Shadow of Death (Book 2 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 9

Confidence, perhaps arrogance, was a consensus shared by most of my comrades. They wished for nothing more but to charge at those they deemed hungry desert dwellers and bloody their swords in the name of glory and might, seeing their reputation and skill soar at the expense of meagre raiders spilling forth from barren desert.

Command of the army's contingents was displaced between several of Heraclius' generals. The auxiliary of Alexandria, complimented with hundreds of Ghassanids flocking to the Roman cause, were absorbed by the units of Jabalah, King of the Ghassanids.

In truth, the Ghassanids were far too an unruly people to submit to the authority of one monarch; theirs was a large amalgamation of tribes, sub-tribes, clans and sub-clans that claimed descent from the storied Ghassan. The Ghassanids occupied vast swaths of territory in the regions to the north of Arabia and to the south of Syria.

Though they were seen more Roman than Arab, they held steadfast to many Arab qualities. Hot-headedness, brashness, stubbornness, unruliness, pride and fortitude.

So, in truth, this title of King of Ghassanids was nominal at best, though he did enjoy considerable power and clout, of course.

Such was the hierarchy of the forty-thousand strong multi-ethnic Roman horde that pursued the Muslims south to Yarmouk.

An Armenian general was foremost among the Armenian troops, forming a contingent of their own, and several other generals were entrusted with overseeing soldiers from their home provinces.

The auxiliary troops native to European lands absent Roman suzerainty, like the Franks, joined the tagma that consisted of Greeks and Slavs.

Under the guidance of King Jabalah and his Ghassanid chiefs, we rode south hard, in hot pursuit of the fleeing Muslim enemy. The plan was to pluck the small Muslim armies ravaging different swaths of Syrian land before they linked up and found strength in their unity.

However, their inferior numbers and lighter armor gave them the edge, and they were always one step ahead of us, evading capture at the nick of time, time and again.

King Jabalah was dispatched with harrying the Muslims out of Damascus, while other generals were sent to restore other occupied territories. However, when we arrived at the outskirts of the city, we were greeted with news that the Muslims had only recently withdrawn from the city and retreated south. They had been warned of the Emperor's plans, the strategy to divide and conquer.

And so, we marched further south, a scourge of a journey. I was growing restless as were the others. This only compounded the existing tensions within the army. Distrust was high among the multi-cultural troops, a feeling mixed with a lack of cohesion and planning on the generals' parts. Quarrels and brawls among troops of two different contingents became the norm as we followed the trail of the retreating Muslim forces. Frank would pounce upon Greek, Egyptian upon Sicilian, Slav upon Arab. The campaign was a shambles before it even begun.

The Muslims had abandoned the gains of two years in favor of mustering all the existing major forces that had ransacked the Levant for so long before they were picked off by greater Roman forces. Instead, these pockets of Muslim troops retreated from their conquered lands and marched south to the valley of Yarmouk in favor of facing the enemy as one.

And so, we set our sights on full-scale battle.

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15 August 636 AD, 7 Rajab 15 AH

The parlay stretched and waned, and weeks were spent in the vicinity of the Yarmouk valley where I was trapped within the enclosure of a tent in a ravine, between the hills and the rivers, idle and helpless.