The Stratigos of Dark Magic

Demetrius' face was a blank mask. He wore heavy armor, lamellar over mail over a gambeson. The metal had been polished so much that you could see your reflection in it.

Ganzaya and Adriadne were beside Demetrius along with a contingent of the most impressive theme warriors in the camp. They carried their biggest banners and were all dressed in their finest clothing. Every single person had at least one piece of jewelry on. And all their pieces of metal were shining.

Still, the soldiers were grumbling. They gazed at Demetrius with looks of anger and hatred in their eyes. While the Stratigos' appeared calm, he was a swirling torrent of guilt inside. When Demetrius caught glances at the theme warriors, his mind flashed back to the speech he gave them that morning.

"I can see now that you are all utterly unsuited to your positions. I would rather fight alongside an army of women and children than the best warriors among your ranks. But it appears that I am stuck with you lot. I'd ask you to not embarrass the Remen Empire in front of the barbarians, but your existence is an embarrassment."

His status screen came up and showed what this accomplished:

Named Entities that Dislike You: 133.

Named Entities that Hate You: 160.

Named Entities that Despise You: 46.

While Demetrius felt the power of his dark magic grows with this, his crushing guilt overwhelmed it.

"I insulted them. I insulted men who are willing to die to serve the Remen Empire," Demetrius thought. "I have to do this, but that's no excuse. I deserve every bit of hatred I get."

He clenched his reigns. Adriadne looked at Demetrius with worry in her eyes. Still, she held her tongue. Now was not the time to say anything. They were almost at the samurai camp.

When they reached its makeshift yet well-constructed walls, the Remens and Ganzaya stopped. One of their men rode forward. A soldier on the walls, wearing a breastplate of some sort and a wide-brimmed metal hat, called out in a language Demetrius did not understand.

After a few moments, a man was brought up to the walls. He did not look like any of the others on them. His skin was dark, and he had a longer beard than even the Remens. This man took a bow.

"Greetings, envoys of the mighty Remen Empire," he spoke in Grekken. "I am Salah Azimi. I was hired by the samurai to act as an interpreter and help them learn the local languages."

"I am Stratigos Demetrius Kallergis. My sister, who is a magician like me, and I are here to deliver Caesar Basil's offer to the samurai," Demetrius called out.

Salah turned to the men on the walls. He spoke in their language. After a few moments, they opened the gate. Demetrius and the others rode into the samurai encampment.

As they traveled with Salah, who was walking near them, Demetrius took note of the samurais' armor.

"They're mostly wearing lamellar. It doesn't look like any lamellar I've seen before. Maybe it's some other sort of armor?" he thought. "Some of their armor looks like a crate. It would be difficult to move around in it on foot. It's probably horseback armor that trades mobility for protection. The shoulder protection with that armor is particularly large."

He then observed their weapons.

"Most of the men in the bulkier armor have bows. The rest have spears. Their swords are all curved, like what the Steppe Nomads use. They definitely prefer fighting on horseback. None of them have crossbows. Powerful bows take longer to train in than crossbows, so many of them have likely trained their entire lives," Demetrius pondered.

Then, a strange sight caught his eye. A group of women were training with spears. Another woman, around Demetrius' age, was near the group and training on her own. These spears had long, curved heads.

"It's almost like they took their curved swords and put them on the end of spears. What a novel idea. Perhaps weapons like these could be useful for the Remen Empire?" he thought before speaking. "Salah, why are those women training with weapons? Can they use magic?"

The interpreter turned to Demetrius.

"They are the women of the samurai class, Stratigos. They do not use magic. However, they are expected to train in the naginata. That way, if their homes are attacked while the men are at war, they can defend themselves," Salah explained.

Demetrius nodded.

"Then, they are like the shieldmaidens of the Varangians. The land of the samurai must be very dangerous," he thought.

Soon, the Remens came over to a large tent. It did not look like the structures the samurai made. In fact, it was distinctly the style of the desert people. Salah explained the discrepancy.

"This tent was bought by the samurai on their journey from their homeland. Some of the things they brought with them were damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced."

Demetrius nodded as he and the others dismounted. Servants of the samurai took the horses, and Salah entered the tent. The Remens and Ganzaya followed him.

In front of them were a group of samurai. Rather than wearing armor, they wore a sort of decorated robe. These samurai sat cross-legged on various mats that were placed on the ground. Salah spoke in their language, announcing the Remens' presence. One of the samurai smiled, stood up, and bowed.

"Welcome, Remens," he said. "I Hiraji Jirou. We honored see you."

His Grekken was broken, but it brought a hint of joy to Demetrius' heart.

"This barbarian has clearly made an effort to learn our language. It seems we might be able to get these men to join us after all," the Stratigos thought.

He did, however, notice that some of the samurai were giving Hiraji Jirou hateful gazes.

"I am Stratigos Demetrius Kallergis. This is my sister, Adriadne Kallergis. We are members of the four magician families and representatives of Caesar Basil," Demetrius spoke.

Salah translated what he said to the samurai as Hiraji Jirou sat down. Some of them had offended or confused looks on their faces. One of them barked something at Salah.

"Rokkaku Tomonori would like to know why the Basileus' son sent you and not the Basileus himself," the interpreter said.

Adriadne spoke up.

"Caesar Basil has almost equal authority with his father, even though he is not an adult yet. This matter was entrusted to him by the Basileus, and he entrusted this matter to us," she stated.

Salah translated. Some of the samurai seemed pleased by that answer, but Rokkaku Tomonori did not look satisfied.

"What Caesar say?" Hiraji Jirou spoke again.

"He will welcome you into the Remen Empire as citizens and give you lands on the Remen Empire's border. In exchange, you will become theme warriors and give up your old titles. Any samurai who are unmarried will marry women who are Remen citizens. Any samurai with children must marry at least one child to a Remen citizen," Adriadne said with Salah translating. "If you do not agree to these terms, you must leave your post here. If you do not do that, you will be captured, blinded, and sent back to your homeland."

When the two finished talking, a deathly silence overcame the room. The samurai traded looks with numerous meanings. Finally, one of them spoke. Salah turned to the Remens.

"Hirate Masahide requests that you allow the samurai lords to discuss this amongst themselves," he said.

"Very well," Demetrius replied. "We will leave them be. Tell them they can take their time and that they do not have to all agree. These terms are open to any individual samurai."

Salah translated this as the Remens left the tent. He followed them out. When they were gone, Hiraji Jirou addressed the other samurai in their language.

"This was the best deal we've gotten so far. The last barbarians just told us to leave or they'd kill us," he said.

"A good deal?" Rokkaku Tomonori scoffed. "They want us samurai to submit to barbarians! They want us to give up our titles and join them!"

"We are already cowards who fled our homeland. Why should we care about this now?"

"It would be disgraceful to serve barbarians. We must preserve what little honor we have left."

"What honor? The Demon King of the Sixth Heaven must have conquered Yamato by now. We let him win by fleeing. We might as well saddle ourselves to these barbarians," Jirou stated.

Tomonori huffed.

"These barbarians insulted us. They sent envoys from their emperor's son, not even the emperor himself. Even if he has near equal power to his father, that is no excuse," he said.

Jirou shook his head.

"Rokkaku-san, you saw how large the Remen camp is. They outnumber us at least two to one. If their empire is even half as large as people say it is, they could crush us without even trying. We would not even be a gnat pestering a cow."

"They underestimate us samurai! Each one of us is as good as ten of their men!" Tomonori declared.

"How can we possibly know that? We haven't even seen them fight yet," Jirou pointed out. "And they two onmyoji here! What can we do against that much magic? Do not let your pride blind you. We fled like cowards to live. Getting ourselves killed now would be pointless."

Tomonori then turned to Hirate Masahide.

"Hirate-san. What do you think?" he asked, his tone making it clear he wanted the other samurai to back him.

"Yes, what do you think?" Jirou questioned in a similar tone.

Masahide stayed silent for a few moments. He placed his hands together, pretending to think things through. In truth, Masahide had already come up with what he was going to say. But this would give a certain impression he wanted to convey. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke.

"It is true that the Remen barbarians did to treat us with the respect we are due," he said. "However, it is also true that they could destroy us if they so wished. We do not have unlimited time either. Some of us turned into bandits, and the Alfara Empire will deal with them soon. Then, they will come for the rest of us. And I doubt the Remen Empire will be patient forever."

Masahide paused a moment to let the others take this in.

"And we should also note that the Remen barbarians are offering us land on their border. They do not trust us, so they are trying to limit the damage we can do if we betray them. But most of all, we should consider that the way of horse and bow is to do what is worthy of reward. Service to a lord is one such thing."

He then looked between the other samurai.

"We should take some time to discuss this while remembering that we cannot take too long. But we should not split up. Now is the time when we must be unified."

Tomonori nodded.

"On that, I believe we are all agreed," he said.

"Yes," Jirou stated. "We should come up with a decision tomorrow at the latest and it should be as universal as possible."

Masahide then smiled softly.

"In the meantime, perhaps we should get information from the onmyoji? Most of the barbarians we've spoken to are either not Remens or from the fringes of the Remen Empire. If the Remens have any intelligence, and you do not create an empire by being foolish, the onmyoji have a place in the Remen court," he said.

The other samurai nodded in ascent. Then, one of the lower-ranking samurai in the room spoke up.

"Honored lords, I agree with this action, but we cannot expect this information to be reliable. The Remens want us to join them. So, the onmyoji will say whatever they think will get us to," he pointed out.

"A very good point, but not unexpected," Tomonori said. "But one of the onmyoji is a barbarian man. Barbarians do not control their impulses like we Yamato do. If we could get a woman to seduce him, he might let some secrets slip."

Masahide grimaced.

"All the women with us are the wives, sisters, and daughters of us samurai. I would not allow my wife to be with another man. And I would not have my daughter seduce a barbarian. If we are forced to marry into the Remen Empire, that is one thing, but I will not make her have an affair with a barbarian. If he was one of the Yamato, it would be different, but he is not. And I believe everyone in this room can say the same," he stated.

Murmurs of agreement echoed throughout the tent. Then, another low-ranking samurai spoke up.

"There is a woman in this camp who has no family. They died on the journey over here. If she could seduce this barbarian, he might take her as a concubine. Without a family, this may be the best she can get," he said.

"Yes. She might be the best to do this," Masahide nodded. "What is her name?"

"Tomoe Tsuruhime."

Jirou recognized the name.

"The Tomoe family are vassals of retainers of mine. I will tell Tomoe to get information from Stratigos Demetrius," he said.

"Do that and return to us soon. We have much to discuss," Masahide replied.