With his sword drawn, Angus suddenly pounced forward, holding a barbarian wearing a sheepskin Carapak in his left armpit, and with a flip of his wrist, the cold black steel blade immediately clinged to the cold hair of the opponent's neck.

The barbarians immediately surrounded him, each screaming loudly, and Angus could not help but shudder when he saw everyone in front of him, especially the northern woman who was holding the horseskin bag on the ground.

What kind of face is this, under the long red and black hair, revealing the protruding cheekbones and milky white complexion common to Nosian women, but with a pair of slender eyes, one obviously blind, and the other pupil is wine-colored, as unpredictable as a bird.

Just one glance, Angus had a peculiar feeling:

She knows me.

The barking of dogs continued to emanate from the horseskin pouches, and Angus felt that it had to be put to an end at once, and he gestured with his eyes, threatening the besiegers, only to find a familiar temperament in them.

"What's going on here?" At this time, an officer who spoke Greek stepped forward, "Why are the emperor's soldiers making trouble here?" ”

The group of barbarians saw that the guards behind this man were very strong, so they had to put away their weapons, but Angus was stunned and motionless.

"You're Angus, the leader of the Latins?" The alien-looking Imperial officer approached step by step, despite the mess on the ground.

"Yes, sir." Angus was suppressed by the majesty of the opposing army, so he could only let go of his long sword, and the barbarian stumbled and fell to the ground.

"I am your commander Agilos, and I order you to return to camp at once!"

"My lord, these people are ......"

"Someone else is handling the matter here, or do you want to judge the Emperor's Vadarithai soldiers?"

Before leaving, Angus glanced back at the northern woman, but saw that she was untying her leather bag and releasing a man and a dog from it, while the Vadarithai barbarians were staring at his group of three, with a fierce glint in their eyes, but no one stopped the woman.

As soon as he entered the barracks, Agilos was untied from his oblique red shawl and leather belt with a scimitar and bow bag, revealing a short-sleeved green fur-lined robe.

"If it's not an emergency, I'll reward you with a few lashes first!" Agillos looked a little ugly when he saw the two men behind Angus, "Also, this is not the place where slaves should come in. ”

"They're all my squires, my lord."

This explanation is quite reasonable, and Agilos also understands the customs of the northerners, so he did not pursue it further.

"From this day on, you must train as if you were fighting, I have no time to wait for your men, soon I will go to the north, you must be ready to accept orders at any time, to join the legions, I hope to see a team of soldiers who can fight."

"Yes, sir."

"Disbanded."

After coming out, Angus yelled at Gillick angrily: "Let them gather at once!" ”

In the days that followed, Angus's Latin cavalry and other foreign soldiers were engaged in training, with an instructor with a round staff and a Greek recorder by his side to supervise the record, Angus's subordinates did not dare to be lazy, they were no more than the Turkurs and Vadarithai mercenaries, the use of bows and arrows was not their specialty, the instructor arranged intensive cavalry wing training, Angus and Gillick were both in it, only Maeve was still practicing the bow and arrow from the Caspian Sea, and accidentally injured his arm by the bowstring.

"Who is our chief?" During the small talk, Angus inquired in broken Greek about his superiors from a "Scythian" cavalryman.

"Agilos Karazas? Pechenegs. The other party showed a look of disdain, this Cuman obviously did not have a good impression of his own people's old enemy, "like the commander of the northern military district, a baptized bastard in the Danube. ”

"But aren't the rebels the same Pechenegs?"

"The Bulgarians, the Wallachians, the Pechenegs, and the Turkurs......," replied the Cumans casually, "and naturally there are our Cumans." That tribe of Agilos is now in the rebel area, which is nothing, in the south, the Greeks are killing the Greeks, why can't the Pechenegs kill the Pechenegs? ”

"I see." Angus muttered to himself.

Although he knew that the emperor was going to send troops to Asia, but the war on the western front was uncertain when it would break out again, the supreme commander of the western army, Andreano Komnen, still sent part of the patchwork troops to the Bulgarian region, and sent an envoy to Valazettes, the governor of the Meisembria military district, to continue to monitor the rebel area.

At the same time, the captives sent from the rebel areas were first subjected to strict scrutiny, and the Manichaeans (Paulese and Bogmüllers), young and old, were sent to the racecourse, tied to the execution stakes, and burned in front of the cheering racing party, and the race was suspended for the next few days when the tracks were littered with ashes.

Many of the Manichaeans in the capital also secretly showed up to see them off, and some secretly wrapped their ashes in white cloths, a tragedy that was a pleasing to the church and the citizens of the capital, but in the hearts of the followers of these Basil elders, the dead were already with the angels, and the burnt offering caused not disgust and fear, but redoubled the fanaticism.

After the summer, with the addition of reinforcements from the Seljuk Sultan of Baghdad, the situation on the eastern front began to turn, and Antioch, which had been captured by Turkish, surrendered without a fight in the face of Malikshah's army, and the Christians in the city welcomed the Sultan into the city as their liberator, while west of Antioch, many of the surviving Armenians entered the Cilician plain from the mountains and attacked the local Turkmen invaders.

In the palace of Brachna, the emperor was ready for war, and the generals gathered in front of the throne, full of confidence in the war, after all, Emperor Alexios had a reputation for invincibility before he ascended the throne, and led 6,000 foreign mercenaries to defeat tens of thousands of elite border guards of Nikephoros Brenus, the most famous tactician in the entire empire.

This expedition would be the largest since the Norman War, and the Emperor would personally set out from the capital to Quizilos to join the garrison of General Constantine Hampotopoulos, and after the five hundred knights of the Count of Flanders had joined him, Abu Qasim of Nicaea would have no choice but to submit to the will of Constantinople.