-----------------------------
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.
-------------------------------
Anno Domini 828,June-26
Pov of the Wālī of Anṭākiya
"Then… how many men are there outside the walls?" I asked as I studied the map of Anṭākiya spread before us, fully aware that the infidels were already at our gates.
"We do not yet know with certainty, my wālī," my assistant replied cautiously. "But our scouts estimate around thirty thousand, perhaps a few more. The recruitment was solid. We can trust that they will not take the walls easily, even if part of our men lack experience."
I nodded in silence as we looked upon the camp of the Rūmīya, whose fires stretched before the gates of Anṭākiya like a sea of embers.
"This is not an enemy to be taken lightly," I said at last. "Have the Christian guards been removed from the walls and reassigned to internal duties, as I ordered?"
"Yes, my wālī. They have been taken away from the ramparts. However, the naqīb of the infidels keep asking why we distrust them."
I frowned. "It is the only explanation I can find for the swift fall of the wālī of Ḥimṣ. I know he attacked too early, but to lose every city under his control in less than a month is strange. Without help from within, such a thing would be impossible. It is true that the Rūmīya possess a considerable army and could have overwhelmed the garrisons… but Ḥimṣ… it does not fit."
I moved to the window and watched the enemy fires burning in the darkness.
"The caliph has already sent his word," my assistant added with confidence. "When the fortresses of Anatolia fall, he will send reinforcements for this campaign. If we endure for one or two months, we will be safe. The granaries are not as full as we would wish, part of the supplies were sent to Cilicia, but we can withstand the siege without imposing harsh rationing. I doubt the Rūmīya will attempt to divert the river. They do not have enough men for such a work."
I slowly shook my head.
"Do not underestimate the Rūmīya. If they have come this far, it is not by chance. Allāh will grant us victory when the caliph's army arrives, but until then we walk upon a sharpened blade. We have troops committed in Cilicia, and now this enemy before our walls. Reinforcements will come, yes… but until then we must remain vigilant. The enemy leader must be clever. He will know how to exploit even the smallest of our mistakes. Double the guards tonight. I want no surprises in the darkness."
With that, I withdrew, thinking of how to make their siege even more difficult.
That night I slept beside my wife. She asked me whether we would withstand the encirclement, and I calmed her fears by reminding her that Allāh is just with those who persevere. We only needed to endure.
Listening to my wife's soft moans as she held me tightly, her legs wrapped around my waist, I felt energized, as if the weariness of the day faded in that instant. Each time I let my weight fall upon her, small sounds escaped her lips, and I felt her nails dig into my back, marking my skin and returning to me the urgency of the moment. Her breathing grew uneven and broken, and her body answered every movement with a tension that pulled me onward, unwilling to stop.
Her eyes, like bright stars in the night, were fixed upon me as I quickened the rhythm and then held it firm, listening to the dull sound as I pressed deeply into her. I began to play with her generous breasts, feeling her warmth beneath my hands, while she continued to moan, clinging to me more tightly, losing control of her breath and giving herself over to the steady sway that shaped the night.
I was close to finishing when my wife gripped me hard and moaned far louder than usual, a sound she could not contain, just as I began to hear a commotion in the distance.
We stopped. We both turned our eyes toward the window.
I rose at once. Torches. Many of them. Too many. They were burning near one of the gates.
My heart pounding in my chest, I began to dress when my assistant burst into the room, pale as ash.
"My wālī! The Rūmīya… they are inside the city!" he cried, his voice breaking.
"How is it possible that they have entered?" I roared.
"I do not know, my wālī… I only know that they are already within the walls," he said, fear heavy in his voice.
I turned my gaze outward and saw the gates opening. Enemy shadows were beginning to pour in.
"May Allāh protect us," I murmured, watching the scene unfold.
-------------------------------------
Pov Basil
I slammed one of the Sarakenoi guards against the city wall, driving into him with my shoulder. I heard his grunt of pain and, before he could even react, I drew my dagger and cut his throat. Blood burst out in torrents as the Sarakenoi tried to cover the wound with his hands, uselessly soaking his clothes as he collapsed.
I felt a blow to my shoulder. I turned and saw another guard trying to reach me with his curved sword.
I did not waste time. I threw a straight punch at his face. He shut his eyes as the impact struck his mouth. I stepped forward, grabbed his right arm, and holding his head, smashed it against the wall once, twice, three times. On the third impact I saw one of his eyes burst from its socket. The body fell to the ground without resistance.
I looked around. It was the same everywhere. Dead Sarakenoi. Broken legs. Men crawling across the ground, groaning in pain. Others with crushed skulls after direct blows to the head, bone fragments and matter scattered across the stone pavement.
"Move, the gate," I shouted, pointing toward it.
Several of the Varangians of my hird rushed forward and began removing the security measures, thick wooden beams that prevented the gate from opening.
With the help of the garrisons that had changed sides and my own men, who acted as the vanguard in nearly every sector, the Sarakenoi who ran in desperation to stop us from opening the gate simply fell without offering resistance, crushed against the steel wall formed by my troops.
There was no order in their ranks. Only terrified guards running without coordination. Some came out without armor, carrying little more than a spear or a sword, trying to join improvised groups forming in front of us.
We held our positions while my men worked to open the gate. From the other side came the constant clash of steel. My entire army was already waiting outside, ready to enter the moment the passage was clear.
The dull crash of a beam striking the stone roadway caught my attention. An instant later, the gate gave way completely. Without resistance.
Thousands of my men began to pour in like an unstoppable tide.
"In the name of the Empire, death to the Sarakenoi," I shouted, raising my weapon.
All of my hird and the soldiers around me shouted with me and began charging against the defenders, who were already completely terrified.
A wave of steel crashed into the garrisons trying to block the streets. With the little armor they wore, they were no match for our armored forces.
Abdomens pierced by the point of a polehammer. Knees shattered. Skulls split open with a single blow.
Those were the most common wounds visible as Varangians and Greeks, clad in steel, pushed mercilessly through the streets. The Sarakenoi could do nothing against that compact mass. Their swords bounced uselessly off our armor, and the only options left to them were to retreat or die.
"ODIN," shouted one of the Varangian jarls to my left.
He seemed completely possessed by murderous fury. He swung his polehammer from side to side, breaking bones, crushing bodies, driving back nearly a dozen Sarakenoi by himself. The corpses he left behind and his roars were enough to shatter any attempt at resistance, while his men followed him like unleashed beasts.
"Did someone give him mushrooms?" I asked, glancing sideways.
"A beer… special, with rye infected by a fungus that some of them use," Sigurd replied, watching the scene calmly.
"Keep an eye on him. I do not want him killing Christians," I said, as I watched the Sarakenoi begin to fall back in all directions under the constant pressure of my troops, who kept pouring in through the gate.
"Take control of the other gates. Move, move. The more gates we open, the more reinforcements we can bring in," I ordered, pointing out to the kentarchoi accompanying me the areas where the other siege camps faced the remaining gates.
Seeing that everything was going well, it became clear that the Sarakenoi were dying in complete chaos. It did not take long to see the forces of the Christian garrison openly switch to our side, beginning to stab their former comrades in the back. They cut off escape routes, trapping several thousand Sarakenoi between the furious Varangians and themselves.
As I moved through the sea of half-ruined houses, I saw another gate open and a new massive group of troops begin to enter the city. The sounds of battle echoed in every direction. Bodies lay everywhere. People ran in desperation, seeking refuge wherever they could, while the dead continued to pile up without pause.
Once I confirmed that victory was practically assured and that my direct intervention was no longer necessary, I gathered my hird and we began moving back the way we had come. We descended once more into the sewer, immediately assaulted by the unbearable stench that filled our nostrils.
"My strategos… shall I guide you to the fortress?" asked the guide, who had remained hidden, waiting for the worst to pass.
"Yes. It seems we will take the city soon. Many of the Sarakenoi did not expect an attack on the same day. Most of them only had their sword in hand, without even time to put on armor. Even so, there are still nearly eighteen thousand left to kill, so it will be a long night for everyone," I replied as we descended again into the sewers.
"Very well, let us go," said the guide, moving through the tunnels as if he knew every stretch by heart.
"So you deal in smuggling," I remarked as I advanced carefully to avoid stepping into the stagnant, filthy water.
"One could say that. The Sarakenoi do not like us consuming alcohol. It is haram. Getting beer or wine is difficult, and if they catch you, it is usually lashes or a heavy fine. Some were granted permission to produce wine, but it is limited and only for religious use. Where there is scarcity, there is business," he explained, stopping to remove several bars and allow us to move forward.
"I see. I might have work for you after this," I said as we kept walking, hearing someone slip and fall into the water, followed by muffled laughter.
"That… is good. Silence now, we are beneath the walls," he whispered, lowering his voice as we entered a visibly cleaner and better maintained section of the sewer.
We advanced with greater caution. The sounds of battle came muted from above our heads, screams, blows, shouted orders, all blended into distant chaos.
"We are here. To the right are the barracks baths. From there you could quickly take control of the walls if you act fast. To the left are the private baths of the citadel of Antioch. The wali of the city might be there," the guide explained.
"The left," I decided without hesitation. "If we capture him and take him out of there, his men may surrender when they see their leader has fallen."
Before moving on, I stopped for a moment. "And one more thing. Remind me to reward you generously when this is over. Your work has been crucial."
The guide nodded with a restrained smile.
"Of course… I will remind you," he said, turning around to go back the way he had come, likely trying to be as far away as possible from what we were about to do.
We moved in silence as much as possible for five hundred men in heavy armor, each step marked by the unavoidable metallic sound of steel. We advanced to the end of the tunnel, where I could make out something like a metal cover with water dripping through it. When we removed it, a torrent fell over us, soaking me completely.
"Bah… I am going to need a good bath after this," I muttered, looking at Sigurd, who covered his nose and shut his eyes, trying to hold back his laughter.
I removed the cover and climbed up with my dagger in hand, bracing my feet and back against the wall until I reached what appeared to be the latrines. From there I began helping my men climb up, while I heard voices nearby.
"By Allah… what are we going to do? The Romans are everywhere. The whole city is full of them," said one voice.
"But how did they get in? We removed the infidels from the walls," replied another.
"It must have been the Persian dogs. They opened the gates for them. I knew it. We should never have brought them," added a third.
More and more men climbed up, and the murmur of those voices, together with the chaos of the fighting in the city, covered the noise we were making.
"Has anyone checked the storehouses? Do we have food to withstand a siege?" asked another.
"What siege, idiot? Do you not see how many Romans there are? When they finish killing those still outside, they will launch a general assault and that will be the end of it," someone replied in desperation.
"What are they saying?" Sigurd asked when he saw me listening closely.
"They are desperate," I replied with a smile.
Once a sufficient number of men had climbed up, I gave the order to move out.
"The Romans. The Romans are here," one of the guards shouted when he saw us emerge.
"How?" another cried, reaching for his sword.
I charged at them, using the polehammer like a spear. Before he could react, the first already had the point driven through his chest. I pulled the weapon free and, gripping it with both hands, smashed his skull with the hammer head, splattering the walls with blood.
Sigurd rushed past me like an unleashed beast. The other two tried to flee, but he tackled them, slamming them into the ground, and smashed their heads against the stones again and again until they stopped moving.
"Good work. We keep going," I said.
We advanced through the citadel of Antioch with almost no resistance. We secured the main door from the inside, bracing it with beams to prevent reinforcements from entering. We began to climb and encountered several city administrators carrying books and objects. When they saw us, they froze and began to scream, but we ignored them and kept climbing, searching for the wali.
We searched every level of the citadel. We found only empty rooms, tax collectors, scribes, and terrified officials. Finally we reached the top level, where we found a group of women and children hiding.
"Where is the wali?" I asked.
There was no answer. I grabbed one of the women by her clothing and dragged her to the window.
"Where is the wali?" I repeated, tilting her toward the void.
"I… I do not know… he said he was going to help his men on the walls," she replied, crying.
"Damn it. I thought he would hide like a coward," I said, releasing her roughly.
"Where is he?" Sigurd asked, watching them coldly.
"It seems he is outside," I replied, cursing silently. I did not want to go out to the walls, where there could still be hundreds or thousands of defenders holding out.
As we descended, I heard violent blows against the door of the citadel.
"Open the door. By Allah, if you do not open it you will feel my wrath," a voice shouted from outside.
"Wali of Antioch?" I asked, stepping closer.
"Of course it is me. Open the door immediately or—" he replied, but I cut him off.
"Excellent. I am Strategos Basil, commander in chief of the Roman forces in this siege. We have your family captured. Unless you want to see them butchered and thrown from the highest point, order your men to surrender and open the gates."
"How… how can they be in there?" he said, completely stunned.
"Let us forget the details. Either you surrender and avoid a massacre, or I throw your family out, burn your supplies, and then enter by force afterward," I replied calmly, resting my hand on the beam securing the door.
"Cursed infidel. Leave them out of this," he shouted.
"Is that a no? Throw them out," I said in Arabic, though I was clearly bluffing.
"No… wait… wait… I surrender," the wali said hurriedly.
I removed the beam and opened the door slowly, sword raised. In front of me stood several dozen armed Sarakenoi, with the wali at their head.
I reached out, grabbed him by his clothing, dragged him inside, and put the sword to his neck.
"Tell them to drop their weapons," I whispered.
"You stink… rat… you came through the sewer," he spat.
"Yes… but I won. Did I not?" I replied with a smile.
"Drop your weapons," the wali ordered. One by one, his men let their swords fall.
"Quickly. Secure them and open the gates. Today we have won," I ordered.
My men moved out of the citadel, disarmed the prisoners, and without delay opened the gates. Messengers ran in every direction to stop the slaughter.
The Jewel of the East was ours.
-----------------------------
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.
-------------------------------