When Herakleia first saw it, she wondered if she was asleep. It was like a dream. In the early morning gloom, along the damp dripping mountains that lined the marsh and the road stretching north to Trebizond and south to Satala, there came glowing lights. One line descended a mountain in front of the camp, the other descended the mountain behind, each line consisting of separate flickering lights that shone through the fog, like two long glowworms winding down the cliffs and forests.


    Ignoring the mountain village of Tzanicha, the lights moved in silence. Were they spirits? Demons? At last, when they emerged from the mist, Herakleia discovered that they were something worse. Chaka Bey. And he had brought a warrior band with him, all on horseback. They were unafraid to reveal their positions by holding torches aloft. Now they extinguished these flames, and nocked arrows on their composite bows.


    By then Herakleia had roused the camp. Half asleep, they had circled the wagons—the metaphor becoming a literal battle tactic—and placed all the people and horses on the inside. The amazons loaded their miniature basiliks, lit their fuses, and took aim. Four pointed at the Seljuks to the rear, which blocked the way back to Trebizond. This group included Dekarch Euphrosyne, Pentarch Kata Surameli, Nazar al-Sabiyya, and Umm Musharrafa. Another four amazons pointed at the Seljuks in front, which blocked the way to the marsh and Satala. This group included Pentarch Simonis, Amat al-Aziz, Jiajak Jaqeli, and Melissene.


    Between the eight amazons were Herakleia, Ay?e, Jafer El-Hadi, Hurmuzdyar bin Wandarin Bawand, Jabir al-Mamlūk, Isma’il al-Saffar, Miriai, and Za-Ilmaknun. They were doing their best to keep the horses under control. They had also loaded additional miniature basiliks, and were ready to hand them to Simonis and Euphrosyne and the other amazons as soon as they had fired their own weapons, reloading the first set of basiliks as they did so.


    With only four carriages, it was a tight squeeze, but the carriages themselves were also loaded with supplies, which everyone hid behind. The Seljuks watched for some time, evidently unused to this tactic, since they were also unused to the gunpowder weapons which had given rise to it.


    One Seljuk with the group at the rear shouted something in Turkish through the morning gloom. The only words Herakleia could distinguish were “Ay?e Khatun,” which led her to guess the speech’s meaning.


    “He says I must return to my husband,” Ay?e translated. “If I do so, Chaka Bey will kill everyone here, but he will spare the city of Trebizond, so long as it bows to Great Seljuk.”


    “Do you want to go back?” Herakleia said.


    “Of course not!”


    “Just thought I’d ask.” Herakleia looked to the members of the convoy. “Does everyone agree? Are you ready for a fight?”


    They nodded and said they were.


    “It needed to be early in the morning,” El-Hadi grumbled. “They could not wait until after breakfast.”


    “If we kill Chaka Bey,” Herakleia said, “the rest will probably leave us alone, won’t they? Isn’t that how these things usually work?”


    “Let me warn him first,” Ay?e said. “I’ll give him a chance to leave in peace.”


    Herakleia nodded.


    Ay?e stood, cupped her hands over her mouth, and shouted something in Turkish. Laughter rose in response—from the Seljuks in the front and back.


    They were close enough for the convoy to make out their faces. Chaka Bey was at the center of the rear group, scowling like a demon, clad in heavy golden armor from head to foot. He raised his scimitar into the air and barked commands, and his warriors drew their arrows back on their bowstrings and took aim, when Herakleia ordered Euphrosyne—the best shot in the whole troop—to kill him. The dekarch pointed her basilik at the golden shadow with the demon face glowing in the fog, and pressed her orange fuse—with its little wisp of blue smoke curling up into the air—against the firing hole.


    Her miniature basilik exploded. Smoke wreathed with sparks shrouded everything. Seljuk horses were galloping, and the Seljuks at the front and rear were shouting. When the smoke had cleared, both groups were gone.


    “Did you hit him?” Simonis asked Euphrosyne.


    “Don’t know,” Euphrosyne said.


    Jafer El-Hadi handed Euphrosyne a loaded basilik, then took the hot one she had just fired and started loading it. She thanked him.


    The members of the convoy watched the woods, the mountains, the marsh, the road, waiting for the Seljuk attack. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to half an hour. There was too much fog to see anything. The game voice was also silent.


    “Maybe you got him,” Herakleia whispered to Euphrosyne. “His men might have taken him off the battlefield and retreated. The basilik might have frightened them.”


    “Or maybe they’re just waiting for us to let our guard down,” Euphrosyne said. “As soon as we leave the carriages, they’ll attack.”


    “Someone needs to go out there and have a look,” Herakleia said. “I’ll do it.” Without waiting for anyone to stop her, she climbed over the carriage she had been hiding behind.


    “Pardon me, strategos.” Jafer El-Hadi pulled her back. “But do you wish to die? Send someone less important—like me.”


    “You aren’t less important,” Herakleia said. “You have a spouse and child—”


    “Trebizond will take care of them,” Jafer El-Hadi said. “If something should happen to me, Amina will find another husband, Ibrahim another father. Saint Sara the Kali will also watch out for them. Trebizond doesn’t need me. It needs you.”


    “All of us are important to the uprising,” Herakleia said. “Everyone is vital to the workers’—”


    “Enough, strategos,” Jafer El-Hadi said. “Good leaders are much harder to find than good followers. You know that. Why risk losing what you know is good?” He turned to the rest of the group. “Does everyone agree? Should I go, or the strategos? Or tell me this: does the enemy send their generals alone on scouting missions in dangerous territory?”


    Everyone voted for Jafer El-Hadi to investigate. Herakleia might have been a Leadership Professional (7/10), but she was still just an Apprentice General (4/10), which meant that she could still make mistakes like this and be corrected by others.


    Once Jafer El-Hadi returned safely, the amazons and cart drivers could ready the carriages for departure. One amazon would scout ahead at a time; the rest would be on guard duty.


    Simonis handed El-Hadi her basilik, but he shook his head.


    “I never learned to use it back when I was in the Workers’ Army,” he said. “I was too busy caring for my boy. Today is a day of good fortune for me.”


    “Then use this.” She handed him her sword.


    He took it hesitantly. “I never learned how to use one of these, either. I was a metal worker and an acrobat in my old life before we came to Trebizond.”


    “Just wave the sword around and yell,” Simonis said. “It might scare them.”


    El-Hadi rolled his eyes. “I’m certain.”


    He climbed over the carriage and jumped onto the road leading back to Trebizond. This was a narrow path with a few ancient bricks jutting out of the mud like rotten teeth from gums. At either side the road was overshadowed by pine trees that were so overgrown that riders needed to duck when they came here. To the left and right, the branches and pine needles were so dense that, together with the fog, almost nothing could be seen. All was dark.


    Simonis, Euphrosyne, and their fellow amazons at the rear aimed their miniature basiliks to cover El-Hadi. Other amazons watched the front. He crept toward Chaka Bey’s last known position, glancing left and right, holding his sword with trembling hands. Soon he reached the spot where Chaka Bey had supposedly been hit. Taking a careful look in every direction, El-Hadi knelt to examine the cold wet muck. Then he stood and looked back at the carriages.


    “No blood,” he mouthed.


    This whole time, Herakleia was expecting El-Hadi to be attacked and killed. She had even taken one of the loaded basiliks for herself, and joined the amazons in aiming their weapons to El-Hadi’s right and left.


    Equipped miniature basilisk, the game voice said. Effective range: 300 feet. Critical hits likelier at closer ranges. High dexterity is required to properly use this weapon.


    Herakleia cleared her throat.


    Which you lack, the game voice added.


    Herakleia was actually an Uninitiate (0/10) when it came to ranged weapons, and only a beginner (2/10) when it came to her mêlée combat skills. Aside from the time she had escaped Konstantinopolis in the Paralos and helped Alexios burn a pursuing dromon with naphtha—and the time she had fucked Duke Robert to death—she had done little fighting on her own. She had accepted a long time ago that she wasn’t much of a warrior. Though her character class was “princess,” she had spent almost a year in Byzantium training and organizing other people and leading them into battle, rather than fighting on her own. That was her strength. Having no ability with weapons of any kind meant that the miniature basilisk in her hands was almost useless. If she needed to reload on her own, it was going to take her a few minutes at least to get the job done, while a more experienced amazon like Euphrosyne could jam the ball and powder into the basilisk barrel in thirty seconds. It also didn’t help that Herakleia’s stamina was almost completely gone—adrenaline had boosted it a little, and she had also transferred some farr into her energy reserves, leaving her with 75/100 farr—since she had not gotten a good night’s sleep in over a day. This would affect her aim, pathetic as it already was. But what else could Herakleia do? Each attack—each action—in the game was a dice roll, and sometimes the goddess Fortuna smiled upon unlikely victors.


    Without a little random chance, unknown even to the divine, the universe would be boring, the game voice said.


    El-Hadi, in the mean time, had shrugged and walked back toward the carriages, moving more casually, even lowering his sword and holding it with just one hand. Herakleia was ready to celebrate. Maybe Chaka Bey had been hit. The spray of blood had just been too fine to see, or it had only struck his golden armor and his horse. Or maybe the flashing thundering weapons had terrified warriors who were unused to such devices. Regardless, the Seljuks were gone.


    As Herakleia was standing to congratulate El-Hadi on his bravery, an arrow whistled from the dark forest into his leg. He groaned, dropped his sword, and fell, clutching the wound as it spurted blood. Screaming riders charged from either side of the road, the horse hooves thundering, the warriors waving their scimitars, heading straight for El-Hadi to tear him apart.


    Now their strategy was obvious. Simonis had been right. This was a siege. They were waiting out the convoy. They intended to hide in the woods and pick off the Trapezuntines one by one.


    Herakleia couldn’t let that happen.


    Everyone in the convoy drew the same conclusion. No orders were given. As Herakleia dropped her miniature basilik, flew over the carriages, and sprinted toward El-Hadi, burning through farr, all the amazons behind her fired their weapons, then exchanged them for loaded ones, then fired those. But the Seljuk horsemen did something unexpected. Some moved their scimitars with an unearthly speed, so that the iron balls meant to burst their hearts sparked away from steel instead. Others dodged the whistling iron balls, moving in blurs while gripping their saddles with their legs.


    They know the farr!


    Such was Herakleia’s speed that she reached El-Hadi before the horsemen exited the woods. It had taken five farr points to move like this, leaving her with 70/100. Since she would lose too much time by stopping, grabbing him, and turning around, she kept going in the same direction, hauled him over her shoulders in one quick motion that strained all her muscles, and leapt into the air—stumbling into a pine tree branch and flying up toward the top. Now 60/100 farr remained. She seized the trunk as best she could, nearly losing her balance, falling, and dropping El-Hadi at the same time. But she kept her grip on the sticky bark covered in dried chalky sap, and even pulled herself behind the tree as arrows thumped into the wood on the far side. A few arrows also swooped close enough for the fletches to brush past her ear. With her stamina down to 0/100 and now affecting her health, she moved another 5 farr there, one point of farr equaling 5 stamina, granting her 25/100 stamina, and leaving her with 65/100 farr.


    Holding El-Hadi close—he was groaning, the arrows had gone deep and might have been poisoned—Herakleia peered around the tree. The Seljuks were brawling with the amazons and even the cart drivers. Fighters on both sides had leapt off their saddles and were flying through the air, bashing their blades together, then falling back to the ground. Some Seljuks moved so gracefully—standing on their saddles—that they seemed to be dancing, as they deflected iron balls and sword thrusts with their own sparking blades.


    Sword dancers, Herakleia thought.


    Only one Seljuk had fallen from his horse—a short, muscular man. Herakleia sensed that the others were toying with the amazons. Chaka Bey was also nowhere to be seen. When she looked back at the carriages, she understood why. She had been out-generaled again, and was even losing generalship XP.


    Only Miriai and Za-Ilmaknun were left at the carriages with Ay?e. Chaka Bey and several of his fellow riders had charged them from the direction of the marsh, leaped over the carriages, and knocked down the people hiding inside. He grabbed Ay?e, punched her face hard enough to knock her out, hauled her onto his saddle, and galloped into the marsh.


    His men got back on their horses and followed. The amazons chased them—but Seljuk warriors were talented in many ways. They sheathed their swords, drew their composite bows, nocked arrows, and loosed them at the pursuing amazons. Several arrows sank into the pursuers’ horses, flinging their riders into the muck as the horses screamed.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    “No!” Herakleia shouted.


    She leaped back down to the carriages, carrying El-Hadi. 60/100 farr remained. Miriai and Za-Ilmaknun had picked themselves up in the mean time and were clutching their heads and groaning.


    “Are you alright?” Herakleia asked.


    “Ach, it’s nothing, dear.” Miriai’s head was bleeding, but she nodded to El-Hadi. “Leave him. Get your friend, that poor girl.”


    Herakleia lowered El-Hadi to the ground and sprinted after the Seljuks, burning through five more farr to move faster, leaving her with 55/100. But even with the farr, she could never catch galloping horses on foot. Thankfully, that short Seljuk warrior was crawling back to his horse, groaning and clutching a bleeding wound in his cuirass—one iron ball had found its mark—and he was getting close, and had almost grabbed the reins, when Herakleia leaped off his head and onto his mount. As he growled and sank back into the muck, she kicked the horse’s sides, and galloped into the Death Worm Marsh after the amazons and Seljuks. She was a riding Apprentice (4/10), and that was good enough.


    Yet she slowed down almost immediately. The marsh was too deep for galloping. Nonetheless, she soon found Simonis lying in the grass beside her horse—which was dead, with a bloody arrow piercing the poor beast’s skull through its burst eye. Somehow Simonis had picked up the sword she had given to El-Hadi, and which he had dropped.


    “Are you alright?” Herakleia shouted to Simonis.


    “Keep going!” Simonis used her sword like a cane to help her climb to her feet. “I’m alright!”


    “Head back to camp,” Herakleia said over her shoulder as she passed. “The others need your help.”


    Simonis nodded, then limped back to the carriages. Herakleia proceeded into the tall grass and the fog, urging on her horse even as the beast’s long muscular legs sank knee-deep into the splashing muck. Flies were soon buzzing everywhere as the rising sun burned the fog.


    At this point, surrounded by tall grass, Herakleia realized that there was no road—not even a path—and she had no idea where she was. She could get lost.


    She stopped her panting, sweating horse and listened. Nothing. All was silent.


    “Euphrosyne!” she yelled, cupping her hands over her mouth.


    The fog swallowed her voice. Herakleia swore.


    Go back, or keep going?


    Ay?e, Euphrosyne, and the other amazons were ahead. She couldn’t leave them. Yet riding a horse was too slow a method to get through this marsh. Herakleia dismounted and leaped through the grass, using more farr. The fog made it almost impossible to see, so that she often landed in muck and was forced to struggle to free herself before she could jump again. She was miserable, cold, and wet, her stamina ticking down to 15/100, her farr at 50/100. Sometimes she yelled for the amazons, but none answered. Where were they?


    It took time, but eventually Herakleia found them. They were returning to the convoy with neither their horses, nor Ay?e.


    “The Seljuks shot our mounts out from under us,” Euphrosyne gasped. She was drenched in sweat, and hollowed out with exhaustion. “They escaped with Ay?e. We couldn’t catch them. They were too fast.”


    Herakleia sank into the grass and clutched her head. She had lost Ay?e, her new friend. Her sister. Who knew what Chaka Bey would do to her? They needed to go after her…but the Seljuks were too fast, they knew this area too well. They had only been living in Anatolia for a few decades at most, yet it seemed they had always been here, like it was their native element. They moved in and out of the rock, the trees, the soil, the grass, whenever it pleased them, striking when they were least expected, retreating into darkness the moment the enemy responded.


    “We need water, strategos,” Euphrosyne said.


    Herakleia looked up at her. “Of course.”


    She stood and helped the other amazons through the marsh back to the carriages. As they walked, Herakleia’s anger grew.


    “You lost her,” she growled. “You left her.”


    “We tried our best, strategos,” Euphrosyne said.


    “Your best wasn’t good enough. We lost an alliance with a great power for that woman—we started a war for that woman, she was our Helen of Troy—and now she’s gone!”


    “Maybe it wasn’t the best trade, strategos,” Euphrosyne said. “Maybe you should have forced her to stay with her husband.”


    Herakleia stopped and glared at Euphrosyne. “You don’t think I tried?”


    Euphrosyne nodded. “You could have tried harder.”


    “Then vote me out.” Herakleia looked to the other amazons. “Put Euphrosyne in charge instead of me. Come on, I’m incompetent. I don’t know what I’m doing. Vote me out.”


    The amazons kept silent.


    “That’s what I thought,” Herakleia said. “Now come on. We have to get back to the others and figure out what the hell to do.”


    “We know,” Euphrosyne said.


    Herakleia looked at the dekarch, her second-in-command, ready to fight her. Euphrosyne was drenched in mud and sweat, yet all her expression said was: you and me, let’s go.


    “Don’t look at me like that,” Herakleia said.


    “Like what?” Euphrosyne said. “Like this?” She leaned in so close to Herakleia that their noses almost touched.


    The other amazons separated them before they could come to blows.


    “Listen!” shouted Jiajak Jaqeli, the blue-eyed red-haired Kipchak. “We lost. We did our best. But do you not understand that this is what the Seljuks desire? Even the Emperor in Rome—this is what he desires! For us to fight among ourselves. They are laughing at us right now!”


    Herakleia and Euphrosyne were glaring at each other and breathing deeply, their bodies tensed for a fight.


    “You must reconcile,” said Jaqeli. “We cannot continue otherwise.”


    “I don’t have time for this.” Herakleia shoved free from the amazons and walked toward the carriages. The amazons looked at each other, then followed.


    When they had finally escaped the marsh, they passed the wounded Seljuk warrior, the short muscular bearded man who was still lying on the ground where Herakleia had kicked off his face. He was alive.


    A problem we can rectify, Herakleia thought.


    She lunged toward him, her hands turned to fists, and shrieked in his face. “Where did they take Ay?e? Where is she?”


    Jaqeli and even Euphrosyne pulled her back before she could beat the Seljuk, who responded only with silence.


    “Enough!” Jaqeli shouted. “Strategos, what is wrong with you? He is a prisoner! Do we need to bind your hands, too?”


    Your reputation with the amazons is declining, the game voice said.


    Herakleia kept silent. The Seljuk regarded her with a forced, placid expression. His lips and eyelids flickered; this was the only hint that he feared her. Now he was alone with the warrior women. They were rumored to slice off the balls of the men they captured before forcing the bloody meat down the men’s throats.


    The amazons checked him for weapons, removed his armor, then brought him to the carriages, tied his hands behind his back, and gave him water before they drank their own. Za-Ilmaknun bound up his wound.


    “Remarkable,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “The iron ball passed through his shoulder, taking a chunk of armor, flesh, and several wads of cloth straight out through his back, all thanks to the grace and majesty of God.”


    The Seljuk kept quiet.


    “They steal one of our own, we help one of their own,” Herakleia said. “We don’t even get a thank you. All we get is more war.”


    “Be patient,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “One day everyone will come around.”


    “After they kill us all,” Herakleia said.


    “Strategos, you seem tired,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “I recommend you—”


    “I’m fine,” she growled.


    The amazons placed the Seljuk in a carriage. They asked his name, but he gave no answer.


    “We’ll call him Bob,” Herakleia said. “Until he tells us his real name.”


    “Bob?” said Pentarch Kata Surameli, the Alanian amazon. “What kind of name is that?”


    “It’s his name,” Herakleia said.


    El-Hadi’s arrow had been removed, in the mean time. Za-Ilmaknun told Herakleia that the wound was bad.


    “He was not quite so fortunate as our Seljuk friend,” he said. “The arrowhead separated from the shaft when it struck the poor fellow. During your absence in the marshes, it was most difficult to extract. I fear the consequences.”


    “Will you have to take the leg?” Herakleia said.


    “We must wait and see,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “We will change the bandages frequently, re-apply certain salves, and pray that the wound does not get infected.”


    “You’ll stay with him.” Herakleia eyed El-Hadi, who was lying in a carriage. “Keep him comfortable.”


    Za-Ilmaknun bowed.


    Herakleia approached El-Hadi, took his hand, and asked how he was doing.


    “I have felt better.” He was trembling and sweating, but struggling to look good for Herakleia. “I will pull through.”


    “What you did today was very brave,” Herakleia said. “I’ll be recommending you for the Order of Glory when we get back.”


    “Thank you,” he said. “Forgive me, but the Order of Glory…is that good?”


    “It’s one of our highest honors,” she said. “Established for soldiers or civilians who risk their lives to help the uprising.”


    “Thank you, strategos,” he said.


    Taking a deep breath, Herakleia squeezed El-Hadi’s shoulder. Then, stepping away, and keeping her eyes from his bandaged wound, she said a silent prayer. This granted a small amount of XP for her Intermediate Piety Skill (5/10).


    What else can I do? At this point, prayers are all we have left!


    El-Hadi had a family waiting back in Trebizond. There was his beautiful wife Amina, and their fat toddler Ibrahim, who always laughed and smiled at everyone, a real charmer. They were Domari. That was what they called themselves. They came from Hind, and had been wandering arid Irak for generations. Herakleia knew little about them.


    She walked in an almost random direction, forcing herself to appear busy, even as she realized that El-Hadi had been wounded because of her.


    Euphrosyne was right, Herakleia thought. That’s why I’m so angry at her. If I’d forced Ay?e to stay with Chaka Bey, none of this would have happened. Now El-Hadi is going to lose his leg, and for what? A medal?


    Earlier she had directed her anger against others; now she directed it against herself. She was so ashamed she could barely even look at anyone. But there was work to be done. There was always work. They needed to get moving.


    She spoke with every member of the convoy about what to do next. Should they proceed to the refugees, chase after Ay?e, or return home? Their options were limited. They had only one spare horse, now—this was the one Herakleia had stolen from Bob the Seljuk. The rest of the palfreys, except for the draft horses, had been lost in battle. Scouting ahead or even defending the convoy would be difficult. Because of this, everyone was in danger of another ambush.


    “We’re out here for a reason, dear,” Miriai said. She had also been wounded in the battle when Chaka Bey’s horse had kicked her; a white bandage was wrapped around her head. “We ought to finish the job. We should help the refugees, and do what we can to bring poor Ay?e back. Ach, I can only imagine what her husband has planned for her…”


    Herakleia looked to the amazons and cart drivers for their opinion.


    “They surprised us once,” Simonis said. “It will not happen again.”


    Taking a deep breath, Herakleia approached Euphrosyne.


    “I told you some things earlier I regret,” Herakleia said. “I’m sorry.”


    “Act a fool, be treated like a fool,” Euphrosyne said.


    Herakleia reached out her arm, and Euphrosyne shook it.


    “We are all doing our best,” Jaqeli said. “We cannot blame each other when things go awry. The situation cannot always be perfect.”


    The amazons and cart drivers nodded, saying this was true.


    “So what do you think, dekarch?” Herakleia said to Euphrosyne. “What should we do next?”


    “We have been blooded against the Seljuks,” Euphrosyne said. “Having never met them in battle before. But now we know this enemy. We know what to expect.”


    “Guess we’ll have to see how many surprises they have up their sleeves,” Herakleia said.


    “I suspect they have taken that which they desired,” said Kata Surameli. “We shall not see them again for some time. We must instead focus on the mission—on the refugees.”


    The rest of the amazons nodded their assent. The cart drivers Isma’il al-Saffar, Jabir al-Mamlūk, and Hurmuzdyar bin Wandarin Bawand had the same opinion, as did Za-Ilmaknun and Miriai.


    The last person Herakleia needed to ask was El-Hadi. He was also the last person she wanted to ask. The poor man lay uncomfortably on the sacks of supplies in his carriage, and looked half-asleep.


    “I wish to return home,” he said, stirring at her voice. “But I know I’m the only one.” Suddenly he seized Herakleia’s arm, and his eyes were wide. “Don’t let the Aethiopian take my leg. I need my leg. I cannot do anything without it. Do not let me become a cripple!”


    “At the cost of your life?” Herakleia said.


    El-Hadi fell back, released her, and shut his eyes. “What is life without one of your legs?”


    “Some people manage to live without one,” Herakleia said. The moment these words left her mouth, she regretted them. They sounded so insensitive. But what could she say?


    “Let him take your leg, then,” El-Hadi said. “If it’s so easy, see how you like it.”


    In her memory, Herakleia saw Duke Robert beneath her, naked and groaning in ecstasy.


    “I’ve sacrificed to the uprising,” she said. “If I could have given a leg instead of the other things I gave…”


    “You will see. That is all I can say. The line between having a normal life and being a cripple is so thin. It can so easily happen to you. It was just one arrow. One lucky shot…”


    “We’ll take care of you and your family, you know that. You’re one of us, leg or no leg.”


    “The same as before, less a leg,” El-Hadi said.


    “There’s purpose for all of us in Trebizond.”


    “I can be the crippled beggar.”


    “Do you see many of those people in Trebizond these days? No one begs for anything in Trebizond! We’re on our way to help people like that right now!”


    Za-Ilmaknun took her aside before El-Hadi could respond and whispered: “He is very upset, as you can see. Some of the poison may have gotten into his blood, his heart, and mind, you understand. There is no reasoning with such an influence.”


    “That’s what we tell ourselves. I’d be miserable too if I was going to lose one of my legs. It’s not just in his head.”


    Za-Ilmaknun bowed. “Of course not, strategos.”


    Herakleia looked at him. “You have some experience dealing with angry women, don’t you?”


    “Believe me, this is nothing compared to what I have known.” Za-Ilmaknun crossed himself. “I can deal with bloody hand-to-hand trench warfare, endless bombardment, five-year sieges in which we are reduced to eating each other, thirst in the burning wastes of the Dasht-e Lut, bubonic plague, madness, drowning, getting cooked to death like that poor man in the Trebizond citadel kitchen, attacks by elephants or lions, even the amputation of my own limbs. All this I can deal with—without a complaint—because none of it compares to the anger of women.”


    “Are you talking about Princess Isato?”


    “Of course not. I would never defame such an illustrious character. She was always the most peaceable, pleasant, and agreeable traveling companion.”


    Herakleia was surprised to find herself laughing. She wanted to ask what it was really like dealing with a young woman who would transform into a hyena if she got angry, but Herakleia refrained. Za-Ilmaknun had already told everyone that he had no desire to talk about it.


    By then the sun was emerging from behind the clouds, illuminating the sweat that bathed El-Hadi. Soon the carriages were hauled into a line. They were then hitched to the draft horses, and the drivers and amazons piled aboard, having voted to eat breakfast on the way. Since El-Hadi was wounded, Herakleia needed to drive the front carriage through the marsh herself. This at first seemed impossible, not only because Herakleia was an uninitiate (0/10) in her cart driving skill, but because it had also been difficult enough to get through the marsh on foot without having to worry about wooden wheels and axles. But Euphrosyne—riding the convoy’s sole scout horse—found the remains of the old Roman road that led through the marsh. This brought them to the far side within an hour, where they faced more valleys and mountains. But that was Anatolia. Mountains and valleys, some wet, others dry, with the best spots taken by cities that had been there since before anyone could write their names. As a tourist, a landscape like this might have seemed beautiful, but it just meant trouble for the convoy. Seljuks or other enemies could spy on them or ambush them, hiding behind the mountaintops as the slow vulnerable convoy made its way to Satala.


    But there was no sign of Seljuks, Chaka Bey, or Ay?e. They had all vanished as if they had never existed.


    Soon enough, the convoy left the wetter lands by the northern coast, and penetrated the mountain chains in the southern interior, where everything was warmer and drier. They passed the road branching east to Tabriz, then they came to the Satala ruins, and found the refugees.