282. The Trumpet of Jericho (4).
Long ago, when the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, there was a city named Jericho (أريحا).
In 21st-century English—which did not yet exist in this 9th century—it was also called Jericho or Yericho. In any case, it was said that when they overcame that city, they blew trumpets and brought the walls down.
It was fascinating to think there might have been an absolute master of sonic attacks among the Hebrews. Did Islam inherit that, so that singers with fine resonance boxes now made daily announcements calling the faithful to prayer at the mosque?
Anyhow. As I was browsing through the high-end, hardcover Hebrew Bible filled with such fascinating stories, time flew swiftly, and five days had already passed since the north gate of Attila was destroyed.
The people of Attila, who had a cherished part of their spirit blown away along with the gate, did not display any will to resist the new conqueror. Likewise, my warriors, who had a corner of their brains cease functioning, were also somewhere strange, but by roughly the third day, they had all come to their senses.
At this very moment, to greet Sagarya Khagan, who would soon be riding madly toward us, we roughly repaired the north and west moats. And a piece of the gate that I had smashed with my picturesque straight punch and back kick was being carefully wrapped and loaded onto a longship heading across the Volga River to Árós (Ivar, with his flashing eyes and crown, insisted forcefully). Now, the city's carpenters were diligently crafting the smooth wall that would fill the empty space.
We let go of the old gate that had been carved with Yahweh's symbols and words, and now we were carving things like Hel's skull-mask and the F rune, the first letter of Fylkir. Humans are creatures that want to leave their mark, after all. Speaking of marks, it suddenly came to mind: Among the warriors who took part in the mercenary business (Tágma tōn Varángōn) that the Eastern Roman Empire was massively promoting to the North Sea people, all those who came back having made a hefty fortune had carved their names into the Eastern Roman walls or even onto the seats of the Hagia Sophia cathedral.
Seriously, if you were just going to doze off repeatedly or doodle, why on earth did you attend the service?
Anyway, though I am a North Sea man myself, North Sea people are generally a curious and ambitious lot who look at the world a bit simply. They make endlessly cheerful friends and endlessly exhausting enemies.
It might be a hasty generalization fallacy, but by and large, that was my assessment of my people.
And among those North Sea people, the most blindly, and in a way fanatically, devoted were the men who had come all the way to frozen Norrland to become members of the Garmr Brotherhood. They took my words as if they were the very words of Goddess Hel, and quite literally threw themselves into carrying out my orders without sparing fire or water.
"We need to build that gate back in."
"Yes! Fylkir! Understood! Hey—fetch the craftsmen at once!"
"Produce a new gate immediately! Craftsmen of Attila! Otherwise, death awaits!"
The pitiful craftsmen who, already in a state of mental shock, ended up soiling themselves at the sight of North Sea men snarling right in their faces.
"I spoke with the valiant Khazar general Hanukkah, who was defending this place. There were more heirs of various tribes spread from the Dnieper River to the Don and Volga Rivers than I expected. Ask the prisoners and gather them in one place. Feed them well, let them sleep, and treat them with some convenience."
"Yes! Fylkir! Understood! Hey—gather all the prisoners in one place!"
"Confess truthfully at once! Which tribe's heir are you! Your clothes are all slippery!"
"Uh- I don't know what you are saying! Do you perhaps know Greek? It's the only other language I know-"
"You wretch! You speak words I cannot understand! You are insolent, so we shall feed you until your belly is full and let you sleep until your fatigue is completely gone! Drag this fellow out! He will be confined to a VIP chamber!"
"No- wait! Spare me! Father! Tengri! Yahweh!"
Various commotions erupted in the palace due to the overzealous chieftains' bullheaded way of handling things.
While these lively events unfolded, my commanders, who had finally descended from a state of spiritual nirvana back to the mundane world, began to voice various opinions.
"Fylkir. Jarl Refil's Second Army has arrived at the Bulgar city of Bolghar, they say. When the Khazar Khagan arrives here at Attila, he will surely try to reclaim his city, so how about striking him from the rear?"
"Jarl Dir's tactics are sharp, but one must not underestimate the warriors of the steppe. Rather, they might counterattack in an instant and leave Jarl Refil in a difficult position. Fylkir, summon Jarl Refil's Second Army here. Attila is a vast and high fortress. The Khazar Khagan will soon learn he has no choice but to negotiate."
"Er- while the other Jarls have already offered many excellent thoughts, I think it would also be good to meet them once on the open plain! If I were Sagarya Khagan, I would surely try to retake Attila when our Fylkir is absent! That being the case, wouldn't it be best to thoroughly smash their main force and imprint upon them our superiority in strength!"
At the council attended by commanders of the rank of chieftain and above, such as Djur, Hrolafr, and Stórolf, I had ordered everyone to speak their mind unconditionally. After Stórolf, who had confronted a vicious superior and was forced to wrack his slow-turning head, spoke last, a brief silence settled over the meeting hall.
The advantage of this brainstorming was hearing opinions you hadn't thought of yourself and being able to see the problem from various angles.
Among the chieftains nodding here and there, Ivar, who had been scratching his head beside me, cut in.
"I also agree with Jarl Stórolf's opinion. I don't think the people of Attila will ever resist again after seeing Fylkir's punching, but those who didn't witness the scene of a massive gate being demolished by bare human fists and kicks can't help but have different thoughts. Unless we are simply going to plunder this city, set it on fire, and return to Árós, we must cross swords with their warriors at least once."
As if recalling the valiant last moments of the gate bursting apart before his very eyes in real-time, Ivar shook his head, took a sip from an opaque glass cup to wet his throat, and continued.
"A fight begins with increasing our own options and eliminating the enemy's. You all must remember well the way the Fylkir fights and pass it down to the hundred-man leaders and the children of the generation below. Now that we occupy Attila, our Alan friends to the south no longer need to harass the trade route crossing the Caucasus Mountains. Let's call them in to confirm Sagarya Khagan's position, and if possible, make contact with the Magyar friends beyond or Jarl Haskuldr of Kiyiu."
In Ivar's words, a veteran commander whose bones were thick with the scars of battles large and small, there was a palpable sense of wisdom.
"Usually, we corner the enemy like this and force a fight favorable to us, but to be honest, I realized it when Attila's gate went flying. On a battlefield where my brother, the Fylkir, intervenes, none of those things really mean much."
As Ivar continued speaking, the heads of the commanders, who had been silently nodding and listening, turned all at once, and their gazes were drawn to me like chicks following their mother.
The awe and blind faith in those gazes were both burdensome and gratifying, and a premonition suddenly hit me that no matter how much I shouted that I was an ordinary human, it would be of no use.
Wasn't it now time I admitted it? My children and I probably could no longer be ordinary humans in a genetic-social structure.
Having decided to quit the ordinary human cosplay(?), I felt my heart growing lighter and shared the thoughts I had organized in my head.
"Djur. You shall bear my banner and go seek the Alans to the south. Since word from the Eastern Roman Empire will have already reached the Alan Khan about us, they will not attack if you bring a thousand-man unit. Promise them a vast reward, and tell them to observe Sagarya Khagan's movements and the situation beyond. If necessary, you may offer up to half of the gold and silver treasure found in this palace. Take the Jewish merchant Manasseh, who has expressed his willingness to cooperate, with you. He'll serve as a guide."
"Yes! Fylkir!"
"Hrolafr shall continue emptying the city and establishing a defensive plan. Stórolf shall cross the river, join the Bulgar Khan, and then head upriver to link up with Refil, who is coming down. The Khazar warriors are bold enough to attack Kiyiu even before winter ends. If they learn that Attila has fallen, they might try to attack the Bulgars' strongholds. Tell Refil to have his men disembark at a suitable point and slowly push down. You and the Bulgar warriors shall also join Refil's Second Army."
"Understood! Fylkir!"
"I, Ivar, Djur, and depending on the situation, the Alan warriors, will wait here for Sagarya Khagan. And according to how the war situation develops, we will either sally out through the gate or meet them from the walls."
Sagarya Khagan would now reach here in six days at the most. And even that was likely because his ankles were being snapped by the North Sea warriors pressing down simultaneously from Árpád of the Magyars, Kiyiu, Polotsk, and Novgorod. It would be no surprise at all if he showed himself even sooner.
And in my opinion, the probability of Sagarya Khagan choosing a siege was low. They would surely try to draw us out, and the method would clearly be to attack Refil's forces coming down from above.
Then, once I finally opened the gate and sallied out, they would immediately wheel around to overrun our main North Sea force and then pour into the wide-open gate of Attila.
If the battlefield flowed as I envisioned, I would likely gain the chance to chop the neck of that beast called Khazaria in one stroke.
*****
The Eastern Roman Empire and the Abbasid Empire. Both were settled peoples yet no strangers to handling horses. The city of Attila, built by the nomadic Khazar empire, adopted the castle-building styles of those realms, and naturally, many high-quality horses remained in the city.
They were top-quality horses that seemed slightly larger than North Sea horses. The most special one among them, according to the Jewish merchant Menashe, was a renowned steed brought from some distant land far to the south beyond the Caspian Sea.
It was a beast that the Caliph of the Abbasid Empire—the Konungr of the turbaned ones—had personally dispatched to the Khazar Khagan, a horse that should have fetched a hundred times its weight in silver. But since merchants were invariably prone to inflating prices and putting on airs, Djur did not attach much significance to Menashe's words.
He only felt grateful when he saw the Fylkir, delighted, order the beast sent immediately to Árós to be beside his personal mount, notoriously foul-tempered.
The Fylkir was a man who did not get angry at his subordinates, and even if someone made a mistake, he would encourage them by calling it a learning opportunity, thus truly embodying the forbearance of the strongest. Yet no one in the North Sea wished to sour the Fylkir's mood.
It was beyond mere awe or respect. If one faced the Fylkir's energy head-on—a pressure that pushed down on every inch of skin—they would never wish to be near an enraged Fylkir.
'And breaking the gate really was...'
The people of the eastern North Sea Empire, like Djur, and those of the west, like Uhtred, had only ever seen the Proof of the Fylkir, the result of the split rock. They had not witnessed the spectacle of the demigod himself smashing rocks.
So they had thought that no matter how great the Fylkir was, some degree of exaggeration must have been mixed in. But once you saw a gate demolished by a single punch right before your eyes, all the ambitions and fighting spirit you had cherished in your heart would vanish in an instant, and only boundless loyalty, reverence, and awe to offer to Hel and her great warrior would fill you.
Technically speaking, a kick had been added, but that was merely confirming the kill on a gate already completely wrecked, so it was indeed a single punch.
Thus, though his life was like a raven drifting across the world, Djur found this situation deeply satisfying. What if, back then, he and Haskuldr had not bowed their heads to Helgi Ragnarsson, who was then Konungr? What if they had kept their distance, feigning friendliness, and walked their own path?
What if the situation had twisted and he had faced that Fylkir on the battlefield?
If that had happened, it might have been better to bite his tongue and bleed to death like Ælla of Northumbria. To be struck by that fist would mean vanishing from this world without a trace.
Shuddering as he recalled the Fylkir's terrifying punch, Djur soon came to his senses at the voice of Menashe, who was riding alongside him. He strained his eyes toward where the suspiciously cooperative Jewish merchant's finger was pointing.
"There are the Alan cavalry! Jarl Dir! They know my face well! With your permission, I will step forward and speak with them."
From the back of the politely bowing Menashe's head, a familiar earnestness could be felt.
Where had he felt this emotion before?
'That was the emotion I felt when I first faced Konungr Helgi in Kiyiu.'
Come to think of it, the Fylkir had already been a complete demigod then. Djur would never forget those green eyes that looked into his head until the day he died.
"Do so. Menashe."
Watching Menashe diligently move to prove his worth, Djur began to contemplate the situation after the war with the Khazar Khanate ended.
Since the Fylkir had come in person, the North Sea would win without fail.