Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘No,’ his colleague snarled, ‘listen.’

  Peleus turned his ear to the road and cupped his hand around it, plugging a finger in the other ear to block out the dull rabble from the town alehouse. Nothing, nothing bar the singing of cicadas. Then he heard it: the crunch of feet on the dirt road. His stomach churned. A Seljuk army of thousands marched in the shadows of his mind. The guards on the wall were usually the first to be torn to pieces by the missile hail of a besieging army. Be brave, he repeated as he gripped his skutum and peered over its rim. Then the slight and diminutive figure of a young man, hobbling and a little lop-sided, trudged from the darkness.

  Stypiotes gasped in relief from the other tower, dropping his shield, turning to roll his eyes at Peleus, then he turned back to face the young man. ‘Identify yourself!’

  The young man stopped, swaying on trembling legs. Squinting up to the watchtower, he offered no reply.

  ‘Ah well,’ Stypiotes shrugged, pulling his bow from his shoulder, ‘I’m always game for a bit of target practice. Bit of a challenge at this distance, but hey ho,’ he stretched an arrow onto the bowstring and winked behind it, tongue poking out as he took aim.

  Peleus winced; the lad was no threat at all, but better to be safe than sorry, there had been decoy attacks like this in the past. But there was something familiar about the grubby figure’s faint limp. It reminded him of the boy Sha had dragged in last summer, the one with the far more severe lop-sided gait. Then he noticed the same heavy brow shading the eyes, the bashed nose and the amber hair. Peleus cocked an eyebrow as the pieces all came together: Sha’s lot, the missing skutatos.

  ‘Hold it!’ He barked at Stypiotes.

  ‘Eh?’ Stypiotes moaned, relaxing his aim. ‘You havin’ a laugh?’

  Peleus ignored his colleague and barked down to the gatehouse: ‘Man on the outside, just the one. Let him through.’

  ***

  A skutatos walked with an arm wrapped tightly around Apion’s back to support him. The barrack enclosure swam in a dim orange, torches licking the night air every twenty paces or so. Cackling and hoarse laughter spilled across the muster yard, coming from the mess hall and that was where the guard seemed to be taking him. Apion could only think of the damp pile of rags that was his bunk but could not muster the energy to tell the skutatos this.

  After fleeing the pass, he had unclipped his brace and run for what felt like a day, carried by the nervous energy of his narrow escape, until his scar burned like hellfire. With no betel leaf remaining, his mind tired quickly, urging him to stop, to lie down, but something deep inside pushed him on at that moment. His destiny demanded that he make it back to the barracks, and he had made it. Now he was past thirst and on to sickness and all he wanted was to lie down, just to close his eyes and let the blackness overcome him.

  Then two skutatoi spilled from the mess hall, eyes red with inebriation, faces stretched in an artificial joy as they staggered and bumped against one another. In his condition though, Apion simply stared through them.

  Procopius was the first to recognise Apion under his cloak of thick dust, the prune-featured veteran’s jaw dropped. ‘I’ll be damned!’

  Blastares’ face twisted into an exaggerated frown. ‘Bringing beggars in for entertainment? Where’re the whores?’ Then his face, too, widened into a grin. ‘It’s the lad! God bless him! He’s alive!’

  At this, a few more skutatoi had appeared at the door of the mess hall in curiosity. Word rippled round inside and then there was a chorus of stool legs screeching on flagstones. With a rumble of boots, the bulk of the garrison toppled out into the muster yard, ale mugs in hand. Word rippled round as Apion felt his legs wobble. The lad with the scimitar. The lad with the Seljuk tongue. The one who saved Sha’s lot. The hero.

  Then a hand clasped on his shoulder. Through bleary eyes he recognised Nepos. ‘You did it, Apion,’ he swept a hand back over Procopius, Blastares and Sha, ‘you saved us. You proved yourself.’

  Another voice called out. ‘What is it you said? He scaled down the pass unseen, then drifted past the guards, silent like a gliding eagle, to infiltrate the Seljuk camp?’

  ‘That’s what I heard,’ another caller out, ‘as if he was invisible until he reached their leader. Then he spoke in their tongue as if he was one of them and told them he would destroy them all if they did not leave?’

  Then Sha stepped forward with a hint of a smile at the soldier’s exaggeration and held his arms out wide theatrically. ‘Indeed. He swoops down from the mountainside like the mighty Haga, one head looks east, the other looks west, then he overcomes the enemy warriors not with force, but with his Seljuk tongue.’

  Apion’s spine tingled at the comparison with the ferocious two-headed eagle. He opened his mouth to correct them on the reality of the encounter, but another soldier roared before he could say a word.

  ‘All hail the Haga!’ The soldier cried. At this a violent and drunken cheer rang out. As Apion was lifted onto a pair of shoulders, the gathered soldiers cheered again.

  Then, just as his eyelids drooped again, he caught sight of Bracchus, stood back by the officer’s quarters.

  The man’s eyes crackled with rage.

  17. The Predator and the Prey

  Cydones sucked in a breath of summer air as the column moved at a canter from under the canopy of the Pontic Forest and out into the yawning green landscape of south-west Chaldia. The thema had almost been fully inventoried and placed on standby for mustering but it had been a tough task after five years of demobilisation. It had been planned as a six month task, but distracted at every turn by seemingly relentless bands of mysterious Seljuk irregulars who rode without a banner, Cydones and his retinue were nearly seven months behind schedule. All the while, the threat of Seljuk invasion was hanging over the people of the eastern themata like a dark cloud. The reports from the eastern border towns were coming in thick and fast; organised ghazi raids were ever more frequent and the garrison soldiers were stretched to breaking point.

  Despite this, spirits had remained high amongst his three hundred kataphractoi as they toured the lands, growing stronger and more numerous every day, and they were soaring now with the promise of returning to Trebizond and leaving behind endless days on horseback for a short spell before setting out to engage with Tugrul.

  Cydones was about to order them into a trot when he heard the riders behind him chattering, talking of a tale of bravery that had spread around the thema. Something piqued his curiosity and he called the two riders forward and asked them to repeat the story, and they were only too happy to comply.

  ‘So this soldier, he and his men are trapped in a mountain pass by a whole Seljuk army, thousands of them. He swoops down from the mountainside, disguises himself as a Seljuk, goes to them and talks his way to their leader, then he pulls out a scimitar, kills a hundred of them before the rest turn and run. Put his life on the line and saved his men. The whole garrison over at Argyroupolis treat him like a hero!’

  The second rider cut in quickly. ‘Aye, they say when he first hobbled into the barracks he was lame, like an old man, but now he walks tall and is built like an oak. He’s a demon with the sword, too – since that day when he talked the Seljuks down, he has fought off raiders like none other in the garrison.’

  ‘Now what is it they call him again,’ the first rider rubbed his jaw in thought and the second one scratched his head.

  ‘Interesting. I’m sure the stories have been embellished somewhat, but they need heroes out there,’ Cydones replied. ‘That town is no longer near the borderland. It is the border. When Tugrul comes west, we must be ready to intercept him, otherwise the men on the walls will be the first Byzantines to face them, and as things stand – hero or not – that town will fall.’ He thought of the dark presence of the tourmarches Bracchus who ran the town. He had been forced to promote the man, the order coming straight from the emperor. Sultan Tugrul would be but one of this hero’s worries, he mused wryly. ‘But we need more like him
. . . what did you say his name was?’

  ‘The Haga!’ the rider yelped, clicking his fingers.

  ‘The Hittite legend?’ the other rider quizzed.

  Cydones slowed his mount, a hint of a smile touching his lips. ‘Indeed, the ancient legend of the ferocious eagle with two heads.’

  The column drew to a halt behind the strategos. Cydones studied the horizon; the scimitar, the limping Seljuk speaker, the two-headed eagle. One name echoed in his thoughts.

  Apion.

  He held up his hand and slowed the column. The riders would not be best pleased at the order he was about to give, but if there was as much riding on his next action as he thought, then he had no choice.

  ‘Trebizond must wait,’ he boomed. ‘We ride for Argyroupolis!’

  ***

  Summer’s heat had conquered the land and he was bathed in sweat as he ran, but Apion refused to drop his pace. It was barely mid-morning and he had Argyroupolis in his sights, the papers already delivered to the imperial rider in record time. Indeed, he had reached the rendezvous point early enough to kindle a fire and toast some bread before the rider arrived, and he could only wonder at how much he might have broken his record by without the wait.

  The sweat droplets gathered on his now thick amber beard and he felt his vision closing in; he reached into his satchel without breaking stride, lifting a betel leaf from the batch he had bought in the market from a coal-skinned Indian trader known to Sha. He slipped the leaf between his lips and chewed until the tangy juices came through. His mind seemed sharpened almost instantly and his stamina steadied a little and then lifted, just a fraction, but enough to keep him going. Kartal the Seljuk had been right about the leaf, it had been invaluable in keeping him going and in making the pain later more bearable. After six months of running every day, his withered leg had swollen with muscle, almost entirely swallowing the scar; added to this, he found the urge to chew on the leaf come less often. Now in his twentieth year, he could now stretch the limb fully to stand tall, at last without need of the brace. More, he could run like a leopard.

  He was ready. Bracchus’ time was almost over.

  As he came within view of the walls of Argyroupolis he slowed and grinned as he took a look at the sun, not even close to its zenith. A record by some way; quite an achievement, he mused, feeling at the iron weights he had sewn into the hem of his tunic to accelerate his muscle development.

  Then the wall guard saw him and broke into a rabble of cheering. He heard their chants as he neared. Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Changed times, he mused with a grin, eyeing his forearm and the red-inked stigma of the mythical creature that the men had insisted on etching into his skin just a few nights previous. He had agreed to this after drinking his first cup of ale in years, but later that night, through bleary eyes, he had examined the design in suspicion; it looked chillingly familiar, he had realised, thinking of that knotted arm reaching for the dark door, with the red emblem on the forearm and the white band of skin around the wrist.

  He shook the thoughts from his head and called out to the wall guard. That day at the pass had been a pivotal moment in winning the hearts of the garrison, and on three occasions since he had clashed again with ghazi raiders. Each skirmish had been swift and brutal, with no prospect of diplomacy or retreat. He had fought only as he knew how to, and found himself being heralded as one of the finest swordfighters in the ranks. But what mattered most to him was the trust and respect he had gained from his kontoubernion. Procopius would always be a dry-witted whoreson, but the old soldier’s opinion of him had definitely mellowed. Even the bullish Blastares seemed to treat him more like an equal now. You saved us back at the pass so you’ll do for me, the oak-limbed giant had muttered grudgingly. He still trod carefully around the pair, eager not to push their firebrand and ale-fuelled dispositions too far. Sha and Nepos, on the contrary, were just that little bit more open-minded. They would tease him about his newfound reputation and they could take a joke in return. It was this spirit that made life bearable in the lead up to the moment he would face and strike down Bracchus.

  That moment was tonight.

  He stopped under the walls to stretch his calves and his quadriceps. He had it all planned: he had watched the tourmarches’ movements closely in the last year. Every night, Bracchus would make his way from the mess hall to the officers’ quarters escorted only by Vadim and for once without the brutes who trailed around with him at every other part of the day. So it was to be that the big Rus would have to die if Apion was to take his vengeance.

  Until tonight, he needed to keep himself busy, to stop fear and doubt from needling into his thoughts. Today would be a fine distraction. The race had been dismissed as a farce at first; the powerhouse Blastares against the cripple Apion, but that had been back in the autumn, before Apion had grown into a broad and muscular young man. Now the odds had tumbled to even and the contest had been talked about all over the barracks as the date neared.

  Apion glanced up to the west; the distant mountain peak and the village of Bizye. It was an hour’s march away from Argyroupolis. If he could win, it would destroy the power of the serrated scar forever and shatter the shackles of that dark night. The physical shackles, at least, he thought, his expression darkening.

  ***

  The sun was beginning to drop after a hot midday and the air was dry. Sha, Nepos and Procopius stood by the wooden palisade gates of Bizye atop the mountain. The tiny settlement was one of the few patches of land that could support crop and grazing in the mountains surrounding of Argyroupolis, and as such the families of over a quarter of the skeleton garrison of the town lived there. The settlement, a good hour’s march west of the town, was afforded only a wooden palisade wall, more to break the winds at that altitude than for defence and with Argyroupolis to the east plugging the main mountain pass the threat of attack was fairly light. Around Sha and his men, at least a hundred villagers and some twenty off-duty skutatoi and a handful of toxotai gathered beside their families, their coins riding on the result of the race. Now all eyes were on the two dots down on the valley floor. Sha lifted a purple rag and waved it over his head three times. A rabble of cheering and catcalls broke out from the cluster of soldiers. The race was on.

  ***

  Apion and Blastares squinted up at the mountaintop.

  ‘Right, I think he’s waving,’ Apion said. A grunt and a scattering of scree told him Blastares was already off and running. Apion set off behind the big man. There were several winding paths, man-made and natural, that would take him to the summit but each held their own dangers and detours. They came to the first fork in the path. He would go right, he affirmed, feeling his lungs begin to stretch. Right was a shorter but less stable route, with a narrow and crumbly path further up. Then Blastares cut right. Apion went left.

  ‘I’ll have an ale ready for you when you reach the top!’ Blastares roared, barely disguising his early fatigue. Then the big man disappeared round the side of the mountain.

  Apion laughed and upped his pace, the air thinning as he ascended. Then the bleating of a mountain goat startled him and he jumped past the equally bemused animal. His muscles ached but not at all like they used to. He was nearly halfway up, he realised, glancing up at the mountaintop plateau. He noticed a plume of dust from the eastern edge of the mountain, further up than he was. Blastares was ahead! He felt the urge to reach for a betel leaf but then hesitated; this race had to be won without advantage. Then he noticed another plume, a little further down from him, again on the eastern edge. Odd, he thought, as the villagers only made the trip down to Argyroupolis once a day at dawn and then back up again in the evening, after they had traded their wares. Perhaps it was a goat herd moving his flock along. He shook the thought from his head and honed his mind, trying to garner the same focus that the betel leaves would give him. Running without their aid was another challenge he was determined to win. Only two more zig-zags and he was at the top, where all the paths converged to a single dirt track lea
ding into the village.

  He heard Procopius first, the old soldier uttering a guttural roar of joy. ‘Come on, Apion!’ He whooped. The old soldier had changed his bet on seeing Apion’s limbs swell and tone through the training regime.

  The mountaintop rolled into view and the crowd pumped their fists and roared, braced, heads darting from one path to the next. Then Blastares appeared at the other edge, his face a shade of plum. The big soldier had less ground to cover but his legs were leaden. Apion sensed his reserves of energy would carry him home in first place. He half-heard a gasping insult from Blastares as he raced ahead, then sprinted for the spear planted in the ground – the finishing post – but then a pained yowl pierced the air just behind him. The faces of the gathered crowd dropped into winces. Apion slowed to look back over his shoulder. Blastares lay in a crumpled heap, grappling his ankle.

  ‘Come on, lad, get over the line! I’ve got a month’s pay on this one!’ One soldier bawled.