By the dawn of dawn, the camp of the Latin cavalry had been much emptiest, and Angus, unaware that the main force pursuing him had been quietly reduced to two hundred horsemen, began to prepare early in the morning to ambush the pursuers.

Sixteen years ago, the Hungarian king Solomon took advantage of the defeat of the main force of the empire at Manzkert to capture the Séum Military District, and since then the northern part has been incorporated under the Bulgarian Military District Governor Nikita Kalikes, who has been stationed in the city to guard the frontier after recovering Belgrade, a fortress south of Séum.

The Latin cavalry marched all the way, and everywhere you could see the traces of the ravages of the Pecheneg rebels, but compared to the war-torn Dalmatian coast, the northern foothills of the Old Mountain Range, known to the Greeks as Haimos, were already a rare calm area in the north of the empire.

"You look tired, sir."

"I don't sleep well, sing me a song, Gillick."

"What tune would you like to hear?"

"A song about my hometown, a song about the highlands."

So Gillick whispered in front of the green wind:

"I climbed the western mountain on a summer night, and carved runes in the sleepless day,

Mourn the burial of the royal palace of Mireshian, mourn the fall of the stars on the high wall.

I am a decaying people, unable to endure iron hooves, much less able to love and hate,

Wandered to this barren mountain island, taste the breath of death alone:

Mistletoe kills oak trees, moles cut grass stalks, and moths pierce old robes.

One by one, the exiles fell, but no one wept:

Never thirst or thirst, never disarm, until you sink into the icy waters.

The foam swirls on the top of the head, the underworld opens on the soles of the feet,

The blonde goddess promised on horseback that the exiles would eventually return home. ”

Amid the chanting, the Latin cavalry had destroyed the camp, put away their tents, mounted their horses and continued westward along the military avenue. Angus looked back at the campfire, which had been significantly reduced, and then put on the Babuta hoplite helmet again, and the next time he attacked, camouflage was no longer necessary.

Once again, the military council of Constantinople broke up, and the young Nikephoros Brenus looked at his father worriedly.

"Your Majesty is upset, you know."

"The truth can be unpleasant indeed." Old Nikephoros commented in a snarky tone, his hollow eyes still shining with a sharp light, and at the meeting that had just passed, the veteran had told the Emperor himself in an equally fiery tone that if he crossed the Hajmos Mountains, he would soon know whose horse was faster.

In the face of the aggressive attitude of the main fighters Georges Palaioleg and Grigory Mavlokatakalon, the son was almost forced to give up dissuading the emperor at that time, lest it be perceived as acting in the interests of the family.

"After all, we have defeated Nicaea's enemies, and at this time, Your Majesty may doubt your motives."

"Don't worry, he knows better than anyone else that I have no ambitions."

"Yet he may feel that you don't want his military exploits to overshadow you!"

Old Nikephoros fell silent suddenly, his son may be right, the emperor actually does not like him, and has always regarded defeating himself as the highest achievement of his military career, for the emperor, he may always be a competitor in the history books.

"But the situation in the north is too dangerous, and if you are not careful, even you will fall into it again." Old Nikephoros finally spoke, having lost one son in the East and did not wish to lose another.

"I know that I have seen the army of the Scythians, but His Majesty has just personally ransomed me and Grigory from the enemy camp, and it is impossible for me to refuse to participate in the northern expedition."

"Twenty years ago, I was just as impulsive, heroic, and naïve as you were. I followed Emperor Romanus into the mountains of Asia, when the elite of the Imperial Central Army was still in existence, and the Emperor had 2,400 Varangian guards under his command, and we were followed by the Franks, Armenians, Scythians, and the top men of all nationalities......"

Little Nikephoros watched his father fall into the memory, shook his head secretly, and stopped talking.

"When we arrived at the military fortress of Manzkert, the Frankish leader Lusail told me that our army was too blindly confident, and I rebuked him at the time, thinking that this Norman greedy wolf was just greedy for life and afraid of death, but the next day I received the news of the fall of the Armenian front."

"The Emperor and we did not know that the main enemy force had all arrived, so we lay in ambush in the nearby mountains, and when we found out about this, the Emperor told us that sending troops to a decisive battle was the only option."

"At that time, everyone thought that this was the moment to settle the eastern problem once and for all, and only Lusail remained against playing. I saw that Ducasse and Brachamios were loudly approving, and I felt that the Normans were indeed overly concerned, and that as long as the Imperial army began to battle in array, what kind of enemy could not be destroyed? ”

"Later, I retreated from Achilles, who was considered the best soldier in the main force of the Empire, Achilles, because I had survived the battle to the end, but I knew that the Norman was mocking all of us—not just the Emperor who had just been put back into the fortress—and the entire Roman Empire was no longer under the eyes of this barbarian!"

"Since then, I have understood that what the empire really needs is strategists! Not only do I know how to choose the terrain and how to arrange my troops, but I also know how to choose the timing, so I never thought that Komnenos could win by bribing my men to defeat me, I understood that he knew more about strategy than I did, and that he was not an old antique like me who was obsessed with glory and conquest. ”

"You mean?"

"The Emperor is making a mistake this time, he, like me, overestimated his own strength, attributing the victory over the Nicaeans solely to military strength, forgetting to correctly assess the situation, and throwing most of his forces into the gamble."

His father's judgment hung over little Nikephoros like a thick cloud, but once the emperor himself made up his mind, he was as powerless as his father.

At the end of the month, Seljuk reinforcements from the Sultan of Malikshah arrived in the capital from Trebizond, and the new governor of Trebizond, Theodore Gabras, and his Seljuk lieutenants came to the capital in person, receiving a generous reward from the emperor.

This army greatly strengthened Alexios's forces, and the emperor had by this time recalled from the Western Front his confidant Tetisius, who was responsible for suppressing the Manichaean rebels, and sent a fleet to the northern port of Issaacia at the mouth of the Esther (lower Danube) river, under the command of George Euforbenus, to rescue the fortress that was being besieged by Tatush Khan and other nomadic leaders. The rebels would have to choose between a decisive battle with the main Roman forces when the back route was cut off, or abandon the entire southern bank and cede the lost Meisembria, or even the entire Danube-lita-lithuania.