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Anno Domini 828,June-9
I felt a heavy impact and, when I turned, I saw that several dozen Sarakenoi were already pushing the battering ram against the gate. As expected, the gate was not very sturdy; there were obvious problems with the wood.
At the first blow it splintered, which made it clear it would not take long to break.
"Come on, lads… the Sarakenoi look a bit thirsty. Give them a good drink of water," I said with a smile.
Several of my men, using poles, pulled the cauldron of boiling water from the gate tower and, carrying it carefully to the battlements, tipped it over. Liters upon liters of boiling water poured down onto the attackers.
It did not take long for the most agonizing scream imaginable to rise from dozens of mouths at once.
I watched as the Sarakenoi ran in desperation away from the battering ram, or simply rolled on the ground howling as they twisted in the dirt.
"Put more water to boil. Prepare the second cauldron. They will not take long to return. By now they must know the gate is not the strongest point and that it is the fastest way into the city," I ordered.
My men carried the cauldron back to the fire and began pouring in buckets of water.
I kept moving along the walls, observing the fighting. It was nothing remarkable. They were using ladders along every section, but they could not get up. Although they had thousands of archers, we had the height and the protection of the battlements. They had nothing comparable. In addition, we had better suited to armor to stop projectiles, so although we had wounded men from the occasional arrow that found a weak spot, we were not suffering serious losses.
Meanwhile, the Sarakenoi had skulls smashed by rocks, bones broken when they fell from the height of the walls while trying to climb, torsos or limbs pierced by bolts and arrows.
The bodies of the Sarakenoi began to pile up across the field, and still they did not stop. The slaughter intensified and they kept charging, trying to raise the ladders again, no matter that they were surrounded by corpses or wounded men crawling away from the fight, leaving trails of blood as they fled the carnage.
From time to time the agonized screams of the Sarakenoi could be heard when boiling water fell upon them, especially around the battering ram, which had no protection of any kind. Even so, they did not stop sending wave after wave of warriors trying to break the gate.
"Strategos, the north gate is giving way. In fact, it is already half broken," one of my men shouted as he came to find me along the walls.
"Damn it… how poorly maintained was that gate for them to break it with such a badly made battering ram," I said as I moved toward it.
In addition to the enormous number of dead at the base of the walls, I saw that the gate was completely splintered and that a small hole had opened through which the head of the battering ram was beginning to push through, the result of repeated blows. Despite all the stones, arrows, and bolts, if the Sarakenoi had anything to spare, it was numbers.
And an idiot willing to sacrifice those numbers to achieve a victory.
I ran quickly, followed by my bodyguards, weaving past hundreds of my men carrying arrows, bolts, bandages, and ointments to tend the wounded. At last we reached the gate and saw large numbers of Sarakenoi putting pressure on the battering ram. When I looked down, I saw that the gate was in its final moments; the wood was already bending and breaking apart, and it was only a matter of time before it gave way completely, leaving only the reinforcements we had installed.
"Go to the city carpentry workshop and bring more beams. Keep reinforcing it. If they get in, we still have room to fall back, but even so we are not going to make it easy for them. They have to bleed for every step they take," I ordered, watching the gate continue to take punishment, until I again heard the sound of a great volume of boiling water being poured down, followed by more screams.
As we continued to hear the cries of the attackers, my men finally arrived with more reinforcements to shore up the gate. They began placing beams both vertically and horizontally, trying to keep it closed for as long as possible.
"Can we call on the locals to join the defense?" Sigurd said as he stood beside me, preparing his pole hammer, ready to kill anyone who tried to force their way through the gate, which looked ready to burst open at any moment.
"That would be the last option. We have to keep it as the final card. We cannot ask them to help us fight without armor, because the moment they notice members of the garrison fighting on our side, they will know exactly how we got in. And given how they rule the locals, I would not hesitate to believe they would kill every Christian to secure the city," I replied, without taking my eyes off the gate.
"Strategos, the south gate is still under control. The Sarakenoi continue using the same tactic, throwing wave after wave of warriors with the intent of raising the ladders and climbing," reported one of the messengers sent by one of my kentarchoi in that sector.
"Hold the defense and do not forget to keep searching for stones and water to throw down," I replied, still watching the gate.
"At once, strategos," the messenger said before returning the way he had come.
"Strategos, at the central gate there is heavy archer activity. For now we are holding, but our wounded continue to increase. Slowly, but we do have wounded," reported the messenger from another kentarchos.
"There are bandages available in the port warehouses. Go get them if you need medical supplies urgently and take the wounded to the surgeons. That is what we pay them for," I said. The messenger nodded and returned to his kentarchos.
"The Sarakenoi have broken through," one of my men shouted.
I saw several Sarakenoi trying to force their way through a section of the shattered, twisted gate.
"Death to the enemies of the Empire," I shouted, taking up my pole hammer and leading my best men to contain the breach.
There was a group trying to force their way in through the small opening in the gate, and quickly everyone in the area charged to seal the breach as fast as possible.
The wretches who managed to get through while we charged were pierced like chickens, riddled with so many bolts that many of the Sarakenoi who tried to follow them lost their nerve, fell back, and returned to the previous method, using the battering ram until the opening was larger.
"Quickly, get to the battlements and start throwing rocks, bricks, anything. Dropped from above, with enough weight, it can break a man's neck if it hits his head," I said, pointing toward the battlements as we climbed back onto the walls, looking down at the wall of dead bodies that had formed beneath us.
The ferocious battle continued for a long time. I had already lost track of time as I rushed to deal with emergencies as they arose, such as a massive push in the south bringing more ladders that nearly overwhelmed the defenders, forcing me to move thousands of men from the center to reinforce the south and keep the walls under our control.
For the moment we were holding, except at the gates. Everything else remained under control, and the Sarakenoi kept dying. Their leader continued sending them to certain death in waves, so that too many would not die at once to a single concentrated volley of archers.
Yet at no point, over what felt like hours, did the pressure ease. At every moment there was maximum pressure from the Sarakenoi on all flanks of the city except the north. Everything important was concentrated there, trying to break the gate, and that was where most of the casualties piled up, whether from burns, arrows, or rocks.
That was costing us dearly, because it did not take long for the gate to finally break.
The beams snapped and all the reinforcements splintered until the doors burst wide open.
The Sarakenoi began pulling the battering ram back while keeping their shields raised, still taking arrows and rocks from every direction.
"Good. Now all those sons of bitches are going to pour in on us like ants. To the barricades. Let them keep bleeding," I said as I watched them begin to cross through the gate.
Even as they crossed the threshold in force, they found themselves surrounded on all sides. Archers and crossbowmen above, the three possible routes blocked by barricades, and most of the rooftops in the area occupied by crossbowmen with enough bolts to drop several dozen of them.
Between the rain of bolts and a generous dousing of boiling water on the first men through the gate, the dead began to pile up inside the city.
Once again the fighting dragged on. It had begun very early, and the sun was already nearing its zenith, so it felt as though we had been fighting for many hours, and the Sarakenoi commander was still unwilling to withdraw.
Until at last we managed to force the attackers to show some sense and begin fleeing the way they had come.
"Good, good. There is no trench and the gate is broken, so why not launch a proper counterattack. If we burn their supplies while they are recovering from defeat, they will not trouble us again for quite some time," I said, looking at my men, covered in blood and dust, all of them clearly pleased with the idea of being the ones to strike back.
We began to pursue the Sarakenoi, leaping over small mounds of bodies piled against the walls. Leading a charge of around four thousand men who followed me, we crossed the gate and chased them down.
Since they were divided into three separate camps, we quickly reached the northern siege camp.
Most of those still there began to flee the moment they saw us charging. It did not take long to set it ablaze and kill the stragglers, while we noticed some riders fleeing at full speed.
"You have got to be kidding me. The man abandoned his troops in the middle of the battle," I said when I noticed the riders, as the other camps began to break and run upon seeing my men spread toward the central and southern camps, setting the tents on fire with torches.
"But why, if they still outnumber us?" Sigurd said, as surprised as I was.
"How should I know. Kill them and capture all you can. Find horses and go after those who are escaping," I said as I watched the Sarakenoi scatter across the field in every direction.
Without delay, hundreds of Varangian and Greek horsemen took mounts from the Sarakenoi military camp and began chasing down the fleeing warriors, filling the field with dead men who only wanted to escape, pursued without mercy.
It did not take long before the rest of my forces began looting the battlefield.
Once we captured prisoners to learn what had happened, I finally got an answer after interrogating several of them.
Apparently there were serious internal problems among the Abbasids, between the dominant cultures of the empire. The military commander was Arab, but most of his troops were Persian. He had no issue sacrificing thousands of Persians to achieve victory, but he was deeply concerned about that news reaching the caliph. That was why he had assembled a force made mostly of Persian levies from the cities under the military district of Homs, with only a few thousand Arabs.
So his total disregard for his troops was the result of internal conflicts.
So it seems the Byzantines are not the only ones who stab each other in the back. What a pleasant surprise.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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