Strategos: Born in the Borderlands Read Online Free PDF

ghulam had it all: armour, high ground, momentum and morale. For Cydones, klibanion torn and hanging from one shoulder, spathion bent and shield lost in the fray, his years of bitter experience were all he had to counter the attack. He pushed to his feet and braced.
     
    ‘ Allahu Akbar! ’ The ghulam cried.
     
    Cydones stood firm, squinting in the sunshine until he could see the red wetness at the back of the rider’s throat, neck muscles clenched, scimitar held aloft and ready to lop off the strategos’ head. The split instant flashed before him: the ghulam’s blade scything for his neck but both mount and rider’s flank lay wide open and undefended. Cydones shot his twisted spathion straight up in a two-handed grip to catch the scimitar blow. His shoulder jarred, a spray of sparks stung his face and his ears numbed at the metallic din as the two swords screamed at one another. The blow parried, he pirouetted and lunged to punch his blade into the gelding’s chest. In a high pitched whinny, the beast threw the ghulam rider forward then splattered down into the gore, thrashing in the foam of its own blood. Cydones stalked over to the rider, lying motionless in the bloody swamp . The Seljuk lay with his face pale and his eyes closed. Cydones made to turn for the next man to fight , when the ghulam’s face burst back into life in a fervent rage as he whipped a dagger from his boot, thrusting up at Cydones’ thigh.
     
    The pain barely registered. A sharp blade it must have been and on the classic weak spot of the armoured body of a kataphractos. Hot blood flooded over his thigh and his limbs trembled but he held firm to turn his spathion over, blade down, to thrust it through the ghulam’s throat with a crunch of vertebrae and sinew. Then he crumpled to his knees, eyes fixed on the ghulam’s final gaze. Together, their blood pumped into the scarlet mire that had only this morning been a verdant plain.
     
    The battle was won and Byzantine victory cries rang out over the atrocious scene. Cydones felt his mind wander and his vision dull.
     
    ‘The strategos!’ One voice called out. ‘The strategos has fallen!’
     
    ‘No,’ Cydones croaked, raising a hand. He had felt the tearing near-certainty of an arterial death blow before, the angry welt of scar under his thick forked beard a testament. This was a bad wound but not one that would kill him. Heart thundering, a chill sweat bathing his skin, he shivered and rose to stand. The handful left from the hundred he had led out that morning stood, panting, exhausted, some throwing up into the bilious swamp as the battle frenzy drained from their limbs, the Christian Chi-Rho on their battered crimson kite shields spattered in blood. They had fought for their emperor and for God. Now they looked to their strategos to vindicate them for the lives they had taken today. Cydones acknowledged this all too familiar numbness in his heart but he raised a fist and mustered all his strength to roar the holy victory cry.
     
    ‘ Nobiscum Deus !’
     

     
    ***
     

     
    A torch burst into life on the short timber platform the men had erected on the hilltop plateau and the two men on the first guard shift watched the pitch black countryside manfully. A roll call had been taken and it had been worryingly swift: three kataphractoi and twenty one skutatoi were all that was left of the hundred that had marched from the barracks at Argyroupolis that morning. A score had fled when the Seljuks had attacked but the rest were cold and dead. The truth was, Cydones mused grimly, the remaining and spent handful were also as good as dead if another Seljuk raiding party decided to investigate the firelight. The imperial maps might say otherwise, but this far east it was definitely borderland. Thanks be to God for the loyalty of the Armenian princes, he thought, without their subjects, the borders would be threadbare of manpower.
     
    He ran a filthy hand over his bald scalp and pulled at his