The Iron Lance Read Online Free PDF Page B

might of Byzantium—a force much reduced from its former size, but potent still.
    The last of the ancient and honorable themes stood in ranks before him, their separate regiments marked out by the color of their cloaks and tunics: the red of Thrace, the deep blue of Opsikion, the green of Bithynia, the gold of Phrygia, and the black of the Hetairi. Rank on rank, upraised spears gleaming in the dusky twilight, they stood, fifty thousand strong, the last remnant of the finest soldiers the world had ever seen: the Immortals. Alexius’ heart swelled with pride to see them.
    â€œTomorrow we fight for the Glory of God and the welfare of the empire,” the emperor declared. “Tomorrow we fight. But tonight, my brave companions—tonight, above all nights, we pray!”
    Alexius paced the edge of the platform, his golden breastplate glimmering like water in the torchlight. How many times had he addressed his troops in just this way, he wondered. How many more times must he exhort men to lay down their lives for the empire? When would it end? Great God, there must be an end.
    â€œWe pray, my friends, for victory over the enemy. We pray for strength, and courage, and endurance. We pray God’s protection over us, and his deliverance in the heat and hate of battle.” So saying, Alexius, Elect of Heaven, Equal of the Apostles, fell on his knees and fifty thousand of the finest warriors the world had ever seen knelt with him.
    Raising his hands to heaven, the emperor sent heartfelt words of supplication and entreaty winging to the throne of God. His voice rang out in the twilight stillness with all the passion of a commander who knows his troops woefully outnumbered and must trust their courage to sway the scales of war.
    When at last the emperor finished, night had descended upon the camp. Alexius opened his eyes and stood to gaze in amazement at a most miraculous sight; it was as if the stars above had fallen to earth, and the plain before him now sparkled with all the glory of heaven itself. Each and every soldier had a lighted wax taper affixed to the blade of his spear—fifty thousand earthstars shining with bright-flecked rays, illuminating the camp with a clear and holy light.
    The glow from that light sustained Alexius through the long, restless night, and was with him still when he rode out at the head of his troops before dawn. The imperial cavalry crossed theMaritsa a few miles upstream of the encamped enemy, formed the battalions, and waited for daybreak. They attacked from the east, with the light of the rising sun at their backs. To the sleep-sotted barbarians, it seemed as if the warhost of heaven was streaming down upon them from out of the sun.
    Alexius struck the confused mass at the center of the Pecheneg and Bogomil horde. It was a swift, sharp thrust into the belly of the beast, and he was away again before the barbarian battlehorns had sounded the call to arms. Having roused and enraged the enemy, he fell back—just out of reach of their slings and spears—and waited for them to make their counter attack.
    The invaders, eager to avenge the assault, hastily formed a battleline and began their plodding advance. The imperial defenders looked out on a single vast, clotted mass of bellowing barbarians—less an ordered line than an enormous human tidal wave rolling across the land—and heard the deep jarring bone-rattling thump of the drums, the strident, sense-numbing blare of the huge, curved battlehorns, and the defiant cries of the warriors as they swept towards them with quickening pace.
    It was a display calculated to produce terror in the beholder; it was their chief weapon, and one which served them well; with it, they had conquered tribe and nation, overrunning all they surveyed. The empire’s soldiers had faced it before, however, and the sight and sound of barbarians massing for their attack no longer inspired shock or dismay, no longer quelled the heart in