Gordon Doherty - Strategos - Born in the Borderlands

As he tired and his scar burned ever more furiously, Apion fuelled his efforts with that shadowy image of the dark door, until a guttural roar poured from his lungs as he lunged forward, putting all the strength of his shoulders into a strike.

Mansur parried then panted, resting on his pole for a moment, holding up one hand. ‘Easy, easy! This was supposed to be about learning self-defence, remember?’

Apion nodded sheepishly. Mansur had been reluctant in agreeing to this, but equally, the old man felt terrible guilt over having left Apion and Maria alone on that day of the visit of Bracchus and Vadim. Apion had sworn that he wanted only skills enough to be able to defend Maria and the animals at the farm, arguing that if Nasir had not been there that day, it could have been far worse than a slaughtered goat kid.

‘Anyway, I think that crutch gives you an unfair advantage over an old man,’ Mansur puffed, sweat glistening on his brow.

Apion allowed himself to relax, stabbing his pole into the ground for extra support as he caught his breath. At first the bouts had been short, with Apion flailing, ending up in the dust in seconds, Mansur calmly holding the wooden pole to his throat. But his good leg had grown gradually more taut and lean with every day of practice and riding and this allowed him to improve little by little. Firstly he learned how to parry. This gave him time to watch the old man’s movements and spot patterns. It had taken him weeks, but now whenever Mansur attacked he could react, ducking, dodging or executing a good, solid parry, sometimes with the pole and sometimes with the crutch itself, taking his weight briefly on the scarred leg.

He held the crutch up. ‘Maybe you need one of these for yourself?’

Mansur looked briefly outraged, then grinned wickedly. ‘There speaks a boy who is confident in himself.’

Then a whinnying pierced the air from the top of the valley.

‘Hiding?’ A voice called out.

Apion twisted to see Nasir, bathed in sunshine, mounted on his stallion. ‘Ah,’ he murmured to Mansur, ‘it is time for another challenge — the horse race!’

‘Boys: never happy when not locking horns!’ Mansur sighed. ‘Go easy on the old mare will you?’

‘Of course I will. She will be fed and watered well tonight.’ He hobbled over to the stable, remembering how Nasir had snorted in derision when Apion had tried to thank him for warding off Bracchus and Vadim. It was for Maria, not you, he had spat. This was the chance to shut the boy up once and for all.

He pushed up with his crutch, sliding his good leg onto the saddle and then slipping into place. He ran his fingers through the mare’s mane. ‘You and I will teach this arrogant whoreson a lesson today.’ Then he heeled her into a trot.

‘Ride well, but ride safely!’ Mansur called to him as he passed.

Apion turned to him and grinned mischievously. ‘Have you taught me any other way?’

The summer sun was at its zenith as the two boys sped on horseback along the lush green banks of the Piksidis.

The grey mare’s chest pumped frantically. ‘Keep it going, girl!’ Apion yelled, hair whipping back in the rush, throat dry from Nasir’s dust trail. The pony-tailed boy’s mount was growing steadily more distant up ahead and then, as had happened several times already, the boy slowed to stay in sighting distance of Apion and his mare, then hurled abuse and roared with laughter. They were only half a mile from the bridge, the finishing post, when Nasir sped away once more.

He had thought it through last night: in a flat out race Nasir’s stallion would romp to victory, but Nasir didn’t want to just win and win well, he wanted to win in a way that punctured Apion’s pride as much as possible. That, Apion decided, was the one weakness he could exploit.

With his constant dangling of victory before Apion then snatching it away again, Nasir was playing into his hands. Yet his own mount had given everything and had galloped faster than ever, but would she have the energy to execute his plan? The mare glistened with sweat and foam gathered at the corners of her mouth. He felt the beast’s exhaustion as though it was his own, his scarred leg burning from gripping the mare’s flank. He wondered if he should abandon his scheme; what did it matter if Nasir won, he thought? Perhaps the boy would leave him alone if he was allowed his victory. Then he saw Nasir whoop up ahead, punching the air. His brow dipped and he shook his head; no, victory today was a must.

He leaned flat on his saddle, legs cupping the mare’s flanks, arms around her neck, his chin resting on her mane. ‘This is it. Come on, girl!’ The difference was instantaneous. With Apion and his mount at full pelt and Nasir slowing in his certain victory, the gap closed to half in a few heartbeats. ‘Come on!’ he roared, heeling just another drop of power from the mare’s flanks. Nasir turned in his saddle as he slowed to a trot before the bridge, his face stretched into a wild grin that quickly soured as Apion bolted past him.

‘Hey! Ya!’ Nasir yelled, heeling his mount back out of its gentle trot.

Apion burst across the bridge and punched the air, the mare whinnying and rearing to add to the occasion. He panted, breathless from the agony in his leg, but he still managed to offer a smug grin to Nasir as the Seljuk boy trotted over beside him.

‘Byzantine dog! There’s no way you’re having that victory, I could have run that race twice over in the time it took you to gallop flat out in my dust trail!’

‘Yet I finished before you,’ Apion spoke evenly. ‘You held back your mount for your own reasons,’ he stroked the mare’s neck, ‘and so did I.’

‘You’d still never have beaten me if I hadn’t held back.’

‘That’s why you lost though. I stayed as close to you as I needed to. I could have pushed my mount on earlier and led for a short while, but then I would not have won.’

‘You did not win, you tricked me.’

‘Okay, you show me these rules that I’ve broken then.’

Nasir’s face curled into an angry scowl and with a roar he leapt from his saddle and punched into Apion’s midriff, butting the pair onto the grass.

Apion screamed as he thudded down on top of his scar, a blinding light filling his head.

‘Get up! Get up and let’s finish this!’

He heard Nasir’s words as though through a wall of water. Yet he forced himself to stand, pushing up with his hand in the absence of his crutch, head spinning. He saw Nasir’s face drop, ready to dismiss Apion as a cripple again. The fury of it all boiled inside his chest at this and he pushed forward from his good leg, shoulder crunching into Nasir’s stomach and throwing the pair to the ground.

They rolled over and over, fingers gouging, fists and legs flailing. Then they were still, with Nasir sitting on his chest, knees pinning his shoulders to the ground. The boy uttered a roar of pure rage then rained blows on Apion’s face. The dull thudding was quickly accompanied by a metallic wash of blood down Apion’s throat, and with only his good leg for leverage he could offer no defence.

He wriggled until one arm worked loose from under Nasir’s knee. Reaching out, Apion grasped around for something, anything. He ripped a fistful of some weed from the earth, ignoring the searing agony that engulfed his palm to whip the weed up and across Nasir’s face. A pained warbling sounded, as if some creature had been harpooned, and suddenly his chest was free of weight. He rolled around and propped himself up onto all fours. Nasir lay on the riverbank, cursing, one hand cupped over his eyes, the other splashing water on his face.

Apion looked to his hands and the clutch of nettles in his grasp, dropping them immediately. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise they were. . ’