Strategos: Island in the Storm

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘And now, sir?’ Sha asked.

  Apion firmed his jaw. The black work was not yet complete. ‘And now, we finish it,’ he said, then nodded to Procopius. Without a word, the old tourmarches slipped back from the ridge, taking Blastares with him.

  ***

  Half of his men lay dead around him. Every daylami and thirty six ghazi too. Bey Kerim shuddered, wondering what might happen if Bey Taylan found out what had happened here. No, he reasoned, he had plenty of time to fabricate a report of some ambush or other that would account for the loss of the daylami. As the stench of blood wafted up from the corpses around him, he scowled. ‘Come now, let us be swift, let us be away from this filthy camp before the crows come to feast at dawn. Let us go further westwards to see what more bounty Chaldia has to offer!’

  His men broke out in a cheer, and a smile grew on his face once more. Then he heard a crunching of cart wheels on dust round the base of the nearest hill . . . again.

  Without need of a word from their bey, his remaining ghazis swiftly took up their weapons, some drawing scimitars, others nocking bows, some leaping onto horseback, ready to charge this unseen vehicle.

  Kerim frowned, his eyes locking onto the wagon that rolled round the bend, trying to discern some detail in the pre-dawn gloom. Again, two ponies led it. No drivers in sight, just a canvas-covered heap in the wagon itself, as before. It stopped next to the wine wagon. ‘What is this? What is this?’

  A few ghazis made to approach the wagon, but Kerim barked them back. ‘No!’ he roared. ‘Nobody touches it this time, except me!’ He strode forward, reaching up to lift the canvas, fingers outstretched. But he froze. Had something moved under there?

  Suddenly, the canvas was yanked back from his open hand. No amphorae. Just a loaded ballista and two Byzantine soldiers. One with an anvil jaw, built like a bull, one smaller with a face like a shrivelled prune. Both glowered darkly at Kerim, eyes part-shaded under their conical helms. Kerim’s last thought was snatched from his mind before it could fully form as the ballista loosed the first of its three bolts. The missile passed through him as though he was not there. Swaying, he touched a hand to the ruin that was his chest, and noticed the absence of a heartbeat. With that, Bey Kerim crumpled into the blackness of death.

  ***

  Apion watched the ballista bolt ruin the ghazi leader and skewer another man behind him. As soon as their shock had faded, the rest of the ghazis cried out, stretching their bows, all aimed at the two on the scorpion wagon.

  Now! Apion mouthed, looking to the other end of the rocky valley behind the angered Seljuks. Sixteen skutatoi flooded into the flatland there. They jogged forward, kite-shields interlocked, eyes glaring between the tops of their shields and the rims of their helms, spears jutting forward like fangs. They roared out in unison; ‘Nobiscum Deus!’ Behind them, just four toxotai kept pace, nocking arrows to their bows and loosing onto the befuddled ghazi warband. Now, some of the ghazis turned their bows to this miniature phalanx. Arrows were loosed en masse, but the skutatoi shields held firm, just a pair of men falling to the hail as they advanced. Then the spearmen rippled at the call from the man leading them.

  ‘Rhiptaria . . . loose!’

  As one, the skutatoi hoisted and threw a volley of the light rhiptarion javelins they carried. The missiles sailed into the ghazis and punched several from their mounts. On the other side of the Seljuks, the ballista bucked and spat another bolt, scything down another four riders. Ghazi arrows pattered onto the wagon all around Blastares and Procopius, but the pair were adept at loading the device whilst sheltering behind its bulk.

  The vice was taut, Apion realised. Wordlessly, he waved Sha and the nine other ironclad riders – just a few paces downhill behind him – to their feet and onto their nearby mounts. Likewise, he leapt onto the saddle of his gelding. He clipped his mail veil across his face, then roared with all the breath in his lungs, to be sure that every Seljuk down there heard;

  ‘Forwaaard!’

  The cry echoed and multiplied. He swept his spear overhead, urging his riders down the hillside and directly at the flank of the ghazis. Sitting as far back as he could in his saddle to balance, he grappled his mount’s sides as tightly as he could with his thighs, the beast’s every stride covering vast distances of the close-to-sheer slope. He glanced up and over his shoulder to see his riders, the first tinge of dawn light glinting on their klibania and helms, their faces twisted, mouths agape in battle-cries, cloaks and plumes billowing behind them, their mounts’ eyes white and wide, teeth bared, manes thrashing. Not a single rider had foundered.

  The first of the ghazis twisted to look up the steep hillside. His brow knitted in a frown, then his eyes bulged and his mouth opened to cry aloud. The cry did not come, as the kataphractoi ploughed a gory furrow through their ranks. Apion saw the dark door rush for him, crash open and swallow him into its fiery belly. He drove his spear through one ghazi, then threw it at another, knocking the man from his horse. Then he whipped his scimitar from his belt and wheeled around, striking heads from shoulders, dashing skulls open and cutting bodies open at haste. Finally, there were no snarling men before him save his own bloodstained ranks. He stared at the twitching corpses all around him, numb to the dying embers of the fight and the fading flames beyond the dark door, dead to the cries of victory from his own men.

  ‘Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Ha-ga!’

  ***

  A muggy summer’s night bathed the city of Trebizond and the streets were quiet. High up in the citadel chambers, only cricket-song from the grassy mount outside broke the silence. Apion sat in the map room in his lightest tunic, his chair tilted back against the red-brick walls, his legs and bare feet up on the table, mindless of the map of Chaldia and the small, carved wooden skutatoi and kataphractoi figures carefully laid out there. A scent of roasted goat meat and yoghurt still tinged the room from his evening meal. His gaze hung on the small, arched window that looked out over the city. Pure darkness bar the torchlight from a few homes. He supped on his wine and shuffled for comfort, one wooden figure toppling over from its carefully appointed spot on the map table.

  Apion eyed the piece with disdain. ‘Cah! Planning can wait until morning,’ he muttered. It had been a long day spent huddled over the map with Sha, Blastares and Procopius. The four had shared their thoughts on the raiding party: had it been a lone band, or the first of many? Nobody could offer a convincing answer. Then they had tried as best they could to revise where their scant numbers would be garrisoned for the rest of the year. Even scanter given the eight men lost in the skirmish two days ago. In the end it had been like trying to clothe a beggar in a single thread. And they had still to discuss how to go about mustering the rest of the men of Chaldia from their farms to join Manuel Komnenos and his campaign army – thought to now be marching for the Thema of Sebastae, readying to set up a semi-permanent fort there to ward off any Seljuk incursions from the south or the east. Summoning the Chaldians from their farms was one thing, but getting them in good fighting order within the next six weeks would be another entirely. A throbbing headache blossomed behind one eye.

  Just then, like a straggler from a marauding Seljuk horde, Vilyam scampered into the room, purring. The ginger tom then leapt – rather ungracefully – up onto the table, trotting across the map to bat playfully at the wooden pieces left standing. Heedless of the symbolism, the portly cat then took to grappling one piece between his two front paws and collapsing onto his side, biting at the wooden figure’s head while kicking at the other end with his back paws, his tail swishing and thumping, sweeping the last few pieces clear of the table.

  Apion glared at the cat in horror, then when Vilyam looked up, eyes hooded in pleasure at such wanton destruction, he jostled with laughter. ‘Are you telling me our defensive plans were flawed?’ As if in some form of reply, Vilyam stood and hurried along the table, over Apion’s outstretched legs and onto his lap, where he shuffled and settled in a ball, purring furiously.

  Apion stroke
d Vilyam’s ears and supped at his wine once more. He had been too weary to seek out water to dilute this, one of the few amphorae they had brought back after ambushing the Seljuk raid. But he had sworn to limit himself to just one cup of the heady mixture, sending his trusted three back down to the barracks to share the rest with the other men. Yet this one cup was proving to be a potent ration. As the night wore on, the mugginess eased and he felt a slight chill touch his skin. Drawing his cloak over his shoulders and sweeping part round onto his legs and lap to cover Vilyam too, he felt drowsiness come to him. It was a blessing that his thoughts then began to melt away, gently entranced by the cricket melody, Vilyam’s purring and the soothing warmth of the wine. His thoughts drifted and memories surfaced – pleasant ones, for once. He imagined the cloak’s warmth as Maria’s. At last, sleep took him.

  Blackness. Pure, dreamless sleep. Then all around him swirled and was swept away. He found himself standing face to face with Taylan once more. His son raised a blade like an accusing finger, and his words from that meeting echoed once more;

  ‘In every dream, in every waking moment, with every step you take on the battlefield, you should beware. I will be coming for you, Haga. I will not stop.’

  A rhythmic growl penetrated the blackness. It was faint at first, then it grew fearsome.

  The veil of sleep dropped away and Apion awoke, blinking. His mouth was parched and the wine cup had toppled to the floor. It was now pitch black outside – the last of the street side torches having been extinguished. Then, the growl came again, vibrating through his body.

  ‘Vilyam?’ he croaked. The ginger cat was poised on Apion’s knee, having wriggled clear of the cloak. His eyes were wide, ears back, hips shuffling and tensed to spring. Apion followed the cat’s nocturnal glare into the blackness around the window.

  ‘At ease,’ he chuckled, ‘what harm can a mouse or a bat do you?’

  But when the cat reared up, hair spiked, emitting a hiss that split the night air, Apion saw it. A brief glimmer of steel in the blackness, sweeping down for him. He threw himself from his chair, his ankle catching a table leg and sending the table and its contents scattering across the room. He heard the crack of shattering timber and scrabbled round to see the splintered remnant of his chair, cleaved by a blade. Hurrying to the back wall of the chamber he saw the shadow that carried the blade.

  ‘What the . . . who are you?’ he uttered. The images from his dream were still at the forefront of his thoughts. ‘Taylan? No!’

  The figure did not respond, instead stalking carefully towards him, blade rising to strike.

  Apion squared his jaw. ‘Tayl-’ he uttered again.

  At that moment, he heard the gruff laughter of the shadowy figure, and saw the blade in a sliver of moonlight. A spathion. This was no Seljuk.

  Apion ducked and the spathion blade scythed round, streaking across the bricks where his neck had been a heartbeat ago. Orange sparks flew in the air, illuminating the assassin’s face for an instant. A heavy-browed, flat-faced creature, clenched teeth nestled in a bushy dark beard. He also spotted the knotted rope and steel hook the man had used to scale the citadel wall and climb in the window. Apion heard the assassin grunting and the blade whooshing up to strike again. He kicked out, feeling his heel crack against the man’s knee. A yowl of pain sounded and Apion leapt up and headed for the door, Vilyam rushing with him.

  His mind reeled. What a fool! he scolded himself. To fall foul of the wine only days after seeing it bring the Seljuk warband to their end. My sword, my armour? he fretted, looking this way and that down the short, stony corridor outside. Amidst his flurry of thoughts, he remembered stowing his armour in his bedchamber, two nights ago. He rushed past the narrow stairwell that led to the citadel rooftop and on to the small bedchamber doorway that lay just beyond it. But, to his horror, another shadow waited there – this time wiry and lean. It stalked towards him, raising a dagger. Apion backed away from this one, but sensed the hulking assassin coming for him from behind. Nowhere to run except up. He sped up the stairs and onto the rooftop, his eyes at once locking onto the nearest ballista mounted there, glinting in the moonlight. He hefted up one of the unwieldy bolts resting beside the device and levelled it like a spear, spinning round just as the two assassins emerged onto the rooftop as well. He shot a glance over the rooftop battlements. Down below, he saw the lifeless forms of the four guard skutatoi posted at the citadel gate, and another lying in a shattered, unnatural poise – doubtless the corpse of the man posted to this rooftop.

  ‘Sha!’ he cried down towards the barracks. Dark and silent like the rest of the city.

  ‘Nobody will save you now, Haga!’ the burly assassin hissed.

  ‘Shall we gut him, or send him over the edge?’ the other said.

  ‘Both?’ the big one chuckled icily.

  Apion backed away from the pair who held their blades like well-trained swordsmen. His ballista bolt was a clumsy weapon – not quite a spear and not nearly as nimble as a sword. His thoughts were yanked away as his heel struck the crenelated edge of the rooftop. From the corner of his eye, he noticed torchlight sparking into life down below at the barracks. Someone had heard his shout, but he had only moments to live.

  The two assassins braced to rush him when suddenly, with a yowl, Vilyam leapt up from behind the burly one, clamping to the back of the man’s head and wrapping his claws around to tear at his eyes. The assassin roared out, throwing the cat off, clutching at his bloodied eyes, blinded and staggering.

  Apion realised he had moments before the big man recovered. He wasted no time in rushing forward to drive his ballista bolt at the other assassin’s chest. But the wiry one was swift, leaping back from the huge, iron head of the bolt and striking down at the shaft with his dagger hilt to throw Apion off balance.

  Staggering, Apion just managed to bring the bolt shaft round to parry the man’s next blow, the dagger blade scoring Apion’s hand, sending the bolt toppling from his grip. The wiry assassin grinned as the pair circled one another, then he swiped out, the dagger scoring Apion’s face. Only a sharp punch to the man’s gut stopped him from turning the blade down and into Apion’s neck.

  When shouting and the clattering of rising footsteps from inside the citadel sounded, the man became more desperate, lunging forward. Apion crabbed away from the lunge so the assassin bundled past him. Then he brought his elbow crashing round on the back of the man’s head. Stunned, the man swung round, only for Apion to take up the fallen ballista bolt, drive forward and plunge the shaft into the wiry assassin’s chest. The blunt force shattered the man’s sternum, lodging there and sending him staggering backwards towards the roof’s edge. He stopped there, swaying, rasping, blood dribbling from his lips as he glared at the now weaponless Apion. With a look of finality, he raised his dagger, clutching it by the blade, and drew an arm back to hurl it at Apion. But a thrum of loosed bowstrings saw the hand and dagger stilled. Two blazing arrows whacked into the assassin’s chest, and in moments his black garb was ablaze. The assassin emitted a shrill, pained death rattle, before toppling over the roof’s edge. An instant of silence passed before a thick, wet crunch sounded below.

  Apion gawped at the spot where the man had stood, then swung to the top of the stairwell. Sha stood there, panting, his loosed bow clutched with trembling knuckles. A toxotes was with him, bow clutched in similar fashion, and Procopius stood behind them carrying a torch.

  ‘The other?’ Apion croaked, swinging round to scan the rooftop.

  ‘Sir?’ Sha cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘There was another one – a brute of a man!’ Apion growled this time.

  ‘We saw only one, sir,’ Procopius frowned.

  Apion’s gaze caught on the iron hook wrapped over the edge of the rooftop, grinding and sliding as if under great weight. ‘No, look, there!’ he pointed and rushed over. The others joined him. Down there, near the ground, the hulking assassin shuffled down a rope tied to the iron hook, then leapt down to land on the grassy c
itadel hillside. Without waiting for an order, Sha nocked and loosed an arrow, the toxotes following suit.

  ‘Wound him!’ Apion insisted. ‘We won’t get much information from the other fellow.’

  The arrows smacked down at the assassin’s heels as he bounded down the citadel hillside. Blastares and a clutch of skutatoi were flooding from the barracks, racing for the citadel’s main entrance. But they were blind to the man’s flight and confused by Procopius’ shouts to alert them. The assassin went unharmed by Sha’s next arrow, then clambered over the squat outer wall of the citadel and out into the lower town. A heartbeat later, the whinnying of a horse and the clopping of hooves sounded as the man sped off along the main way towards the southern city gates.

  Wordlessly, Apion led his men down the stairs, raced to meet with Blastares and his men and waved them with him. They rushed along the main way, seeing the handful of night sentries posted along the street startled by the racing horseman.

  ‘Stop him!’ Apion cried.

  But the sentries’ attentions were snared by something else. The horseman took to tossing in his wake handfuls of coins. The coins bounced and jangled as they spread across the street, and the sentries slowed, spellbound by their lustre. Many crouched, scooping up what they could. Apion slowed at that moment, seeing that the side hatch by the main southern gate was already ajar and the skutatoi atop the gatehouse lay slumped and lifeless.

  ‘Sir, come on, if we get our mounts from the stables then we can-’ Sha started.

  ‘We will not catch him,’ Apion panted, ‘he has planned this well.’ He stalked over to one coin that the night sentries had missed. He offered these men a dark scowl, and saw the shame in their nervous eyes. ‘In any case, we do not need to catch him to find out who his master is.’ Apion held the coin so it caught the light of Procopius’ torch. The pure-gold nomisma sparkled like a dawn ray.