Imperial Fire (17 page)

Gorka hauled Lucas into position at the rear of the formation. ‘Don’t get carried away. Wait for Aimery’s command before you hurl your javelins. I’ve seen men skewered by overexcited idiots standing behind them.’

Lucas waited, soaked in sweat and seawater. The muleteers and other non-combatants came wheezing up the track, scourged on by Josselin. Cursing their tardiness, the shieldwall shifted to let them pass.

Silence fell. The causeway stretched away empty. Lucas’s heart knocked against his ribs. His craw was tight. He’d dreamed of battle many times, but never had he imagined combat in such a strange and constricted setting. What made it more unreal was the tranquillity – reeds whispering in a light breeze, frogs croaking and waterfowl babbling, a warbler carolling in the sedges. From the corner of his eye Lucas spotted a bright green snake undulating through a scum of weed. A heron flew a stately transit across the lake with an eel wriggling from its beak.

Gorka nudged him. ‘Bearing up?’

‘It’s the waiting.’

Gorka laughed. ‘If I had a solidus for every time I heard that, I’d be richer than the emperor.’

‘Here they come,’ said Aimery. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

Lucas tugged at his throat. He heard metallic clicks, the tread of cushioned feet and rasping breaths. And then around the corner at the edge of the wood the first of the enemy trotted into sight. The front runners stopped when they saw the shieldwall, the men following up barging into them. An officer raised a hand and shouted. The enemy mustered behind him, score upon score backing up along the causeway.

‘Don’t let their numbers dismay you,’ Aimery said. ‘They can only attack five or six abreast.’

The weight of men piling up behind the enemy’s vanguard began to shove it forward. Those in the rear couldn’t see the obstacle blocking their path and piled against the forward ranks. Yielding to the crush, the leader raised his sword, gave the order to advance and led his force forward at a brisk march.

Lucas watched them come, the mass resolving into individual faces contorted by fear and frenzy. A wordless cry welled in his throat. How could they just stand in silence while a hundred warriors strode forward to annihilate them?

‘Steady,’ Josselin said.

Arrows from the archers behind ripped low over Lucas’s head. The attacking force seemed to give a collective twitch. The second flight stung them into a headlong charge. Attacking along a front only fifteen feet wide, they found it hard to maintain formation. Feet tangled and tripped. Elbows collided. Men on the flanks found themselves shoved off the causeway. Through the war cries Lucas heard curses and recriminations.

A third volley of arrows tore over in a shallow arc and the officer leading the charge staggered and ran himself into the ground until he pitched on all fours, spewing blood. The men directly behind hurdled him. One of them clipped him with a foot and tumbled flat on his face, bringing down a companion as he fell. Another man went careering into the water with windmilling arms. Now the enemy were too close for the archers to aim at the vanguard, and their next volley landed in the ranks behind.

Someone gave a thin squeal and was still squealing when the nearest attackers closed. Lucas stood rooted to the spot until the yell delivered in unison by his comrades released him from his paralysis. The roar that had been building in his belly erupted. His face knotted and his lips rucked. The squad ahead of him rocked back and launched their javelins, were reaching for their second darts before the first had landed. They ducked down and Gorka backhanded Lucas across the chest.

‘Now!’

Lucas’s first throw was a dismal misaim, his second truer. The javelin was still in flight when the enemy crashed into the shieldwall, the weight of their attack driving grunts from the defenders. The wall buckled but held. A trooper went down and a man from the third rank scrambled to fill the breach. The noise was horrendous – sword clashing against sword, shield on shield, vile obscenities and a formless baying from those not yet engaged in the fray.

‘Stand your ground,’ Vallon shouted from behind.

They did. The Outlanders’ front rank, better trained than their enemy, fresh from the wars and hardened in battle, had slain the first narrow wave of attackers, laying them low so that those who took their place had to find their footing on fallen bodies, not all of them dead. Those in front were jammed between the shieldwall and the soldiers pressing from behind, with little room to wield their swords. Some took to the water in an attempt to get round the bottleneck. Turkish archers picked them off or speared them. The attackers were so tightly hemmed in that one soldier whose head had been split in two by a sword stood propped among the living like a swaying stump. Lucas glimpsed another with his back turned, his head hanging upside down between his shoulders, suspended by a flap of skin.

A trumpet blared, announcing the attack in the woods. When the threat communicated, panic swept the enemy, the rear peeling away first, followed by the front. What remained of the shieldwall was too exhausted to follow up, and when they slumped down, sobbing with exhaustion, Lucas saw what carnage they’d wreaked. In front of them lay a mound of bodies three deep, some still alive, limbs stirring. Lucas was used to the sight of blood, but nothing had prepared him for the atrocity of war – gore lying in thick pools, men clutching coils of viscera, a victim holding his severed leg with an expression that would rack Lucas’s dreams for months.

With hideous whoops, the second squad began climbing over the carnage in pursuit.

‘Follow up in good order,’ Vallon bellowed. ‘Don’t engage unless you have to. I want them alive.’

Gorka wrenched Lucas’s arm. ‘Here we go. Don’t let’s miss out.’

‘What?’

‘Booty time, you idiot. Everything the enemy carries belongs to us.’

Lucas found himself quick-stepping down the causeway after the fleeing troops. When they found their way blocked by the formation in the woods, some of them stripped off their armour and tried to escape across the lake. Marshalled by an officer, a few determined souls turned at bay.

‘Form up in close order,’ Josselin shouted.

Before the enemy could organise a counter, Vallon barged to the front. ‘Another attack will meet the same bloody end. You’re trapped front and rear. Surrender and I promise to spare your lives.’

Further along the causeway, the same ultimatum rang out. The fighting down there continued for a while before the cries and clash of weapons died. The trapped soldiers cast about like frightened animals, waiting for someone to take the initiative. An officer pushed through the scrum and addressed Vallon.

‘How can we trust you?’

‘My word. It’s minted in a currency less debased than the one the duke deals in.’

‘You swear it?’

‘On the cross.’

The enemy folded up, propping themselves on their swords, many weeping for shame and relief.

‘Collect their weapons,’ said Vallon. ‘Offer no violence except in return.’

Gorka nudged Lucas’s arm. ‘You just won your first battle. Now it’s time to reap your reward.’

So Lucas, who hadn’t used his sword in anger, found himself gathering the blades from the foe and handing them back to the baggage servants. He found it hard to meet the prisoners’ faces. Taking a sword from one sobbing captive – a man old enough to be his father – it struck him how easily their positions could have been reversed. That’s when he realised how fickle the fortunes of war could be, and that’s when he resolved to be a soldier who would leave as little as possible to chance.

Like Vallon.

Altogether the squadron had trapped sixty soldiers and killed or injured more than thirty. After stripping the captives of their valuables, Gorka worked his way back along the dead, scavenging gold and jewels like a malign magpie. Lucas tagged along with loathing and didn’t take a thing. This wasn’t how he’d imagined war.

Gorka hopped knee-deep into water and levered up the head and torso of an officer clad in finely wrought lamellar armour who’d sprawled face down over the causeway. The Basque’s hand swooped and he held up a bejewelled brooch. ‘Worth forty solidi in Constantinople. Give me a hand.’

Lucas assisted Gorka onto firm ground while staring transfixed at the corpse. ‘His armour must be worth a count’s ransom.’

‘Too bulky. Stick to the portable high-value stuff.’ Gorka registered Lucas’s queasy fascination. ‘Do you want it? Looks about the right fit.’

Lucas glanced up the causeway.

‘If you don’t take it, someone else will.’

‘I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I never even blooded my sword.’

‘You held your ground. That’s good enough. Go on. He’s got no further use for it.’

Lucas manipulated the lolling corpse onto the causeway and began easing the armour over its head. A porridge of brain matter leaked from the skull. Lucas’s face took on the expression of a man straining shit through his teeth.

Gorka shoved him aside. ‘You’re not trying to grope a virgin on your first date. Like this.’

He removed the armour as if he were skinning a rabbit, swilled it in the lake and handed it over. Lucas regarded it with awe. ‘It must be worth ten times the price of your armour.’

Gorka stroked his shabby iron corselet. ‘Wear fancy armour and you become a target for every peasant with a billhook. In battle it’s best not to stand out.’

Lucas slung the armour over his shoulder. ‘I don’t intend to be one of the herd. One day I’ll be a general.’

‘You? Listen, lad. Stick close, do what I say and in five years you might win promotion to commander of four.’

He was still chuckling at Lucas’s fantasy when Vallon gave the order to escort the prisoners back to the coast.

‘Did you kill the man who wore that armour?’

Lucas, herding a group of captives at sword point, swung round to see Aiken, ashen-faced but otherwise immaculate. He hadn’t even got his feet wet.

‘Suppose I did?’

‘What’s it like to kill a man?’

A prisoner stumbled against Lucas and he rounded on the man in fright. The prisoner cringed, begging mercy.

Aiken persisted. ‘How do you feel now?’

Lucas began to pant. He flat-handed Aiken in the chest.

‘Hey!’ Gorka said.

Lucas shoved Aiken backwards. ‘You skulk in the rear and then have the nerve to ask me how it feels to face the enemy. If you want to know, join the shieldwall yourself.’ Spittle flew from Lucas’s mouth. ‘
Daddy’s boy!
’

Gorka almost wrenched him off his feet. ‘You never learn, do you?’

Lucas went slack and a sob racked his body. He looked up to find Vallon’s eyes boring into his. He gave an unhinged laugh.

‘You don’t scare me. You —’

Gorka’s slap spun Lucas sideways. He stumbled away, clutched his knees and vomited a stream of throat-scalding puke.

‘Shock,’ Gorka told the general. ‘It was his first taste of combat. I’ll sort him out.’

Vallon gave a judicious nod. ‘Even so, his behaviour is intolerable. Put him in the supply train for a month. Keep him away from Aiken and out of my sight. I don’t want to set eyes on him again for the duration of our expedition.’

The remainder of the enemy, still formidably strong, stood arrayed in battle formation with their backs to the sea. Both dromons had floated free on the rising tide and the other enemy galley had landed its complement of soldiers and was loitering offshore. Thraco, the Greek leader, stepped out of the front rank.

‘We still have a crushing advantage in numbers and hold your ship, horses and supplies. Surrender the duke, the prisoners and the gold and we’ll leave you to go your own way. That’s my final offer.’

Vallon strolled forward, followed by two troopers dragging the duke by his bound hands. ‘If you have the beating of us, why waste time talking?’

Thraco didn’t answer. A muggy breeze rippled the Outlanders’ banners. Thunder growled inland. Vallon advanced another step. ‘Here are
my
terms. Land all our horses and supplies. When that’s done, you’ll let
Pelican
sail away without interference.’

‘Once you’re on board, any promise I make is void. There’s no way back for you.’

‘Who says we’re going back? When
Pelican
has sailed over the horizon, I’ll release all the prisoners except the duke. Refuse and I’ll kill them one by one in front of you. You’d better be quick. I’ve lost five men to your treachery and my temper threatens to get the better of me.’

‘Even if you kill them all, we’d still have the beating of you.’

‘Hear that?’ Vallon called to the Greek troops. ‘That’s how little your lords value the lives of your comrades.’ He let silence stretch. ‘So be it. Lead the first prisoner forward.’

Two Turkmen hustled a wounded officer out of the ranks, pushed him to his knees and slid swords from their scabbards. The prisoner raised his bloodied face towards Thraco. ‘Is this how you reward the men who fought and died on your behalf? Are we just pawns in a game designed to line the pockets of the duke and his relatives?’

Ugly murmurs of agreement bubbled through the Greek ranks.

‘Thraco, your men will die for nothing,’ Vallon shouted. ‘You’ll never get the gold. It’s cached miles inland. To reach it, you’ll have to wade through the bodies of the prisoners and a hundred other soldiers we’ll kill if you embark on that futile task. You’ll be forced to sail away empty-handed in the company of three hundred armed men who watched you sacrifice their comrades to your greed. Believe me, you won’t sleep easy on your voyage to Trebizond.’

‘Give him what he wants,’ yelled a prisoner, and two or three Greek marines echoed his demand before officers lashed them into silence.

Vallon laughed. ‘You can stop their mouths, but you can’t blow away that rank odour. Smell it? It’s the stink of mutiny.’

Thraco pawed his mouth. ‘Release the duke and then I’ll consider your demands.’

Vallon shook his head with slow finality. ‘Oh, no. The duke is never going home.’

Skleros lunged against his tethers. ‘Let me go,’ he begged. ‘I’ll plead your case.’

‘You’ll plead it from here,’ Vallon said. ‘And in the most abject terms.’

Skleros raised his hands. ‘Do what he says.’

‘Louder,’ Vallon ordered.

Skleros made a last appeal to venality. ‘I was too greedy. Half the gold for you.’ He shrank from the flame in Vallon’s eye. ‘Three-quarters.’

‘Kill him and have done with it,’ Vallon said. He flexed his sword. ‘No, by God, I’ll shear his head from his neck myself!’

‘Please!’ Skleros shrieked. He pumped his bound hands. ‘Accept the general’s demands in full.’

Capitulation sat ill with Thraco but the duke’s craven appeal and the troops’ simmering dissent left him little choice.

‘What I pledge today doesn’t hold for tomorrow.’

‘Right now I command my fate, and I order you to return to your ships, get your men off
Pelican
and allow her and my transports to tie up. I won’t release the prisoners until we’ve secured all our supplies and all the horses – the duke’s as well as our own.

Thraco’s features writhed. He turned with an airy wave as if he’d just lost a trivial bet.

Foul weather was brewing and the afternoon was all but done by the time the ships had worked their way to shore. Vallon and his aides climbed aboard
Pelican
and handed Captain Iannis a sealed letter.

‘Deliver it to the Logothete tou Dromou in person.’

‘Aren’t you returning with us?’

‘No,’ said Vallon. He measured the remaining daylight. ‘Leave now and use the night and rain to put distance between yourself and the enemy.’

He was at the gangplank when he checked, his gaze stopping at the Greek Fire siphon in the bow. ‘Take that,’ he told Josselin, ‘together with half a dozen barrels of the fire compound. And while you’re about it, dismantle the trebuchet. That’s coming with us, too.’

‘General, we have only enough pack animals to carry a week’s rations and other essentials.’

‘We don’t know what’s essential on a journey such as ours. We can always discard unnecessary baggage.’

All through the twilight Vallon strode from ship to ship, exhorting his men to greater efforts. They landed the last barrels and bales in a drenching mizzle and it was full dark before they’d loaded the supplies and the baggage train stood ready to depart. Vallon walked down to the sea’s edge.

‘Can you hear me?’

Faint and far came Thraco’s reply. ‘I hear you.’

‘We’re leaving. You’ll find the prisoners unharmed on the causeway.’

Thraco’s response followed them into the soggy night. ‘You’re going nowhere. You’ll never get through the Caucasus. Either the natives will slaughter you, or what’s left of your squadron will straggle back to Trebizond. And we’ll be waiting.’

The column crawled across the causeway in pelting rain, the flames of their torches reflected in the water and frogs croaking on all sides. Mosquitoes plagued them. Several times the wagons bogged down to their axles and had to be unloaded before they could be hauled free. Voices rose in complaint. Why hadn’t they sailed back on
Pelican
? Where was Vallon leading them?

A warning shout at the head of the column heralded the return of a scout. It was Wayland. Vallon scuffed mosquitoes from his face. ‘Where in Hades are we? How much further before we get out of this swamp?’

‘Only about a mile, but it would be safer to camp in the marsh. The villagers who fled have probably raised the alarm. I’ve found a patch of firm ground where we can pitch tents. The wagons will have to remain on the causeway.’

He led the way to the site. Vallon slid stiff-limbed from his horse and handed the reins to Wulfstan. ‘Tell the officers to report to my quarters when they’ve eaten.’

His own meal was hardtack soaked in wine, chewed outside in the rain while servants struggled to erect his command tent. It must have been around midnight before his centurions crammed in, along with Wayland, Hero and Wulfstan.

Vallon slapped his neck. ‘Damn these blood-sucking fly-by-nights.’ He settled on a camp stool. ‘Well, let’s hear what you have to say.’ He indicated Hero and Wayland and managed to overlook Wulfstan. ‘You know I respect their judgement as much as I value yours,’ he told the officers.

Josselin spoke first. ‘Why didn’t you sail back to Constantinople on
Pelican
?’

Vallon’s laugh could have come from a coffin. ‘Even if we eluded the warships, I doubt that the emperor would shower us with honours for abandoning our mission after little more than a week.’

‘Does that mean you intend to continue?’

Vallon stared into space for a moment. ‘That’s what we have to decide. In some ways, nothing has changed. We still have the treasure and the traitors haven’t reduced our strength by much. I count myself better off without the duke in charge. He was only a figurehead, after all, and a damned unpleasant one at that. The Chinese won’t know our rank or pedigree. We can give ourselves any titles we please.’ He grinned at Otia. ‘How would you like to be the Byzantine ambassador to the Song court?’

Otia’s demeanour remained grave. ‘What are you going to do with Duke Skleros?’

‘I’ll settle his fate in good time. I take it that he’s well-guarded.’

‘By four men, sir, night and day.’

Wulfstan sniffed. ‘Kill the bastard, sir.’

Vallon eyed him asquint. ‘I’m not sure in what capacity you’re attending this meeting.’

‘Right-hand man, sir. Loyal servant and bodyguard.’

Vallon let it pass. ‘He certainly deserves to be executed, but he might still serve some purpose as a hostage.’ He swivelled and looked around the cluttered interior. ‘The maps,’ he said. ‘I need to establish our position.’

Hero rummaged in a chest and unearthed a goatskin scroll. Vallon unrolled it on a camp table, weighting the corners down with oil lamps. ‘We’re a long way north from our planned line of march through Persia.’

In tactful silence, Hero turned the chart the right way round. It was a copy of Ptolemy of Alexandria’s map of the known world, updated with material borrowed from the best Arab cartographers. Hero tapped it. ‘We’re roughly here,’ he said. ‘North of Armenia, south of Rus, between the two main ranges of the Caucasus.’ His finger slid south-east. ‘Persia lies here.’

The others gathered round, trying to make sense of the world flattened into two dimensions. ‘Otia,’ said Vallon, ‘which route would you recommend?’

It was apparent that the centurion couldn’t make head or tail of the chart. He scratched his head. ‘If I wanted to get to Persia, I wouldn’t start from here. The easiest way is south, following the coast. The problem is that course would bring us to Armenia, only a few days’ ride east of Trebizond. It’s the route the duke’s men will expect us to take and that’s where they’ll be waiting for us.’ Giving up on the map, Otia pointed towards where he imagined Persia to lie. ‘Take the direct route and we’d have to fight our way through mountains, a dead end every second turn and tribesmen contesting every mile.’

‘He’s right,’ Hero said. ‘That’s the route Xenophon took on his retreat from Persia. He lost hundreds on the march.’

Vallon made an impatient gesture. ‘Why can’t we head east and follow the Caspian shore until we reach Persia? Surely that’s the shortest way.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Otia said. ‘But it would take us through Kutaisi, the Georgian capital. Even if the king granted us a safe conduct, we’d still have to pass through Tiflis and the eastern provinces – all of them held by the Seljuks.’

Vallon stirred in irritation. ‘Are you saying there’s no way off this coast?’

Otia hesitated. ‘The only way to avoid the main Georgian and Seljuk strongholds would be to follow the Phasis upriver into Svaneti, deep in the Caucasus. From there we’d have to take mountain trails east and then cross the northern Caucasus by a high pass before descending towards the Caspian.’

‘Anyone got any better ideas?’ Vallon demanded. ‘No? Then that’s the route we’ll take. Why didn’t you say so before, Otia?’

The Georgian winced. ‘General, the Caucasus is savage country inhabited by wild clans. Each valley is a world to itself, with its own language and customs. Blood feuds run like a spurting vein through society. The only thing the mountain men hold in common is a murderous hostility to outsiders – and that can mean folk from the next valley. Something else you should know. Many Georgians fleeing from the Seljuk invaders have taken refuge in the mountains. They won’t look tenderly on a force containing so many Turkmen.’

The rain had hardened, falling on the tent with a steady hiss that eventually made its own silence.

Vallon scratched his neck. ‘You wouldn’t have suggested the route unless you thought it was passable. You know the country and you know the perils. That’s a great advantage compared to the unknown alternatives. Now then, from this Svaneti can you lead us through the mountains – following some pass known only to a few shepherds?’

Otia shook his head. ‘Not a path our baggage train could follow. There’s only one way through the Caucasus for a force as heavily laden as ours. It’s a high pass called the Daryal Gap – the Gate of the Alans.’

Hero nodded. ‘Also known as the Caucasian Gates, Alexander’s Gates and the Scythian Keyhole. Actually, Alexander never crossed that pass, but King Mithridates escaped from Pompey’s legions through it. In legend, the country beyond the pass was the home of Gog and Magog.’

‘Save the history till later,’ said Vallon. He stared at the map. ‘Who controls the pass?’

‘The Georgians still held it when I left fourteen years ago,’ said Otia. ‘The Seljuks probably control it now. When I say “control”, I mean they occupy the forts at the southern end. The higher reaches are in the hands of mountain tribes – brigands who exact tolls on travellers or simply rob and kill them.’

The muggy atmosphere and voracious insects were making Vallon tetchy. ‘It can’t be that hazardous if armies have been crossing it for centuries.’ He stooped again over the map. ‘The Gate of the Alans, you said. I take that to mean the land of Alania lies on the northern side.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Our last emperor was married to an Alan princess,’ said Vallon. ‘She adopted Alexius as her son – and her bedmate, say some. Whatever the case, Constantinople and Alania are allies. Reach Alania and we should be among friends.’

Otia pulled at his beard. ‘Sir…’

Vallon looked up, his cheeks cavernous in the lamplight. ‘Go on.’

‘I fear you’re underestimating the dangers. I’ve campaigned against the Caucasus tribes and learned from bloody experience how formidable they are. From the moment we leave this camp, we’ll become targets for every brigand and warlord we encounter. If we fail to cross the mountains, they’ll pursue us all the way back to the sea. To win any sanctuary, we’d have to capture it by force. Even the smallest villages are fortified with towers built to resist an army.’

Vallon straightened. ‘Then we mustn’t fail.’ He ground his index finger into the map. ‘When we reach Alania, what next?’

‘Head east to the Caspian and try to find ships to carry us to the Persian coast. From there it’s only a short journey south before we strike our planned route.’