Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart

18. Mountains of the Bull

The lofty and narrow path that clung to the side of the grey-gold limestone mountain shimmered as the imperial army traversed it like an iron serpent. The kataphractoi vanguard led the way like the tongue and the fangs. Then, some distance back, the head was formed by the emperor, the Cross-bearing priests, the varangoi and the rest of the cavalry. Behind them, the body of infantry writhed like silvery scales for miles, wrapping around this mountainside and the one before it. Then came the supply touldon, the wagons nose to tail in single file, the mules blinkered to the precipitous drop by their sides and the ravine far below. Then the Pecheneg and Oghuz archer cavalry formed the tail.

The sky above was azure and flecked with white cloud. A wake of red-beaked Egyptian vultures circled above the imperial column, eagerly anticipating a meal. Then one bird grew tired of waiting to be fed; it swooped down over the column, gliding over the chain of iron helmets and speartips until it came to the crimson banners of the Chaldian infantry. Here it screeched as it passed over the pair of riders heading them up.

‘What the?’ Blastares stabbed his spear up in fright then squinted up into the morning sun, scowling as the bird rejoined its shameless comrades. He tilted his helmet back to scratch at his stubbled scalp. ‘They’re a bit bloody presumptuous are they not?’

‘Aye, if I perish up here I hope the feathery bastards break their beaks on this,’ Procopius tapped at the chest of his iron klibanion. Then he looked to his fellow tourmarches and shrugged. ‘To be fair, though, they could probably smell you from a few miles away.’

Blastares eyed his friend, then whistled as he nodded to the precipice only inches from Procopius’ horse’s hooves. ‘Big drop, that. . ’

As if to side with the big tourmarches, a section of the rocky path crumbled away, dust and scree toppling silently down towards the foaming waters in the ravine.

Procopius gulped. ‘Look I told you, I’m not good with heights. Next time this track broadens, we swap places.’

Blastares grinned at this then looked away and all around him, nostrils flared, shoulders squared. ‘Perhaps. Depends on the impudence I get from you before then.’

Procopius frowned and fell silent like a scorned child. His wrinkled features were tinged with a shade of green and his eyes took to darting along the precipice.

Then Blastares thought of the echoing scream that had filled the mountain passes a few days ago, when the column was becoming bold and confident of traversing these tracks. A kataphractoi of the vanguard had trodden and slipped on a patch of slime near a waterfall. The man and his mount had no chance of halting their fall. It was a blessing indeed that the column did not hear the impact of the pair on the rocks far below. Blastares had the misfortune to see the tangle of both bodies being washed downstream like broken kindling. Since then, the column had marched with extreme care. He looked to Procopius; ‘Aye, fair enough, we’ll swap,’ he relented. ‘I tell you though, if I was to plot our route through these mountains, this certainly wouldn’t be it.’

Procopius nodded. ‘Goes without saying that I agree. I understand why the emperor has chosen it though.’

‘Next to no chance of a pitched assault along the way? Aye, I can see that,’ Blastares looked around again. The place was majestic and barren at once. The towering mountainsides were pierced with a smattering of hardy shrubs and vulture nests, but otherwise they seemed devoid of life. The central mountains towered above all else, their snow-capped peaks ghostly in the haze. For the last eight days, they had marched in daylight and the temperature had been cool and pleasant. In the evenings, they had camped on what patches of broader track they could find, huddling together to stave off the bitter chill that came with the darkness. This ferocious cold had been the only enemy they had encountered — that along with the thin air and the wretched carrion birds. Still, Blastares was sure he preferred this to the heat.

Just then, Sha and Dederic fell back from the cluster of varangoi and the Imperial Tagmata to ride just ahead of them. ‘Good news!’

‘I’m about to wake up back in Melitene?’ Procopius muttered, never looking away from the precipice.

Dederic frowned at this, then shook his head. ‘No, the Haga and the kursores of the vanguard have ridden well ahead and returned to report that the Syrian plain is within a day’s march.’

Blastares and Procopius shared a grin. The skutatoi marching behind Procopius and Blastares heard this and erupted in a cheer, a welcome sound after so long marching in nervous silence.

‘The strategos encountered no signs of danger?’ Blastares asked.

‘No, not yet at least,’ Sha replied. ‘He and a handful of kursores have remained out front. They’re plotting the best path for the rest of the column to take. He will rejoin us by the afternoon.’

‘Then on to Syria. Where the ground is flat!’ Procopius marvelled. ‘Flatter than the piss-brew from the tavern in Kryapege!’

Blastares cocked an eyebrow. ‘Aye, and it’s hotter than fire and the place is swarming with insects and Seljuks.’

Procopius sighed and shrugged, then motioned with one hand to the inside of the mountain track. ‘Look, can we just swap places now?’

***

Apion stood by his gelding, stroking its mane as it drank from a babbling waterfall that tumbled down the cliff-face. Here the warm Syrian air mixed with the cool mountain climes and thus the grey-gold rock was dappled with verdant growth. Vines clung to the mountainside and clusters of Syrian Juniper trees sprouted along the edges of the track, lending a tang of pine to the air. A short distance down the track behind him, the three kursores who accompanied him were sitting by their mounts, eating and drinking from their rations. Apion reached up to pluck the berries from the nearest tree and then fed the waxy fruit to his mount. Then he took a dried fig from his rations and chewed upon it as he squinted at the forked path ahead.

One route would take them on a short but high and narrow track to the plateau that marked the end of this mountain range. The other path was long and winding, but wider. The second route was definitely safer but it would mean they would not be clear of the mountains until the following day, probably around noon. Morale had been poor since they had entered the thin air of these passes, so perhaps the safer, longer option was not necessarily the best. He uncorked his water skin and held it up to the waterfall to fill it, then sipped at the meltwater — still ice cold.

The truth was there was little to suggest that any danger lay between them and the Syrian plain on either route — he and the kursores had already ridden to the end of each trail and spotted nothing to be wary of. But something itched at the back of his mind, something that had niggled his thoughts since they had left Melitene. On that last morning before they left, one of the officers of the Thrakesion Thema had been found dead. Murdered. It was the Dekarchos, Trolius. His heart had been cleaved by a blade. They suspected he had been quarrelling with the sentry, Sittas, whose body they found beside him. They thought that perhaps Sittas had deserted his watchtower and, when Trolius had questioned him, the pair had taken up their daggers and torn the life from one another.

During his years in the ranks, Apion had grown well-used to seeing good soldiers die on the battlefield. But that good men should die in their own camp, over what? Some quarrel? And at the end of a comrade’s blade. . his lips grew taut in disgust as dark memories of his past swirled. If only that was the end to it, but it wasn’t. That nobody had seen anything, anything at all, provoked doubt in Apion’s heart. That the bodies had been found right at the camp perimeter only stoked his misgivings further. His thoughts churned. He plucked a nomisma from his purse. He had found this wedged into the dust near the dead sentry’s body. It was no ordinary coin — it was pure-gold and recently minted.

And it was identical to those used by Psellos to buy loyalty.

What if this was the work of the traitor amongst the ranks? And if so, there had to be more than one individual at work here — slaying a sentry and stealing from the camp unnoticed was near impossible for a single man when there was a full watch. He frowned and gazed through the waterfall, his thoughts spinning.

‘Sir, it’s nearly mid-morning, we should be getting back to the column,’ a scout rider interrupted his thoughts.

Apion blinked, turning to the three riders. They were saddled and ready to move out. ‘Aye, we should.’ He led his Thessalian from the waterfall and slipped one foot in the stirrup, then hoisted himself onto the saddle. He heeled the gelding back along the track towards the column, and the kursores fell in behind him.

They rode until the sun was nearly overhead. At this point, the smattering of white cloud had gathered and had taken on a dark and portentous shade of grey. Indeed, the first spots of rain pattered down around them before long, giving rise to an earthy scent and casting a vibrant rainbow across the mountains. Then a wind picked up. At this the clouds seemed to grow bolder, taking over most of the sky, until the sun was hidden and there was not a patch of blue left. The land was gloomy and grey. Finally, to seal their misery, the gentle rain suddenly turned sheet-like.

When Apion reached for his helmet, a rumble of thunder echoed across the sky and a fork of lightning streaked from the darkest part of the storm clouds. He placed his helmet back on his saddle and cast a contemptuous look towards the heavens. In moments his hair and his cloak were sodden, and the rain lashed from his beard. The kursores barely disguised their distaste for the change in weather, grimacing as their felt caps and jackets grew soaked and heavy. Apion called out to them over the next clap of thunder; ‘Let’s make haste. This looks like it will last for some time, and I don’t relish the prospect of being exposed to a thunderstorm up here any longer than is necessary.’ He waited for the three kursores to nod their assent, then dug his heels into his gelding’s flanks, moving from a canter to a gallop. ‘Ya!’

Now the rain picked up a fresh impetus, driving into their faces as the wind became a gale. The mounts hurled up mud in their wake from the mire underfoot.

‘This would have been a blessing back in the valleys of Lykandos!’ One of the kursores roared over the howling wind, shivering with his shoulders hunched.

Apion laughed at this, turning his head from the storm, his drenched locks plastered to his face. ‘Aye, so enjoy it while you can. For it will be a rarity once more when we reach the deserts of Syria.’

The rider responded with a mirthless laugh through chattering teeth. Then another of them called out. ‘Look, sir — the column!’

Apion shielded his eyes from the rain and slowed a little as he looked ahead.

The last stretch of the most treacherous track, clinging to the sheer face of the mountain, dipped and rose like a saddle. Halfway along it, the vanguard had dismounted and now inched along. The rain was driving at them, soaking the cliff face, and their boots slithered and slipped as the path grew slick. He thought back to the kataphractos whose mount had lost its footing on a wet piece of track only days ago. He made out the figure of Romanus, further back. He and his varangoi had also dismounted. The water was rushing past their heels in floods before toppling into the ravine below — its depths now obscured by the spray of the falling rain and the swollen torrents. The priests chanted as they inched along the path. Apion hoped their God would not desert them now. Yet at just that moment, lightning flashed across the sky and illuminated the soaked cliff face and the gilded campaign Cross — and then the storm clouds unleashed an even more ferocious torrent of rain.

First, one skutatoi was washed from his feet. He clawed frantically at the edge of the precipice, only to grasp at loose root and earth before falling into the spray, his scream drowned out by the tumult of the storm. Then, in the distance, a braying rang out as a pack of mules and a supply wagon of the touldon toppled into the foggy abyss, armour and grain sacks spinning free as they fell.

Apion spun to the kursores and spotted the length of rope looped on the nearest’s saddle. ‘With me — bring your rope and stakes.’

The three dismounted and followed Apion. He took a stake and rope offered by one rider, then looped the rope around the wood. Then he battered the stake into the earth with his heel. The earth was muddy and soft, but at a depth of half a foot it took to the drier ground below. He looked up to see that the three riders had read his plan and were staking the ground further along, connecting each one by a length of rope. He grabbed another rope and stake and edged onto the cliff-path. It was slick with rainwater and every step felt doubtful. He called out to the kataphractoi at the head of the column, only a handful of paces away but pinned where they stood for fear of falling;

‘Do as I do — if you can!’

He squatted to tie and stake another rope into the inner edge of the path. The kataphractoi threw him one end of their rope and he tied this to the stake also. In the moments when the storm changed direction and the tumult hushed, he heard the dull thud of stakes being kicked and hammered into the ground likewise, all along the column.

Then the storm grew ferocious once more. He beckoned the nearest of the kataphractoi, then cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed; ‘come forward!’

The nearest rider guided his mount forward with one hand, while clinging onto the rope with the other, white-knuckled hand. Slowly, the column began to shuffle onwards.

Apion helped the first of the riders to safety, onto the wide and flat path. Then he turned to help the next, when another streak of lightning tore across the sky. The flash illuminated the cliff face and the armour of the ironclad amongst the Byzantine ranks. But there was something else. High above, atop the sheer cliff. Something glinted.

‘Sir, did you see it as well?’ the rider nearest to him gasped.

Apion did not answer as the next fork of lightning revealed the sight once more. A cluster of figures, less than forty of them. They scurried around behind row of eight large rocks — each as tall and broad as a man. The rocks were balanced at the edge of the cliff and directly above the emperor and the varangoi.

Then, with a groaning of timber and snapping of rock, the first of the boulders tumbled. No! Apion pleaded, mouth agape. Romanus and his riders could only gawp as they saw it coming for them. Then, only feet away from their heads, one end of the boulder clipped the cliff face, sending the rocky mass spiralling away, towards the ravine. A thunderous deluge of rocks and debris showered the emperor and his men.

Then the next rock wobbled as the figures up above strained at it.

‘Come on, come on!’ Apion roared at the nearest men of the column. Now they moved at haste, some slipping and sliding, but saved by the one hand they kept on the staked rope. Then the next rock fell, and this time it hit home, some fifty paces behind the emperor now. The gargantuan rock smashed down, crushing packs of skutatoi and toxotai of the Bucellarion Thema like ants. Black blood washed over the edge with the rainwater along with shards of crumpled armour and snapped limbs. Then the track itself let out a titanic groan, and a vast shard of it shuddered and then slid away, taking with it reams of skutatoi of the Anatolikon Thema. Their bodies spun through the air and their screams died in the next clap of thunder. The rest of the rocks fell and another two struck home with equal devastation.

Apion clasped the hand of Romanus and helped him from the cliff path.

The emperor twisted to look up, but the ambushers were gone. ‘Seljuks?’

‘I think so,’ Apion nodded as the floods of survivors stumbled to safety around him, falling to their knees on the wide path.

‘They knew we were coming this way,’ Romanus’ eyes narrowed. ‘Just as they knew we were coming through Lykandos.’

Apion squared his jaw and looked up to the clifftop where they had been.

His thoughts churned.

***

Atop the dusty plateau that overlooked the Syrian plain, the weary men of the Byzantine campaign army worked in the last light of sunset to set up their tents and dig the last of the ditch that would mark out their camp for the night.

Apion shivered by the campfire, still cold and sodden despite the temperate climate they had descended into. He lifted a pot from the fire and poured its contents into a clay bowl. The heated mixture of yoghurt, honey and nuts instantly warmed him and he washed it down with warmed sour wine.

He looked out to the south, where the arid flatland of Syria stretched out; a golden infinity that seemed to blend with the deep red of sunset. From memory, even the autumn days there could still be as blistering as Anatolia in mid-July.

He took a small round of bread from his rations, skewered it on his dagger and toasted it over the fire. The men who milled around him sneezed and shivered. Some chatted, some stared to the south while others warmed themselves in silence by their own fires. Six and a half thousand men had set out from Melitene, now six hundred of them lay broken and unburied at the bottom of that ravine. He glanced around the tents of the Chaldian ranks, heartened to see that few of his men had been struck by the falling rocks.

He plucked the toasted bread from his blade and chewed at a piece absently, his gaze darting around the many unfamiliar faces. There was no doubt now that somebody was informing the Seljuks. That they had known the exact route through the mountains was not chance alone. Word had been sent out from the camp at Melitene, he was sure of it now. Sittas the sentry and Trolius the dekarchos had been slain to allow some traitor to steal from the camp.

He caught the gaze of many soldiers. Many faces he recognised, many more he did not. Some looked weary, others wore dark looks. Then, through the sea of milling bodies he saw the emperor’s tent a short distance away. The strategoi and doukes were clustered there. Sha, Blastares, Procopius and Dederic talked with Igor. Then, right beside the emperor’s tent, Philaretos boomed with laughter, his face illuminated like a demon in the firelight. Gregoras sat by his side, his shifty eyes darting as always.

It could be any of them, he thought as he thumbed at the pure-gold nomisma in his purse. Rotten to the core. Responsible for the deaths of all those men in Lykandos and in the mountains. Such dark-hearted individuals could be the death of the campaign. The death of hope.

He looked to Syria again.

The dimming land offered no answers, and he turned to his tent, tiredness overcoming him.

***

Night descended over the plateau. Zenobius sat alone outside his kontoubernion tent, looking on at the gathering by the imperial tent. As a mere skutatos, he would never be allowed past the ring of varangoi that encircled the gathering. It was as life had always been for him, alone in the cold and dark, looking on at those who lived true lives. But this exclusion mattered little, he mused, his eyes following the movements of his accomplice, near the fire.

The varangoi threw more kindling upon the fire and it roared in gratitude. With wine in their blood and warmth on their skins, they and the others clustered around Romanus became momentarily less vigilant, it seemed. Indeed, the pair of Rus guarding the imperial tent stepped forward to heat their hands.

Zenobius’ breath stilled. This was the moment.

His accomplice stole away from the fire, then slipped inside the imperial tent.

Then Zenobius’ gaze sharpened as the two varangoi ambled back round to the tent entrance and one reached out to open it.

Do not fail me now, you fool, he thought.

Then, as if hearing his thoughts, the back of the tent ruffled and his accomplice slipped out from underneath just as the varangoi entered. Nobody had noticed.

The gathering slowly dispersed and the fire died.

When it was but a pile of embers, Zenobius heard footsteps approaching.

‘Well?’ he said without looking up.

‘I know where the emperor plans to march; I saw his maps and the markings he had made upon them,’ his accomplice whispered.

‘Excellent,’ Zenobius said flatly. ‘Then I will make contact with our Seljuk friends tonight.’