Byzantium

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Stay down!” cried Gunnar, pushing me to the ground even as he ran to engage the attackers. Reaching up, I pulled the eparch down beside me, and we hunkered there, half-crouched by the roadside, as merchants and traders streamed back wailing in terror as they ran. Some still carried their wares on their backs.

  Caught between two enemy forces—one behind and an even greater one before, the Danes had no choice but to fight on to the last man, or surrender.

  It is not in the Sea Wolves to surrender.

  Harald rallied his men—now numbering fewer than eighty, I reckoned—and renewed the fight. Bellowing like a mad bull, he called on Odin to witness his valour, then he and his remaining karlar rushed to meet the new threat with such ferocity that the enemy was momentarily staggered. The onrushing ranks halted and were in some places thrown into confusion as howling Sea Wolves, gripped by the blood-lust of battle, drove headlong into them. The sound of the clash was deafening—men screaming, cursing, crying as they fought and died.

  Oh, it was a dreadful slaughter. The Danes fought with astonishing courage, time and time again performing startling acts of savage and wonderful daring. I saw Hnefi—arrogant, prideful warrior that he was—fight without a weapon when the broken stub of his sword was struck from his hand. Rather than retreat to find another blade, he darted forth, grabbed his foe, lifted him high, and threw the man into a knot of advancing enemy. Four men went down and Hnefi leapt upon them and slew them all with their own spears.

  Another Dane, surrounded by six or more foemen, his spear broken and knowing he faced his death, took hold of the edge of his shield and, with a loud cry of defiance, began spinning around and around, the shield forming a wide arc. Two ambushers who tried to dart in under the shield to stab him with their spears had their skulls cracked by the iron rim; another lost his own weapon and darted aside just in time. The three that were left retreated to a safe distance and then threw their spears at once. The Viking was struck twice, but turned one of the spears on his attackers and killed one and wounded another before he succumbed.

  Gunnar I glimpsed in the killing heat of the fray, leaping and whirling like an enraged animal, his hammer a blur of steel and blood about his head. I heard the awful sound of bones snapping and breaking beneath the fury of his blows. He charged and charged again. Two of the dark enemy fell to a single smashing stroke; he felled a third before the second struck the ground.

  The dark adversary swarmed all around us, straining to the fight, their shrill voices keening as they waved their slender swords. The eparch and I hugged the earth as the onrushing enemy flowed over and around us. More and more pressed in from every side, and the valiant Sea Wolves strove to hold them off. Never did men fight and die with such abandon. If the battle could have been won with fearlessness alone, the Danes would have stood unchallenged on the blood-soaked ground in the end. But there were simply too many attackers, and too few defenders. One by one, the brave Danes were dragged down and killed.

  The last thing I saw was Harald Bull-Roar staggering under the weight of two assailants on his back. With a mighty shrug he threw them off, but two more leapt upon him, and then two more, and he crashed down. The dark-cloaked adversary overwhelmed us and the battle was over.

  For a moment all was quiet, and then the enemy raised their victory chant. They stood on the battleground, weapons lofted high, cheering themselves and jeering at their victims. One look at the hillside, however, told me there was nothing worth cheering about. The dark ones had paid a fearful price for their dubious victory.

  The enemy dead lay in heaps upon earth stained with their blood. The wounded, and there were scores, lay moaning where they had fallen, or stumbled dazed and shaken over the corpse-strewn hill with bewildered expressions on their ashen faces; still others sat and wept into their wounds.

  The chanting stopped and the victors turned their attention to searching the bodies. Instinct told me to remain perfectly still. I thought that if I appeared as merely one more corpse among so many, I might be overlooked. Cautiously, carefully, I put my mouth next to the eparch’s ear to tell him my plan.

  “Do not move,” I whispered. “They may think us dead and leave us alone.”

  He did not hear me, so I whispered a little louder and gave him a surreptitious nudge with my arm. “Did you hear me, eparch?” I asked, looking at his face. His eyes were open, and he was still watching the hilltop where the battle had been fiercest. “Nicephorus?”

  It was then that I saw the spear protruding from between his shoulders and knew that he was dead. I stared at the wicked spear in disbelief. How is it possible, I wondered, for a man to die so quietly? Why him and not me?

  In the turmoil of battle, his life had been violently taken and I, lying right beside him, had not even noticed. I felt shame and disgust and outrage all at once. I wanted to leap up and start running—to run and not stop running until I had put the hateful battle and the blood-soaked earth far behind me.

  Unaccountably, I began to tremble. My limbs shook, my body jolted, and I could not stop the shaking. Seized by paroxysms I shuddered and convulsed uncontrollably. It was all I could do to press my face into the dirt and hope the enemy would pass me by.

  Someone must have seen me shaking, for the next thing I knew, my arms were gripped and I was jerked upright and dragged up the hill between two attackers. We came to a place where a number of enemy were standing in tight ranks around a group huddled on the ground. The ranks parted and I was thrown in among those kneeling there. I saw King Harald, head down, bleeding from his nose and mouth, and realized that these few, myself included, were the last left alive.

  Still trembling, I quickly scanned the group and counted twenty-one; of those I knew, only Harald and Hnefi numbered among the survivors. Twenty-one left from more than a hundred warriors, and who knew how many merchants—all dead. Alas, the killing was still not finished.

  One of the dark-cloaked victors, his sword notched and dripping red, strode to the nearest Dane, grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, jerked back his head and cut the victim’s throat—much to the amusement of the ambushers looking on. The Sea Wolf slumped to the ground, closed his eyes and died without a whimper. The warrior next to the dying Sea Wolf, unwilling to lay down his life for the delight of the enemy, struggled to his feet and threw himself upon the man who had killed his friend. Somehow, he succeeded in getting his hands on the foeman’s throat. The Sea Wolves urged him on enthusiastically. It took three hard sword chops on the back of his neck to kill him.

  After the third Sea Wolf had his throat slit, the others stopped cheering and resigned themselves to their fate.

  This is how I shall die, I thought. This, finally, is how I shall die—murdered with barbarians by an unknown enemy.

  “Christ have mercy!” I muttered. The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying—a reflex trained by long habit only. I no longer believed, nor even expected that the Lord Christ would even hear my prayer, much less answer it.

  The man kneeling next to me heard my outburst, however, and said, “You pray to your god, Aeddan. That is good. I think only your Christ can help us now.”

  I looked at the man, stared at him; the voice I recognized, but the battered face I no longer knew. “Gunnar?” One eye was horribly bruised and blood trickled down his face and neck from a gash in his scalp; his lips were split and bleeding, one ear was all but torn away, and there was a hideous blue-black knot on his forehead. “Gunnar…” I hardly knew what to say. “You are alive!”

  “For a little yet,” he whispered, wiping blood from his eyes. “But if your Christ saves us this time, then I, too, will worship him.”

  Just then, a fourth prisoner was yanked to his feet so that the dark-cloaked foe could impale him with a spear. Two enemy warriors held the Sea Wolf while a third put a spear through his belly.

  “No one can save us now,” I said bitterly.

  “Then farewell, Aeddan,” Gunnar said.

  The unfortuna
te Dane was still twitching on the ground when the leader of the dark ones arrived, seated on a brown horse. I suppose he had directed the battle from a safe distance, and now that it was over, felt sufficient courage to come and inspect the spoils, such as they were.

  He rode directly to where the prisoners were being slaughtered and slid from the saddle. Taking hold of the man who had murdered the last prisoner, he struck the warrior twice in the face, and shoved him away hard. Then he turned and began shouting at the others; I watched the mirth disappear from their faces. They put up their weapons and the killing stopped at once.

  “He works fast, this Christ of yours,” whispered Gunnar knowingly. “What is that one saying?”

  “I do not know.”

  “They are Arabs?”

  “Maybe,” I answered. “But they do not speak like the amir and his people.”

  The leader of the dark ones shouted some more commands, and then climbed back onto his horse and rode away. The few remaining prisoners were then bound hand-to-hand, one to another, with rope made of leather strips. We were prodded to our feet at spearpoint and made to stagger back down the hill over the still-warm corpses of the fallen.

  The dead lay in very heaps on the ground: whole families cut down as they ran, Danes in tight battle groups, toppled over one another. It was as if a forest had been laid waste, the trees levelled and left where they dropped. Women and children and merchant men lay in silent scores upon the bloody ground, ridden down and slaughtered, their bodies hacked, split, broken and discarded. The stink of blood brought bile to my mouth; I retched and gagged, and closed my eyes to shut out the sight.

  My God, I wailed within myself, why?

  I lurched blind over the uneven ground, stumbled, and fell over a battered corpse—a mother with her infant clutched tight in her arms, both pierced with the same spear. Christ have mercy! I cried. But there was no mercy for them, or for anyone else that day. God had abandoned them, like he abandoned everyone in the end.

  I passed the body of the eparch, still lying with the spear in his back, an expression of contemplation on his face. I heard the strangled call of a crow and looked to the corpse-strewn hillside where the carrion birds were already commencing their cruel feast. I hung my head and wept. Thus, I began my long torturous walk to the caliph’s mines.

  PART THREE

  The shade of death lies on thy face, beloved,

  But the Lord of Grace stands before thee,

  And peace is in his mind.

  Sleep, O sleep in the calm of all calm,

  Sleep, O sleep in the love of all loves,

  Sleep, beloved, in the Lord of life.

  44

  A thousand curses on his rotting corpse!” muttered Harald, bringing the pick down sharply on the stone. “May Odin strike his treacherous head from his worthless shoulders.”

  “And feed it to the hounds of hel,” Hnefi added, and spat into the dust for emphasis. He raised his pick and swung it down as if he were smiting an enemy.

  Harald swung the pick high and smashed it down once more. “As I am a king,” he intoned ominously, “I will yet kill the traitor who has brought us to this slavery. Odin hear me: I, Harald Bull-Roar, make this vow.”

  He was talking about Nikos, of course; and the vow, though heartfelt and infinitely sincere, was not new. We had all of us heard the same promise, with slight variations, ten score times since coming to Amida where we had been sold in the Sarazen slave market. Danes were considered too wild and barbaric to be used in any way other than for the most brutish labour. Thus Harald, together with the sad remnant of his once-fearsome Sea Wolf host, had been purchased by the caliph’s chief overseer and promptly put to work in the silver mines.

  To be a slave was a humiliation intolerable to Harald, who would have preferred death a thousand times over—save for the fact that it would have placed him beyond revenge, and wreaking his vengeance on the one who had brought him to such ignominy had become the sole aim and purpose of his life. The Roaring Bull of Skania was now intent on keeping himself and his few men alive with the hope of returning to Trebizond, reclaiming his ships, and sailing to Constantinople to rend Nikos body from soul in the most brutally painful way possible.

  It was Jarl Harald’s belief that Nikos had betrayed us to the enemy—a conviction which the captive Danes supported with the undying zeal of true believers. Sure, I was no dissenter. I thought Nikos guilty, too, but could not work out why he should have done such a thing. Hundreds of people on both sides had died to further Nikos’s dark design. But what was the gain? I kept asking myself. What hidden purpose did it accomplish?

  Following the ill-fated battle, our captors had pursued a relentless pace through a wasteland of arid hills and rock-filled ravines. Settlements were rare, the land desolate and unfriendly. We rested little, and ate less; our captors gave us only enough sleep and food to keep us on our feet. Since so little of our time was taken up with resting or eating, we had ample leisure to speculate on our plight and the chances of making good an escape, and did so as we walked along. All our contemplation counted for nothing in the end, however; we neither escaped, nor learned the nature of the fate awaiting us.

  Twelve or thirteen days after the ambush, we arrived footsore and hungry in Amida, with its low buildings of white-washed mud, and were marched to the open square of wind-blown dust they called a market. It was only when—along with another group of thirty Greek captives—we were herded into the ragged, thorn-infested hills north of Amida, that the nature of our fate penetrated our hunger-dazed minds: we were consigned to the caliph’s silver mines.

  These mines were no great distance from Amida, which, to my best reckoning, lay far to the south and east of Trebizond, well beyond the borders of the empire, and deep in Sarazen lands. Some of the Greeks with us knew of the caliph’s mines; I heard several of them talking, and what they said did not make for glad rejoicing.

  “It is death they have given us,” said one slave, a slight young man with curly dark hair. “They work you until you drop.”

  “We could escape,” suggested the captive beside him, an older man. “It has been known.”

  “No one ever escapes from the caliph’s mines,” replied a third, shaking his head slowly. “This is because anyone who tries is beheaded at once, and the guard who is responsible is disembowelled with his own sword. Believe me, they make certain no one escapes.”

  I relayed what the Greeks were saying to Harald, who merely grunted and said, “That may be. Either way, I do not intend to remain a slave very long.”

  The mines occupied the whole of a tight, many-folded valley at the foot of a range of high barren hills. A single road passed into the valley, overlooked by guard posts on either side along its length, with three or four Arab guards at each position. At the valley entrance a great stone wall had been erected with a huge timber gate through which all who would come or go must pass.

  Once beyond the gate, we entered a veritable city of small white-washed dwellings built from packed mud where the guards and mine overseers lived, many with their families, judging from the clots of women and children we saw here and there in the cramped, winding streets. Harald saw this and laughed. “They are slaves like us!” he hooted, and called all his men to heed and remember this.

  Yet, slaves we were, and we were housed in long low huts outside the entrances to the various pits, of which there were many—perhaps several score—scattered in among the folds of the valley floor, and up among the slopes and crevices of the hills themselves. The huts were nothing more than a roof and a rear wall with a few partitions; they remained open at the front, like pig sties; there were no doors to keep out the wind, and the men slept with their legs and feet outside. But as we were somewhat further south, the weather was milder, and it seldom rained.

  The first day was taken with fitting shackles. All the slaves wore iron leg chains held in place with iron bands around the ankles. Some of the Sea Wolves were so big that the normal bands were to
o small, and larger ones had to be made. As an extra precaution, because of the size and ferocity of the Danes, the overseer decided to bind each Sea Wolf to another with a short length of chain so that they could not move so quickly or adroitly. This safeguard failed to impress Harald, who deftly manipulated the pairings so as to match those who fought best together with one another.

  “You never know,” he explained. “It might prove useful.”

  Because I was not a warrior, I was paired with Gunnar, who volunteered to look after me.

  Shackled and chained, the next morning at dawn we were given our tools—short-handled picks for chipping and prying, and small hammers for breaking rock—and led into the shaft that we were to work, along with a dozen Greek slaves, mostly fishermen from an island called Ixos, whose boat had been driven off course by a storm. There were four guards—two for every group of fifteen or so slaves—and each shaft or pit had an overseer, which meant that we laboured under five keen-eyed Arabs. All the guards were armed: some with wooden staves, and others with short, curved swords, but all carried horse whips, which they applied with dexterity born of long practice.

  The shaft was a tunnel driven directly into the hill which opened into a large cavernous room, from which several dozen smaller tunnels radiated in all directions. The work was arduous, but simple. Each slave pair was to take a finger shaft and, using our picks and hammers, pry the precious metal from the unyielding stone. So that we might see what we were doing, we were given small lamps. These were crudely fashioned of baked earth and held a horse-hair wick and measure of olive oil. The lamps were lit from a torch kept burning in the centre of the cavern, beside a tub of oil used to fill the lamps.