Fallen Eagle-Chapter 10: Quenching the Blade

Chapter 10: Quenching the Blade
True to Theodorus’s word, the morning was a brutal assault on comfort. He roused the convoy before the first hint of dawn, his sharp commands cutting through the groggy warmth of sleep. By the time they moved out, the sun was a grey suggestion on the horizon, and the night’s storm had subsided into a persistent, freezing drizzle that soaked everyone equally miserably. The storm had churned the path into a mire of mud and their progress was a sluggish crawl, a stark contrast to the previous day’s hard-won efficiency. They would reach Agroktima on schedule, but the triumph of being ahead of it was lost to the mud.
If Theodorus was bothered, he gave no sign. He sent the riders ahead as he had before, but as they prepared to depart, he announced an exception.
“I will ride with you today.”
The words dropped into the morning’s sullen quiet, causing a ripple of disbelief. The commander himself, riding with the vanguard? To serve as a herald? If leaving the main body of the convoy with only a token guard yesterday was audacious. To leave it leaderless today, as they entered into the heart of the bandit and Tatar-infested northern borderlands, was reckless at the very least.
The merchants, thoroughly cowed by now, merely exchanged wide-eyed, nervous glances.
It was Demetrios who voiced the unspoken concern. He caught Theodorus as he was checking the cinch on his mare’s saddle - a sturdy horse he’d eccentrically named Boudicca.
“My Lord, are you certain this is wise?” the old servant asked, his voice low and urgent. He had grown to trust this new, calculating Theodorus, but he still felt it his duty to question what seemed like folly. “You are not the most experienced rider. The pace will be taxing. And to leave the caravan leaderless…”
Theodorus paused, his hand resting on Boudicca’s flank. He looked at Demetrios with quiet calm, not with the cold authority he’d used on the men. He had grown to like the old man, who was similar in age to the original Nikos Karagiannis. He was, in many ways, the only person he could relate to and trust in this new existence.
“Men will not follow words alone, Demetrios. Forging a weapon requires many steps. If yesterday I beat them into shape. Today, I will quench them.” He saw the confusion in the old man’s eyes and elaborated, lowering his voice. “There are many reasons my presence in the vanguard is necessary. But this is the most important one. Think on it.” He tapped the old man’s shoulder. “I will expect your answer by day’s end.” He felt Demetrios was smart and incisive, but had never been stimulated to think for himself. To simply provide answers was wasteful and anathema to his own guiding principles as a professor. He had employed these same teaching methods for hundreds of brilliant students and firmly believed true understanding came from stimulating correct thought processes, not rote memorization.
“Besides,” With a subtle wink, he swung himself into the saddle. “I’m not leaving them leaderless.” Theodorus’s posture was erect, his black and grey brigandine a fitting echo of the overcast sky. He ignored the damp, obsidian curls plastered to his forehead and rode to where the Doux’s men were assembled.
“Sergeant Leonidas.”
“Captain.” The reply was clipped, the resentment from the previous day replaced by a grudging, thoughtful respect.
“You will remain behind. The convoy is under your command in my absence.”
A flicker of surprise, swift and sharp, crossed the faces of all five veterans. Leonidas’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his expression hardened into one of stony focus. To be entrusted with the entire column… it was an undeniable grant of authority, but it also felt like a test. He gave a single, sharp nod.
“Yes, Captain.”
Theodorus accepted the assent as if it were the most expected thing in the world. He turned his gaze to the four remaining soldiers, his expression unreadable as they finalized their preparations. A few minutes later, the unlikely vanguard spurred their horses into a gallop, disappearing into the grey mist: four grizzled men-at-arms, a flamboyant wagon hand, and the young, daring captain.
Theodorus insisted the vanguard ride with their usual brisk pace. They sliced through the damp air, arriving at Agroktima well ahead of the lumbering convoy. As before, Giannis took to his role with theatrical gusto. Initially self-conscious under his commander’s gaze, he soon found his rhythm, his booming voice painting pictures of fine wool and sturdy clay pots, his dramatic gestures weaving a spell of commerce over the gathering villagers. Theodorus was content to remain mounted, a still point in the burgeoning storm of activity, his placid observation lending a silent, weighty credence to the proceedings. He dismounted only once, for a quiet, extended meeting with the village elder, before returning to his men.
“Which one of you has the best sense for direction? The fastest horse?”
The veterans exchanged glances, then a collective nod settled upon the smallest and leanest in their unit. Nikos was a man carved from the borderlands themselves. He had the high, sharp cheekbones of the Alanic horse-lords of the steppes set in a weather-tanned face with a straight nose and firm jaw that were purely Greek. He was a living map of the migrations and empires that had washed over Crimea for centuries.
“Nikos,” Theodorus said. “We will ride to the outlying hamlets. I need to speak with the people there.”
“All of them, Captain?” Nikos’s tone held a note of weariness. The circuit would take an hour of hard riding just to traverse.
“Yes.” Theodorus’s reply was flat, offering no sympathy.
The ride began in a silence stretched taut with tension. Nikos rode with a ramrod-straight posture, his body a fortress of military correctness, acutely aware of the young commander at his side. As they journeyed from one small cluster of sod-roofed homes to the next, however, the relentless pace and shared mission began to erode his rigid guard. When Theodorus finally called a halt in a quiet clearing to water their mounts, Nikos’s shoulders had lost some of their stiffness. He dismounted and began stroking his horse’s neck as it drank, a rare look of contentment softening his hard features.
“You’re at ease with them,” Theodorus commented, breaking the silence.
Nikos started, his hand freezing on his horse’s mane. The mask of the soldier had snapped back into place, his posture reticent. “Ah- yes, Captain. I have some experience.”
“Your family owned horses before you joined the army? You seem a natural in the saddle.”
The question seemed to put Nikos even more on guard. “We owned some,” he said, his tone clipped, discouraging further inquiry.
“A remnant from your family’s nomadic heritage?” Theodorus pressed, an educated guess he’d gleamed from his uncomfortable reactions to casual insults thrown the Crimeans’ way.
Nikos was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Yes, Captain,” he finally said, the words quiet and heavy. Association with the Tatar peoples was a brand that marked a man in Theodoro, a lifetime of suspicion Nikos knew all too well.
Theodorus let the silence sit before speaking again, his own voice quieter, with the slightest hint of vulnerability, more than he had ever shown the men so far. “My stepmother was of the steppe. She commanded horses so effortlessly we thought she spoke their language.” It was a lie, Theodorus had, in fact, never met the original’s stepmother, but he wasn’t above using blatant lies if it served his purpose. “When she was troubled, she would cloister in the stables. Said she felt more at ease there than anywhere else.”
He let the fabricated memory hang in the air. Nikos’s posture thawed another degree. “They can sense your moods,” the soldier murmured, not looking at Theodorus but at his own horse, which leaned into his touch. “And they can soothe them if they wish.”
“You seemed anxious before we stopped,” Theodorus remarked, his voice neutral. “Why?”
Nikos weighed the cost of honesty. A criticism, no matter how slight, was a dangerous currency to trade with this commander. He made his choice.
“The horses needed rest, Captain.”
“And they are resting.” Theodorus gestured to the pair, who were greedily gulping water from a small stream.
“But sooner, they were flagging some 15 minutes ago. These last few kilometers cost them.”
Theodorus considered him with his gaze. He turned, making a decision. “Then next time you feel the horses grow tired, warn me, Stratiotes Nikos. And we will take a break.” He gave Boudicca’s flank a firm pat. “They rely on us as much as we rely on them.”
Nikos looked surprised that he hadn’t been berated for criticising the commander’s actions. Instead, Theodorus had valued his skills and actively incorporated his suggestions. It was a subtle thing, but after that, Theodorus could feel the shift in Nikos’s demeanour. His back was no longer rigid with tension, but straight with a new, quiet authority.
For the rest of the day, Theodorus rotated the men who rode with him on his reconnaissance trips, allowing them rest and using the relative privacy of the trail to understand the personalities behind the names. Using innocuous, unobtrusive subjects and quiet observations to thaw through the men’s suspicions, an art he had applied to great effect in the capital to build his social network. He learned that Ilias, a baker’s son from Suyren, was a prodigious cook. He learned Lazaros was a deadly trapper from a western village who knew the ways of the forest.
He was a warrior studying the intricacies of his weapons, one conversation at a time, so he could wield them with deadly precision.
His extensive talks with the villages and hamlets also bore fruit. The main path the traders were familiar with was an established route, but not one that was maintained, and little better than carving a path through the wilderness. The locals knew which treks would be easiest for a wagon to pass through safely, and which would be impassable due to the previous night’s downpour. Their reconnaissance through the hamlet allowed them to scout these paths in advance. As the main convoy finished its transactions in the villages, Theodorus would return to brief them on the next route, oftentimes taking them through less-travelled and well-known paths. Despite the rain that continued unabated, the caravan made good time.
Their luck, however, followed the moods of the weather; it worsened as the day came to an end. As they reached one of the last villages south of Probatofrourio, the road turned against them. It became a steep, treacherous incline, a river of slick mud that squelched and sucked at the horses’ hooves. The animals strained, their breath pluming in the cold air.
Theodorus called the men to a halt.
“We rest here.”
“Here, Captain?” The question came from Giannis, the wagon hand. The last two days of being the celebrated “Wagon Crier”, a title he’d elected for himself, had puffed him up. His newfound importance a gaudy cloak he wore with little grace. One that had started to grate on the soldiers’ nerves. “At the bottom of a hill? Must we?” he whined.
Theodorus turned his head to face him. “Not necessarily. We will shelter under the oaks if it pleases you,” Theodorus stated, his tone deceptively amenable.
Giannis heaved a sigh of relief. “It does, thank you, Captain. A most sensible choice.” He ran a hand through his voluminous hair in dramatic fashion, causing a torrent of rain droplets to fall off it.
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“You, however,” Theodorus pointed at Giannis, his words cutting through the drizzle with the ferocity of a whip crack. “Will take the horses to that pasture.” He gestured to a patch of green on the nearby slope. “Let them graze. We will take shelter under the oaks.” The punishment was surgically precise. The men would rest from the downpour. Giannis would suffer it alone.
“B-but the rain, Captain… the horses-” Giannis visibly shrank under Theodorus’s stony gaze.
“-Will welcome the fresh grass,” Theodorus said, his voice flat and final. “
Go.
” He barked
Giannis scrambled to obey, his brief flight of self-importance dissolving in the cold, miserable rain.
Theodorus sat beneath the dripping leaves of a great oak, his gaze fixed on the muddy incline as if it were a complex cypher he was determined to solve. The men exchanged glances. Throughout the day, they had come to grow a little bit more comfortable around their intransigent leader. Enough to risk satiating their curiosity. A silent consensus passed between them, and Nikos, their unofficial spokesman (or scapegoat), stepped forward.
“Captain? Why have we stopped?”
Theodorus didn’t look away from the road. “The path is impassable. Our horses could slip and break a leg if we’re not careful.”
“With patience, I believe we could guide them up,” Nikos replied.
“Because they carry a light load.” Theodorus finally turned, his eyes sweeping over the men, not elaborating further.
The men turned pensive, understanding this was a test. Nikos stroked his moustache, a soaked, hairy forest watered by the downpour. “The wagons,” he replied, almost surprised at himself. “The donkeys will never pull them up that slope.”
Theodorus shared a small smile, a brief, tiny thing, but noticeable by the more discerning men of the group. “We cannot allow the delay. Our resident ‘Wagon Crier’ is a dramatic creature, but he is right about one thing - camping at the base of this hill in a deluge will not be pleasant for anyone.”
“Then do we turn back, Captain?” It was Ilias who spoke up.
“No, we make our own path.” Theodorus announced. And so the men set to work.
Theodorus split them into two teams: Nikos and the trapper Lazaros, both at home in the wilderness, were sent to scour the surrounding woods for thick brush and fallen branches. Theodorus remained with stout Ilias and the quiet Pothos. With daggers and the tips of their swords, they began the back-breaking work of carving two deep channels at the top of the incline, diverting the flow of rainwater to the sides of the road.
Then Theodorus knelt in the sucking mud, digging into the earth with his bare hands to clear a stubborn, buried rock.
The men froze, watching their commander, a highborn noble, working beside them without hesitation. This boy, who looked as if a strong wind might knock him over, was matching them grunt for grunt after a full day’s hard ride - a day on which they had rested and rotated between villages while he had not.
A strange, competitive fire lit in their bellies. They felt outdone somehow. They were hard-bitten soldiers, used to the drudgery and unglamorous work of a soldier, taking a sort of sick pride in the harsh conditions they laboured under and in their own endurance. And now this frail highborn was outworking them.
They attacked the work with ferocious intensity. Lazaro’s hand axe, a prized possession he carried everywhere, made short work of the surrounding saplings, and soon a small mountain of branches lay ready. The men filled the deepest potholes with rocks, then laid the sturdiest branches across the road, creating a crude but effective corduroy track to distribute the wagons’ weight. Over this, they layered smaller, leafy branches and the thick bracken, creating a surface with desperate, needed traction.
From his lonely post in the rain-swept pasture, Giannis watched the bizarre engineering project progress. Too wet and miserable to question it much further.
For the final step, Nikos led the horses up and down the makeshift road. He moved with the reverent care of a man putting the final touches on a cathedral, his steady back-and-forth compacting the surface into a firm, stable path.
By the time the convoy lumbered into view, the impassable quagmire had been transformed. The men stood beside their creation, exhausted, mud-spattered, and astonished at what they had built. It wouldn’t last for more than a few hours. It was ugly and would be laughed at by any proper engineer. But it did the job, and that was enough.
Theodorus surveyed their work, his gaze missing nothing. He looked at his soldiers, their faces shining with sweat and rain, and spoke three quiet words.
“Good work, men.”
It was not a speech, nor was it high praise. But in the silence that followed, broken only by the steady drumming of the rain, it felt like a king’s validation.
When the main convoy arrived, Leonidas rode to the front, his brow furrowed as he stared at the bizarre, branch-woven road. He took in the scene: the transformed path, the exhausted but strangely energized state of his men, and his captain, whose fine brigandine was now just a canvas for mud and grime. The rest of the convoy broke out in a murmur of confusion, but Leonidas’s gaze was fixed on his commander.
“This next patch is treacherous, Sergeant,” Theodorus said, his voice raw with exhaustion. “We will push each wagon one at a time.”
It was only as they were pushing the wagons up the road that Leonidas finally reached the obvious, but ludicrous conclusion. Theodorus, boots sinking into the muck, his face a mask of strain, was helping push the wagons along with the men.
Leonidas felt as if he had been slapped. The uppity noble who insisted on obsessive punctuality and admonished him over the incorrect use of a title was now doing the foulest grunt work without a word of complaint. He also saw his men in a new light. The tense silence that had defined their earlier interactions around Theodorus was gone, replaced by an easy camaraderie. They traded quiet insults, grunted in unison as the wagon lurched forward, and shot triumphant, mud-splattered grins at each other as they crested the hill, delighting in the merchants’ astonished expressions. In two days, the boy-captain had not only asserted his authority over them but had also begun to earn a small measure of unspoken loyalty.
Demetrios, a quiet shadow on the periphery, watched it all unfold, a slow, profound understanding dawning in his eyes.
They reached the village just before nightfall. Theodorus had negotiated for the use of their largest barn, sealing the deal with a small offering of coin that left the old headman surprised. By rights, the commander could justly requisition the space if he wished.
Dinner that night saw Theodorus once again share a meal with the men, and though he rarely spoke, the difference between the previous tense silence of yesterday’s supper and today’s comfortable one was felt.
Theodorus retired early to his tent once again, Demetrios following closely behind, ostensibly to help him, but in truth to on his assignment.
“I watched Leonidas,” he whispered as Theodorus eased his bruised body down. “He has a natural, albeit crude, charisma. When an axle on one of the wagons cracked, he didn’t wait for orders. He had the cargo distributed among the other carts and found a blacksmith in the village to forge a temporary repair to last the journey.”
Theodorus grunted, a flicker of satisfaction in his tired eyes. “He isn’t afraid to take initiative. I imagine the other merchants weren’t pleased to carry the extra burden.”
“Aye,” Demetrios confirmed, a small smile touching his lips. “But one look from the Sergeant and they quickly changed their tune.”
“He has a certain presence,” Theodorus confirmed, his voice low. He met the old servant’s gaze, his eyes alert despite his visible fatigue. “And the answer? Do you have it?” He asked.
“Yesterday, you treated them like common laborers. For the simple fact to show them that you could. They were resentful, but they were also cowed.” Demetrios answered.
“Beating the raw iron into shape,” Theodorus affirmed with a nod.
“Today,” Demetrios continued, “you rode with them. You spoke with them. You worked in the filth beside them.” A hint of distaste in his voice as he glanced at his lord’s mud-caked brigandine, thinking of the work that it would take to clean it. “You shared their burden.”
“Quenching the blade.” Theodorus finished.
“But why?” The question burst from Demetrios, genuine confusion coloring his face. “You had their fear. Why risk that authority by crawling in the mud? Men respect a leader who stands apart, above them. Why this complex scheme?” Theodorus didn’t judge Demetrios for holding that opinion. He was a victim of his time: a brutal world where the strong preyed on the weak and death awaited you at every corner. Distance and brutality were the common methods of exerting power.
“Men follow strength. It is true.” Theodorus conceded. “Yesterday I showed them not the strength of arm, but of authority. I proved that while any one of them could break me in a duel, they could not touch my position. I shattered their image of me as a weak boy from a tarnished house who got handed the position solely by virtue of my blood. I showed them Strength.”
“But striking iron too hard will make it brittle,” Theodorus concluded the metaphor. “Men cowed by fear can only be pushed so far. They will obey, but break under real pressure. I needed to temper their fear with something stronger, more resilient.” He glanced at the men, sharing jokes in the flickering flamelight. “Loyalty… we praise it as a virtue, but few men actually deserve it. They treat their subjects like pawns and attempt to force servitude. It works, to some extent. But I’ve told you before, Demetrios. I want allies, not servants.” His eyes seemed to dance with the firelight. “Today I made the men feel like they were more than tools. A commander in the rear sees a map with pawns, a commander on the line sees his men’s faces. He shares their terror and their triumph. That shared experience forges a bond that no amount of gold or fear can replicate. I want men who will stand with me not because they have to, but because they choose to.”
Demetrios was awestruck by the depth of Theodorus’s complex reasoning. He had understood the motivation behind his actions on some instinctive level and rejected it as the idealism of a naive boy. To hear the cold, calculated logic behind Theodorus’s every action and motivations revealed the ruthless pragmatism at its core.
“And the other reasons?” Demetrios asked, his voice barely a whisper. Afraid to even ask. “You said there were more.”
“After we passed Suyren Fortress, I knew we would be in the hinterlands of our own fort. I needed to know the terrain, the people, the paths. Our border fort cannot survive on its own.” He fixed Demetrios with a look. “Furthermore, I knew yesterday’s storm would have turned the main roads into a quagmire. By speaking with the locals, we found paths that saved us from a half-dozen other inclines like the one today. And lastly,” he added, “I needed to evaluate my men. I cannot be everywhere at once.”
“Leonidas,” Demetrios stated.
“Yes. I needed to see how he would handle command.”
“And you have your conclusion? From one day of leading wagons?”
“Of course not.” A small, genuine laugh escaped Theodorus. “Just as I didn’t earn the men’s unwavering loyalty just from today. These things take time, but time is a commodity we are scarcely short on, Demetrios. I will have to make gambles, it is unavoidable. The best I can strive for is for them to be calculated ones.”
He rose, the movement slow and stiff, prompting a pained grimace from the day's aches. He prepared his bedroll with the slow, jerky motions of someone raised from the grave, the punishing pace he'd pushed himself to today had left him dead tired and aching for the respite of sleep. The conversation was over.
Demetrios watched him, the pieces of the last few days clicking into a staggering, intricate mosaic. The piety in the capital, the careful cultivation of contacts, the domination of the men, the sharing of their burdens - none of it was random. None of it was emotional. It was all a plan, a grand, terrifying strategy being executed by a boy who saw the world not as it was, but as a series of levers to be pulled. The old servant felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp night air. He wasn’t just a servant following his lord; he was the confidant of a king in the making.
The mood of the convoy lifted as they crested the final ridge. The rain had finally broken, and a pale, watery sun was doing its best to burn through the grey clouds. Below them, nestled in a rugged valley, lay their destination: Probatofrourio Border Fort.
The relief was short-lived, replaced by a stunned, collective silence. The had mentioned a breach. What they saw was a catastrophe. An entire section of the fort’s stone curtain wall had not been breached; it had collapsed into a mountain of rubble, leaving a gaping, indefensible wound. It looked less like a fortress and more like a decaying tooth, its side rotted away.
Theodorus led them through the ruin of a gate, his face a mask of stone. The scene within the walls was even worse than the one without. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, stale cooking smoke, and the faint, sour stench of sickness. Gaunt men with hollow eyes watched them approach, their movements slow, their shoulders slumped in a posture of profound defeat. There was no discipline here, only a lingering decay. Inside the watchtower proper, a cacophony of soft moans could be heard.
A figure detached itself from the wall and walked toward them. He was a wild-looking man, his beard an unkempt thicket. He carried with him a vicious-looking war axe.
“Are you the relief?” he asked, his voice a dry rasp.
Theodorus nodded. “I am Captain Theodorus Sideris,” Theodorus said, his voice cold and clear. The man seemed to deflate at the news. His reinforcements were led by a teenage boy. “And you are?”
“Sergeant Orestis, Captain.” The man spoke, his body inclining in what might have passed for a bow. “What’s left of the command, I suppose.” He gestured with his axe toward the mountain of rubble that was once a wall. “The rainstorm and the gales brought the rest of the wall down. And the night wasn’t comfortable for those injured or plagued with foul humours.” Orestis motioned with his chin towards the direction of the moans.
He surveyed the newly arrived wagons with the tired look of a man trying to hold a sinking ship together. “Your arrival is timely, Captain. The last of the grain ran out two days ago. We’ve been foraging what we could, but the storm has scared the prey away.” His eyes were hollow, soulless things as he spoke. “Welcome to Probatofrourio, Captain.”
Theodorus said nothing. He looked at the collapsed wall, a gateway for any enemy who chose to walk through it. He looked at the starving, wounded men who were supposed to defend it. He looked at the vast, hostile wilderness that surrounded them, an ocean of enemies pressing in on this tiny, broken island of a fort. He realized now with a chilling certainty that he had not been sent to a fortress. He had been sent to a tomb.