Strategos: Island in the Storm

by Gordon Doherty

  Tarchianotes allowed himself a hint of a smile, then waved the vast column of men with him, back to the west, leaving Lake Van behind.

  ***

  ‘Something’s not right,’ Stypiotes growled over the rush of air as they galloped along the valley floor.

  ‘I had that one worked out some time ago,’ Peleus yelled in reply.

  ‘We should have tried to rouse the men in the column, urged them to stay.’

  ‘No, Tarchianotes’ men would have stamped out any undermining of his authority. We must forget the man and think only of getting word back to the emperor.’ He jabbed a finger ahead at the end of the valley, the flatland and the distant speck that was Manzikert. ‘Half of his army has just deserted him!’

  Big Stypiotes did not reply. Peleus looked up to see the big komes was gawping up at the valley side on their left. Now Peleus saw it too. A pair of kataphractoi. Tarchianotes’ men. They trotted down the hillside, hailing Peleus and Stypiotes. Each bore a gruff, haggard grin. ‘Riders, you set off too soon. Doux Tarchianotes had more yet to brief you on.’

  Peleus frowned, then saw that one’s gaze was darting between himself and Stypiotes, and his sword hand was falling away from his reins. At the same time, he heard a thundering of hooves behind him. He and Stypiotes twisted to look up the other valley side to see another pair of kataphractoi racing down this slope, spears levelled.

  ‘God be with us!’ Peleus gasped.

  ‘Draw your blade!’ Stypiotes cried, pulling his mount round to face these two.

  Peleus swung to face the first two, now rushing for him, spears level. He managed to swipe the spearhead from one, then the second lance punched through the iron plates of his klibanion vest and tore his heart in two. He toppled to the ground, where his big friend, Stypiotes, already lay. The pair shared a wordless, dying gaze.

  As life slipped from Peleus, he heard one of the four grunt. ‘Hide their bodies, just in case.’

  All his thoughts turned to God. He prayed with his last moments of life that he had not let the emperor, the Haga and the rest of the army down.

  Part 4: Manzikert

  16. The Taking of Manzikert

  The morning after surveying the plain of Manzikert from the faraway hill, Romanus Diogenes, Emperor of Byzantium, led his twenty two thousand men south. They poured down from the hills and onto the plain, just a few hundred feet from Manzikert’s gates, then spilled around the citadel’s base. At once, the sturdy black-walled fortress seemed dwarfed. The Seljuk garrison squabbled and rushed to and fro around the battlements as a massive, noose-like Byzantine siege line was set up in the blistering morning heat. A line of palisade stakes faced the fortress like fangs, and a sea of tents and banners sat behind this. When Romanus offered the Seljuk garrison terms, they rejected them outright. And so the tap-tap of the siege engineers’ hammers rang out along with the singing of iron weapons being honed, the jabbering of eager men and the whinnying of horses.

  Apion, shorn of his armour, chewed on a desert-dry chunk of hard tack biscuit as he strode behind the palisade, squinting and shading his eyes from the sun as he eyed Manzikert’s high battlements on each of its four walls. The biscuit was foul and he only had two more of these meagre rations and a half ball of dried yoghurt and almonds remaining before he would be bereft of food. The rest of the army were on the same precipice of starvation. But with such a prize in their grasp, the men’s hearts had soared, sure that victory and the spoils of Manzikert’s stores lay only the breadth of a swift and effective siege away. Indeed, he heard Blastares rousing the Chaldian infantry ranks into a hearty – and so far clean – chorus as they worked away on honing their spathions.

  Apion returned to counting the Seljuk helmets and speartips up on Manzikert’s walls.

  ‘Two hundred,’ a voice concluded for him somewhat breathlessly. It was Procopius – the old Tourmarches having already circled the walls to take a rough count.

  ‘So there are probably less than five hundred akhi within those walls,’ Apion surmised.

  ‘There could be ten thousand in there, it doesn’t matter. Just wait until the trebuchets start swinging.’ The old tourmarches winked, once again judging the distance to the walls.

  Blastares roared with laughter at this, striding over, cutting off his song midway through a line that was due to rhyme with ‘rock’. ‘You deaf old bastard – didn’t you hear the emperor say the fortress is to be taken intact? We came here to seize the strongholds, not reduce them to dust.’

  Procopius swiped a dismissive hand through the air. ‘We don’t have to hit the walls with rocks. A few deliberate near-misses and that lot inside will be joining the brown tunic club. And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll send men to the walls.’

  ‘Siege towers?’ Sha asked, joining the conversation.

  Procopius shook his head, nodding to the rubble and shrub strewn hillock the citadel sat upon. ‘The slope is too uneven. Towers would topple over. It’ll have to be ladders. Get a few men up to the walls to engage those on the battlements. When they’re fighting, they’re not raining arrows down on us, so we can quickly get a good few hundred more up there. Ha!’ He dusted his hands together and grinned. ‘When do we begin?’

  ‘As soon as the emperor gives the word,’ Apion nodded past the shoulders of his trusted three.

  They turned to follow his gaze; the emperor and a trio of varangoi trotted towards them, having completed a circuit of the palisade on horseback. Romanus’ locks were swept back, his eyes sparkling and his jaw set in determination. He carried a purple shield with a single arrow jutting from it. ‘Seems we underestimated their archers’ range,’ he shrugged, snapping the shaft off and throwing it to the dust.

  ‘There is nothing else of note?’ Apion asked.

  ‘Nothing, Strategos. Archers abound but there are no ballistae up on those walls to trouble us,’ Romanus smiled. ‘We are on the cusp of all that we have worked towards. Now, as we discussed earlier, a small, direct infantry assault will be the best approach. Your men are ready?’

  Apion looked to Blastares, who had already darted off to ready the Chaldian skutatoi and the Armenian spearmen. ‘Their blades are sharp and they are waiting on your word, Basileus.’

  ‘Then mount your horse, Strategos. You can watch from the saddle with Alyates, Philaretos, Bryennios and I.’

  Apion shook his head. ‘With your permission, Basileus, I will march with my men today.’ The Chaldian ranks heard this and broke out in a confused murmur that quickly developed into an excited chatter. Many were new recruits and had never fought alongside their legendary leader. ‘Ha-ga!’ some of the older veterans cried.

  ‘You wish to walk into the Seljuk arrow hail and meet your fate?’ Romanus cocked an eyebrow, seeing Apion take up his klibanion from one soldier and buckle it on over his torso.

  Apion squinted up at the sun, seeing the swallows swooping high above the fortress. ‘I have heard many stories of Fate in my years – how man dances to his whims like leaves in a gale. Today, I’m of a mood to seize Fate by the balls.’

  Romanus gawped, then roared with laughter.

  ‘Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha!’ the men of Chaldia chanted as they shuffled forward in foulkon formations, protected under a shell of shields. They moved like three great tortoises across the few hundred feet of desiccated no-man’s land between the Byzantine palisade siege line and the hillock upon which Manzikert sat, converging on the black-walled fortress. Apion moved at the head of the central foulkon, his shield interlocked with Sha’s and those of the fourteen other men on the front line. The men behind held their crimson shields overhead, the Seljuk arrows rattling off this protective roof. A gurgling cry rang out just behind him as a man fell. ‘Slow and steady!’ he bawled. ‘Their arrows cannot penetrate the foulkon unless we present them with gaps.’ He glanced to the interlocked shields on the left of his foulkon: a sliver of daylight between two shields there revealed Blastares’ foulkon a hundred feet or so away, moving at a good, steady p
ace. To his right he saw Procopius’ lot moving forward likewise. Immediately behind these three giant tortoise shells, packs of Armenian spearmen ran, crouched, carrying with them two tall ladders per pack.

  ‘Ready for the hill!’ Sha bellowed.

  At once, the grass and dust of the plain underfoot changed as they moved onto the slope of the fortress mount. Scree and shale slid under each footstep, causing more than a few to slip or stumble, prizing the tight tortoise shell open in places and leading to more wet punches of arrows plunging into flesh. Gorse bushes scraped past legs and the men’s breathing grew heavier as they climbed. Apion glanced up to see that the wall was but feet away. ‘Fill your lungs, we are almost there!’ Then he barked back over his shoulder in the direction of the Armenians. ‘Ready to bring the ladders forward!’

  But as soon as the words had left his lips, a grinding of rock on rock sounded from high above. A heartbeat later, the tortoise was smashed apart by his side as a hulking rock crashed down through the front line of shields. The man by his right shoulder and two more beside him disappeared under the rock with abruptly strangled cries. Blood spurted up over him and Sha as the rock rolled on down the slope, pulverising the ranks behind, leaving a crimson trail of crushed men, pulped like ants under the heel of a boot. Another crash. The men wailed in terror and instants later the left side of the foulkon was ripped away as another great boulder rolled past them, crushing the shields, feet and legs of those unfortunate enough to be on that side. Another crash. Then another and another.

  ‘Back, back!’ he cried. ‘Dissolve the foulkon, but keep your shields up!’

  The tortoise disintegrated as the men fell back from the bombardment. Apion saw the Seljuk akhi atop the walls heaving the great, rounded boulders over the battlements and onto the fleeing Byzantines. Pockets of men lay dashed along the crimson smear of each boulder’s path. As the Byzantine soldiers fled, the Seljuks took to throwing tightly bound balls of hay, ablaze, down from that great height. Unlike the lumbering rocks, these flaming bales bounced and raced after the fleeing Byzantines, flattening some, setting others ablaze. Their screaming lasted all too long and soon the dry, hot air was spiced with the foul stench of burning hair and flesh.

  They retreated to the palisade line and fell in behind it, panting, shaking. Apion turned to see that more than ninety of his men had perished in the failed assault, and their ladders lay abandoned at the foot of the walls.

  ‘We need protection, Strategos,’ Prince Vardan insisted, tearing off the bright green and now somewhat charred silk scarf he wore round his head, nodding to his slain Armenians on the ground between the siege line and the walls of Manzikert.

  Apion nodded, tugging at his beard as he raked over the possibilities. He turned to Procopius. The tourmarches winced, clutching his shoulder. It was badly bloodied where one of the boulders had scraped past him, and his sword hand trembled, unable to clasp his blade firmly.

  Procopius offered a half-grin. ‘It’s not that bad. Another few inches and it would have been different.’

  ‘That’s what Tetradia’s sister said about you,’ Blastares chuckled, poorly masking his concern for his old friend.

  ‘Your fight is over for today, old horse,’ Apion insisted.

  ‘Never,’ Procopius hissed.

  ‘You’ll still play your part in the battle. We need you to direct the artillery crews,’ he nodded to the workmen standing nearby, tools lying around their feet. ‘We need some form of protection against the rocks and flaming bales.’

  Procopius’ defiance faded a fraction at this, his interest piqued. ‘Aye, well . . . perhaps.’

  It was late-afternoon when the foulkon formations marched forward again, crossing the ground between the Byzantine siege line and the fortress mount. ‘Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha! Hoo-ha!’ From the front line of the central foulkon, Apion again watched through a sliver-gap between the shields, seeing the Seljuk garrison readying great boulders and hay bales once more.

  But this time, several smaller clutches of Armenians ran out ahead, carrying giant four-pronged caltrops and mantlets – strapped, portable palisade barriers.

  ‘Get ‘em up onto those slopes!’ Procopius’ hoarse cries rang across from the siege line.

  Apion watched as the small packs of Armenians fleet-footedly stole up onto the fortress mount’s slope, arrows hissing down around them. There, the first of them threw down a giant caltrop – three of its four lance-like spikes digging deep into the ground and the fourth jutting skywards. They crouched to hammer the three grounded spikes a little deeper into the dust. Job done, their leader stood tall to wave them back to the siege line, when a Seljuk arrow punched him to the ground. He shuddered where he lay, his neck craning up, head trembling as he clasped at the arrow shaft embedded in his chest. With his other hand he made a feeble attempt to stand until another arrow took him in the eye and his head dropped back like a stone. Then another of the boulders came crashing over the battlements, thundering down the slopes at great pace towards the rest of the small party. They wailed in terror, falling to the ground and throwing up their hands as if to shield themselves. When the boulder was but paces away from crushing these few, it thwacked into the upright caltrop prong with a dull thud of rock on iron, and was still. A sharp cracking noise followed, then the boulder split in two halves. The Armenians cried out in glee, then hurried to retreat back to the siege line, breaking past the central of the three advancing foulkons.

  ‘It’s working!’ Apion hissed, shaking a clenched fist as the Armenians flooded past his tortoise-shell. Each of the other small packs of artillerymen took to dropping and bashing their mantlets or caltrops into the earth, progressively higher up the slope, gradually fashioning a rudimentary, diagonal barrier running from one end of the fortress’ south-westerly corner to the south-easterly base of the fortress mount. Some fell, shot down by Seljuk arrows before they reached the slope, but many made it. Soon, they were done. The boulders and flaming bales tossed down from the southerly battlements crashed to the ground and rumbled downhill, only to be snared on the crude barrier or channelled downhill to the south-easterly base of the slope.

  ‘Give the order,’ Apion said to Sha, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘Pick up the pace!’ Sha cried. The central foulkon crunched onto the slope and up to the discarded ladders at the south-west corner. Boulders and flaming bales were thrown hurriedly, only to be innocuously corralled down the crude barrier and away from the giant tortoise of men. The Seljuks’ cries of alarm multiplied as more Armenians, crouching behind the foulkon, rushed to take up the abandoned ladders and swing them up to the wall tops. In moments, the men of the Chaldian Thema were streaming up these two ladders, crimson shields strapped to their backs as they climbed, spathions clenched in one hand, ready for battle.

  Sixty or more Chaldians had spilled onto the wall tops when Apion and Sha climbed and leapt over onto the battlements in unison. They pressed together, back to back, as the skirmish up there raged around them. The stone walkway was wet with blood already, and part-carpeted in twitching, thrashing men clutching opened throats or torn-open bellies. The cacophonous song of iron upon iron was incessant. Apion saw the pulsating image of the dark door, heard the thunder of an angry fire blazing beyond it, heard it creaking open, sensed it drawing him in, felt the flames lick at his skin. He heard his own nightmarish growl like that of a crazed hound.

  A dark-skinned, moustachioed akhi spearman wearing a gold cape came at Apion with a howl, lancing forward with his spear. Apion jinked to one side and the spear tip ripped across the breast of his klibanion, dislodging one of the square iron plates. He grappled the spear shaft and used it to pivot his foe round on his own weapon, tossing the man like a child’s toy from the wall, down into the cramped interior of the fortress town. His shrill cry was cut short by the dull crunch of bones where he landed.

  ‘Haga!’ a familiar voice roared over the din.

  He swung to see Blastares hurling a spear right at him. Reading the big ma
n’s eyes, he ducked, then twisted round to see the akhi who had been rushing for his back, scimitar raised, now halted with Blastares’ spear lodged in his breast. A heartbeat later, the butt of another Seljuk spear shaft bashed Blastares’ head, dazing him momentarily, the towering, dark-bearded attacker swirling his spear overhead to bring the tip down for the big man’s neck. Apion lunged forward, striking down with his scimitar to deflect the blow, then hacking forward, driving the akhi back. The man ducked under Apion’s next swipe, then threw down his spear and tore out his own scimitar. Sparks flew as they clashed blades again and again. Then, with one swift and clean swipe, he cut through the wrist of his opponent. The man’s sword hand and blade spun through the air with a spurt of blood. The dark-bearded Seljuk crumpled to his knees, wailing, clutching the stump of his arm. Apion snarled again and hefted his blade overhead ready to swipe the cur’s head away, feeling the fire of battle sear his skin. A moment later he was unseeing of his foe. In his mind’s eye he saw a face in the blackness beyond the dark door. Taylan.

  What would you do to find out the truth, Father? the lad mouthed.

  A hand clamped onto his shoulder, wrenching him from his dark reverie. ‘We have the walls, sir!’ Sha cried.

  The blaze of battle dulled and then hissed in his mind, extinguished as swiftly as it had come on. His heartbeat slowed and reality trickled in once more. The dark door faded. He blinked, seeing the black-bearded akhi still crouching before him, cradling the spurting stump of his sword arm, roaring in agony. He lowered the blade, catching the beaten akhi’s eye furtively, fighting off the familiar sense of shame as he heard the warrior hurriedly offer prayer before he was slain. Apion tore off a strip of his tunic, tossed it to another beaten Seljuk nearby, then nodded to the humbled, bleeding akhi. ‘Tie this tightly around his arm or he will be dead in moments.’