Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (29 page)

‘Your sword?’ The dekarchos suggested.

‘No, I’ll keep this on me.’

‘What about you, Apion?’ Sha grasped his wrist, face etched with concern.

‘Me? I’ll see you back at the barracks,’ he concluded.

***

‘It is as I say, Bey Soundaq: he just stumbled down the mountainside as if he was out for a stroll!’ The ghazi thumped a fist into Apion’s spine, sending him sprawling forward, knees skidding and scraping on the stones by the stream, a slimy gloop of saliva and blood lopping from his lips and onto the mud in front of him. The ghazi had said nothing when they came face to face, simply hammering the hilt of his sword into Apion’s jaw then ushering him down to the commander at swordpoint.

Then there was a silence, broken only by the gentle babbling current by his side. Apion hadn’t slaked his thirst since the previous evening and his eyes hung on the shimmering water, but he shook his head of the distraction, because, so far, the plan had worked as he had hoped it would.

He had exaggerated his fall to come to the other side of the leader, the one they called Soundaq. As he had hoped, Soundaq turned away from the outcrop to examine him, the rest of the ghazis forming an arc either side of their leader. The ghazi on either side of the pass had been distracted by his appearance; they had jostled to escort him down to their leader by the stream in hope of commendation. The window of opportunity had been opened for Sha and the men but their chances of escape were still slim, all it would take would be one glance to the mountainside from a ghazi, and his kontoubernion would be target practice for the Seljuk bows. His own chances, he realised with a convulsion of his bowels, were even slimmer. He could not bring himself to look up at the ghazis, fearful that the truth would shine through in his eyes. Then a polished curved sword blade flashed towards him, the sun’s rays blinding him momentarily as the blade was thrust under his chin to tilt his head up.

‘You seem nervous, boy?’ Soundaq glared at him along the length of the blade.

Apion squinted up at the commander. His eyes were narrowed, spelling out distrust as he peered down his nose, his skin sun-darkened and lined with age. Apion composed himself to reply: he was a traveller, out hunting, poaching maybe; these soldiers would surely approve of poaching on so-called Byzantine lands.

‘Just out for the hunt,’ he nodded to the ghazi who held his scimitar.

‘A fine piece of weaponry that,’ Soundaq mused. ‘One I’d expect to see my commander wear to battle, not one I’d expect to see on an amber-haired boy wandering the mountains. So tell me, what exactly do you hunt with a sword?’

Apion held the commander’s gaze. In the background he noted movement across the mountainside, four figures, scaling silently like spiders. One flinch, one dart of the eyes, one hint of a stammer and he was dead, his unit was dead.

‘Anything that fills my belly,’ Apion tried to sound casual but his throat felt tight. ‘Anyway, I’d never be without it. My father gave me it,’ he shrugged, thinking of Mansur.

‘Then where did
he
get it?’ Another ghazi spat. The commander silenced him with a raised hand, while holding Apion’s gaze.

‘He fought with Tugrul, as an emir.’ Apion spoke the words with pride and fear.

‘He’s scavenged it from one of our people’s corpses!’ One ghazi barked over him. ‘Or worse, he’s cut one of our brothers’ throats himself, and taken the sword from the corpse!’

‘Another word and you’ll be spitting teeth,’ Soundaq snapped, this time shooting a burning glare at the perpetrator, who dropped his eyes to the stream. The commander turned back to Apion, then stopped, his brow furrowed, then he turned, flicking his gaze along the outcrops of the pass.

Apion’s heart thundered, then slowed as he saw the mountainside was now bare.

Then the commander shot his glare back to Apion. A silence ensued. Then Soundaq barked at his men. ‘I ordered an eight up onto each of those outcrops, yet I find you all gathered around me like dogs looking for scraps? Back to your posts!’

With a grumble, the ghazis dispersed. ‘The rest of you, water the horses and get that stag skinned and on a spit.’

Apion wondered if he should wait on permission to stand, then thought that an honest man, an innocent man, should have no reason to kneel. He pushed up from kneeling with the heels of his hands. As he did so, a boulder crumbled from the outcrop, tumbling down the mountainside. Apion’s gasp at this sparked realisation in the commander’s eyes.

Soundaq leaned in and grabbed his wrist. ‘What is this, you dog?’ he hissed, darting his eyes to the end of the pass, holding the scimitar up to Apion’s jugular. ‘You are no lone hunter!’

The rest of the ghazis turned, suddenly alert to their leader’s tone. Apion’s breath stilled in his lungs, his eyes searching those of the commander. ‘A handful of scouts, they will be on their speedy mounts and long gone by now,’ he lied. ‘To pursue them would be futile.’ He fixed Soundaq with a defiant stare and his leg-brace chinked as he steadied himself. At this, Soundaq looked down, frowning at the brace, then his expression split into a wry half-grin.

‘Well, well . . . ’ Soundaq’s grip on him relaxed and he laughed dryly. He turned to his men and waved them towards their posts again. ‘Sentries on each outcrop, as I ordered!’ He barked. Then he turned back to Apion with a weary expression. ‘It’s your good fortune that I think I know who you are, boy – the messenger with the leg-brace. You saved a rider of mine, Kartal. I don’t know what your story is, but you live to tell it another day. Besides, I’ve seen enough blood over these last months.’ With that, he nodded to the opening of the pass, handing the scimitar back to Apion.

Apion stepped back warily. Was this a game? Would an arrow or a dagger pierce his back as soon as he turned around? Then Soundaq nodded to the end of the pass again.

Soundaq spoke as he stepped back, the words echoing in the pass. ‘But heed this message well: a storm approaches from the east, and the
Falcon
soars on its wrath. Byzantium’s time is over.’

Apion held the man’s glare, feeling the burning looks from the rest of the ghazis, then turned and walked from the pass.

***

Argyroupolis glowed like a giant firefly in the mountains, the orange of its lights tingeing the otherwise pitch black night sky. Peleus and Stypiotes the skutatoi stood on the towers flanking the main gate, their eyes heavy from the long shift on watch and so they welcomed the night chill that kept them alert.

Peleus mused over the events of the day. Reports of a ghazi warband had come in that afternoon as Dekarchos Sha and his weary and depleted kontoubernion staggered through the gates, parched and coated in dust. One skutatos from his number had been lost; a light price to pay apparently going by the smirk that had touched Tourmarches Bracchus’ face when the loss was reported. But word had spread that this one man had sacrificed himself, saving Sha and the rest. The men in the mess hall had been toasting his memory like a hero just before he and Stypiotes had to leave and come on duty.

‘Peleus!’ Stypiotes hissed across the gate top.

Peleus jolted to life, he gripped his kontarion and spun to his colleague.

‘Something’s out there.’

‘Aye?’ Peleus shrugged, screwing his eyes tight to peer into the blackness: the dirt road lay empty, dropping into the inky abyss only a few hundred feet ahead. ‘Have you been drinking again, Stypiotes? There’s nothing out there.’

‘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.