Miguel Gomes
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Chapter 21: For Theodoro
🕑 Added 2025-09-24 21:00:12 +0000 UTC“Captain! Sergeant Leonidas! Orestis! Where are you?!” Christos’s voice was a ragged bellow as he crashed through the woods. He had only a vague sense of direction, a desperate heading toward the valley the Captain had designated for their rally point, and he ran with the wild abandon of a man possessed.
His plan - to run in the vague direction of the meetup through the woods and towards the fight, yelling frantically all the while - had been met with a wall of opposition. The worry etched on the faces of Stratos and Despina as they cautioned him to reconsider. Agape had straight-up refused to let him go. She’d gripped his arm, commanding him to stay, her face a silent, desperate plea.
They were right, he knew. It was a fool’s attempt, a stupid plan born from a heart too stubborn for its own good. But Christos had never been a clever man. He couldn’t conjure a mastermind’s scheme to slip past the enemy and rejoin his comrades. All he knew was that he would rather die on his feet than live with the knowledge that they had faced death alone. If a gap in that shield wall opened where he was supposed to stand, killing one of his friends, he’d never forgive himself.
The thought of his friends being shredded by Tatar arrows - even that oaf Georgios, with his clumsy jokes and constant complaining - lent a fresh fire to his weary legs. He had to get there before the Tatars did.
He finally chanced upon a path deep in the wilderness. Maybe calling it a path was being too generous; It was little more than an animal trail, but it seemed to lead in the right direction, and that was enough for Christos, who had the sneaking suspicion he’d been wandering in circles for the past fifteen minutes. He followed it, his earlier sprint now a punishing jog as the kilometers took their toll on his heavy frame. The path began to incline upwards, and through a break in the canopy, he saw the looming shape of a tall hill with a giant-shaped boulder. One he recognized from his childhood as being the immortalized remains of a giant. The valley where the commander had set up the ambush had to be on the other side.
The realization sent a new surge of strength through his screaming muscles. He scrambled up the hill with all his might, his boots slipping on the damp earth, each step a monumental effort. Halfway up, he heard it: the sharp, clear blast of a trumpet, followed by a distant war cry. The Captain’s signal! He pushed harder, his heart hammering against his ribs, his lungs burning, begging for air. He was almost there.
The sounds of fighting, at first faint, grew steadily into a terrifying roar - guttural war cries, the thunder of crashing hooves, and the high, thin screams of men and beasts in their death throes. He finally crested the hill, and the sight that greeted him was a vision of utter carnage. A great tide of horsemen swept across the valley floor, a wave of destruction aimed directly at him, and at the small, defiant wall of Greek soldiers that stood to meet them, outnumbered four to one. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
He sprinted down the hill like his life and the lives of his friends depended on it. Because they very well might.
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Thirty minutes earlier.
The thunder of a hundred hooves was the only music Nur Devlet needed. He was a storm on horseback, the wind whipping at his face, the scent of dust and lathered horses filling his lungs. His çapul was a tidal wave of steel and fury, and before them, the chaotic tracks of the fleeing villagers were a clear, inviting path into the wilderness. The wagon wheels had churned the earth, a desperate signature leading away from the heartland, and Nur’s men rode hard, eager to bring ruin upon the prey.
But a cold knot of doubt tightened in his gut. He pulled back on the reins of his stallion, a subtle pressure that rippled through the column, slowing the frantic gallop to a trot. He had already made one mistake. Burning those frontier hamlets had been a satisfying act of dominance and served to sow the fear the raid was meant to instill in these puny sheep farmers. But it had cost them time.
The Greeks knew of their location. A lightning strike in a different direction would have been the best course of action to remain unpredictable and not allow the Greeks to track them. He needed time to think, but Halil and his proud warriors weren’t keen on giving it.
“Why do we slow, Kalga-Sultan?” It was Halil, his young face flushed with bloodlust. “The prey escapes as we speak!”
Another bey spurred forward. “They must be fat with coin and trinkets! We should not linger!”
“My blade is thirsty, my Kalga!” a third declared. “Please, give the order.”
Even Mustafa seemed puzzled by Nur’s slower pace. “My Kalga?” he asked inquisitively.
Nur raised a gauntleted hand for silence. To chase a panicked herd this deep into unknown territory was a risk. Every minute they spent on this muddy trail was a minute they’d have to backtrack. Their plan had been to raid only along known paths from Meñli’s raid, not to conduct a blind chase through the woods for loot and slaves they couldn’t readily carry.
“Your thinking is right, my Kalga. We should turn back.”
The voice was calm, logical, and grated on Nur’s nerves like sand on steel. Seit sat on his pristine warhorse at the tail of the column, leaving the vanguard to the true warriors. “This evacuation was planned,” he continued, his tone infuriatingly reasonable. “They could be leagues ahead by now. We are being led on a wild goose chase.”
Hearing his own cautious thoughts mirrored in the mouth of a coward felt like a contamination. To retreat now would be to admit Seit was right. It would be a show of fear, an erosion of the iron authority he commanded. A leader who hesitated was a leader who died. And yet, the nagging feeling remained. This felt like a choreographed dance, and he was moving precisely to his enemy’s tune.
Just as the thought soured in his mind, one of the forward scouts let out a sharp cry. “There! On the path!”
Lying half-buried in the mud was a heavy wagon wheel, its axle snapped clean off, the wood splintered and broken.
“My Kalga!” Halil exclaimed, his eyes blazing with triumph. “Their wheels are failing! The trail is fresh! They cannot have made good time, laden with goods as they are!”
The sight of it, the simple, undeniable proof of the villagers’ struggle, shattered Nur’s hesitation. This was the sign he needed, the justification to unleash the storm. His gaze swept past his eager warriors and landed on Seit.
“We are no cowards to turn back now,” he declared, his voice a low growl for all to hear. “The villagers carried their whole harvest with them. We will burn it all, carry their valuables, and kill the rest. We’ll be done within the hour and move on our way with no more distractions.”
Seit’s mouth thinned into a flat, disapproving line. Wiping that smug expression from his face, Nur thought, was worth the risk alone.
“Forward!” he roared, and the çapul answered with a bloodthirsty cry, their horses exploding into a full gallop, a thunder of hooves on the horizon.
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“Leave it there.” Glykeria’s voice was sharp, cutting through the nervous whispers of the villagers. At her command, two men heaved the spare wagon wheel from their cart and let it fall with a heavy thud into the mud. It was part of the Captain’s strange, meticulous plan. And though it confused the villagers, Glykeria understood it for what it was. A prop, a piece of theatre, meant to goad their pursuers.
As the small caravan of laden wagons creaked back into motion, every eye darted backward, searching the empty trail for a sign of the four who had not returned. Stratos and Christos hadn’t come back yet with Despina and Agape, and now they never would. They’d either gotten lost or… No, anything else didn’t bear thinking about. There was nothing any of them could do, besides pray that they were somehow safe.
The mood was a raw, frayed nerve, so when three figures detached themselves from the deep green shadows of the forest ahead, a collective yelp went through the group. The leading man was bearded and rugged, his face a mask of trail-worn exhaustion, but he moved with a soldier’s purpose.
“Calm yourselves,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. He held his hands up, palms open. “I am Orestis, a soldier from Probatofrourio. The Captain sent us to guide you.”
The words were a balm, and the tension in Glykeria’s shoulders eased a fraction. But not everyone was so easily convinced.
“Whada’ ya want with us, ya damn brigands?! We ain’t got nothin’ for ya!” Her husband, Zisis, scuttled to the front of the wagons, planting his drooping, willow-thin frame between the soldier and their goods as if he were a mighty bulwark. Glykeria fought back a sigh.
The soldier looked bewildered. “Elder, we mean you no harm. We are here to escort you to the valley. To help protect you.”
“That’s exactly what a nomad thief like yerself would say!” Zisis proclaimed, his voice cracking with self-importance. “You must think old Zisis a fool!”
A sharp smack echoed in the quiet woods as Glykeria’s palm connected with the back of her husband’s head.
“Owie! Woman, what’s gotten into ya?”
“You are a damn fool.” She often asked herself why she’d married the idiot. She’d been the most sought-after girl in Kerasia in her heyday, and of all the men she could have picked, she’d gone with this oaf. “Does this look like a nomad to that sorry head of yours?”
“It could be a disguise!” Zisis insisted. “Ya don’t know these cunning nomad folk like I do, woman. They’re canny in their own savage ways.” He turned to the hapless soldier and wagged his bony finger in the savage nomad’s face. “You. Can’t. Fool. Me.”
Orestis looked utterly flustered. He hadn’t anticipated he’d have so much difficulty in guiding the villagers to the valley.
“Ignore my husband,” Glykeria said, the words worn smooth from a lifetime of use. “He is prone to overdramatizations. Lead the way, soldier, please.” She said, taking command of the situation.
Visibly relieved to be back in his element, Orestis gave Zisis - who was now muttering about falling into the ‘damned nomads’ trap’ - one last weary look. “This way,” he said, turning toward a hidden path. “Follow me.”
Orestis led them deep into the woods, to the place the old stories called the Giant’s Tear. It was a valley carved by a sorrow so great it had turned to stone, the river gurgling around a colossal, moss-eaten boulder. It was a place of refuge, a sanctuary. Legends told of a widowed giant who, lost in the sorrow of his love’s death, cried his heart out. Even when the tears dried and turned to stone, he did not stop.
It was a sorrowful tale, and as Glykeria guided her ox cart into the heart of the clearing, she looked at the steep valley walls that sealed them in and prayed this tragic, sacred place would not become their tomb.
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Theodorus watched from the mouth of the valley as the Kerasia caravan finally broke through the clearing. He saw his stoutest men - Georgios and Sergeant Leonidas among them - heaving the "broken" wagon wheel from the mud, the final act in a piece of theatre designed to hook the raiders’ greed. Every detail was a carefully placed lure. The planted treasures in the abandoned hamlets were a whisper of easy plunder. The villagers' own abandoned goods were a promise of more to come. It had cost the hamlets’ coin and frayed the villagers’ nerves, but Theodorus felt nothing. He would recoup his losses from the raiders' corpses.
Sergeant Leonidas escorted the last of the villagers past the main barricade, a formidable wall of sharpened logs that Cistos’s men had woven into the valley’s natural defenses, hidden behind a screen of deadfall and foliage. The Kerasia wagon was manhandled into a prepared gap, its heavy frame becoming the lynchpin of the fortification. As the last of the villagers funneled past, disappearing toward a nearby cave with the wagon’s supplies, with all of their possessions. Pre-manufactured wooden parts were attached to the wagon to further reinforce it. It was a bastardized version of the Hussites’ wagon forts. Structures that had allowed the ragtag group of rebels to wage a 15-year war against the largest European powerhouse of the time. A parapet and wooden crenelations were added to give the archers the high ground, while a Greek shieldwall of Probtofrourios’s militia would have to hold the center from the ground level.
The cave was their final sanctuary. If the army was defeated here, there would be no escape, and everyone knew it. It was no surprise then that he’d found no shortage of volunteers when he asked the villagers for combatants from the men and actors for one final play from the women. The men looked grim and awkward in their ill-fitting gambesons, holding pitted spears, and taking their places behind the main line. They were not soldiers; they were a scarecrow army, but one which played its part nonetheless. His plan hinged on breaking the morale of the nomads, and the illusion of numbers helped achieve this. The frontline would be his actual garrison, of course, and the bulk of their fighting prowess lay with them, but the nomads would assume the back ranks were just as skilled.
My Lord.” It was Stefanos, his face flushed with purpose. The unassuming garrison mascot brought with him an entourage of half a dozen hardbitten men. “I’ve brought the last of the archers.”
The name was a poor approximation of the reality - They were thirty men in total, a mix of local hunters and a few men-at-arms from the Sideris estate. A respectable number and as many as the garrison, although they were not trained in the slightest in the art of warfare. Theodorus had drilled them to do one thing and one thing only: volley fire.
He had instructed them to fire their first shot in concert, and, ideally, their second volley would follow suit much the same. After that, they were to fire at will on the nomads, aiming mainly for the beasts. They were an easier target to aim at, and the nomads would be sitting ducks and demoralized if their beasts perished.
“Good work, Stefanos. Men,” he said, turning to the hunters, his voice calm and steady. “Your task today is simple. You will hunt. My soldiers and these fortifications will protect you.” He gestured to a smaller, secondary barricade on the valley’s eastern flank, which was mirrored by another he had assembled on the western flank. “That is your position. Sergeant Leonidas will give you your final briefing.” The men had already been briefed, but in the chaos before a battle, repetition was its own form of armor. “Stefanos, go with them.”
He gazed upon the hunters as they hurried to their positions and joined his own men in the roughspewn barricades. This was why he had drilled them relentlessly in the shieldwall, in withstanding cavalry charges in supporting each other, and in discipline. His entire strategy rested on this anvil holding long enough for his archers to unleash chaos and casualties. Looking at his men, the last four months had seen a night and day transformation in their demeanour and in their bodies. Four months ago, they had been a ramshackle collection of apathetic farmers and shepherds. Now, they were a passable militia. Their jaws were set, their bodies covered in cost-effective but serviceable leather-padded gambesons, their hands steady on their refurbished spears and new oaken shields. They were bodies that could hold a line against anyone if placed under the right circumstances. They might return to their fields tomorrow and forget half of what they’d learned, but for today, they would do.
A figure dropped from the high branches of the great oak that stood sentinel over the valley, landing with a soft thud. “Captain!” It was young Pavlos, the hunter, his bow slung over his shoulder, his eyes wide. As the designated scout and forager for their group, he hadn’t participated completely in the shieldwall training. He had, instead, sharpened his bow and scouting skills, as Theodorus had identified his exceptional eyesight and planned to make the most of it.
The oak had been his perch, offering a commanding view of the goat path through the gaps in the forest canopy.
“Is it Christos?” Theodorus asked, a flicker of hope in his voice. Glykeria’s frantic report of the missing men was a loose thread he could not afford to ignore.
“No, Captain.” Pavlos swallowed, his face pale. “It’s… the nomads. There are scores of them. Maybe a hundred.”
A cold shock rippled through the ranks. One hundred raiders? Theodorus had planned for fifty, perhaps seventy at the absolute most. This was a substantial raid and a large investment from the Khan. Theodorus realized with sickening clarity that a raid of this size likely wasn’t aimed at raiding a few border villages. They meant to strike deeper into the Theodoran heartland.
“Captain.” Leonidas was at his side, his voice a low, tense rumble. He was processing the same grim calculus. “These numbers… perhaps we should fall back. One hundred nomads… against this force…” His gaze flickered to the dozens of Kerasia volunteers who were suddenly terrified and the garrison militia whose newfound courage was visibly crumbling. They were 60 fighting men and a few dozen scarecrows about to face off against one hundred Crimean warriors seasoned in the harsh, unforgiving, and martial world of the steppes. “...it is suicide.”
Theodorus saw the fear blooming on the faces of his men and knew the sergeant was right. The logical move, the sane move, was to retreat, to save the weapon he had so painstakingly forged. But as the faces of his men blurred, he saw another, fever-bright and dying, and heard a desperate whisper. Promise me. All his careful plans, all his grand strategies, would turn to dust if he turned back here. He’d be breaking the one charge that had brought him into this world and kept him in it.
The visions of failure came in a cold, rapid-fire sequence: his estate in flames, his name a byword for disgrace, the heartland of Theodoro burning because he, the last line of defense, had broken. He’d be powerless to change History and protect the people he’d come to know and care about. Theodorus set his features to granite. He would not break. Not here.
He climbed onto the rough-hewn timbers of the barricade, his slight frame a stark silhouette against the pale sky. A hush fell over the valley as every eye - soldier, hunter, and villager - turned to him. They were his soldiers, his charges, his responsibility.
“There is no retreat. We cannot let them through this clearing, men,” He began, his voice ringing with an authority that belied his years. “I have received word that the force riding for this valley is not fifty men, but one hundred.”
A tremor of shock went through the assembled crowd, a collective gasp that threatened to shatter their fragile courage.
“They are on horseback,” Theodorus continued, his voice cutting through their fear. He couldn’t inspire courage in his men by ignoring their fear, but by forcing them to face it. “We are on foot. To run is to invite a slaughter. That simple fact dooms us. We could run in every which direction, yes. And the fastest of you might even escape.” He voiced aloud the first knee-jerk reaction the men would have. Then, he proceeded to dismantle it. “But you will do so by paying with the lives of those who cannot run as far as you. The old, the women… the children.” The words landed like stones, and he saw the faces of the Kerasia men harden with grim understanding. “Their blood will be on your hands. They will die, or be sold into slavery to infidel scum.” He saw some men crossing themselves. Such a fate was considered worse than death for a medieval Christian.
“You have seen the smoke on the horizon - Not all of it was our own. The nomads did not come to just steal. They came to destroy.” He stared at each man in succession, holding the moment for a breath. “And I will tell you now, a horde of this size isn’t after meagre loot or a dozen slaves from the frontiers hamlets, they will not stop here.”
“You might think your family is safe, that your life is not worth laying down for a village not your own.” Theodorus’s countenance turned sorrowful. “I thought my home was safe once too,” he said, his voice raw with memory. “Until they murdered my father.” He let the gravity of the moment wash over them. “Even if you’re not from Kerasia, don’t think you’re village will be safe. We must stop them here, not for ourselves, but for every family they seek to destroy. Here, with the strengths of these walls, we stand the best fighting chance. Fight as if you’re life depends on it. Trust in the plan. And think of your families before you come into this battle. You are fighting for their survival.”
He let his gaze sweep over them, from the hard-bitten faces of his veterans to the terrified eyes of the peasant volunteers. He had acknowledged the odds. He had laid out the consequences of failure. Now, he needed to make them believe.
“Look at what you have become! You are not the flock of sheep I found cowering in a ruin! You are the shepherds who guard these hills! You are the wall!” He raised his fist, the speech reaching its climax. “Believe in me! Believe in yourselves! Believe you will kill every last one of the Tatar scum that came to plunder your home!”
In the pregnant silence that followed, a single, guttural roar shattered the tension. “HURRAH!” It was Leonidas, his voice a thunderclap that broke the spell of fear. A tempest of war cries answered him, a hundred desperate voices unleashed as one.
“FOR THEODORO!”
“FOR THE NORTH!”
“FOR THE CAPTAIN!”
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The forest floor told a story of panicked flight. Nur Devlet traced the tracks from his saddle, his eyes narrowed in calculation. The ruts were lopsided; a deep, continuous groove from a single rear wheel, while the other side was a chaotic churn of mud, marred by the deep footprints of men heaving and shoving.
“The tracks are fresh, my Kalga,” Mustafa confirmed, his voice a low rumble. “They cannot be far.”
“Then why do we dally?” Halil demanded, his youthful impatience chafing at the slow pace. “We should ride them down before they reach whatever hole they’re running to!”
Nur stared him down. “We dally because I say we do. That should be reason enough.” Halil visibly withered under his glance, his feathers ruffled.
“This is a prime site for an ambush,” A calm voice stated from the rear of the column. It was Seit. “They are drawing us in.”
“Or they are simply weak and desperate,” Halil sneered, visibly growing in size like a peacock as soon as he found a target to vent his frustration into. He turned in his saddle to glare at the prince. “Only a coward sees a trap behind every tree.”
“He is right, my Kalga,” Mustafa cautioned, having reached the same conclusion as Nur and Seit. “But to feign this whole retreat, the wagon wheel, the distorted tracks…it is too improbable.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“And the amount of harvest that is in that wagon should not be discounted.” Nur thought aloud. “Even if the Theodorans expected a Crimean attack, with their financial strain, it is unlikely they could muster any sort of meaningful resistance with the soldiers they have available. The local fort was damaged and looted. Their warriors were weak and puny, according to my brother; they would probably organize retreat paths, not ambushes with non-existent soldiers.” Even as Nur stated the logical conclusions to the present facts, something nagged at him. What if-
Suddenly, the forest erupted with sound. “They’re here! The nomads are here! Leave the wagon, run!” The screams were desperate, terrified, and tantalizingly close. A savage grin split Nur’s face. Those were not the sounds of hardened veterans springing a trap. They were the sound of prey waiting to be slaughtered.
“We ride.” He raised his saber into the air.
“These Greeks are not brave enough to have such a scheme, and even if they do…” He wore a savage grin. “I’d like to see them try to beat the full might of the Kalga-Sultan of the Crimean Khanate. Hayah!” He spurred his horse.
He could no longer hold them back; a predatory ripple went through the çapul as the men drew their sabers, the clearing opening up before them. “CHARGE!” he roared, and the world became a thunder of hooves.
Ahead, the scene was exactly as the sounds had promised. A heavy wagon, laden with goods and covered by a tarp, was tilted into the mud, one of its wheels missing. In the distance, a small group of women scrambled into the far trees. The bait was perfect.
Nur and his warriors surged into the open clearing, a wave of unstoppable steel. Something pricked at the edge of Nur’s vision. The edges of the clearing were too straight, the tree stumps too fresh. His eyes darted to the sides, and he saw them: low, camouflaged walls of sharpened logs, manned with the dark shapes of men. A trap.
“STOP!” he bellowed, pulling so hard on his reins his stallion reared. “STOP YOUR CHARGE!”
But half his force, lost in the red mist of bloodlust, thundered on, their cries drowning out his command. Mustafa reined in beside him, his face a mask of confusion dawning into understanding as he ran to shield Nur. Seit looked utterly terrified, his hand already reaching to turn his horse. Nur had only a moment to grab his shield from his back. His face was grim. “Take cover!” he snarled to his men.
Then the sky turned black as dozens of arrows rose in a single, disciplined volley and fell upon them like a deadly rain.
