“We have to find her,” Herakleia said. “She’s been gone too long.”
“We?” said Za-Ilmaknun. “No one forced her to leave. She knew the risks. She can deal with them herself.”
“We should at least wait until morning,” Hummay said. “Strategos, the Seljuks will capture you if you leave now. Besides, if they meant to kill her, they probably would have already done so.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Herakleia said.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Simonis stood. “I’ll go with you, strategos. I’m always up for a little payback.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Euphrosyne said. “You aren’t going to get any payback. You’re just going to get killed.”
The bickering continued in the dark, each person arguing with shadows that obscured the stars and the crescent moon. Their camp had no fire. Flames would have attracted attention from miles in every direction. But this meant that the expedition ate only cold rations, and that the expedition members were shivering under blankets as the evening temperatures plunged.
“I can bear no more of this.” Umm Musharrafa stood beside Simonis. “I will help you, strategos, at least to get the blood flowing through my frigid bones.”
“It may start flowing a little too much,” said Kata Surameli. “If you know what I mean.”
“That’s three,” Herakleia said. “That should be enough, although I’m starting to think maybe we should all go together, because if we also don’t make it back, what are the rest of you going to do?”
“Perhaps we should return to Trebizond and gather reinforcements,” Hummay said.
“You won’t be gathering any reinforcements,” Herakleia said. “You’ll just be gathering dust. And kisses from your new boyfriend.”
Amat al-Aziz and Nazar al-Sabiyya chuckled in the darkness.
“At least there are some among us who have a beloved to return to,” Hummay said to Herakleia.
Nazar al-Sabiyya and Amat al-Aziz said: “Oh!”
It was hard for Herakleia to respond. Since she had seduced and then assassinated Duke Robert de Hauteville—leader of Trebizond’s Latin occupation—she had been too busy for romance.
Should have known better than to argue with a scribe, she thought.
The attack came when she was trying to respond. On the dark rocky mountaintop, from above, left, right, and below, black shapes were screaming right in Herakleia’s ears so close their breath heated her neck, their saliva sprayed her skin.
“Allahu Akbar!” they cried. “Chaka Bey!”
The farr took over, and Herakleia lost herself in the hurricane, feeding off the energy of her comrades—who were doing the same, all joined together. She rolled out of the way as a man stabbed a scimitar at her, and then she swung her leg around and tripped him, scoring multiple punches to his chest and face as he smashed onto the ground. This knocked the breath from his lungs. While he was gagging, she kicked his face, knocking him out. The game voice announced the XP gain to her mêlée combat skill, though she was still at Beginner (2/10).
In the mean time, the cross on Za-Ilmaknun’s forehead was glowing orange brightly enough to cast shadows, and he was chanting scripture in an Aethiopian tongue as he swung his mequamia into the attackers so hard that blood burst from their flesh or blue-green sparks leaped from their armor.
“The Lord is my shepherd!” he shouted in Roman, swinging the swooping mequamia back and forth. “I shall not want!” Slam! “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures!” Bang! “He leadeth me beside the still waters!” Wham! “He restoreth my soul!” Crash!
Yet the wood never splintered. Hummay hid behind him, cowering with his sword trembling in his hands, crying out with fright each time someone got hurt—“Allah!”—regardless of whether this someone was friend or foe.
The amazons impressed Herakleia. In her eyes they moved at a normal speed as their attackers slowed to a crawl and then almost came to a complete stop, holding still like wax statues, and just as easy to slice through with blades burning hot from the friction of repeated strikes. But from the attackers’ perspective, they were battling dark gusts of wind that left bloodied, broken, groaning men in their wake.
The world turned beneath the amazons. Umm Musharrafa chanted “Allahu Akbar!” as she pushed off a boulder with her hands and slammed her sandaled feet into the skull of an unfortunate Seljuk. Kata Surameli, meanwhile, shouted “Saint George!” with each strike of her blade against her enemies’ scimitars. It sounded like this:
“Saint George!” Clang! “Saint George!” Clang! “Saint George!” Clang!
Her bewildered opponents tripped over the boulders behind them, dropping their weapons as their bones snapped beneath the weight of their falling armor and flesh.
Jiajak Jaqeli was invoking Tengri, and his mace thundered as it swept through the ranks of their attackers, and as his strength grew from one victory after another, lightning leaping from the metal and cooking one man to a black smoking husk that fell to the ground and scattered into a pile of ashes that the wind blew away.
Now the Seljuks were fleeing, even though dozens had attacked the mountaintop camp from every direction. But the amazons were far from finished. Amat al-Aziz and Nazar al-Sabiyya called upon the aid of the Angel that had once plagued Pharaoh with frogs, locusts, and burning meteors, smashing his pyramids, colossi, and peristyles with earthquakes, until at last the souls of the firstborn of every household without calf’s blood smeared upon the front door were carried away, for Pharaoh had ignored Moses’s demand to let his people go. Thus did these Seljuks also refuse to heed the rumors of the fighting women. Make peace with them, people across Anatolia and even beyond had said, and they will be kind and generous to you. Make war upon them, and they will destroy you utterly. Here the Angel listened, and flowed like a flood of milk through the Seljuk ranks, separating bodies from souls forever.
Thus did a surprise attack become a rout. The Seljuk survivors abandoned their fallen comrades—most of whom were wounded, not dead—and fled screaming through the darkness to the candles and torches flickering in distant Paiperte. These flames, too, were doused, as the terrified city looked at the mountain—henceforth to be named Lightning Mountain—and at the fairy lights flashing on the goatherd trail, the thunder loud enough to shake their bones and knock their cups and bowls from their tables though the battle was miles away.
Carried away by the thrill of a surprise victory, the amazons followed the Seljuks down the mountain path and into Paiperte. Only a few Seljuks remained by then, and these were banging on the doors of the houses in the outskirts, pleading for the occupants to let them in. None did. Only one Seljuk escaped the amazons long enough to climb the long winding trail to Paiperte Fortress. He was just a stepping stone for Herakleia—who seized his scimitar and leaped off his shoulders all the way over the gatehouse and the black flag, until she landed in the courtyard.
We never knew how powerful we had become, she thought as she hurtled through the air that whipped past her. We had suffered so many defeats. But we learned from them, coming back stronger as our enemies grew complacent. We talked constantly with one another, criticized each other—no matter our rank, class, age, culture, faith, no matter our anything, demoting those who failed, promoting those who succeeded—and we developed our abilities scientifically, testing our ideas in the material world, refining our attacks and defenses, a cycle of theory and praxis. We progressed so much in the last few months. As cities joined us, our powers grew.
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It was a good thing she had taken that Seljuk’s scimitar, because it turned out that this, too, was a trap. Attack them on the mountaintop, the Seljuks must have said. If the attack goes awry, draw them inside the citadel. Here the inner walls were surrounded with hundreds of bright blazing torches and archers, every one of whom nocked an arrow on his bow, drew it back on his bowstring, aimed at Herakleia, and loosed. Twang! A storm of arrows whistled at her from every direction, but Herakleia bashed each arrow away with her scimitar, and darted aside, burning through farr. Then her comrades leaped out of the night and into the torchlit courtyard—all except for Za-Ilmaknun, who had yet to learn to use the farr (what he called āsimati) to jump like a human grasshopper. He was presumably caring for Hummay back on the mountaintop.
The Seljuk archers nocked arrows again. Then they loosed these at the amazons, who sliced the arrows in half or batted them back hard enough to pierce Seljuk armor and flesh so the archers slammed onto the ground or plunged off the walls into the courtyard, coughing blood and clutching their wounds. One unfortunate Seljuk fell to the courtyard and pushed the arrow in his chest through his back.
Seeing that ranged attacks were useless, some surviving archers dropped their bows and drew their swords as the amazons leaped onto the walls. Other archers fled without knowing where to go. Some dropped to their knees, raised their hands, and begged for mercy, which the amazons granted.
Chaka Bey was in the courtyard with Miriai and Ayşe. Both women were bound and gagged—one on his left, the other on his right—but alive. Herakleia charged this demon and his four bodyguards, recognizing them from the raid at the Death Worm Marsh, the strongest and most fearsome soldiers in Anatolia, the terrorizers of Rome, sharp polished steel gleaming in the torchlight, the metal armor covering these veteran warriors like insect carapaces. They were giants, tall and muscular and young, and they stepped in her way, snorting at her and laughing as they drew their weapons.
“Watch out, honey,” one said. “I can’t wait to get my hands on you.”
“She’s mine,” said another. “No sloppy seconds for me.”
“Time to teach this girl her place,” said a third. “In my bed.”
“I’ll get you once with my sword, then again with my dick,” said a fourth. “Suck on my first sword, then my second.”
All spoke Roman. They must have been converts or mercenaries.
Wholesome characters, Herakleia thought.
She ducked beneath and around them like a mouse among titans, leaving screaming, bloodied bodies behind her, men whose last thought was I can’t believe a woman beat me, it’s not fair, she cheated! Then they gagged on the blood filling their throats. Herakleia had burned through most of her farr by now to make up for her low mêlée combat skill, which had leveled up, in the mean time, to Novice (3/10).
Soon only Chaka Bey remained. He had seized both Ayşe and Miriai by their hair with one hand and pressed his sword to their throats with the other. His eyes blazed rage at Herakleia, sweat dripping from his face, his body heaving with breath that hummed against his heavy damascened armor.
“I kill them!” he screamed. “One more step, they die!”
Herakleia stopped, lowered her bloodied scimitar to the courtyard dust, and raised her hands. She was about to tell Chaka Bey that he could leave, she would let him go if he released the prisoners, but an arrow slammed into him from behind, knocking him down. It was Simonis on the wall; she had picked up a bow and shot him.
“That was for Armenia!” she yelled, nocking another arrow. “And this is for Ani!”
Reckless, Herakleia thought. She could have hit the prisoners, or missed Chaka Bey.
Simonis loosed the second arrow, striking her target again, though the arrow bounced off his armor. As he was recovering, Ayşe and Miriai rolled away. Herakleia seized her scimitar from the ground and got between the prisoners and Chaka Bey. The other amazons on the wall had picked up bows and arrows and were loosing at him now as he fled, screaming, the arrows punching into his armor and flesh, thumping into the ground and hammering the wooden walls wherever he went. He shrieked, ran, and the arrows followed, and soon he was pierced by a hundred arrows, which stuck out from him like porcupine quills, until at last he collapsed, a puddle of red blood surrounded him, expanding, reflecting all the torch flames burning in the fortress.
You spend so much time building yourself up to defeat someone, Herakleia thought, looking for a moment at his dead body. He seems like an unstoppable monster. But then when you finally beat him, he seems so pathetic, it was like the fight wasn’t even fair to begin with—like you were beating up a toddler. You forget him, you don’t even think about him anymore. Yet this man was once the terror of the steppe, the wrecker of cities, the enslaver of nations. Now he’s just another corpse. And you move on to the next challenge.
Herakleia cut Ayşe and Miriai loose, pulled off their gags, kissed and embraced them, and asked if they were alright. All the women apologized to each other, then announced that there was nothing to apologize for. They hugged, and soon the amazons on the walls joined them—once they had disarmed and tied up the surviving Seljuks. Euphrosyne opened the gate for Za-Ilmaknun and a flustered Hummay—both had brought the horses and remaining supplies from the mountain—while Simonis, still on the wall, gathered arrows and kept an eye on the city outside, mindful of how torches and pitchforks could besiege the fortress at any moment.
We don’t even know what the situation is like in Paiperte, Herakleia thought. The Seljuks are relatively easygoing once they conquer you. Alexios told me he passed through several thriving cities of theirs in his wanderings along the northern edge of Arabia. Paiperte might prefer Seljuks to uprisers.
While Herakleia checked Ayşe and Miriai to make sure they were alright, the other amazons searched the fortress for surviving Seljuk warriors. All they found were the usual workers, servants, and peasants that staffed a fortress like this across the medieval world, from Cipangu to Ultima Thoúlē, from Novgorod to Aethiopia. Each servant hid as best they could, having little idea of who was even attacking their masters, knowing only that the attackers were (somehow) mostly women, and that Chaka Bey despised them and had already gotten his hands on two of them, one of whom happened to be his beautiful yet estranged Seran wife. The other was an old lady robed in white.
The first servants the amazons found were stable boys hiding in the rafters of the stables or behind bales of hay. Second were blacksmiths (some of the most valuable workers, often considered close to sorcerers), who had to be pulled out from behind their anvils. Third was a bushy-eyebrowed Jewish doctor named David ben Aaron, cowering in the little infirmary he had set up with a couple of apprentices. He raised his small soft hands and begged for mercy, claiming that he had been trained in Isfahan by Ibn Sina himself. Ben Aaron and his two assistants who were also his sons, named Joshua and Moses—all three men bearded and clad in black—were another valuable find. In combination with proper sanitation and the development of antibiotics, inoculation, hand-washing, masking, anatomical knowledge that came from dissecting corpses (always a thorny issue), and the idea that public health came before private profit, Muslim and Jewish doctors like these—drawing on knowledge accumulated from men and women doctors in Afrika, Sera, and Sindh and Hind—were as skilled as their twentieth century equivalents. Only cancer, heart disease, dementia, and rarer disorders vexed them.
They were also an improvement over the traveling barber surgeons upon whom most people were forced to rely. Each was an odd mix of showman, snake oil salesman, and medical professional. But these were still better than the average medieval person, who believed that manure was the answer to most medical problems. Got a wound that’s bleeding everywhere? Smear it with manure. Broke a bone? Manure. Coughing up blood? You guessed it: manure. Headache? Manure. Bad breath? What do you think?
But in reality, manure was only good for fertilizer or fire. Maybe this was why people thought it might help with medical problems. Manure worked in fields, it worked in hearths, so why wouldn’t it work on lacerations? It was the first thing sick or wounded people turned to. Perhaps it was the only thing they could turn to, since properly trained doctors were so rare here. Most people lived their entire lives without ever meeting a doctor.
Things were so much better in the old world, Herakleia thought. Rather than never seeing doctors at all, people saw them maybe once or twice in their lives, and went bankrupt as a result.
Paiperte Fortress was big. Among its many rooms, hallways, and subterranean tunnels were all kinds of hiding places. The amazons found fletchers, bowyers, sawyers, carpenters, cooks, a seamstress, an imam, Chaka Bey’s falcon (complete with falconer), a couple of enslaved councilor scribes to handle the paperwork and accounts, an itinerant darwaysh, a fool who could juggle while playing the santur, and various other slaves who were present merely to make Chaka Bey look important or to carry heavy sacks of supplies up the mountain path that led inside the castle. The amazons told these people they would be left unharmed, though the people doubted these words.
Hard to conquer a place peacefully, Herakleia thought.
Paiperte, meanwhile, was getting brighter and noisier. Simonis had already thrown open the fortress’s main gate and was rushing down the mountain, shouting about attacking their attackers. Herakleia wanted to stay with Ayşe and find out what had happened to her—the poor girl was covered with cuts and bruises—but she was forced to run after Simonis.
“Umm Musharrafa and Euphrosyne, you’re with me!” Herakleia yelled. “Everyone else, secure the castle!”
The amazons acknowledged her command. Za-Ilmaknun was already tending to Miriai and the wounded Seljuks, the orange light having faded from the cross on his forehead, while Hummay was speaking with Ayşe and his old friends, the enslaved scribes. Doctor David ben Aaron and his two assistants joined them.
Is Simonis going to commit war crimes in the city? Herakleia wondered. Will she take revenge on the Turks for what they did to the Armenians?
Herakleia ran down to the city to find out.