Making Rome Great Again or how I was born as Constantine IX, Emperor of the Romans ch 19 (Historical Fiction SI)

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The plains of Pannonia stretched as far as the eye could see. Grass swayed northwards, pushed by a steady wind. A fat marmot peeked out of its hiding hole, its nose twitching as it tested the air. No strange smells. Good. It climbed out, its fur fluffy and brown, and stood upright on its hind legs, basking in the cold air and sun. It cried out to its companions, who emerged one by one to join it. Yet, the fat marmot remained alert, ever watchful for hawks, wolves, or any predator that might threaten its small community. This was its life: forage cautiously above ground and retreat swiftly to safety when danger loomed.

The marmot froze as a new sensation rippled through the earth. Vibrations. The thrumming of hooves against the ground. The tremors grew stronger, closer. It cried out in alarm. Its companions scattered, rushing back to their burrows. The fat marmot lingered a moment, then darted underground just in time. A hundred horsemen thundered across the plains, lances and banners gripped tightly in hand, their gazes fixed on the horizon.

Koppány, the traitor, ruled Somogy and much of Transdanubia. His rebellion had begun with an invasion, seizing border towns that lay between his land and that of his king. Now, the traitor had laid seige to Veszprem and now time was of the essence for them to relieve the town, for the Romans had yet to arrive with their heavy cavalry. Vecelin had asked around: merchants, travellers, priests and even consulted whatever books that were available that detailed how the Romans fought. Beyond hearsay of fools and drunkards, he could pierce through some plausible truths. The Romans fielded heavy cavalry, much like his own knights, but their strength lay in disciplined formations. Their lances were effective, though not as specialized as those wielded by his men. Vecelin was not overly concerned. The Romans would need to march far from the Danube to reach them, and even if they did, the relentless riding would leave them fatigued.

Or so he thought as cries came up from the front and a horn being blown. From under the treeline, mounted riders rode forth. From the distance, Vecelin could not see their faces but the outline of horse archers was more than visible. Vecelin's knights stirred, their hands tightening around their weapons, eyes glinting with eagerness. The promise of battle electrified them. Vecelin, however, reined them in.

"Hold," he ordered, his voice calm but firm. "This is a fight for the Magyars."

A murmur of disappointment rose among his men, but they obeyed. Vecelin turned to the nearest rider.

"Send word to one of the chiefs. Tell them to attack."

The rider saluted and galloped back toward the column. Vecelin's knights shifted uneasily in their saddles, the tension thick as they watched the Magyar riders surge forward. The first wave of their mounted allies sped across the field, their bows raised, loosing arrows as they closed the distance with their enemy. The air filled with the sharp twang of bowstrings and the distant hiss of projectiles. Arrows flew in both directions, glinting momentarily in the sunlight before disappearing into flesh, human or beast. As the skirmish continued, Vecelin and his knights could only watch as a strange feeling settled in their gut. This was nothing more but another skirmish between Magyars, correct? 

The more Vecelin watched, the more he realized what was so uncanny. He stood up on his saddle and for a moment, he blinked as a flash of light entered his eyes. A flash that came from the glint of scale or lamellar armour. 

[SPOILER="Hippotoxotae"][/SPOILER]

"Who are they?" a knight muttered, voicing what most were thinking. 

"Who else?" Vecelin replied, his tone flat as he leaned back in his saddle. "Romans."

The word rippled through the ranks, stirring quiet confusion and disbelief. Vecelin paid them no mind, his thoughts fixed on the enemy before him. Magyar horse-archery was good. A child from the semi-nomads could hunt a Marmot from a distance and hit its head. But when faced with armour, it fell flat. The arrows that did find its mark was ineffective or shot down on Roman for every five Magyar. His dismay deepened as he watched the Magyars falter. Their skirmish line unraveled, and they broke formation, retreating in earnest. The mounted Romans gave pursuit, loosing arrows at their backs. 

"We must cover the Magyars retreat," Vecelin cried. "Take up your lances, and drive them away!" 

"Hurrah!" the Franks cried. 

"Charge!" he roared first before taking up his saddle-horn and blowing into it. The deep, resonant sound of Vecelin's horn echoed across the air, cutting through the skirmish. His knights roared in response, their voices rising as one. Hooves thundered against the earth as the Franks surged forward, lances lowered, shields braced, and banners snapping in the wind. The Franks plowed onward, their momentum carrying them across the field. But the Romans did not stand and fight. Instead, and to the Franks dismay, the Roman horsemen wheeled about, vanishing into the shadows of the forest. Vecelin pulled hard on his reins, his warhorse skidding to a halt just before the treeline.

"Hold!" he bellowed, raising his arm. His knights slowed, their charge faltering as they reined in their steeds. A knight rode up beside him, his face flushed with exertion.

"Cowards," he spat. "They run from us like rats."

"No one wants to face a Frankish charge, Adalbert," Vecelin retorted. He glanced back at the field behind them. The Magyars had regrouped, gathering in loose ranks behind the infantry who were glancing around nervously. 

"Now what? We go after them?" a younger knight asked. A few knights stared at him in disbelief, to the man's shame. 

"Back to the field," Vecelin ordered, ignoring the young man, his voice carrying over the wind. "We will not chase them into the woods and get ambushed."

The young knight flinched at the rebuke but said nothing more. Slowly, the Franks began to pull back, their horses snorting and pawing at the ground as if reluctant to leave. Vecelin turned his mount and cast one last glance at the treeline. The Romans were there, he was certain of it. Watching. Waiting. For now, they had avoided disaster, but this was far from over. 

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Ashot Taronites watched as his Hippotoxotai returned from the skirmish, their horses blowing hard, clouds of breath rising into the cold air. Armor bore scratches and dents, and some riders sagged in their saddles from exhaustion. A few horses returned without their riders, Magyar arrows lodged in their flanks. Others carried two men, one astride and the other clutching the reins with a pale grip. Nearby, a shadow of waiting power loomed. A force of cataphracts stood ready, their horses draped in lamellar barding, the riders silent and still as statues. Chi-Rho banners hung limp in the breeze, waiting for the order to move.

"Komes! Report!" Ashot barked, his voice sharp as a blade. The commander of the Hippotoxotai halted, his conical helmet crested with red horsehair instead of the standard brown. He saluted, stowing his bow and quiver before speaking.

"Contact made with the Franks, Tourmarches. We harried their Magyar allies and bloodied them, but their cavalry advanced too quickly. If we had stayed, their lancers would have made short work of us."

Ashot's dark eyes flickered to the men and horses, assessing the cost of the skirmish. He said nothing, but his fingers tightened briefly on the hilt of his sword. Beside him, a Magyar rider shifted in his saddle and spoke in his native tongue. Another rider, acting as translator, stepped forward.

"The Franks are who we have fought since the traitor Stephen turned West. We can fight their infantry without fear, but their lancers are too heavily armored. Their horses are powerful."

Ashot grunted thoughtfully. "And how have you held them off until now?"

The Magyar gestured broadly, and the translator spoke again. "By doing as you did. We loose our arrows and retreat before they close. Most of the time, we escape."

Ashot tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "And the times you didn't?"

The Magyar met his gaze without flinching and made a slow, deliberate gesture of a lance driving through a man's chest. Ashot's jaw tightened at the image, but he did not look away.

"Facing them head-on is suicide, then," Ashot murmured, his mind already calculating.

The Magyar frowned, glancing at the cataphracts waiting in disciplined silence behind Ashot. He gestured toward them and spoke again, his tone questioning.

The translator hesitated, then spoke. "You have heavy horsemen. Why not use them?"

Ashot inclined his head slightly. "We do. But it is not the Roman way to meet an enemy so directly when other options remain."

The Magyar scowled, throwing up his hands. He barked a sharp question, frustration clear in his tone.

The translator hesitated before relaying it. "What options?"

Ashot's lips curved into a faint smile. "You have seen how the Franks fight. Perhaps then, it is time to show you how Romans fight." 

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Tas collapsed onto his bedroll, his muscles aching as if he had just ridden across the entire steppe. The journey from Esztergom to Veszprém should have been straightforward, six hours on horseback at most. But the Roman ambushes had turned it into an endless, grinding ordeal. He stared up at the roof of his tent, listening to the muffled snores of the others. They were exhausted, worn down not just by the skirmishes but by the constant vigilance needed to survive them.

For Tas, the fighting itself wasn't the problem. He had grown up with it, as all Magyar nomads did. The endless plains had taught him that survival was a matter of speed, cunning, and adaptability. Every raid, every battle, even every hunt was a test of wits and endurance. Back then, they had fought their enemies as equals, relying on the Magyars' unmatched horsemanship to outmaneuver and outwit them.

But now, things were different. Koppány had powerful allies, and the Emperor of the Romans had granted him recognition. The Romans did not fight like other men. Their discipline, their armor, their endless resources felt oppressive, like a weight pressing down on Tas's chest. He knew their history, how ancient they were and how the entire world had once been theirs. Some even whispered that the land they now stood on had once been part of that empire.

A mighty people with an even mightier city. Constantinople.

"Tas? You awake?" a voice interrupted his thoughts.

It was his friend, László, one of the few remaining lads from his village.

"Yeah... just thinking. The Romans. They're here," Tas whispered softly.

"Zoltán in the other tent says this used to be part of their empire. Says they're fighting to take it back," László muttered.

A flash of fear coursed through Tas, but a more reasonable voice rose in his mind. "Then why did they crown Koppány? If they wanted to make this land Roman again, they would have rejected him. No. They're here because they think Koppány can rule for them," Tas reasoned.

"But Koppány is..." László trailed off.

There were many reasons why some Magyars rejected him. He had tried to usurp Stephen, the rightful ruler, whose father, Géza, had been Prince of the Magyars. By blood, Stephen was his heir. Others resisted Koppány because he had tried to marry Géza's widow, Sarolt, according to ancient Magyar custom. The tradition was old but crumbling, abandoned now by many of their people. To them, it was filthy and incestuous.

"Don't the Romans recognize that? It is sinful," László muttered, almost to himself.

Tas didn't answer right away. The Romans were foreign, their ways strange, their motives unclear. But one thing was certain. Whether or not they cared for Magyar traditions, they were here. "I doubt they care since they are here, László. And we fight for the King." Tas murmured. 

"Yeah...we-"

A great shout erupted outside the camp, jolting Tas from his thoughts. He sat upright on his bedroll, his heart pounding. The muffled snores around him turned into groans and gasps as others woke to the commotion. A commotion that turned to a cacophony of shouts and laughter. Tas scrambled out of the tent, his boots crunching against the dirt as he stepped into the cool night air. The noise was deafening now, a chorus of Roman and Magyar voices yelling from the darkness beyond the campfires. The faint glow of torches flickered in the distance, revealing dozens of riders circling just out of arrow range. 

"Heyyy! Cowards!" a voice shouted. "Wake up! Time to fight!" 

It did not take long for Vecelin himself to wake up. The Frankish knight rubbed his eyes as the sounds of yelling and screaming grew louder. Usually, such noise would spring alarm in him, but when the screaming was about someone's mother, confusion overtook frustration. "What the hell is going on?" he growled, striding out of his tent. The moon hung high, but the camp was fully awake. Men were at the walls, yelling down at the shadowy riders.

"This darkness reminds me of the night I took your mother!" one of the riders shouted. "The only thing missing is how hard she cried my name!"

A pause settled over the wall, the insult sinking in. Then came the rage.

One of Vecelin's knights, clearly having just woken up, grabbed a nearby Magyar's bow and loosed an arrow into the dark.

"Ha! You missed! But you know who didn't? Me with your mother!" came the reply, followed by uproarious laughter.

The knight's face flushed red as he roared, "I WILL KILL YOU!"

"Not with that aim, you won't!" the rider taunted.

The knight looked about ready to leap over the wall when Vecelin's iron grip caught his arm. "Enough!" the knight barked, his voice sharp. "This is what they want. Don't give it to them."

"Cowards!" the voice shouted again. "I've seen pigs with more courage than you lot! Come out and fight, if you dare!"

Another rider chimed in, his voice thick with contempt. "Or are you too busy crying because your mothers finally told you the truth about your fathers?"

"Hold!" Vecelin bellowed, his voice cutting through the din. "They want you angry! They want you reckless! You step out there, and you'll be charging blind into their trap!"

But his words did little to calm the men. One of the Magyar warriors spat on the ground, his face twisted with rage. "Trap or not, I'm not staying here to be insulted like a dog!"

"He's right!" another shouted, his sword already drawn. "We are warriors, not cowards hiding behind walls!"

A chorus of agreement rippled through the crowd, their anger building like a storm. Some knights, their faces flushed with fury, began strapping on their armor and moving toward their horses. The sight of them sparked a surge of energy in the camp, as more men scrambled to join the growing mob. Vecelin moved to intercept them, his voice rising above the chaos. "HOLD, DAMN IT!" he yelled, stepping in front of the knights. "If you leave this camp, you won't be fighting a battle, you'll be walking into an ambush! Is that how you want to die? Running straight into the jaws of these jackals?"

But the men were too far gone, their pride and frustration outweighing any reason. The first group of knights galloped out of the camp, their horses kicking up clouds of dirt as they charged into the night. 

They did not come back.

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A/N: Shoutout to the Strategikon for inspiration of this chapter. 

Taronites recognizes his situation here. The earlier one was a skirmish to see how things are going to be and he knows first hand that Frankish horsemen are no joke. Unlike the Franks, his supplies and reinforcements will take time. So he has to be creative in conducting his campaign. And that creativity is coming from ass-hattery and being the ultimate Eastern Roman stereotype of being a crafty, creative tricky trickster that tricks. 

Constantine is going to have one hell of a command squad when he ascends the purple.