno.

‘We need more men,’ Blastares said in a low tone, swatting at the incessant cloud of black flies attacking his face.

It was what they were all thinking, Apion was sure. His bandon were placed at the south-eastern corner of the square, facing towards the right arm of the Seljuk arc. His trusted four stood alongside him at the head of their files, the other files making up the bandon on either side. Every man on the front rank had been afforded an iron klibanion to go with the red sash that marked them out as dekarchoi, those in the ranks behind having to make do with padded jackets or vests and the knowledge that they were marginally less likely to die than their officers. This and all the other banda of the thema formed the outer wall of the square. Inside the iron-human bulwark, the toxotai and light infantry waited, knowing they would have to slip outside the square to shower their missiles on the approaching enemy before slipping back inside when the two forces clashed. In the centre of the square, beside the cluster of medical tents, artillerymen and supply wagons, the kataphractoi and the mercenary Pecheneg horsemen waited patiently; they were to be the hammer that would sally forth from the formation and then strike the enemy upon the anvil of the infantry square.

Upon sighting Tugrul’s horde on the horizon, Cydones had not hesitated in making the call to fall into this classic defensive formation, but as expected, morale dipped at the order. Yet Apion could see straight away that the strategos had no choice due to weight of numbers; the army they now faced had only a week previously utterly destroyed the army of the Colonea Thema. They were Tugrul’s finest, not the light ghazi riders but the elite and shimmering ghulam, equal in every way to the kataphractoi with fine composite bows, scimitars and rapier-like spears and their number was far greater than the clutch of one thousand riders Cydones had at his disposal. Yet the meat of the Seljuk army was in the swell of iron scale-clad akhi infantry, thousands upon thousands of them, at least four men to every one of the thema skutatoi. The enemy ahead troubled Apion; perhaps no Byzantine soul on this plain would live beyond today; what troubled him more though, was the enemy behind
.
He had caught sight of the distinctive golden plumage of Bracchus only fleetingly since they had adopted this formation, floating somewhere by the back ranks of the bandon to the right of Apion’s. The tourmarches was responsible for the four banda on this side of the square.
Close enough
, Apion decided. But perhaps this was all meaningless thought, he mused, the massive Seljuk horde had the manpower to crush the Byzantine square swiftly if they were orchestrated in just the right way.

He wondered what the
Falcon
would be thinking right now as he eyed this Byzantine square from across the plain. His eyes narrowed, again considering the blurring of the Seljuk banners in the heat haze. An idea formed in his mind. They could not increase their number, but they could induce over-confidence from the Seljuks. He called to a scout rider and gave a message to be passed back to the strategos
.

As the scout rider set off, Apion twisted round to see the mounted, green-cloaked and green-plumed Cydones, mail veil across his face, flicking his attention across his lines from every angle, as if searching for something he had lost. This was the strategos’ real-life shatranj board.

‘Kataphractoi,’ Cydones roared, waving a hand to the left wing of the formation. He made a pushing motion and the rider by his side waved his banner towards the southern and northern sides of the square that would effectively be the Byzantine flanks. Like iron-scaled creatures, each of the two cavalry wings moved out, away from the centre of the square, to position themselves by the gaps among the banda on those sides.

Apion wondered at the strategos’ plans. The key would be to lure the Seljuks into making the first move, to make them present a weak spot in what looked like a wall of iron. They would only do so if the Byzantines themselves offered a weakness. Shatranj indeed.

Then he noticed the scout rider talking to the strategos. Cydones seemed to consider the message for a moment, then nodded and raised his sword. ‘Banda!’ He roared. ‘Lower every second standard then close the gaps between
.
’ A buccina keened a series of notes to reinforce the order.

Apion bristled with pride. The strategos had taken his advice. In the heat haze the Seljuks would doubtless be struggling to ascertain the exact number of Byzantine banda they faced. Thus lowering every second standard meant the Seljuks would be likely to count only half the true number of that stood in opposition to them. It was a glimmer of hope. The lure was set.

‘Engineers, mark our range!’ The strategos yelled back over his shoulder. The ground shuddered and a cracking of stone and grinding of dust rang out. The banda on the front of the square parted and ten clusters of siege engineers strained behind their
ballistae
, small wooden wagons with yawning timber bows mounted horizontally across them.

‘Come within three stadia and you’ll get a bolt through your chest,’ Procopius nudged Apion with an elbow. ‘Finely constructed aren’t they? Could do with a couple of trebuchets too, even just to scare the shit out of them, eh?’

Apion nodded at the old soldier’s words; the giant stone throwers, the city takers as they were called, were capable of hurling man-sized rocks over eight hundred feet. Almost four times the height of a man and with a throwing arm the same height again, they could shatter men and walls alike, but they were rarely brought out for a field battle given their monstrous weight, questionable accuracy and lack of manoeuvrability, even when deconstructed.

Then the ballistae fired, bolts whistling through the air and troughing into the ground between the Byzantine front lines and the Seljuks, sending puffs of dust from the earth where they landed.

‘Let’s see how brave they are now, eh?’ Blastares said.

‘Aye but let’s hope first they don’t have any long-range devices of their own,’ Procopius countered.

‘I suppose,’ Blastares grudgingly backed down, fleetingly eyeing the skyline for any sign of approaching missiles.

Apion offered a sly grin at Procopius; not many could shut Blastares up with one line. Then he noticed a group of some fifteen unarmoured men shuffling forward, each stooped under the weight of the iron cylinders they carried, flexible piping coiling from the tip of the cylinders to a handle on the side, some kind of pump for whatever was inside. Apion assumed they were some kind of devices to aid the ballistae. When the men carrying them forked out to stand not on the front of the square with the artillery, but on the flanks, one just to the side of his own bandon, he cocked an eyebrow.

‘You’ve never seen the Greek fire before?’ Procopius asked. ‘Because when you have seen it, you’ll never forget.’

The old soldier’s words were drowned out by the gallop of the Byzantine scout riders, who hared out into no-man’s land, unarmoured, bearing only a clutch of spears with strips of purple cloth tied to their base. One by one, the test missiles were located and marked by a spear.

‘How much do you reckon he’s holding back?’ Procopius squinted over at the strategos.

‘Holding back?’ Apion asked.

Procopius smirked wryly. ‘I reckon there’s another hundred, hundred and fifty feet in those devices if we get the right tension.’

‘I pray you’re right,’ Sha muttered, his attention taken by the sudden rippling on the Seljuk horizon. ‘They’re coming!’

‘And we’re waiting,’ Apion spoke evenly. Then the Seljuk war horns moaned like an army of lost spirits. Apion’s skin rippled and the ground started to shake as if a thousand titans were coming for them. The ethereal blur on the horizon sharpened and the closer the mass came, the more ferocious it appeared. He glanced along his ranks: the skutatoi were braced, faces etched with doubt. A murmur of fear rippled through the air. This would be his first full-scale battle and as an officer too. Doubt surfaced in his mind and his tongue shrivelled in his mouth. At the same time he tried to resist squirming as his bladder seemed to have swollen suddenly, pressing, demanding to be relieved.

‘Ha, not so funny now, is it?’ Blastares whispered, leaning in to him. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. By the time you’ve got blades swinging in your face, it’ll be the least of your worries. Besides, one of their lot might be kind enough to open your bladder for you.’

He turned to Blastares and saw the grin of nervous excitement and determination on the big soldier’s face. Hearing words of encouragement being shouted by komes’ up and down the front line, he realised that the rest of his bandon needed to feel ready like Blastares. He turned to them and to a man, their eyes were fixed on him, expectant. He gulped back the terror that tried to catch his tongue, took a breath deep in his lungs and drew his eyes across their number, then bellowed. ‘Stay strong in your hearts, men. The
Falcon
of the proud Seljuks comes to show us his power, but we have our mighty strategos,’ he stabbed his scimitar towards Cydones, ‘the legend of Chaldia!’

Blastares gripped his shoulder and punched a fist into the air. ‘And we have the
Haga!
The ferocious two-headed eagle flies with us!’

Apion’s bandon erupted in a cheer, rousing and far louder than the surrounding units. Then the banda flanking his also erupted in a cheer. ‘
Stra-te-gos, Stra-te-gos!
’ Was mixed with chants of ‘
Ha-ga!
’

‘Just remember,’ Blastares added with a wink to Apion on one side and Sha on the other, ‘I’ve got your flanks covered. You cover mine, eh?’

Apion flashed a grin in return but the burly soldier’s words were drowned out by the Seljuk advance, as the war horns died the trilling battle cry of the Seljuk infantry filled in with an even greater noise. The Seljuks were still within a fair distance of the outer artillery range markers when another buccina wail came from Cydones’ cavalry wing. At once the artillery units buzzed around their devices and, like an angry snake, the line of ballistae recoiled across the square front. To a man, the Byzantine square held their breath. Then the Seljuk infantry centre was riven with a series of troughs, the dust thrown up tinged with crimson and the air filled with screaming.

‘And again!’ Procopius yelled, bashing his sword hilt on his shield. The rest of the ranks around them joined in the chorus of celebration. But when Apion glanced to Procopius, the old soldier’s face had returned to its usual puckered expression.

‘Procopius?’

The old soldier leaned into his ear. ‘We’ll take encouragement where we can get it, but Tugrul isn’t that stupid. They’re testing our true range at the expense of a few hundred cheap infantrymen.’

Apion squinted until he could see the battered Seljuk front ranks: barely armed men, similar to the Byzantine light infantry. Some clutched daggers, some were empty handed. Behind them, the glimmering ranks of iron-clad soldiers were untouched and safely out of range.

‘How can they fight for their leader when he treats them like that?’ Apion barked through the dust cloud that whipped back over the thema ranks.

‘They’ve got no choice. Beggars, brigands and the like,’ Sha said. ‘They run forward, they may live. They run back, they will die. Tugrul demands, they obey.’ Volley after volley of ballista bolts pummelled the wretches and the sun was dulled momentarily by the dust thrown up. The thick ranks of Seljuk light infantry were already in chaos. Those who chose to continue forward slowed as their fleeing colleagues hared past them in the opposite direction. At the same time, the Seljuk archers loosed volley after volley of arrows into the deserters. Chaos reigned.

‘Bastards!’ Blastares spat. ‘A few less mouths to feed, that’s all they were brought here for.’

Apion wondered at the men of the light infantry in the Byzantine ranks, currently tucked inside the skutatoi outer wall. On another day would they not have been committed to death in the same fashion? Mansur’s words echoed in his mind.
These are the choices of the strategos.

There was then a lull until the dust cloud swept past them. The cream of the Seljuk ranks stood, still cupped in a crescent like a viper’s jaws around the rough crater of the longest lying ballista strikes. The Byzantine cheers fell flat and the plain was still and silent. Then, suddenly, the silence was shattered with the terrible wail of the war horns and raucous jeering of the Seljuk ranks. The Byzantine buccinators filled their lungs and blasted a howling response from their instruments. The Chi-Rho banner bearing the image of the Virgin Mary was hoisted high in the air and, to a man, the thema cried out in defiance.