Pessimism of the intellect, Herakleia told herself. Optimism of the will.
At Tamghach’s behest, she was veiled, loaded back into her litter, and brought to a separate yurt, one likewise raised above the mud on a platform of logs. The fire in the hearth had already been lit, and the carpets here were also beautiful. Aside from a table set with food and drink as well as a wooden chest for her clothing, there was little else.
Herakleia sat on the divan in the dim light, her wrists and ankles still chained. The two slaves carried away the litter, leaving Tamghach, who stood by the door flaps; and Anahid, whom Nizam al-Mulk had ordered to be Herakleia’s body servant.
Slave for a slave, Herakleia thought.
She pulled off her veil, then looked at Anahid, as if to ask what she was now supposed to do.
“No talk,” Tamghach said.
Herakleia frowned. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“He doesn’t understand Roman,” Anahid said. “You must speak to me as though issuing commands. Then he may relent, princess.”
“I’m not a princess,” she said with a stern tone, pointing to her shoes. “Listen, do you want to get out of here?” This was a question, but Herakleia spoke with a falling rather than a rising tone at the sentence’s end, to conceal this fact from Tamghach.
Anahid sat on her knees and removed Herakleia’s shoes. “Trebizond has already caused enough trouble for good Christians. How many will die today when the Sarats’en take Erzurum?”
“Will the city be taken today?” Herakleia said, again with a falling tone. She needed to focus to do this. “Are you sure?”
“It cannot hold out against such foes for long. The people there believed in you and your ideas, and now they will die for them, and to what end?”
“Trebizond won’t abandon them,” Herakleia said. “My friends won’t abandon us.”
“Spoken like a woman unused to the ways of the world,” Anahid said.
“It’s true, I haven’t accepted them the way you have.” Herakleia was tiring of Anahid’s disdain.
“But you never needed to.” Anahid shoved Herakleia’s shoes aside. “Princess.”
“No talk.” Tamghach stepped closer, his arms crossed over his broad armored chest.
“Tell him there’s nothing else to do here,” Herakleia said. “That I’m bored and I’m allowed to speak with my servant if I want.”
Anahid translated, and Tamghach backhanded the old slave woman across her face so hard that she cried out, falling away and clutching her cheek, which was bleeding.
Outraged, Herakleia jumped to her feet, nearly stumbling to the floor again—she had forgotten that her ankles were chained. Tamghach’s scimitar nonetheless leaped from its scabbard and into her hands—which were also still shackled.
4/100 farr remained.
Shuffling with her chains ringing toward Tamghach—who was stunned for a moment by Herakleia’s seeming ability to summon the djinn to do her bidding—she swung the blade at him, but he recovered in time to seize her wrists and knock the weapon from her hands. She fell to the carpets on the floor, and he threw himself on top of her. Though she struggled to escape, grunting beneath his weight, he was too heavy, the shackles too strong and tight. For a moment she focused on them, willing the ones around her wrists to burst apart, but they grew so hot that they hissed against her flesh. 3/100 farr remained. She cried out in pain, and was forced to give up.
Tamghach wrestled her back onto her divan, stepped away, picked up his scimitar, and sheathed it, this time holding it with his left hand in case it flew away again like a bird. Then he stood by the door flap and shouted—presumably for help.
He doesn’t look handsome anymore, Herakleia thought.
Within a moment, Tamghach, Herakleia, and Anahid—who was still lying on the carpet, clutching her bleeding cheek—were joined by two more strong, sturdy, heavily armored guards. All three men—they were presumably eunuchs, since unrelated and uncut men were forbidden to see her unveiled—stood by the yurt’s entrance. Their legs were spread apart, their arms were crossed, their eyes were always focused on Herakleia.
“Thanks for your help,” she said sarcastically to Anahid.
“What was I supposed to do?” Anahid said.
“You could have done literally anything except just lie there, and it would have helped,” Herakleia said. “I almost had him.”
“You forget that we are surrounded by a hundred thousand more who are just like him,” Anahid said.
“No…talk!” Tamghach screamed. He was breathing heavily and sweating.
Herakleia spat at him.
Growling, Tamghach stepped toward her. Just then, a loud crash sounded in the distance, followed by horns and cheers.
“They have broken through,” Anahid murmured to herself, looking down in despair.
The three guards also seemed to have reached this conclusion. Tamghach spoke to one, who rushed outside, his boots thumping down the log steps and then splashing through mud. Herakleia noticed that the rain had let up, and the sun was shining brighter outside. A moment later, the guard returned and shouted something at Tamghach and his other subordinate.
“Erzurum has fallen,” Anahid whispered to Herakleia.
“Can we see?” Herakleia said.
“Why would you ever wish to see such a thing?” Anahid said.
“Are you my servant, or my mother?” Herakleia said. “Tell Tamghach I want to see.”
Anahid spoke Turkish to Tamghach. To Herakleia’s surprise, Tamghach shook his head—which meant “yes” east of the Bosporos—and gestured, palm-down, for Herakleia to come outside. Anahid put Herakleia’s shoes back on her feet, veiled her, then helped her walk out of the yurt and down the log steps to the mud below. By the time she reached the ground, the litter and its two muscular slave carriers were waiting. She regretted making this request, since it meant so much trouble for those poor men, but she told herself that she was cooking up another plan.
Sacrifice in the short term for victory in the long term.
Anahid, Tamghach, and the two guards walked alongside her as the slaves lifted the litter—their muscles straining, their teeth gritting—and carried her through the busy camp. Everyone else had seemingly come out to see what the noise was all about. It took time to get through all the people, camels, horses, and sheep. When they came within sight of Erzurum’s gate, Turkmen were already riding their galloping horses through the broken gateway, flinging torches onto the thatch rooftops—which caught fire, despite being soaked in rain. Some Turkmen were also leading columns of filthy, bloody, crying women and children out of the city in chains.
“You can tell the Sarats’en are wealthy,” Anahid murmured to Herakleia, leaning in to keep the guards from hearing. “They chain their slaves with metal, rather than rope.”
Herakleia ordered the carriers to set down the litter. They nodded, lowered the litter to the mud, and sighed with relief. She then watched the carnage through the slit in her veil and the litter’s window, Tamghach forbidding her to get out or go closer. Soon enough, fire, smoke, and screams were rising from the city. Sometimes an old man covered in blood—his clothes torn, his face blackened with soot—would stagger through the gate, fleeing for his life. But mounted raiders were waiting. Someone would bring him down with an arrow, and then this someone would be congratulated by his fellows, all laughing and cheering and sometimes even flipping each other coins. Then the cycle would repeat. The fleeing people never got more than a few steps from the gateway, and the raiders rarely missed. A wailing horse came charging out, its mane on fire. Swallows that had nested in the eaves of the houses inside were also flying away from the city, leaving their babies behind.
Herakleia looked toward the northwest, the direction of Paiperte and Trebizond, willing her army to show up. But the ground was flat here, and she was unable to see above the yurts, crowds, and makeshift siege equipment. Amazons could have been charging down the Tabriz Road at that same moment, and she would have had no idea. Thanks to her veil, she could barely see anything at all, and yet the little she did see was more than enough. Bands of chained slaves stumbled past, led by their new owners on horseback, who held the chains and guided the slaves with the same nonchalance as when guiding their flocks of sheep. Camp families which had gathered to watch the spectacle spat on the slaves and called them “giaour.” The dirty, pudgy-cheeked child slaves were too small for the shackles, so they could only trail after their mothers, who urged them to keep up even as their new masters threatened to whip them for going too slow. In her sudden anger, Herakleia stood from her litter and raised her arms to fight, but her own chains dragged her back down. She had forgotten them again.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Fucking chains.
The spectacle continued. Flames rose higher above the walls, a towering inferno. It seemed there would be no end to the slaves the Turks were marching out of the city. They also smacked the rumps of braying donkeys who, loaded with golden jewelry, trailed after the slaves, climbing over piles of bleeding bodies.
Herakleia was about to order her carriers to bring her back to her yurt when she noticed something else happening. The Turkmen were packing up the camp. Tents were coming down, carpets being rolled up, sacks of grain and chests of clothing being loaded onto mules and two-humped camels. Already some Turkmen were riding out to gather their flocks—marked for each tribe—while others were chaining thousands of slaves to wooden carriages. It was amazing how quickly they moved. Within minutes, it seemed, almost the entire camp had been packed up and was on the move, heading south, perhaps to the slave markets of Aleppo, a horde tramping through the mud with a city turned to a tower of fire behind them. Only at this point did the gap in the mountains leading to Paiperte become visible.
Malik-Shah ventured out of his yurt. He had been conspicuously absent at the siege’s conclusion. But now he shouted at the departing Turkmen and waved his arms, stepping down from his yurt and stomping after them through the muck. No one even looked at him, and his voice could hardly be heard above Erzurum’s roaring flames. Before long, he was left with nothing but a few yurts and some horses, slaves, and bodyguards. Ashes and sparks drifted past him as he stared at his departing army. Shafts of sun broke through the rainclouds and illuminated the rising smoke plumes.
“The Turkmen have had their fill,” Anahid whispered to Herakleia. “They can carry no more treasure. Many of the slaves here will likewise die on the road for lack of food or water. It is impossible to supply them, there are too many, the Turkmen can take no more. They must convert the slaves into gold. Even the flocks of sheep have grazed these fields to death. What point is there, then, in continuing onward to Paiperte? Yet that is what Malik-Shah tells them to do.”
Herakleia strained against her chains. No more than a few dozen guards protected Malik-Shah at this moment. She could have beaten them—if only she were free!
Doesn’t matter how hard we fight, she thought, slumping in her litter. We always lose.
Full of despair, she looked back to the Tabriz Road, telling herself that there was no point, asking why she even bothered. And yet this time people were there. Gleaming in armor, mounted on horseback, carrying swords and spears and maces and bows and arrows, hundreds of soldiers had gathered in the gap between the mountains. Several held red flags that billowed in the wind and glowed in the sun.
Herakleia’s heart soared, and she stood from her seat. Anahid was staring there too.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“Trebizond,” Herakleia answered.
An amazon blasted a trumpet that echoed across the Erzurum plains, bouncing back from the distant mountains. All the amazons then lowered their spears or raised their swords or maces. They urged their horses to trot down the road toward what remained of the camp. Tamghach and the other two guards had already abandoned Herakleia to help Malik-Shah and Nizam al-Mulk mount their horses. Malik-Shah was, nonetheless, pointing at Herakleia and, with wide eyes, screaming in Persian. Tamghach and his two subordinates ran back to Herakleia, while Malik-Shah galloped so quickly toward the Turkmen horde that he nearly fell from his horse. Nizam al-Mulk followed.
By now the amazons had urged their horses to a gallop. The Turkmen warriors had turned around to meet them, leaving their flocks, families, slaves, and treasure, which nonetheless kept moving south. Such were their overwhelming numbers that the Turkmen warriors easily outflanked the amazons—who nonetheless plunged like a sword straight into their center.
The amazons will never win if they fight like this, Herakleia thought.
She knew about double envelopments from studying her Polybios, her Scipio and Hannibal. According to Samonas, it was every general’s dream to achieve a double-envelopment, which is exactly what the Turkmen were doing to the amazons—outflanking them on both sides, and seemingly without any general even commanding them.
This was around Malik-Shah’s yurt, which had become like the eye of a whirling storm. Horses thundered past Herakleia’s litter in every direction. An arrow pierced Tamghach’s face, a sword slashed the eyes of one of his fellow guards, while the other fell with a spear in his back. Herakleia stumbled out of her litter, pulled off her veil, and held her chained hands up into the air, shouting for someone to free her. A burning sword split the chains. It was Ay?e, galloping past on her horse.
“Thanks!” Herakleia shouted.
“Do not mention it, sister!” Ay?e shouted back, her horse riding over a fearsome warrior who had tried to block her, and trampling him.
Herakleia stretched out her hand, and Tamghach’s blade leaped from his scabbard once more and returned to her grip. Heating it, she blasted the shackles around her ankles. She was free, though she had only 1/100 farr left.
Anahid stared at her, speechless.
“Stay in the litter,” Herakleia told her. “Stay down.”
Anahid nodded and ducked just as a speeding arrow swooped past her.
Herakleia leaped onto an abandoned horse and rode into the battle. The charging had stopped by now and the two sides were sitting on their horses, jabbing at each other with spears, slashing one another with swords, bashing each other with maces, or loosing arrows into each other’s ranks, the fletches glimmering in the sunlight that was shining everywhere and heating the water that had melted into the ground. Screams, growls, grunts, and shouts were interspersed with whinnying horses and clinking metal. Everything smelled like blood, smoke, and manure. Some amazons stood on their saddles and then jumped onto nearby Turkmen, wrestling them to the ground. Za-Ilmaknun was there, the cross in his forehead glowing orange as he smashed people with his mequamia. Simonas had seized one of the horsehair standards and was beating her enemies with it, cheering as she knocked them down, one after the other.
Yet for every amazon, there must have been a hundred Turkmen. There were too many. Even with the farr strengthening the amazons and making them move faster, the Turkmen were going to win. Herakleia had already stumbled over Jiajak Jaqeli’s body, and had gasped with sadness.
Soon the Turkmen had surrounded the surviving amazons, who were backed against Malik-Shah’s yurt.
At this point, the Turkmen stopped fighting. Arrows were nocked on their bows, their swords and spears were raised, and they were gasping for breath and drenched in sweat, but they kept their distance from the amazons, who were covered in blood and muck. Herakleia spotted Simonas kneeling over Euphrosyne’s body and crying. Their squad’s dekarch was dead.
No!
Malik-Shah approached on his horse, cheering at his Turkmen and praising them. He stopped in front of the amazons, gestured to Herakleia, and said something. The Turkmen laughed.
“He says you look ridiculous,” Anahida translated. She had left the litter and was standing beside Herakleia with Umm Musharrafa, who was praying over Kata Surameli’s body.
“You are a woman,” Anahida added. “Not a warrior.”
Herakleia recalled all the fine clothing and makeup she was wearing—covered now in filth—but she didn’t care.
Nizam al-Mulk joined Malik-Shah, who lowered his arms and said something else to Herakleia.
“You and your women will surrender,” Anahida translated. “You will become our wives. Our slaves. You will please us like the hurriya of paradise. You will bear us children, who will also be our slaves. And if you ever again even look at us the wrong way, we will kill you. We will kill them.”
“Charming guy,” Herakleia said.
“Shall I tell him that?” Anahida said.
“Tell him he can go fuck himself,” Herakleia said.
Shrugging, Anahida translated. Malik-Shah’s eyes widened, and he even blushed. Some Turkmen laughed, but stopped when Nizam al-Mulk glared at them. Then Malik-Shah growled something, and all the Turkmen urged their horses forward to attack the amazons. Herakleia and the amazons raised their weapons. Umm Musharrafa was praying nearby, repeating the word “Allah.”
Yet for some reason, the clouds had returned, and the sky was dark. A rushing sound arose from every direction—like a hurricane wind, yet stronger and somehow denser. Herakleia looked back to the Tabriz Road, and saw a small figure standing there dressed in white robes, her hands raised, her eyes glittering with lightning. It was Miriai. She was summoning the River of Heaven again.
“Don’t mess with that old bird,” Herakleia said. “Useful to have a tempestaria on our side.”
“At least when she comes through.” Umm Musharrafa looked to the sky. “An answer to my prayers.”
The invisible river swept through the Turkmen like a tidal wave. The men and their horses rose into the air and crashed against the blackened walls of Erzurum, where the fires went out, and a cloud of steam churned upward. Burrowing into the earth around Malik-Shah’s yurt, Piriawis gouged an uneven circular canal from the plain, pressing the Turkmen against the city walls until they drowned.
It was over in seconds. The warriors were gone, along with Malik-Shah and Nizam al-Mulk.
In the distant, Miriai lowered her arms, and the lightning faded from her eyes.
Though the amazons were exhausted, they rode after the Turkmen horde, freed the slaves taken from Erzurum, then kept them from killing the Turkmen women and children. To these people, the amazons said they were welcome to stay or leave, it was their choice. Aside from a few of the nastier women who had already managed to abuse their slaves, they would not be punished for the actions of their men—whom they would also be permitted to bury.
The battlefield became a graveyard. Everyone was digging with whatever tools they could find—often just weapons—and many people were crying. Miriai and Za-Ilmaknun found each other, and hugged. But Euphrosyne, Kata Surameli, and Jiajak Jaqeli had perished in the fighting, along with new recruits in the new centuries sent by Trebizond. Their comrades mourned them. Simonas, in particular, seemed lost without Euphrosyne. Herakleia nonetheless promoted her to dekarch.
Since Erzurum was destroyed, they camped outside its walls, away from the burning pile of dead horses and the fresh graves and tumuli.
In the morning, Erzurum’s survivors voted to join the uprising. They elected their delegates, and requested that some amazons stay behind to help rebuild the city and train the people in the arts of war. Herakleia and her own council of kentarchs and dekarchs agreed. Some Turkmen took their chances in the hills, while others opted to follow the army back to Trebizond.
Soon enough, Herakleia was on her way back to Trebizond, with Hummay, Ay?e, Miriai, Za-Ilmaknun, Simonas, and Umm Musharrafa riding by her side. The next day, they reached Paiperte, which was now connected to the Trapezuntine signal tower network. They learned that more cities had joined the uprising. This was when Herakleia seriously began to contemplate a march on Konstantinopolis, as Samonas had mentioned weeks ago. That summer they would take the queen of cities—they would take revenge on Rome for all the Romans had done—and come that much closer to destroying slavery and feudalism once and for all.
