The Iron Lance Read Online Free PDF

Imperial Fleet. The family resemblance was strong in the young commander: thick black curly hair and keen black eyes beneath even brows, he was short-limbed and muscular like all the Comneni men, and swarthy-skinned like his cousin; he differed only in that where his kinsmen displayed the Greek half of their heritage, his own features tended more towards the Syrian.
    Reining in beside Alexius, he led the emperor up a winding rocky path towards the crest of the hill. The two rode together side by side, easy in one another’s company. They had fought alongside one another many times, and both knew and respected the other’s skill and courage.
    As the emperor and his entourage gained the top of the hill called Levunium, the light from the setting sun struck them full like the blaze from victory fire. The sky, aglow with flaming redsand golds, shone with a brilliance exceeded only by the sun itself. The men, blinded for a few moments, shielded their eyes with their hands until they could see once more, and then looked down into the dusky valley below.
    The extreme desperation of their predicament became apparent only gradually as they beheld the dark, spreading blotch rippling north and south from one promontory to the other, and stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see—like a vast black river whose waters were slowly filling the Maritsa valley with the flood of a vile and filthy sea.
    Alexius stood in awe-stricken silence, gazing into the valley at the assembled enemy: Pechenegs and Bogomils in numbers beyond counting, tribe upon tribe, whole barbarian nations rising to the slaughter of the empire. Nor were these the greatest enemy bawling for the blood of Byzantium. They were merely the last in a long, long train of barbarian hordes seeking to enrich and aggrandize themselves through the plunder of the empire’s legendary wealth.
    Alexius, the light of the dying sun in his eyes, took in the unholy sight before him, and remembered all the other times he had gazed upon the enemy before a battle. In the last thirteen years he had faced Slavs and Goths and Huns, Bulgars and Magyars, Gepids and Uzz and Avars—all howling down across the windswept steppelands of the North; and in the south the wily, implacable Arabs: first the Saracens, and now the Seljuqs, a sturdy and energetic warrior race from the arid wastes of the East.
    God in heaven, he thought, there are so many! Where does it end? Forcing down his dismay, he declared, “The greater the enemy, the greater the victory. God be praised.” After a moment, he turned to his kinsman and asked, “How many Cuman have pledged to fight for us?”
    â€œThirty thousand, basileus,” replied Dalassenus. “They are camped just over there.” He indicated a series of rough hills, behind which a pall of smoke was gathering. “Does the emperor wish to go to them?”
    Alexius shook his head slowly. “No.” He squared his shoulders and straightened his back. “We have seen enough barbarians—they hold no fascination for us. We would rather speak to our soldiers. It is time to kindle the flame of courage so that it will burn brightly in the fight.”
    He reined aside and departed the hilltop, returned to the Byzantine camp and commanded Nicetas to assemble the themes and scholae. While the soldiers were summoned, the emperor waited in his tent, kneeling before his chair, hands clasped tightly in prayer.
    When Alexius emerged from his tent once more, the sun had set, and two stars gleamed in a sky the color of the amethysts in his swordbelt. A raised platform had been erected beside the tent so that he might address his troops and, with the coming of night, torches had been lit and placed at each corner of the platform. Preceded by an excubitor bearing the vexillum, the ancient war standard of the Roman Legions, Alexius mounted the steps and walked to the edge of the platform to look out upon the assembled