Gordon Doherty - Strategos - Born in the Borderlands

‘Come on then, you whoresons! ’ He bellowed, storming into the fray. He turned to the growing roar of a spearman rushing for his back. He hefted his spathion up to strike and heeled his mount round to face his attacker, but his blood ran cold as his horse struggled to turn in the mire under hoof. He felt time slow as he tried to pull his foot from the stirrup to twist in his saddle. The spearman’s eyes bulged, spear point only a pace away from Cydones, when a sword point burst through the spearman’s neck. The man toppled like a felled tree to reveal the snarling Ferro, dismounted, clutching the hilt of his spathion, the blade coated in crimson gore.

Ferro leapt back into the melee and Cydones turned to hack off the spear point of the next akhi before swiping his sword back round to behead the man. The grating of iron on bone was disguised only by the whinnying of horses and the screaming of men, yet the fine armour of the kataphractoi ensured the skirmish was swift, and as the akhi lost their numerical advantage they broke for cover in the forest. At this, the kataphractoi were quick to nock arrows to their bows, felling all but one of the retreating men. Ferro leapt on his mount again and charged after the last of the fleeing akhi. With the flat of his sword, he smashed the man on the back of the head, toppling him like a sack of rubble.

‘Easy!’ Cydones roared as Ferro leapt from his horse and lifted his sword to strike again.

‘Just being careful,’ the rider countered, kicking the dagger from the akhi’s hand and digging his boot into the man’s throat.

The felled man groaned, rolling round to face the encircling kataphractoi unit.

‘Your head will sit on a spike on the walls of Trebizond by nightfall,’ Cydones spat.

The Seljuk had looked bleary but then his face curled into a sneer. ‘And all of your people will cower under the Falcon’s blade before too long.’

Cydones slid his helmet from his head, running a hand over his bald pate and biting back the instinctive reply that came to his lips, the spiteful rhetoric seeming foolish as his heartbeat calmed. Sultan Tugrul, the Falcon , had indeed cast a shadow across these lands, a shadow that was growing with every passing year. This lone spearman’s life or death would not change that. This must be the rearguard of the raiding party, he realised, lost and terrified in a foreign land. The man he had hoped to catch was gone: Tugrul’s young protégé, the shrewd Seljuk rider who had continuously beaten, and beaten well, the armies of the thema in the last year would be long gone with the vanguard. Enough blood , he thought.

‘Should we just stick the bastard, sir?’ Said the bull of a rider by his side. ‘I don’t fancy taking him all the way back to the barracks.’

Cydones glared at the rider, who dropped his gaze and took to studying the nearest tree intensively. ‘Bind his hands,’ he said, then jabbed a finger at the big rider. ‘He rides with you.’

As night cloaked the forest, the rains stopped to present a clear sky above the small clearing. Due to the humidity, the remaining five kataphractoi had chosen not to erect their pavilion tent and lay instead in their quilted blankets on the soft bracken of the forest floor, spears dug into the ground in readiness should there be a night ambush. The Seljuk prisoner was bound to a tree and had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Snoring from the soldiers and the occasional snort from the horses could be heard, breaking the constant rustle of the overhead canopy and the sporadic hooting of owls.

Cydones yawned, then muttered a curse at his selfless offer of taking the middle watch, but he knew the men respected a leader who would not baulk at hardship. His belly rumbled; they had eaten a simple meal of toasted bread and salt beef washed down with water, but the rations barely compensated for the full day of riding.

Focusing on the toppled beech just a handful of paces ahead, he felt his eyelids droop and his thoughts dance freely, and an instant later, his head lolled forward. Then the piercing screech of an eagle wrenched him to his senses. He leapt up and felt for his spathion but then he realised he had been dreaming and settled back against the trunk with a nervous chuckle.

Then he saw her.

She wore a grey robe that clung to her knotted figure. Barefoot, her face was puckered, her eyes were clouded milky white and her hair was perfect silver. He felt an unexpected sense of ease and no compulsion to raise the alarm.

‘Be at ease, soldier,’ she said. Her tone was soft, like a mother’s words to a child. She looked nothing like his mother but he felt a familiar warmth touch his heart as she spoke. He made to reach for his Chi-Rho neck chain, but his arms felt curiously leaden.

Cydones cast a glance around the forest. There was nobody else.

‘You fought well today,’ the woman spoke.

‘You were there?’ Cydones asked as she sat on a tree stump across from him.

‘I saw it all.’

‘Then you were with the akhi?’ Cydones asked, suddenly aware of the prisoner, but a glance reassured him that the Seljuk akhi was still safely bound and asleep.

‘No, but I feel for them.’

‘You’ll have seen us butcher the rest of them?’

‘As they would have done to you, had you not been on your guard,’ she said. ‘Much blood was spilled and that was a great pity, but you also made a fine choice,’ she nodded toward the sleeping prisoner. ‘That man could have been easily slain and left to rot on the forest floor.’

‘Two of my men died today at the hands of his party,’ Cydones countered. ‘So his head will still end up on a spike.’

‘Perhaps, but that will not be of your doing. You made a choice that was unpopular with your men, when it would have been so simple to make things easy for yourself.’

Cydones shrugged. Inside he hoped she was right. Then he noticed her bare feet and gnarled toes; they were clean despite the damp forest floor. ‘Why have you come here? There are no settlements for miles around,’ he asked, thinking back to the incinerated settlement they had passed that morning. ‘You must have walked for. . ’

‘You are a young man, Cydones,’ the old woman cut in. She did not flinch when he gawped at her use of his name. ‘You are bound for a long career; some would call it glorious, some would call it ghastly.’

‘What do you know of my future?’

‘Little more than you do. You know in your heart that the empire is in great danger from the peoples of the east. The years ahead will be troubled and dark for Byzantium. How dark only the actions of men will decide, but no matter what happens, you are a good man. You must remember this and stay true to yourself and your ideals. Now, you must listen to what I say next and listen well.’

Cydones nodded, uneasy as the woman’s features became taut.

‘When the falcon has flown, the mountain lion will charge from the east, and all Byzantium will quake. Only one man can save the empire.’ She gripped his wrist. ‘Find the Haga! ’

‘The Haga? ’ Cydones frowned, thinking of the old Hittite legend: the mythical two-headed eagle. It made no sense. ‘How, where, would I find such a man?’

She leaned in to his ear. ‘You will know when you meet him. He is one man torn to become two.’

He shook his head, frowning, searching for questions. Then he saw that she stood away from him, past the fallen beech. He rubbed his eyes and then saw that she stood even further away, arms outstretched to the sky. Then he blinked, realising he was looking at a sapling beech, two branches sprouting either side. He was alone.

An eagle shrieked high above.

His thoughts echoed with her words.