He suddenly felt foolish. His appreciation of the comes Alexandros' tactics had blinded him. Soon enough, the Avars were going to storm right into his line and try their best to kill him and his men. Jusuf shook himself, like a soft-mouthed Charka hound rising from some prairie lake. A trickle of fear pulsed through the Khazar and he took a firm grip on his sword-hilt.
Then a shrill of bucinas and a thunderous kettledrum roar sounded from the center of the Roman line. Without Jusuf noticing, his portion of the line had carried forward beyond the axis of the Roman advance and now, looking off to his right, he could see back into the center. The lines of round Eastern shields had parted, folding back like a clockwork, and a great host of men advanced up the highway, pikes swaying above like young saplings. The Goths advanced on the Avar center with a deep basso shout and the tramp-tramp-tramp of their hobnailed boots.
The haze shrouding the field faded and Jusuf wheeled his horse, riding back, shouting for his banner commanders. "Fall back! Re-form on the Roman line!"
Down on the road, the Goths deployed with surprising ease, flooding out across the highway and falling into twelve deep ranks. The drums continued to beat, shivering the air, and Jusuf saw a stillness fall across the Avar front. Every man was staring at the apparition emerging from the Roman lines. The Gothic ranks continued to deploy, pikes upright, swaying almost in unison as the men below marched forward. At the edges of the phalanx, more Goths ran forward, a mixture of armored men with bows and some with swords and maces.
Horns wailed and the phalanx rippled like a snakeskin, the long spears dipping as one and suddenly the Avars were faced with a solid wall of iron points. The first five ranks held their spears low, underarm, while those behind remained raised. The maneuver developed effortlessly and the phalanx swept forward without so much as a missed step.
From his vantage, Jusuf suddenly felt a chill and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Oh, lord of heaven, his mind raced, Anastasia was right-this is no actor playing the king of kings, this is the very man himself!
Moments later, the phalanx ground into the center of the Avar line at a swift walk and there was a resounding crash of metal on wood and flesh. The Avar host reeled back from the shock and Jusuf could see men screaming, dying, pierced through by eighteen-foot spears. The Goths stabbed overhand, leaf-shaped points licking into throats and chests. The first three ranks stood their ground, holding the Slavs back with a thicket of iron. A drum boomed, a single deep note, and the phalanx advanced a step.
Terrible confusion gripped the Avar center. The phalanx was hungry and it ate into the crowd of barbarians-armed with axes, short spears, javelins, swords-who could not come to grips with the iron-faced men in the twelve ranks. At the same time, the flanks of the Roman advance filled with lines of Peltasts, running up with their great bows to take a shooting stance.
A deep roar brewed up from the center, mingled screams and battle cries and the ceaseless stab-stab-stab of the phalanx grinding forward, a step at a time, into the enemy. Avar officers ran out on the sides, lashing the Slavs and drawing their own weapons. The black mass of the enemy began to draw away from the forest of spears and rush forward on either side.
The first rank of archers loosed, the snap of their bows singing across the field. Jusuf flinched as if he had been struck himself. The air was suddenly dark with arrows. The Avar advance staggered and there were more screams. Dozens of men fell, pierced through by yard-long shafts. The second rank of Peltasts loosed hard on the heels of the first and the Slavic line staggered. Then the third rank loosed, shooting high, lofting a black hungry cloud over the heads of their fellows. The first rank had already plucked a fresh arrow, drawn, sighted and loosed again.
The Avar officers screamed, urging their men to stand, but the lightly armored Slavs were being forced back by a constant rain of arrows, loosed at point-blank range. The wicker shields were thick with shafts. Their own archers were trying to shoot back, but everything was in chaos, with men surging back, trying to flee, and more men hurrying up.
The phalanx continued to advance, step by step.
Jusuf tore his attention away from the slaughter. "Stand ready!" His own men formed up, readying arrows. Any moment now the wings of the Avar host would come into play… Jusuf looked back and saw, to his great relief, Dahvos and the heavy Khazar horse surging up out of the streambed, banners snapping in the breeze, their own standards flashing in the morning sun. The Khazar wheeled his horse, surveying his lines and seeing that there wasn't enough space for Dahvos' umens to deploy on this side of the streambed.
Need to clear some room to maneuver, he thought.
"Lancers!" he shouted, voice booming across the field. "With me!"
Surrounded by a thick crowd of nobles on horseback, Bayan rode through a stand of evenly-spaced lemon trees. Thick, glossy leaves brushed his helmet and plucked at his lance. Dappled sunlight fell on dark gray armor under by a shining silk coat printed with a pattern of russet leaves. The khagan felt light, almost exalted. The rumble of four thousand hooves, the creaking of armor and the mutter of men praying or talking surrounded him. The royal guard swept out of the orchard and into the confusion behind the line of battle.
"Clear the way," shouted Bayan's outriders, spurring their horses forward, lances lowered. Crowds of Sklavenoi parted before them, the mountain barbarians staring at the khagan as he passed. Many of the blond and redheaded men watched Bayan pass with ill-disguised anger. The khagan ignored them, for they lived in huts of wattle and daub in the high mountain valleys. Though they were sometimes brave, they could not withstand the practiced efficiency of Avar soldiers.
Horns blew, ringing in the air, and the royal guardsmen began to form up by rank and file, shifting around Bayan like a cloud of dark birds. The hring banner came forward and the khagan raised a hand in salute. Other banners-long dragon-mouthed tubes of cloth, or square blazons holding images of the sun and the lightning-surrounded him.
Ahead, beyond clumped umens of spearmen and axemen, Bayan heard the sound of battle. The earth quivered and he could see arrows in the air, flashing bright as they fell.
"The Khazars," he said, caressing the stave of the bow laid across his saddle horn. "Are they attacking in earnest, or only flourishing before our lines?"
"They harass the foot soldiers," barked one of the beki jegun, quilted armor spattered with dust. The man's voice echoed from behind a full face mask. "Like Huns themselves."
"Very well." Bayan raised the black bow and every man within sight focused on him, their eye drawn-willing or no-to his face. "Form wedge and prepare to attack! We will drive off these slaves of the T'u-chueh and show them how real men fight! You, messenger, inform the commanders of foot we will be moving up. They will clear a lane through their mob for us!"
Men wheeled their horses, eager to do his bidding. Bayan smiled, then laughed aloud.
The day was perfect. His quiver was filled with arrows, fletched with gray goose, and each shaft, he knew, would find destiny in a Khazar heart.
Jusuf slashed his arm down, pointing with the sword, and his line of horsemen bolted forward, hooves drumming on the stubble. The Khazars swung out, riding hard at the Avar line and clumps of high grass, isolated trees and marshy wet ground flashed past. Jusuf held his mare back a bit, letting the first wave of lancers sweep on. A clot of couriers, young faces gleaming with sweat and wild grins, swerved with him and his own bannermen and trumpeters held themselves close, hands tight on their standards and horns, mounts guided by knee pressure.
The lancers swept diagonally across the front of the milling Slavic infantry. There was a great angry shout and the mass of spearmen lunged forward, breaking ranks. The Khazar riders loosed at the gallop, bows singing and arrows flashed down into the ranks of the enemy. Another, angrier, roar smote the air. The lancers nipped in, stabbing overhand, and men toppled backwards along the frontage, faces and chests smeared with blood. Jusuf grinned in delight, letting the mare course across the ground. T
he Khazars wheeled away, throwing clods and dust into the faces of the Slavs. The Avar infantry ran forward, disintegrating into a mob, screaming and shouting. Even the Avar beki jegun were charging, swords whipping around their heads.
Jusuf turned, letting the dust drift past, then his hand shot up and the flagmen tensed. The Slavic roar was building, growing louder and louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Jusuf saw his lancers swing back and regroup, forming around their umen banners, checking their armor, binding wounds and drawing new weapons to replace those they had lost.
"Again!" Jusuf shouted and his bannermen dipped their flags. The trumpeters winded, sending up a hair-raising noise. The lancers began to trot forward. Dust settled out of the air, and Jusuf felt an almost physical shock. The Slavic infantry was still screaming and shouting, raising a huge noise, banging spears on shields and yelping like a vast pack of demented wolves. But they had not continued their pell-mell, mindless charge. Instead the beki jegun checked their wild rush and the entire mass of the enemy split open like a melon.
A solid mass of horsemen-armor gleaming, twin queues bouncing on armored shoulders, lances glittering like stars, their tube banners stiff in the air-was advancing at a quickening trot, straight for Jusuf and his couriers.
The Khazar's heart stuttered and his mouth went dry. The Avar heavy horse-two, maybe three thousand men in full armor of iron scales sewn to leather and backed with felt, mounts likewise protected on head, neck and forequarters, helms flared and throats protected by an iron gorget-thundered towards him. They were perhaps a hundred yards away, erupting from the mass of infantry with frightening speed.
Dahvos, he gibbered to himself, will only need a moment, just a grain of time…
"Charge!" Jusuf howled, spurring his mare forward. All thought of keeping himself safe fled, and the couriers and bannermen leapt forward with him. In an instant, in a cloud of dust filled with the war cries of a thousand men, the Khazar lancers sprinted forward, spears leveled. Jusuf cursed leaving his lance behind and spared a half-grain to wrap a strap around his wrist and through the hilts of his sword. He shrugged his left arm, feeling the shield strapped there. Wind keened in his helmet and everything became terribly clear.
The Avars spurred forward as well, voices raised in a single huge shout, and the tiny distance between the two lines of men vanished in the blink of an eye.
Jusuf staggered, feeling a wrenching blow on his left arm, and his mare jinked to the side. An Avar lance sheared across the shield, ripping through the first layer of wood and tearing away the iron boss. The Khazar turned hard in the saddle, hacking down with his sword. The lance flicked away as the Avar knight flipped his weapon out of harm's way. Jusuf reversed his blow and blocked desperately with the shield. The lance stabbed past his head, missing his left eye by inches. Shouting, Jusuf slammed his shield out, knocking the long spear away. The Avar's horse, a nimble black creature, snapped at the mare's head and she shied, dancing back. Jusuf cursed again. He needed a lance of his own.
Arrows whistled overhead. A great din stormed at his ears, deafening him with the roars and shouts of men, the whinnying of horses, the clang of metal on metal and on wood. Jusuf spurred, and the mare responded, leaping forward. The Avar knight was already trading blows with another Khazar and Jusuf rushed past, stabbing across his body. The triangular tip of his sword plunged into the man's armpit and came back slick with blood.
There was no time to see if the wound was mortal. More arrows sleeted out of the sky. A Khazar within Jusuf's field of vision jerked and then slid from his saddle, leaving a wide smear of red across mottled gray horsehide. Three arrows jutted from his chest. Jusuf tried to turn, trying to see what was happening, then furiously parried an Avar mace. The blow rocked him against the rear saddle plate, but he wrenched the mare's head around, turning the whole horse and the mace slithered away along his blade. Without thinking, Jusuf punched the Avar knight in the face, his metal-studded glove sparking on a bronzed metal face mask. Pain jolted up to his elbow. The Avar clawed at his mask, trying to adjust his helmet.
Jusuf whipped his sword sideways, cutting into the man's hand and then, as tendons popped and finger bones split under the blow, into his throat. The sword belled, ringing back from an iron gorget around the Avar's neck. The Khazar cursed, laying in another heavy blow. This time the man jerked back, still blind, and the sword blade wedged between chest plate and helm. Another arrow smashed into the shield on Jusuf's left arm, punching through the laminated wood.
The Khazar cursed, blood turning cold, and tried to wrench his sword free. The blade was stuck. He pulled with both hands. The Avar got one eye lined up with an eyehole and it went wide. The man scrambled to draw a sword from a sheath at the side of his saddle. Jusuf abandoned his stuck blade and smashed the Avar full in the face with his shield. As he did, he leaned far over, falling almost off his horse, and across the neck of the Avar stallion.
A gray-fletched arrow flashed above him and cracked through the armor of one of the Khazar bannermen fighting through the press to aid his commander. The boy's eyes went wide, he spat blood and toppled backwards. Jusuf caught the death from the corner of his eye and scrambled back up into his own saddle, the Avar's sword in his left hand. The enemy knight fell out of his saddle and hung upside down, shouting for help.
Jusuf wrenched his horse around, the mare snorting in anger at such rough handling. Another arrow blurred past and another of the Khazar bannermen jerked violently in the saddle. Jusuf blinked, staring across the riot of the battlefield. He was only peripherally aware of the Avar charge smashing through the lancers, scattering them, then swinging with full force into the oncoming ranks of Dahvos' umens.
A hundred feet away, khagan Bayan was sitting easily on horseback, face serene and untroubled. Jusuf blinked and saw the Avar prince raise his bow-a gorgeous black horn-bow nearly five feet high, gleaming in the sunlight-draw, sight and loose in one fluid, powerful motion. The Khazar's eye could barely follow the flight of the arrow, though his head snapped around instantly, and he saw one of the umen commanders in Dahvos' ranks stagger, pierced through by the shot. Jusuf looked back, aghast, and felt a terrible chill.
His arm was ruined! Jusuf's mind struggled to reconcile present sight and past memory. I saw it, all withered and weak! This is impossible.
Bayan plucked another arrow from a quiver slung at his knee and fitted it to the string. The movement was very clear to Jusuf and he could see the powerful fingers of that right arm curling around the grip on the bowstave.
A wave of pigtailed horsemen charged past, long banners fluttering, and Jusuf lost sight of the khagan. Seconds later, he was furiously engaged, trading blows with two Avar knights coming at him from either side. His broken shield took another hammer-blow and shattered, shedding splinters and fragments of wood. Jusuf threw the remains at the man on his left side, then barely blocked a thrust at his leg from the right. The tide of battle swept around him, pushing him away from the khagan.
Another gray arrow flashed through the melee, and another Khazar died.
Chlothar Shortbeard, Alexandros' commander of the phalanx, cursed, pulling off his helmet. The heavy iron bucket spilled sweat and the Frank gasped in relief to be able to breathe. Without thinking, he flipped the leather strap around his saddle horn, letting the spangenhelm bounce against his thigh. It was dangerous to go bareheaded, but he needed to be able to see. The day was getting hotter and he felt he was swimming in this dreadfully hot, wet air. In the last thirty minutes, the center of the slowly expanding battle had congealed. Chlothar snarled for his standard-bearer to come up, and the man did, urging his own horse forward, wither-to-wither with the Frankish captain's.
The main body of the phalanx continued to advance up the road at a steady walk, but they were running out of open ground. Now they were on the verge of the Avar's overnight encampment-a scattering of farmhouses-thatch-roofed, plastered walls over withes or a timber framework-and scattered high-sided Avar wagons. Thankfully, the
Slavic infantry had disintegrated and the barbarians were fleeing in a mob through the leather tents and bundles of sleeping hides. A scattering of bodies lay on the road and the embankment.
"Sound halt and re-form!" Chlothar rubbed his chin in disgust, feeling short prickly hairs under his fingers. Beside him, the bucinators immediately began blatting out a stentorian wail. The ranks of the phalanx began to halt, their file leaders howling commands and using rattan canes freely on any man failing to follow the halting drill. The rear ranks stopped first, squaring themselves and shifting their pikes back, out of fouling distance of those ahead. Within a minute the entire mass slid to a halt. Chlothar didn't watch, knowing someone would foul up.
There was a mighty rattle of wood on wood, and then yelps as unfortunate hoplites caught it from their file leaders. Chlothar turned his horse away and trotted along the rear ranks. The Frank stared through the spears, hand shading his eyes against the brilliant sun. The Avars were regrouping among the farmhouses and behind scattered wagons. Some of the Slavs stopped running and Chlothar cursed again, seeing a solid line of shorter men, in darker, heavier armor, appear among the buildings. Brightly colored square banners flapped in the air above them. The Slavs stopped, then turned, shouting defiantly at the Romans.
"Peltasts forward on either side of the road," Chlothar bellowed. "Keep them from forming up!"
Couriers dashed off from the cluster of men around the Frank. Chlothar rose up in his stirrups, straining to see the left and right wings of the army. To the left, there was only a huge, confused, swirling mass of men on horses. Banners jutted up from the field in every direction and the swirl and surge of cavalry in battle was raising a huge cloud of dust. What he could see, however, indicated the Eastern infantry on his flanks holding steady. A distance of at least fifty feet separated them from the Avars, and the opposing lines were staring at each other, waiting for someone to break ranks and attack. The Roman line matched the left edge of the phalanx. Just as it should.
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