Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us, Petzeas?’ Mansur panted. ‘We would have helped you!’

  ‘I am so sorry, Mansur. I was blinded by fear for Isaac.’

  ‘Your boy is safe,’ Tarsites said, riding up to the group as the toxotai bound the surviving brigand. ‘We found him gagged and bound in the brigand camp about two hundred feet into the trees. Though I’ve got a terrible feeling they were not brigands . . . ’

  Petzeas looked at Tarsites, open-mouthed for a moment and then took the skutatos’ hand and began to weep. ‘You saved my son. God bless you, soldier. God bless you!’

  Apion looked up to the horseman. ‘Tarsites, you did what Mansur asked, didn’t you? You asked for these roads to be policed?’

  Tarsites grinned. ‘You showed me kindness, and I don’t forget things like that easily. I’ve been assigned to a new bandon and when I raised the suggestion to my new komes, he was all for it, especially as I was volunteering to scout these roads personally. I don’t think I ingratiated myself with the rest of the lads,’ he shrugged, ‘then again, I didn’t bargain on getting a scout horse out of it, but there you go.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Tarsites,’ Mansur spoke, his breath returning.

  ‘As are you, farmer,’ Tarsites replied, clasping his leather-gloved hand to Mansur’s outstretched palm. ‘Again I can only apologise for my drunken behaviour the day before last.’

  Mansur nodded, then looked around to each of them; battered, shaken but alive.

  Then a rasping voice startled them all.

  ‘Do you realise what a black mistake you have made?’

  Their eyes fell to the felled rider, still veiled, only his bloodshot eyes visible. He hissed as his lungs filled with blood. They moved to stand around him.

  ‘Cleared the roads of your likes,’ one of the toxotai spat, but Tarsites raised a hand to hush the bowman.

  ‘You’re as good as dead, rider,’ the man gurgled, ‘when they find out what you’ve done. I’m untouchable.’ With that the rider convulsed and was still at last, eyes staring.

  ‘Is he delirious?’ Apion asked, flicking glances to Mansur and Tarsites; both men looked troubled.

  ‘If only that were so. No, he makes a very real threat.’ Tarsites spoke through narrowed lips, eyes falling on the rider’s severed arm, and then he pointed at the hand. ‘He is no brigand. The emperor is his only master. Look, he is an Agente; a dark soul indeed, given licence to disrupt to his liking and exact whatever pain he so chooses.’

  Apion looked to the index finger of the hand on the severed limb. Something inside him refused to accept what he saw: a tarnished ring, a snake winding around the band, just like the lead raider on that awful night. ‘No, it can’t be . . . ’ Apion rocked where he stood.

  How could the ring be the symbol of some shadowy group of imperial agents? The men from that night were Seljuk, he was sure. The one he had struck down certainly was, so surely the rest were too? They were dressed as Seljuks, a dark voice rasped in his mind, but they were masked. He shook where he stood. Did the man who had slaughtered his parents, shattered his life, lie before him? Had justice been served?

  His heart slowed and dizziness washed through his mind. Then he found the answer. There was no missing finger. This could not be the man.

  Yet the ring held the truth. One of these agentes led the raiders on that night and ordered the death of his parents. A Byzantine. To find the man with the ring and the missing finger meant justice, no, revenge, would be his to take.

  His heart beat faster and faster as the rage welled up inside him. At this something sparked in his soul. That murky image of the dark door floated into his thoughts. The arm outstretched for the door was less blurred now; it was knotted, scarred and sun-darkened, with a band of whiter skin around the wrist, and some dark-red emblem on the forearm. Then something behind the door ignited, the crackling of fire sounded from behind its timbers, orange light flitting around the edges.

  ***

  Tarsites and the two toxotai had helped mend the wagon, and then they had readied the ferry to cross the river with Petzeas and his sons. At that point Mansur and Apion had said their farewells and set off for home. As they rode Apion noticed Mansur yawning more frequently, his eyes red and weary, so he offered to take the reins and the old man was only too happy to accept. As Mansur slept, snoring violently, Apion tried to empty his mind by focusing on the road, but his eyes were drawn to the scimitar, now wrapped in the cloth again, but a sliver of the blade poked from the end. It sent shivers of awe and disgust through him at once. It was a scimitar that had been used by raiders on the awful night to strike down his parents and to score his body indelibly. Yet those raiders were seemingly led by a Byzantine. An agente. Added to this, it was a scimitar that had been borne by a Seljuk today to save him. To save him from the dark rider, another agente. His mind continued to chatter in turmoil at this cruel riddle.

  The shadowy image of the dark door continued to surface and he wanted to stop the wagon, to take the scimitar and to hack and hack at the bark of a tree until he could feel anger no longer. He thumbed the knots on his prayer rope and then looked back at the blade. God would not be pleased with his thoughts, but his soul was restless. He gritted his teeth and focused on the road ahead.

  ***

  The following day, as they were nearing the valley, Mansur awoke in the late afternoon. ‘I feel as if I’ve slept for a thousand years,’ he groaned, and then winced, rubbing his shoulder, ‘and I feel as if I’ve lived for a thousand more.’

  ‘I could have helped you, you know,’ Apion offered, keeping his eyes on the road ahead, ‘when you told me to hide in the back of the wagon. I might be lame but I could have helped.’

  ‘You did,’ Mansur replied in an even tone.

  ‘But I could have fought alongside you from the start. Just because I am not mobile doesn’t mean I can’t lift a sword. I have lifted a sword before and used it, just as I told you, remember?’ The memory of the dead Seljuk raider, face melting in the fire, on the floor of his parents’ farmhouse came flooding back and he shivered.

  ‘I have not forgotten,’ Mansur replied, stonily.

  ‘You were like a master with the sword yesterday, and you are a fine teacher of many things. So will you teach me to use the sword?’

  Mansur sighed. ‘For what reason? This thing, the Agentes. I trust you will not dwell on it? That is a dark road to go down, lad.’

  ‘Fine, then teach me so I can defend myself at least. We’ve been play-fighting with wooden poles for long enough now. Look what happened today – I could have been far more useful if I had a sword in my hand. Surely you can’t deny that?’ Apion insisted.

  Mansur sighed wearily. ‘So be it. Next time we fight, we fight with the scimitar. Though I pray that you never have call to use it.’

  Apion waved a hand over his scarred leg. ‘It is for the best. Am I not at disadvantage enough?’

  Mansur sighed and shook his head. ‘Your leg, the scar, it is a serious wound. Although it hurts badly, the skin is pink now. Remember how it was raw and bloody when you first came home with me?’

  Apion was chastised by Mansur’s even tone. The scar had indeed sealed somewhat. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Something of unspeakable agony, something seemingly lost has become . . . better, it has grown stronger.’

  ‘Marginally. I am still weaker than a lamb, Mansur. I’ll never be strong, never.’

  ‘That’s all up here lad,’ he tapped a finger to his temple. ‘With your mind focused, you could overcome your ailment.’

  Apion chuckled dryly. ‘I wish that were true, Mansur. However, if you were in this body you would understand the frailty I feel. You said you felt two thousand years old? Well I feel ten thousand years old when I try to walk on this thing!’

  Mansur laughed. ‘Perhaps in the years to come you may see things differently, lad. I truly hope you do.’

  Apion looked to the old man. ‘I would welcome it, Mansur.’


  ‘Then that is the first step,’ Mansur grinned. ‘Now, let’s try speaking the Seljuk tongue, you can surprise Maria when we get in!’

  Apion nodded. The thought of seeing her made him feel warm inside, momentarily silencing the dark chatter in his mind. Then the light caught the scimitar blade again and he remembered the agente ring. The need for vengeance.

  His future was simple: with Mansur’s help, he would learn the basics of the sword, and then he would seek out the ring-bearer with the missing finger.

  The truth would out, he vowed to himself.

  8. Glory

  War horns keened across the Seljuk horde. The Daylamid city of Isfahan was to be theirs today, bringing to an end the year-long siege. The ranks roared their holy battle cry as the elite, iron-clad ghulam cavalry rumbled into place on the flanks, making the ground quiver. In the sweltering heat haze, the bowmen lining the baked city walls appeared to shrink at the noise and at the thousands of Seljuk banners that hovered outside the city, the horizontal bow emblem still and stern in the dead air.

  At the centre of the Seljuk horde, Sultan Tugrul was saddled on a white stallion. He sat poised with rigid majesty, grey-flecked hair curling from under his ornate helmet, the crafted nose guard adding to his austerity. Now in his fifty seventh year, he had united the tribes and led the Seljuk people from the steppe and on to glory, toppling the Ghaznavid Empire. Now he was in the cusp of controlling all Persia. Beside him, saddled on a fawn-dappled gelding was his young nephew, Muhammud.

  ‘They fight for you, Falcon!’ Muhammud enthused.

  Tugrul looked round, letting a wistful smile touch his stern expression for just a moment. ‘I command them, but they fight for Allah!’ He noticed his nephew’s gaze was fixed on one point on the city walls and followed it; a Daylamid bowman waited there in silence, impotent to change the storm that was coming for him. Beneath the iron helmet of the bowman, he could see only the glimmer of a nose-guard and shadow for his face, a bronze tipped crossbow resting on the wall. He sensed the question forming on Muhammud’s lips.

  ‘If you take the city, Uncle, what will you do with the people?’

  Tugrul laughed at this and his officers around him joined in. ‘When we take the city, Muhammud, when,’ Tugrul replied. At that moment the ground began to shake and the groaning and snapping of breaking rocks filled the air behind them.

  Muhammud twisted in his saddle: the trebuchets at the back of the ranks were dwarfed as twelve war towers on gargantuan wheels rumbled towards them, swaying, the ranks parting to let them through. The timber walls were featureless but at the top, a squat enclosure was perched, covered to the front and sides. Hundreds of heavily armoured akhi spearmen would be packed in there, waiting to burst onto the battlements when the towers reached the walls. Armoured engineers hung from the back, toppling buckets of water down the sides of the towers, soaking the wood to protect it from fire arrows.

  Tugrul smiled at the eagerness of his protégé. ‘The city takers will give us the walls, after the trebuchets have cleared the battlements.’ He looked back to the bowman atop the wall, just as the first trebuchet bucked and loosed a mass of rock, which flew over the heads of the Seljuk army. The rock exploded through the battlements. The army roared at this as the dust cleared and the gouged battlement was revealed, spattered with red stains where the defenders had stood. He saw his nephew shudder.

  ‘If there had been a field battle, Muhammud,’ Tugrul leant forward to speak in his nephew’s ear, ‘many men would have died, probably in a single day. They would have earned glory and the death would have ceased after that, but these people choose to shun the glory of meeting my army in the field and instead hide behind their walls. A year of famine and pestilence and then inglorious defeat is their reward. Every man inside those walls will die today. It has to be that way; otherwise all our enemies will barricade themselves away like this. A field battle is glorious and swift. Remember this.’

  ‘Then why do you choose to end this with a siege on this day?’

  ‘Because, Muhammud, victory today will end the Daylamid threat. What is left of their armies will march under our banner. Then we march against our next foe and our next again . . . until the Seljuk people and her lands form an empire that none can threaten, dominating this ancient land.’

  ‘What happens when we achieve this, Uncle?’

  Tugrul grew a sly grin at this. His nephew was thinking ahead already. ‘Then we cast our net ever wider; there are two fruits ripe for the picking. The Fatimids to the south and ancient Byzantium to the west. They are still strong right now, but one of these proud civilisations will flinch at our presence. Flinch, and then fall.’

  Another volley of trebuchet fire exploded against the walls, huge sections crumbling to dust leaving yawning chasms in the bulwark. The defenders were impotent to retaliate with only short-range bows and bolt throwers that barely reached the Seljuk front ranks, instead concentrating their fire on the city-takers that now rumbled close to the walls. One of the towers stumbled into a spike pit that had been dug to trap infantry, its structure shattering and scattering hundreds of men from the ladders and enclosure on the top, dashing them on the ground, cutting their screams short. Another tower was riven by a bolt that caught the structure in the corner, splitting the timber walls, which fell away to reveal the akhi packed inside – easy prey for the Daylamid bowmen who fired volley after volley into their mass. With a chorus of screaming, the tower slowed to a halt and then toppled forward with the weight of the dead inside. The remaining ten towers carried on relentlessly until a great wail rose up from inside the city as they clunked into place by the battlements, peppered with arrow shafts but undamaged.

  Muhammud watched the carnage with a puzzled look. ‘Byzantium; that is the empire of the western god?’

  Tugrul shook his head. ‘Of the one and only God. Byzantium holds on to a tradition of invincibility and I would relish the chance to teach them of their own mortality. But it will be a long journey, one of many years, like our longest shatranj duel . . . we are positioning our pieces now to fortify our homeland before we can strike out at these distant empires. By that time you will be a grown man, Muhammud, and you will not shudder at scenes like those you will see today before you today. Men will revere you and you will bring glory to Allah. Our destiny is foretold: glory waits on us!’

  With that Tugrul raised his banner and bellowed, spotting the Seljuk banners flooding the city battlements. ‘The walls are ours. Forward!’

  The war horns sounded and as one, the Seljuk army surged forward like a tide.

  ***

  ‘Watch, Muhammud.’ Tugrul twisted his nephew’s head to face the execution.

  Muhammud shivered at the screams of the Daylamid prince, whose face had turned pale at the sight of the wide, squat and roughly hewn stake set up in the square at the centre of Isfahan. The dipping sun cast a long shadow from the execution device as two akhi spearmen grappled the prince’s shoulders and marched him forward. The crowd of Daylamid citizens – the women and children who had survived three days of butchery since the city had fallen – and Seljuk conquerors watched in a near silence.

  ‘He has to die. If he lives, he presents a threat of rebellion. Thus he must die, and in a public forum so that his people will know what awaits them should they take up his mantle.’

  Muhammud kept his expression stern. He knew his uncle was right, despite the horror of the spectacle. He shook free of Tugrul’s grip. ‘I understand. Do not treat me like a boy, Uncle.’

  Tugrul nodded with a faint hint of a smile. ‘You are growing into the young man I knew you would. One day they will give you a name to match your greatness. To become what I know you can, you must shun all doubt. Know you are invincible and do not squirm at the brutality of war.’ He looked wistfully towards the west. ‘I once had a protégé who could have been great, yet he let feebleness guide him, preferring to shun the reality of war.’

  ‘What happened to him, Uncle?’

&n
bsp; ‘He went west, to settle in Byzantine lands,’ Tugrul snorted, ‘as some kind of statement of his pacifism. He could have been great, but he was meek, Muhammud, meek like your father.’

  Muhammud’s skin crawled in shame. His father, Chagri, was content to rule as a weak sibling, defending and consolidating in the wake of Tugrul’s conquests. He loved his father but felt shame at the contrast between him and Tugrul. He knew from the first time he rode with the armies that it was his uncle’s path in life he wanted to follow.

  Yet his own actions in proving himself to Tugrul caused him far more shame. He remembered the old slave, a quiet and unassuming man, happy to receive reward from Muhammud and repentant after punishment. One day, Tugrul had called Muhammud to the palace rooftop, and there he found the slave kneeling, weeping in the centre of a circle of his uncle’s trusted men. Tugrul had announced to his men that Muhammud would one day lead them to ultimate glory, then he had handed his nephew a knife. Tugrul had roared that Muhammud would now show his ruthlessness by executing the slave. A year had passed since that day and he could still feel the warmth of the blood spilling over his hands, the confusion in the slave’s eyes, staring up at his young master.