Conversion, fratricide, guerrilla warfare, and a rising power in the West are what greet the successors of Omurtag as an era of Bulgarian history draws to a close.

In this episode we explore a series of Khans and a series of wars with Byzantium.

Avitohol lived 300 years. His clan was Dulo and he ascended to the throne in the fourth year of the serpent.

So we find Bulgaria at the beginning of the 8th century still dangerously positioned on what was so recently Byzantine land, sandwiched between one of the great empires of the day and a vast and dangerous steppe full of volatile tribes. But the new Bulgarian state had just survived what history has shown time and