With the Pechenegs ravaging Macedonia and Thrace, Konstantinos IX joined his Frankish and Varangian allies to 20,000 horse-archers whom he summoned from Telouch, the Black Mountain and Karkaros. He appointed commanders under Bryennios, whom he made ethnarches, and sent him against the Pecheneg raids, to join Michael the akolouthos, whom he instructed to avoid a major battle