Strategos: Island in the Storm

by Gordon Doherty

  A wing of ghazis surged for the varangoi square, forging a path towards the emperor. One chopped his scimitar across Igor’s breastplate, another swept his blade across the Rus’ shoulder, cleaving deep into a gap in his armour and leaving his axe arm hanging uselessly. But the warrior took up his weapon in his other hand and swung it out regardless. Yet the next blow tore out the Rus’ throat. The old, gruff axeman sputtered lifeblood and looked around as his last moments of life ebbed away. A heartbeat later, he was gone, but his staunch resistance had allowed the varangoi either side of him to close up the gap in the square, and the ghazis were rebuffed in their attempts to get to Romanus. Amongst them was Alp Arslan, the great warrior sultan’s sword held aloft and his mouth agape in a battle cry, his white shroud soaked with blood. The next ghazi surge pressed one side of the varangoi square back until it was on the verge of collapse.

  ‘Ya!’ Apion yelled, guiding his mount through the heaped bodies, the clusters of fighting men and the mire of blood to aid the tenacious Rus in their last stand. He veered away from swiping blades and ducked under jabbing spears. Then, suddenly, his world was thrown into chaos. He heard the agonised whinnying of his Thessalian and felt the gelding fall away under him. Earth and sky changed places as he tumbled through the slick of blood and bone. Dazed, he staggered as he tried to stand, clutching his head, realising his helm had been lost in the fall. His scimitar had fallen too. Worst of all, he saw his Thessalian breathe its last, crippled by the spear that had been hurled into its chest, piercing its heart. He looked on numbly, seeing the light in the beast’s eyes dim.

  All around him, men fought with their blades and with their bare hands. The hundreds fighting for their lives around him seemed oblivious to his presence. They barged around and past him, splashing a filthy mix of blood and earth up at his face. He gazed through the forest of horse legs and saw his scimitar, a few paces away, in the mire. When he reached out to lift it, an arrow sliced through the air before him, punching into the mire and quivering.

  He swung round to meet Taylan’s glower. His son was mounted, only paces away.

  When another ghazi rider raced for Apion, sword hefted, Taylan swept up a hand and the rider pulled out of the strike then raced on into the fray.

  Taylan slid from his saddle, thumping down into the blood-wet earth as the struggle raged on around them. He dropped his bow then prised Nasir’s helm from his head and threw it to the mire, letting his dark locks billow in the whipping wind. His brow was dipped like an angry bull’s, his eyes glimmering like jewels in the dusk.

  ‘You saved me?’ Apion said, flashing a glance to the ghazi who could have slain him. Likewise, many more skirted past, eyeing Apion as if to strike then thinking better of it upon seeing that Taylan was already facing him.

  ‘Perhaps only so that I could slay you myself,’ Taylan replied, one corner of his top lip flickering. He drew his scimitar.

  ‘Perhaps?’ Only now Apion could see the young man’s face was streaked with recent tears. ‘Unlike when we last met, you do not seem so sure this time?’

  ‘You killed my true father, your armies sacked my home in Hierapolis. You stole my soul . . . ’ Taylan growled over the squall.

  Apion saw the knuckles of Taylan’s sword hand flex on the hilt of his scimitar, then he eyed his own blade – still jutting from the ground. ‘I wished for none of that. I, like you, am just a leaf in this storm of war.’

  ‘But my mother,’ Taylan snarled.

  All of Apion’s senses pricked up. His son looked him in the eye.

  ‘She did not want this,’ Taylan continued. ‘Not for Bey Nasir, not for me.’

  ‘She has a good heart, Taylan. One of the few who do.’

  ‘Don’t you speak of her!’ Taylan barked, lifting his scimitar to point it like an accusing finger. The wind blew his locks across his face and part-masked his gritted teeth.

  Apion raised his hands in supplication. ‘Tell me she is well, Taylan,’ he cried over the din. ‘Tell me she is happy. Tell me this and I will not seek her out any more. Tell me this and we need not clash swords.’

  Taylan looked along the length of his scimitar and frowned, his sword arm quivering. ‘Then what would be my purpose?’

  ‘You can be a good man. Do not let a quest for revenge stain your life like it did mine and Nasir’s.’

  Fresh tears darted from Taylan’s eyes. Slowly, he unbuckled Nasir’s scale vest, the armour jacket crunching to the ground.

  ‘Taylan, what are you - ’

  ‘I am unshackling myself of the past,’ he said with a weak smile. ‘The shame, the anger, the hatred . . . ’

  His words shuddered to a halt and he staggered forward, his back arching and blood lurching from his mouth. A wiry-bearded older Seljuk swept past on his mount, reaching down to wrench his thrown axe from between Taylan’s shoulders. ‘Where is your hubris now, whelp?’ the older rider spat, a sneer wrinkling his blade-like features.

  The man’s victory was short lived. Apion swept up his scimitar and brought it chopping round on the rider’s belly. The blade cut through the man’s mail shirt and sliced open his flesh. He toppled from the saddle, screaming, then scrambled up onto his knees, desperately trying to scoop his steaming, spilling entrails back into the wound – scraping up blood, earth and slivers of flesh from other bodies in the process. Devoid of feeling, Apion strode over to the man, who glared up at him, mouthing some kind of plea. With a swipe of the scimitar, the man’s head was off, gawping as it rolled through the mire.

  He heard a distant cry; ‘Bey Gulten has fallen!’

  Apion stumbled through the fray to the prone Taylan. He fell to his knees and cradled the young man, lifting him from the filth. The snarl was gone, replaced by a look of fear. He looked every bit a fifteen year old boy, breathing his last on a battlefield.

  ‘She is . . . she needs you,’ he spluttered, the colour draining from his face and his pupils dilating. ‘Go to her. Be swift . . . tell her I’m . . . sorry.’

  ‘Where is she?’ he gasped.

  But there was no reply. He felt the boy’s body relax, a last rattling breath escaping his lips. He stared into Taylan’s lifeless eyes, hearing the boy’s last words over the screaming, gnashing of mounts and rasping of iron nearby. Tears blurred his vision and his chest racked with a sob. His trusted three were gone. His faithful old warhorse had charged its last. The emperor’s army was on the brink of destruction. And now his son lay dead in his arms. Surely now he too was to die on this field. The truth he had sought about Maria would die with him.

  ‘What is left?’ he mouthed, feeling bloodspray settle upon him.

  It was then that he heard a desperate cry from amidst the pocket of Byzantine resistance. ‘Do not lose heart!’

  He looked up. The voice was unmistakable. Emperor Romanus. Apion lay Taylan down and stood tall. A short distance away, the writhing mass that had been the Varangoi and the remainder of Bryennios’ cavalry wing were now clustered together in a desperate last stand. A few thousand other men still held out in pockets here and there, despite the relentless press of Seljuk cavalry. A pair of ghazi riders circled around him at that moment. He levelled his scimitar and swept up a discarded shield, seeing they each had their bows trained on him. But the lead rider looked down at Bey Taylan’s body and then at Apion, then flicked his head towards the nearest cluster of Byzantine resistance. ‘I saw what happened. Go, join your comrades. Fight your last. You deserve to die in battle at least. We will tend to Bey Taylan’s body.’

  Apion backed away, panting, giving the man a brisk and earnest nod. He turned and hurried for the cluster of varangoi – now in a swiftly shrinking circle. These Rus – barely a hundred of them – swung their axes valiantly. Seljuk bodies fell back in swathes, cleaved open or deprived of limbs or heads, only for many more to replace them. He saw a gap that had been forged in the circle, and, just before the varangoi had a chance to close it, he rushed for it, tumbling into the tiny patch of ground within. At one edge of
the circle, Romanus tugged on the reins of his rearing stallion, swiping out at the attackers, aided by Bryennios and a clutch of his cavalrymen. The emperor’s armour was battered and gore-coated, his helm lost and his hair matted with blood. Then, with a flash of steel, the Golden Heart’s mount was struck down, peppered with Seljuk arrows. The emperor sunk out of view.

  ‘No!’ Apion cried.

  Romanus thrashed in the blood-soaked earth, desperate to free his trapped leg from under his dying mount. Apion and a pair of varangoi wrenched him out by the shoulders and to his feet.

  ‘Get me armour,’ Romanus growled over the whistling gale, unbuckling his ornate white and silver breastplate. ‘Proper armour.’

  A varangos came to him with an old iron klibanion – the lamellar armour jacket of the ranks – and a simple conical helm, before rushing back to the tight defensive circle.

  ‘Basileus?’ Apion frowned.

  ‘What use is splendid cavalry armour when you are to fight on foot?’ Romanus offered him a flash of a grin that did well to mask his fear. This man was the figurehead of all the Seljuk army were here to conquer. His head would surely be a prize sought by every blade coming for them.

  Apion did not protest, clasping a hand to the emperor’s shoulder as he buckled the klibanion and helmet on. The vicious squall circled around them with a howl as if it had come to battle too, and the relentless arrow hail thickened further, striking men down in swathes. ‘I will be by your side to the last, Basileus.’

  Like an island in the storm . . .

  When a pair of varangoi cried out, lanced by Seljuk spears, and fell from the circle, Apion and Romanus leapt into the breach as one. The wailing storm buffeted them, arrows danced from their armour and the Seljuk blades were relentless, and they fought with all they had. Apion parried, swiped and cut out, feeling his sword arm tremble with fatigue, knowing he had little left to give, sensing that this last stand was about to fall. The hundred varangoi became thirty, and all too quickly just a handful. Soon, he felt Romanus press up back-to back with him and realised they were but two. He felt the vibrations of a defiant war cry vibrate in his bones. Then a Seljuk axe cut down across his cheek and sliced the skin open there. A heartbeat later a spear punched into his klibanion, puncturing his flank. He faltered, falling to one knee, blood lurching from the wound. He felt Romanus, at his back, sink to the ground too. The emperor clutched his forearm, an arrow having pierced his wrist, knocking the spathion from his grip. Weaponless, Romanus tried to barge out with his shield. Apion swiped weakly at those who came at the emperor. His parry was swept aside with ease, and a Seljuk shield rim cracked against the bicep of his sword arm, shattering the bone. He roared in agony, barely seeing the scimitar that scythed for him, the flat of the blade crashing against his temple.

  He fell back into blackness, hearing pained cries all around him as the Byzantine resistance collapsed. Cries for mercy rang out from the pockets of men who fought on. A Seljuk war horn spoke next. It sang across the battlefield, echoing through the hills and into the near-dark sky. The Seljuk victory cries were relentless.

  20. Amongst the Dead

  The southern end of the plain and the valleys around the foot of Mount Tzipan reeked of death. The moonlight betrayed thousands of glistening corpses and flocks of crows – heedless of the night – who descended to tear at the still-warm flesh. The gale had died not long after dusk, as if satiated by its feast of souls.

  Alp Arslan picked his way sombrely through the carpet of dead, the night chill searching under his bloodied shroud and the armour underneath. Around him, his men set to work on laying out the bodies for burial and disarming the remnant of the Byzantine army.

  He came to Bey Taylan’s corpse. The boy’s skin was as pale as a westerner’s now. He was laid out on his back, as if placed there, his eyelids having been closed. The sultan’s heart hardened as he realised the boy must have faced his father after all.

  ‘Spearmen,’ he called to a passing pair of akhi who carried a ghazi body. ‘How did Bey Taylan fall?’

  The akhi bowed. ‘Great Sultan. He died with Bey Gulten’s traitorous axe in his back.’

  Alp Arslan’s blood cooled. ‘Then bring that dog to me-’ he stopped, seeing the spearman’s gaze switch to another body, disembowelled and headless. This body had been offered no care – neither laid out straight nor reunited with its head.

  ‘The Haga destroyed Gulten, moments after Bey Taylan had fallen.’

  Alp Arslan felt a long-lost emotion claw at him. Sorrow tightened his throat and ached in his chest. A boy had died before his father. Many more mothers and fathers would be without their sons too. He thought again of his newborn son, and of Malik, growing into a fine battlefield leader. How long would they have in this world of endless war?

  ‘And the Haga?’ he asked.

  The spearman looked up, setting down some other body. He looked this way and that, across the piles of dead, over to the masses of Byzantine prisoners. ‘It is hard to tell, Sultan. Every man we come to wears a mask of blood.’

  Alp Arslan laughed a chilling laugh at this. Utterly mirthless. ‘Don’t we all, brave akhi? Don’t we all?’

  He walked on, hearing the weary salutes of his men, seeing the wounded writhing in agony – far too many to be treated by the few physicians in his ranks. He entered the valley south of the battlefield, skirting Mount Tzipan’s eastern face. Here, the akhi spearmen were putting together a rudimentary timber corral and herding the Byzantine prisoners inside. Here, they could be guarded more easily and would have access to a small brook that trickled through the space.

  Further on, he came to the wide, flat area where his army had made camp. In the heart of the sea of tents and torches was an obscenely large yurt. Nizam stood at the entrance and Kilic was there too, there for him as they always had been. They offered him no words of congratulation or solace, Nizam simply handing him a flask of wine.

  Inside alone, he felt the silence claw at him. The space was adorned with a few simple chairs on a raised timber platform, a post to which his pet falcon was chained, and a small table with a shatranj board and a platter of fresh bread and dates. He had never felt less like eating.

  He tore off the bloodied shroud and threw it down, unbuckled his swordbelt and armour and drew a green silk cloak around his shoulders. A shrill whistle brought his hunting dog into the tent and to his feet. Then he sat on one of the chairs, supping at the wine, smoothing the dog’s sleek, dark coat and gazing out through the tent flap into the darkness. When dawn came, the flask was empty. It was then that he noticed a party approaching. An excited rabble. Akhi spearmen jostling around a beleaguered Byzantine. They led this one by a rope tied around his neck.

  Alp Arslan sat up, leaning forward on his chair, the fog of the wine dissipating at once. More and more of his men gathered around this prisoner. Soldiers, still stained with the filth of battle. Beys and noblemen, washed and in clean robes. They spilled inside the tent under Kilic’s glower, eagerly forming an audience, awaiting the prisoner.

  When the prisoner was brought inside, Alp Arslan eyed him. A mere spearman, his hair a knotted mess of blood and dirt, his face black with dust and his lamellar vest clad in a layer of gore. The ropes shackling him had chafed his neck and wrists, and one hand was encrusted with the blood of what looked like an arrow wound. A sorry sight. Despite his condition, the man’s azure eyes blazed with defiance.

  ‘Sultan, we bring you your prize,’ the foremost akhi stepped forward. ‘The Emperor of Byzantium.’

  Alp Arslan threw his head back and roared with laughter. ‘Then you have been had, brave akhi, for this is not the great Romanus Diogenes!’

  The prisoner’s gaze dropped to the floor, his nose wrinkling and his jaw stiffening in ire. Alp Arslan cocked his head to one side, noticing the gold chain peeking from the collar of the man’s armour. ‘Bring me another prisoner,’ he said.

  The akhi frowned, then nodded hurriedly and slipped from the tent. The audience murmur
ed in excitement. The akhi returned with a Byzantine foot archer. This wretch was scrawny, with a tattered, bloodied tunic and teeth like tombstones. The archer stumbled in, trembling, looking all around him like a cornered animal. Then his gaze swept over the lone Byzantine spearman. At once, the man’s eyes bulged and he dropped to one knee, bowing. ‘Basileus!’ he gasped.

  The audience broke out in a babble of excitement. Alp Arslan looked on the lone spearman with interest now. ‘Is it really you?’

  Romanus looked up, his features drawn and weary. ‘The victory is yours. So do what you will with me and be swift about it . . . had the situation been reversed I would not hesitate to put you with the dogs in a lead collar.’

  Alp Arslan cocked an eyebrow. ‘Now I have no doubt that it is you, Basileus.’

  ‘Bow before your new master!’ one bey snarled, striding forward to grapple Romanus’ shoulders. Another bey came forward to help him. ‘Kiss the ground before the sultan’s feet!’

  Alp Arslan tensed, seeing the pair as jackals, knowing their thirst for blood was not yet satiated. Romanus shrugged them off with a swing of his broad shoulders, and a pair of watching akhi instantly grabbed for their sword hilts, ready to intervene. At this, Alp Arslan shot to standing, knowing he had to act. He brought the back of his hand raking across Romanus’ face. Once, twice and again. This brought the Emperor of Byzantium to his knees, spitting blood from his split lip. The offended beys and the eager akhi pair stepped back, pleased at this sight. The sultan then lifted a leg to place the sole of his boot on Romanus’ shoulder.

  ‘From this moment, Emperor of Byzantium, I am your master,’ he said. He scanned the sea of gleeful faces watching this, then clapped his hands together. ‘Now, leave us!’

  He watched them go, then when the tent was empty, he nodded to Kilic, who stepped outside too and drew the tent flap over, leaving him alone with Romanus.