Baltazar and the rest of the men made the sign of the cross. Nodding Baltazar said, “Aye. What else could they be? They are the dead reborn in the dark one’s image. God’s creation perverted.” Baltazar whispered the last sentence.
Sarah knelt in front of Baltazar and looked up at him, sobbing, “Please sir, take us with you.”
“I can’t. We’ve lost our two officers, and these men need to focus on their mission. I cannot guarantee your safety if you accompany us.”
Samuel begged, “Please.”
Baltazar held up his hand, “Enough. I’m sorry that’s just the way it is going to have to be. We can stop here on the way back, and you can come with us to Damascus then. With the entire village slain except you, there should be enough food to last you many weeks.” Baltazar turned and gestured towards the spring, “Also with your water supply inside the walls you needn’t venture forth and attract more of the damned. I doubt they will come up the winding road to get here on their own.”
“My Grandfather and the rest of the men of the Village were able to hold out against the Persians when they took this land two generations ago. I should be able to keep my family safe.”
“Good, don’t leave the village and you’ll be okay. When we leave, you can close and bar the gate. As I said before, don’t make too much noise and you shouldn’t draw any creatures up here. For now, we need rest. On the ‘morrow, we continue to Yarmouk.” Baltazar turned to face the men behind him, “There isn’t room enough for the wagons in here. They are to be left at the base of the hill. See that the horses are brought up into the village. Once they are all in close and bar the gate.”
Without waiting for a response, Baltazar headed to a hut in the back of the village. Within he found a simple bed with a mattress of coarse wool stuffed with hay. He lit a candle, closed the door, and removed his armor.
He then knelt on the floor and placed his elbows on the bed and began praying, “God, I know not what your plan is but surely I am too young to be in charge of so many men? I do not yet have twenty summers. Please God, fill me with your strength. Guide me so that I do not fail these people and most importantly, our mission. Lend us the strength to press on against Satan’s hordes and succeed.”
Standing, Baltazar picked up the candle and looked around the hut. He noticed a mat and pulled it up. Underneath the mat dug into the floor is a square hole about eighteen inches deep. Within the hole are several bottles of wine and some cheese. Ignoring the cheese, he grabbed a bottle of wine, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and took a long drink from it. He sighed deeply, took another long drink from the bottle, and then thought about Liana. Soon he drifted off to sleep.
The guardsmen choose all but two of the remaining huts. They left the most run down looking ones for the drivers. The seven surviving cavalrymen of the 8th Mesopotamian post two men to guards the walls. The remaining ignored the empty hut, laid down next to their horses, and were soon fast asleep.
Six of the older guardsmen gathered in a hut. They barred the door and began discussing what to do next. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t see us continuing with Baltazar in charge, he’s just a kid,” Val said as he made eye contact with each of the other five men in the room.
Lael disagreeing, shook his head, “That kid fights better than any five of us. He fared somewhat well today after Justin fell. He did not lose his poise.”
Rinor moved to stand by Lael, “This kid as you call him survived the battle of Yarmouk when very few others did.”
Frustrated, Val turned to the other three men in the room and asked, “What say you?”
One of the men glanced nervously at the other two. They each nod slightly when he looked back at them, “I speak for all of us when I say that we agree with Val. He’s just a boy. Are we to depend on him to lead us to a battlefield two days ride away? There could be a million of the damned between here and there. Most of us barely know how to fight. Out of the men that can, all but our new leader has a horse and can abandon us anytime they wish.” Liam says. As he spoke, he glanced nervously at the door.
Lael looked Val and Liam in the eyes, “I can’t believe you want to go scurrying back to Damascus. Need a sip of your mother’s milk? Perhaps you can then hide behind her skirts as the damned overrun the city?”
Val’s cheeks turned red, “The Yarmouk Valley is littered with the corpses of the brave. I don’t plan to add to that count.”
Lael then turned to Liam, “What about you? Going to run back home to cower behind your daughter’s skirts?”
Frustrated with Lael Val turned in a huff and slammed the door behind him. Liam worked up the courage to respond, “No, I owe it to my family to succeed on this mission, so that better men than I get the equipment they need.”
Lael smiled at Liam, “Very good. Let’s hope the rest of us can find the resolve to do the right thing as you did.”
The four men each found a spot in the hut and laid down. As they drifted off to sleep, Lael prayed in a whisper, “God, please give me the strength not to shit myself in battle.”
Lael laid there for a time and listened as the other three men’s breathing became even. Unable to sleep he stood and wandered out into the night. He noticed a figure outlined by the moonlight standing on the wall and approached. The figure heard his approach, turned, and faced him.
Lael held up his hand in greeting and said, “Well met, friend. Any sign of the damned?”
The cavalryman silently shook his head indicating no to Lael and then turned back around. Lael frowned and thought to himself, Friendly bastard. Lael then wandered around the village for a time keeping an eye on the other huts with guardsmen in them. After a few hours of nothing, he was satisfied that none of the guardsmen were going to desert. Tired, he headed back to his hut. As he walked, he heard a sound coming from the alley to his left. He drew his Spatha as he moved to investigate the noise. Suddenly his world went black.
Val, holding his Spatha with the blade pointing skyward sheathed it. As he did so another man gently lowered Lael to the ground. Neither of the two cavalrymen guarding the walls heard anything, “Sorry, Lael. We’re not dying so far from home.” His whisper went undetected by the two men standing watch on the walls.
Val then moved silently to a spot where he could observe both of the guards on the wall. Satisfied that they weren’t moving. He led his group to one of the mud brick huts. The roof of the hut obscured the cavalrymen’s view of the wall. Silently he boosted up his partner onto the wall. One by one the ten remaining men in his group clamored over the wall and dropped silently to the ground below.
The group slowly made their way around the wall to the path by the main gate. They then waited patiently for the closest cavalryman to look away. After what seemed like an eternity to Val’s group, the cavalryman walked away from the wall overlooking the path. Val waited until he heard the sound of the cavalryman urinating over the wall and whispered, “Let’s go. We don’t have long.” As he pointed to the pink and orange line growing on the eastern horizon. One by one the deserters made their way silently down the path.
The survivors of the Battle of Yarmouk plus Farid and Zahid met in Constan’s villa. Like the previous evening, chairs were set up for each of them. In addition to Saul several new servants that Athos had not seen before helped with serving the wine and the food. Constan hadn’t arrived yet.
Farid had taken a seat beside Athos. To Athos’ immediate left was Damon. To Farid’s immediate right was his brother Zahid. Athos turned to Zahid and asked, “How goes your training?”
A look of contempt flashed across Zahid’s face, but he quickly remembered himself and smiled, “Well enough. The two Dekanos the Tourmarches assigned to me seem to be doing a good job of whipping my men into shape.”
Athos asked, “You’re not training the men yourself?”
Zahid failed to control his look of contempt this time and said, “Why would I trouble myself with such trivial matters? When the time comes, they will obey my
orders, or I will have them flogged.”
Athos replied with an irritated edge to his voice, “Because the best leaders lead by example. You can’t expect men to fight and die for you if they don’t believe in you.”
Zahid snorted, “I don’t care what they think. I am their better. Their lot is to merely obey.”
Constan chose that moment to walk into the courtyard. Athos, seeing him, called the room to attention, “At ease, men. You’ve all done remarkable work trying to bring the city guardsmen up to speed as quickly as possible. Tomorrow our job gets harder as we will receive the results of Governor Maurice’s draft, four hundred and fifty new recruits.”
Jirair, frowning said, “four hundred and fifty that’s it?”
Constan responded, “Aye, not nearly enough but we will have to make do with what we have for now. The reason I called you here tonight is so that we can figure out what to do with the four hundred and fifty men. I’ve already committed them to working six hours a day in the armory to try and speed up production. The question then becomes what is the best way to get these men trained up using the other six hours of the day we'll have them? Unlike the city guardsmen, they have zero experience and training. Normally it would be up to me to decide such matters exclusively but these are unusual times, and I value your ideas.”
Constan paused, took a sip of wine from his cup, turned, looked at Farid and begins speaking again, “We don’t have the luxury of appealing to my vanity by letting me make all the decisions. I need all of your ideas, so that we may chart the best course of action to defend Damascus.”
Licas stood and said, “I think the 270 guardsmen being trained by the survivors of the Battle of Yarmouk, maybe in a week’s time, could be dispersed throughout the new men. This would help give them examples to follow and speed up learning.”
Zahid, turning red, stood and said, “So you’re saying that my men aren’t going to learn as fast as yours, Greek?”
Licas shot back, “Not if you continue to sit on your arse all day and expect the men to train themselves.”
Constan jumped into the conversation, “Enough! Licas your idea has merit, but we need to have a group of men battle ready as quickly as possible. Our best chance of that is our four kentarchias of city guardsmen. Perhaps when they are battle ready, we can integrate some of the fast learners from amongst the draftees to bring them up to full strength.”
“Understood sir,” Licas responded.
Jirair stood and asked, “Permission to speak, sir?”
Constan responded, “This is a discussion, not a formation. Speak your mind, or we’ll never get through this tonight.”
“Aye, sir. Sorry, sir. What if we rotated forty men at a time through our four kentarchias of city guardsmen? Perhaps each day?” Jirair asked.
“Yes, that idea has merit but how do we do it in such a way that they do not slow down the training of the 1st through 4th kentarchias?” Constan asked.
The room fell silent for several moments as the men pondered the question. Finally, Athos having been fed an answer by the Nikas personality in his mind, responded, “By keeping the kontoubernion of draftees separate from the rest of the Kentarchia. Perhaps by letting them line up in the rear?”
Constan nodding said, “That idea has merit, Athos. It would also give them the best view of the other ninety men so that they could watch and learn.”
After Constan finished speaking the room fell silent. The Tourmarches expectant, slowly looked around the room and made eye contact with each of the men trying to solicit ideas, “Come on, ye can do better than this. Ye haven’t earned the wine ye are drinking yet.” The men chuckled in response but remained silent.
Constan continued to slowly look around the room. He made eye contact with each of the men. His gaze carried an unspoken message, pleading for more ideas, This has been too much too fast for me. One by one the men looked away from his gaze unable to provide any additional ideas.
Frustrated, Constan moved them onto the next subject matter that needed to be addressed. Preparing Damascus’ physical defenses for a damned attacked. The men drink deeply of the wine offered by Saul and the rest of the servants. In between the jovial sharing of war stories about friends forever lost ideas are hatched. After a while, they gave up on work altogether. The men focused on enjoying each other’s company and for a short time forgot about the damned. Finally, around midnight Constan ushered the men out the door as tomorrow would come all too quickly.
Chapter 28
Dawn, August 18th 636 Village of Tuba, Palestinia Province, Byzantium
Baltazar awoke. His head was killing him. He looked around disorientated not remembering where he was, then he remembered, “Justin and Boulous.” The names along with yesterday’s events flooded into his mind like a crashing wave. He stood up and looked around the hut. He noticed his weapons in a heap by the front door. As he walked over to them, he kicked an empty bottle of wine and stubbed his toe. He cursed, bent over and grabbed his gear. He took a deep breath and as he strapped everything into place. Satisfied, he approached the door and paused for a moment.
He stepped outside into the crisp morning air and saw the seven surviving cavalrymen gathered around a fire they had built near the gate. Their horses looked well-tended and ready to ride. Baltazar started banging on all of the mud-brick huts’ doors to awake the guardsmen and the drivers. Before he could reach the last door to knock on it, he tripped over the prone form of Lael. With a groan, Lael sat up rubbing his head with his left hand.
He looked over at Baltazar and asked, “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. You’re the one laying in the middle of the walkway.”
“Those bastards,” Lael said.
“Who?”
“There was an argument last night with Val. He tried to convince the other men in our hut to desert. That going to Yarmouk was going to result in our deaths with someone as young as you in charge.”
Baltazar sighed deeply and looked up at the sky with a pleading look on his face, “Go on.”
Lael continued his story, “I convinced the other men to ignore him, and he left, angry. I assumed he went to one of the other huts to try to get some others to agree with him. After he disappeared, I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to walk around the village and confront anyone if they tried to desert.”
Lael looked down at the ground as his cheeks turned crimson, “It’s ok Lael, please go on.” Baltazar said.
Lael nodded and continued, “I was just beginning to think that everyone was staying and not going to slink away in the night when everything went black. Then I woke up here. They must have completely surprised me. I never heard a thing.”
Baltazar stood up and reached down to help Lael to his feet, “I appreciate everything you tried to do last night. Men like Val are poison. They are treacherous. They work to turn the fears of other men against them. When those men become desperate, they prey on those feelings of desperation. Then their fears take control of them. I’ve heard about this, but I’ve never actually seen it happen. Let’s go see how many he convinced to leave with him.”
Baltazar gathered the remaining men. He shook his head in frustration at the results of the morning muster. There were only twenty of them left, “God this was going to be hard enough with thirty men.” He prayed silently to himself.
“Good morning, men. I know right now you must be feeling some doubt about me. Frankly I’m not feeling great about our situation right now either. Do you know what separates a civilian from a soldier?”
Several of the men avoided eye contact with him. Others shook their heads no. Finally, Liam answers the question, “Bravery?”
Baltazar smiled, “That’s a good answer but no. The thing that separates a civilian from a soldier isn’t weapons or armor. It's fear. All men feel it. It eats at you, whispers in your ear, tugs on your shoulder, and promises everything will be better if you would just give in to it. Fear is crafty. It tries to deflate you and ultimate
ly makes you turn and run.”
Rafal asks, “So, soldiers don’t have any fear?”
“No, soldiers have plenty of fear. One of the most difficult moments of my life was standing watching Kataphractoi charge right at me. Fear had ahold of me then, but one thing kept me from giving into it.”
“What’s that?” Lael asked.
“My brothers. The comradery I had built with the members of my Kentarchia kept me from giving in to that fear. The difference between a soldier and a civilian is that a soldier can control that fear. A man that can control his fears is a brave man. Last night, fear was eating at you. Fear also gains solace in lots of company. After it seizes a man, it tries to use him to poison others. That first man was Val.”
The men all nodded in agreement. He smiled at them in encouragement and continued, “You know what though? You resisted fear’s call. You ignored it and stood with your brothers. That makes you brave. Look around you right now. These men are your brothers. They stood by you and deserve your gratitude and respect. Congratulate each other.”
The men thanked each other. The bonds of their comradery grew, and Baltazar stood back and watched, “God, I can feel you in my heart. I know there was no way those words could have come from me. I need you pretty badly right now. How can I make these men, some of whom are twice my age, follow me with confidence?” As Baltazar finished the last of his prayer, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned and saw one of the mature cavalrymen from the 8th Mesopotamian. The man’s graying hair and leathery skin framed bright gray eyes that had a knowing look to them, “Well done. I had my doubts about you, but you know about soldiering. Me and the boys.” He gestured back at the other six cavalrymen of the 8th Mesopotamian, “Have your back.”
A tear came to Baltazar’s eye, and he blinked it away quickly, “That means a lot to me. All I wanted to do this morning when I found out about the deserters was to curl up in a ball and quit. I couldn’t do that though. I owed it to Justin, Boulous, and every one of my brothers that have fallen to the damned to pick myself up and press on.”
Byzantium Infected Box Set Page 39
