Alexios had hurt his right leg during the siege. When was hard to say. It might have been his fall from the sky, or the battering ram knocking him from the citadel gate. Regardless, every step now made him wince. Thankfully it wasn’t broken, but it might have been sprained, and his farr was still depleted, so healing was impossible for the moment. His health was down to 85/100.

Yet despite all the danger, his fatigue was so intense that he struggled to stay awake. He’d gotten only a few hours of sleep in the last two or three days, and had been working more or less continuously during that time. Running out of farr also made his fatigue almost unbearable. His stamina was gone.

Get Rakhsh, he thought. Get out of here, get some sleep.

After saying goodbye to Herakleia, Gontran, and Diaresso, Alexios limped to the stables, worrying that Leon would deny permission to take Rakhsh even though the Latins were minutes from overcoming the city’s last pockets of resistance. It took a long time for Alexios to get there, since he needed to hide from the Latins running into the citadel courtyard, their armor clanking, their shouts echoing into the night. He was only a Stealth Novice (3/10), so he worried he would be discovered. He heard Herakleia arguing with someone, and torches were now flickering against the masonry. Yet inside the stables it was so dark Alexios could hardly see, although he noticed—to his relief—Leon snoring on a bale of hay.

How could anyone sleep through this?

All the horses were awake, however. They were stomping their hooves and walking in circles in their cramped stalls. Alexios quietly unlatched the door to Rakhsh’s stall, mouthed the word ‘hello,’ patted his hide, tied on a saddle as well as blankets and bags of supplies, and mounted him. At this point disturbing Leon was a greater concern than—

Leon snorted. “Somebody there?”

Alexios kept still. The game voice announced that his attempt to sneak into the stables had failed.

“I can hear you!” Leon shouted. “I know you’re in here. Come on out!”

Sighing, Alexios urged Rakhsh out of his stall. “It’s me,” he whispered. “I’m taking a horse—”

“Like hell you are.” Leon blocked the doorway and drew a sword. “I’m under strict orders—”

“Quiet, or they’ll hear you!”

“Why do I have to keep telling you?” Leon continued. “Due to the shortage of mounts you need special permission to take any horses out of the what do you call it—”

An arrow whistled into Leon’s throat. He dropped his sword, clutched the spurting wound, and fell into the hay, dirt, and scattered horse dung on the ground, where he ceased moving.

Alexios gasped, then urged Rakhsh to a gallop. Neighing, the horse reared up, kicked his forelegs, and almost threw Alexios, who gripped the reins with white fingers, his tense legs holding the beast’s sides. But Alexios’s Intermediate riding skill (5/10) didn’t let him down.

Rakhsh fell back to the ground and leaped over Leon’s body, out of the stables, and through the courtyard—where all the Latin soldiers, the captured amazons, and Duke Robert, Herakleia, and Dekarch Ra’isa were already looking at him. It was more crowded than Alexios had expected. The Latins were leading out the people who had been hiding inside the citadel—mostly elders, children, and disabled people. When Alexios spotted Tamar, he pulled up Rakhsh’s reins and shouted: “Whoah!” By then the Latin archers were aiming their bows and nocking arrows; he had no farr to deflect them. But he spotted Basil and Kassia huddled by Tamar, guarded by Latins with whips and swords. The two children turned to him.

Tell me you’ll take care of them, Anna said in his memory. They have no one else.

Alexios rode forward as arrows flew past; they had missed only because of a commotion caused by Herakleia. Rakhsh knocked down one of the Latins near the children; the other Latin raised his whip and hurled it at Alexios, who caught it thanks to his high dexterity and pulled it from the man’s hands with such strength that the man fell to the ground, his armor so heavy that he was unable to stand.

Tamar’s eyes widened with surprise. As other Latins rushed toward Alexios, ready to skewer him on their spears or bash his brains out with their maces, he reached down, picked up Kassia and Basil, sat them in front of him in the saddle, and shouted for them to hold on.

“But my friends!” Basil reached out his arms to one boy and shouted: “Joseph!”

“What about Lady Tamar?” Kassia said.

Alexios shook his head. “I can barely hold you two as it is!”

“Go, children,” Tamar said.

More arrows swept past. Holding Basil and Kassia steady with his left hand, Alexios gripped Rakhsh’s reins with his right, and shouted: “Yah!”

The dark world around them blurred. They dashed through the destroyed citadel gate, where Qutalmish’s body was still lying. A few armored Latin soldiers leaped into the way and brandished their weapons; Rakhsh shoved them aside—their helmeted heads clanking against the cobblestones—and hurtled through the Upper Town’s streets. Some of the amazons bound on the ground cheered, Dekarch Ra’isa among them, her green hijab daubed in blood. The Gauls were shouting in their barbarian tongue.

Here we go again, Alexios thought.

Into the Lower Town, out of the Northeast Gate, and through the Daphnous suburbs they rode, passing the community hall, the new wooden apartment buildings, and an old church—Hagia Anna—that some said had been there since Emperor Hadrian restored the harbor nearly a thousand years ago. This was not so long after Xenophon’s Ten Thousand—drunk on poison rhododendron honey—beheld the Pontic Ocean following their long and dangerous march upcountry from Persia, and shouted: “The sea! The sea!”

Latins were already ransacking Trebizond, prying ikons from Hagia Anna and piling them in the street. Dead bodies lay everywhere; most looked like amazons—Alexios’s students. He saw Elena and Jaqeli among the corpses, both covered in blood.

I’ll kill these Latins! he thought. I’ll kill them all!

In the torchlight he spotted a Latin soldier fighting one surviving amazon—it was Zulaikha al-Jariya, the escaped harem slave from second artillery squad! The Latin was tearing the clothes and armor from her body as she screamed for help.

“Take the reins!” Alexios shouted to the children.

He handed them to Kassia, since she was sitting in front, though Basil reached forward and helped her. Alexios then drew his Gedara sword with his right hand—he was still holding the children with his left, and needed to be careful.

He swung his sword just as they passed the Latin attacking Zulaikha; the Latin’s head flew up on a fountain of blood gushing from his shoulders and tumbled to the street.

Critical hit! +20 XP to Intermediate swordfighter skill (5/10).

As the Latin’s body collapsed, Zulaikha fell back, so stunned it seemed she could hardly conceive of what had happened. At that point Alexios needed to look forward to keep Rakhsh from crashing. He sheathed his bloody sword and took the reins back from Kassia and Basil.

“Good job,” he said. “You’re both naturals.”

“Don’t do that again,” Kassia said.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. Are you two alright?”

“Why did you come and get us?” Basil said. “Why didn’t you fight those guys—”

“There’s only so much one person can do,” Alexios said. “I wish I could have saved everyone.”

“It isn’t fair,” Basil said. “You saved us and left the others behind. You left Joseph…”

“I did my best. I wasn’t going to leave you two back there.”

“We should go and fight them,” Basil said.

Alexios shook his head. “Not now. We need to do other things first. We need to be strategic. That’s what Herakleia asked.”

“It’s cowardly,” Basil said, struggling to free himself from Alexios. “We need to go back—”

“Stop it!” Alexios shouted. “You’ll fall and crack your skull open!”

Basil kept trying to free himself from Alexios’s grasp.

“You aren’t my father,” the boy said. “You have no right—”

Alexios refused to let the boy go. “It’s true. I’m sorry, I’m not your father. And I know I haven’t been there for you. But I made a promise to your mother.”

“She never asked us what we thought about you,” Basil said.

“She did the best she could,” Alexios said. “You have no idea what she went through.”

“She went crazy,” Basil said. “She abandoned us for the uprising. Just like you.”

Alexios looked at Basil, unable to believe his ears. “How can you say that?”

“She left us,” Basil said. “She got herself killed because she didn’t want to take care of us. If she’d just stayed with us…if she hadn’t joined the army…”

“Someone else would have died instead,” Alexios said. “It was a noble sacrifice.”

“But that someone wouldn’t have been my mom,” Basil said.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“What did she even sacrifice herself for?” Kassia said. “The city’s lost.”

“Not yet,” Alexios said. “We’ll go south—into the desert. My old teacher told me that his teacher lives in a place called Harran. It’s not far from Samosata, a few weeks’ journey from here. We’ll go there, find allies, come back here, and free all of our friends—one day soon.”

“More like never,” Basil said. “All you do is lie to us and yourselves. We pay the price, even though you’re the one who failed, not us. This is a disaster, Alexios.”

Alexios was too tired to argue, but he was also afraid to admit that Basil had a point. By now the pain in Alexios’s leg was also nearly unbearable. Basil by then had thankfully stopped trying to free himself from the saddle. Both children fell into silence.

The road led around Mount Minthrion to the mines and a few isolated monasteries and farms, but once Alexios exited the Daphnous suburbs he turned south and circled Trebizond's walls. Soon they found themselves on the familiar Satala Road. Since no one seemed to be following—the Latins must have been too busy sacking the city—Alexios slowed Rakhsh to give him a chance to breathe.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” he said to the children. “I know we have our differences. And I know I haven’t always been there for you. But it would have been pretty lonely out here otherwise.”

By now the children were so tired that they could hardly even nod in response. They were half asleep, lulled by the regular rhythm of Rakhsh’s cantering legs, and several times Alexios had kept them from falling off the saddle. Everyone in the city—even children like these—had been working hard and sleeping little for way too long.

Yet it didn’t matter, Alexios thought. Kassia and Basil are both right. We failed. The Latins beat us.

Morning glowed in the air. When they had reached the foot of Mount Minthrion—where the land was still scarred by the destruction of the previous army the Romans had sent here—Alexios looked back one last time at Trebizond. A storehouse by Hadrian's Harbor had burned down, and now everything smelled like cinnamon. Black smoke pillars were rising into the gray air, and screams were carried on the morning breeze. Alexios thought of Herakleia, Gontran, Diaresso, Tamar, Ra’isa, and all the others who were now trapped in Trebizond. What would happen to them? His shoulders fell.

Maybe we should never have come here, he thought. We should have just kept running from Konstantinopolis, all the way to Alania and beyond. We never should have involved the Trapezuntines in our problems.

In the dim light he noticed a ship sailing out of the harbor with an unusual swiftness, its white sails swollen with wind. It was the Paralos.

Gontran, Alexios thought, pumping his fist. Diaresso. They must have made it out!

The Latin ships were still beached and anchored some distance west of the city, past the black wounds gouged in the earth by iron balls, but soon a trio of galleys had set sail to chase the Paralos. Dozens of men on each ship needed to row hard and fast to keep up. From this distance their pounding drums echoed across the mountains and the sea.

Alexios wanted to stay so he could see what would happen next, but he was so tired he needed to keep going in order to rest. Murmuring a prayer for his friends, he turned Rakhsh around and plunged southward into the narrow Zigana Valley, so tired that it was his turn to have trouble staying on the saddle. The game voice warned that his stamina was low enough to begin affecting his health.

Romanía lay behind him, and Tourkía lay ahead.

He was unsure of how much time it took, or how he had even arrived there—maybe Rakhsh brought him—but soon he was back inside the dark frigid Haldi cave where he had slept only a few nights before in the company of Anna’s ghost. With the last of his strength he climbed down from Rakhsh and helped the sleepy children into some blankets on the cave floor. How he did this with his wounded leg was beyond him; the agony made him swear. Then he fed and watered Rakhsh, rolled himself into a blanket, and passed out.

In his dreams he plunged into hell, where the heat was searing, the darkness absolute. Here invisible flames lashed his flesh like steel-tipped whips, and he somehow saw Sopo Jaqeli and Maria Elena tumbling in the fire. They had given everything to the uprising, and this was their reward.

Then Alexios saw the Trebizond citadel courtyard at night. It was the end of the siege. The amazons were bracing the gate, but the Latins burst through, waving their swords and screaming. They would have begun killing everyone if not for Qutalmish—who shouted at the Latins to follow him. And so as the Latins chased Qutalmish, the amazons gained a chance to flee through the gate, bringing the wounded, disabled, elders, and children with them. It was a miracle. They all escaped the city and hid in the mountain valleys with the Laz villagers.

And Qutalmish, sprinting through the streets, ran out of strength. The Latins caught him. Then they held him down and violated him, one by one, cutting his throat when they tired of him.

Alexios winced, and his head fell.

It will be the same for you, a voice said. It will be the same for your friends—and for the children. You may be right about everything, but the forces of reaction are too strong. To try to overcome contradiction—that is futile.

Alexios rolled back and forth and groaned that he was sorry.

“I’m sorry, Qutalmish, I’m so sorry…”

He opened his eyes to a fire snapping at the ancient cave hearth. The light glowed on the walls and flickered in the dark stone eyes of the Haldi statuette of a man standing on a lion. This watched over the pots, pans, and cooking utensils that had been left here.

Home away from home, he thought, looking at the cave. If we keep coming here, people are going to call us troglodytes.

Basil and Kassia were whispering to each other and cooking something on a pan. They must have started the fire somehow.

Alexios sat up, terrified that he was going to get burned or that their meager supplies were going to go up in smoke. As the children stared, Alexios lunged toward Rakhsh—who was standing over the fire, his form lost amid the huge stalactites looming from the ceiling—and searched for one of the water flasks hanging from his saddle. It was gone.

Somebody took it!

Basil stood. “Alexios? What are you—”

“Why did you start a fire?” Alexios turned and glared at the boy, nearly losing his balance thanks to his sprained leg. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

“We’re in a cave,” Basil said. “How dangerous can it be?”

“You could have set the blankets on fire.”

“We moved them,” Kassia said. “We were careful.”

Alexios turned back to Rakhsh. “Where’s the water? Who took it?”

“Alexios, you’re talking to a horse,” Basil said.

Alexios's shoulders fell. Rakhsh looked at Basil as if to say that he wasn’t just any horse.

“You need to relax,” Kassia said to Alexios.

“Nothing helps people relax more than being told to relax.” Alexios pointed at the children. “Tell me where you put the water.”

“It’s right there.” Kassia nodded to Alexios’s blanket. “Right where you left it.”

The flask was indeed beside Alexios’s foot. He must have dropped it before falling asleep. Rolling his eyes, he picked it up and was about to douse the flames—and whatever the kids were cooking—but they both shouted to stop.

“We were making breakfast for you!” Kassia shouted.

Alexios looked down. There were only a few slices of bread in the skillet. The kids must have just been trying to warm them up.

Alexios fell back to his blanket, set the water flask down, and flipped the slices of bread in the skillet. They were already smoking and blackening. He dumped them onto a nearby plate and set the skillet away from the fire on the cold cave floor.

“You two need to be more careful,” Alexios said.

He sat and wrapped himself in his blanket. The smell of warm bread filled the air, and his stomach grumbled. He seized a slice from the plate and stuffed it down his throat. The game voice was telling him that this was restoring his health and stamina but decreasing his charisma.

“Don’t you have any manners?” Kassia said.

Alexios was too ravenous to answer. That was another side-effect of the farr. His was still depleted, which meant that he was now only experiencing the negative aspects of being a Zhayedan. These could be severe enough to place him into a coma. Soon he would have to recharge.

“We aren’t babies, Alexios,” Kassia said. “We can take care of ourselves. Mom taught us.”

“How old are you?” Alexios was talking with his mouth full. “Five?”

“I’m seven,” Kassia said. “Basil is ten.”

“How can you not know that?” Basil said.

“I’ve been busy,” Alexios said.

“Yeah, we know.” Basil took a bread slice for himself, then handed the plate to Kassia. “As soon as the first siege ended, you dumped us in the orphanage and never looked back.”

“That isn’t true,” Alexios said. “You know I have other responsibilities. I’m practically in charge of the whole military. And we have a lot of work to do.”

“Fine,” Basil said. “But that doesn’t change what you did to us.”

“Single parents do much worse in Romanía, don’t they?” Alexios said. “They give their kids up to monasteries. At least you weren’t being taken care of by a bunch of priests.”

“No one talks about priests the way you do,” Kassia said.

“That’s not true,” Alexios said. “People in every time and place constantly complain about priests. But still, where I come from, they’re a little different from here. In Romanía, they’re part of the community. But where I come from…”

He trailed off. The children were silent.

Frowning, Alexios looked to the cave entrance. It was light outside.

“Is it morning or evening?” he said.

“Has to be one or the other, Alexios,” Basil said.

“Hey, look, I don’t appreciate your tone,” Alexios said. “And your mom told you to call me your uncle.”

“You aren’t my uncle,” Kassia said.

“I just thought you’d want to respect her last wishes,” Alexios said.

Basil had stopped eating and was staring at the flames. “If we’d stayed in Hebdomon, she’d still be alive.”

“And father, too,” Kassia said.

Alexios sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring her—”

“It’s like she’s died a second time,” Basil said. “The first time she dies for real. But then the second time she dies because no one wants to talk about her since it’s too upsetting.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Alexios said. “Do you want me to talk about her and not talk about her at the same time?”

“I don’t know,” Basil said. “Maybe we just shouldn’t talk at all.”

Alexios looked at them. He saw Anna in both their faces.

“I loved your mother,” he said. “You know that. I only knew her for a few weeks, but she was so great. I mean, really, she was the nicest person I’d ever met. And a sharp student. She was learning so quickly, faster than anyone else. She was a great comrade. We could have used her help yesterday…”

He felt so sad he had stopped eating.

“She’s gone, Alexios,” Basil said. “You’re right. There’s no use talking about her.”

“I never said that. We should talk about her. We should keep her memory alive. We should cherish the time we got to spend with her while she was here.”

“She’s never coming back.” Tears brimmed in Kassia’s eyes, and her mouth was trembling. “We’ll never see her again.”

She began to cry. Basil hugged her and rubbed her back. Alexios felt powerless to help them.

“You’re all that’s left of her.” His voice was shaking. “And I loved her so much…I’ll do anything to keep you both alive.”

No one spoke. Kassia shuddered as she cried into Basil’s chest.

“I think we need to talk about something else.” Basil wiped his eyes with his free hand and looked to the cave entrance. “Like where we’re going. And what we’re going to do. We can’t stay here. It’s freezing.”

The oldest is so often the responsible one, Alexios thought. He was only an initiate in his parenting skills, so a statement like this sounded profound to him.

“That’s very true,” he said to Basil. “We have to head south. To Sarakenou lands.”

“Sarakenou?” Kassia said. “Like those monsters the priests warned us about?”

Basil rolled his eyes. “They aren’t monsters, stupid. They’re regular people just like us.”

“Don’t call her that,” Alexios said. “She isn’t stupid. And I hate that word, stupid. Once you start thinking some people are just smart and other people are just stupid, you’re halfway to measuring people's skulls with calipers. I don’t want you talking like that about anyone, do you understand?”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Basil said. “You lost your city, and that means no one has to listen to you at all. You used to be Kentarch Leandros, but now you aren’t the kentarch of anything. The uprising is over. You lost.”

These words hurt Alexios so much he was unable to think of anything to say. He just shook his head.

“It isn’t over,” he said. “You’ll see.”

“I’m sure,” Basil said.