27 - The Nawakiyya

After Alp Arslan's ascension to the throne, the Heroic Lion is forced to ride East to put down a nascent revolt in Khorasan and to defeat his brother Kavurt (twice).  Alp Arslan also bounces back to the Caucasuses to re-invade Georgia.  At the same time, tensions rise between the increasingly "cooking" court and the tribes, and a new tribal confederation of Turkmen, the Nawakiyya, forms in northern Syria.  At times allied with the Shia Emirs of Aleppo and even the Fatimid Caliphs of Egypt, the Nawakiyya raid deep into Anatolia.  Meanwhile, the constant Turkish raiding of Anatolia results in a new Emperor of the Romans, Romanos Diogenes, taking the purple.  The complex multi-way relationship between the Seljuk Court, the Nawakiyya, the Emirate of Aleppo, the Fatimid and Abbasid Caliphs, and the Roman Empire is upended.  And the Heroic Lion marches West to discipline the Nawakiyya and the Emir of Aleppo - as Romanos Diogenes marches East to a certain fortified city named Manzikert.