Turtledove
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"The Eyes of Argos"  
Author Harry Turtledove
First Appearance Amazing
Collected

Agent of Byzantium;

There Will Be War IV: Guns of Darkness
Series Agent of Byzantium
Genre(s) Alternate History
Publication date January, 1986
Preceded by "Departures" (chronological)
Followed by "Strange Eruptions"

The Eyes of Argos (also known as "Etos Kosmou 6814") is an alternate history short story first published in Amazing in the January 1986 issue. It was reprinted in the Harry Turtledove collection Agent of Byzantium and in the collection There Will Be War IV: Guns of Darkness, edited by Jerry Pournelle & John F. Carr, 1987.

Although set in the same timeline as the short story "Departures", it takes place some 700 years later in the year 1305 AD. It introduces Basil Argyros who, in this story, is still an officer in the army of the Byzantine Empire. He commands a scouting force in an army in the steppe country north of the Danube River. The army fights a battle with the Jurchen horde, and suffers an unexpected defeat due to the nomads' use of a new magic involving the "evil eye".

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