A Burning Sea Read online

  ‘Rhesios, Romanus, Karisios. All these bloody gate names are giving me a headache,’ grumbled Einar in Norse.

  ‘Just be grateful you’re not standing on that other one,’ Erlan muttered back. The sight across the narrow valley was like nothing he’d ever seen. All along the high inner walls the ramparts were crowded with Byzantine troops, and amongst them tall wooden contraptions swayed and lurched as they were manhandled into position. ‘Onagers’, ‘mangonels’ – words he had learned that day, which signified the great timber monsters whose wooden arms could fling massive rocks and stones and other missiles a terrifying distance. Beneath them on the terrace between the two walls in the lee of the outer fortification awaited a sea of men in blue and red and green tunics, banners fluttering among them in the westerly wind, each flag with its many-coloured streamers marking a different tagmata – the war-bands the Byzantines divided their soldiers into. Running beyond the outer wall was a deep moat, only half-filled with water. Already it was a midden swamp of battle gear and bodies.

  Beyond the moat, the approach to the city was teeming with the Arab host: foot soldiers, mounted horsemen, giant siege weapons and towers. The noise was appalling, the valley resounding with the battle-cries of the swarming troops, the distant whump of huge stone missiles smashing against the walls of the city, the thrum and shriek of flaming arrows looping in both directions.

  Erlan watched one of the Arab siege engines release its mechanism. It moved differently to the stocky punch of the Byzantine onagers. Instead it unwound with deceptive grace, its long arm accelerating slowly, and at last sweeping up a pot of burning pitch and launching it like a comet through the sky. A few moments later the fireball smashed among the battlements not fifty paces south of where they stood. The boiling fire scattered among the defenders in a shower-burst of sparks and sherds of scalding clay. Their shrieks flared briefly with the flames then died away. But the walls had suffered no damage at all.

  ‘We should move further north, Majesty,’ advised Katāros. ‘You are too exposed here if the fighting should turn this way.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Leo cried, apparently enjoying himself. ‘We’re perfectly safe. Besides, we won’t see a damned thing if we drop down the other side.’

  ‘We can’t afford you to suffer any harm, Majesty,’ the chamberlain insisted in his high, sober voice, just as another projectile hurtled downwards, this time exploding even closer in a cloud of white dust. ‘Quicklime,’ someone yelled. ‘Cover your mouths and eyes!’

  Erlan did as everyone else, looking away from the billowing dust-cloud and keeping his mouth clamped shut. Fortunately, the wind carried most of it over the walls to the south of them. But when he looked again and the dust started to clear, he saw some defenders staggering, clawing at their eyes, wailing in pain, some even throwing themselves over the wall to get away from the noxious fog that lingered around the teeth of the rampart. The worst of it had blown away but Erlan still tasted an acrid burn in his throat.

  ‘Bastards,’ the emperor muttered grimly.

  Erlan remembered the horror of the Byzantines’ liquid fire. It seemed to him the quicklime was no crueller than being melted alive. But he kept the thought to himself.

  ‘I heard they threw beehives into Pergamon,’ said the fat eparch.

  ‘And baskets of snakes into Abydos,’ said another, wearing the red trim of a senator.

  ‘Please, sire.’ Katāros again implored the emperor to retire to a less exposed position. This time Leo conceded. His retinue shifted north along the wall and Erlan, Einar and the other imperial guards with them, descending a few dozen feet down from the summit of the hill. The emperor was right: they could see far less of the Arabs’ manoeuvres from their new position, but by now Erlan couldn’t believe that the enemy were going to make any headway with their siege weapons. The walls were simply too massive; the defences too deep. He wondered whether their commander, this Prince Maslama, would order a single concerted attack of his foot soldiers against one of the gates. But even if he did, there was no way it would succeed. The Byzantine defenders had ample supplies of projectiles to break the force of their momentum: great boulders, vats of boiling oil, bales of straw waiting to be lit. Any number of painful ways to check an Arab assault.

  But the surest defence was the walls themselves. The gateways piercing inner and outer walls were deliberately misaligned. Even if the attackers forced entry through one perimeter, they would struggle to maintain the propulsion to carry them onward through the inner defences.

  To be sure, defenders were dying – but not enough of them to cause the emperor any real concern. And Erlan found himself wondering what he would do in the place of this Prince Maslama. Would he waste a hundred thousand men on this futility? Does a man blunt his finest blade against a rock unless it serves him some purpose?

  Perhaps it was with these questions circling in his head that his gaze drifted away from the main crucible of the fighting towards the north. There, the plain climbed, breaking up into craggy folds and gullies before it tumbled away again into the headwaters of the Golden Horn. Something in one of the folds caught his eye.

  ‘D’you see that?’ He gave Einar a nudge.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something moving. Up in that gully.’

  The fat man swung his gaze and, shielding his eyes from the towering sun, he peered into the distance for a while. ‘Aye,’ he said at last. ‘I see it. Spearheads, ain’t it?’

  ‘Could be. Mmm.’

  ‘Plenty of the buggers too, by the looks.’

  They continued watching as more spearheads processed along the fold of dead ground. The men carrying them were hidden from sight. ‘What the Hel are they up to?’

  ‘Maybe they’re going for the Horn,’ suggested Einar. ‘Trying to get between the city and the fleet?’

  ‘They’d never get past the walls, would they? They’d have to pass right under them. They’d be flattened.’ Just then a small silver shimmer appeared on the hilltop. Erlan watched as it rippled and danced in the hot air sweltering off the plain. It was a few seconds before he realized what it was. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s a signal flare.’

  As if in answer, there was an excited cry from one of the emperor’s retinue. ‘God’s blood! Look! They’re moving forward.’

  The two Northmen turned their gaze in time to see a wide sector of the Arab troops arrayed along the ridgeline close ranks and begin to advance. Horns and trumpets blew. Drums beat. Standards were hoisted high. Then, like a flood tide, the bulk of Maslama’s host moved forward. Heading straight for the Karisios Gate where the emperor was standing. There was a flurry of expletives among the patricians.

  ‘Something here doesn’t add up,’ Erlan muttered to Einar.

  ‘I find it rarely does,’ replied Einar with a weary sigh.

  ‘Basíleus!’ Erlan’s ringing voice stilled the patricians’ panicked chatter. Leo turned, regarding Erlan as a mule might a troublesome horsefly. ‘What is it, Northman?’

  ‘Is there another gate to the north?’

  ‘Of course there is. The Blachernae Gate. Why?’

  ‘We should warn them. There were troops up on that crest there.’ He pointed north.

  ‘I see nothing there.’

  ‘They were there,’ Erlan insisted. ‘Hundreds of them. We both saw them.’ He nodded at Einar.

  ‘It’s true, my lord,’ the fat Sveär growled.

  ‘I think that gate may soon come under attack.’

  ‘At Blachernae? How on Earth can you be sure?’

  Erlan shrugged. ‘Call it instinct.’

  ‘Instinct!’ scoffed the eparch. ‘Pah! Good God, the thrust of their attack is right there. See, it comes!’

  ‘Every gate is sealed tight as a Jew’s money-box.’ This time it was the eunuch Katāros who spoke. ‘There’s no way for them to breach our defences, wherever they attack.’

  ‘Let me go, Majesty,’ pleaded Erlan, ignoring the eun
uch’s interjection. ‘Let me warn them—’

  ‘And say what?’ the eparch sneered. ‘Look to your front? You’ll make a fool of your emperor.’

  ‘Let me be the fool, then.’ The emperor’s steady gaze was still weighing him up. ‘Please.’

  At last Leo gave a sharp nod. ‘Do what you think best, Northman. You –’ this to Einar – ‘go with him.’

  ‘If you insist, Your Majesty,’ gnarred the fat man under his breath.

  The comrades hefted their gear and set off, neither one of them noticing the dark look on the face of the eunuch. They hurried along the walls, weaving around defenders and siege weapons, and cauldrons of bubbling oil. They passed two military posterns and then another smaller gate before the slope fell away even more steeply towards the final bastion that protected the north-west corner of the city, the Gate of Blachernae. There they came to a breathless halt and looked around, blowing hard and wild-eyed. ‘Who’s in command of this sector?’

  ‘I am,’ said a stocky kentarch, stepping forward in scale armour and a blue tunic. He gave them an appraising look, doubtless noting the white cloaks of the imperial guard. ‘Something to report?’

  ‘Those spearmen up on that rise. Did you see them?’

  ‘Funny accent you got there, comrade. What are you doing dressed in the white?’

  ‘Never mind that, man! Did you see them or not?’ Erlan gestured impatiently up the hill.

  ‘See who?’

  ‘Arab spearmen! They signalled to the centre of their line. Someone here must have seen them.’

  ‘If I didn’t see ’em then no one did,’ insisted the kentarch.

  Erlan looked up to the hill crest. That sector of the wall was a good deal lower than where they had been standing with the emperor at the Karisios Gate. The difference in height and angle was probably sufficient explanation for why no one had seen them. Erlan steadied his breathing. There was no point riling the man. ‘Look. I can assure you that we saw hundreds of spearmen moving along that gully up there.’

  ‘Well,’ the kentarch spat over the wall, ‘if I can’t see ’em now, I can’t help you.’

  He was right. There was no sign of the enemy down by the shoreline. They weren’t advancing from their position. They weren’t visible further out. So where the Hel had they gone? ‘Listen – comrade – what’s your name?’

  ‘Petronas,’ the man grunted.

  Erlan nodded. ‘Good. Petronas. How many men do you have?’

  ‘Six banda.’

  ‘That’s what – three hundred men?’

  ‘Two hundred and forty-two, to be exact. We’re short a few.’

  ‘Hoplites?’ asked Einar, who knew more of the Byzantines’ military distinctions than Erlan.

  ‘About a third are. Then I’ve got fifty archers and the rest are spearmen.’

  ‘Put them on guard.’

  ‘They’re already on guard.’

  ‘Just be ready. All right? Please.’ Erlan flashed Petronas a gracious smile.

  Petronas gave a grudging nod. ‘All right, lads. Something may be up, so keep your eyes sharp. Happy?’

  The defenders fell into an uneasy silence. The kentarch had a point, though; aside from remaining alert, there wasn’t a lot they could do. So they looked to their front, while Erlan prowled up and down like a caged wolf and Einar rested his belly against the parapet and picked at his teeth.

  They watched and watched. Sweat stung Erlan’s eyes. His ankle ached. The scale armour, which was new and a fraction too tight, rubbed under his armpits. His mind flitted like a nervous hawk. To Lilla, to Aska, to the seeping blood in that vast temple, to the fire and the terrifying visions. To Vassili. He gazed down at the old scars on the inside of his forearm. Each cut had unlocked the berserker strength in him. The beautiful madness they called it in the north. Was it beautiful, though? Should he cut himself again, if it came to a fight? He glanced over at Einar and thought of the last time he had stood in the blood-fray. On a ship, with another friend by his side. A friend he had slaughtered in his unseeing madness.

  No. . .

  No. There must be no red madness this time – only cold-blooded killing.

  ‘Would you stop with your damn hobbling up and down!’ Einar suddenly exclaimed. ‘You’re making me nervous, boy.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Erlan gave a rueful snort. ‘Sorry. Just a strange way to fight a battle, this.’

  ‘Suits me fine.’ Einar nodded up at the Karisios Gate which seemed almost to hover above them. ‘It’s a damned sight safer than being up there.’

  That was when a voice inside the walls started screaming. A woman’s scream, so visceral it sounded inhuman.

  The defenders’ heads turned. Frozen for an eye-blink by the shock of the sound, Erlan suddenly rushed to the inside wall overlooking the district. But he could see nothing. He felt the uneasiness of the men around him. The screaming stopped. Petronas was by his side. ‘Where was it coming from?’

  ‘Below the palace, I think.’ Petronas shielded his eyes. ‘Near St Mary’s basilica.’ The small dome of a church was bulging at them hardly a hundred paces inside the walls. There was another sharp, startling scream, a squall of protest lasting a few seconds, then an abrupt silence. A figure flashed across the end of the street that ran from below them into the basilica square. Then another. And another.

  ‘Sweet Mother of God,’ Petronas muttered. ‘They’re inside the walls.’

  ‘Bring your men,’ Erlan snarled, flinging off his cloak and striding for the steps.

  ‘How many?’ Petronas yelled after him.

  ‘All of them!’

  Katāros worked nervously at the gem-studded rings on his fingers. It was still possible. The numbers were still in the Arabs’ favour. And still the alarm had not been raised.

  Curse that cripple! Curse his black eyes!

  But Katāros still had cause to hope. All attention was trained on the threat from the west. No one could expect it in their rear.

  From his position behind the emperor, he could see the mass of Arab lancers and infantrymen with their bamboo javelins and long swords of Indian steel driving forward towards the outer gate. Two tall siege towers had advanced within fifty yards of the gate-towers, and from their uppermost platforms Arab archers were pouring volley after volley of flaming arrows into the Byzantine defences. Beneath them, engineers toiled desperately to throw down planking and siege ladders across the moat. Most were being shot to pieces by Byzantine arrows and other projectiles as fresh garrison troops raced from north and south to the aid of the outer gate’s beleaguered defenders.

  Atop the inner wall, the Byzantines worked their death-dealing machines. Onagers slung huge crude-cut rocks into the maelstrom below, cutting down swathes of men like barley. Elsewhere, longbow frames shot bolt after bolt, impaling two, sometimes three, men on a single shaft. And still the Arabs flooded forward. But for all their stubborn determination, Katāros knew the Arabs would never breach the gate.

  Not without victory in the other fight.

  Katāros eased backwards towards the inner rampart. He took care not to draw the attention of the other imperial observers. Naturally, all their focus was on the storm raging on the western side of the fortifications. Only he knew to look down onto the eastern side. And what he saw made his heart lurch with hope.

  There were three hundred of them, at least. The Mujahideen, the elite of the Umayyad army, distinctive in their spiked helms swathed in black cloth, their dark green tunics hidden under leather lamellar and shirts of mail. Ranged against them were no more than fifty Byzantines.

  Those odds were good, but still he cursed Abdal-Battal for a complacent fool. Three hundred? He should have sent twice that number to guarantee success. Four times, even. By Christ’s blood, Maslama could spare them! But Katāros forced down his flare of savage anger; the chance was still there for the taking.

  Yet, even as this thought was forming, a guard along the wall gave a roar of alarm. More shouts rose as more defenders
perceived the threat inside the walls. Katāros’s jaw clenched. His lips moved in a murmur. He was praying, praying to any god who would do his bidding, praying to the Devil if it would only make a difference. . .

  Praying that it was already too late.

  Wrathling slashed down in a streak of steel. The Arab’s arm flew off at the elbow, spraying blood over friend and foe. Blood-spattered spearpoints bristled thick as thorns but past the point the kill was easy enough. Erlan’s thighs burned from the breathless sprint up the steep hill from Blachernae to the Karisios Gate.

  Petronas’s men had split the Arab intruder force in two like a piece of firewood, bottling up the dozens of spearmen still pouring out of the doors of the Virgin’s basilica into the square. There was one hell of a fight raging back there. But many of the intruders had already broken through and had pushed on for their objective: the inside of the Karisios Gate. With hardly a few dozen Byzantines, Erlan and Einar had set off in headlong pursuit up the hill. But the Arabs had a long start on them and reached the gate first.

  Slowed by his ankle, Erlan was one of the last to the inner gates. By the time he joined the fray, the dead lay all around, the air was already rank with blood. Curses rose in clouds above the skirmish line and now arrows began hailing from the walls above as the defenders at last registered the danger. Ahead of him was a riot of slaughter. He was still fifty yards from the gates when the Arabs let out a bellow of triumph. The air groaned with splintering wood. Iron hinges shrieked and a shard of light broke through the gateway.

  The gates were opening, and buoyed by the tantalizing glimmer of success, the Arabs whipped themselves to still greater fury, slamming the huge doors against the stone walls and pouring into the killing ground beyond.

  ‘That ain’t good!’ yelled a voice in Norse. Erlan turned and saw Einar close by him, his face daubed with gore thick as paint. ‘If they take the outer gate, the city will fall.’

  Erlan nodded, seeing in his mind a flash of the horrors that would befall the citizens of Byzantium if these troops broke through. Lilla. . . ‘On me, Fat-Belly,’ he snarled, then plunged onward into the canyon of hell.