Strategos: Island in the Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

restore the empire’s broken borders and bring peace to Anatolia. The emperor had yet to set out on the long-awaited campaign to capture the fortress of Chliat and secure the Lake Van region, yet already, Psellos had sowed the seeds of destruction in his path. He thought again of Eudokia’s plea.
    I beg you to muster your men then hasten to my husband’s side on his campaign to Lake Van. Only there can you shield him from Psellos’ further ruses . . .

2. Blood River
     
    It took several months for Apion to fully muster his Chaldians, but by late August they were together, marching under a baking sun as they trekked. Their hooves and boots crunched in time to the cicada song as they marched along the dusty track that wound across desert-dry Mesopotamia – the brink of imperial territory. There were fifteen hundred men in all: fifty kataphractoi riders, a smattering of more lightly equipped kursores scout riders plus three vastly-understrength tourmae of skutatoi spearmen and toxotai archers.
    Apion tilted his drinking skin back and enjoyed a mouthful of cold spring water. Mercifully, there were plenty of brooks, wells and springs marked on his map of this eastern land. Mesopotamia was not like Chaldia or any of the other themata. There was no strategos here, no levy of land workers for the empire to call upon – indeed, even the populace was desperately meagre. Instead, this land was ruled by the imperial border doukes and patrolled by the mercenary tagmata raised by those men. It was just a few miles more to the southeast and the banks of the upper Euphrates where they were to rendezvous with Emperor Romanus and his campaign army then finally strike out eastwards, to Lake Van. The sister fortress-towns in that distant land were the prize. Apion had never ventured as far east as that much talked of region, yet he was well aware of the delicate balance of power there: a scant Byzantine garrison already held the northerly fortress of Manzikert, but the lakeside fortress of Chliat was thought to be well guarded by a Seljuk warband. Each faction had long sought to hold both. He heard some of his kataphractoi riding behind him sharing their hopes and fears on the matter.
    ‘Sultan Alp Arslan and all his iron hordes lie in wait by the lake,’ one said. ‘Many thousands of ghulam and ghazi riders.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ another scoffed. ‘I hear that barely a thousand Seljuks man Chliat’s walls. We will have that fortress in our grasp in good time.’
    ‘Pah!’ another surly rider countered. ‘Why so much attention on Lake Van anyway? The land is bleak and far from the hub of either empire.’
    Apion fell back a little, listening, eager to see how his men reacted to this. He saw one rider dab out his tongue to dampen his lips. It was Kaspax, a young rider who had recently taken the place of his slain father, Atticus, in the ranks of the precious Chaldian kataphractoi. The young man had an answer but was afraid to speak out against the grizzled veterans. Apion caught his eye and gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
    ‘Because,’ Kaspax started, his eyes darting uncertainly, ‘because the broad tracts of land that run north of the lake are like a weak spot in our flank. They present an unspoilt path from enemy domains in the east, right into the heart of our lands, our ancient themata. The Gateway to Anatolia, they call it.’
    Apion met each man’s eyes with a stern gaze. ‘And what an apt moniker, for a stronghold is only as strong as its weakest gate. The Antitaurus Mountains sweep along our empire’s southeastern borders and the Parhar Mountains dominate the north and the east,’ he nodded to that hazy range, ever present in the horizon, ‘like great ramparts that armies cannot traverse without enormous difficulty. But the Lake Van pass is a chink in the armour, a long, flat, broad and snaking route that opens inner Anatolia to all and sundry. The outposts of Manzikert and Chliat serve as fine watchtowers from