1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 63: Nordic Horns

Mauro approached the Ottomans silently from the back as he signaled his men to form into their usual Genoese mercenary formations; one man on the front squat down holding up with his long sword on top of the shield fending off any attacks by enemies aiming the head, while two men behind him with their Milano light crossbows loaded standing behind the shield man, one in charge of shooting and one in charge of loading.

Although Mauro and his men are excellent warriors who have experienced many battles back in the Italian peninsula, but they rarely had a chance to partake in a battle that has more than five thousand combatants like this. Mauro's face is already perspiring like mad behind that Augsburg sallet helmet of his, he knows very well what his responsibility is : To be like a hammer and slam it against the spinal cord of the Ottoman army.

Under the dark led by the dim light of weakening fire, Mauro and his men managed to creep to a two hundred meters distance from the rear of the Ottomans until someone saw them and started roaring the message of an enemy attack from the behind. Mauro, knowing that the decisive moment has arrived, raised his glimmering long sword high up in the air and shouted with all the strength and lung capacity he got to his men.

"The time is right! Brothers! Charge! For the God and gold! Deus Vult!"

The Genoese mercenaries started charging upon Mauro's orders, although small sized but definitely the most fearsome and formidable force today. While charging they let out battle cries synchronously. "God wills it!"

This shout out became the signature thing that changed the tides of the battle, the head of the Ottoman army, Baltaolu Sleyman Bey, is still trying hard to mauver his forces to react and respond to this impending threat.

But Mauro wont give him the chance of doing that, when they approached to a fifty meters distance from the Ottomans, the front row of Genoese mercenaries holding Pavise shields kneeled down, the crossbow men behind fired two salvos onto the Ottoman battle line, instantly bringing down a few dozen enemies down and disrupting the Ottoman defensive formations.

Then the Genoese mercenaries let out a thunderous battle cry once again and started charging maintaining the shield formation in the process, while the crossbow men behind threw their Milano light crossbow on the ground and drawn out their long swords holding it firmly in their hands.

Mauro's mercenaries clashed with the Ottoman rear like a sledgehammer hammering onto an unstable wall causing it to come crumbling down instantly. The soft belly of the Ottoman army proved to have no real endurance towards these well organised heavy infantries from Italy, they got slaughtered down or mutilated by long swords like how farmers harvest Chives. The five hundred men acts like one advancing together and bursted into the middle of the Ottomans, forcing the commander of the Ottomans Baltaolu Sleyman Bey to move to the dockside in order to escape direct confrontation with the monstrous men covered in plate armour, he made a fatal error by doing this. His army is now separated into half by Mauro, one portion by the sea side and another portion squeezed into the narrow corridors of the residential area which is near the Eastern gate of Glck.

Baltaolu Sleyman Bey bite his lips so hard that blood emerged from the anxiety, he has panicked which is the third and final mistake he made today, sending out orders after orders that conflict one another that entirely doomed the morales of the Ottomans seeing their commander is like this and plunged into a state of total chaos. In the end of his times Baltaolu Sleyman Bey's psychological wall of defence came crumbling down first as he sees one after another Ottoman soldier brought down mercilessly. He laughed out so loud that he is out of breathe, then in the cold stares of Ottoman officers like Talmi, Baltaolu Sleyman Bey sighed, drawn out and looked at his blade which by far has not stained a single drop of enemy blood on it, clean as if it is newly made that he can even see the reflection keen full moon and the wispy sea, he murmured.

"Today is a good day to die."

Talmi by his side replied sarcastically. "Yes indeed, especially suitable for true Ottoman heroes and nobles to set a good example and die today."

Baltaolu Sleyman Bey did not respond to his sarcastic words, he stared at his clean blade with a complicated emotion in his eyes, after a while, in the midst of the tumultuous battlefield, he closed his eyes and said peacefully. "I remember that the Great Prophet once said that 'Whoever kills himself with iron, his iron will be in his hand, to continually stab himself in his stomach with it, in the fire of Jahannam, dwelling in that state eternally.'"

Talmi by his side replied with a freezing tone. "Yes, Sahih al-Bukhari."

Baltaolu Sleyman Bey looked up towards the moon, bright as always, never change its elegant colour despite the number of people dying on land and opened his mouth again. "And that shall be the punishment of me, I have committed disloyalty to my Sultan by giving him this humiliating defeat despite the sheer amount of trust and responsibility he gave me. Not only have I led my Sultan's fleet into extinction but also thousands of brave young boys to death, I am a criminal."

Then he raised his blade high up in the air. "Thus, I sentence myself to go to Jahannam and dwell there for an eternity." Then, in everyone's horror, the head of the Ottoman navy, Kapudan Pasha and an honourable Bey Baltaolu Sleyman stabbed himself in the stomach.

He collapsed on the wooden platform, with last bit of strength he grabbed Talmi by his boots and hissed. "Now go! Lead the rest of the boys out of here! Say to the Sultan that it is all my fault! I demand to take full responsibility!"

Just as he finishes his words, a series of Nordic horns can be heard out on the sea.

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