Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart (5 page)

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 clustered, 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.

His smile faded instantly.

Three gawping, grey heads rested on stakes atop the gatehouse, gazing out to the east. Veins and strings of congealed blood hung from their necks. Shame snaked through his thoughts once more.

It was the three Seljuk akhi he had brought to the walls to be slain. He had ended their lives. That, he could justify. He had justified it to the man whose throat he had cut. But what he had done after the battle, when Nasir’s arrow wound was still fresh, when he had stood in the fire beyond the dark door . . . that, he could not justify.

He could still remember the sound of his own half-panting, half-growling as he had stormed back into the town, hobbled up to the battlements where the bodies lay, drawn his scimitar and desecrated the corpses.

He turned his gaze from the heads and held up the dagger blade, gazing at the creature that stared back at him.

An eagle cried out from high above the town.

Apion saw the silver-haired crone in the dagger blade. She sat silently by his side. Her milky, sightless eyes were fixed on him, unblinking. ‘It has been some time since we last spoke,’ he nodded faintly to her.

‘You sought revenge, Apion. You drank the bitter foulness from its cup,’ she said. ‘You thought you could do so and then purge it from your life. Yet you found that once you have bathed in blood, the urge to spill it follows you forever more. It is a cycle I have long since grown weary of watching. It draws the worst from good men.’ She extended a bony finger to the three impaled heads. ‘Those men should have been buried, their bodies intact.’

‘I know this,’ Apion said stoically, spinning his dagger on its tip. ‘Why do you remind me of my lot?’

Her sightless eyes seemed to search his face. ‘I could remind you of much more. It has been twelve years since we last spoke. I have watched over you in that time. I have seen the grim deeds you have carried out or that have been performed by others at your behest. There have been noble exploits at times,’ she nodded in concession, ‘but always, your anger and hatred have brought shame upon you with your actions.’

‘So you come to chide me?’ Apion turned to her, frowning.

‘No, not to chide you. I thought the darkness had consumed you entirely but I see that a chink of light remains. I come to offer you hope.’

‘Hope? Hope is not a word to be used carelessly,’ Apion offered her a mirthless half-grin. He swept a hand out across the surrounding countryside. ‘With every passing day, hope dies in men’s hearts all across these lands. Our borders are guarded by mercenaries who care little for those they protect,’ then he cast a half-scowl over his shoulder to the west, ‘and our emperor sponsors this. All the people of these lands have left is their God.’ He ground his dagger into the mortar between two pieces of stone. ‘So tell me, what hope can you offer?’

She paused, her expression falling stony. ‘I have seen a future where this land can be free of struggle, for you and for all. But once again, Fate toys with me, showing me only what might be, dangling half-truths and allusions before me.’

‘You have offered me wise words in the past, old lady. But you trouble me with riddles today. And today I have enough troubles and my mind is already awash with riddles. Please, if you have been blessed with the knowledge of what is to be, then tell me.’

The crone cackled shrilly, her eyes bulging, her lips rolling back to reveal worn and yellowed teeth. ‘Ah, to hear a man speak of foresight as if it is a boon – that is rich indeed. If you were plagued with the knowledge of what might be then, truly, your life would be troubled indeed, and your mind would never be free from torment.’ She tapped her temple with a bony finger. ‘Believe me, I speak from experience.’

Apion sighed. ‘But you have something to tell me, else you would not have come to me?’

She nodded, then turned to the east. ‘I see a future where a great conquest has taken place. A battlefield by a vast lake lies soaked in blood. A great leader has fallen. This land is no longer in torment.’

Apion’s eyes widened and he searched the crone’s face, waiting on some bitter twist. But there was none. ‘The conflict can end?’

She nodded in silence.

He mused over her words again and frowned. ‘But you do not say who the victor is?’

She gazed through him. ‘It is not the victor that matters, Apion, but the outcome. A time of peace across Anatolia. A chance for this land to know summer after winter, free of bloodshed.’

‘You speak of a dream I have lived only in my early years,’ Apion spoke absently, then his frown returned and he shook his head. ‘But you must also see the victor, surely? What use is the knowledge that one runner will win a race, or that a dice will yield a number?’

The crone sighed and nodded in resignation, her features lengthening. Then she fixed Apion with her milky glare. ‘I see a battlefield by an azure lake flanked by two mighty pillars. Walking that battlefield is Alp Arslan. The mighty Mountain Lion is . . . dressed in a shroud.’

Apion’s eyes widened and darted.

‘Be wary of what you take from my words,’ she added quickly. ‘Many men have met their end by reading good from ill-omens. Many more have thrown their lives away by sensing wickedness from the mildest of portents.’

‘That is the lot of any man. I accept this,’ Apion said. ‘But that you have come to me tells me that you have also seen my part in this future?’

‘Aye,’ she nodded, ‘since the first time we spoke, and all throughout the dark years of war, I knew you would be part of it.’

‘Part of what?’ Apion leaned closer to her.

She grasped his wrist. ‘Stay strong,
Haga
, for the Golden Heart will rise in the west. At dawn, he will wear the guise of a lion hunter. At noon, he will march to the east as if to counter the sun itself . . . ’

Apion shuffled, his lips readying to speak.

The crone held up a finger, silencing his coming words. ‘ . . . at dusk you will stand with him in the final battle, like an island in the storm.’

Apion’s eyes became shaded under a frown. ‘What does it mean?’ he sighed.

‘I can offer you no more than this,’ she said with candour, ‘for this is all that Fate dangles before me.’

‘But where should I go to find this . . . Golden Heart?’ he asked.

‘Go where you feel you must, Apion. If it is meant to be, then you will meet him.’ Her face grew sullen. ‘It seems that to defy Fate you must also submit to his whims.’

Apion made to protest, then caught the words in his throat and nodded with a sigh. ‘I think I am beginning to understand your torment, old lady. Very well,’ he prodded his dagger to the east. ‘Tomorrow, once my men are rested, we will make haste to Caesarea. Many citizens and men of my ranks are trapped within Bey Afsin’s siege lines.’ Then he sighed and added through gritted teeth. ‘As is Doux Fulco.’

‘He is as good as dead, Apion,’ she spoke gravely. ‘This is no vision. This is a fact. His craven heart has led him inside the city’s walls. He would have been as well sealing himself in his own grave. He and the people inside cannot be saved.’

Apion nodded. ‘But I must try.’

Her puckered face at last creased into a smile. ‘And that is what makes you what you are, under all those layers of bitterness, a flicker of light in the darkness. That is why I know you can be saved. That,’ she placed a hand over her heart, ‘is why I know you can defy Fate.’

Apion felt warmth in his own heart at this, as if she had placed her hand there. He looked coyly down to his dagger blade once more, surprised to see a smile in his reflection. ‘By all accounts my path will be long and arduous. But tell me, old woman, was there ever a future for me where war did not hold sway?’ In his heart, he imagined Maria, alive and in his arms. The sweet scent of her skin, the warmth of her touch. Their children playing around them. His eyes moistened.

The crone’s lips moved as if to speak, but then she hesitated. ‘We will talk again, Apion,’ she said at last, ‘when the time is right.’

He looked up with a frown, but the crone was gone.

The deep-red sky yielded nothing but the distant screech of an eagle.

***

The Seljuk-held city of Hierapolis dominated the arid plain of northern Syria. Its old, Byzantine walls were lined with an akhi garrison, and the vividly tiled minarets and the dome of the great mosque glistened in the rich sunset. High on the acropolis mount, the mighty limestone citadel stretched for the heavens, topped by the fluttering golden bow banners of the sultanate.

But the city was merely a speck on the western horizon for the Seljuk women of Hierapolis, washing their garments in the shallows of the River Euphrates at this hour when the sun was less fierce. Most gossiped as they worked, laughing or, more commonly, lamenting their absent husbands. One woman worked alone.

She wore a fine, dark-red silk robe. Her slave girl had laid this out for her in the morning. The girl had insisted on washing these garments, but her mistress had said no, insisting the slave should remain in their modest villa to rest, eat and build up the strength she so clearly lacked since they had bought her. So the woman had come here alone, ignoring the glances fired at her from the various cliques of jabbering wives and slaves.
The wife of a bey, deigning to dip her fine hands in the river?

When she had finished washing each piece, she wrung the river water from it before bashing it against the rock. She reached out and lifted the next robe, humming a tune her father had once taught her – this helped block out the jabbering and whispering around her. The melody conjured up memories of the days when she would sit on Father’s knee and the goat kids would skip nearby as they sung it together. A smile spread across her face at this. Then a meadow brown butterfly fluttered down to rest on the tip of a reed in the shallows before her. For a moment, she stopped washing, admiring the creature.

When she caught sight of her reflection in the momentarily still shallows, a tinge of sadness stung behind her nose. She saw the lines to the sides of her eyes and the few strands of silver in her charcoal hair. She was not her father’s little girl anymore. Worse was the thought that she could no longer remember what her father had looked like. A coldness set around her heart as she remembered the last time she had seen him. The blood seeping from his awful wounds, the life slipping from him. She blinked away the thoughts before they could materialise and set about scrubbing at the robe vigorously and in silence. The butterfly fled in fright.

Then a distant wail echoed across the plain from the west. She shivered at the noise, then turned to see a party of ghazi riders race out from Hierapolis’ gates. They were little more than a blur of hooves, speartips and dust cloud as they thundered across the plain towards the north-west. The Antitaurus Mountains loomed there, silhouetted by the sunset. Beyond them were the borderlands with Byzantium. Out there, somewhere far over the horizon, her husband roamed with his warband, eager to spill Byzantine blood.

Bey Afsin is the true leader of the Seljuk people – where Alp Arslan hesitates, Afsin is ready and willing to strike down our enemies!

She turned back to her washing, shaking her head at the memory of her husband’s rant. Such a thinly veiled guise for his true motives. The playful boy she had grown up with, the young man she had once loved, had been consumed by bitterness.

I have brought you wealth and a fine home, have I not? Is that not enough?
he would say.