At that moment, Nasir noticed something from the corner of his eye. He twisted in his saddle to look back over his left shoulder; behind and to the left of his advancing ranks, the red dust of the ground itself puckered. A circle as large as a grand yurt crumbled away. His eyes locked on this unearthly sight. The Seljuk advance slowed, men looking over their shoulders likewise. Then he heard the men on his right flank burst into a babble of confusion. His head snapped round; the same spectacle lay behind that flank too. The men looked to the two gaping holes in the ground behind them and then to their leader. Nasir realised what was to rise from those pits, but a heartbeat too late.
Like dead warriors rising, a clutch of Byzantine kataphractoi riders poured from each of these tunnels that had been dug from inside the town. There were barely twenty in each party, but every one of them, horse and rider, was clad in iron. The riders were crowned by gleaming conical helmets, plumed with coloured feathers. Their faces were hidden behind triple-layered mail veils, their bodies were wrapped in iron lamellar with vivid cloaks draped on their backs and their arms were encased in splinted greaves and plated gloves. Composite bows and spathion blades were strapped to their backs while curved paramerion blades and viciously flanged maces and war hammers hung from their belts. Even the mounts looked demonic, wearing iron scale coats and plate facemasks, breath clouding before them in the last of the dawn freshness. These two wings of kataphractoi lowered in their saddles and levelled their lengthy kontarion spears, decorated with a knotted triangle of crimson cloth near the tip, held on one arm that was protected by a small round shield strapped to the bicep. Then they charged for the ghazi rear like two sharpened talons.
‘Nobiscum Deus!’
Nasir stood on his stirrups and twisted to bellow at the ghazis. ‘Turn!’ he cried. Then he realised that this group of riders had never been this far west before, and had never faced kataphractoi.
The ghazis to the rear at first seemed bemused by the hubris of this handful of charging Byzantine riders, whom they outnumbered hugely. They simply raised their shields, expecting the riders to hurl missiles and then peel away at the last moment. But as the kataphractoi thundered to within fifty paces, the ghazis realised the charge was no feint and they jolted into action, some turning nocked bows upon the Byzantine riders. With a chorus of twanging bowstrings, a cloud of arrows hissed through the short distance between the Seljuk rear and the kataphractoi. Cries rang out, shoulders were thrown back where arms were pierced, and a cloud of crimson puffed into the air where one rider was felled – an arrow through the eye. That apart, the kataphractoi had weathered the storm and were now only paces away.
At this, the Seljuk riders fumbled, throwing down their bows, struggling to pull their scimitars from their sheaths and heel their mounts round to face their foe. But they were too slow.
The two kataphractoi wedges plunged into the Seljuk rear, the momentum carving the ghazi riders open like fangs tearing through tender meat. The ghazis were armoured only in quilt vests – no match for the tip of a Byzantine kontarion – and they were felled in swathes. Blood spray filled the air as spears gutted and impaled the ghazi riders, whose panicked sword swipes did little to trouble their ironclad Byzantine attackers. In moments, the Seljuk rear was in turmoil.
Nasir could only watch. His riders were being cut to pieces. He clenched a fist. Do not let them break and charge again! As if his thoughts had been heard, the ghazi did not scatter before this onslaught. In moments, they had absorbed the shock of the kataphractoi charge. Now they were clustering around the Byzantine riders and retaliating with venom, hacking speartips off, then driving their scimitars up and under the iron plates of kataphractoi body armour, bringing forth torrents of blood. Now the seemingly invincible Byzantine riders were locked in a mortal struggle, discarding their spears and ripping their spathions and maces from their baldrics to fight for their lives. Many of Nasir’s ghazi would die in tempering their might. So be it, he thought.
He turned back to his spear line. They had slowed, casting glances over their shoulders at the cavalry melee. ‘To the walls!’ He rode round behind them and whacked the flat of his scimitar down on their backs. But still they were hesitant. He saw fear on their faces, and followed the gaze of one – fixed on the breach in the town walls.
The breach was filled with a blur of silver. Another cluster of kataphractoi – this time only ten of them – picked over the rubble and then trotted out before the walls. The crimson-cloaked Haga led them forward at a slow trot on a broad and muscular chestnut gelding. His face was now obscured behind a triple-mail veil. Those flanking him were the ones who had been by his side for some years, Nasir thought, seeing the coal-skinned Malian to the Haga’s right and the brutish rider saddled alongside another aged comrade on the left.
Nasir grimaced at his own hesitancy, then he battered his sword hilt against his shield and kicked his mare into a gallop up and down the front of the akhi line. ‘We have nigh on one thousand spears! Do not let his myth blind you,’ he cried, pointing his scimitar tip at the Haga. ‘He is but a man! Like the many of our people that he has slain, he will bleed!’ He drummed his sword hilt on his shield once more, in time with his words. ‘He will bleed! Onwards!’
At this, the Seljuk spearmen seemed roused once more and resumed their advance. Only a hundred paces separated them and the Haga’s meagre contingent of riders. His thousand akhi would envelop this tiny pocket of riders and impale man and beast on their spears. Best to make use of what weapons I possess, he thought, twisting in his saddle to wave his Syrian camel archers forward. ‘Let them feel the wrath of your deadly hail!’ Nasir roared. But then he turned back to see that the Haga had also raised a hand. At this, the ten kataphractoi flanking the Haga had taken up their composite bows, each nocked with flaming arrows – torch wielding skutatoi scurrying away from them and back into the town. Nasir’s eyes locked onto the flaming tips. Then, just as the akhi bounded ever closer to the Byzantine riders, the Haga dropped his hand.
The ten fiery missiles arced up and over the Seljuk spearmen, over Nasir’s head, to hammer down around and into the line of camel archers who were still nocking their own bows. With a chorus of terrified lowing, the camels thrashed and bucked, throwing their riders. Then they scattered, some ablaze, away from the town. The terrified beasts found themselves confronted with the rear of the melee between the ghazi riders and the kataphractoi, and they raced headlong into and around this fray. The horses in that conflict whinnied in terror at the arrival of these blazing creatures. Then they, too, scattered in panic from the scene. Some ghazi riders were thrown to the ground, their skulls dashed against rocks. Others were dragged like wet rags, feet tangled in stirrups, their mounts in blind flight. Even the surviving Byzantine kataphractoi in the centre of the melee broke away, struggling to control their mounts. But the ghazis were scattered, as were the camels.
As the dust of this furious exodus began to settle, Nasir looked all around him. His camel archers were gone, and only a handful of seventy or so ghazi riders had reformed, clustering behind him. Before him, his akhi spearline had halted less than twenty paces from the Haga, paralysed by fear after seeing almost their entire mounted reserve dismissed with one volley of flaming arrows. The Haga and his riders glared back at them.
Then the crunch-crunch of boots on earth rang out as the Byzantine skutatoi marched from the town gates. There were barely two hundred of them, and they carried with them a dust-coated Chi-Rho crimson banner. The Haga raised a hand and they marched out to form a shallow line in front of him. The line was only one man deep, but it matched the width of that formed by the Seljuk akhi. They came to a halt and then they each lifted a rhiptarion overhead, the slender javelins trained on the akhi ranks. Then the surviving kataphractoi who had risen from the tunnels – only twenty two left in total – split into two groups once more before clopping round to form up on the flanks of this line like pincers. Finally, atop the gatehouse, a handful of fifty toxotai archers clustere
d, arrows nocked to bows and trained on the Seljuks stood on this perfect killing ground.
The opposing lines eyed one another.
One of the Seljuk spearmen looked up at the tips of the arrows trained upon him, then at the arc of Byzantines facing him on the ground. Then he looked over his shoulder, to the east. The only direction left open. Then he looked up at Nasir, eyes bulging, before throwing down his spear and turning to run for the rising sun. In one fluid motion, Nasir tore the composite bow from his back, nocked and loosed an arrow that punched into the deserter’s spine. In a spray of blood, the man crumpled. At this, the few others whose gaze had been drawn to the east now fixed their eyes forward.
Silence hung over the standoff momentarily before Nasir roared to his ranks. ‘Do not fear the few who stand before us. Their deception is a measure of their character, and they have run out of guiles!’ he roared. At this, a rumble of defiant jeers rang out from the Seljuk ranks, and they bristled, fixing their eyes on the skutatoi line. ‘But now we come to it – only courage and steel will seize victory!’ He levelled his scimitar at the Haga. ‘Forward, men! Take glory in the name of Allah!’
The akhi ranks exploded in a chorus of roars. ‘Allahu Akbar!’
At the same time the Haga, in the Byzantine centre, lifted his scimitar and roared; ‘Stand your ground! For the empire!’
With a thunder of boots and iron, the Seljuk swarm raced forward.
***
First, the Byzantine rhiptaria hammered down on the akhi front line, the javelins punching through shields and driving through flesh and bone. Ninety or more of the Seljuk spearmen fell under this hail.
Then the akhi charge smashed into the Byzantine line with a clattering of shields and screeching of iron. Blood jetted into the air where spears punched through armour and flesh. Limbs spun from bodies as spathions and scimitars were swept to and fro. Stricken men disappeared underfoot where their corpses were churned into the dust. The few ghazi riders who had regrouped loosed arrow after arrow into the skutatoi ranks, and the toxotai on the walls replied in kind with volley after volley.
But the Seljuk numbers were telling, and they drove the skutatoi line back towards the breached walls. Meanwhile, the kataphractoi held back. Still and silent. Watching.
‘Crush them!’ Nasir cried over the din of battle, firing his steely glare across the fray at Apion and his waiting riders.
‘Steady!’ Apion growled to his clutch of ten as the skutatoi line backed towards them. Then he flicked a glance up to ensure the two groups of riders on the flanks were holding back likewise.
The skutatoi were being overwhelmed by the akhi. The centre was bending inwards like a bow. But, hubris coursing through their veins and in their haste for a decisive victory, the Seljuk spearmen did not notice the orderly manner of this bending.
But Apion saw the moment like a hammer hovering above an anvil. The akhi had lost their flat front. They were hungry for blood.
‘Break!’ he bellowed. The skutatoi line heard his command and broke back at the centre, like a pair of doors swinging open. The two halves rolled up like a coiling rope, forming two small, packed masses of speartips and snarling faces. The Seljuk lines spilled around these two pockets of resistance.
Nasir’s cries to them went unheard as he saw the snare.
‘Forward!’ Apion roared. In harmony, the three pockets of Byzantine kataphractoi charged into the fray. Each of the iron riders lay low in their saddles and extended their spears. Apion raced at the head of the central wedge. The blood thundered in his ears as his body juddered with each stride. Ahead he saw the frenzy of the warring infantry and the mass of disorganised akhi, backs turned.
The nearest akhi spun around. His blood-spattered face flashed with panic for a heartbeat, before he roared to his comrades. A cluster of them turned, instinctively swinging their spears down to meet the oncoming cavalry charge. But they were too late.
Apion’s shoulder shuddered as his spear burst through the neck of the nearest Seljuk spearman, almost tearing the man’s head off. Shaking his lance free of carrion, he carried on, bracing as he then plunged the spear into the chest of the next man. The shaft of the spear splintered as he tried to wrench it free, and he threw down the useless weapon. Another akhi leapt up and swiped a blade against his forearm, shattering the splinted greaves there and cleaving into his flesh. Apion stifled a roar of pain as blood washed from the wound, then kicked out at his attacker, leaving a nearby skutatos to despatch him.
He twisted in his saddle to see another kataphractos hacking through the melee, only for a scimitar blow to scythe through the rider’s already-torn armour, cleaving the man open from shoulder to lung. By his other side, a fellow rider from his ten was barging his way through the fray manfully, only for a Seljuk spear to burst through his chest from behind, sending him toppling from his mount, limbs flailing. His riders were taking heavy losses, but the skutatoi spears were holding good and the akhi were beginning to panic. Many hundreds had fallen and now some were backing away from the fray, their eyes darting to the east once more.
But this glimmer of hope was swept from his thoughts as a clutch of akhi rushed to surround him, swords and spears hefted to lacerate him, and the pocket of remaining ghazi riders had circled around to aid them. In one motion, he reached over his shoulder and lifted his spathion from his baldric, and with the other hand, he pulled the flanged mace from his belt.
The first spearman that leapt for him would have felt nothing. Apion’s blade passed through his neck without resistance, blood showering like rain, and the man was dead before his body hit the ground. The next akhi slid to his knees, aiming his sword-strike at the unarmoured legs of Apion’s mount. Apion saw this, flicked his sword up and caught it overhand, then threw it down like a spear, the blade punching into the man’s gut.
Barely able to snatch a breath, Apion spun just in time to see a ghazi rider swing down at him with a hand axe. He dipped to the left, the axe blow whooshing past his helmet. Then he grappled the rider’s shoulder and took purchase to swing his mace up and round with venom, bringing the blade-sharp flanges of the weighty iron head crashing into the ghazi’s helmet. The mace smashed through the iron helm as if it was made of parchment, and then shattered the rider’s skull like an eggshell. A spray of grey matter and black blood burst from the rider’s right eye socket, coating Apion’s veil and spilling inside the eyeholes. The familiar stench of death permeated his senses once more. He drew his scimitar and sought out his next opponent.
These were the fleeting moments when he did not hear the voices of the past. When he was beyond the dark door, consumed by its fire. When he could see only his next foe and hear only the shrill song of battle.
At last, he found himself surrounded only by comrades. Now the Seljuk infantry were breaking in droves, throwing down their spears and running to the east. His sword arm was numb and trembling. The dark door faded as his heartbeat slowed and he heard the rasping of his own breath.
Only a handful of ghazis remained. Nasir was in their midst, berating the deserters and cutting down those nearby. His face was twisted in fury. But, at last, he relented. ‘Withdraw!’ he cried, waving his riders back. As a group they turned and heeled their mounts into a gallop.
As one, the Byzantine ranks broke into a chorus of cheering; ‘Nobiscum Deus!’ they cried. Then the familiar, rhythmic chant rang out; ‘Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Ha-ga!’
The riders gathered around Apion and looked to him. ‘Sir? Give the order!’ Sha panted. The Malian was coated in gore, readied to kick his mount and give chase.
Apion looked around to see that nearly half his men had fallen and many were injured, yet those still standing seemed eager to give chase too. ‘No, it is over,’ he said as he watched the remnant of the Seljuk force flee towards the now fully risen sun.
Then, silhouetted in the distance, Nasir twisted in the saddle, hurling some defiant cry over his shoulder and lifting something from his back.
Apion only saw
the arrow at the last. He slid to one side in his saddle, but not soon enough. The arrow smacked into the collar of his klibanion, gouging one of the iron plates from the leather binding and tearing the flesh on his shoulder. The blow sent him toppling from his mount and he thudded to the dust.
At this, the chanting fell into a shocked silence. Sha, Blastares and Procopius rushed to surround him, throwing their veiled helms to the ground and leaping from their mounts. Apion waved them away and pushed himself up to stand, grateful that his agony was concealed behind his veil.
‘The siege is over,’ he snarled, snapping the arrow and clutching at the wound, ‘get back inside the town.’
4. An Echo from the Past
Apion sat alone on the crenellations of the east wall, wearing a faded grey tunic, leather riding boots and his crimson cloak. The late afternoon sun behind him was a gentle salve on his battered body, soothing the wounds under the bloodied bandages hugging his shoulder and forearm. He chewed on a chunk of smoked carp skewered on the end of his dagger. The tangy flesh flaked on his tongue and he savoured the momentary sensation of wellbeing. Once they had broken the siege, Sha had led some of the town garrison to a tributary river and they had returned with barrels of fresh water and this bountiful catch. He washed down each mouthful with a swig of well-watered soured wine – the tart liquid reinvigorating his taste buds.
His belly full for the first time since the siege began, he cleaned his hands on a rag and enjoyed the blanket of drowsiness that settled on his mind. Then the air was pierced by the first rumblings of a kettledrum and a few high-spirited voices. He looked down into the town; in the square near the gate, fires crackled to life and men, women, children and elderly spilled into the square. The drums grew louder and then flutes joined in as the people danced and sang, ruddy-cheeked and boisterous, satiated after many days of starvation and thirst. After the sombre burial procession east of the walls that had dominated the day, this was the outpouring of relief. A sense of calm touched Apion’s heart at the sight, so rare in the borderlands. Then he frowned, noticing a shape down one shadowy alleyway, writhing. Making out hairy, naked, gyrating buttocks, and the faint grunting of a rutting couple, he immediately realised that it was Blastares, indulging fully in the celebrations. A wry smile spread across his face; the usual post-battle penance and forgoing of wine and meat would come, but not today. He turned away to give his hulking tourmarches privacy, and looked along the battlements to the east gate.
Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart Page 4
