Island in the Storm

18. Into the Fray

Dawn on Friday 26^th August 1071 threw a pinkish-orange light across the plain. One of the sentries walking Manzikert’s battlements was bleary-eyed after the hour or so of sleep he had managed following the chaos of the night raid. He inhaled a lungful of fresh morning air and gazed into the rising sun in an attempt to waken himself, then swept his gaze across the southern flatland, empty bar the dark red stain surrounding the abandoned Armenian trade carts a quarter of a mile outside the camp’s south gate. The last shadows of night still clung to the folds of land further south and. . he rubbed his eyes once, twice and again, his eyes widening. The shadows were moving. Then the dawn light threw off these last patches of shade and at once he saw what was out there. . out there and coming for the Byzantine camp. His face paled and he immediately lifted his buccina to his lips with trembling fingers.

Down in the camp, Sha stumbled from his tent at the first blasts of the horn. His mind was still foggy from the snatched hour or so of sleep as he looked this way and that: thousands more drawn, weary comrades were spilling from their blackened, still-smoking tents, looking around likewise. His first instinct was to locate Apion.

‘What the?’ Blastares grunted hoarsely, storming from his tent with the look of a bear that had drained a vat of bad wine.

‘An army approaches,’ Procopius croaked, stomping back from the camp gates, throwing a cloak around his shoulders and buckling on his swordbelt.

‘Tarchianotes has returned?’ one skutatos cried out in hope.

Procopius’ stony features and ensuing silence answered the question.

Sha hurried to the southern gate with Blastares. There, from the slight elevation of the camp’s walls, he could see it. An army indeed. Like a silvery morning mist, rolling towards the camp from the south. Twenty thousand men if not more. A vast bullhorn of Seljuk riders. A golden bow banner fluttered at their heart. This was not the few thousand who had harassed the camp the previous night. This was the army of the Seljuk Sultan.

‘I’d best get my sword then?’ Blastares said flatly, his cheek twitching.

Realisation swept over the rest of the camp at that moment. Panicked wails broke out; ‘The sultan is here!’ they cried. These laments were only tempered by the barking of commanders and the rattle of weapons and armour being gathered up. A multitude of buccinas keened and men hurried to and fro, all the while the Seljuk line rumbled ever closer. At last, the Byzantine infantrymen and cavalry began to spill out of the camp’s southern gate and onto the plain to form up in a line, readying to face the coming foe. When the Seljuk advance came within half a mile of the Byzantine camp, they slowed and stopped. The shimmering bullhorn formation of their army flattened into a wide line. Waiting, watching.

Sha, Blastares and Procopius shot anxious glances at this as they barked the Chaldians into order, readying them to leave the camp and join the forming Byzantine lines outside. Sha eyed his depleted tourma — just two banda of skutatoi and a smattering of toxotai, five hundred men altogether. But they were ready. Likewise, Blastares and Procopius had their regiments in order, helms and armour on, shields and spears clutched, bows and quivers ready. But something was missing.

‘Where is the Strategos?’ he asked his comrades. Glancing up at the Fortress of Manzikert, he could see Romanus, Philaretos, Alyates and Bryennios on the southern battlements, pointing to maps, hurriedly discussing the makeup of the enemy force. No Apion.

‘He didn’t return to his tent last night after seeing off the Seljuk raiders,’ Procopius replied. ‘Took to his horse and rode up into the northern hills,’ the old tourmarches nodded to the gentle green range behind the camp and the fortress. ‘Said he had to talk with someone.’

Sha gazed into those hills. One distant knoll sported a lone tamarisk tree and fluttering tall grass on its crest. Apart from that the range was bare and deserted. Sha felt an emptiness welling inside him as he pieced together Apion’s thoughts. Perhaps he had chosen not to face his son in battle. And damn any man who condemns you for it, he mouthed, fending off sadness. He turned slowly away from the scene, when a silvery flash from up there caught his eye. On the slopes below the tamarisk tree, a lone rider galloped downhill towards the camp. He could not yet discern the identity of the rider. He did not need to. His face broke out in a broad smile.

‘Stand tall, men. Your strategos comes to lead you into battle!’

***

Apion guided his mount down from the hillside, the morning sun prickling his skin and the crone’s words swimming in his thoughts.

The storm is upon us, Haga. The answers you seek dance within its wrath. .

From his vantage point in the hills he had heard the shock that erupted over the Byzantine camp when first light had revealed the Sultan’s dawn move, but he had not shared it. Today had to happen. The two great powers of Byzantium and the Seljuk Sultanate had been on course for this clash for years.

As he rode past Manzikert’s walls he saw that the beleaguered camp pitched just outside the fortress was nearly empty — the last regiments of the army were spilling out of the south gate to join the broad and deep Byzantine line facing the sultan’s ranks, orchestrated by the keening buccinas and waving imperial standards. The emperor, Philaretos, Igor and a bodyguard of thirty or so Varangoi rode to take their place near a silk command tent that had been erected behind the battle line. Three sections made up the Byzantine line; the centre was composed of the massed ranks of themata spearmen — skutatoi from Cappadocia, Colonea and his own Chaldia — spears bristling, shields interlocked. Prince Vardan and his Armenian spearmen stood with them. The few hundred toxotai were nestled in behind this infantry wall, quivers full, bows strung and ready. The mounted, white-armoured Varangoi and a tourma of Scholae riders milled just behind this serried infantry formation. All in, the centre numbered some seven thousand men. And it was bookended by two tight cavalry wings. Doux Bryennios would command the flankguard on the left. He was mounted at the head of his five thousand western horsemen. Alyates, Strategos of Cappadocia, was to lead the outflankers on the right. There were four thousand riders here. A thousand of them were thematic kataphractoi — armed with lance, blade and mace and wrapped in iron like him, with helms, klibania, greaves and their mounts equally well clad in plate facemasks and scale or baked leather aprons. Two and a half thousand of them were the swifter and more lightly-equipped kursores — carrying shields, light lances, spathions, bows and wearing just leather klibania and helms, their horses free of armour. The mail-clad Norman lancers — four hundred strong — made up the right.

Behind this fearsome front line and behind even Romanus’ command tent, the mass of the magnate armies were gathering in something more akin to a horde formation than ordered battle lines, infantry standing amongst cavalry, oblivious to the folly of this stance. These private militias had lost several hundred in the arrow storm the previous night, but well over six thousand remained and would form a reserve, Apion realised. They would march some quarter of a mile behind the front line. To be kept back and used as the blunt instrument they are when the time is right, he wondered, or to keep them from disrupting the manoeuvres of the well-drilled imperial troops?

He saw that Andronikos Doukas sat saddled near Scleros at the head of the magnate army, his hands bound in chains and his head bowed. And he noticed the Oghuz riders who had chosen not to flee during the night were flanking the magnate mass in two wings of five hundred. Perhaps to aid them, or perhaps to police them. Including this reserve, some twenty two thousand men were ready to face the sultan’s horde.

He rode onto the plain and wheeled along the Byzantine front, headed for the right-centre, his gaze fixed on his Chaldians there. The sharp edge of the anvil. They erupted into a cheer at the sight of their leader. ‘Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Ha-ga!’

He slowed, walking his mount back and forth in front of them, and beheld each of them with flinty eyes. ‘Someone told me the Chaldians had come to battle today?’ he offered them a wry grin. The men cheered at this, pumping the crimson Chaldian banners aloft. ‘They said our ranks were thin and ill-prepared?’ The cheers changed into mocking jeers. ‘But I see before me nearly two thousand whoresons encased in iron, standing like giants, with the eyes of eagles. . ’ he smashed his fist against his chest, ‘. . and the hearts of lions!’

At this, the ranks exploded in unison. ‘Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Ha-ga!’ The roar brought stunned looks from the themata nearby, and stirred the other strategoi and doukes into attempting similar homilies.

‘Sir!’ Sha, Blastares and Procopius barked in unison, mounted at the head of their ranks of spearmen and archers. His trusted three trotted over to converge on him. Sha handed him his greaves and mail veil along with iron garb for his horse. ‘I reckoned you’d be in need of these today — I hear you’ll be with the riders on the right?’ The Malian nodded to the three wedges of kataphractoi on Alyates cavalry wing.

Apion nodded, seeing his fifty Chaldian riders amongst that number. ‘Aye, yet it will feel odd to ride to battle without you three by my side,’ he said as he knelt, looking each of them in the eye as he buckled on his greaves. ‘This will be more fraught than any encounter we have faced together in the past. While we match the Seljuk number, we have never faced as wily an opponent as the sultan in a pitched battle before. He is no ordinary foe.’ He glanced over the shimmering Seljuk lines across the plain. Some twenty thousand glistening warriors, speartips and fluttering banners slipping in and out of the morning heat haze. ‘See how their lines are in three sections,’ he nodded to the enemy. ‘They match us in shape, but not in composition.’

‘True,’ Blastares squinted, his bottom lip curling in distaste. ‘Not a single infantryman amongst them.

‘Nearly all ghazis. Their mobility will be their strength,’ Sha added, sweeping a finger over the light, nimble and deadly cavalry. They wore helms, lamellar, mail or felt coats, carried vividly painted shields, short lances, scimitars and some bore war hammers or axes. To a man they wore the deadly composite bow and several quivers strapped to their backs.

‘I see the sultan’s banner, but I do not see him?’ Procopius said, shielding his eyes from the now fully-risen sun to scour the enemy ranks around the great golden banner.

‘There, the sultan will be watching on from the shade, I am sure,’ Apion pointed to a small hummock in the plain a distance behind the Seljuk lines. Atop it, what looked like a silk awning had been set up. Around the base of the hummock, two lustrous rings of soldiers formed a human palisade of sorts. ‘Ghulam riders, the shock cavalry of the sultanate, and no doubt a regiment of akhi spearmen,’ he guessed, pointing at the upper and lower rings. He wondered at what words were being shared under that awning right now, and thought of the shatranj game he had played with Alp Arslan some years ago. He imagined the two opposing armies again like the pieces on the board, he and the sultan looking on, looking for weaknesses. A stiff tension settled over the Chaldian ranks as they noticed their leader’s silence.

Blastares broke the silence; ‘You know they found a vat of wine in the cellars of Manzikert last night?’

Sha, Procopius and Apion looked at him with frowns.

Blastares’ face was granite-serious. Then a craggy grin split it and a sparkle grew in his eye. ‘So tonight, when we’re back here, united, victory had, let’s get utterly shit-faced on it, eh?’

Sha roared with laughter first, Apion and Procopius were quick to follow. The men nearby broke out in laughter too.

‘Out there,’ Apion smiled, ‘I will think of nothing more than the crushing hangover that is to be my reward.’

The buccinas blared once more for final formations. ‘Until this day is done, my Tourmarchai. Until victory, my friends,’ he nodded to his trusted three. The three saluted then turned away, heeling their mounts back to the front of each of their tourmae of Chaldian infantrymen.

Apion trotted over to Alyates’ riders on the Byzantine right. There, he dismounted to throw the iron scale apron and face mask over his mount, stroking its mane as he did so. Next, he set about tying the flexible splinted greaves around his forearms. Finally, he lifted the veil to clip it on across his face. But something caught his eye and he hesitated. The morning heat haze separating the armies flickered. A party was approaching from the Seljuk lines. Just seven riders, wearing not the armour of warriors but the robes of delegates. He saw that the party was headed for the Byzantine centre. They came to within paces of the front then, at some barked command from the imperial command tent, the infantry ranks parted, opening a corridor to let the delegation through. Alyates sidled over just then. ‘The sultan means to offer terms? Perhaps we should lend an ear,’ he said, dismounting and beckoning Apion with him towards the command tent.

They arrived at the command tent just as the delegates were dismounting. They were older, grey-bearded Seljuk men, dressed in fine silk yalmas and caps. The lead delegate, draped in gold brocade, moved to stand before the white and silver-armoured Romanus, who had dismounted also to sit on a gilded throne, flanked by the great bejewelled campaign cross on one side and the Icon of the Holy Virgin of Blachernae on the other. The Seljuk delegate bowed before him.

‘Our great sultan sends you a fine gift, Emperor of Byzantium. He wishes to see all of your men return to their homes unharmed.’ Apion noticed that the delegate’s voice was booming, so many of the ranks nearby could hear this. ‘So you can all be with your wives and children once more.’

Apion’s eyes narrowed, sensing the true motive for this parley. He caught Romanus’ eye at that moment, and saw the emperor’s gaze harden too.

‘Disperse your armies, Emperor of Byzantium, and leave these lands. Have your garrison walk unharmed from Manzikert and return to the west. This offer is most gracious and comes to you only once.’

Apion swept his gaze around the nearest ranks of soldiers. He saw many of them charmed by the sudden and unexpected promise of safety. On the cusp of battle, such words always played havoc with a man’s heart. He thought of the soldiers who had deserted overnight. He loathed them for it, yet he understood. They had families, no doubt, cherished ones they longed to be with instead of standing to face the Seljuk wrath. He reached a hand inside his purse and stroked the dark lock of Maria’s hair. For an instant he envied those craven men, fleeing into the arms of those they loved.

The envoy continued; ‘Already, the vast wing of riders and archers you sent to Lake Van’s shores have taken this path.’ He stopped, a haughty smile spreading over his face as he gazed around the watching men. ‘They turned and rode back to the west.’

Gasps rang out. Hundreds of voices whispered.

‘Tarchianotes has fled?’ Alyates hissed by Apion’s ear.

Apion could not bring himself to reply.

‘Never,’ Romanus insisted.

The envoy’s eyes grew hooded, a look of satisfaction settling upon his mottled face. ‘Our scouts have been tracking them, and at the last report, those fine forces of yours were still on their retreat to the west, nearly ninety miles away.’

The watching Byzantine soldiers erupted in a panicked chorus.

Romanus’ eyes darted, the panic almost taking him too. But he shot up from his chair, silencing the babble, standing tall to glower at the envoy. ‘Tell your noble sultan that we will walk from these lands,’ he replied in a low growl. A flurry of muttering spread around the crowd. ‘But not on this fine morning. No, we will leave these lands only when we are victorious, with Manzikert and Chliat as our prizes, or as spirits, slain on the battlefield as we fight to the last. To the last!’

The delegate’s earnest and warm expression faded at this, his top lip twitching. The watching ranks had their nascent doubts swept away, many breaking into a defiant, thunderous cheer. The emperor slid on his silver, purple-plumed battle helm and seized the momentary fervour. ‘Tell your sultan that we will talk again on the battlefield. Our swords will sing until they grow hoarse!’

The Byzantine ranks erupted now in a lasting, raucous chorus of chanting and cheering, Romanus’ glare never leaving the departing delegates as they rode off back to the Seljuk lines.

‘That was well handled, Basileus,’ Apion whispered, sidling up next to the emperor. ‘The delegate’s words had the men spellbound for a moment there. They even had me.’

‘Then they had us all, Strategos,’ Romanus flashed a half-smile. ‘As he spoke, I saw only Eudokia and little Nikephoros. How I longed to be with them, to guarantee that I would see them again.’ He clutched the golden heart pendant as he said this.

‘I am certain the sultan made the offer in the same hope of seeing his own loved ones, Basileus.’

‘Yet he, like I, cannot be seen to yield. Not even an inch. Each of us has to return to our realm with these lands secured. But only one of us can.’

Apion nodded, knowing full well that Psellos and the Doukas family would be awaiting news of this clash like vultures. Indeed, he mused bitterly, thinking of Diabatenus the missing rider and Tarchianotes the absent doux, they appeared to have invested heavily in a Seljuk victory. ‘So what now, Basileus?’

The emperor held his gaze, slipping on his purple-plumed battle helm. ‘Now, Haga, we go to war.’

***

Atop the hummock in the middle of the plain, Alp Arslan watched the sheepish envoys shuffle to the back of the tent. The Byzantine Emperor’s response was not unexpected, yet it angered him greatly. Battle could not be avoided, it seemed. He threw down his green silk cloak, cast off his gold bracelets and neck chains, then took up the white garment he had asked for.

‘Sultan!’ Bey Gulten gasped. ‘This is a terrible omen. Please, don the fine garments that befit you. Not this death-robe!’

Alp Arslan continued to dress in the garment as if he had not heard, pulling it over his iron-plate coat.

‘Stand back,’ Bey Taylan urged the aged Gulten.

But Bey Gulten insisted again, picking up the sultan’s battle cloak and striding towards him to force it into his hands. ‘You mean to inspire your ranks with such a morbid gesture? What kind of man leads his people in such a-’

Gulten’s words were cut short by a chorus of blades being ripped from sheaths. He looked this way and that — first at Kilic’s dagger, pressed to his jugular, then to Bey Taylan’s scimitar, resting on his breastbone. The bey backed away, bowing, his skin paling and sweat spidering down his skin.

‘The sultan will teach you how to inspire men, bold bey,’ Taylan hissed.

The bey’s nose wrinkled at being spoken to like this. ‘Sultan, this boy means to talk to me, a man nearly three times his years, in such a fashion?’

Alp Arslan looked to Taylan and then to Gulten, his gaze distant, his face pinched with tension. ‘He may possess just a third of your years, Bey Gulten, but he has thrice your wisdom. Now go back to your riders, you offer me nothing today but a grating voice.’

Gulten’s indignation remained buried under his fear of the sultan. Gingerly, he backed away, bowing. ‘Yes, Great Sultan.’

Alp Arslan looped the ends of his thick and long moustache round the back of his neck and tied them there, then he swung around to Taylan. The boy wore a stiff expression, his jaw squared and his tuft-beard oiled and combed. His armour was polished to perfection, Bey Nasir’s old scale vest glimmering on his broad shoulders. The sultan picked up a finely crafted composite bow, slung it over his shoulder and strode to his dappled steppe pony. ‘Come, young bey.’

They rode together down the hummock, through the ring of mail and scale-clad ghulam lancers, and across the short distance north towards the main Seljuk lines.

‘You were certain the Byzantines would reject your offer, weren’t you?’ Taylan asked.

‘I do not believe in certainty, Bey. The offer had to be made,’ the sultan replied.

‘But their campaign is crumbling. Half of their army fled back to the west.’

‘And half remain,’ Alp Arslan replied swiftly. ‘In equal number to our forces. Their centre is lethal. Should our riders be caught in that spearline in this open terrain, the crows will feast on our corpses before noon.’

‘But our riders are swift and nimble, they will not be so slow as to become snagged on their lances.’

‘Perhaps, but look at their flanks. Their kataphractoi are their biggest weapon. Should they bring their outflankers round to bear upon our ghazis at the right moment, then we will find ourselves snagged whether we wish to be or not.’

‘Bring the kataphractoi, I say, I have sharpened my blade for just that possibility,’ Taylan replied.

Alp Arslan shook his head. ‘The future of our people hangs in the balance today, Taylan. Yet still you think only of the Haga? He killed your father in battle. It was a noble fight in which Nasir fought bravely. Why such thirst for revenge? He is but one of many thousands of blades who we must fight today.’

Taylan’s expression grew steely. ‘I only know that I must face him.’

Alp Arslan eyed the young rider. Taylan’s obsession with slaying the Byzantine Strategos had grown unwieldy. It was all the boy thought of. Why? he wondered. What was the Haga to Taylan but yet another enemy blade? ‘I need you to put your mind to the task we discussed, Bey Taylan. The reserves need you to lead them. Now go to them.’

Taylan seemed set to protest, but he sighed and nodded instead. ‘Then I will see you in the fray, Sultan.’ His gaze grew distant as he peeled away, turning to ride back in the direction he had come, back past the Seljuk command tent and off towards the southern mountains and Lake Van.

The sultan watched him go, then faced forward as he came to the rear of the main Seljuk battle lines. The three blocks of riders twisted in their saddles and hailed their sultan, cheering and throwing their hands aloft, parting to let him come to the fore. Their cries made the plain shudder, then they fell silent in expectation.

‘Do not look to me as your sultan today,’ Alp Arslan boomed. As he said this, he leapt from the saddle and threw down the ornate scimitar from his belt. ‘Give me a warrior’s scimitar — a simple blade not weighed down with jewels. And give me a mace,’ he cried. Moments later, he plucked a sword and bludgeon from the many proffered and held the weapons up. ‘I have come to fight with you today. I am a ghazi, just like you. Whether today brings glory in victory or in defeat, I will share it with you, as one of you.’ He leapt back onto his horse and placed his well-weathered battle helm on his crown, the nose guard slipping into place between his fierce eyes. Then he kicked his mount into a trot up and down the Seljuk front, grasping the material of the shroud in his fingers. ‘I come dressed to die, for my life is but a single leaf in a great forest, and I would gladly fall just to see this battle won!’

The roar that this conjured shook the land. ‘Allahu Akbar!’

‘Now sound the war horns — take me to war!’ he bellowed.

***

Apion gawped as the Sultan’s battle cry and the roar of the Seljuk ranks echoed then faded. He shook his head, disbelieving, sure it was the heat haze lying to him. The sultan was dressed in some brilliant white garment. . a shroud? The crone’s words echoed shrilly in his mind, as if mocking him for ever doubting her.

I see a battlefield by an azure lake flanked by two mighty pillars. Walking that battlefield is Alp Arslan. The mighty Mountain Lion is dressed in a shroud. .

For a blessed moment there was only the gentle, whistling breeze, the chattering cicadas and the heat of the morning sun on his skin. He could hear every breath, every thump of his heart inside his carapace of kataphractos armour, every nagging demand for water from his parched throat, feel every trickle of sweat dancing down his skin, the steely touch of the mail face veil that hid all but his eyes. He saw the Byzantine buccinators look to the emperor for the word. He imagined old Cydones by his side, dryly eyeing the wraith of Mansur on the opposing ranks. A poignant smile touched the corners of his lips. He thought of Maria as he scanned the Seljuk ranks. He thought of Taylan.

Let my choices today be the right ones, he mouthed into the ether.

Then the Seljuk war horns wailed. The plain of Manzikert came alive with noise as the guttural roars of men, the keening of retorting Byzantine buccinas, the stamping of boots and the rattling of spears and shields set the earth to tremor. Both armies rippled like two great silver-scaled creatures, caged and raring to be unleashed.

The Seljuk banners chopped down first and the horde poured forward at a canter. The purple imperial banners sliced forward in reply, and the Byzantine lines coursed forward. The half mile separating the two sides dissolved as the two iron tides rumbled towards one another.

The infantry in the Byzantine centre moved at a jog, whilst the cavalry trotted to keep pace. Alyates took to encouraging the kursores riders to stay in line and be ready for what was to come. Apion twisted in his saddle to offer his heavier riders a few last words likewise. ‘Ride at pace with the infantry and your left flank will be secure,’ he cried over the rumble of hooves. ‘We will break forward when the moment is right and only then. If we choose the moment well, we can be the key to victory today. For we are the outflankers, the hammer. Our lances might write history on this plain. When the moment is right, we can charge the enemy before us, drive them round and pin them to our infantry anvil. The Seljuk horsemen ahead know this and they quake with fear!’

The kataphractoi roared in approval as Apion turned swiftly to face forward again, seeing the gap was just a quarter-mile now.

‘We can ensnare them if we charge now!’ one gravel-voiced kataphractos insisted, ranging beside him at a brisk trot, his heels poised to kick his mount into a gallop.

‘The moment is not yet here,’ Apion growled in reply. ‘Now — stay in line!’

As the cowed rider fell back, Apion scoured the faces of the approaching ghazi, now barely three hundred paces away. He saw their snarling mouths, their levelled spears, their braced shields. He saw only shaded eyes, and wondered if Taylan was amongst them.

Suddenly, across the Byzantine lines on the left, some commotion occurred. One wing of some three hundred kataphractoi had broken ahead of Bryennios’ flankguard, leaving the furious doux howling for their return. The majority of the Byzantine line cheered, eager to see their comrades strike a vicious blow into the Seljuk ranks, especially after the impotence they had felt during the arrow storm the previous evening.

‘No!’ Apion hissed, seeing this impetuous wedge plunge ahead like a dagger, racing at a full charge for the Seljuk right. The emperor too was signalling frantically for them to return. Buccinas howled and banners waved in futility as the riders bore down on their target.

Then, as if turned by a strong wind and a double moan of the Seljuk war horn, the entire advancing ghazi line swung around into a well-ordered retreat. The kataphractoi wedge drove into the space the enemy had occupied moments ago, the brunt of the charge wasted on thin air. They raced on after the retreating Seljuk riders, but the nimble ghazis melted away before them and reformed behind them like droplets of oil in water. The kataphractoi charge slowed now, the horses tired from the exertion, the impulsive riders realising their folly in being cut off from the allied lines. Worse, each ghazi rider had now stowed their lance and pulled their bow from their back. Those nearest raced to encircle the impetuous kataphractoi and in a heartbeat they had nocked, aimed and loosed. A chorus of thock-thock-thock echoed across the plain. At such close range and at such volume, many of the kataphractoi were stricken — arrows aimed for the few gaps in their armour at the knees, eyes and upper arms. Likewise, horses reared up, limbs peppered with shafts. In moments, the wedge of three hundred riders were in pieces. Many dead, many groaning where they had fallen. Another clutch of ghazi swept in to strike down the few who remained, hacking them with their scimitars or knocking them from their saddles and running them through with their lances.

The rest of the Byzantine line watched this, the gap remaining at some three hundred paces as the Seljuk retreat matched the Byzantine advance. Apion looked over his shoulder to the gruff-voiced kataphractos behind him. ‘Now, you will stay in line, yes?’

‘Yes, Haga,’ the rider replied sheepishly.

As the Seljuk lines continued to fall back to the south, the emperor gave the signal to slow to a walk. At this, the Seljuks also took to walking their mounts away from the Byzantine advance, keeping the gap steady. Then they twisted in their saddles, lifted their bows skywards and loosed a volley of many thousands of arrows at the Byzantine infantry centre. Every skutatoi heart there froze.

‘Keep your shields high, lift them when I say and we will be fine,’ he heard Sha bawl from the walking ranks, the Malian watching the dark cloud of missiles that cast the Chaldians in shade momentarily. ‘Shields!’ he cried. The rattle of iron arrowheads on shields was cacophonous, and vastly outweighed the meaty thuds and yelps of those caught out.

Without hesitation, the ghazis then turned their bows as one to aim at Apion’s cavalry flank. The volley rained down on Alyates and his lightly-armoured kursores. With a series of guttural grunts and shrieks, those riders were punched from their saddles and mounts stricken likewise.

‘Kursores, fall back!’ Alyates bawled, snapping off one arrow shaft that had lodged in his klibanion. ‘Strategos, you have the front,’ he nodded as he and his more lightly armoured kursores fell back behind Apion’s heavier riders, out of arrow range.

Apion nodded in understanding, then bawled to his riders as, with a rattling thrum, another dark cloud of Seljuk missiles was loosed; ‘They fire from the edge of their range, and their arrows will be lucky to harm you. For you are encased in steel, as are your mounts, slide your shields into your backs, keep moving at a walk. . and do not look up!’

‘What, why?’ the mouthy, gravel-voiced kataphractos behind him grunted.

Apion braced as the arrow hail pelted down all around them. The missiles danced from his helm and armour and the men around him. Only one man fell foul of the volley, a grim, wet, thwacking sound coming from behind Apion’s shoulder. He glanced round to see the gravel-voiced rider there gawping upwards, an arrow shaft quivering in his ruined eye socket, the tip buried deep in his brain, blood spilling through his mail veil in gouts. The rider slid from his mount in silence and crunched to the ground, dead. ‘That’s why,’ Apion growled to the others.

‘We cannot offer any counter attack?’ Alyates spat, riding level with Apion again. His eyes swept along the Byzantine lines as if seeking out some form of answer.

Apion replied curtly. ‘That is exactly what they want. Look,’ he nodded along the Byzantine lines to the mere handful of bodies that had fallen in the first two volleys, ‘they cannot break our lines if we stay together. They mean to anger us into abandoning our formation. If the balance of numbers was not so delicate then we might have been able to charge them, but — ’

‘But that dog, Tarchianotes, has melted into the ether with half of our army?’

Apion nodded with a caustic gurn.

‘Does Tarchianotes realise just what he has done? If I live beyond today, it will be with great pleasure that I track down and slice the cur’s wart-ridden, scowling head from his shoulders.’ Alyates snarled as he raised his shield, falling back as the next cloud of arrows hissed for the right flank.

Apion braced as the arrows thudded down around him, one jarring his shoulder as it smacked against a lamellar plate there — the armour holding good. ‘Think only of the foe before you today,’ he called back to Alyates.

The morning wore on and the tense procession continued, the Byzantine line progressing southwards across the plain as a solid front with the magnate armies and the Oghuz riders following a quarter-mile to the rear. The Seljuk riders kept the constant gap between them as they continued their retreat at a walk, loosing fearsome clouds of arrows at leisure. They proved skilled at this, as when the emperor gave the order to slow or speed up even by just a fraction, the Seljuk lines adjusted their pace to maintain the gap at the farthest possible killing distance. Worse, when the Byzantines took to loosing arrows in reply from their own modest companies of archers and archer cavalry, the missiles fell just short of the withdrawing Seljuk host.

Apion glanced over his shoulder, seeing the path they had taken from the camp and the Fortress of Manzikert — now a few miles behind them to the north. The parched plain they had advanced across was sparsely littered with the bodies of the infantry and riders who had fallen to the constant rain of arrows — no more than a hundred though — easy to spot given the clouds of flies that buzzed over the corpses and the vultures that swooped to peck at the flesh. They had some time ago passed by the spot where the headstrong kataphractoi had broken ranks and raced headlong into their own slaughter, and the vultures were thickest there. Another volley of arrows pattered down on Apion’s wedge, shaking him from his observations. A missile skated from the rim of his helm, sending a shower of sparks across his eyes.

‘Now, they must offer battle!’ Alyates said, the young Strategos of Cappadocia pointing just ahead.

Apion squinted through the heat haze to see the hummock in the plain with the silk awning atop it. The Seljuk command tent. The retreating ghazi line had all but backed onto the bottom of this hummock and as the Seljuk riders looked this way and that for direction, the gap between them and the Byzantine advance was narrowing rapidly in their hesitation and their arrow hail faltered. The hummock itself was ringed by akhi spearmen on the lower slopes and a thick cluster of some eight hundred ghulam riders at the top. These iron masked riders were every bit as fierce as the Byzantine kataphractoi. Suddenly, from the ghazi line, the white-garbed Alp Arslan and a handful of bodyguards broke back, up the hill, through the double ring of defenders and into the shade of the awning.

Alyates’ eyes scoured the small hill. ‘The sultan took to battle in a death shroud. Now, perhaps, he will find use for it!’

‘He wears that garment only to inspire his men to victory,’ Apion countered, ‘their resolve will only be stronger for it.’

‘Let us test that theory, Strategos,’ Alyates said, breaking out in a broad grin, his eyes darting to the Byzantine centre.

Apion twisted round to see the source of Alyates’ sudden encouragement. There in the Byzantine centre, the campaign cross had been hefted aloft, and the purple imperial banners were being chopped down, signalling both flanks should advance like pincers in an attempt to envelop the ghazi line and the hilltop tent. The buccinas sang to confirm it.

‘This is it,’ Alyates gasped. ‘Take the kataphractoi forward, Strategos, let us seize the Seljuk camp! I will have the kursores rain their arrows on the defenders in support.’

‘Nobiscum Deus!’ the men of the Byzantine line roared as they broke forward, the two wings of cavalry at each end folding round the foot of the hummock in an attempt to corral the ghazi horde there. But the ghazi were swift to break, flooding round the hill’s lower slopes and slipping from the closing Byzantine pincers and off to the south. A few hundred fell to Byzantine horse archers, but the rest burst south towards Mount Tzipan in a plume of dust, leaving the hill tent and those guarding it to their fate.

‘Ignore them!’ some unseen commander bellowed. ‘Take the Sultan’s tent!’

Apion swept round towards the hill’s southern slope as part of the right cavalry pincer. He afforded a southwards glance at the fleeing ghazi. Too easy? He wondered. His musing lasted only an instant, the first cries of engagement tearing him back to the hill and the command tent. He lay flat in his saddle and levelled his lance. He saw the triple-line of akhi spearmen halfway up the hummock brace, snarling faces peering over turquoise and tan shields, spear butts wedged into the burnt gold scree for stability. Behind them, hundreds of ghulam riders atop the hummock shuffled, readying to spur their mounts into a downhill charge at their attackers should the akhi line be breached and the Seljuk command tent threatened.

‘Break the spear wall!’ Apion cried to his kataphractoi wedge and the other two wedges riding just ahead. ‘Take one man down and the rest will follow!’

The rightmost wedge of kataphractoi hit the akhi spear line first. A dull, crunching noise marked the shattering of bones on shield bosses and the piercing or crumpling of armour on akhi lances. This first wedge fell back downhill, the momentum lost along with six riders. The second wedge punched into the akhi, desperate to break the hardy ring of defenders. This time, one akhi was run through on the tip of a kataphractos’ lance, dark blood showering through the air, the man lifted from his place in the line and carried with the rider on inside, trampling the spearmen in the two ranks behind. But the victorious rider’s joy was short lived. A clutch of the ghulam riders rushed down from the tip of the hummock to thrust their spears into him at all angles. His body fell, torn and sheeting blood. Meanwhile the rest of the second wedge found themselves repelled as the akhi line closed up, shrinking the defensive ring by shuffling uphill a few steps.

Apion led his charging wedge at the akhi line next. He set eyes upon one giant of an akhi, moustachioed and roaring, his face covered in battle scars. This foe’s face came and went as the dark door pulsed into his vision, rushing for him, crashing back on its hinges, the flames beyond engulfing him.

He felt a dull roar topple from his lungs as he punched his lance through the giant’s chest, showering organs and dark blood from the man’s back, the tip of the spear tearing the throat of the akhi behind as well and pulling the weapon from his grasp. Trampling over another akhi, he realised he was inside the momentarily ruptured akhi ring with just a handful of his riders. Here, the polyglot cries of war were thick and desperate. He twisted this way and that, seeing the tear-streaked and snarling faces of the other akhi as they lunged for him and his men. One leapt up to slide his spear under the klibanion of the nearest kataphractos. The rider fell and was butchered in seconds, white bone and blood gaping through his mangled armour. Apion felt his limbs move in a numb and sickeningly familiar sequence. In a single motion, he drew his scimitar from his belt and swept it round, hacking the lance tip from one Seljuk spearman, scoring another across that foe’s chest and then punching the tip into the next’s shoulder. His Thessalian reared, kicked and gnashed, its hooves crushing the face of one foe and its teeth crippling the spear hand of another. Still, the akhi line fought fiercely, desperate to close the breach.

‘Hold the breach!’ Apion roared, a few more of his riders bursting inside the akhi ring — thirty or so men in total. ‘Hold the-’ his cry halted as he felt the ground judder. His head snapped round to the rise of the hummock and the tide of iron ghulam riders pouring down from there, their lethal lance tips only paces away and trained on him.

‘Turn!’ Apion bellowed to the smattering of his riders — all engaged in the melee with the Seljuk spearmen. They did their best. Twelve or so managed to swing away from the clash with the akhi and face the coming threat.

The clang of iron upon iron that followed shook the plain. Apion felt his heart thunder as the ghulam riders swept over him and his riders. A lance tip aimed for his heart stayed true until he brought the hilt of his scimitar round on it, diverting it so the spear ploughed through and dislodged a handful of plates from his klibanion, scoring the flesh of his hip. But the sheer momentum of the ghulam rider hit him like a rock thrown from an onager, punching him back from the saddle. As he fell, he dropped his scimitar and grappled at the rider, wrapping his arms around his attacker’s torso and pulling the man down with him. They tumbled over and over in the dust as the rest of the ghulam wedge charged on past them. The fallen ghulam rider brought his steel-gloved fist crashing into Apion’s face. The thick and familiar crack of his nose breaking filled Apion’s head and coppery blood trickled down his throat. Apion swung a knee up into the man’s gut to send him sprawling, winded. He leapt up, only to stagger back from the man’s sudden recovery and lunge with a scimitar. Instinctively, Apion drew the savagely flanged mace from his belt and the pair circled. He ducked just under the swipe of the man’s scimitar then reached up to grapple his foe’s wrist and brought his mace sweeping down onto the man’s crown. The ghulam’s helmet and skull crumpled under the fierce blow. Blood and eye matter spurted from the rider’s veil and he at once fell limp and collapsed.

All around him, the screams of Byzantine kataphractoi rang out as the ghulam hacked into them. Apion swung this way and that in the confusion. Through the forest of horse limbs and fallen men he saw that the other two wedges of kataphractoi had come to aid his. They were holding their own, just, and the breach in the akhi line remained open. His fleeting thoughts of barging through the chaos to aid his comrades were scattered by the sound of onrushing hooves behind him. He swung to see a pair of ghulam, lances levelled for his chest, eyes fixed on him. He braced, readying his mace to take one of these curs down with him. At that moment, Igor and a wave of white-steel varangoi riders broke through the akhi ring just a handful of paces away, and crashed into the flanks of these two riders, dashing and trampling over them. Moments later, the Rus riders were swarming around Apion and hacking down the other nearby ghulam. The Varangoi swung their fierce breidox axes to and fro, taking Seljuk riders in the flank and crushing them. Limbs were lopped off and skulls spliced in showers of blood. The infantry of the themata poured in through the gap Apion’s riders had made and through the second gap the Rus riders had forced in the akhi ring. Thousands of them flooded onto the slopes of the hummock, cheering in victory. They pulled the ghulam from their mounts, despatching them with swift jabs of their spears and swipes of their spathions, then they turned upon the remnant of the akhi ring. Apion saw Romanus surging through the fray now also. His silver and white armour glistening as he urged his army on to the command tent, now only guarded by a clutch of panicked ghulam riders.

A hand grasped Apion’s bicep. ‘Victory is in sight!’ Blastares panted, pointing up to the Seljuk command tent, his face streaked with other men’s blood and his chest heaving. The big man ran on with the men of his tourma. Apion saw Sha and the less sprightly Procopius move for the command tent likewise, streams of Chaldian spearmen and archers flooding in their wake. The ghulam there threw down their weapons, and the last few clusters of akhi spearmen did likewise.

A cheer rang out, guttural and desperate. Romanus rode to and fro before the Seljuk tent rousing further choruses of this. ‘Nobiscum Deus!’ they cried over and over, all eyes falling on the campaign cross, being hefted to the top of the hillock by the priests.

Apion sought out and sheathed his lost scimitar, then pushed through the crowds of cheering soldiers to join the emperor. Igor was there, along with Alyates, Bryennios and Philaretos. He heard them conversing.

‘We have lost but a few hundred kataphractoi and skutatoi, Basileus. This is a decisive victory,’ Philaretos enthused, ‘and a magnificent one!’

Apion bypassed them, then glanced around the shade of the silk awning at the crest of the hillock. It was devoid of life bar the handful of kneeling ghulam. A few timber chests sat there, open but empty. A table stood, a half-finished cup of red wine sitting beside four daggers dug into the table top, still bearing the torn corners of the map that had been splayed out there. He traced a finger over the cracked oak surface. ‘This is not victory,’ he muttered to himself, looking south to see that the ghazi lines had withdrawn just a mile or so and now waited there. Galloping to join them was the white-garbed sultan and his bodyguards.

‘But the men need to believe it is,’ Romanus whispered, having come alongside him. ‘It is a start, but no more.’

‘So what now?’ Apion asked, looking out from the shade of the awning around the shimmering and parched plain. ‘The hottest part of the day lies ahead. Perhaps we should retire to Manzikert to rest the men?’

Romanus shook his head. ‘We have taken a regiment of the sultan’s spearmen and a wing of his heavy cavalry. But the man himself and the vast majority of his army still loom out there.’

Apion squinted to the south with the emperor. A heat haze danced on the plain, part masking the thick Seljuk ghazi lines that had withdrawn there. Watching, waiting.

‘And Manzikert?’ the emperor continued, nodding to the north and the distant outline of the black-walled bastion. ‘The fortress offers shelter but little else. It has been stripped bare of the food and fodder we found in its cellars, Strategos. We cannot return there lest we wish to starve or fight on tomorrow as weaker men. We must push on and seize victory on this fine plain today.’

Apion nodded. ‘Then push on we must, Basileus. But we should be careful, for the sultan seems eager not to offer battle on this plain,’ he pointed to the area a few miles behind the Seljuk mass. ‘See how the flat ground breaks up there? Rocky tracts, scree, folds, ditches and hills speckle the land. And then a few miles further on there are the valleys and the mountains that ring Lake Van,’ he said, thinking back to the snare in the valley and the snarling Bey Soundaq.

‘I will pursue him, but not into those valleys,’ the emperor ceded. ‘Better starving men tomorrow than corpses this evening.’

Apion looked over his shoulder. There, Philaretos, Alyates and Bryennios were discussing the next moves amongst themselves, and the vast Byzantine ranks were moving down the hummock’s slopes, back down onto the plain. Some distance north, he noticed the rabble of the magnate armies still catching up. Nearly seven thousand men. Untouched, untested. A sea of sweating, scowling faces, hands clutching spears, axes, clubs and ornate blades. Scleros was mounted at their head, in his preposterous armour, with the prisoner, Andronikos Doukas, by his side. At that moment, Doukas squinted up towards the awning, his sweating, handsome features glistening like his shackles. ‘And what of our reserve, Basileus?’

‘Let us hope that today does not call for us to use them,’ he cocked an eyebrow. ‘But they might yet make the difference. They look fearsome enough, after all,’ he grinned wryly. ‘Now, Strategos, let us focus our thoughts on what lies ahead. Go, help Alyates reform the outflankers on the right. I need you to be ready. For when we engage with the sultan’s horde — and engage we must — I need you by my side.’

***

The Byzantine advance and the cautious Seljuk retreat continued as the afternoon wore on and soon the hillock with the awning — like the Fortress of Manzikert — was but a bump in the northern horizon behind the Byzantine line. Now the rocky majesty of Mount Tzipan and the surrounding green hills and valleys loomed over them, less than a mile away. As they came onto the rougher ground leading to these hills, the march was plagued by the rasp of parched throats and the stench of drying blood. But still they marched, slowly, steadily, driving the ghazi line back onto the first of the coarser terrain. Still though, the ghazi arrows came in rhythmic showers, and handfuls of Byzantine men were felled by each volley.

‘Soon they must run short of arrows?’ Alyates panted, riding near Apion.

‘No, they each carry three, sometimes four quivers. They will have enough to loose upon us until dusk.’ Apion replied, ducking as the latest volley smacked down around them.

‘Then we will accept their surrender at dusk!’ Alyates grinned, plucking a shaft from his shield and throwing it down.

Just then, a stiff northerly breeze picked up. It was at once cool and fiery, throwing up stinging particles of hot dust. A thick cloud of this dust billowed up and shot across the ground towards the ghazi line. The ghazi line, walking south but twisted in their saddles to look and loose north, were cloaked by this dust cloud. Their next volley faltered, arrows driven askew by the gust, pattering harmlessly into the ground. Most of the archers gagged and yelped at the stinging dust, wiping at their eyes, coughing and spluttering. A raucous cheer rose up from the Byzantine lines and the priests took to lifting the Campaign Cross and the Holy Virgin of Blachernae as if claiming responsibility for nature’s intervention.

‘Ah, dusk, dawn or on this fine afternoon,’ Alyates beamed. ‘What does it matter when God is with us?’

Apion pulled a wry smile. ‘If God was with us, then he would have struck Tarchianotes down with some foul pox before this campaign set out. He would have sent Diabatenus’ horse tumbling into a gully. He would have torn the heart from Psellos when he was a child. Thank the men of our ranks, not God,’ he pointed to the infantry in the Byzantine centre. There, Sha led the Chaldians in continuing to scoop up dust in the bottom lips of their shields, tossing it in the air to be caught by the northerly bluster. The men of the other themata and the Armenian spearmen had followed suit. His lips played with a smile as he watched Sha rally them to continue. The Malian was a Strategos in all but name, he realised.

But Alyates did not hear his words. ‘Look, they come to battle, at last!’ the Cappadocian Strategos cried.

Apion followed Alyates’ gaze. Indeed, the ghazi riders were sending out packs of riders from their retreating line. Pockets of a few hundred wearing cloths and silks across their faces to protect them from the stinging dust. They swept towards the Byzantine lines, then veered out towards the flanks.

‘Outflankers, ready!’ Alyates bellowed to his kursores.

‘Harry them,’ Apion said to Alyates, buckling his veil in place again. ‘My kataphractoi will engage, but only if you can draw them close enough to our lines. We must not be drawn into the rocky tracts,’ he insisted, looking to the ever more jutting and jagged folds of land that surrounded each flank of the Byzantine march.

The first pack of Seljuk riders darted for the Byzantine right like a flock of swallows, coming with light lances levelled as if to charge Alyates’ kursores riders, then, at the last, hurling their spears like javelins and wheeling away. These weighty lances punched a raft of the more lightly armoured kursores from the saddle and a few kataphractoi as well. Alyates led the kursores forward in pursuit, trying to corral the ghazis before they could slip away. The nimble Seljuk riders were swift though, especially with the strengthening wind at their backs.

‘Pull back!’ Alyates snarled after a few hundred paces as the ghazis swept up and over one fold of shrub and dust-strewn land to disappear into an unseen dip beyond. A few riders raced on oblivious, and Alyates roared at these. ‘I said pull back!’ he loosed an arrow that whizzed past one disobedient rider’s ear to reinforce the message. Soon, the kursores were back with the right flank.

‘They will not tolerate constant harassment, Strategos. And nor will I,’ Alyates growled, seeing the next pack of ghazis coming for them in the same formation. The sight was the same over on the left flank, where Bryennios’ men were being pulled from their lines by these small packs.

‘I know. I feel it too. But they must. If our cavalry flanks start disintegrating into these shallow valleys in pursuit of a few hundred riders, our centre will be exposed. And we don’t know what lies in those valleys.’

Apion scoured the land ahead. Just a half mile onwards, the folds grew more severe and then the steep, green-sided valleys rose up, many of them already pooled with shade as the sun worked its way towards the western horizon. It was a confused and maze-like terrain. He glanced to the Byzantine centre, hoping Romanus would stay true to his plan of retreating instead of entering those valleys. The northerly gust from earlier had now picked up into something of a gale in these corridors of land, circling and sweeping around their legs, pulling on their shields, seeing their banners pulled horizontal, rapping in the squall. And the dust now stung every eye in the battle, Byzantine and Seljuk alike.

The ghazis continued to retreat in their lines, sending out small packs to continue the harassment. Now Alyates began to lose his cool. The Cappadocian Strategos roared and waved his riders on after the next harrying ghazi pack, chasing sixty of them up to the brow of one gentle valley.

Apion watched the kursores go. When they slipped over the brow and out of sight, the breath stilled in his lungs. No, you fool! A heartbeat later, the clash of steel and cries of men sounded from beyond that brow. Apion’s blood chilled. Moments later, the kursores reappeared, Alyates leading the retreat, a hundred or more of his riders missing, many more bloodied with gaping wounds. Pursuing them in a frantic gallop — instead of the sixty ghazis they had gone off after — were some fifteen hundred of these riders.

‘Ambush!’ one rider cried.

Apion’s eyes widened, fixed on the lead ghazi. He saw the shaded features under the conical helm, the scale vest, the broad shoulders. Taylan? He mouthed, feeling all else drain from his thoughts. Then the lead ghazi held his head high and the dimming sunlight revealed the snarling, scarred features of an older warrior.

‘Riders, fall back!’ Apion cried, stirred from his trance. Alyates and his kursores joined the rest of the Byzantine right in flooding back from the ghazi charge. As one, they bent in behind the infantry centre as if to take shelter.

‘Refuse the flank!’ Apion bellowed as he passed the Chaldian infantry at the right of the Byzantine centre. Sha, Blastares and Procopius acted immediately, bringing the Chaldian front swinging back like a great arm to catch the ghazi charge. The ghazis were riding too hard to pull out of their pursuit, and hundreds of them ran onto Sha’s spear line and the volley of rhiptaria loosed from it. Blood shot up as man and mount were run through and screams rang out as riders were catapulted from the saddle.

Those ghazis who had slowed in time hurried to turn and flee back to the main ghazi line. But as they swung their mounts round they saw only Apion and the cavalry of the Byzantine right sweeping back out from behind the infantry lines and arcing round, blocking their path back to the south.

Apion focused on the bold Seljuk riders, trapped between Sha’s spear line and his own cavalry charge. Anvil and hammer! he mouthed through gritted teeth as the powerful gale seemed to help him on his way. He grappled his spear tightly and welcomed the flames of the dark door. Then his wedge smashed into the confused sprawl of Seljuk riders, driving them back onto the Chaldian spears, breaking them utterly. He lanced through one man, felt his mail veil being torn off by the hand of another, then felt the others melt away before him. In moments, the brave ghazi ambush of some fifteen hundred riders was little more than a third of that number. Those who could broke south in disarray, Byzantine missiles raining down all around them and Greek jeers ringing in their ears. But a chorus of laments rang out from the Byzantine left. Apion squinted through the dusty evening haze to see that a similar Seljuk ambush on Bryennios’ flankguard had been successful. They had gone too far in pursuit and had not managed to recover the situation. Hundreds of kataphractoi and kursores lay in broken heaps as the victorious ghazi band over there swept away to the south, whooping and punching the air in delight as they moved to re-join the main line of slowly retreating Seljuk riders.

‘We must turn around,’ Apion growled over the howling wind, wiping the gore from his face, seeing the sun sliding away.

‘Aye, the valleys are growing steep and the light is fading,’ Alyates agreed, his hair matted with blood, his arm torn badly from a Seljuk blade.

‘Let me speak with the emperor,’ he said.

Alyates nodded. ‘Be swift, Strategos. You are needed here.’

Apion nodded briskly, then kicked his mount into a gallop across the Byzantine front, heading for the centre. The Chaldians, the Armenian spearmen and then the ranks of the other themata lofted then waved their spears and banners like wheat stalks in a breeze to salute him. ‘Ha-ga! Ha-ga! Ha-ga!’ they chanted.

Apion heard nothing of them, focusing only on Romanus, ringed by the Varangoi, with Igor and Philaretos by his side. He barged through, the Rus axemen recognising him soon enough. ‘Basileus, we must end this pursuit.’

‘Yes we must,’ Romanus admitted, his cobalt eyes defiant, his flaxen locks whipping in the gale. ‘The sun is almost gone. Worse, I fear the ambuscades we have stumbled over so far are but a hint of what lies further south.’

Apion followed the emperor’s gaze. The land ahead was treacherous, with tracts of volcanic rock jutting from the valley floor like waves in a foaming sea, churning in the squall. Overlooking this rough ground was a jutting outcrop of rock. A clutch of silhouetted figures watched from up there. One was crouched, wearing a Seljuk war helm and a white shroud, billowing in the wind. Alp Arslan. Beside him was another, broad shouldered, the setting sun’s halo dancing from his outline, shimmering on the scales of his familiar vest. Taylan?

‘Our riders will crush the sultan’s forces tomorrow, then,’ Romanus boomed, disguising well his doubts over how they would feed themselves tonight. ‘Bring up the banners, signal across the lines for an ordered retreat,’ he called to his signophoroi. ‘We are to return to the camp.’

For the briefest of moments, Apion felt a wave of relief. Then, from high above, an eagle shrieked. A piercing, chilling shriek of warning.

***

Alp Arslan watched the Byzantine manoeuvre studiously from the rocky outcrop, crouched on one knee, smoothing his moustache, the gale singing around him like an army of wraiths. In the broad, uneven land below, the purple imperial banner had been raised aloft, then turned to face northwards at the tune of three buccina blasts. Like a great silvery creature coming about, the Byzantines halted. Spears were raised, shields clattered and men turned about face as they readied to march back to Manzikert and their camp. In response, his ghazi line had now halted their slow retreat just under the jutting hill, their commanders looking up, waiting on some signal from him and his best men.

And now I must choose, Alp Arslan mused. Retire for another day of battle tomorrow, or risk an attack upon the Byzantine retreat? He looked to the purple-pink dusk sky, streaked with scudding clouds, and wondered if it was woefully late to ask for Allah’s wisdom. Grain and fodder in the Seljuk column and in the granaries of Chliat was all but gone. A day of hesitation might be a death knell to them all. He thought of all that his rival, Yusuf, might do with news that he had failed in this long-awaited clash with the Byzantine Emperor.

‘Sultan, what should we do?’ Bey Gulten asked. ‘Why do they turn?’

‘It is just as it was at the Cilician Gates,’ Taylan said flatly. ‘The emperor turns because he fears the night.’

‘He turns,’ Alp Arslan growled, ‘because he is not a fool.’

Taylan paced over to Alp Arslan and crouched by his side. ‘My riders are fresh, eager. Give the word, Sultan.’

‘You want to lead your riders into a spear wall?’ Alp Arslan gestured towards the men who would form the rear of the ordered Byzantine retreat — readying to pace backwards and present their spears and shields at any minded to attack. ‘You would lead your riders into a pit of fire just to strike him down, wouldn’t you?’

Taylan balked at this, his dark locks whipping across his face. ‘I. . I must face him. I am Taylan bin Nas-’

‘Bey Nasir once told me that he and the Haga were like brothers. They swore to die for one another.’

Taylan looked away, scouring the slow turnaround of the Byzantine lines. The dusk light betrayed the tears building in his eyes. ‘I miss him. He loathed me but I miss him every day.’

‘Bey Nasir loved you. He loathed himself for being unable to show it. It destroyed him.’

‘No, the Haga destroyed him.’

Alp Arslan grasped his shoulders. ‘His hatred is what destroyed him. In the end he ran onto the Haga’s blade, despite his old friend trying to spare him. Why do you waste your life, trying to repeat such folly?’

Taylan’s eyes provided an answer before his lips moved. ‘Because Nasir was not my father.’

Alp Arslan frowned. ‘Then who. . ’ his words trailed off, the glint of dusk light in Taylan’s green eyes enough to piece it all together. Until now, he had thought Taylan to be just one of that rare breed with bright eyes that came about every so often amongst his people. ‘No!’

Taylan nodded. ‘It is true.’

Alp Arslan’s eyes widened, his very marrow chilling. ‘You are the Haga’s son?’

‘Aye,’ Taylan said, standing tall. ‘And now you know. I am the bastard who reminded Nasir each and every day of his shame.’

The sultan searched for the right words to reply. The gale screamed around them. ‘Taylan, if there was one thing Bey Nasir would have wanted for you. . it would be to unburden you of these troubles.’ He saw the confusion in the boy’s eyes, then grasped his shoulders. ‘Let go of the past, let go of. . ’

Just then, a shrill Greek voice cried out from the Byzantine lines, below; ‘The emperor has been slain!’

Alp Arslan and Taylan were torn from their exchange, both men’s eyes shooting to the source of the cry.

His retinue hurried to crane over the edge of the jutting outcrop with them, gawping, their eyes disbelieving at the sight of the Byzantine lines — in chaos, the neat rear-facing spear line of moments ago disintegrating. And the cry sounded again by many others;

‘The emperor has fallen! God has deserted us!’

Nobody there spoke for some time, until Taylan broke the spell;

‘Now, Sultan, you must give the word. Set my White Falcons loose.’

***

Palladius the toxotes tilted the wide brim of his hat up and squinted up at the front-centre of the Byzantine line, the wind stinging his eyes. He saw the furiously flapping imperial standard turning round and heard the buccina blasts. An ordered retreat? This was unexpected. A tense hiatus was followed by concerned murmuring. It seemed that none had expected this.

Men pushed and shoved all around him, eager to get into their positions. This would see the majority of the army turn to face north, while the current front ranks would remain south facing, but march backwards to present shields and spears against any attack from the rear. It required composure, discipline and perfect timing to execute.

He saw that many of the men were craning their necks to catch sight of the emperor, keen to see him confirm this order. He heard the men nearby rally their ranks with cries of; ‘About-face! Ordered retreat!’

Here at the back ranks of the Colonean Thema, Palladius had seen little of the battle so far, merely watching the front ranks of the infantry centre suffer the constant barrage of Seljuk arrows. He had been paid a fine campaign purse just to do this. Now, however, he saw an opportunity to make a far larger purse- a sum that would see him able to afford a villa in the Bithynian countryside and leave behind the squalor of his Colonean shack. He heard the continuing concerned babble from the ranks and filled his lungs. Then he let loose a cry that echoed above all others and above the gale;

‘The emperor has been slain!’

There was a momentary silence, then chaos broke out all around him. Men echoed the cry and laments broke out. He smiled and pulled the rim of his archer’s cap down to hide his face. He had always had a strong voice. Now he could use it to call upon his slaves in his new villa.

***

Apion swung round at the cry, his blood turning to ice, sure he had misheard over the squall. Then it was repeated, once, twice and then again, spreading like a wildfire through a dry forest.

‘The emperor has fallen! The Seljuks have his head!’ In moments, the ordered retreat had descended into panic. Skutatoi who had already turned to face north believed the cries and — fearing that some Seljuk attack had penetrated into the men behind them and slain their glorious leader, broke for the north. As soon as the first few did this, panic grasped the others. Men trampled over men, shouting, cursing. Some fell, snapping their lances, spraining their ankles, being trampled by their comrades. In moments, the tidy, ordered centre had disintegrated into a swarm of fleeing men, breaking around those who stood firm. Even the men marching in reverse to cover the rear seemed shaken by the cries, some fleeing too despite seeing that the emperor was in fact nearby, alive and well amidst his ring of varangoi.

Apion spun to meet Romanus’ disbelieving gaze. ‘Raise the banner, call to them, show them you are well!’ he cried. Romanus was already waving the purple banner frantically, having snatched it from the signophoroi to perform the duty himself.

But still riders and archers continued to flee for the north, blind to the truth and fuelled by panic. Of the centre, only the Varangoi, the Chaldian Thema and the Armenians with them held their fragmented lines, though many were on the verge of panic, seeing the chaos that had erupted right next to them.

‘Sir!’ Sha cried over the thunder of boots and laments and the howling wind. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Maintain the retreat, Tourmarches. Blastares, Procopius — keep the men at a steady retreat and bring them together to close the gaps!’ Apion yelled.

But beyond the Chaldians, he saw Alyates crying out to his riders. The kursores had seen the centre crumble and break for the north and they too had set off in panic — many hundreds of them — and this left a glaring gap between the remaining outflankers and the infantry centre. He flicked his gaze to the Byzantine left; Bryennios’ western tagmata riders had kept their discipline and were holding their lines, but for how long?

‘Basileus, we can still retreat well if we form a narrower line and pull our remaining men together. The left is good, but the right is about to break.’ He glanced this way and that. In these few panicked moments, the Byzantine front line had thinned drastically to just seven thousand men — more than six thousand having broken into flight. ‘If we can stabilise this retreat, we can rally the deserters back to us.’

But Romanus’ gaze was fixed on a point beyond Apion’s shoulder, his hair blown back from his suddenly pale face by a furious gust of wind. ‘Then by God, Strategos, bring them together!’

Apion swung round on his saddle to look south. The thick ghazi line, having spent the day retreating, now stowed their bows and instead took up their lances, swords and war hammers. They had scented the blood of the hugely weakened Byzantines and were now coming for the kill. He saw the Seljuk war horns being raised, ready to signal the charge, when he noticed something else from the corner of his eye. High up on the valley side to the Byzantine right, a dark smear emerged. A fresh wing of ghazis. They spread out like an iron wall up there, poised like a glinting dagger at the Byzantine flank. Most wore striking white falcon feathers jutting from the front of their helms and they clutched clusters of arrows in their knuckles, bows already nocked.

‘A reserve,’ Apion gasped, counting some five thousand of them.

Igor gazed with him. ‘God have merc — ’ his words were cut short by the wailing Seljuk war horns that brought these fresh ghazi riders flooding down the hillside like demons, heading straight for the ailing Byzantine right flank. At the same time, the ghazi front on the rugged valley floor coursed forward. Both fronts raced as if to gnash like iron jaws on the beleaguered Byzantine ranks.

‘Allahu Akbar!’ the horde cried as one, causing the valley to quake.

Apion swung his gaze between the two walls of advancing enemy, then saw that the Byzantine right was about to suffer the first blow: an arrow storm from the hillside ghazis. ‘Shields!’ Apion roared over the squall, waving desperately at Alyates. But the Cappadocian Strategos was still desperately trying to organise and calm the horsemen on the right, and the thick hail of arrows struck the life from swathes of them. Crimson mist puffed into the air only to be swept and swirled around in the gale. Men slid from their saddles, limp, arrows jutting from necks and eyes, horses toppled, thrashing. Apion drew breath, readying to ride over to aid Alyates in the expected hiatus before the next volley. But the next volley came just a heartbeat later, and the next as soon again, the white-feathered ghazis standing tall in their stirrups and loosing like demons as they swept down to thunder through the gap between Alyates’ riders and the infantry centre, like a knife prising open a clam. The feathered riders then swooped round on the Byzantine rear. A shower of arrows smacked down before his Thessalian and the beast reared in fright. It was then that Apion saw the lead rider of the white-feathered ones. And the leader’s piercing green eyes sought him out across the fray too. Taylan.

The boy closed one eye and took aim. . but hesitated.

Apion, frozen, saw the torment dancing in the boy’s open eye.

Then Taylan loosed.

The shot was true and powerful, and Apion jerked his head to one side instinctively, the missile tearing his cheek. He struggled to calm his mount as it again rose up on its hind legs and he lost sight of Taylan. Before he could seek him out again, the charging main line of ghazis drove into the Byzantine front. A terrible song of bone, flesh and iron filled the rugged land as broken bodies were tossed into the air, the ghazis ploughing deep, red furrows into the Byzantine lines. Apion was barged back, a Seljuk speartip clashing into the shield on his bicep, and another two riders hacking at him with their swords. He parried desperately. Seljuk riders swarmed in every direction, iron flashed all around and Seljuk arrows battered down without mercy.

‘We are too few — bring the reserve forward!’ he heard Igor cry distantly, frantically waving the imperial banner to bring the seven-thousand strong rabble of the magnate armies — still halted some quarter of a mile to the north — into the fray. After all their inactivity so far, they would have a vital role to play. And the banners were waved to the two wings of Oghuz riders who flanked them too. But would they rush to save an emperor whose men had unwittingly slain their brethren in the confusion by the trade carts the previous night?

Apion swept his scimitar across the throat of one determined attacker, chopped the arm from the next then kicked another to the ground. In a heartbeat of respite, he glanced to the emperor, fighting desperately alongside Igor and the varangoi just a handful of paces away. The golden heart pendant on Emperor Romanus’ breast sparkled in the ailing light, swinging with every sword stroke, the thick and merciless hail of Seljuk arrows dancing from his armour. It was then that the gale picked up like never before, filling the valleys, keening around the battle as if to sweep away the souls of the fallen.

The crone’s truth rang now like never before.

At dusk you and the Golden Heart will stand together in the final battle, like an island in the storm.

***

Andronikos Doukas gawped at the horde of some twenty five thousand Seljuk riders just a quarter of a mile ahead, swooping and darting, cutting through the Byzantine ranks with their lances. And there was the white-feathered ones too, circling, loosing a constant storm of arrows at an incredible rate.

‘They’re going to be butchered,’ he gasped, his shackles rattling in the fierce wind.

‘And they want us to come and be butchered with them, it seems,’ Scleros, the trident-bearded magnate general remarked glibly, pointing to the emperor’s banner rapping in the gale and being waved frantically.

Andronikos eyed Scleros, seeking to understand the man’s intentions. He seemed anything but eager to heed the command. Indeed, when the nine hundred Oghuz riders near the magnate ranks burst into a gallop and hurried to the emperor’s aid, this one still hesitated.

The wind whistled, the battle sang and not a soul amongst the magnate ranks spoke.

‘Aye, well, we should be swift,’ Scleros said at last. Then he turned to Andronikos. ‘Give me my banner, wretch,’ the man snarled, pointing to the black standard he had given Andronikos to carry.

Andronikos heeled his mount over to Scleros. He thought of home in Constantinople at that moment. Of his father. His black-hearted, loutish and loathsome father. The man had been a bully both to him and to his mother, each taking beatings that would leave them bruised and whimpering. Now his father languished in some grim Bithynian backwater — exiled from the seat of power he so coveted. He held up the standard with his shackled hands. Scleros snatched at it. Andronikos did not let it go.

Scleros scowled in confusion. ‘Give it to me, fool. The emperor calls upon us.’

Andronikos grinned, then, with a flash of silver, whipped his wrists up, throwing his chains around Scleros’ throat then wrenching them tight at the nape of the man’s neck, drawing it as fiercely as he could. Scleros’ ludicrously plumed helm fell to the ground. He thrashed and gagged, his face turning purple as he pulled at the chains, great clumps of oiled hair coming loose from his beard as he did so. His eyes darted over the nearest of his riders, who watched on impassively.

‘They will not come to your aid, you old fool,’ Andronikos grunted, yanking the chains just a little tighter. ‘They are my men now.’

When Scleros fell limp, Andronikos threw the corpse to the ground, then held up his chained wrists in expectation. Another of the chief magnates ranged forward and swung his sword down, cutting through the bonds.

Andronikos stretched his arms and flexed his fingers. ‘Damn, but it feels good to be free.’ Then he hefted the magnate banner and swiped it overhead, bringing them about face and leading them away from the battle at a canter.

He gazed into the western horizon, grinning, an edge of madness in his eyes.

I hope you appreciate this, Father.