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Anno Domini 826, March 4
The situation looked far from encouraging as I watched the pirate ships slowly approaching the shore.
The only comfort I had was that they did not seem intent on attacking the port directly. If they did, I would lose my entire fleet—something that had cost me dearly to assemble. My real fear lay elsewhere: what they intended to do. Ainos was walled, or at least part of it was, but many houses lay outside the walls and were completely unprotected. If the pirates had time, all they had to do was move a little farther inland to reach my settlement and devastate everything I had spent thousands upon thousands of gold coins building.
As we advanced toward Ainos, we encountered dozens of my men running back toward the camp to retrieve their military gear, while we pressed on with what we had, moving at the fastest pace possible to secure a favorable position before the pirates made their move.
We reached the walls of Ainos with time to spare, as the pirates paused offshore for a while. It seemed they were trying to coordinate more carefully before beginning the attack.
Inside Ainos, I found the sailors stationed in the area. Most were rowers who knew nothing beyond rowing, and about 140 men served as crossbowmen. They carried crossbows and padded armor—gambeson, doublet, and coif—but nothing more, as they needed to remain light for naval combat.
Between my mercenaries and the sailors, I had around 390 men. More were still arriving, and there were also the hundred men of the garrison. I believed messengers had already been sent to call up all nearby themata, so our numbers might yet increase.
The real problem, however, was how many men those ships could carry. If each transported a hundred warriors, we were finished. Even if they carried fewer—say fifty—we might be able to hold them off long enough for reinforcements from other regions to arrive and force them to withdraw.
We finally reached the city, and I walked toward the kastron. The gates stood open, and people were being evacuated into the fortification.
"Where is your kentarchos?" I asked one of the guards helping move supplies into the kastron.
"Inside," the soldier replied, busy hauling sacks of grain.
"Up here," said the kentarchos, who stood atop the walls watching the pirate fleet begin its approach to the shore.
"What are we going to do?" I asked him.
"We don't have the numbers to fight. We must wait for forces from Adrianople or Constantinople to arrive. Until then, we'll have to let them loot whatever they want," the kentarchos said, his voice heavy with anger.
"Come on… can't we meet them on the shore and make the landing difficult?" I asked. His plan amounted to letting them do as they pleased.
"We risk losing the kastron, mercenary. Bring your men inside, and we'll wait until they withdraw," the kentarchos replied.
"As if I'm going to stand by while they burn all my property," I answered.
"That is an order, mercenary, and you—" the kentarchos began.
"I serve directly under the strategos. You are only a kentarchos. Unless you are a tourmarches acting under direct orders from the strategos, you have no authority over me. My duty is to support your garrison, nothing more," I replied, turning away as I headed for the beach.
As we moved, more of my mercenaries arrived. They were probably still heavy with beer, but they were usable.
By the time we reached the shore, we numbered five hundred men. I had no clear idea how to face a superior force, but I could not stand by and watch everything burn without offering at least some resistance.
"Lysander," I said, looking at the mercenary holding his crossbow firmly.
"Yes, my kapetanios?" he replied immediately.
"Go and warn everyone in my settlement to prepare to flee. We'll try to buy time in the worst case. They won't be able to reach the kastron, and I doubt it could shelter five thousand people anyway. Tell them to take what they can carry and head north for a while. The pirates shouldn't remain here long," I said, watching as the pirates touched sand and began disembarking.
"Yes, kapetanios," Lysander said, running back.
"All right. We'll harass them a bit. The moment more of them are ashore than us, we fall back into the city and fight there," I told my men.
The sailors were clearly nervous, while my mercenaries—better equipped—felt more confident following me.
We advanced, and the pirates reacted by forming ranks of archers to rain arrows upon us.
We moved quickly to seize the higher ground on the beach—simple rises of sand—where pavises were driven into the ground and the crossbowmen took position. A line of shields was planted in the sand as the pirates poured off their ships, more joining them by wading in from the sandbank.
Arrows began to fall. My men raised their shields, while the crossbowmen sheltered behind the pavises and the exchange of arrows and bolts began. We were at the edge of effective range, so the crossbows were not as lethal as I would have liked. Slowly, the sand grew stained with blood—but not with corpses.
On our side, wounded men began to appear. Without mail or brigandines, protection was poor. Padded clothing did what it could, but cries of pain rang out whenever an arrow found its mark, and men had to be pulled from the line and replaced.
The one advantage was that everyone knew how to use a crossbow. Any man could step into the place of a wounded one.
Several groups of pirates began charging toward us across the sand. That made them easy targets—the first were pierced by bolts, and the dark stains spreading across the beach began to grow.
But the pirate charge did not stop.
More and more of them kept coming.
"Take the shields and fall back to Ainos, we buy them time!" I shouted.
My men grabbed the shields, snapped off the arrows lodged in them, and began retreating across the sand, while we repositioned ourselves to cut off the pirates' advance and the crossbowmen withdrew toward the city.
The pirates came at us in disorganized waves, like drops of water, charging without coordination, throwing themselves forward with curved swords.
I swung my axe. A futile attempt to block with nothing but a sword ended when the blade of my axe bit straight into the pirate's skull, spraying blood in every direction.
A second pirate came at me from the right. I was already preparing to react, but a sword flashed in a straight line and struck his neck, severing his arteries in a single blow and sending a jet of blood into the air.
The few pirates who collided with us died quickly, crushed by the teamwork of our formation.
But as we finished them off, we could see the main pirate force closing in, and it was painfully clear that they outnumbered us.
We were around two hundred men here, while the crossbowmen were falling back into the city. How many pirates there were, I couldn't say—I never stopped to count them.
So we began to retreat in an orderly manner, taking advantage of the distance we had already gained, though the pirates also began advancing in tighter formation.
From time to time they quickened their pace, trying to force us into close combat, where their numbers could easily surround us, yet they were careful not to break into a full run.
Most of us were already sweating from the retreat, but there was nothing to do except keep fighting. When we reached the first buildings of Ainos, we set up the strongest defense we could.
Many crossbowmen climbed onto rooftops and took positions there, while we blocked the streets with shields and prepared to fight.
The pirate forces arrived and paused, studying the narrow streets they would have to push through. Slowly they advanced, raising shields as they noticed the crossbowmen on the roofs.
I took position in the second line, where my axe would be more useful, while my men planted their kite shields, forming a line of heavy infantry that would be extremely difficult for the lightly armed pirates to break.
A direct pirate charge followed, accompanied by a rain of arrows and bolts, and I noticed several pirate groups trying to flank us rapidly.
"You, and you—take your men and block that intersection," I said, catching the attention of two sergeants."And you, take yours and block that narrow street," I continued, issuing orders.
Sixty-three men peeled away from the main line. The sound of metal clashing erupted everywhere, mixed with screams and howls.
Raising my axe behind my men, I began crushing skulls. Whenever I saw someone too focused on fighting one of my soldiers, I simply lifted the axe and buried it in his head, using my height and the fact that many of my men were shorter than me.
I heard a dull impact and turned to see one of my men fall from a rooftop, several arrows buried in his body.
Slowly, the pirates began to push us back. Gasping for breath and killing whoever I could reach, we were being forced to give ground.
"Get down from there, now, before we can't help you!" I shouted to the crossbowmen on the rooftops, watching as more than one toppled backward when pirate arrows struck them.
Through sheer numerical superiority they kept pushing us, while men in our line fell from wounds that struck faces and eyes.
We were nearing one of the intersections where my men were holding off a flanking attempt.
I broke from the formation.
"Get out of there, now—we can't hold them!" I shouted toward them, but my cries went unheard. They were too focused on fighting the pirate forces pressing them.
"Get out of there!" I shouted again.
No one heard me.
The pirates soon pushed us to the point where we could no longer support my men.
They were left to their fate.
I felt a crushing pressure in my chest as I looked toward where they were fighting. I was losing men—my crossbowmen were dying on the rooftops.
My soldiers were falling back, collapsing where they stood, and were finished off by the enraged pirates.
One group of my men was trapped between two pirate forces.
Without wasting time, I ran toward the other formation blocking a passage and grabbed the attention of a sergeant.
"Get out of here!" I shouted, gripping him by the shoulders.
He nodded, and his formation began to withdraw, managing to escape just before the main pirate force crashed into them, leaving a trail of dead behind.
Several crossbowmen were trapped on rooftops, and I watched arrows rain down on them from all sides.
Just as I was about to order a full retreat with what remained of my force, the pirates suddenly began to pull back. That was when I noticed black smoke rising on the horizon.
Without wasting time questioning their retreat, we began searching for survivors and gathering the dead, digging through piles of pirate corpses where, sometimes, one of our own lay among them.
We pulled out the few wounded who were still alive, and I stared at a street littered with the bodies of my mercenaries.
"Damn it… I'm sorry," I murmured, looking at the fallen.
Taking advantage of the moment, we withdrew toward the kastron to find out what was happening, surprised that the rest of my forces had still not arrived. The surprise was even greater when I saw my mercenaries inside the walls.
"What the hell are you doing in there?" I shouted furiously when I saw more than two hundred of my men behind the walls.
"Those were your orders, kapetanios…" one of them replied.
"My orders? I gave no order for you to stay inside the walls," I said, forcing myself to control my breathing.
"But the kentarchos told us—" one began.
"That bastard lied to you!" I shouted, furious."Now open the gates and come help with the wounded."
"The gates will not be opened," said one of the themata soldiers.
"You will open the gates, or I will make sure to ruin every single one of you when I report this to the strategos," I shouted again
The soldiers stared at me, spoke among themselves, and finally the gates of the kastron began to open. My mercenaries poured out immediately.
I began stabilizing the wounded and securing the bodies of the fallen, preparing for the next pirate assault
but it never came.
All I could see was the smoke still rising from the beach.
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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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