Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (40 page)

‘Clever buggers,’ Procopius roared over the cacophony.

Apion assumed Procopius was talking of the Seljuk’s wise decision to keep their best men out of ballista range, but then he followed the old soldier’s gaze; his eyes were still narrowed on the artillery squads, who had remained at their machinery, knuckles white. Added to this, Cydones was poised, one hand gripping the reins of his mount, the other ready to be raised to give an order, eyes darting along the enemy lines as the Seljuk cavalry filed into a high flanking position, ready for the kill.

The Seljuk flags for the advance were being hoisted, war horns being brought to mouths.

Then the strategos’ cry rent the air. ‘Again! Loose!’

The air was filled with the coordinated twang and pained creaking of the ballistae as all of the devices shot their missiles, this time exploiting absolute maximum range and the extra fraction of tension that Cydones had secretly asked them to withhold in the last barrage. The effect was devastating. On the front foot, the Seljuk ranks were caught cold by the hail and despite their fine armour, the first ten ranks of densely packed heavy infantry were shattered like toys, men were sprayed into the air and officers skewered. There was no let-up; as the Seljuk infantry curled around to flee, they stumbled over the dead, fell to the dust and blocked those behind. Then the artillery barked once more and another wave of desolation ruptured the Seljuk lines.

‘Double bluff,’ Apion whispered as he eyed the strategos, sat motionless in the saddle, plume flitting in the breeze.

‘Led them right into it,’ Procopius was grinning like a shark.

To a man, the thema roared. ‘
Stra-te-gos! Stra-te-gos! Stra-te-gos!
’

Cydones wheeled round on his mount and pumped a fist in the air. The words tumbled from Apion’s chest too. ‘
Stra-te-gos! Stra-te-gos!
’

The ballistae hail slowed, leaving a carpet of gore across the plain. Apion wondered how many they had taken from the Seljuk number. At least a quarter of the infantry, he hoped. But the ballistae had fallen silent, and were now being rolled back inside the square.

At this, the shimmering band of Seljuks rippled, units reorganising and repositioning, no doubt lifting their dead back from their lines. Then they were still again, a dense wall. Many of their number had fallen but many more still stood. Too many.

‘This is it,’ Apion said.

‘By your side, sir!’ Sha replied, steadying himself, pressing his shoulder against Apion’s, just as they had practiced. Procopius and Blastares bunched up likewise and the whole bandon followed suit, as did the rest of the outer square.

Then the war horns cried again. The trilling Seljuk war cry filled the air again and at once, the akhi infantry poured towards the front of the square and the ghulam wings rushed for the flanks.

As the ground shook, Apion heard the strategos’ cry over the din of thundering hooves. ‘Kataphractoi, break!’ Cydones bellowed. The order was reaffirmed by a buccina blast and at once the two wings of cavalry burst from the flanks of the square, the Pechenegs following Ferro’s wing. They sped out beyond the pincers of the closing Seljuk arc.

‘Where d’they think they’re going?’ A soldier yelped from behind Apion.

The rest of skutatoi around Apion murmured in concern and this grew into a panicked squabble as the jaws of the Seljuk arc raced ever closer. He blocked out his own creeping doubt and pictured himself as an eagle soaring, seeing the field from high above. Clarity soothed his doubts. ‘They’re positioning to counter the Seljuk charge. It’s just as we’ve trained for since the mustering, but this is for real.’ He barked back to the dissenting voices. This seemed to ease their concern a little. ‘We pin the enemy on our spears, then the strategos and his riders will hit them in the flanks and from the rear, cut them to pieces!’ His tone sounded firm and assured, but inside he knew it was all too simple to speak of how things should work. Added to that, the bulk of the men who stood in the ranks had been farming in the five years since the last campaign and had only had a handful of sessions of training since being rounded up by Cydones. The men of the garrison – those in the front ranks – would be critical, he realised.

Perched at the corner of the square, Apion’s eyes were fixed on the riders thundering for them, but he was all too aware of the dark mass of infantry growing in his peripheral vision. The
Falcon’s
claws were closing around them. The banda at the front of the square opened to allow the light infantry to rush out, ready to meet the Seljuk infantry advance with their axes, slings, bows and javelins. Meanwhile, the toxotai spread themselves thinly around the inside of the square, giving scant but welcome archer cover to all sides. Apion then glanced to the closing gap at the pincers of the Seljuk arc, spotting Cydones’ standard shrinking as the cavalry wings burst clear of the noose just in time.

‘He’s drawing them out,’ Blastares growled. ‘Less for us to bloody our swords on!’

Apion craned to Blastares’ height to see. The back ranks of the Seljuk ghulam cavalry had indeed peeled off to meet the threat, but the dense front ranks of the riders were only a handful of paces away. Thousands of them, spears lowered, hurtling forward to smash the square. A sea of taut bows rippled up from the rear of the ghulam charge and then at once the twang of a thousand bows filled the air.

‘Shields!’ Apion cried, glancing up just in time to see the dark storm cloud of arrows that hurtled for them. He wrenched his shield up and three iron tips hammered into its surface an instant later. His heart thundered, hearing the choking cries of the stricken; if the ghulam wished they could wheel back and forth from the Byzantine square, firing upon the banda until their quivers were empty, thinning the skutatoi at their leisure. The hail slowed and he looked up, eyes widening at the snarling wall of riders, spears lowered for the charge. No, the ghulam were not for waiting, he realised with a swirl of terror and hubris, they were coming for the kill. The dark door rushed for him, the knotted arm punched forward to knock it from its hinges, the fire engulfed him.

‘Rhiptariai ready, loose! Front ranks, brace!’ He roared. The front two ranks rippled, kontarion spears jutting forward like a porcupine. At the same time, the ranks behind coiled and then hurled their throwing spears like a dark cloud and these were joined by the arrow hail from the toxotai.

The rhiptariai hammered home, punching Seljuk riders from their mounts, smashing through bone and sending jets of crimson into the air, stopping many a man and beast in their tracks, terrible whinnying and screaming ringing out. Then the hail slowed until it was only the thin spray of archer fire: the Seljuk riders were thinned, but only a little.

The ghulam wall hurtled forward and Apion grappled his kontarion and braced for the impact; a conical-helmed and scale-clad giant of a rider on a frothing stallion, demonic behind an iron-plate mask, hooves rapping like hammers on the earth, burst a few strides ahead of the charge and made to leap the spear wall and plunge into the bandon. With a roar, Apion and the men of the front line punched their spears forward. The impact was colossal, Apion felt his entire body jar and he was thrown back as the mount was punctured through the chest by the spear thrusts, some of the shafts snapping, and the rider was thrown into the bandon where he was butchered in an instant.

Apion staggered to his feet and his heart froze; the front line of the bandon was broken and the rest of the ghulam charge was only strides away. He lunged forward to rip an unbroken kontarion from the convulsing stallion, then pressed up against the next nearest skutatos, others bunching up on his other side.

‘Come on then, you whoresons!’ He roared with all the breath in his lungs.

With that, the Seljuk charge smashed home and the land turned red.

Byzantines disappeared under hooves, heads spun free of bodies, riders were thrown from their horses to skate across shields or to be catapulted into the Byzantine ranks.

The bandon could not hold its shape due to the weight of the charge and dissolved into a swirl of combat. Apion smelt the hot and sour breath of the Seljuk steed pressed against him. The skutatos engaged with the rider fought manfully, but was then struck with a death blow, cleaved from shoulder to stomach, sending gristle and gut slapping across Apion’s face. Apion pounced on the rider’s momentary distraction to smash his shield boss into the mount’s mouth, and then leapt to pull the rider from his horse. But the rider smashed his scimitar hilt into Apion’s temple, felling him to the dust. Blinded by the blow and seeing only the dark shape of the mount rounding on him, he jabbed out with his spear. Hooves smashed down by his head and he rolled clear, then a spear ripped down past his shield, through a plate in his klibanion and across his ribcage to crack into the ground. The blood soaked him and his own pained snarl barely registered in the cacophony all around him. Still grounded, he glanced around to find his lines; skutatoi boots stamped and skidded several paces away, then bodies fell in a mire of skin, white bone, grey matter and pink tissue as the Byzantine line compressed under the charge. The spear shot for him again and in a clatter of wood and iron, his shield shattered. When the spear came again, it was aimed right at his heart, the snarling features of the rider behind the thrust. This time he butted the shaft with his palms, diverting the thrust into the ground, and then he heaved on the shaft with all his weight to pull himself to standing, dragging the spear from the rider’s grasp. The rider fumbled for his sword but Apion leapt up, ripping his scimitar from its scabbard and plunging the blade into the rider’s chest. A blood cloud burst over the riders behind as the body slid and thudded into the carpet of gore, convulsing.

His limbs shaking, his mind roaring, Apion looked up for his next opponent. At that moment the furore of the battle fell away.

He saw Bracchus.

The tourmarches was barely ten paces away, panting, teeth bared, blood coating his face. Apion locked eyes with Bracchus. This was the moment he had prayed for. He stalked forward, gripping his scimitar so hard that his arm trembled. Then a blur of movement caught his eye: a wedge of ghulam galloped for Bracchus and Apion saw that the tourmarches was the one man plugging a gap between two banda. His mind raced. If the ghulam got inside the square, the battle was lost, every Byzantine was as good as dead. But revenge was right here for the taking.
Kill him
, the now familiar voice rasped in his head. He hefted his kontarion like a throwing spear, eyes still fixed on the master agente, then hoisted it forward with all his might.

Bracchus’ eyes bulged and his mouth opened to scream, when the spear travelled over his head and into the stomach of the lead rider of the ghulam wedge, who fell with a cry, pulling his mount’s reins with him, the beast tumbling with a pained whinny under the hooves of the mounts behind it. At once the wedge dissolved into a mass of felled riders and thrashing beasts. A group of skutatoi rushed forward to despatch them. The square was saved.

Bracchus was left standing, gawping at him, the blood of the felled ghulam dripping from his brow. Apion realised he had saved the tourmarches’ life. Then the rasping voice cried in his thoughts.
And now it is time to take it!

Apion lurched forward, eyes fixed on the tourmarches. He realised that the Seljuk riders closing on either side of him, scimitars raised, would cut himself and Bracchus off from the square, and doubtless hack the pair to pieces, but Apion was sure he could strike the master agente down by his own hand first. If he was to die here too then so be it; as long none of Bracchus’ contacts knew of the true manner of the master agente’s death on the battlefield. Bracchus’ glare curled into a frown as Apion approached. He held his expression blank until he was within striking distance, then filled his lungs to scream. But at the moment he made to raise his sword, something barged him to one side.

Apion gasped, startled; one of the soldiers bearing the curious cylinders had shoulder-charged him from the sword-swipe of a ghulam, and now pushed up to be back-to back with him, lifting the nozzle, waving it at the circling riders, a lit torch in his other hand.

‘Stay with me, sir!’ The man cried.

Apion shot glances all around but in the blur of swirling cavalry, Bracchus had disappeared back into the square.

The cylinder-bearing soldier then pressed a lever attached to the nozzle. ‘Brace yourself, sir!’ What happened next matched the fury in Apion’s mind: like a demon serpent, an orange fury spewed from the device, engulfing more than ten ghulam riders, each one igniting like a torch. The air rippled in the intense heat as the riders’ screams piqued and then stopped suddenly, blackened bodies crunching onto the ground with a stench of burning flesh, horses fleeing, whinnying in terror, still ablaze.

The ghulam riders behind hesitated, then, like an ebb tide, the Seljuk horsemen wheeled to turn away, their leader crying out an order.