The criminal gunners were firing on Narses’s men from the ramparts. Narses jumped up and ran through them, cutting them down, flaying them alive. Some criminals knew the farr, but Narses wiped them out and drained their strength, powering the engine of his soul with their life force as he ran along walls, leaped off of buildings, and deflected any bullets speeding his way. The prison in his ribcage was soon crowded with the souls of those who should have known better than to oppose right and justice—and who were now paying the price for their poor individual choices.
Good versus evil. Light versus dark.
Before long, it became clear that Rome was pushing the criminals out of Chrysopolis. Narses was reminded of the tug-of-war matches from his men's training back in the Hippodrome. Two sides would pull on that rope, both relatively equal in strength and ability, and both fighting as hard as they could, gritting their teeth and grunting, calling out support to one another, their arm muscles bulging as their feet dug into the ground. But one side would prevail, and it was sometimes difficult to see why.
So Rome pushed the criminals away from Chrysopolis’s northern wall. Streets and winding side-alleys adjoining this wall were soon filled with fighters and clashing gleaming steel. These places were then covered in bodies—falling, slamming to the ground, rolling in the mud and over the broken cobblestones, spattering every surface with blood. Men and women climbed over the dead and groaning wounded, wading through the red flood that was ankle-deep, and the battle moved toward the city’s southern walls.
No criminals surrendered. From experience they knew Narses would order them executed the moment they threw down their weapons and raised their hands. Sometimes the wounded feigned weakness until a Roman soldier strayed too close. Then this wounded criminal—with her last gasp, and the blood pouring out of her mouth like a red waterfall—she would draw a sword out from under her chest, and lunge forward with a last banshee wail, stabbing the Roman’s foot. The man would scream, and his buddies would shout with fear and surprise before spearing the woman like a rabid animal.
Soon the criminal army left Chrysopolis and fled south to Chalkedon. By this time Narses and his men were standing on the city’s southern walls, watching the criminals and jeering them as they ran through the gardens and farmland and past the ruins that separated the two cities.
“We’ve done it!” Narses cried, a rare smile on his face. “And how many said it could not be done?”
“Narses! Narses! Narses!” his men shouted.
“Secure the city,” Narses said. “Ensure there are no more criminals waiting to murder good men!”
But in the mean time, the city-ship of Kitezh had rowed close to Chrysopolis, and was now turning to the side. Its basiliks pounded the air, bursting smoke that flashed with fire. The walls around Narses exploded, and Axouch—who had never left his side—lost his head. With blood gushing up from his neck stump, his limp body collapsed to the walkway, which itself collapsed beneath Narses’s feet, hurling him to the ground below. As he lay there, buildings crumbled around him, falling into the Earth as though the final day of judgment had arrived. Artillery screamed, and streets erupted, sending fire and dirt and bloody limbs so high into the air, the explosions almost looked like trees, though these only existed for a moment before their contents fell back down again.
Kitezh kept firing basiliks. The bombardment was unrelenting. Not a moment passed without an explosion, a spray of debris, an agonized wail that sounded as though it had been released from hell itself. Narses climbed to his feet and screamed for his men to move east, out of basilik range. Yet the ringing in his ears was so loud he could hardly hear himself.
Nonetheless, the survivors moved east. It was easy to see, after all, that the sea meant death, that one needed to get away from the sea, those blue gleaming waves supporting the floating city with its buildings, churches, sails, oars, and flashing thunderclouds.
The remains of Narses’s tagma gathered just beyond Chrysopolis’s eastern side, putting the half-ruined wall between them and Kitezh. All his men were covered in dirt and blood. Without pausing to breathe, Narses ordered Domestikos Poghos to count the dead, see to the wounded, and reorganize any centuries or squads which had lost their COs. Poghos acknowledged the command.
Kitezh was still firing into the city behind them. Each blast made his men shiver with fear. Narses wondered how the criminals could have so much ammunition.
It took us weeks just to cast our first hundred cannonballs!
Whatever the explanation was, it was just some trickery, some theft, some deal with the devil or witchcraft the criminals had undertaken. There was no other way. Their failures were due entirely to their own foolishness; their limited successes were always accidents or due to extenuating factors or simple luck. The uprising had been a failure wherever it had been tried.
Leaning against the walls with his men, Narses noticed that they were dangerously exposed. Kitezh was behind them, and the wilderness of Asia lay before them, its hills rolling into the horizon. If the criminals had held a few centuries in reserve, and now threw them against Narses’s men, his entire army would be destroyed. His men were also exhausted. Few could even stand. Many were staring into space, shocked by their first bombardment, amazed that they had survived. Some were crying, while their friends were telling them to shut up and act like men. A few of the wounded were shrieking, having lost legs or arms to the basiliks. The tagma had only a handful of medical personnel, and these were soon overwhelmed, being able to do little more than bind up the gushing wounds with white bandages which soon turned red. Narses also realized that there was no way to move the wounded back to Konstantinopolis. His fleet had been scattered; his ships might as well have been burned. Soon the wounded would perish.
When Kitezh either tired of firing its basiliks or—god willing—ran out of ammunition, Narses ordered Domestikos Poghos to have the men move back into Chrysopolis. Poghos hesitated, looking at him for just a moment, but then nodded, acknowledged his command, and passed it on to his kentarchs. Soon the men hauled themselves up and entered Chrysopolis for the second time that day. An hour ago, they had found a half-abandoned city of ruins, a den of criminal filth and lawlessness; now it was a pile of smoking rubble scattered with bleeding, dismembered corpses.
Narses ordered his men to eat rations, drink water, and rest. They had left Konstantinopolis the evening before, and had been sailing, marching, and fighting all night and into the morning. He seemed to be almost the only man who had the strength to move or even think. It was the farr moving through his veins; it was the new souls imprisoned in his chest which were fading away as he grew stronger.
He was focused, as always, on his goals, and knew that the fight was far from over. Right now he needed to signal Konstantinopolis, and make sure that the City was still under Paul’s control. If more riots had taken place—if the rioters had driven his supporters from the palace—Narses would have to flee for his life. His men would be too weak to run, and would need to take their chances with the criminals. He himself would have to go alone, as always, and live to fight another day. It would be like last winter, when he and Romanos had survived only by sneaking into isolated farming homesteads at night, stealing whatever they could find to eat, and then running for their lives before anyone heard them.
But before Narses could work his way over to the remains of the western walls and have a look at Konstantinopolis, he needed to find sentries. The criminals could sneak up at any time, and even a few seconds of advance warning would mean the difference between victory and defeat. His men had already done their best to find shelter from the afternoon sun, though most could only lie on the ground and cover their faces with their cloaks. Many were so exhausted—including his surviving bodyguards—that they had already passed out. But the medics were still awake and tending to the wounded, who were screaming in agony, unable to control themselves. It was so annoying. Narses also feared that the noise would reveal their position to the enemy. Something needed to be done. He considered killing the wounded, though just as soon rejected this idea. Even Narses knew that his men could only take so much discipline before they started asking questions.
He chuckled to himself. Chrysopolis was taken. He felt the thrill of victory and survival. So many had died, so many had lost, but he was still here, standing again on the bodies of his enemies—on those who must have bragged, over and over again, that Narses was finished, Narses was incompetent, Narses could never pull this one off. For some, he was even beneath their contempt; they hardly thought about him if at all. Now they were dead, or fleeing for their lives like frightened children.
Narses wished he could tell someone about this. It might have made father proud. Would Erythro have been impressed? Had Herakleia been here, Narses would have loved to see the look on her face. All his struggle and despair, all his thoughts of defeat, it was all worth it.
Last night, as Narses’s dromons were rowing from Konstantinopolis in near pitch darkness, he’d had no idea how things would shake out the next day. Sometimes, despite all the preparation in the world, the future was just a dice roll. Battles were often like that.
Narses soon realized that he would have to be both sentry and messenger. As usual, he needed to do everything himself. Nobody else had the strength. What had even happened to his runners? Were they even still alive? He told Domestikos Poghos to rest with his men, then reassured him that his emperor would watch over everyone—just like always. Narses added that in the evening, they would attack Chalkedon.
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Poghos looked at him again for just an instant, then swallowed his fear, bowed, and acknowledged his orders. Within moments, Poghos, too, had reclined amidst the blackened, sun-bleached, bloodstained rubble. Without removing his sword or armor, he drew his purple cloak over his face and fell asleep.
No one at this point was awake in this camp of theirs, if it could even be called that, save Narses, the medics, and the wounded. Most of this last group had almost completely bled out. They were pale, and their screams of agony had turned to whispers of wide-eyed despair. Death was on their faces. The angel of death was close.
Most of the time, when the men fought before my arrival in this game, what did they have to deal with? Disease. Puncture wounds from arrows or spears. Stab or slash wounds from swords. But this little taste of industrial warfare is too much for both medics and wounded. It tears them to pieces. And if they are lucky enough to keep their bodies intact, sometimes they still get their minds ripped apart.
Narses climbed over the bodies and rubble toward Chrysopolis’s eastern walls, doing his best to keep out of sight. If Kitezh’s spotters noticed him, they’d bomb the city for another hour—blowing up rubble, corpses, craters.
Once Narses reach the walls, he ascended the nearest staircase, first testing each wobbly step to ensure that it could bear his weight. Then he knelt down below the masonry, removing his helmet and holding it, keeping even his forehead out of sight. Setting his helmet down on the walkway, he crouched beside a gap in the battlements—was it called a merlon?—and drew a small mirror from his pocket, a gift given to Emperor Nikephoros long ago by the Venetian glassworkers of Murano or Burano, Narses had forgotten. The glass was cracked, but the mirror was otherwise intact. He held the mirror up so that he could see across the Bosporos without being seen. An instant later, with a gasp of fright, he drew the mirror back, though the image he had seen was seared in his mind.
Kitezh floated between Chrysopolis and Konstantinopolis. The city-ship was so close that Narses had spotted multiple men on its towers. These men wore white smocks, like savage Varangian ogres, and held bronze tubes to their eyes, training them on Chrysopolis. They were looking for him.
Spyglasses, Narses thought. That was their name. That was what they were called in the old world. So old-fashioned there. But newfangled contraptions here.
Easily the ogres could have seen him; that was why he had withdrawn the mirror. But beyond Kitezh, above its steeples and sails and yardarms, were the distant Sea Walls, and the domes of the great churches and palaces, the lighthouse, the tall thick columns mounted with gleaming statues—of Konstantinopolis. Narses had feared spotting even taller columns of black smoke rising into the air, a sure sign that his enemies had seized the City, now that he was gone with his best tagma. But no smoke was visible, aside from the usual wisps from cook fires. Konstantinopolis was almost certainly still under Paul’s control. As for whether Paul was still under Narses’s control—who could say?
But for the moment, it was impossible to signal the palace. He thought of cutting away the red flags that were still draped over Chrysopolis’s western walls, but Kitezh would see. Kitezh was always in the way. Narses needed to take care of Kitezh. But how? All boats were vulnerable to fire, but at Trebizond he had seen how quickly the crew of Kitezh had doused the flames spreading from the burning arrows he himself had ordered his men to loose. The Khazars or Varangians—whatever mutt-like miscegenation crewed that ship—they were well-trained. Sinking that ship would be difficult. Narses wished that he had brought heavier artillery across the Bosporos, but the prospect of dragging wheeled basiliks (as well as their ammunition carriages) through the forest in the dark had stopped him. The noise alone would have spoiled the surprise attack.
Perhaps the criminals left heavier artillery pieces in Chrysopolis.
Carefully he climbed down the steps, keeping his head down as before. Then he searched the ruins, stepping over the rubble toward the northern walls where the criminal gunners had been positioned when the Athanatoi Tagma had first attacked. Bodies were still strewn wherever they had been cut down. Narses collected their miniature basiliks—though they were so heavy he himself could barely lift one with both arms—and also searched the criminals’ pockets for ammunition. As he examined the enemy’s weaponry, he found himself marveling at its craftsmanship. The guns were indistinguishable from one another, standardized so as to be rapidly assembled, and each criminal carried a cloth bag with at least a couple dozen iron balls inside, while they also carried many small paper bags full of powder. This last detail was in itself a real engineering feat. Paper was almost too expensive to be used for anything in Konstantinopolis, while the criminals were using little paper bags to hold just the right amount of black powder inside—enough to fire a ball at least a few hundred feet without blowing up the basilik in your face. Once they had used the bags, the criminals just tossed them aside. Narses shook his head. Many of these bags lay nearby. He picked one up and examined it. The top had been torn off, the black powder within almost all gone. Just one folded sheet of paper like this was easily worth a few months’ salary for the average Konstantinopolitan worker, yet a criminal gunner had just tossed it aside. It was amazing. How many times today had Narses found himself wondering at the productive capacities of the criminals?
How can they possibly produce so much? What kind of people just tosses aside such wealth?
The question frightened him. If the criminal colossus could make such things so easily, how could Narses expect to win? It was like little children from the old world in their first sports league, facing down—in their first game—professional adults from the world’s best team. He imagined those little limbs, barely able to run over the grass, contending with the powerful muscle of professionals who had dedicated almost every waking moment of their lives to mastering the game.
But Narses pushed the thought out of his head. The criminals were inferior to Romans, everyone knew that. They might have been able to make paper and guns, to produce startling amounts of armor and ammunition, and to move impressive numbers of soldiers great distances at a shocking speed—surprising, overwhelming, and outmaneuvering their foes—but they still lacked the moral and spiritual power of Rome, the genius of a leader like Narses, and his men’s élan vital. One random soldier in the Athanatoi Tagma was worth ten of these pasty factory workers from Trebizond.
Only able to carry two miniature basiliks over his shoulders, Narses brought these weapons—some stained with dried blood—to the eastern wall, where his men were sleeping. He kept the iron balls nearby, but moved the ammunition packets a good distance away, in case they were ignited by another bombardment from Kitezh. None of these weapons would be enough to take on that vessel. Konstantinopolis needed to try fire ships—a lot of them, all at once—but Narses wondered if Paul possessed the initiative necessary to do such a thing. All the cowardly eunuch had wanted was to hide behind the City’s walls. If they had done that, Chrysopolis would still belong to the criminals, who would now be preparing to assault Konstantinopolis. Narses saw how they might have done this. Kitezh could have ferried the criminal soldiers across the Bosporos, landing them in the countryside a safe distance west of Konstantinopolis’s Land Walls. Then the city-ship could have returned to the Sea Walls and bombarded them in the east while the criminal army assaulted the Land Walls from the west. It might have worked.
So much depends on Kitezh. Kitezh must be destroyed. Do that, and Konstantinopolis is safe. The criminals will never be able to get across the Bosporos, nor will they have the equipment necessary to assault the walls.
Narses spent the rest of the day doing his best to keep an eye on Chalkedon and Kitezh at the same time. He was like hundred-eyed Argos, a Panopticon watching everything at once—the city the enemy had captured, the enemy fleet in the Bosporos, the countryside from which the enemy might approach, the distant City which was vulnerable to rioting, as well as his exhausted men sleeping like the dead among piles of shattered brick. Early on, he took a quick break to clean his weapons and armor using a well that was near his sleeping men. Miraculously, it had escaped the bombardment, and no bodies or limbs seemed to have fallen inside.
Thanks to the farr, Narses kept himself awake. The abundant energy stored in his chest ensured that he always felt as though he had just woken up and drained his first cup of strong black old world coffee. His limbs, muscles, and bones all felt spry and refreshed, though he had been awake since the criminals had first attacked Chrysopolis two nights before. Sometimes he thought that with a proper supply of souls, he could stay awake forever, and accomplish so much more. Would it make so much of a difference to the old and the dying if he took their life forces while they lay on their deathbeds? For them, they would hardly notice, and after all, they were going to die anyway. But for Narses, he could work twice as hard as he usually did—and twice as smart.
After the sun went down, the stars came out, and the men started to get up, Narses forbid anyone to light a fire, explaining that this would reveal their position and invite another bombardment. The men therefore ate from the rations in their cloth bags and drank from their water skins in darkness and silence. As before, Narses stayed on the walls, keeping an eye on the different approaches to the city. He was like their guardian, the father to these children. It was like—what was that old world novel called? It was like The Catcher in the Rye. That was his job. He was keeping his men from running over the cliffs.
Keeping them safe.
Narses also noticed how this night was different from the last one. Before, God had favored their attack by veiling the stars and moon with clouds; now these were unveiled like a bride before her wedding bed. A glowing crescent moon was rising over the treetops in the countryside, pouring its light over the ruins and graveyards, the stones jutting from the earth at odd angles like broken teeth.
That’s where the gelu demons live, Narses thought. Before they steal babies from their mothers. Dwelling in the abyss. The ghouls.
Soon the men finished eating and drinking. They checked their armor, weapons, and bandages, and refilled their water skins from the nearby well. Some men who had experience with basiliks picked up the black powder weapons Narses had pried from the hands of the dead. There was plenty of ammunition. Narses first asked if they knew how to use these weapons. When the men assured him that they did, he organized them into a basilik squad.
All this being done, Narses announced that they would now attack Chalkedon. Only the wounded would remain to guard Chrysopolis. The rest would march south through the night, and surprise the feckless criminals once again.
“Then we will return home,” he whispered in the darkness. “All of us conquering heroes. Many years from now, when you are old grandfathers, you will have good stories to tell your grandchildren. We will make good stories tonight.”
They raised their armored fists in the light of the stars and moon. All the armor the men were wearing clanked at the same time.
Yet when the Athanatoi marched out of Chrysopolis’s South Gate, they found something unexpected. In the darkness a pair of eyes was floating, glowing, watching. The Athanatoi halted, and the men whispered the word “gelu.” They invoked the saints and made the sign of the horns with their right hands.
Speak of the devil, Narses thought. Yet even he was frightened enough to cross himself.
From the two glowing eyes an old woman’s voice spoke with an Arabian accent. No one could make out what she was saying. But she kept repeating a jumble of syllables which included the word “Piriawis.” What could it mean?
