The raft bowed under the Drakos cannon. Kallistos, calf-deep in Adata's mud, drove the men with his voice as the wheels crawled up the ramp.
"Easy! Hold it—hold—"
The Maritsa lapped at his boots, cold. Two nights ago, it had taken a gun.
On the raft, soldiers shifted their footing on wet planks and braced with poles and shoulders. The bronze gun sat chained to its carriage. Twenty guns were already on the island, with four more waiting on rafts in the channel. This raft had grounded at an angle, blocking the ferry line until it could be worked free.
"Trim left. Push!" Kallistos signaled down. Two men set a pry bar under the raft's corner while the others heaved on the carriage. The raft shifted, and the ramp boards caught on firmer ground.
"Go, go!" Kallistos urged. The team surged and the planks bowed as the gun rolled, inch by stubborn inch, onto Adata's soil. Mud spattered his legs as he threw his shoulder in for the last push.
The cannon hit solid ground with a thud and a crewman stumbled. Kallistos caught him by the arm before he went under the wheel.
"Steady," he said. "It's down."
A thin, breathless smile flickered across his face as the men laughed—once—then swallowed it. The Drakos gun was on the island, not in the Maritsa.
For a moment nobody spoke. The men just stood there, breathing hard, hands on knees or on the spokes. Then Kallistos turned back to the water.
In the fading light, three loaded rafts waited midstream. Once the grounded raft was clear, the oarsmen began poling the others in, one by one.
"Next ramp!" Kallistos called. Men moved to the skids and roller logs with practiced fatigue.
Cannons were lined up with their wheels sunk to the hubs until crews could get planks under them. On the south side, artificers were marking firing positions facing the far bank. They cribbed the carriages with logs, wedged stones tight, and laid reed mats and packed earth to keep the platforms from sinking. The island held weight, but the ground was soft from November rain, and the current was cutting at the edges. If the channel shifted overnight, the gun line could slip. He noted it and moved on. They only needed it steady until dawn.
A shout went up at the water's edge. Another raft was coming in.
"Ropes," Kallistos called. "Bring her in straight. Don't let her swing."
Men splashed forward. He caught the thrown line and hauled with them, hand over hand. A Drakos gun rode the raft, chained fast, swaying with the current—and Kallistos felt the strain come on.
Less than an hour later, Kallistos moved to Adata's southern edge. His arms ached from the offloading, but there was more to check. On this side, the men had built a line of mantlets from crate planks, driftwood, willow bundles, and sandbags packed with mud. Behind the cover, the forward pickets, pikemen and pyrvelos musketeers, watched the Ottoman bank across fifty meters of water.
Kallistos ducked behind a mantlet and looked through a gap. Late afternoon light lay on the channel. The far bank was low scrub and reeds under scattered trees.
"Any sign of them, Markos?" Kallistos asked the young lieutenant beside him.
Lieutenant Markos rested his pyrvelos musket on the mantlet and kept his eyes downrange. "Akıncı riders, sir," he said. "They've been shadowing us." He nodded toward a clump of trees in the distance.
Kallistos followed his gesture and picked up movement near the trees—a horse's head, then a lance point catching the light. Ottoman light cavalry had been on them since morning: akıncı scouts working the opposite bank, loosing occasional arrows and riding in and out to probe their range.
A lone rider came out onto the open bank downstream and kept to bow range, bow in hand. Kallistos watched him. The akıncı loosed a high shot toward the island. The arrow fell short and stuck in the mud twenty paces from Kallistos.
A few musketeers started to bring their pieces up. Kallistos checked them with a hand. "Hold fire. Save powder. Take shots only at sure range."
The rider turned away and rode back. Down the line, men shouted after him. Kallistos scanned the far bank for anything heavier. He saw only brief movement—horsemen slipping between trees and staying out of range.
Yet something gnawed at him. The harassment had been light, too light. The Ottomans were up to more than random arrow fire.
Lieutenant Markos seemed to share the thought. The lean young officer edged closer and spoke low. "Sir—look there… beyond the willows, on that small rise." He nodded subtly.
Kallistos followed the line and saw nothing at first. Then sunlight winked on metal high on a distant slope. Horsemen, clustered near the limit of sight. Three hundred or more, lingering. Not moving, not charging. Watching.
Kallistos felt the cold pinch of it. A larger Ottoman mass was holding back, content to wait until the Romans committed to the crossing. "Keeping back until we're in the water," he muttered.
Relief, too—no storming yet—and apprehension at what would come when they finally moved.
He patted Markos's shoulder. "Good eyes. Pass the word down the line: enemy cavalry on the far ridge, holding position. All units stay alert." Markos nodded and slipped off.
Kallistos stayed, eyes on the distant figures. A few thousand men of the tagmata, stranded midstream with their guns, a foothold. Or a pen. The Ottomans would know it, too.
An arrow struck a nearby mantlet and glanced off. As the light faded, the akıncı rode closer to loose their shots. Most arrows fell short or hit wood. One cleared the line and hit a pikeman who'd stood too high. He grabbed his upper arm, the shaft caught in his mail, and a comrade pulled him down behind cover.
Kallistos moved beside him. The arrow had punched through the links; blood darkened the cloth beneath. "Keep pressure on that," he murmured as the other man pressed a rag to the wound. "You'll live. Stay low from now on, eh?" The injured man managed a tight nod, pain etched on his face, pride intact.
Kallistos stood. The light was going and he still had work to cover. He backed off the mantlet line and caught the nearest sergeant. "Watch them through the night. If they even look like crossing, sound the horn." He nodded toward the darkening bank. "And keep the firing tight. Don't chase ghosts into the reeds. Let them keep their distance."
"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied, eyes fixed across the water. The men were tired from a day of labor and skirmish, but Kallistos trusted their discipline, seasoned tagmata, forged under the Emperor's drill and blooded in prior fights. They would hold this scrap of mud and reeds as if it were the walls of Constantinople.
Kallistos took one last look south. The Ottoman horse stayed out of range.
He turned back inland. A crew was bedding a gun into a low earthwork, ramming wedges under the trail until the carriage stopped shifting. Kallistos watched until the barrel held its line, then moved on.
By evening, smoke and mist sat low over Adata. In the island's center, lanterns marked the command post: a low canvas tent on the driest ground they could find. Kallistos found engineers and junior officers over a rough map laid on a barrel, working through the morning's crossing. Coiled rope, iron-tipped stakes, and a few large pavises lay beside them—gear that still had to be emplaced before first light.
Kallistos wiped his hands on a rag as he approached. The men straightened and saluted, firelight catching in tired eyes. "Report," he said.
A stocky engineer, hands black with pitch and rope fiber, answered first. "Main rope's cut and measured, sir—seventy meters, to span the channel with room to anchor." He tapped the coil at his feet, thick as a man's wrist. "At dawn, we'll take the coil over on the first raft and fix it on the far bank with these." He nudged a bundle of iron-tipped stakes and a sledgehammer. "Once it's taut, we can start ferrying men across in numbers, guided by the line."
Kallistos nodded. "Good. And the pavises?" He glanced at the tall shields with the double-headed eagle.
Lieutenant Markos, hovering at his shoulder, spoke up. "Ready for the first team when they land, sir."
"Christ keep them." Kallistos could already see it: a handful of men crouched behind those shields, buying seconds to stake down the lifeline. The first minutes on the Ottoman bank could be chaos, fifteen men against whatever waited.
He looked around at the faces he knew—officers and specialists he had marched and bled with at Messolongi. "We've done what we can on our side," he said, loud enough for all to hear. "Twenty Drakos guns are emplaced and ready. The last four are being bedded in now." He gestured toward the southern end, where silhouettes still worked in the dark. "No sign of enemy guns. Only akıncı so far—and a larger cavalry force holding beyond range."
General Andreas stepped into the lantern light as Kallistos finished. Sweat shone on his face, but his eyes were sharp. The group snapped to attention.
"At ease," Andreas said, already moving in. "Carry on, Captain. I'm listening."
"General." Kallistos inclined his head, then continued his briefing. He kept it to essentials—guns ashore, screens up, pikes and pyrvelos set, enemy riders pacing the far bank. Andreas listened in silence, arms folded. He'd been Captain Andreas once, like Kallistos, a man who preferred the press of the fight, but tonight the weight of command sat on him here, on this tiny island.
When Kallistos mentioned the Ottoman cavalry waiting beyond the water, Andreas spat into the mud.
"They'll hit the moment our first boots touch their bank," he said. "That's the only moment they want, men climbing out, lines not formed, powder wet, everyone looking the wrong way." He jerked his chin toward the river. "But they have no stomach to swim over here and face our pikes and cannon." His eyes flicked to the coil of rope and the bundle of stakes. "We work while they watch."
He nodded once, approval without warmth. "Your plan is sound. Fifteen men should suffice for the initial crossing—fast and quiet. Get the rope set and don't bunch like sheep. When they show themselves, the guns will keep them honest."
Kallistos felt a measure of pride at Andreas's approval, but he kept his voice steady. "The rope team volunteered, sir. Lieutenant Markos will lead." He glanced at Markos. The young officer blinked once and stared ahead. He didn't look back. He nodded, once.
Kallistos continued, "Once the rope is set on the far bank, we send the first reinforcement raft—fifty men, hauling across on the guide rope."
Andreas gave a tight smile. "As the drill requires. Constantine will be pleased." The general stepped closer and placed a hand on Kallistos's shoulder plate, lowering his voice. "You've done well, Captain. Getting these guns over here—I know it wasn't easy." His eyes flicked down to Kallistos's mud-stained form and bruised arms, evidence of the toil. "The Emperor puts great trust in you, in all of us, to make this crossing succeed. We won't let him down."
A sudden gust fluttered the tent canvas and set the lantern flames dancing. Andreas looked out over the muddy mid-island camp.
"This damned shoal," he muttered. He drove the toe of his boot into the ground. It answered with a wet suck. "No place for tents. We're camping on a thing the river can change its mind about. We strike at dawn, or we risk being swept off by water."
Kallistos nodded. The unease he'd felt about Adata was clearly shared. "We'll be ready, sir. The men know what to do." He paused. "It's just us here, imperial troops. No allies to complicate it."
Andreas gave a brief chuckle. "A blessing. We rely on our own discipline and tactics, nothing else. The tagmata have never failed the Emperor." His expression hardened. "By tomorrow we'll plant the Basileus' flag on that southern bank, and no Turk will throw us back into this river."
Kallistos felt a surge of determination at those words. He thumped a fist to his steel armor. "Ieros Skopos," he said quietly, invoking the sacred purpose that drove them. Several nearby officers echoed the oath under their breaths. It was not a shout or battle cry, more like a prayer before the coming storm. Andreas inclined his head, eyes shining at the shared resolve.
"Get some food and what rest you can, all of you," the general finally ordered, stepping back. "We have a few hours yet before first light. Set extra sentries and keep the fires low. We'll meet here when it's time."
Author's Note 1:
The site for Empire Rewritten is live:
https://empirerewritten.com
You'll find timelines, maps and character notes!
Author's Note 2:
Kallistos is one of the captains of the six first Reformed Tagmata. In the Tocco campaign of 1435 he handled the Messolongi landing, putting boots on the shore fast and clean, securing the headland and the coast road. Not long after, he was ordered to lead a force toward the hill-fort of Angelokastron, which ultimately surrendered without a fight.