"Μια ζωή χρωστάμε όλοι μας."
-"All we owe to us is just our life." – Roman proverb
October 23rd, 1263
Outside of Nikaea
Andronikos Komnenos, Emperor of the Romans, sighed and dipped his quill in yet more ink. He looked at the diagram again—the drawings had been smudged by some careless scribe long before, and the Emperor could only barely make out the notations. He grumbled, even as his mind wandered back to what the whole exercise was meant to avoid.
Thinking about tomorrow.
He knew his part in the coming battle—stay out of the way and don’t get killed. He told himself repeatedly all he needed was a victory—just one—and his control would be cemented. The army was the most skeptical, and rightly so. Andronikos knew he was untested in battle, and since the days of Thomas I, the army had made it plainly known it preferred that a warrior wear the diadem.
But a victory didn’t necessarily mean wasting his life in futility on the front line. That’s why he and the
Hetaratoi would be on the Imperial left, along with Godwinson’s men, assigned to watch the lurking force of Simon Angelos, and not with the
Megos Domestikos, tangling with Gabriel’s hordes. In the eyes of some it’d be merely
technically a victory for Andronikos, but with the unqualified support of the
Megos Domestikos as well as Bataczes and Tatikios, it was doubtful anyone would muster the nerve to say so publicly.
Though Andronikos knew he couldn’t be too careful—Angelos had turned sour, others could as well. Just as Andronikos had hoped, Angelos and the rest of the
Anatolikon had followed the imperial armies as they abandoned their effort to cut Gabriel’s force in two, and went straight for the Persian’s throat. Even as he wrote, Andronikos knew Angelos was positioning himself on the flank of Gabriel’s army.
However, that put him on
Andronikos’ flank as well—something that made Andronikos, as well as the other
strategoi, a little uneasy. Ioannis’ friends in his father’s camp made assurances that Angelos would side with the Emperor, but Ioannis himself had spoken of rumors that his brother had been taken hostage by Gabriel. In light of that, the
Hetaratoi, along with most of
Strategos Godwinson’s troops, would deploy with their flanks refused to face Angelos come the morn. It’d be a not-so-subtle threat, as well as extra assurance in case the traitor decided to turn coat yet again.
Unfortunately, it also meant that the loyalist army couldn’t bring its superior numbers to fully bear on Gabriel—instead of 80,000 versus 50,000, it would be a much closer 60,000 versus 50,000. The
Megos Domestikos, with Andronikos’ approval and the assent of the
strategoi, had decided the army would be on the defensive on the morrow—it’d hold the heights, daring Gabriel to attack. It’d be like goading a wild boar—all seemed sure Gabriel would come barreling in at the Imperial army. Bataczes had the right—he was easily the most skilled of the
strategoi and would probably receive the brunt of Gabriel’s attack. The
Megos Domestikos would be in the middle, ready to help if needed.
It all seemed well in hand—save for where Alexandros Komnenos was. Since the 16th, no one had seen or heard from his 30,000 men. Several of Godwinson’s outriders had last seen them marching east, but everyone knew at some point the Persian would turn to try to come to his father’s aid. Would he show up in time? Would he be too late?
“What’re you doing?” a voice asked, nearly making Andronikos jump out of his skin. He looked up, annoyed, as Ioannis beamed innocently down at him.
“You gave me a fright,” the Emperor complained, mind cleared of worries for a second.
“Not that hard,” Ioannis smirked. “So, what are you doing?”
“I’m comparing Herophilos of Chalcedon and Erisastratos of Chios,” Andronikos murmured just above the noise of his pen scritching, “and transcribing the best combination of the two.” He heard a tsking noise—he didn’t look up. Ioannis was probably shaking his head.
“Most men pray, get drunk, or find a wench when they’re afraid on the eve of battle,” Angelos slurped his drink. “You’re the only one I know that transcribes…” Hands reached down, and flipped up one of the scrolls Andronikos was reading. “Medical texts?” Andronikos finally looked up, annoyed. Why wouldn’t Ioannis leave him alone in his nervousness?
“It calms me!” Andronikos growled, before looking back down at the various scrolls hiding the army’s battleplans and dispositions. He sighed. “It started because I wanted to find the best place to cut someone to kill them, and…” he shrugged slightly. Ioannis laughed, and Andronikos crossed his arms. “I suppose you shall tell me?” he huffed.
“Armpit,” Ioannis chuckled, before finishing his goblet, sighed, then threw it aside. At Andronikos’ confused look, he laughed again. “You were thinking neck, yes?”
The Emperor nodded.
“No, most men take great pains to protect their neck,” Angelos said matter of factly, “makes it a damned hard target to hit. No, armpit. Why? Most men raise their arm to strike at least once, and,” he leaned close, the alcohol on his breath strong, “they tend to not have it nearly as well protected. A good blow will go straight to their heart! And…” Ioannis started to go on, before he, too, caught sight of the messenger standing at the entrance to the imperial tent.
“Yes?” Andronikos asked, relieved to have the information he wanted without the dissertation of death that would have come with it.
“Excuse me, Majesty,” the servant bowed, “but the Masters Polo are here to see you. They send their apologies for being late and not arriving before you left Konstantinopolis.”
“Send them in,” Andronikos waved. Ioannis glanced at him, but the Emperor waved his friend off. Ioannis might know about killing, but this was Andronikos’ realm.
Two men entered the room, both clearly Venetians by their gait and attire. They looked in their mid-thirties, approaching middle age. Both stopped at precisely the appropriate pacing, and executed exquisite bows. Andronikos smiled—they knew their protocol, something that would be useful for the mission he had in mind for them.
“Masters Polo,” Andronikos nodded politely as his servants left. Ioannis looked both men over carefully, then nodded. No weapons. “I have heard you two know a great deal about travelling. You are merchants, are you not?”
“Yes, Majesty,” the older of the brothers nodded, “Both myself and Matteo have travelled from Venice to Cherson.”
“Good,” Andronikos slapped his hands on the table and rose. “I have a mind to offer you a proposition then. As you are both Venetians, I mean to tell you it is a very
lucrative one as well,” the Emperor permitted himself to smile.
“Ah, yes Majesty?” Niccolo’s smile seemed to grow a thousand times wider. Yes—both men were Venetians to the core.
“I want you to travel north into the lands of the Golden Horde,” Andronikos rummaged amongst the papers on the desk till he found what he was looking for. Quickly the folded envelope went into Angelos’ hands, where it got a healthy dose of wax on the seam, and then the imperial seal. “Thence you will travel East,” the emperor found several other copies of the same, handing them to Ioannis to repeat the process, “deep into the Mongol Empire. I hear word the Great Khan, named Kublay, lives out there. These,” Andronikos handed the two men the small stack of letters, “are letters of introduction, saying you are heralds on my behalf and need passage. These,” another series of letters reached the suddenly full Venetian hands, “are letters to the Khan of the Golden Horde, the Khan of Khwarezm, as well as the Great Khan himself.”
“The…Great Khan?” Matteo swallowed.
“Yes, in…” Andronikos snapped his fingers, “Kanbalik? Qanbalk? Something like that…” He looked off for a second, rattling his brain for the name. The proper pronunciation wouldn’t come, so he abandoned the effort. “This will take many years, gentlemen, but you will not go unrewarded. I propose that any immediate trade deals you make along the way will be taxed only 10% by my government,” he smiled, “while the Polo family keeps the remaining 90%?”
At
that, both of their eyes went wide. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” they both bowed, more raggedly this time.
“This is in addition to any reward I shall give on your return. Ambassadorships? A
logothetes chair? Stipend? Monies?” Andronikos shrugged. “We shall see. Ioannis here,” Andronikos nodded to his still confused friend, “will see to the dispositions of your transport to Cherson after the battle tomorrow. Now,” he nodded his head, “you may both go.”
Both men bowed again, backed away from the imperial person, then turned to leave the tent.
“I was wrong,” Ioannis said a few moments later, “most men pray, get drunk, or find a wench, but you
plot on the eve of battle.” A dangerous smile slowly grew on his face.
“Hardly plotting,” Andronikos flipped through the marching orders, supply lists, and the other debris of command until he found his medical texts again. “It’s merely setting up communication in case I have to plot later.” His eyes were once again back at the texts, his quill at work. “Besides,” he added between scritches, “it’ll be good for trade, if the Mongols rule all the way to Cathay as they say.”
He heard Ioannis chuckle darkly, and looked up in time to see him bow.
“As for me, I am off to find a wench. I shall leave you in the embrace of your texts,” he grinned. “Goodnight Andronikos.”
“Goodnight,” Andronikos replied, before going back to the effort of keeping his fear at bay.
October 24th, 1263
8 AM
Gabriel Komnenos sighed, watching the beauty of the thing, smelling the scents of men, horses, manure and steel that hung in the air, hearing the ruffled noise of banners, the clank of metal. The sights, the sounds, the smells of an army marching into battle—something he hadn’t seen, smelled or heard in close to two decades.
“He tried to be a clever little whelp,” a voice observed next to him. Simon Gabras, like his late father, was a rather rotund little man, but behind those meaty arms was a powerful swing, and behind those beady little eyes was the mind of a determined, if sometimes plodding, tactician.
“He did,” Gabriel agreed, watching as his army deployed to face the imperials who had occupied the heights and put him in this position. He’d planned on making winter camp near Chrysopolis if the boy didn’t come out of the city, using the four months of gloom to build a force to ferry his army across the Marmara even as agents plied the Imperial navy to make sure it wouldn’t intervene. Instead, Andronikos—or, more probably, Romanos, Gabriel corrected himself—had shown far more spine that sitting behind the Konstantinopolis walls.
Gabriel hadn’t expected his enemies to land south of his position near Smyrna, nor had he expected them to attempt to march across Anatolia to cut him off. Unfortunately for them, their army was not as fast as their plans had hoped. Their plans foiled, they were forced to barrel straight for Gabriel’s army, seeking the embrace of battle.
An embrace Gabriel was all too happy to receive.
“You expect Angelos to hold to his bargain with them?” Gabras asked uneasily. Gabriel’s eyes moved towards his left, towards the north where long gray lines stood on distant hills. Angelos’ small army, directly on the flanks of both Gabriel’s men and the loyalist lines. The Old Emperor glanced over those lines—they looked menacing, but there was something in the deployment that wasn’t right. Standards seemed out of place, for one. Even from this distance Gabriel could see men milling about, not standing fearfully in battleline. Most glaring was where Angelos had his cavalry—they milled about in the rear, not on the flanks, and not ready to attack.
“He won’t attack us, Gabras,” Gabriel snorted, “or anyone, I daresay.” It was clear as day to him.
“Maybe we should launch a spoiling attack then? Disrupt Romanos while he’s setting up his lines?” Gabras asked. The man had always been a worrywart. It was one of the things about his personality that annoyed Gabriel the most—and one of the reasons he kept the Prince around.
“Your father would’ve suggested that,” Gabriel said somewhat wistfully. Leon Gabras had been a dependable warhorse back in the day, until a Mongol arrow took him in the Eternal War. Gabriel shifted in the saddle, and sighed at the memory. “No,” he forced a smile on his face, banishing the past, “it’s bad manners to interrupt your opponent when he’s making a mistake!” He flashed his best grin at Gabras, if only to banish away the demons of the past.
“Mistake?” Gabras looked up at that hill, and Gabriel read his eyes—yes, he’d seen them before. Leon would stare at a position like that, prodding its intricacies. “They have the high ground, Majesty, and…”
“Romanos thinks he’s being clever,” Gabriel pronounced. His subordinate clearly wasn’t seeing what he was seeing. “Look Gabras,” he pointed to the center of that long, gray line. “See the shields held by the banners in the middle? Those aren’t
tagmata,” he huffed, “they’re
thematakoi. Well equipped
thematakoi, mind you, but they’re levies.”
“Why on earth would he put levies in the center of his line?” Gabras wondered.
Gabriel shrugged. He had no idea either—truth be told, it violated every known rule of warfare. The Emperor of Persia smiled though—great generals, and those who would be great,
always broke the rules.
Gabriel eyed the position again—yes, that was the key to the whole battlefield. Down south, the cavalry would scrum on the open plains, likely to a draw, and to the north, Angleos would sit glumly, staying their hand. No, it’d be solved here. In the middle.
“Maybe he thinks they’ll give, and it’ll suck us in,” he mused. “Maybe he’s overloaded his flanks, and he thinks to envelop us. It does not matter. That is where we’ll point our
pyrokaroi. Every last one. Open the battle with a volley from them, and hammer the center of his line with everything we have.
Tagma might hold under a fire bolt volley. Levies?” Gabriel shook his head. “We’ll hit him there with four
tagmata, stretch our lines in the north and the south until Alexandros arrives. Then we’ll slam his boys there too.”
“Won’t his men be tired?”
“We won’t be asking much,” Gabriel smiled. Not after the
pyrokaroi, and four
tagmata had savaged the place. In truth, Gabriel wondered if he could send even less—but he smelled Bataczes involved in that deployment somehow. And where Bataczes was involved, there was always some sort of cleverness, or scheme.
No, better to go with the extra soldiers.
“We’ll split his army,” Gabriel nodded to himself, “and roll them up into Angelos. If Simon wants to fight, he’ll take them from the rear. If he doesn’t want to fight,” he shrugged, “he’ll be the wall we drive them against to dash them to pieces. Either way,” he smiled, “the road to Konstantinopolis will be paved with gold.”
9:30 AM
Drums rolled, echoing through the hills, as the roaring, hissing barrage of thousands of fire arrows finally died away. Soldiers peeked over their shields, peering into the murk for friends, allies, their ranks.
Kentarchoi barked orders, trumpets blew, a din only barely covering the metallic
clank of a heavy infantry line advance.
Farouk Shaheen, known as Romanos of Cordoba, pursed his lips and grunted. Like his entire command staff, he’d instinctively winced when the
pyrokaroi of the Persians erupted, a hail of smoke and death pointed directly at the
thematakoi from Macedonia—hardy men, well led to be sure, but utterly unused to such a blast of smoke and horror. Romanos squinted in the murk, making out banners of those men of Macedonia wavering on the crest of the hill—Gabriel’s legions were still far below, and already the
thematakoi were starting to crack.
“Hot day, Koutsos,” he muttered to the
chillarchos next to him. The man grunted something in reply about Persians and whores. Romanos didn’t blame those
thematakoi - he’d heard of Gabriel’s infamous ‘fire bolts’—the storm of smoking arrows, the stench, the roaring carts, the hissing of passing death, it was enough to make even his veteran bones tremble. Instead of sending a courier to yell at their commander, he looked just below the crest, closer to his position…
…where the
Ierusalyema Fylakoi and
Hispanikoi tagmata both lay low, crouched, untouched by the firestorm that sailed over their heads. He could not see their faces, but their body language told him the tale—they rose cautiously, in rank. Some were already checking their weapons, others were crossing themselves. Men preparing for battle, not men preparing to run.
“Message!” Romanos called, watching the distant masses of men as a thin smile formed on his lips. He looked further over—yes, still on his roan charger, without helm and urging the men on, was the man who’d predicted what Gabriel would do. Romanos’ smile grew even larger. He’d owe
Strategos Bataczes fifty gold
solidii after the battle.
Assuming they survived.
“Yes, milord!” a courier reined up hard next to the
Megos Domestikos.
“Tell
Strategos Bataczes he can advance his
tagmata! I’ll be sending the Prince of Tarnovo’s
thematakoi to support!”
==========*==========
2 PM
Gabriel Komnenos, called the Lion of Persia, certainly didn’t feel like a lion.
Not when he was limping towards a chirugeon’s tent, wincing every time he put weight on his leg. The man that’d led armies since he was sixteen, who’d fought the Mongols and won, felt like an old, common soldier as he hobbled inside. Immediately the hustle and bustle of the few healers that travelled with his army trying to save the lives of higher ups and nobility ground to a halt. All eyes-bandaged, unbandaged, even blind, turned his way, and slowly looked down at his bleeding leg.
“It’s minor,” he smiled sharply, before hobbling over towards the chirugeon he trusted most. Stepjan Brankovic was trained at university in Konstantinopolis—Gabriel bet he wouldn’t kill him by trying to heal him. “It’s minor, just a spearpoint to the leg,” the Persian Emperor repeated himself as he was ushered over to the side. Hands grabbed and helped—Gabriel winced, but only to one of them—his son Alexandros, who’d followed him inside the tent.
Alexandros had arrived two hours late, but he’d arrived—with all 28,000 of his men—just in time to hear his old man had been wounded doing a young man’s work.
“You aren’t young, Father,” he heard Alexandros chide, “this isn’t the Eternal War, and those aren’t Mongols!”
“Hush,” Gabriel groaned as they lowered him onto the rude pieces of wood they called a bench. He hissed, not just at the pain in his wounded leg, but as his muscles complained at the exuberance and strain of battle. He pointed to a nearby man, standing in shock at seeing his Emperor so close, snapped his fingers, and pointed to the corner of the tent. The man stood rooted for a second longer, before running to find some wine. The churigeon removed his greaves and started to probe.
“So where are you men deploying?” Gabriel finally asked after the uneasy silence. A bolt of pain shot up his leg—he heard the chirugeon mumble something.
“Behind the center, as you asked,” Alexandros said matter of factly. Gabriel smiled.
“Good marching, boy,” he nodded his head. For Alexandros to have made it here from Ikonion, even two hours late, he had to have marched 20 miles a day, maybe more. “Anyone told you what’s happened today?”
“Nothing yet,” Alexandros replied, smiling thinly, “but my guess by all those banners on the hill is that I’m not too late to see the fight?”
Gabriel shook his head slowly, then pointed out of the tent, towards that damned ridge. The very sight of those banners fluttering in the wind swept the smile from his face, and made his blood boil. The plan should’ve worked—he’d
seen those two standards of
thematakoi break even before his
tagmata got to the crest of that hill! Then the drumrolls, the trumpets…
It had to have been Bataczes!
“That bastard!” Gabriel snapped, before downing more wine. He grunted as the churigeon tugged at something on his leg. He refused to look while they did their work.
“Father?” Alexandros asked, worry plain on his face.
“Bataczes did it—put those
tagmata behind the hill,” Gabriel complained, glancing out of the tent. He could see the banners of his army heading up the hill again, towards that same damned position. Drums, bugles, the whole cacophony of war rumbled and echoed as thousands of men marched to the clash once more. It was the fourth time they’d been up that hill, and Gabriel knew at least two of his
tagmata had been torn to pieces in the preceding attacks. They’d brought in another
tagmata, so he threw in another. Then they brought yet another. He’d thrown
thematakoi in, rode up to the front to cheer them on even, and all he gained was a higher butcher’s bill and an errant spearpoint through his greaves and into his calf.
He hissed as searing pain went through his leg. Something tugged, and he saw Alexandros look away, pale. Then, slowly, that sudden wave of pain began to recede.
“I found the tip, Majesty,” the churigeon announced. Gabriel nodded, then waved at the man to start bandaging him up. The shouts and screams had reached a crescendo—his soldiers were on that hilltop once again. He needed to be out there. He needed to be with his soldiers, at the front, leading them, encouraging them.
He needed to break the men on that hill.
“Alexandros?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes father?”
“Get your men lined up,” Gabriel hissed as the chirugeons pulled the bandages tight, “
tagmata to the front, and hammer that spot right there,” he pointed at the stubborn cluster banners through the opening to the churigeon’s tent.
“I have four
tagmata alone,” Alexandros squinted, looking at the spot as well, “it’ll be a tight fight, going uphill. What about the levies?”
“Send the levies further south,” Gabriel winced. He gestured urgently, and soon a goblet was in his hands. He glanced—it was dark. Good, something with kick. He downed it in a gulp. “With his cavalry busy further away, we’ll threaten that flank. They can’t hold it forever, their lines
must be stretched thin to be covering Angelos and reinforcing the hill. I’ll send Gabras and his
tagmata that way too…Messenger!” the Emperor called. As soon as a mud and grime streaked herald arrived, Gabriel yelled, “Tell Lord Gabras to move further south, hit the two
tagmata on the hill!”
“Gabras?” Alexandros asked. “Isn’t he on the northern flank?”
“Yes,” Gabriel smacked his lips—the alcohol was already dulling the pain of his leg. The churigeon finished tying up the bandage, and pronounced it good. The man started saying all sorts of things about how it needed to be tended, kept clean, and how too much exertion should be avoided. Gabriel ignored him.
“Won’t that leave the north exposed?” Alexandros asked cautiously over the doctor’s drone. “His lines might be stretched here, but if Romanos moves his men watching Angelos down…”
“He won’t,” Gabriel said, rising to his feet unsteadily. A distant pang went through his leg, but it was tolerable. The churigeon immediately started to complain. “He’s got 20,000 men deployed ‘just in case’ Angelos decides to move on his flank,” Gabriel pointed. “No, he’s cautious. Too cautious. He’s a thinkiner, not a fighter. He’s got the larger army, but he’s not on the attack.” Gabriel shook his head. If he had 70,000 under arms… “He’s left with 50,000 or so to face me. He won’t break his eyes from Angelos to hit our flank.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, father,” Alexandros murmured, “he’s surprised you once today already.”
Gabriel glanced over at his son. Alexandros’ eyes bellowed the same words he’d spoken just as they came in the tent.
You’re not as young as you were.
“Fine,” Gabriel sighed, “I’ll tell Gabras to leave a
tagmata and the Mosul
thematakoi in the north, their flanks refused.” He started to limp towards his charger. “That should give them pause if they even try to move…”
4 PM
Andronikos anxiously looked to the south and waited. Like Ioannis, and the other members of the
Hetaratoi, he’d watched uneasily as banner after banner shifted from Romanos’ lines and moved south, into a haze of dust, shaking banners, shouts and trumpet calls.
Strategos Godwinson himself had rode back from his lines periodically, and the Emperor had sworn hearing him comment the fight shouldn’t have lasted this long. But there was nothing Andronikos could do—not from here. Not that he’d know what to do anyway.
So he bit his lip, paced in front of his ‘charger,’ and worried.
“Father’s at it again,” Ioannis muttered quietly. Andronikos didn’t look up—it seemed every time Andronikos was about to ignore the chain of command he’d so carefully endorsed and order Godwinson to send some men over to find out what was going on, some scout or sentry reported banners from the
Anatolikon moving suspiciously. Nothing had happened, however.
Andronikos muttered a choice phrase about what Simon Angelos could do to a broomstick in hell, and Ioannis laughed.
“Majesty!” someone called, and finally Andronikos looked up in time to see someone covered in mud and grime galloping up on a sweaty palfrey. Beneath the muck, he thought he could see bits of the insignia of a herald. He didn’t motion for the man to come over—he walked over to him.
“What news?” he asked, trying to keep the anxiousness out of his voice. “Where’s Romanos?” Andronikos asked. He couldn’t see anything except a haze of dust and gray with banners fluttering about. “Why…” he started to ask, before cutting himself off. The messenger would know, probably.
“The enemy came hard at us, Majesty!” the man said between breaths, “The two
tagmata got hit by six, and started to get pushed back. The
Megos Domestikos took the reserve in to stiffen their line, he’s in the fight too!”
“So we have no reserves?” Ioannis hissed. “Where is Gabriel getting all those men…”
“Not in the south, milord! The enemy has taken troops from their right to hit ours!” the man hissed. “
Strategos Phokas is dead, and Prince Bataczes has been gravely wounded!” the man went on. “We don’t know where
Strategos Illarion is, nor his replacement! We can’t find them in the mess!”
“What?” Andronikos’ jaw fell.
They don’t know where a Strategos is even?
“It’s bloody hell down there, Majesty!” the messenger spoke aloud what his tattered clothing already said. “They’ve piled on us, Majesty, piled hard! We’re giving ground, but the
Megos Domestikos says Gabriel can’t have more than a
tagma on his northern flank!” His horse whinnied and tried to rear from all the noise. “Milords, you and Godwinson are the last reserves we have! The
Megos Domestikos begs you, for God’s Sake, take Gabriel’s flank! We have committed everything to keep them from taking ours!”
Andronikos blinked—he’d been warily watching the scrum to the south, and Angelos to the north. For the first time in that long while, his eyes went to the middle…
…and the yawning gap between the Persian lines and the muted
Anatolikon.
“What about Godwinson’s men?” Andronikos looked over to Ioannis. Yes, there was a gap, but Andronikos thought he saw one banner turned at right angles to the others slowly lumbering towards the battle to the south. Soon that inviting gap would be closed…
“They’re watching the
Anatolikon, as you asked,” Ioannis pursed his lips. “Two infantry
tagmata and his
thematakoi cavalry. But…”
“…we’ll need all of that if your father decides to move,” Andronikos looked down, voice shaking. He was glad the
Hetaratoi were far behind, unable to hear the quiver in their master’s voice. “So it’s us, then?” he kicked at a rock absently.
“Yes,” Ioannis looked down, then over at the messenger. The man sat on his saddle, eyes impatient, as his master was being attacked by the entirety of the Persian army. Andronikos watched as his friends eyes went back to him. “They’ve got a few banners down there with flanks refused to face us, so if we go we’re going right into their teeth.”
“Into their teeth?” Andronikos echoed, voice even quieter. He looked himself. He thought he saw the gap still there. Or was that a mirage? If it was still there, it was far smaller…
Ioannis nodded. “That’ll make things hard. So, Majesty,” his eyes flicked back to Andronikos, “what are your orders?”
“My…uh…” Andronikos clamped his mouth shut before any more unregal noises could escape—especially the slight squeak of fear he felt in his throat. He wanted to tremble, to cry, but he couldn’t—not in front of the army, not on a battlefield! He saw a spear aimed at him, faces hidden behind coats of mail, only hateful eyes peering up at him between blades of steel. He saw arrows flying directly for his eye. He lost the fight—another shiver went down his body.
He had to charge. But how could he charge? He’d never killed anyone! He’d never swung a sword in anger! For God’s sake, he liked using the
bow! The messenger asked something about orders, but all Andronikos could see was a man stabbing him,
in the eye.
He felt his jaw move, but nothing came out. He swallowed hard, looking again. From somewhere far away he heard Ioannis repeat his name, and he blinked. Slowly his hand reached for his sword. It’s blade felt cold, alien in his fingers. Was it a gap? Was it his mind wanting there to be a gap? He closed his eyes, trying to think of something, anything to calm his nerves, to get the words to come out of his mouth. But try as he might, he could not get the words he needed to come.
He heard a rattling noise.
He looked down, wondering what it was.
His hands were shaking so hard they were making his sword shiver inside its scabbard.
“Andronikos!” he heard Ioannis yell, “What are your orders?!”
So Andronikos is forced to make a choice. Will he leap into exactly what he doesn’t want to do and join the fray? Or will he stay back, potentially dooming his army? Even if he charges, will it be enough to defeat Gabriel, or has the Old Lion bashed the loyalist army so badly Andronikos is merely charging to his doom? Will Angelos continue to simply sit on his flank, or will he sense an opportunity as the others bloody themselves? Nikaea resolved, next time on Rome AARisen!
Yesssssssss.
