Strategos: Island in the Storm by Gordon Doherty Read Free Book Online Page B

shrink as he saw a dust plume and dark shapes cresting the saddle of land in the shady valley. An instant later, the thrum of loosing arrows sounded, and the air behind the fleeing Byzantine archers darkened as a storm of arrows plunged down upon their fleeing backs. Hundreds fell and hundreds more stumbled over the fallen.
    ‘Ghazis!’ Philaretos gasped, clutching at the pole of his standard in disbelief, seeing the Seljuk riders swoop like raptors over the saddle of land and down towards the camp. Spiked, conical helms. Iron, horn or leather armour. Nocked bows, levelled spears and raised scimitars. His eyes swept over them once, twice and again. Still, more poured over the saddle. Five, six, no – seven thousand, he realised.
    The ghazis unleashed a howling war cry as they caught up with the fleeing toxotai. Without armoured spearmen to protect them, the fleeing Byzantine bowmen stood no chance, falling to the flashing curved blades and sharp lances of these swift riders. Blood spouted and puffed up through the still heat, screams were cut short and the archers were felled like wheat. Those who tried to break away were punched to the ground, backs peppered with arrows.
    ‘Close the gates!’ Philaretos roared, pulling the standard from the earth and waving it frantically to and fro as the ghazi mass raced for the open western gate. The skutatoi were in disarray, men tripping over each other as they hurried to find their armour and weapons. Just sixteen guarded the open gate in arms and armour. They threw down their spears and shields in an attempt to close the timber gates. Philaretos rushed to aid them, throwing his shoulder to the stubborn gate. It was inches from coming into line with the locking bar, when his world was thrown upside down. He and the sixteen were cast back through the dust as the gates were barged back open. The tide of ghazis poured inside the camp and spilled across the sea of tents. The unprepared skutatoi threw up what defence they could, jabbing spears, swinging burning firewood or hurling rocks at them. Those who had taken up their shields and spears in time tried to gather together, but the swooping ghazis gave them no time, breaking apart these determined clusters of men and cutting them down. Philaretos, dazed, slumped and unseen by the open western gate, blinked again and again at the rout that ensued. For the first time in his career he was utterly lost. He saw his six thousand fall, limbs shorn, skulls crushed, chests pocked with arrows. Some Byzantines splashed into the shallows of the Euphrates, only to have their skulls split by pursuing Seljuk riders, and soon there were hundreds of corpses drifting off downriver in a crimson wash. One ghazi was the most ferocious of all. A scale-vested rider crowned with a stud-rimmed spike helm. His face was a mask of shadow, with just green eyes glinting, scouring the fray. He cut one man down, then another, swiftly turning to find the next at haste as if searching for the one death that would satisfy him.
    Philaretos watched this one, numb with fear. When a gawping Byzantine head bounced past his feet, and a mizzle of blood settled upon him, something changed. He looked up, seeing some other ghazi who had beheaded the soldier. At once, the shame of his folly turned into anger. He leapt up, ducking the thrown spear the rider aimed at him, then drawing his spatha and hacking it through the rider’s thigh. Flesh cleaved and bone shattered, the rider fell from the saddle in gouts of blood. Philaretos leapt onto the riderless mount and heeled the beast this way and that, parrying, hacking and ducking a storm of blows as he tried to find some hope of a counter attack. But there was nothing, he realised. He set his eyes upon the western gate. Most of the ghazis had spilled inside the camp’s walls now, indulging in the slaughter. The land outside was free of enemies. He filled his lungs and bellowed to all who could hear.
    ‘Retreat!’ he cried,