Imperial Fire

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Vallon’s squadron struck the Via Egnatia around noon and pounded on down the paved road towards the west. They rode with fierce determination, bloodshot eyes fixed straight ahead, and at sunset three days later — the sixteenth day of October — they pulled up their blown horses on a wooded ridge overlooking the Adriatic coast. Vallon leaned forward, squinting into the evening light. The sun had already sunk halfway beneath the sea, leaving a burnished copper fairway fanning back to the port of Dyrrachium. From this distance the city was just a tiny blur, too far away for him to make out the Norman positions or the damage inflicted by their siege weapons.

Shortening focus, Vallon studied the Byzantine encampment about four miles inland, entrenched in a broad rectangle along a meandering river. A pall of dust half a mile long drifted away from the camp.

He glanced at Josselin, one of his centurions. ‘It would appear that we’re the last scrapings of the imperial barrel.’

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