Shirvan and Georgia’s feudal rulers were age-old foes, but both trembled at an uprising of angry peasants, slaves, women, and children. Shirvan had therefore sent an army south from Darband while another came west from Shamakhi, this latter army joined by forces loyal to Duke Adarnase of Tao. Both armies consisted largely of cavalry; few infantry were present and there was little siege equipment aside from some ladders. In total, the two Kaukasos powers had only managed to put together what looked like a few thousand soldiers in their invasion force. Yet if the city even blinked while it was on the defense, this would be enough.
The Bakuyans just need to stay behind the walls, Alexios thought, watching the marching armor gleam in the sunshine and dust. They should be alright.
The armies surrounded Bakuya on the landward sides, not even bothering to set up their tents, build palisades, or dig trenches or latrines. Clearly they expected the siege to end within hours. In the mean time, a trio of Varangian longships blockaded the city from the sea and attacked the few vessels that were still in the harbor.
As for Bakuya itself, every person, scrap of food, draft animal, and sword or knife was brought behind the walls. The mystics, former cauldron owners, and Multani merchants—anyone who was even slightly ideologically suspect—were forced outside. The city had enough enemies beyond the walls; it had no need for more inside. This small crowd looked back at Bakuya uncomprehendingly, then shuffled toward the enemy army, blessing the Georgian and Shirvanese soldiers with tears in their eyes, ranting about the depredations they had suffered at the hands of the savage criminals—and all for no reason!
Roxelana Khatun—the cauldron owner whom Ifridun had ordered arrested when the newly liberated oil slaves were washing themselves in the windy sea—was shouting so loudly Alexios could hear her from the walls. Her slaves had abandoned her and joined the uprising, forcing her to walk.
“This terrible Eskandar,” she cried. “He merely wanders the Earth, sowing hate and destruction wherever he goes, all for the mere fun of it! It’s truly the devil’s work! How we have suffered under the rule of the Trapezuntine thug!”
The enemy welcomed these rejects, gave them food and water, and allowed them to rest. Alexios thought they must have been asking about any weaknesses in the walls, how many soldiers were inside, what kind of equipment did they have, how long could they last in a siege?
“It would have been wiser to kill them,” Artvadios said.
“Defectors have their uses,” Alexios said. “They exaggerate to make us look weaker than we are, to make us look evil, because they want their new friends to attack us more than anything. If they win, the defectors get to go back home and live off other people’s work again.”
Artvadios cocked his head. “Aye, it’s true.”
Alexios watched him for a moment, wondering if he could be trusted, or if he was just Ifridun’s well-armed, muscular shadow.
The gates were barred and the flame spouts turned off. This last action came at the suggestion of a young hijabi named Zara Khatun, who had been elected amir or commander of the city’s First Orta, or century. She answered to the workers and to Eskandar Agha alone. A talented amazon, she was also full of ideas.
“We can use the flames to burn the invaders when their ladders fall against the walls,” she said.
Soon Shirvan and Georgia sent a delegation riding to Bakuya under a white flag, itself accompanied by a black flag with white Arabic lettering reading “There Is No God But God” as well as a white flag with a red cross representing the Christians of Georgia. Bakuya itself had lacked the time to design a flag of its own, and so used the uprising’s red flag.
Standing above the Paired Fortress Gates on the city’s north side, Alexios was unsurprised to see Duke Adarnase of Tao and the Shirvanshahzadeh Abul Muzaffar Manuchehr riding together in the delegation. Each was accompanied by six heavily armed guards. The pizishk Khorasani had also come, no doubt serving as translator and battlefield medic. Some of Alexios’s students from that first and only class in the Naryn-Kala courtyard were present, including his favorite, Ifridun’s chaperone, Sharif Ali al-Rashid.
On the walls, Alexios was with his usual friends—Michael, Ifridun, Artvadios, and Gowri—plus Emir Zara Khatun. Everyone in the city behind them, meanwhile, was preparing for battle. They were sharpening swords, breaking down old carriages and turning the pieces into wooden spears and stretchers, filing ceramic pots with oil, pouring water into buckets and water skins, getting tables and bandages ready for the wounded, storing food underground, smashing rocks so they could be thrown from the walls. Everyone had something to do. Bakuya's young men and women had mostly joined the army, but the children and elders preoccupied themselves with support roles.
This setup was unsurprising to Alexios. How many times had Trebizond faced a siege of reactionary warriors?
What did surprise Alexios, however, was that Adarnase had brought two children riding with him on his muscular charger—Basil and Kassia. Their wrists were chained, but otherwise they looked clean and well-fed, and were even dressed in colorful silk. Alexios also noticed that they had grown. Rakhsh, however, was nowhere to be seen, for reasons unknown.
Alexios tensed at the sight of his children, gritting his teeth, his heart pounding in his chest. He was infuriated, and yet he also recognized that Adarnase had brought the children to ignite his emotions—to manipulate him into making mistakes.
At once Alexios thought of resigning his position as Agha of Bakuya. This situation compromised him. How could he act in Bakuya's best interests when his children were threatened? It was taking all his self-restraint to keep from flying off the wall and attacking the delegation. His farr was recharged, he could probably handle them. Yet Adarnase would have no trouble cutting Kassia and Basil’s throats long before Alexios managed to break their chains. He was unsure if the dull rusted scimitar he carried was even capable of doing this. Gedara, he saw, was sheathed at Adarnase’s side.
“Peace be upon you!” the Shirvanshahzadeh shouted from his white horse. “My dear gholam, my dear Eskandar-jan, it would appear you have been most busy!”
Alexios opened his mouth to speak, but the Shirvanshahzadeh was still talking.
“That golden tongue of yours has turned my son’s mind!” he said. “All I ask is that you return him to me safely and surrender my city. In exchange, I will be merciful. No one in Bakuya need be harmed. All of you may go back to your old lives. We can pretend that none of this ever happened—that it was all just a dream.”
“I’m not going anywhere, father!” Ifridun shouted from beside Alexios. “I’m done taking orders from you!”
Maybe I’m not the only one who’s emotionally compromised, Alexios thought.
“Mind your tongue, boy!” shouted Sharif al-Rashid, glancing at the Shirvanshahzadeh. “Did I teach you to speak in such impious fashion?”
“You taught me only to obey,” Ifridun said. “Only to follow orders—even when I knew they were wrong. I’m finished living that life!”
“My son.” The Shirvanshahzadeh shook his head. “Oh my son, if only you knew what you were—”
“I’m not going back!” Ifridun yelled. “I’m not your son anymore!”
“What of your brothers and sisters?” the Shirvanshahzadeh said. “Do you forsake them?”
“If they aren’t brave enough to oppose you!”
“The youth,” the Shirvanshahzadeh said to Sharif al-Rashid. “How little they appreciate what they have. How little they show the proper reverence to their elders.”
“Respect is earned,” Ifridun said.
“Listen to the way he talks!” the Shirvanshahzadeh said. “I hardly even recognize him! Where did he learn such nonsense? The criminals have twisted his mind!”
“Forgive me, your highness, but I told you to kill the gholam when first we found him.” Sharif al-Rashid bowed. “I told you this criminal of Trabzon would drip poison into the ears of all those who met him, turning even our closest friends and family against us.”
“Thus am I rewarded for my mercy,” the Shirvanshahzadeh said.
“Mercy?” Alexios pointed at Basil and Kassia on Adarnase’s horse. “Do you call holding children hostage mercy?”
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The Shirvanshahzadeh spread his arms wide. “Release my son, and I will have your children released to your custody unharmed. Can you not see how our friend the wise prince Adarnase has taken good care of them? This deal even favors you, does it not? One darling prince for two worthless brats?”
Alexios shook his head. “It’s not my decision. Ifridun has chosen to stay with us. Half of what’s happened here is because of what he wanted, not me!”
The Shirvanshahzadeh shook his head. “All lies. Why would our prince give up his inheritance and risk his life for a horde of slaves?”
Adarnase urged his horse forward. “It’s your choice, Alexios. Life for your children, or death. I can even kill them before you now, if you wish.”
Basil and Kassia were crying. Tears were also in Alexios’s eyes.
“Surrender the city,” the Shirvanshahzadeh said. “No one need die here. Let us all return to our homes in peace.”
Before Alexios could think of an answer, Emir Zara Khatun beside him unsheathed her scimitar and shouted: “Never!” Behind her, down below the walls, all the Bakuyans had stopped to listen to the discussion between the delegation and the Workers’ Council. They echoed her call, and roared their approval, beating the few steel swords and spears they possessed against their few steel shields. It was a stirring moment, but Alexios’s shoulders fell—even as he looked back at the former oil slaves, the many children who were even younger than Kassia and Basil who would return to the oil fields if the city surrendered. But the decision wasn’t his. If Alexios had accepted, the Bakuyans would have thrown him over the walls.
“Very well,” Adarnase said, once the roaring had died down. “You have made your decision. Now you can spend the rest of your short, pathetic life living with it.”
“No!” Alexios shouted. But it was too late. Adarnase had drawn Gedara. One after the other, he cut Basil and Kassia’s throats. The two children fell into the dust, covered in their own blood, as Adarnase’s horse whinnied, and Alexios screamed, fell to his knees, clutched his hair, and then pounded his fists against the rock walls.
Before his new friends could stop him, he had bounded over the walls and drawn his old dull rusted scimitar, and was sprinting toward Adarnase. The Shirvanshahzadeh and his retinue fled, dropping the white flag, and Adarnase’s guards raised their swords and nocked arrows on their bows, but the duke ordered them to hold back. Only seconds had passed since he had cut the children’s throats. They were still clutching them in the dirt, their bodies trembling, their eyes wide as blood gushed from their wounds and soaked into the ground.
Maybe if I, Alexios thought. Maybe if I…
Summoning all his strength, Alexios leaped into the air, and swung his blade so hard he could have taken off Adarnase’s head—had the duke’s eyes not flashed with an eerie light Alexios had seen in only one place. In an instant, Adarnase raised Gedara and deflected Alexios’s scimitar, shattering it into a thousand shards that flew apart and clattered in the dust, leaving Alexios with the hilt alone.
“You know the farr,” Alexios said, as Adarnase’s guards surrounded him and pointed their weapons at his face. “Someone taught you.”
“We’ve been in touch with Emperor Narses of Rome,” Adarnase said. “Once I told him that you were up to your usual mischief here, he offered to teach me a number of things, in exchange for an alliance—and in exchange for killing you. I drank the energy of a captive just this morning, in preparation for the siege. It was most delicious.”
“But how could you even communicate?” Alexios said. “Konstantinopolis…it’s too far.”
“Things have changed since you left Trebizond,” Adarnase said. “They launched an attack on Konstantinopolis, or didn’t you hear? Your little criminal organization grew to encompass a number of small cities before it was destroyed thanks to incurring the wrath of God. Since then, the Romans have managed to restore the signal towers. We’ve exchanged messages with Trebizond using birds. The distance really isn’t too far for them, though it takes us weeks to traverse even with fast horses and relays.”
“No.” Alexios had fallen to his knees, and was clutching his dead children to his chest. He had tried to stop the bleeding, but now their bodies were pale and cold, and they were no longer moving.
Adarnase jumped down from his horse. “They’re all gone, Alexios. They’re all dead. All of your friends, all your precious amazons, and even the whore queen Herakleia. Emperor Narses destroyed their army and crucified the survivors outside Konstantinopolis. The criminals made so many enemies that even Roman and Turk, Christian and Muslim are friends now. Trebizond is back in Roman hands and repopulated with good loyal Roman subjects. They came by ship—one of them was called the Paralos, and is known to you, I hear. I hope to go to Trebizond soon to retake possession of my family dukedom. The emperor was happy to grant it to me—in exchange for your head. It’s all over, this little historical episode. Things are thankfully back to normal. Now if you’ll be so kind, we can get this over with, and I can spare you all your anguish. You’ve been such a stink, Alexios—killing my cousin David, as you did—I’m happy to do it.”
Adarnase raised Gedara into the air to strike Alexios’s head from his shoulders. Alexios had barely heard anything that was said to him. He could only cry and hug his dead children tighter to his chest.
“This is how it was always going to end,” Adarnase said. “You were doomed from the start. You should have known better than to oppose the very nature of things!” He looked back to the Christian and Muslim armies, which were watching and listening. “It’s no different from attacking the very sea, the very air! You could no more oppose us than farm animals could oppose the men who yoke them to their plows!”
Thousands of men laughed at Adarnase’s joke—laughed at Alexios.
Alexios looked at Adarnase. He has the farr, but not much training or experience.
Alexios kissed his children’s heads. I’m sorry. I’ll avenge you both. I know you wouldn’t want me to give up. Anna, I failed you. I promised to keep your kids safe.
“…even your horse we killed,” Adarnase was saying. “He wouldn’t do what we told him, and was always trying to escape, so we fed him to my dogs.” He looked down at Alexios. “You lost everything. You have even less than what you possessed when you joined this little revolt. Yes, I heard you were just a farmer, once. You should have been content with your old life. Was it really so bad?”
Uncle Eugenios and Aunt Eudokia’s black skeletons were burning at their home in Leandros.
“I had no choice,” he said to Adarnase.
Before Adarnase could respond, Alexios stretched out his hand, and pulled Gedara from Adarnase’s grip. Almost before Adarnase could even gasp, Alexios caught the blade in both hands and swung it through the man’s neck, severing his head from his shoulders and sending it tumbling to the ground, as his body collapsed and blood spurted in a geyser from the wound.
Cheers went up from Bakuya's Paired Fortress Gates. Adarnase’s guards charged at Alexios from every side. Each had only been a few feet distant, but it took little effort to dance out of their way and stab or slice them the way he had stabbed or sliced the hundred other warriors in his life who had been foolish enough to attack him without knowing anything about the farr. Seizing the last guard’s steel shield, Alexios knelt and hid behind it just as the archers in the combined armies loosed their arrows at him. Dozens scratched the steel and thumped into the nearby dust, making percussive music.
His students jumped down from the Paired Fortress Gates, sallying forth to break the siege almost before it had even started. Adarnase, as it turned out, had kept the secrets of the farr to himself, for no other soldiers on the field could stop these Zhayedan, even though they were mostly trainees without real combat experience. The besieging armies had come here expecting to put down a revolt of children and old women, but what they found instead were a hundred warriors who moved too fast for eyes to see. The battle ended in minutes, with the enemy survivors riding away at full gallop, abandoning the infantry and the defectors, who were chasing after them on foot and shouting for them to wait. Soon the Shirvanshahzadeh himself was captured and forced to his knees.
It was the Emir Zara Khatun who spoke to him, however, and not Ifridun—who had been wounded and sent back inside Bakuya—and not Alexios, either, who had returned to his dead children.
“You will recognize the independence of Bakuya,” Emir Zara Khatun said to the Shirvanshahzadeh, pointing her bloody sword at his face. “You will have royal hostages sent to us to guarantee the peace. You will pay the blood debt incurred here in dirhams.”
“Yes, yes.” He bowed, his eyes wide, his trembling hands raised. The blood of his bodyguards had splashed his glimmering silk clothing. “Whatever you ask. Only spare my life.”
“For us you would never have done the same,” Emir Zara Khatun said. “But this we grant. Once the royal hostages arrive, you will be free to go.” Before he could respond, she nodded to the two warriors guarding him—Gowri and Sargsyan—who hauled him into Bakuya.
The uprising had won, but what was left for Alexios? His children were dead, Herakleia and Gontran too, and even Rakhsh. Trebizond was destroyed. All that remained now was this city—celebrating around him deep into the night, long after he had cremated the bodies of Kassia and Basil, crying and wailing as the flames ate their bones.
There’s Bakuya and Isato. She’s still out there.
“Still somewhere in Daylam, last I heard,” he told Artvadios that night, before the roaring fire and the dancing celebrating Bakuyans. He took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from his eyes, his voice trembling. Alexios was amazed he could even speak, given what had happened to his children.
“Now she’s all that’s left of my old life,” he added. “I have to help her. Have to get to her before she dies, too. I failed my children, I can’t fail her.”
“You failed no one, lad,” Artvadios said. “There was nothing you or anyone else could have done.”
Alexios kept silent as he wiped more tears away.
“Daylam’s known to me,” Artvadios added. “Know it like the back of my hand. I’m the resident Daylamite, remember? With the Shahzadeh’s—excuse me, with Ifridun’s permission.” He nodded to the young wounded warrior, who was sitting with them, his sword arm in a sling. “I can take you there. We can find this lost love of yours. We’ll search the place top to bottom if you like.”
“Permission is granted,” Ifridun said. “I’m not your master anymore, Artvadios. You’ve fulfilled your oath to me, and are free to leave whenever you please.”
“Free?” Artvadios said. “Did you tell me I’m free?”
Ifridun nodded. “You’re free.”
Artvadios stood, and was soon dancing around the fires, clutching anyone who would dance with him, shouting and singing about his freedom. Ifridun watched with a wry grin, as if to ask if serving him had really been that bad.
The next morning, Alexios resigned as Agha of Bakuya. Emir Zara Khatun was elected in his place, with Sargsyan taking over as Emir of the First Ordos. Gowri and Michael, meanwhile, announced their intention to head west to search for their families.
Bidding his new friends farewell, and with the city’s blessings, Alexios rode south to Daylam with Artvadios.
