The Dark Lord

Behind the retreating Khazars, the Avar columns continued to spread out, slowly forming a solid body across the road, and two heavy wings stretching across the fields. Despite the poor quality of their Slavic allies—well, subjects really; a motley aggregation of Croats, Moravians and Sklavenoi—the Avar officers were excellent and they did not brook disobedience from their vassals.

Despite Alexandros' eagerness to test himself against the Persians, Jusuf spent the rest of the day falling back field by field, keeping the Avars busy while waiting for the Roman army to arrive. The skirmishing was desultory, since the Khazars easily kept at long bowshot, save when they fell back through an orchard or woodlot. All of the land around Selymbria was heavily built up, filled with farmhouses and fieldstone walls. By nightfall, Jusuf had lost only a dozen men, and at least two of those might have gotten lost in the maze of tracks and lanes. As soon as the sun dipped behind the western hills, the Avars halted their advance.

Jusuf told off his men to keep a picket line across the main road and through the trees and brambles on either side. He let his horse rest, browsing on thin yellow grass under the olives. His courier riders squatted down among the gnarled trees and ate some legion biscuit—a hard, flat bread like a meal cake and as solid as old leather—and washed it down with wine they had appropriated from one of the farmhouses. Jusuf had been surprised, as the long day unwound, at the absence of any farmers, or stock, or even chickens. He wondered how the locals knew to flee. The absence of men among such signs of their industry—for these Romans were industrious, if nothing else, and Jusuf felt a little trapped to be in such a close, cluttered landscape—lent everything an ominous air.

'Ho! Tarkhan!' Jusuf looked up and his guards relaxed a little, lowering their bows. One of the courier riders assigned to Dahvos rode up, ducking his head under low-lying branches. His horse seemed rested and filled with mischief—it bit at Jusuf's mare, earning a wall-eyed glare in return. 'Comes Alexandros wishes to speak with you.'

'Fine.' Jusuf levered himself from the ground, grunting, and took one of the fresh horses. 'If anything happens, send two riders to find me and don't lose track of the enemy,' he said to the men still squatting under the trees. 'Otherwise, I will be back before dawn.'

—|—

It was full dark by the time Jusuf passed through a picket of legionaries on the road and reached the main camp. The comes followed standard Eastern practice, choosing a big triangular section of waste ground filled with brambles and Scythian thistle between a road junction and two fields filled with ripening melons. Despite the irregular space, the Easterners were busy, digging a long ditch first facing the road, crossed by two earthen ramps, and then around the other two sides of the camp. As was customary, the army engineers marked the boundaries with ropes strung on stakes. The ditch lay on one side of the boundary rope and a palisade of sharpened stakes and cut logs on the other. Where there had been insufficient time to build the fence, army wagons were lined up to close the gaps.

Bonfires burned cheerfully at each gate and along the avenues leading into the camp. Some men were awake, either on guard duty, or just sitting in front of their tents, as Jusuf rode through to the praetorium at the center of the encampment. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, or at least pretending to sleep. Jusuf had heard many soldiers boast of being able to doze anywhere, but most men, he knew, would be praying, or thinking of home. There would be battle soon and only the lord of heaven knew who might live and who might die.

Grooms ran out to take his horse as Jusuf dismounted and he smelled stew bubbling on the fire and lamb and mutton roasting. The air was filled with the soft sound of thousands of horses munching oats and grass. All the stable tie-lines were set at the center of the camp, within a protective shield of infantry cohorts. Alexandros was still awake, which came as little surprise to the Khazar. When did the general ever sleep? He ducked into the tent.

'Tarkhan Jusuf, welcome.' Alexandros was sitting on a backless, tripodal chair. A large rug covered the floor of the tent, and the other commanders—Chlothar Shortbeard, Dahvos, an Easterner named Valentinius who commanded the Roman foot, and lord Demetrios, who was responsible for the rabble of Eastern cataphracts—were arrayed on either side. Jusuf nodded to them, then hooked over a camp stool and sat down.

'Comes Alexandros,' he said in greeting.

Alexandros smiled, brushing a long lock of hair out of his face. It was a habit and Jusuf saw the Macedonian was in good humor. 'I received your messages by rider, Jusuf, as to the advance of the enemy and their encampment for the night. Is there anything else? Have you seen any Persian troops afield, or only Avars?'

'No, comes,' Jusuf answered, seeing that a fuller report was expected. 'We've seen a large number of Avar horse—both light horse-archer and knights—as well as, late in the day, a quantity of Slavic foot on the main road. They were bringing up wagons at dusk and laagering—as the Goths would say— about a mile from our positions. With the addition of the Slavs, there must be at least twelve thousand men. I saw the khagan's banners and his guardsmen, though I did not set eyes upon Bayan himself.'

'You know him by sight?' Alexandros leaned forward, quite interested.

'Yes,' Jusuf said. 'As a youth I was sent to the Avar court as a hostage. I know the khagan Bayan well.'

'Excellent.' Alexandros slapped his knee. 'Tell me about him. What kind of man is he? Does he favor one hand over the other?'

Jusuf paused, marshalling his thoughts. His time among the Avars now seemed quite distant, though less than a decade had passed since he'd been sent to live among them. There had been talk of an alliance then, between peak-roofed Itil and the hring—the triple-walled Avar capital at Serdica in Moesia—but nothing came of the matter. In the old days, the T'u-chueh would have forbidden such an alliance— they despised the Avars and called them slaves—but the T'u-chueh empire had lately fallen into disrepair.

'My lord,' Jusuf said at last, having summoned up old memories and arranged them to his liking, 'this khagan is named Bayan, after his grandfather. Unlike his father Jubudei, he is neither patient nor wise; he is reckless and given to bold maneuvers. Bayan is stout, shorter than most of his kind. He hides his right arm—an arrow cut the elbow in a border skirmish, making the limb weak. So he fights with his left hand. When he was a young man, he won many victories over the Gepids in the west, over the Bulgars and the Slavs. Even the Blue Huns pay him tribute.'

'Do you think he will lead in battle himself?'

'No, comes, not with a weak arm. He will stay back, and let his umen commanders handle the line of battle.'

'Good.' Alexandros' curiosity was satisfied. 'Tomorrow we may fight, if the enemy has the stomach for battle. All of you have seen the ground—very poor for horses, filled with streams and fields and orchards. If we fight here, matters will be decided by our infantry in close quarters.'

The Macedonian smiled broadly and stood, filled with nervous energy. He paced the circumference of the tent, harsh voice ringing. 'I cannot think of a better place to fight this enemy. Our men, on foot, are the match for two, three, even four times their number in these barbarians. It may be the Avar khagan has tired of sitting at Constantinople and has taken the field to loot, to pillage, to forage for his men. Therefore, we will rise up before dawn and attack, straight up the road. My Goths will lead, and your men, Valentinius, will follow close behind. When we come upon the Avars, you shall deploy on either flank.'

'And my men?' Demetrios wore a remarkably foul expression on his face. 'What shall we do—hold your horses?'

Jusuf raised a mental eyebrow at the man's truculence, though his face remained impassive.

'You, Demetrios, will be waiting on our far left wing, waiting for the kagan Dahvos here and his lancers to draw the attention of the enemy. They will cover the left flank of the legionaries, as they advance. You will wait for certain news to reach you.'

'What news?' The cataphract's ill temper did not abate, a purplish flush rising at his throat. Jusuf watched with interest, wondering if the man might burst a vessel right there in the tent and expire. The Eastern nobleman was certainly choleric enough...

'You will wait,' Alexandros said in a genial tone, 'for the Avar knights to try and swing wide to our left, around the brawl that will inevitably develop in the center, and then you will fall upon them like Zeus' own thunderbolt and destroy them.'

Demetrios blinked, then sat back, rendered speechless. He had not expected to be given a place in the line