Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (27 page)

‘So you know the brief?’ The new protomandator pulled his cloak tighter around him and cocked an eyebrow, breath clouding in the dawn winter air.

‘Through the mountains, to the waystation, then hand the papers over to the imperial messenger; same as it’s been for the last two weeks?’ Apion replied.

‘You’re okay with that?’ The protomandator’s eyes hung on Apion’s withered leg as if it was plague-ridden.

‘I’ll be fine, and so will the package.’ He swiped the hemp sack from the protomandator’s grasp, dropped it in his satchel and left the officers’ quarters. They didn’t care about the messenger who carried the lesser documents to the northern waystation. If they did, they would have afforded him a mount or a berth on a wagon to go round the mountains as they did with the imperial couriers. No, it was cheaper to send a man on foot. So here he was, on this crisp winter morning, dressed in a faded crimson military tunic, green woollen leggings, bare feet – despite the cold – and carrying only his dagger and his satchel.

He did his best to walk tall as he crossed the muster yard, passing Bracchus and the garrison, formed up for roll call by the sleeping quarters. The tourmarches sneered the first time he saw Apion head out on foot: the last messenger had been killed by brigands as he ran through the mountain passes. But Apion planned on more than survival – he was focused on using these morning sorties to bring vengeance a little closer with every passing day; added to that, he had resolved to prove himself to his kontoubernion.

The barrack gates groaned open and he felt a freedom as he walked through the empty streets to the town gates, no bustle and no attention on him as he limped. The guards on the battlements had grown bored with hurling abuse at him, cheering whenever he stumbled and whooping when he tripped; now they simply opened the gates for him without comment. Once outside he felt truly alone, feeling only the sun on his face, frost underfoot and a fresh morning breeze.

He headed north, through the narrow mountain pass that snaked off from the main east-west pass. As usual, he held himself to hobbling until Argyroupolis slipped behind the mountainside. When this happened he stooped to unclip his brace, tucking the device into his satchel. Then he set off again, grimacing, making each stride a little longer than the last. The skin on his withered leg stretched as he forced himself to use the limb’s full length, issuing a fiery pain up his back, but he bit his lip and continued, the absence of the military boots a great relief. He entered the shade of a pass and remembered Blastares’ mocking and worse, the bitter reprimand after the ambush. His skin burned with humiliation, but the big soldier’s doubts over him only spurred him on so far. Then he imagined Bracchus and Vadim delighting in his pain and took an even bigger stride. Since he had enlisted in the garrison, Apion had witnessed the tourmarches send six men to their ends in those awful death bouts, yet the rank and file of the garrison remained obedient and fearful. His skin stretched taut over his scar and he roared in agony, his cry filling the valley, sending a flock of doves scattering. He doubled over, tears stinging his cheeks. Then he heard Bracchus’ words.
Seljuk loving whoreson!
At this, his eyes burned like coals as he glared to the end of the valley, imagining the man without his bodyguards, armed but alone. Ready for the edge of Apion’s scimitar. With a roar, he strode forward again, forcing his weak leg to take his weight. His next stride sent a white-hot wave of pain through him; his next seemed to tear him from within. But on the next stride, both feet lifted from the ground. He was running.

Each morning he had managed this sortie. Every time it had been agony, but each day a little less so and each day he had returned to the barracks just a little sooner. At first, the rider at the waystation had been worried by Apion’s lateness, then on seeing him, thought he had been ambushed such was the sight of his bleeding scar, swollen feet and pale, sweat-bathed features. Apion had refused the man’s offer of help, instead planting the package in the saddlebag, nodding and turning back to begin the return journey to Argyroupolis. On that first day he had barely managed to return to the town before afternoon patrol. Today he swore to himself he would make it to the waystation before the rider, and back to the barracks before midday.

He had managed to break into a run after five days of walking the messenger sortie at a quick march. On the first day he had tried it, it was not fast at first, barely more than a jog, every landing on his weak leg bringing a yelp from his lungs. But to his delight, his body numbed after a few hundred strides, despite the blood thudding through his head in protest. It felt like the injury was gone from his body and his stride grew longer, his lungs heaving, a sweat bursting from his brow. The ground underneath him even seemed to level out, his limp ineffective. He had woken the next day with calloused and bleeding feet and his scar wept and stung with a pain he had never known before. Yet that second day, he did it all again.

Each day he pushed himself just that bit more. The pain later on was doubled and his feet were calloused and raw because of that little extra effort but he continued and now, on the fifth day of running, he sought out that pain. He welcomed the agony, seeing it as the death throes of the feebleness that had shackled him in life until now.

The floor of the mountain pass closed up before him into a series of jagged limestone steps like a winding staircase. With a roar, he lunged onto the first, then up onto the second, then the third. Then he stopped counting until he reached the peak, where he hurtled along the ridge of a small mountain and heard only the wind whistle past his ears, barely noticing the angry grey clouds gathering above.

Along with the numbness in his limbs, he felt a great wash of cool clarity in his mind. All the musty, lingering self-doubt, anger and frustration seemed to be washed away with it, leaving only a shimmering goal in his mind’s eye.
I will run
,
I will prove myself
, he swore,
I will make Mother and Father proud
,
I will take vengeance in their name,
his heart hammered and tears stained his cheeks, feeling a surge of fresh energy at this point before he descended back into the next mountain pass.

The scree slope forced him to slow to almost walking and he felt his mind cloud over again. The pain would come racing back if he slowed down too much. He tried to keep his eye on his footing, when the piercing scream of an eagle startled him. He shot a glance up, seeing only the bulging clouds, then felt his foot lodge in the rubble and at once he was tumbling. The scree slid under him and he grasped out for purchase, rolling out of control. Finally, he stopped, dust catching in his throat, palms cut and stinging. Prone, he looked back up the slope. Something was wrong. Something quivered in the dust where he had fallen. An arrow shaft.

Fear shook him and cramp gripped his muscles almost immediately. He pressed flat down and scrutinised the mountainside on either side of him. Nothing. Then he heard a whinnying, racked with pain. He leapt to his haunches and drew his dagger, wincing as the scar seared violently, the numbness deserting him. The whinnying sounded again. It was coming from the shallow dip in the track to his left.

Limping over the scree, he gingerly peered into the dip, when a blurred figure uttered a roar and then a flash of iron sent him sprawling backwards. He scrambled to his feet, dagger extended, expecting the figure to come rushing from the dip and at him. Instead, a pained scream rang out, followed by a whimpering.

He stalked forward again, braced this time, ready to come down on top of the figure, but he dropped his stance when he saw a mare, eyes rolling in terror, on its side, its two front legs snapped, shards of bone stabbing out from under the flesh. Pinned under the horse was a dark-skinned and moustachioed rider, his eyes cobalt blue but bloodshot, his hands trembling, clutching a short stabbing sword. A discarded bow lay a few paces from the man.

‘You fired on me?’

‘Stay back, Byzantine, don’t come any closer. You’ll regret it!’ He growled, his breath coming in short gasps as the mare’s weight pressed upon his chest.

Apion slipped into the Seljuk tongue with ease. ‘Why would I? You’ve fired your last arrow,’ he panted, nodding to the empty quiver on the ground, ‘and you missed.’

‘You speak Seljuk?’ The man seemed perplexed, eyeing Apion’s military tunic. ‘Yet you are surely an imperial soldier?’

Apion blinked the sweat from his eyes and tried his best to disguise the rafts of stabbing pain that seemed to be marching over his body. ‘Well most of us struggle to speak one language, I’ll give you that . . . ’

The Seljuk cut him short. ‘My unit will be back this way anytime. You’re a dead man if you try anything.’

Apion knelt on his good knee to relieve his pain. He had not eaten his ration as he normally would have by this time in the morning and his body seemed to shake with weakness. He took a look at the mare – a middling pony – and the man’s garb. He had a bow and arrow and a simple sword, he was unarmoured. A scout, surely. A lone scout.

‘Well I’ll take my chances. Now look, your mount has had it, but I can get you out from under her. We’ll go our separate ways after that?’ As he finished speaking he felt a lightness in his head swell into a distinct haziness.

‘You’ll save me?’ The Seljuk seemed puzzled.

Apion thought of Nasir, the times the boy had saved him. He nodded with a half-smile at the memory, only partially aware of the black spots closing in around his vision. A sudden thirst overcame him.

‘Well I can only trust in you, but you don’t look like you’re capable of lifting a drink, Byzantine, never mind shifting a horse.’ The man’s brow furrowed, eyes fixed on Apion.

Apion patted his shoulder for his satchel, looking for his water skin, but as he did so, nausea swept across his flesh and through his stomach, then a black wave closed over him.

***

He blinked. The world was on its side. His body still ached but his nausea was subsiding, his mind sharper. Then a dark-skinned hand thrust the lip of a water skin to his mouth. He scrambled up to sitting. The Seljuk recoiled, still pinned under his mare; he had stretched just enough to reach Apion.

‘What are you doing?’ Apion noticed that his neck and chest were soaked.

‘Making you well,’ the Seljuk replied.

‘Why?’ Apion checked for his dagger; it was still there.

‘So you can save me? You feel stronger now, yes?’

Apion could not deny the tingling sense of focus that seemed to be pushing away the sickness that had engulfed him just a moment ago.

He took more of the water, then pushed himself to standing and gulped down a few cool breaths. Then he worked his way round to the other side of the mare, avoiding her flailing and mangled limbs. He saw a piece of rope hanging from the saddle and snatched it clear, then hurled it over the mare’s body. As he did so, the first dark splodges of rain began to mark the ground around them.

‘Pass it through to me,’ he gestured to the Seljuk.

The man winced and moaned as he batted the end of the rope under his mare’s body as she flailed. Apion grabbed the end and made a loop. Then he braced his bad leg against a boulder. ‘Ready yourself.’ The Seljuk nodded. Apion heaved. The mare’s whinnying was tortuous and he felt pity stab at his heart as he dragged her front half towards him. The strain was agonising for Apion, and the beast barely moved under his pull, but was agitated enough to kick out with her back legs, and this was enough to push her whole body off of the Seljuk.

‘I’m whole!’ The Seljuk yelped.

Apion dropped the rope, panting as the man stood gingerly, stiff at first, then stretching tall. Then he dropped to his knees, facing south-east to spread out his arms before him, head bowed, in prayer, oblivious of the now battering rain.

Then the man stood, his face solemn, and walked towards Apion, drawing his sword up above his head. Apion braced in shock, then the sword came down and plunged through the mare’s chest, bursting her heart. In an instant, she was lifeless.

Apion felt relief for the poor beast.

‘A good companion, she was.’ The Seljuk’s eyes were misty as he smoothed her mane. Then he looked up to Apion, holding up his hemp sack. ‘My name is Kartal. I have food.’ He blinked the rainwater from his eyes and nodded to a small cave nearby. ‘Before we go our ways, will you shelter and eat with me?’

***

Apion had added his bread and dried fruit to Kartal’s rations of plump olives, dates and cheese. Despite that odd burst of energy Apion had felt, his stomach roared for attention. They watched the rain’s fury without speaking as they gorged on the food and then drunk their skins dry. Bellies full, he snatched glances at the Seljuk. The man was probably a good ten years older than he, and seemed far more comfortable with the silence. He picked up a shard of rock; it seemed to shimmer like the cave itself.