Strategos: Island in the Storm (39 page)

‘
Allahu Akbar!
’ the horde cried as one, causing the valley to quake.

Apion swung his gaze between the two walls of advancing enemy, then saw that the Byzantine right was about to suffer the first blow: an arrow storm from the hillside ghazis. ‘Shields!’ Apion roared over the squall, waving desperately at Alyates. But the Cappadocian Strategos was still desperately trying to organise and calm the horsemen on the right, and the thick hail of arrows struck the life from swathes of them. Crimson mist puffed into the air only to be swept and swirled around in the gale. Men slid from their saddles, limp, arrows jutting from necks and eyes, horses toppled, thrashing. Apion drew breath, readying to ride over to aid Alyates in the expected hiatus before the next volley. But the next volley came just a heartbeat later, and the next as soon again, the white-feathered ghazis standing tall in their stirrups and loosing like demons as they swept down to thunder through the gap between Alyates’ riders and the infantry centre, like a knife prising open a clam. The feathered riders then swooped round on the Byzantine rear. A shower of arrows smacked down before his Thessalian and the beast reared in fright. It was then that Apion saw the lead rider of the white-feathered ones. And the leader’s piercing green eyes sought him out across the fray too.
Taylan.

The boy closed one eye and took aim . . . but hesitated.

Apion, frozen, saw the torment dancing in the boy’s open eye.

Then Taylan loosed.

The shot was true and powerful, and Apion jerked his head to one side instinctively, the missile tearing his cheek. He struggled to calm his mount as it again rose up on its hind legs and he lost sight of Taylan. Before he could seek him out again, the charging main line of ghazis drove into the Byzantine front. A terrible song of bone, flesh and iron filled the rugged land as broken bodies were tossed into the air, the ghazis ploughing deep, red furrows into the Byzantine lines. Apion was barged back, a Seljuk speartip clashing into the shield on his bicep, and another two riders hacking at him with their swords. He parried desperately. Seljuk riders swarmed in every direction, iron flashed all around and Seljuk arrows battered down without mercy.

‘We are too few – bring the reserve forward!’ he heard Igor cry distantly, frantically waving the imperial banner to bring the seven-thousand strong rabble of the magnate armies – still halted some quarter of a mile to the north – into the fray. After all their inactivity so far, they would have a vital role to play. And the banners were waved to the two wings of Oghuz riders who flanked them too. But would they rush to save an emperor whose men had unwittingly slain their brethren in the confusion by the trade carts the previous night?

Apion swept his scimitar across the throat of one determined attacker, chopped the arm from the next then kicked another to the ground. In a heartbeat of respite, he glanced to the emperor, fighting desperately alongside Igor and the varangoi just a handful of paces away. The golden heart pendant on Emperor Romanus’ breast sparkled in the ailing light, swinging with every sword stroke, the thick and merciless hail of Seljuk arrows dancing from his armour. It was then that the gale picked up like never before, filling the valleys, keening around the battle as if to sweep away the souls of the fallen.

The crone’s truth rang now like never before.

At dusk you and the Golden Heart will stand together in the final battle, like an island in the storm.

***

Andronikos Doukas gawped at the horde of some twenty five thousand Seljuk riders just a quarter of a mile ahead, swooping and darting, cutting through the Byzantine ranks with their lances. And there was the white-feathered ones too, circling, loosing a constant storm of arrows at an incredible rate.

‘They’re going to be butchered,’ he gasped, his shackles rattling in the fierce wind.

‘And they want us to come and be butchered with them, it seems,’ Scleros, the trident-bearded magnate general remarked glibly, pointing to the emperor’s banner rapping in the gale and being waved frantically.

Andronikos eyed Scleros, seeking to understand the man’s intentions. He seemed anything but eager to heed the command. Indeed, when the nine hundred Oghuz riders near the magnate ranks burst into a gallop and hurried to the emperor’s aid, this one still hesitated.

The wind whistled, the battle sang and not a soul amongst the magnate ranks spoke.

‘Aye, well, we should be swift,’ Scleros said at last. Then he turned to Andronikos. ‘Give me my banner, wretch,’ the man snarled, pointing to the black standard he had given Andronikos to carry.

Andronikos heeled his mount over to Scleros. He thought of home in Constantinople at that moment. Of his father. His black-hearted, loutish and loathsome father. The man had been a bully both to him and to his mother, each taking beatings that would leave them bruised and whimpering. Now his father languished in some grim Bithynian backwater – exiled from the seat of power he so coveted. He held up the standard with his shackled hands. Scleros snatched at it. Andronikos did not let it go.

Scleros scowled in confusion. ‘Give it to me, fool. The emperor calls upon us.’

Andronikos grinned, then, with a flash of silver, whipped his wrists up, throwing his chains around Scleros’ throat then wrenching them tight at the nape of the man’s neck, drawing it as fiercely as he could. Scleros’ ludicrously plumed helm fell to the ground. He thrashed and gagged, his face turning purple as he pulled at the chains, great clumps of oiled hair coming loose from his beard as he did so. His eyes darted over the nearest of his riders, who watched on impassively.

‘They will not come to your aid, you old fool,’ Andronikos grunted, yanking the chains just a little tighter. ‘They are my men now.’

When Scleros fell limp, Andronikos threw the corpse to the ground, then held up his chained wrists in expectation. Another of the chief magnates ranged forward and swung his sword down, cutting through the bonds.

Andronikos stretched his arms and flexed his fingers. ‘Damn, but it feels good to be free.’ Then he hefted the magnate banner and swiped it overhead, bringing them about face and leading them away from the battle at a canter.

He gazed into the western horizon, grinning, an edge of madness in his eyes.

I hope you appreciate this, Father.

19.
Island in the Storm

Every man in the beset Byzantine ranks cried out in lament, as word of the rearguard’s desertion spread. This only spurred the encircling Seljuk host to attack with renewed ferocity, spilling around them, swords, axes and spears swinging and cutting, innumerable arrows raining without mercy. At the heart of the Byzantine ranks, Apion held his shield overhead, arrows battering down upon it. He glanced northwards through the chaos, seeing Andronikos and the magnate armies melt away. Their last hope of reinforcement. Gone.
You foul-hearted dogs!

He fought on numbly, knowing that the few hundred brave Oghuz would not be enough to turn the battle. The rugged steppe riders swept around the outside of the battle, showering the ghazis with arrows in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the trapped Byzantine ranks.

The battle raged on as the last slivers of light began to fade. Soon, any semblance of opposing lines had evaporated and the two forces were entangled, men fighting men in single combat, small pockets of comrades taking on groups of their foes.

Apion caught sight of his trusted three and his Chaldians, fighting like giants in the crush of bodies nearby. He saw they were struggling, saw the Seljuk cavalry had them pinned. ‘Ya!’ he cried, kicking his mount into a charge. He threw down his spear and plucked out his scimitar and mace, then surged towards his men, cutting through their attackers.

‘Come on then, you
whoresons!
’

***

Sha and his tourma of Chaldian spearmen had managed to form some semblance of a defensive huddle, but the press of the surrounding ghazi noose pushed the breath from their lungs, and they were being driven back pace after pace such was the pressure, their boots ploughing a furrow in the dust.

A pair of siphonarioi had managed to ignite their fire canisters, and the thunder of Greek fire rolled across the din of the storm, the orangey flame driving back a section of the Seljuk front. Riders screamed and toppled as thick black smoke roiled in the air. For just a moment, the pressure was eased, then the first siphonarios was peppered with Seljuk arrows and toppled. Moments later, the second was struck down and his canister was punctured by an arrow too. The canister erupted, spilling a blanket of flame over Byzantine and Seljuk alike. The screams were harrowing, yet only a few heartbeats later, the fire died and the Seljuk cavalry thrust forward and the crush resumed. They pressed like demons, their lances skewering swathes of the brave Armenians. Prince Vardan took to swiping his long sword at them, determined to drive them back. He cut down four or more of the riders before he disappeared under a flurry of hacking Seljuk swords and spouting blood. Moments later, the Armenians were all but broken.

‘Hold!’ Sha screamed over the din of the storm and the battle, jabbing his spear up into the chest of one hulking ghazi. He looked to his left and right, seeing that big Blastares and old Procopius were faring little better. Each of them and their tourmae were but islands of men now, surrounded by the ocean of ghazi riders. He filled his lungs and roared. ‘Chaldians – come together!’

Blastares was first to react, forging a path through the melee with gusto. The big man had lost his helm in the action. His scalp was torn from some spear wound and his face awash with a nightmarish mask of blood. But his eyes gleamed and his anvil jaw jutted defiantly as he swept his spathion at the riders before him. He parried an axe blow then brought his spathion round to cleave the attacking man’s axe hand clean off, before prizing the weapon from the severed hand and promptly leaping to lodge it deep in the rider’s face. The clutch of two hundred or so that remained of his tourma came with him, inspired by his utter lack of fear.

On the other side, he heard a bitter tirade cutting through the din and the gale. ‘I’ll use your guts to string up a trebuchet,’ Procopius snarled, hobbling with the aid of his spear, swinging his sword this way and that to cut a path towards Sha, ‘then I’ll use it to hurl your balls into the Eternal Fires of Chimera!’ he finished, sweeping his spathion across the throat of one ghazi then punching it into the crotch of another.

At last, the remnants of the three Chaldian tourmae came together as one.

‘The army is in pieces,’ Blastares gasped, slotting into place by Sha’s right, adding to the desperate spear wall.

‘What do we do?’ Procopius panted, coming to stand by the big man.

Sha looked to his close friends. These two had been pillars of the Chaldian army for years. Never had they looked so lost. Never had Sha felt so adrift. ‘We do all that we can,’ Sha said.

‘Aye,’ Blastares grunted, ‘All that we can. As it has always be-’

His words were cut off by the hissing of an arrow and the
thunk
of splitting flesh. Blastares clutched at his throat, blood leaping from where the shaft had punctured. The big man clasped a hand to Procopius’ shoulder, then slid down, under the hooves of the advancing ghazis.

Procopius gawped, grappling to retrieve his friend’s body. ‘No!’ he cried, seeing his comrade’s corpse churned into the reddening mire. The aged tourmarches set eyes upon the Seljuk who had loosed the arrow, nocking his bow and aiming for his next victim.

‘Forgive me, sir, but I must leave my place in the line,’ Procopius rasped in Sha’s ear.

‘Stand firm, Tourmarches!’ Sha demanded, swiping out to deflect a jabbing Seljuk spear.

‘I am already dead,’ Procopius cried, pulling up the hem of his klibanion to reveal the deep gash in his thigh. Black blood was washing down his leg. ‘One of those bastards got me. I have moments, at most. Let me spend them well. Let me take the cur who killed the big man.’

Sha parried a spear thrust and nodded, cursing the tears that stung behind his eyes. ‘Do what you must, old horse, and do it well,’ he croaked.

With that, the old soldier barged forward, leaping up at the ghazi archer, barging him from the saddle and into the mush of bone and blood. Sha saw old Procopius straddle the ghazi then choke the life from him. Moments later, the mortal struggle was obscured by the advancing Seljuk crush and a flurry of flashing Seljuk blades.

Sha fought to banish the anguish from his chest. He heard his own battle cries as if from another, and felt his every spear thrust numbly. When the spear was torn from his grasp, he fought on with his spathion, barging his shield up and hacking at everything that came his way. Moments later he realised he was one of just a handful of Chaldians remaining. A searing pain raked down his thigh. He swung to see a Seljuk spear lodged there, then cried hoarsely as it was torn out. He fell to one knee, his vision spotting over and his strength leaving him, the battle noises growing distant. In his fading vision, he saw Apion on his Thessalian, coming to save his men, kicking out at the ghazis surrounding him, swiping his old ivory-hilted scimitar at all who tried to cut him down.

‘Fight on,
Haga
. I pray you find your peace,’ Sha mouthed before he toppled into the gory mire.

***

Palladius’ vision jostled as he fled with the many other Byzantine soldiers. He had been swift to run after his false cry.
Get clear of the battle, think of nothing else.
But already his mind was turning to the imperial loot that sat, barely guarded in the camp outside Manzikert. If he ran fast enough, he might be one of the first back there. He could have his pick of the jewels and fine silks there. And that was even before he picked up his purse from Psellos. Elated, he stretched his stride and overtook fleeing comrades, throwing down his quiver and bow. He let loose a whoop of joy as he burst ahead of the foremost runaway. But a dark splodge in the corner of his eye spoiled the moment. Riders were overtaking him.

Bastards!
He thought.
They’ll get the best of the loot before me!
A moment later, he realised they were not Byzantine riders, but a clutch of ghazis who had broken away from the battle in the foothills to pick off the Byzantine deserters. There were thirty or so in this pack. They raced ahead of him, then swung round and charged back, coming head-on at him and the fleeing soldiers. The lead rider leaned to the right of his saddle and held out his scimitar, his feral eyes fixed on Palladius.

‘No,’ Palladius panted, slowing, waving his hands. ‘I’m not your enemy.’

The rider lay flatter in the saddle, rode harder.

Palladius’ eyes widened. ‘No, there is gold,’ he pointed frantically to the north, in the direction of the camp. ‘There is go - ’

It was an odd sensation. A sharp, biting pain where the ghazi blade scythed into his throat, then a dull clunk where it sheared bone and ripped out through the back of his neck. There was no feeling after that, just a whoosh of air as the world seemed to spin violently around him and a thud as he landed on the dust. He blinked, wondering why he was at eye level with the feet of passing men. Then he noticed a headless body standing where he had been just moments ago, blood spouting from the neck.

The body crumpled and the life slipped from Palladius’ head. The din of the battle he had fled raged on.

***

Apion’s face dripped with gore, his sword hand and every inch of his blade glimmered red and his Thessalian’s skin was slick with sweat and blood. Arrows battered from his helm, shield and armour relentlessly and the gale threw up sprays of blood like some gory ocean. He brought his mace up and across the face of one ghazi, smashing the man’s jaw and crushing his face, then brought it round to crumple the chest of another. He slashed out with his scimitar at the next few who came at him, then found himself with a precious instant of respite. He panted, hearing his heartbeat drumming in his ears, seeing the faces of his trusted three. Lost. Cut down before he could reach them. He buried the blade-like sorrow and swung his mount round, parrying frantically as he tried to make sense of the battle.

All he had known, all he had been taught about warfare, strategy and tactics by Cydones and Mansur meant nothing now. There were no formations, no ordered lines, no options. Just a seething tide of ghazis pressing in on the archipelago of Byzantines. Bryennios and his cavalry had fought well, it seemed, clustered by the emperor’s left, but many had fallen. The Varangoi had dismounted and were now standing valiantly around Romanus, Igor swinging his breidox axe tirelessly at all who tried to breach their roughly formed square, his face and white armour spattered red.

A wing of ghazis surged for the varangoi square, forging a path towards the emperor. One chopped his scimitar across Igor’s breastplate, another swept his blade across the Rus’ shoulder, cleaving deep into a gap in his armour and leaving his axe arm hanging uselessly. But the warrior took up his weapon in his other hand and swung it out regardless. Yet the next blow tore out the Rus’ throat. The old, gruff axeman sputtered lifeblood and looked around as his last moments of life ebbed away. A heartbeat later, he was gone, but his staunch resistance had allowed the varangoi either side of him to close up the gap in the square, and the ghazis were rebuffed in their attempts to get to Romanus. Amongst them was Alp Arslan, the great warrior sultan’s sword held aloft and his mouth agape in a battle cry, his white shroud soaked with blood. The next ghazi surge pressed one side of the varangoi square back until it was on the verge of collapse.

‘Ya!’ Apion yelled, guiding his mount through the heaped bodies, the clusters of fighting men and the mire of blood to aid the tenacious Rus in their last stand. He veered away from swiping blades and ducked under jabbing spears. Then, suddenly, his world was thrown into chaos. He heard the agonised whinnying of his Thessalian and felt the gelding fall away under him. Earth and sky changed places as he tumbled through the slick of blood and bone. Dazed, he staggered as he tried to stand, clutching his head, realising his helm had been lost in the fall. His scimitar had fallen too. Worst of all, he saw his Thessalian breathe its last, crippled by the spear that had been hurled into its chest, piercing its heart. He looked on numbly, seeing the light in the beast’s eyes dim.

All around him, men fought with their blades and with their bare hands. The hundreds fighting for their lives around him seemed oblivious to his presence. They barged around and past him, splashing a filthy mix of blood and earth up at his face. He gazed through the forest of horse legs and saw his scimitar, a few paces away, in the mire. When he reached out to lift it, an arrow sliced through the air before him, punching into the mire and quivering.

He swung round to meet Taylan’s glower. His son was mounted, only paces away.

When another ghazi rider raced for Apion, sword hefted, Taylan swept up a hand and the rider pulled out of the strike then raced on into the fray.

Taylan slid from his saddle, thumping down into the blood-wet earth as the struggle raged on around them. He dropped his bow then prised Nasir’s helm from his head and threw it to the mire, letting his dark locks billow in the whipping wind. His brow was dipped like an angry bull’s, his eyes glimmering like jewels in the dusk.

‘You saved me?’ Apion said, flashing a glance to the ghazi who could have slain him. Likewise, many more skirted past, eyeing Apion as if to strike then thinking better of it upon seeing that Taylan was already facing him.

‘Perhaps only so that I could slay you myself,’ Taylan replied, one corner of his top lip flickering. He drew his scimitar.