Seljuk arrows hissed and smacked against the sides of the pass, some punching into the man’s back. But the rider did not fall and in moments he was gone. The drum of hooves died and for a heartbeat, the pass was silent bar the panting of the Seljuk warriors.
‘Sir, we should consider turning back. If the Byzantines know we are coming . . . ’ an akhi panted.
Nasir spun to him. It was the man who had dislodged the stone. In one motion, he pulled his scimitar from its sheath, then drove it hard into the man’s gut. The akhi’s eyes bulged and blood pumped from his lips, then Nasir ripped his blade clear. As the corpse toppled, he cast his gaze around his men in the narrow passage and the swathes of them lining the tops of the pass.
‘There is no turning back. Riders, mount! Spearmen, be ready for a quick march. To the north!’
***
Apion’s belly groaned. It was loud enough to draw startled looks from Igor and his axemen. He stared at the hardtack he had been holding for some time now, touching his parched tongue to his cracked lips. Hunger and thirst seemed to be playing dice with him and every other man sat in the shade at the northern edge of the valley.
‘You’d be as well eating rocks,’ Igor croaked, mopping the sweat from his brow.
‘Washed down with a cup of dust,’ Philaretos, sitting nearby, rasped with a throaty chuckle, his eyes shaded under a scowl.
The ruddy-faced and sweating Gregoras smirked at this, his beady eyes fixed on Apion.
Apion shrugged in resignation and placed the biscuit back in his ration pack. Himerius and the riders were not due back for a while yet. Even then the water would rightly go to the infantry first, so it would be near sunset by the time they received their share. He looked to Romanus, striding along the lines of his column, offering words of encouragement to his men. The emperor had insisted on being the last to receive water.
‘We’re being led by a good man,’ Dederic muttered absently, by his side.
Apion looked to him. The little Norman’s face was bathed in sweat. He had taken to carving at a wooden stake, hewing it vigorously into a point.
‘Preparing that for the fat lord?’ Apion nudged him with an elbow.
Dederic nodded. ‘Something like that.’ Then he looked up, squinting at the sun. ‘Tell me, sir . . . in your time leading the ranks, you must have had to make tough choices?’
‘Indeed,’ Apion replied instantly, ‘Almost every day. I have had men and their families retreat from their defences and their homes, ceding hard-won ground to the Seljuks but saving them from unavoidable slaughter. I have allowed captured ghazi warbands to return to their lands unharmed – thinking that perhaps the next time we meet on the battlefield they will remember that. I would say these were good choices.’ Then he thought of the bloody massacres he had led, the wailing of children spattered in their parents’ blood, the stench of burning flesh. His thoughts spiralled back to those last days on Mansur’s farm – the time that spawned that darkness. He flicked a finger at the Chi-Rho banner hanging limply nearby. ‘And, by that God of yours, I have made some terrible choices in my time.’
‘They say a man’s choices will define him,’ Dederic mused, tracing the tip of his stake through the dust. ‘But what if he makes the wrong choices for the right reasons?’
Apion heard the question, his thoughts snared once again on Mansur’s farm and on that last day he had ever laid eyes upon it. His poor choices had led to that day. ‘Then he will live to regret it evermore,’ Apion replied absently, staring into the dust.
Then his thoughts were curtailed by the echoing clop-clop of hooves. He shot his gaze to the Scorpion Pass. Approaching horses? he wondered, firing glances to Igor and Romanus. No, it is too soon, surely.
Gregoras was the first to stand, his eyes darting, his tongue poking out to moisten his lips. Then the infantry rose and stretched on their toes like a crop field rippling in a breeze, their faces eager.
Apion looked to Igor. ‘Something is wrong,’ he whispered, ‘gather around the emperor.’
Igor nodded and barked to his varangoi. Immediately, they rushed to surround Romanus. Igor hefted his axe, his head dipped and his scarred eye trained on the opening. Apion stood by their side.
Then a single rider trotted sluggishly from the pass.
‘It’s Niketas!’ one skutatos cried out. ‘Where is our water?’ A babble of voices broke out, confused and curious.
But Romanus raised a hand to hush them.
Niketas slowed to a canter, then halted, halfway across the pass and some twenty strides from the head of the column.
‘Rider – report!’ Romanus bawled.
The rider opened his mouth to speak, but no words were forthcoming. The cicada song seemed to grow deafening. Then Niketas’ head lolled forward to reveal the circle of scalp that dangled from his crown and the matching disc of blood-smeared skull that it exposed. Niketas’ shoulders lurched and he retched. Blood erupted from his nostrils and lips, soaking his mount. Then he toppled to the dust with a thud, revealing the arrow shafts quivering in his back.
A heartbeat of stillness and silence ensued. Then a rumbling of hooves started again. But this time it grew like thunder, and it came not from the Scorpion Pass, but from up above, somewhere atop the valley sides.
The Byzantine column broke into a babble of murmuring and then cries of panic split the air as men looked around in terror. Apion’s eyes locked on the southern lip of the valley. All along it, plumes of red-gold dust rose like demons.
‘Basileus,’ he stabbed a finger to the south, ‘form up for a flanking strike!’
But at that moment the tip of the southern valleyside came to life. A cluster of ironclad riders burst into view, shimmering in the sunlight, directly across from the emperor and his retinue.
Apion’s heart froze. Ghulam riders, the cream of the Seljuk heavy cavalry. There were more than two hundred of them, each encased in armour and clutching lance, bow and blade. Behind them, a crescent of nimble ghazi riders swept into view. Another eight hundred. As one, the Seljuk riders flooded down the scree and onto the valley floor, thundering straight towards the column head like an arrowhead. Apion stumbled to take his place with Dederic between the Varangoi and the Optimates. His mind echoed with a thousand thoughts and orders formed on his tongue, but without his army to command he could only watch on.
‘Ready spears!’ Romanus cried out. The order was echoed along the lines of the Optimates Tagma who were nearest the approaching horsemen. But, caught by surprise, they were unprepared, many having stowed their arms and armour in the touldon. Those on the front ranks who had spears levelled them, while those in the ranks behind lifted their rhiptaria. The resulting phalanx was blunt and weak in vast stretches, and the raiding horsemen were only strides away.
‘Rhiptaria, loose!’ Romanus cried.
At that moment, Apion saw three things. He saw the twisted, snarling and mutilated face of Nasir at the head of the Seljuk charge, he saw the devious sparkle in his nemesis’ eyes and he saw the knuckles on Nasir’s right hand grow white on the reins of his mount.
‘No, Shields!’ Apion cried. But his shout was drowned out by the hoarse cries of those all around him. Thousands of Byzantine javelins streaked into the air.
Then Nasir yanked on his mount’s reins and barked his cavalry into a swift turn, pulling out of the charge and haring right, parallel to the column. The Byzantine javelins punched down harmlessly into the dust in the Seljuk riders’ wake. Then the ghulam hurled their spears and the ghazi loosed an arrowstorm into the massed and unprepared Optimates ranks. Apion, without a shield at the edge of the Optimates lines, could only watch the incoming hail. Then, at the last, Dederic snatched up a shield and held it over both of them. The shield battered and buckled as the barrage rained down. The ripping of flesh and crunching of bone rang out all around them. Skutatoi fell in swathes, gouts of blood staining the air and soaking them. The densely packed toxotai further back were also cut down like wheat before they co
uld loose in reply.
Then the barrage slowed as the Seljuk cavalry thundered on past the head of the column, along the valley floor and to the east.
Dederic lowered the shield and he and Apion gawped around them. Many hundreds lay dead or dying. Amidst the screaming of the stricken, the varangoi clustered around Romanus, their shields peppered with arrows. The emperor’s eyes were locked on the Seljuk cavalry.
Nasir and his riders stopped a few hundred feet away, before two pillars of rock that pinched the valley. There, they took to cantering in a sweeping circle, those nearest the head of the Byzantine column firing and those furthest away nocking fresh arrows. Once more, Byzantine men all around the emperor fell like harvest wheat and chaos reigned.
Apion heard Philaretos growl from under the ceiling of varangoi shields; ‘We outnumber them, urge our riders forward!’
Then Gregoras added to this, snarling; ‘Aye, seize the opportunity, Basileus! The vanguard are nearly ready to charge.’ He stabbed a finger at the cluster of three hundred riders, most now mounted and armed once more.
The emperor seemed swayed by their hubris. Apion grabbed the reins of his Thessalian from the nearby squire, then leapt on the saddle and kicked the beast forward to intervene; ‘No!’ he cried as he pushed in amidst the cluster of Rus axemen. ‘Get shields to the men and wait out the arrow storm! Do not pursue those riders. Our column will lose integrity and the Seljuk mounts are swift and well-watered – even our best riders will do well to catch them.’
Philaretos scoffed at this as arrows rattled down on the shields overhead. ‘Enough! This is not a decision for a thematic strategos!’
Apion ignored the jibe as he strapped on his plumed helmet and took up a shield. ‘Basileus?’ he gasped.
At that moment, a stray arrow slipped inside the varangoi shields, grazing the flesh on the leg of the emperor’s stallion. The beast reared up dramatically and the emperor threw his sword arm up to balance, punching through the roof of shields.
The beleaguered Byzantine front saw this and cried out in anticipation of an advance, and the vanguard took it as so. ‘Nobiscum Deus!’ the lead rider of the vanguard roared, then dropped his spathion, pointing it forward like an accusing finger at the swarm of Seljuk cavalry. As one, the riders rumbled forward and burst ahead of the column.
‘Basileus!’ Apion gasped, ‘you must stop them.’
Romanus looked to Apion. His gaze was acquiescent. ‘It is too late, and I could never have ordered the men to wait here and die.’ With that, he kicked his stallion fiercely, and the beast whinnied and bundled clear of the varangoi then charged out to lead the vanguard. ‘Forward!’ he roared, his purple plume dancing in his slipstream.
At this, the varangoi cried out in dread. Igor was the first to leap onto a saddle. ‘Strategos,’ he cried to Apion, ‘With me!’
Apion nodded and the pair kicked their mounts into a gallop after the emperor. The rest of the column surged forward too; masses of skutatoi, toxotai and pockets of semi-prepared riders. But Apion and Igor broke ahead of them all, lying flat in their saddles to catch up with Romanus.
Apion saw what he expected to see up ahead; the Seljuk horsemen waited until Romanus and his riders were a handful of strides away, then they broke from their swarming circle and burst into a retreat eastwards along the valley.
‘They’re drawing the emperor away from the rest of the column!’ Apion growled over the rush of wind in his ears.
Then the Seljuks slipped between the two pillars of rock that pinched the valley and the emperor’s riders were quick to follow. Apion’s gut twinged as he and Igor passed through this choke-point. Then his heart froze when he glanced up to the southern valleyside behind it.
A storm of roaring akhi were streaming down the scree. At least two thousand of them. These Seljuk spearmen then streamed across the valley floor and Apion and Igor only just burst past them before they blockaded the narrow choke-point.
Apion shot a glance over his shoulder. The akhi had dug in, nearly twenty ranks deep, spear butts dug into the dust and facing the rest of the onrushing Byzantine column, bodies braced. ‘We’re on our own,’ he hissed.
Igor frowned, then looked back over his shoulder to see the swell of Byzantine infantry surge against this wall of spears. Ribs popped and men were disembowelled as skutatoi were pushed onto the spearwall by their over-eager comrades behind. Blood showered the akhi, screams rang out and Byzantine corpses piled up. The pressure was immense, but the akhi stood firm. ‘Aye, then my axe will be busy today,’ the big Rus said as he looked forward again.
There, just a few hundred paces ahead, the emperor and his three hundred were now at the mercy of Nasir and his thousand riders. The ghazis were circling, raining arrows, while Nasir led his ghulam lancers in darting charges at the kataphractoi flanks, each time felling clutches of the precious riders. Romanus’ purple plume whipped and billowed as he fought like a demon, hacking and slaying when he could get within striking distance of the Seljuk riders. But nearly half of the kataphractoi had been felled. It was only a matter of time.
Apion’s heart thundered. It could not end here. Surely this was not the island in the storm the crone had spoken of?
As he burst forward to join the emperor and his riders, he caught sight of Nasir glaring at him then roaring with laughter.
‘The emperor will die, and now the Haga comes to join him! This is a fine day to take our glory!’
With that, Nasir broke from his pack of ghulam, lifted a javelin from the body of a dead kataphractos and fixed his sights on the emperor. Then he hefted the shaft and launched it.
Apion kicked his mount forward, lunging to the front of his saddle to punch his shield out just as the javelin sped for the emperor’s throat. His shoulder jolted and popped as the missile smacked from the shield and sclaffed clear of Romanus.
The emperor looked at him, wide-eyed and blinking as they rode side by side.
‘Basileus,’ Apion cried over the thunder of hooves, ‘break your men into two wedges. We must separate the ghulam from the ghazis.’ He punched a fist into his palm. ‘Snare and lure!’
Romanus nodded briskly then raised a hand and flicked a finger in one direction and then another. ‘Split!’ Eighty of the kataphractoi read this and wheeled away behind the emperor to charge at the ghazi circle.
Apion led the remaining seventy in a charge towards Nasir and the ghulam wedge. ‘With me – stay tight to my path! Every man on the right, ready your bows!’ he bellowed, then swept the scimitar down and straight at Nasir.
The dark door crashed open in Apion’s mind as the two wedges thundered for one another. The two men at their heads roared, scimitars raised.
Then, only paces apart, Apion wrenched on the reins of his mount, pulling right. He parried Nasir’s swipe, then hacked and parried as he galloped along the edge of the Seljuk wedge. The rest of the wedge fell in tight behind him and followed suit, smashing and parrying. The sides of the two wedges scraped together like the hulls of a pair of opposing warships colliding. Splintered spearshafts, crimson spray, the tearing of iron and flesh and a cacophony of curses filled the air.
Then Apion cried out; ‘Archers!’ The riders in the right half of the wedge stood tall in their stirrups, twisted to their left, stretched their bows and loosed a small but dense volley of arrows down into the flanks of the ghulam. At such close range, the missiles punctured limbs and punched through the gaps between iron plates. The Seljuk wedge wobbled at this barrage, many falling, mounts tumbling over in the dust. Then the two wedges broke apart.
Nasir roared his men into a tight turn. Despite his losses, his riders were fresher than the Byzantines and they wheeled round nimbly, lining up to pierce into the flank of Apion’s slower wedge. Apion saw that he could not ride clear of the threat and stay in formation. ‘Break, break!’ he cried. But it was too late.
Nasir’s wedge smashed into the Byzantine kataphractoi, lancing men from their saddles, throwing others under a storm of
hooves. Apion kicked at his mount to break clear when he heard a whirring. He glanced up then snapped his head to one side just in time to dodge a flanged mace hurtling for his face. The metal wings on the bludgeon gouged the skin from his cheek before spinning onwards to rip the mail veil and jaw of a kataphractos clean off. The man’s eyes bulged as he clawed at his jawless face, tongue dangling, blood soaking his chest before he toppled to the ground. Apion twisted in his saddle to see Nasir cursing the near miss.
Apion heeled his Thessalian round to face his foe, when a wooden spear shaft swept round like a club and knocked him from the saddle. He crashed to the dust, dazed and winded momentarily. Through the forest of horse legs, he saw Romanus’ riders, thinned even further, pursuing the ghazis but still unable to snare them. He saw the akhi spearwall holding firm at the choke-point despite the swell of Byzantine riders and infantry pressing against them. Then he saw Nasir’s scimitar blade scythe down for his neck.
At once his vision sharpened and he rolled clear of the blow, the blade splitting a jagged rock where he had lay moments before. He scrambled to his feet, turning to face Nasir. He backed away, dodging and ducking between the swiping swords and rearing mounts of the kataphractoi and the ghulam all around him.
Then a ghulam mount reared up and kicked out, a hoof whacking into his shoulder and sending him staggering towards Nasir. Nasir lunged for him, swinging his blade in a flurry of swipes with no thought to defence. Apion parried as best he could, but his limbs were numb, his parched and starved body weak and every blow seemed to be stronger than the last. Then Nasir’s blade sliced across Apion’s forearm and his scimitar fell from his grip. Before he could grasp out to catch it, his heel stubbed on the split rock and he toppled onto his back, weaponless. Kataphractoi thudded all around him, impaled on ghulam spears and torn by Seljuk blades.
Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart Page 24
