Gordon Doherty - Strategos - Rise of the Golden Heart

‘Yes, yes, that might work,’ Procopius cut in, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

‘Eh?’ Blastares frowned, his face like an angered bull. Then he saw the old tourmarches was deep in thought.

‘You know a bit of the Seljuk tongue now, as do I,’ Procopius continued as if Blastares had not spoken. He looked to Apion, who had taught them some basics of the language, before continuing; ‘A pair of thick cloaks and two serrated daggers, and a bit of stealth. . aye. . ’

Blastares frowned, his bottom lip trembling in exasperation. ‘What are you muttering about?’

‘I think I’ll leave you to it?’ Apion said, cocking an eyebrow as he stood. ‘I believe I am needed at the walls.’

Nasir buckled on his scimitar, straightened his scale vest then stepped out of his tent and into the light of a waxing moon and a glitter of stars. The blessed cool of night saw the soldiers of his warband both armoured and cloaked. The infantry were poised, mounted archers eager, all eyes on Kryapege’s walls. The artillery was primed. They were ready. He was ready. For twelve years he had been ready. He lifted a neatly braided lock of Maria’s hair from his purse, inhaled its scent and kissed it gently.

Forgive me , he mouthed.

‘Sir, I implore you, wait here,’ a voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Let your men lead the tunnelling party. . ’

Nasir snapped his glare round upon the akhi captain, halting and silencing him. Then he placed his conical helm on his head. As the ornate noseguard slid into place and the mail aventail gathered around his shoulders, Nasir turned from the walls and set his sights on the small hillock just behind his readied ranks. To the rear of this rise, hidden from Byzantine view, a timber frame outlined a broad cavity, gouged into the red earth.

Nasir clicked his fingers. At this, some two-hundred akhi spearmen rushed to form up behind him. Only the whites of their eyes, speartips and helms showed above their shields. He waved them forward, their horn and iron armour rippling like the scales of a giant serpent as they snaked towards the tunnel entrance.

He slowed only when two men — a bulky figure and a smaller one, both wrapped in cloaks — cut across his path. The hooded pair stumbled as they hurried out of the way, the smaller of the two muttering some apology in a broken Seljuk tongue. ‘Cursed Mercenaries!’ Nasir grumbled as the pair made their way towards the artillery lines and the other Persian engineers.

Shaking the distraction from his thoughts, Nasir snatched a torch from the sapper who stood beside the tunnel’s entrance. Then he strode into its depths, the serpent of men diving underground with him. He marched past the collection of Persian workers, still fitting and making good the timber struts that held the tunnel in place. The tunnel descended sharply until the rock was damp and cool and the gloomy corridor rattled with the echo of iron and crunching boots. Then, when they reached one set of struts with a turquoise rag tied around each side, Nasir raised a hand. They were nearly under the walls of Kryapege.

At once they slowed the pace of the march, cupping their weapons gingerly, padding forward in near silence. They continued like this for several hundred feet, noticing the tunnel rise again, towards ground level. Then, up ahead in the torchlight a wall of red earth and rubble appeared, marking the tunnel’s end. This section was heavily strutted, given the proximity to the surface. Nasir grinned; from here, his column could spill into the heart of the Byzantine town and seize the walls under cover of darkness.

‘How far?’ he whispered to the head sapper.

The burly, moustachioed man wiped the sweat from his brow and squinted. ‘Seven feet,’ he replied, jabbing a finger upwards. ‘With my best men I can break through very soon.’

Nasir gave him a cold nod. ‘Then you must begin at once.’

Nasir turned to his waiting men, raising a clenched and shaking fist. ‘Let every swing of your blades stain the earth with Byzantine blood,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. Then he raised one finger. ‘But leave the Haga . For he is mine to slay!’

***

Apion stood in near-darkness. Expressionless iron masks hovered all around him in the chill, a faint orange underglow betraying their unforgiving, empty-eyed stares. He thought again of the past. He thought of the few he had once loved, and then the countless number he had slain since those precious few were taken from him. A ghost of that past was coming for him now.

Then the darkness and the silence were pierced by a dull, almost apologetic chink of iron upon rock, directly in front of him.

It was time.

At once, his gaze sharpened. He placed his helm on his head, the three black eagle feathers jutting from the crest and the cool, iron scale aventail slithering down his neck like an asp’s skin. He squared his shoulders, the iron plates of his klibanion rustling and his crimson cloak slipping back from his shoulders as he did so. He rested his palm on the ivory hilt of old Mansur’s scimitar and glared into the darkness. In the void, a vision formed of a dark, arched doorway, the orange glow behind it beckoning him forward, a sibilant voice beyond it taunting him. This image had plagued him even before his first days of war, the voice drawing him into the hell that lay behind the timbers. He knew for certain that he would walk in those flames today.

‘Ready?’ he hissed to the iron masks around him.

The masks nodded in silence.

Let the past come for me.

***

The air was growing stale and thin in the tunnel, and Nasir’s breath came and went like fire in the gloom. His teeth grated as he watched the head sapper and his engineers chip carefully at the rock face. They were heartbeats from seizing victory. A breath from ending the Haga’s days, he enthused, his grimace bending into a rapacious grin. Then he frowned.

The head sapper was stepping back from the tunnel end, confusion pinching his features.

Nasir followed the man’s gaze; the centre of the rock face had crumbled away under the sapper’s chiselling. But instead of more rock as expected, a hole the size of a coin had appeared. Darkness lay beyond.

‘We should still have another six feet to go, should we not?’ one hunchbacked sapper asked his leader. ‘Did we misjudge our depth?’

The head sapper shook his head, pushed his eye to the hole. Then he twisted round to Nasir, his face pale, his mouth agape and his pupils dilated in panic.

The breath caught in Nasir’s lungs as an acrid tang curled into his nostrils from the opening. For just a heartbeat, the tunnel was deathly silent. Then his eyes bulged in realisation. He swept his hands up. ‘Back. . BACK!’

The roar had barely left his lips when an almighty crash shook the tunnel. At once, the tunnel end crumbled like a falling veil. The coin-sized hole became a gaping maw from which a clutch of demons glared out, a dull orange light dancing across their iron faces. Then the dust of the fallen rock swept over the Seljuks. Nasir staggered back, gagging and wiping at his eyes.

As the dust settled, he saw the reality of what stood inside the countermine — men in iron masks, conical helms and klibania. A pair at either side held miniature battering rams, still caked in the dust of the thin partition they had just demolished. The band of them in the centre carried iron canisters under one arm and held leather-bound iron siphons in the other, gentle flames licking from the ends.

Siphonarioi. The dreaded Greek fire throwers.

In their midst stood an amber-bearded warrior with three black eagle feathers on his helmet, his deep-set eyes shaded under a dipped brow.