A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  He saw Enzo hear him, raise his hands in question, his shoulders a shrug. And Gregoras shouted the word, but it was lost in the action of the word he screamed.

  ‘Cannon!’

  He turned to the roar, saw the giant flash of flame spat out from a huge, round mouth. Not even a second passed before what the great gunshot smashed into the stockade, sweeping away a huge section of it, and the men behind it, vanishing them, a dozen or more, just gone. Gregoras saw the gap, the gaping hugeness of it, a moment before a vast bank of thick black smoke rolled over it, swallowing sight.

  There was silence then, for a long moment, before the screaming began, of agony, of terror. Then of something else, as thousands of voices gave out the same deep-throated cry.

  ‘Allahu akbar!’

  The Anatolians were coming again.

  From the cloud the great gun had created, into the gap it had made, over the destruction it had caused, Turks were charging, twenty abreast, infinitely deep. All the defenders who had stood at that point of the stockade were gone, as if snatched away by God’s own hand. There was no one there to stop the rush, and those survivors nearby were deafened, blinded, stunned. Gregoras could see that the first Turks over the wall were already spreading out, widening their front, allowing more and more of their own to join them.

  And then he heard another trumpet, one he recognised: Constantine’s. He peered beyond the spreading Turks, but smoke and darkness obscured all. Yet another trumpet he knew answered – Giustiniani’s. Emperor and Commander called to him. His city. His comrades. Swiftly, Gregoras strode to the rear wall, pulling off the thick quilted jerkin of the archer. Beneath, he had already put on his arming doublet against this eventuality. He bent to his armour. ‘You!’ he called to a young archer nearby. ‘Help me.’

  The youth came up, his mouth working, no sounds emerging. Still, his fumbling fingers did the work Gregoras directed him to. He got the breastplate around him, ordered the youth to tie the front plate to the back while he slipped the twin vambrace over his upper and lower arms. Judging from the screams and steel clatter coming from below, there was time for little else. His legs, shoulders, neck would have to be exposed. He bent for his metalled gloves, thrust them on. ‘Helmet,’ he commanded, and the young man lifted it, and pushed it on. Unlike the borrowed helm he’d worn in the sea fight, this was a barbuta, open at the face. In a night fight, he was happy to trade the protection of a visor for keener sight.

  He considered what was left, reluctantly disdained his shield in favour of two weapons – a fluted mace and the falchion he’d acquired to replace the one he’d lost at sea. Shoving each into loops at his side, just as the youth tied his last knot, Gregoras flung the rope over the battlements.

  He took a breath, bent to his study. It showed him a fight that had progressed. Not a rout, for the Anatolians had only spread a little further, their front perhaps a hundred men across, all that could force themselves into the gap their cannon and their initial rush had made. But Gregoras could see that they were slowly pushing forward against the still rallying Genoans and Greeks, allowing more of their men in, with still more forming behind.

  He bit his lip. What little could he do? Then he heard again, from the far side of the melee, that distinct cry of the emperor’s bugle. And this time he glimpsed something flying there in the torch flare: the double-headed eagle of Constantinople. Saw the part of the enemy’s line it soared above bulge inwards.

  He looked to the base of his tower. On the fringe of the fight, men milled. Directly below him was an open patch of ground. Climbing onto the rope, he slid down to it, faster than he had the previous time, the heavier for the metal on his back.

  He landed in a group of about ten men, of his country he could tell by their longer beards and ragtag armour; pushed to the fringes of the fight by the heavily armed, better-trained Genoans. They turned to him, startled at his sudden appearance, several lifting their swords. ‘I am Greek!’ he yelled, then pointed with the mace he drew to where the bugle sounded again. ‘And that’s our emperor coming.’ Now he drew his falchion, raised both weapons high and crying, ‘For Christ and country!’ ran into the fight.

  He aimed at an angle, just behind the enemy’s rough front line. He could not heed if he’d been obeyed, if men followed. Not when his trumpets called him. Could only strike at the Turk half turned away from him, turning back to raise his shield too late to stop the falling mace. Gregoras did not have time to prise the weapon from the crushed turban helmet before another Anatolian had turned on him, more prepared, striking before he was struck, sweeping his scimitar in a great arc over his raised shield, down, aiming for Gregoras’s unarmoured shoulder. The Greek had no time to lament his own missing shield, could only twist round, jerking his mace free, lifting his falchion as if punching its pommel up, reversed across his head and angled down. The weapon’s wide blade was short but strong, the scimitar smashed against it and slid down with a steel scream. It pulled the Turk into a slight stumble forward, lowering his shield, let Gregoras jab the blunt end of his freed mace into the face revealed, knocking the head up. Not a blow to kill, only to shock, which it did, enough for death to follow, the falchion pulled back, turned, swept forward, pitted blade slashed deep into the exposed throat.

  Men had followed him into the small gap he’d opened. One lost his sword hand to a scimitar’s cut, but a second drove his spear point through a shield and pinned the man behind it. This Greek was huge, not all the giants were on the other side, and finding he could not jerk free his spear, he just bent, grunted, lifted, charged. The wailing Turk was a human battering ram, men were buffeted aside, the side rank of the enemy driven in.

  ‘On!’ Gregoras yelled, and followed. The big man was roaring, swinging his awful, living burden from side to side. Finally, a spear thrust in from the side, slicing across his leg behind the knee. He stumbled, still roaring, but his own spear lowered before him and blades swung over it. Gregoras had gained enough ground to knock two aside, one with each weapon he held. But another spear snapped the man’s head back and he disappeared from Gregoras’s vision, full now with enemies of his own.

  He saw a man, an officer by the elaborate kalafat of peacock feathers on his helm, trying to close the gap the huge Greek’s charge had opened. Gregoras ran straight at him, smashing his mace into the shield that rose, dropping to his knees and scything parallel to the ground with his falchion. The officer’s boots were armoured but the blade was heavy and smashed the metal in. The man staggered, yelping in sudden pain, and Gregoras was up, driving his shoulder hard into the man’s huge square shield, sheltering behind it as he pushed the officer into his men.

  And then he felt it, the sudden giving. Not just the man leaping backwards, though he did, and it made Gregoras fall himself to his knees. A space opened before him, widening in moments as the enemy began to run. He had seen the same thing in birds, flocks of them turning in the air in an instant, as if one will governed all. Perhaps they were birds here, the sudden looming of a double-headed eagle turning them to prey, and so to flight.

  ‘Constantine!’ came one roar above so many. And Gregoras looked up to see his emperor beneath his standard, leading his own guard of men, right in the centre of his enemies who were there and then were gone, flinging themselves over what remained of the stockade, sliding down slopes of bodies and mud.

  There was no need to pursue, no strength to do so. It wasn’t a silence, there were too many moans, but the music had stopped and men did not have the breath left to jeer.

  Gregoras knelt, gasping, as did most around him. Constantine, though, leading his guard, surged on, up to what remained of the stockade. There for a moment the eagle flew above the heads of the defenders, before a volley of arrows and culverin shot made them stoop, give back.

  ‘There! There!’ came a familiar voice, and Giustiniani was striding forward, directing a dozen men who rolled barrels and bore wood to the gap the Anatolians had just swept through. ‘Do not fear!’ the Command
er cried, when he saw the men hesitating to approach the expanse. ‘The great cannon can only fire every two hours. Stack it up, boys. And, Enzo, bring up a squad.’

  Gregoras watched the Sicilian run forward with twenty armoured men, who crouched behind the barrels rolled into position. More came forward with barrows full of earth, with tree limbs, with nets filled with vine cuttings. In moments, the gap the cannon had blasted was loosely filled.

  Constantine, raising his visor, joined the Genoan. ‘Is that your blood or your enemy’s?’ he said, pointing.

  Giustiniani took off a gauntlet and wiped his face. ‘Mine, curse it. A rock splinter, I think. Enzo!’ he bellowed. ‘Some cloth here.’

  ‘Do you …’ Constantine hesitated. ‘Do you need to withdraw to have it tended?’

  Gregoras noted the hesitation. The emperor knew – all knew – what effect Giustiniani’s leaving would have. He was the heart of the defence. Men would lose theirs and fast.

  The Genoan knew it too and shook his head. ‘No. I do not leave this place unless I am carried out.’ Cloth came, and beneath his dabbing he glared at Gregoras. ‘You are meant to be up there,’ he said, as if the breakthrough was his fault.

  Gregoras smiled. ‘And miss the glory? Besides, you needed help.’

  ‘That we did,’ Giustiniani muttered, wincing as Enzo dabbed, ‘and will again.’

  Constantine, who’d been drinking from a water jar, looked sharply at him. ‘Surely … surely the Turk is beaten now?’

  ‘Beaten? No.’ Giustiniani looked at the cloth. ‘There is more blood to be shed yet.’

  ‘More? But—’ Constantine began, and then was interrupted by a shout.

  ‘Where is the emperor?’

  ‘Here he stands!’

  The shouting man was pushing through the armoured Genoans, as begrimed and bloodied as any of them. He knelt, as much from exhaustion as respect. ‘Liege,’ he gasped, ‘the enemy fly their flags on the palace of Porphyrogenitus.’

  Though he was hissed to silence, a murmur spread rapidly through the mob of soldiers. All men turned to the north, straining into the darkness, though even had there been light, no one could have seen beyond the hillcrest topped by the gate of Charisius. ‘I must … must go there,’ said Constantine.

  ‘No!’ Giustiniani shouted, then lowered his voice. ‘We discussed this, basileus. We cannot rush to every alarm. Each leader must hold his position, retake it if necessary. Ours is here. Here!’ He thumped his breastplate, making the armour clang. ‘For they will come here again, believe me.’

  Constantine closed his eyes, swallowed, nodded. ‘You are right. And we have good men there, resolute men. Minotto the baillie. The incomparable Bocciardi brothers.’ He glanced down, spotted Gregoras where he still knelt, smiled. ‘And your brother, Theon Lascaris.’

  ‘My … brother?’ Something Sofia had said of him, of his politician’s arrangement with the enemy, came back to Gregoras now. His brow flushed cold, chilling the sweat. He rose. ‘My liege,’ he said, his dry voice cracking, ‘Theon is—’

  ‘To arms! To arms! They come! They come again!’

  Shouts drowned out his cautions. All around him, men were lifting weapons.

  ‘Back to your place, lord, and we to ours,’ Giustiniani commanded, dabbing a last time at the still flowing blood. ‘And you to yours, Zoran.’

  It was true. Each man had his position. And he could no more run through crowds of warriors to the old palace and hope to find Theon than Constantine could rush there to defend it. Each man had his destiny that day, for good or ill. Gregoras straightened. ‘I am out of arrows, Commander. So I may as well stand beside you here.’

  Giustiniani smiled. ‘Good. Then take your place.’ He looked Gregoras up and down. ‘But for Christ’s sweet sake, put on the rest of your armour. You look like a bashibazouk.’

  As drums beat, as bells and trumpets sounded, Gregoras turned to the bastion and sighed. The rope looked unclimbable now; it was hard enough to raise his weapons above his head. ‘You! You! Nico!’ he called. The young man who’d helped him before peered down. ‘Tie the rest of my armour to this rope. Lower it to me.’

  He turned as he waited, looking north. There was the faintest lightening in the sky. Dawn was coming. But even with it, he wouldn’t be able to see to the palace of Porphyrogenitus, and the green flag of the Prophet flying over it. ‘Theon?’ he murmured. ‘Brother?’

  The palace of Porphyrogenitus

  One hour earlier

  ‘Megas Primikerios! The men hear movement below. Perhaps they come again.’

  ‘Good. I am tired of waiting.’ Theon pushed himself slowly off the ground, groaning, careful not to use the left arm in its sling. He had spent much time giving the impression of great pain; he did not wish to dispel it now before his sharp-eyed junior officer. He also did not raise his head. A tic had started near his left eye and distorted his whole face. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I will follow.’

  But he didn’t. Instead he stepped up to the bastion’s front arrow slit and peered through it. The Turks had put out their torches again, which usually boded ill. And the music had stopped, which would be a blessing if it was not also a bad sign. It would start again, after the cannon’s blast and fire arrows lit the night; just before they stormed up the rubble-and body-strewn slope created by the tumbled bastion beside the one he stood in.

  They had charged five times. Each time they’d been repulsed. But each time more of the few defenders died. He’d avoided the front line of the fight so far, an already hurt officer standing aloof but in command. He wouldn’t be able to do that much longer, sling or not. Soon, perhaps, only hurt officers would be left.

  He looked at his father’s sword, leaning in the corner of the stone room. Cursed thing, he thought, bequeathed to him from a cursed man because he was the elder of the twins by a mere few moments. He had hated his father, though he had known him but little. A soldier, always away defending the empire’s shrinking boundaries. A rough man, given to boisterous jokes, ones he shared with the younger brother, for plain reasons. When only his sword returned from war, it was also plain which of the brothers should have the fine weapon. So Theon had insisted on his birthright, and enjoyed Gregoras’s impotent fury.

  He could barely draw the thing. He was not the son his dead father would ever have been proud of. Though he possessed many other skills, greater weapons by far than any rusting blade. Skills of diplomacy. Skills of intellect.

  Skills of survival. He had raised himself to the point where an emperor called him oikeios. And were all those skills to die with him because he was a failure at others? With a sword, the bluntest of all tools? It was unfair, as well as foolish.

  It was obvious what was about to happen. Possibly here, in this next attack the Turks were preparing. Probably elsewhere, down the Lycus valley, where the feeble stockade stood.

  Beyond obvious. Certain. Even to a man who was not a soldier. Theon thought back to his meeting with Hamza Bey, in the avenue of Judas trees. The Turk had asked a question. ‘What do reasonable men do, when certainty is reached?’ And he had replied, ‘They consider their options.’

  Now he twitched and considered those options. To go out now and wield a sword he could barely lift? To die in a breach that was going to be stormed anyway, defending a city that was doomed to fall? Or to …

  He thought about Hamza’s banner. Hung from his house, it would protect his property, his family, himself from the ravagers, the pillagers, the slaughterers and enslavers. But only if he had done something to earn protection. For only then would that protection be maintained. His family, the very name of Lascaris, made safe.

  What was it the Turk had said at their first meeting in Genoa? That they had more in common with each other than the Greeks did with the Romans. That they were men of the East. ‘You of the city will stay on and see it great again … Help us restore its greatness, the centre of an empire it once was and can be again.’

  It was true. Theon gave a littl
e laugh, reached up to rub at his jumping face. He was about to lose his life for a corpse that would not lie down. And yet Mehmet promised a renewal, and toleration too, no forced conversion to Islam … or to Catholicism. Orthodox Greeks at the heart of that renewal. Men with skills, with intellect.

  Reasonable men like himself.

  Theon pushed himself away from the arrow slit and the sounds of impending assault. It was beyond obvious. It was inevitable. More than that, it was his duty. To his family. To his faith. To his city. And he could not trust Sofia to do what must be done. A frightened woman cowering with her children? No, he had to take care of it. He had to go home.

  But first, he had something to do. To prove his value.

  He was at the door to the bastion, just about to step out onto the battlements, when the young Greek officer almost barged into him, such was the haste of his return. ‘Excuse me, Megas—’ he began.

  Theon interrupted him briskly. ‘I have assessed the situation. I go to Minotto. We need more troops here. To your post.’

  He turned the opposite way to the fight, headed for a descending stair. The young man called after him, ‘Megas Primikerios …’

  ‘Do what I command,’ Theon roared, taking steps swiftly.

  ‘But, kyr … you have forgotten your sword.’

  Theon stopped. He looked up – at the young man above him, the cursed weapon in his hand. He reached up, snatched it, continued down the stair. ‘To your post,’ he called. ‘Hold the breach till I return.’

  Any further reply was lost in the cannon’s blast. Their own trumpets blared the summons. Men passed him, armour jangling as they ran up.

  He reached level ground, swiftly walked fifty paces further, seeking. To his left was the avenue of Judas trees, long since stripped of their pink bloom. To his right, a deeper darkness. Grabbing a flaring torch from its sconce, he descended the stair. Just then he heard the sharp bark of cannon fire, felt, a moment later, the shudder as great stone balls slammed into the wall close by him. His torch crackled and sparked as dislodged roof dust fell into it. He steadied himself against the wall.