After the immortal century tired of punishing Nikomedeia for its treachery, Narses ordered his men to spare two hundred of the city’s strongest male youths. Reinforcements were needed, and these could be taught the divine farr. It was too dangerous to teach the grown men; they would desert at the first opportunity and then join the criminals or the Skythioi.
Every other survivor would be enslaved. All property that escaped the flames would be divided among the immortals, Orban’s engineers, and His Majesty.
By evening the city was a heap of blackened rubble. Fires burned everywhere like red silk pennants gleaming in the sun. A mountain of treasure had been piled just outside the broken gate. Paul the Chain and Stefan Nemanjos were counting chests full of coins and jewelry and ikons, issuing promissory notes to the immortals, and then shipping everything to the capital. They did this because it was impossible to drag so much loot around Asia.
The survivors of the carnage were led outside the city walls. There, near the corpse mound and the refuse piles, the immortals separated the strong male youths from everyone else. Nikomedeia’s people cried and struggled to break free as they were tied together. Then the separated families began their long journey walking to the slave market in the Valley of Lamentations in Konstantinopolis. A few claimed that they were Roman citizens and had rights; they were beaten into silence.
By now Narses had recovered from his arrow wound. His health and farr were replenished. He ordered the burial of John and the dead engineers, which was overseen by Father Kosmas. As was usual with priests these days, Kosmas forbade the friends of the deceased from leaving nomismas in their hands to pay Charon to ferry their souls across the river in Hades, but this was an old habit from the days of Thucydides. The eyes of the dead were closed to stop demons from infesting them; their mouths were shut to prevent their pneuma from falling back inside their bodies and getting trapped on Earth.
The century used the shovels they carried to bury their brothers. A tile placed on the mound was marked IC XC NIKA, meaning Jesus Christ Conquers. The gathered immortals and engineers crossed themselves as Father Kosmas, wiping tears from his eyes, cried about how our time on Earth is but a prelude to our immortal lives in heaven.
“We must conquer the beasts of darkness within us,” Father Kosmas said. “And embrace the Angels of Light. Reason must overcome madness. Faith must overcome faithlessness. Christ must triumph over the black devilish hordes of barbarism, paganism, heathenism, and rebelliousness. The traitors wish to defy God’s will, and level the natural social order. Our brothers in Christ have died because of their perversions.”
John would have agreed. Narses snorted to hold back his sadness.
When the funeral ended, Narses returned to Nikomedeia to join Paul in interrogating the city doux. This man—if he could be called a man—was named Georgios Tornikes. Tying him down outside the broken walls, Paul explained that Tornikes would be tortured to death unless he cooperated.
“I’m eager,” Tornikes blubbered. “Eager to cooperate.”
“Good, very good,” Paul said. He turned to his slave girls Zaynab and Clotilda, who were standing behind him, heads bowed, hands held together. “Search the city for rats and place them inside a cage.”
“Where are we supposed to find those, boss?” Zaynab said.
“Perhaps the rat catchers survived the conflagration.” Paul turned to the governor. “The city has a rat catcher, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Tornikes said. “Oh, yes, of course. They sell the rats to the poor for food. If the building survived, it won’t be far from the Konstantinopolis Gate. But what do you need rats for?”
“Now you know where to look,” Paul said to the two slaves. “We’ll also need a torch.”
Sighing and rolling their eyes, the slave girls left.
The eunuch is lax with his slaves, Narses thought. Any slave who looks at his master the wrong way should be whipped. To even thank a slave teaches him nothing but laziness.
“Returning to my earlier line of questioning,” Paul said to Tornikes. “First things first. Have you joined the traitors, my lord doux?”
Tornikes looked at Paul like he had lost his mind. “Sir?”
“The revolt. Have you joined it?”
“Ah, now I understand—but no, never, sir! I never joined them—never assisted them. I swear—we were only afraid of letting your men into the city—”
“Why did you attack us?” Paul said. “Why did you bring so much destruction upon this beautiful city of yours? Is Nikomedeia not used to hosting the occasional imperial army, lying as the city does along the road from the capital into Asia?”
“The merchants—they said you were planning to attack. Your men got drunk and told them. It was all we could do! We had to defend ourselves! Surely you can understand. Now, please, sir, I have family, they’re right over there.” He looked to a nearby crowd of Nikomedeian women and children. All were staring at Tornikes, but one woman holding a baby with one arm and a child close to her side with the other was screaming at an immortal, who was keeping her back.
Narses stepped toward Tornikes. “Tell us where the capital of the revolt is located, and you’ll be released.”
“Sir.” Tornikes looked back and forth from Narses to Paul. “I already told—”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Paul made the letter ‘X’ across his chest. “By the Cross, by all that is holy, we will release you to your family—and even spare them from enslavement—if you cooperate.”
Tornikes began to cry. “I swear I don’t know! I would tell you if I did! What can I gain from lying to you?”
“This one is loyal to the cause,” Narses said.
“A true believer,” Paul added.
Just then, Kentarch Tzanichites galloped up to them and dismounted from his horse. “Domestikos, pardon my interruption, but we’ve received word from Konstantinopolis. The fleet pursuing the fugitives has signaled that they are likely sailing east to Trebizond.”
“Trebizond,” Paul said. “Are you certain?”
Tzanichites nodded. “They can’t be going anywhere else, sir.”
“That’s it,” Narses said. “That’s the capital of the revolt.”
“How can you be so sure?” Paul said.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Kentarch Tzanichites said, “but some horsemen were sighted escaping Nikomedeia during the attack. They were riding south the last time we saw them. That’s the fastest way to Trebizond. I know, I used to live near there before a monster drove my people out of our village.”
“But that isn’t proof of anything!” Tornikes cried. “The southward road is the only way to escape from you and your army—”
“Shut up,” Paul said.
“Prepare the century for departure,” Narses said to Kentarch Tzanichites. “Apprise His Majesty the Emperor of the situation.” Shading his eyes, he squinted at the sun. “Many hours of daylight remain for our march.”
“Sir.” Tzanichites nodded, then mounted his horse and rode off.
Narses walked back toward camp, and trumpets blasted, sounding assembly. At that time Paul’s slave girls returned. Zaynab held a metal cage containing a trio of rats while Clotilda held a torch. The slave girls looked tired and annoyed.
“That was fast,” Paul said.
“We found them,” Zaynab said.
“They were where he told us they would be.” Clotilda jutted her chin at the doux.
“General Narses,” Paul said over his shoulder. “What are we to do with the doux, now that we no longer require his services?” He gestured to Tornikes, still trembling and blubbering in the grass.
Narses stopped and looked back. “Kill him.”
“No, Domestikos!” Tornikes screamed. “I swear before Holy God—”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Paul said.
He snatched the cage from Zaynab, opened the door, and quickly pressed it to Tornikes’ chest before the rats inside could escape. Then Paul took the torch from Clotilda and held it against the metal top of the cage. Tornikes writhed and shrieked. To escape the heat from the fire, the rats burrowed into the doux, their claws and teeth tearing and lapping at his flesh. He screamed in agony, all while Paul held the cage down with the torch. The two slave girls grimaced in disgust. Nearby, the city's last survivors—lined up before the walls—stared open-mouthed. Tornikes’s wife turned away, clutched her baby close, and covered her child’s eyes.
Soon Tornikes's only movements came from the rats chewing through his body. They emerged from red holes in his sides and dashed away through the grass, leaving three bloody trails.
Zaynab vomited. Clotilda held the girl’s hair back.
“Toss him into the corpse pile,” Paul said to the two slave girls as he walked to the camp, which was being disassembled. “Be quick about it. We need to be moving along.”
Clotilda nodded to her master while patting Zaynab’s back; her companion was still coughing. Yet soon they got to work. After all, the only thing worse than following Paul was being left behind in a place like this, where who knew what would happen to them.
They dragged Tornikes’s body to the enemy corpse pile—muttering about how they had never seen anything so awful—and threw it there. Many of the dead were already stinking and bloated. Crows and ravens were feasting on them, their sharp beaks tearing eyeballs from sockets, while dogs gnawed severed arms and legs. Father Kosmas refused to bless the dead, saying that they deserved to burn in the Hell of the Damned for betraying the Vicegerent of God, Emperor Nikephoros, and worshipping the false idol of the rabble-rousing Emperor Anastasios. At the same time, Doctor Asklepiodoros was lamenting to Ignatios the loss of so many good bodies, since much could be learned of their anatomy by examining them.
“By Allah, I would give anything to return to the palace,” Zaynab whispered to Clotilda, overhearing the doctor’s comment.
Clotilda nodded. “To be a house slave is better than being a slave of the fields.”
Soon the immortal century was ready to depart. The Basilik had also been disassembled, its various parts loaded onto ox-pulled carriages.
“Our first combat test was quite a success, wouldn’t you agree?” Orban said, walking beside Narses, who was riding his war horse Xanthos again. “We had fired it before, but never at an actual military target. We may have loaded too much powder inside this time—perhaps out of overzealousness. That’s why we lost those men. But to be sure, we’ll do better in the future.”
“I hope so,” Narses said. “You only have so many engineers.”
“We’ll be careful, Domestikos,” Orban said. “Sometimes all it takes to change the world is a little conflagration.”
Eager to escape the engineer, Narses rode to the two hundred captured youths, whose wrists were bound and who were tied to each other. Many had been wounded or were covered in soot. The younger ones were crying and doing their best to keep close to their older brothers. Narses ordered them to stop marching, then told the guards to procure bread and water sufficient to feed the captives. This being brought—with Quartermaster Nemanjos complaining about all the new mouths to feed—Narses dismounted and distributed food and drink to the youths, slapping them if they refused. Father Kosmas helped.
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“Your old lives are over,” Narses told the youths. “Your new lives are now beginning. I am Narses, Domestikos of the Scholai. I will make you stronger than you ever thought possible.”
“God commands you to obey the representative of your Emperor,” Father Kosmas added. “You risk eternal damnation if you refuse.”
This statement pleased Narses. He looked at the priest, thinking him useful.
The youths ate and drank mechanically. Still, Narses kept talking to his new recruits.
“Now you are part of something greater,” he said. “You are joining our great project to restore law and order to Romanía. All of the chaos and violence will disappear with your help. Together, we can return to normalcy and civility. We will make you strong, for the people of Romanía need you.”
“Here’s an idea,” one youth said, glaring at Narses. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
Father Kosmas gasped. Many youths were also shocked that anyone had talked back to Narses. The general looked at this boy. He was lithe and muscular, with dark skin, dark hair, and furtive, intelligent eyes which reflected the fires burning his city. At the same time, there was something ugly, dirty, and poor about him. His parents must have had the faces of mastiffs. The poor and the criminals always looked so ugly, while Narses and his men looked like ancient Greek statues.
Narses addressed this boy. “Yours is the pain of a man being born from a child—”
“You’re a murderer,” the boy said. “If there’s any justice in the world, you’ll pay for this, you coward. Why don’t you take off these bindings and fight me one-on-one? Tell your slaves here not to help you when I kick your ass.”
Narses nodded at him. “Nothing will be more satisfying for me than when I make you one of us. I have little doubt that you will be one of our greatest immortals. Perhaps one day you will surpass me.”
“Let’s go, coward,” the youth said. “Or are you afraid of a fair fight?”
Narses laughed through his nose. “What is your name?”
“Why should I tell you?” The boy looked at his fellows. “What do we have to lose? If we band together—”
“More than you know,” Narses said.
He drew his Almaqah sword and approached the boy, who glared at him, even as other boys nearby tried to move away.
When Narses was close enough to strike, the boy spat on his face. Narses wiped away the spit, then raised his sword and cut him loose from the ropes that bound him.
“Knock me down,” Narses said. “Then you can find your family and spare them from slavery.”
He stepped away from the crowd of tied-up youths, and the boy followed. Father Kosmas, the guards, and the youths watched.
“Wow, this is fair,” the boy told Narses. “You’re fighting me with a sword while I’m unarmed. The chroniclers back in Konstantinopolis are going to write fifty epic poems about this.”
“We can even the odds a little,” Narses said.
With the farr brightening in his veins, he gestured to the scabbard of a nearby guard, and the sword flew into his hand.
The boy’s mouth opened as Narses handed him the sword, hilt-first.
“Fight me,” Narses said. “If you truly believe the nonsense you have spoken here today.”
“Get him, Romanos!” another youth—one with orange hair—shouted.
The boy—Romanos—shook his head, but kept his eyes on Narses. “He just wants to make an example of me so everyone else falls in line, Joseph. Plus, he has some kind of magic power. How am I supposed to beat him?”
“Just try!” Joseph yelled.
“Who’s the coward now?” Narses said.
Romanos tossed the sword onto the ground and sat with the tied-up youths.
“I could find your family members and finish them off,” Narses said. “Your mother and father. Your brothers and sisters. I could drink their souls.” He turned to Kosmas. “Tell us, father. What happens to the spirits of the living, when immortals like me devour them?”
“They are annihilated from existence, Domestikos,” Father Kosmas said. “They become so much food when they are consumed by immortals. It’s a fate worse than death, or even being cast into the Hell of the Damned. Their souls are trapped inside you, and must watch as you destroy everyone and everything they love.”
“Thank you, father, for enlightening us,” Narses said.
Romanos wiped the tears from his eyes with dirty hands. Then he stood again, and all the youths cheered. They were standing with Romanos now, urging him on.
“If I win, you set us all free,” Romanos said to Narses. “Including our families. And you never come back to Nikomedeia. You go back to Konstantinopolis, and you stay there forever. Otherwise—”
“Fair enough,” Narses said. “And if I win, you join us willingly, and become a hero for the people of Romanía.”
“For the rich shitheads of Romanía, you mean,” Romanos said.
“We fight for everyone’s freedom, even if some do not appreciate our efforts.”
“What a load of bullshit. When you talk about freedom, all you mean is the freedom to enslave. When you say you fight for everyone, all you mean is that you fight for the rich.”
Before Narses could respond, Romanos picked up the sword with both hands. It was a good blade, an aerolith Ethiopian-forged, one that belongs in an immortal’s hands, but too big and heavy for a youth. Holding it, Romanos approached Narses, who raised his Almaqah sword. Then the youth stabbed at him, coming close to nicking him with the tip, but Narses was too fast. Swinging his blade, he cut into the boy’s shoulder. Romanos cried out, dropped his sword, and clutched the wound, which spurted blood through the gaps in his fingers. The other youths shouted their disappointment.
“Anger is nothing,” Narses said to the youth. “Skill is everything. You must bring order to the chaos in your soul.”
“Fuck off, war criminal,” Romanos gasped.
Narses wiped his sword on the grass, sheathed it, then walked back toward his destrier, Xanthos. He was about to order a guard to tie up the boy again when his hackles rose, and Father Kosmas shouted for him to watch out. Drawing Almaqah once more, Narses turned just in time to deflect the other blade—which Romanos had hurled at him. The blade slammed into the earth, burying itself deep.
“Better.” Narses sheathed Almaqah and met the boy’s eyes. “Romanía needs soldiers like you.”
He returned the other sword to a nearby guard, who retied the boy’s restraints. Then the youths continued walking as before. Joseph congratulated Romanos; others mocked or criticized him. The voice informed Narses that the XP gained from fighting an unskilled youth was modest. His farr was also slightly depleted, but he didn’t care.
There’s plenty of bodies, he thought. Plenty of dead. No shortage of souls to eat.
Soon the entire century, the youths, the engineers, and slaves and other hangers-on all marched southward along the rode to Nikaia. Two hours before nightfall, Narses—learning from his mistakes—ordered his men to chop down wood from a nearby copse and erect a palisade behind a ditch.
I cannot hear Paul say ‘I told you so,’ Narses thought. I will lose whatever remains of my mind if I do.
Several immortals were posted to guard duty while others started campfires and assisted Nemanjos in cooking dinner. Kentarch Tzanichites commanded the dekarchs to note who did what, in order to ensure a fair rotation in the future, but because officers of such low rank were typically illiterate, the duty passed to the quartermaster Nemanjos himself. He had nothing to keep track of these things except his wax tablet.
An hour passed before dinner was ready. By then the century’s leadership was lying on their cloaks around a fire at the camp’s center, separate from the general soldiery. Zaynab and Clotilda served Narses, Paul, Nemanjos, Orban, Tzanichites, Doctor Asklepiodoros, and Father Kosmas their bread and meat and wine, which had been plundered from Nikomedeia earlier that day. After Father Kosmas said grace, Narses spilled some of his wine into the grass for the souls of Kentarch John and the dead engineers. The others joined him. Narses glanced at Paul, thinking he would remark on the outlandishness of this pagan rite, but the logothete said nothing. Then they all began to eat.
“Do you expect it will be a hard march to Trebizond, Domestikos?” Paul tore the flesh from a chicken wing with his teeth. “Our destination must be over five thousand stadia from here.”
“We can march a hundred and fifty stadia each day,” Narses said. “It will be weeks before we arrive and put an end to this.”
“A month, to be more precise, assuming things go as quickly as today’s siege,” Nemanjos said. “Tomorrow we shall be in Nikaia.”
“Ah yes, surely a simple matter to take that city,” Paul said. “You forget, forty thousand people live there. The walls are twenty cubits high and surrounded by a moat much bigger than Nikomedeia’s. There are a hundred defensive towers. It has taken years for armies a hundred times the size of ours to besiege that place, for it lies alongside Lake Askania and can easily replenish its food and water. It is not just some provincial hellhole—it is where the Creed of Christianity was first standardized—under the divine auspices of the Holy Spirit, of course.”
“You assume the city will not open its doors for us,” Narses said.
“Why should it open its doors, my dear Domestikos?” Paul said. “They will have heard about their sister city Nikomedeia’s fate by the time we reach them.”
“News does not travel so fast,” Narses said. “We will take the city by surprise.”
Paul laughed. “I think you are about to learn the hard way that optimism without evidence can be rather deadly, Domestikos. You must suppress emotion in favor of facts.”
Narses rolled his eyes. Paul continued.
“It is a simple fact, for instance, that those educated in the university are of a fundamentally greater intelligence—a sounder mind—than those without university educations. Indeed, we are simply born smarter. We can’t help that our blood is of a finer quality than the muck that flows through the veins of the worthless rabble. Even our skulls are of a more refined shape—closest to the symmetry of Apollo, and farthest from crooked Dionysos, raised as we are in the ideally moderate clime of Hellas—not like the cold north or the hot south, both producing men fit only for slavery.”
“We are all God’s children,” Father Kosmas said.
“I should know,” Paul said, ignoring the priest. “I have measured the skulls of Konstantinopolis’s beggars and atsinganou, and every time I have found that features like pronounced prognathism and brow ridges are only seen in those subject to the choleric humor as well as the perilous influence of the planet Mercury when it is in retrograde.”
What is this guy talking about? Narses thought.
“We are qualified experts, the best in the world—islands of brilliance and education rising from a sea of ignorance and barbarism.” Paul glanced at Narses.
This deviant believes me a fool, Narses thought. How little he knows.
Nemanjos changed the subject. “Our journey is simple. From Nikaia we go through Galatia to Ankara, the anchor of the east. Then across to Amasea and Sebastea. Once we strike the Pontic Alps, we cut north to Trebizond.”
“Such a long journey.” Paul covered his face. “Aren’t those last two cities you mentioned—aren’t they ruins or just small towns now?”
Father Kosmas glared at him. “Jesus never told us to bless the bellyachers.”
“We shall be hardened by the time we find the traitors,” Narses said. “Once we’ve defeated them in battle, we can send riders back to the capital. They can order ships to bring us home to Trebizond—if the winds are still blowing westward.”
“We must hurry, then,” Nemanjos said. “The winds turn the wrong way at summer’s end.”
“One might wonder why we don’t simply take ship to Trebizond in the first place,” Paul said.
“What do you think this is?” Narses gestured to the immortals and engineers eating around the fires in the darkness. “A pleasure excursion? We are putting down a revolt, logothete, one that spans all Romanía. If the journey seems too difficult, perhaps you should return to your soft couches in the imperial palace. You would have more privacy to enjoy the company of your slave girls.”
Tzanichites laughed, glancing at Zaynab and Clotilda, who were eating away from the fire with the doctor’s assistant, Ignatios.
“We just have one century,” Paul said. “One hundred warriors—no, we lost Kentarch John last night, may God rest his soul.” Paul crossed himself. “Ninety-nine warriors plus about—how many engineers have you got left?” He looked at Orban.
“One hundred and seventy-four,” Orban said.
“Then we’ve decided to bring along two hundred youths, of uncertain loyalty and skill,” Paul continued. “They are merely another burden.”
“We will train them,” Narses said. “When we reach Trebizond, they will be strong.”
“How will you achieve these staggering feats, Domestikos?” Paul said. “Who has the energy?”
“The immortals shall train them,” Narses said. “When we rest from our marches.”
Paul laughed. “What an absurd notion. All of us will be far too tired to train much of anything, let alone a band of surly street urchins.”
“We will gather more men as we march,” Narses said. “Assuming any loyal men remain in Romanía. We must be prepared to meet a large force in Trebizond.”
“Larger than just a century, you mean,” Paul said. “All Asia will have descended upon it—the King of Sera, the Sultan of Iconium, the Khan of the Steppe, and all their hordes and armies. All Asia will ride out to meet us.”
Narses nodded. “Perhaps.”
“It wasn’t my choice to come here.” Paul looked at the century’s other leaders, most of whom were too hungry and tired to do more than eat and drink. “At first I thought I could make the best of it when His Majesty the Emperor ordered me to accompany yet another expedition. But today…”
“You are tired,” Narses said. “You must rest.”
“I was correct when I told you to construct defenses the previous night,” Paul said. “John would be alive now, if we had. I am likewise correct now. This march will be the end of us. We will be starved, diseased, and exhausted, and our numbers will be reduced at least by half when we reach Trebizond. This is a death march.”
“That is blasphemy,” Father Kosmas said. “An army blessed by God cannot be defeated.”
“History provides abundant examples to the contrary,” Paul said. “Only a few years ago we lost an entire army to the Skythioi at Manzikert. Was that part of God’s plan, too?”
“We were sinful,” Father Kosmas said. “God saw fit to punish us. His ways are not always ours. As insects misunderstand men, so do men misunderstand God.”
Paul looked at him. “There is nothing I can say to change your mind.”
“You are speaking with a priest, eunuch,” Father Kosmas said.
“Gentlemen,” Nemanjos said. “There is no need for argument. We must hold true to each other if we are to triumph over these challenges. We must put our differences aside and unite in order to face the common danger.”
“Yes.” Paul forced a smile. “I suppose you’re right, quartermaster.”
They spoke no more. When the leadership had finished eating and drinking, the two slave girls cleaned up the mess. Narses checked to ensure that night watches had been organized, and then lay down inside his tent, which Nemanjos had unloaded from a mule and set up for him. Then Narses closed his eyes to the night—feeling a mountain of fatigue suffocating him—and blinked them open again to daylight shining on the tent canvas. The trumpeter was sounding reveille, and men outside were talking, yawning, pissing. Their metal armor and weapons clinked as they packed, their horses whinnied, and the prostitutes who had followed them all the way from Konstantinopolis washed the dishes. Within the hour, everyone was marching to Nikaia.