Free Web NovelChapter 738: The Battle of Nikomedia (6)
To be frank, the mindset of the younger soldier was not uncommon within the empire. With the older generation gradually fading into history—taking their scars and memories with them—many of the youth no longer carried the weight of past invasions, nor the urgency to defend against new ones.
The two men fell silent. The gulf between them, of age and experience, felt too wide to bridge. They stared into the darkness ahead, their eyes blank, their thoughts drifting. The younger soldier’s gaze seemed almost vacant, as if his mind had vanished into the void.
Then—without warning—the older soldier sprang forward.
Before the younger man could register what was happening, they had both tumbled to the ground in a clumsy heap. The younger soldier, clad in armor, hit the stone hard—his vision swimming from the impact. He opened his mouth to curse, but the words died on his lips.
There it was. Embedded in the wood behind where he had just stood: a bolt, still quivering, the shaft humming with recent violence.
The older soldier rolled up and crouched low behind the battlement, voice sharp and immediate. "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Shouts echoed along the walls. Similar assaults flared on multiple sections of the perimeter. A nearby squad raced toward the bell tower, sounding the alarm. Roman defenders scrambled into position with bows in hand, eyes scanning the dark hills and sea, unsure where the next strike might come from.
General Giovanni Junior was roused quickly. The moment he heard of the attack, his instincts turned cold. He noted one detail immediately: there had been no warning from the outer sentries. Not a single signal.
That meant one of two things.
Either the attacking force was so small and skilled that it slipped entirely through the network undetected... or the scouts themselves had been silently eliminated, unable to raise the alarm before death claimed them.
"How many arrows?" Giovanni asked, his voice calm but tight.
"A dozen bolts, scattered across the walls. All directions, Your Highness," reported a junior officer, eyes wide with urgency.
Giovanni exhaled, sinking slightly into the edge of his bed. He waved a hand dismissively. "Let the rats reveal themselves in time. Tell the off-duty troops to stay asleep. The rest are to remain on alert behind the walls."
"Yes, Your Highness," the officer replied, hesitating. "But what if—"
"Worry not," Giovanni cut in quietly. "If this were a real assault, it would not have begun with a handful of arrows. My scouts do not fail me easily. And if the enemy had come in full force... they would not waste their time with small tricks. They would strike like a hammer."
The officer bowed and hurried from the tent.
The camp had stirred briefly into chaos after the first reports, nerves fraying under the pressure of imminent bloodshed. But the panic was quickly suppressed. Officers moved among their men, restoring order with firm words and quiet reassurances. A handful of soldiers, caught spreading rumors or fear, were executed on the spot—to make an example, and to remind all others that discipline would be maintained, even in the dark. free𝑤ebnovel.com
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The Sultan, standing at a distance upon a low rise, narrowed his eyes in disappointment. Things were not unfolding as he had hoped.
He had expected the Rumelians to behave like the countless foes he had conquered in Syria and Asia Minor—panicking at the first sign of attack, soldiers scrambling from their tents, chaos erupting through the camps. He had seen it all before: enemy cavalry rushing out blindly into ambushes, commanders growing weary from constant skirmishes, ranks falling into confusion and collapse without a single decisive blow struck.
But not tonight.
The Rumelians before him were different—cold, silent, immovable. Their discipline ran deeper than the others. No foolish charges. No visible disorder. No collapsing morale. They held the line as if they had been expecting him all along.
The Sultan turned his head slightly, casting his watch over the thousands of cavalrymen behind him. Horses with hooves wrapped in cloth. Mouths tied shut to muffle the breathing and snorting. Not a whisper passed through the ranks. Every soldier’s eyes locked on him, their sovereign.
"How are our men?" he asked, voice low but steady.
A nobleman rode forth from the lines and gave a sharp salute atop his horse. "All ready for your orders, Your Majesty!"
The Sultan’s response was a swift crack of the horsewhip across the man’s cheek.
"Are you a donkey?" he hissed. "Keep your voice down. Have you already forgotten my orders?"
The noble’s eyes widened in shame as he slipped off his saddle and dropped to his knees in the dirt.
The Sultan didn’t glance at him again. His attention was already back on the battlefield ahead.
"Enough of this hiding," he said coolly. "Spread my orders—have the back troops switch to pioneers and begin clearing the way toward the enemy position. The time for subtlety is over. And tell the Siphai horsemen to continue pressing through the woods, cut off all lines of escape, and ensure not a single whisper reaches the Rumelian camp. Move as shadows. Kill as ghosts."
"Yes, Your Majesty," came the hushed replies, and the nobles and commanders vanished into the ranks to pass the word.
The Sultan remained, alone with his brother, Ali Çelebi.
Through the forest, the army moved like a living shadow.
The rustle of leaves, the soft crunch of moss beneath hooves, and the creaking of leather harnesses were the only sounds that accompanied them. Pioneers crept ahead with curved blades and hatchets, cutting narrow paths through the dense underbrush, clearing the way for the massive host. Behind them, columns of cavalry rolled forward like a silent tide—tens of thousands of men, advancing without banners, without fanfare, without even the metallic clatter of armor.
Above them, the crescent moon broke faintly through the canopy, glinting off their helmets and eyes.
The Sultan watched all this unfold with a strange sense of serenity.
This was not the reckless sacking of a town. This was not a campaign of glory for the bards to sing about. This was conquest in its most calculated form—a noose tightening in the night, slowly, inevitably, around the neck of the Roman invaders. A test of will. Of nerve. Of history.
And if the stars were kind to him—by morning, the world would know that the son of Zaganos had come not to parley, but to end the decades of Roman dominance, and re-establish his realm firm in Anatolia.
It did not take long before the Sultan’s army reached the outskirts of the Roman encampment.
The massive host had already separated into three divisions, each positioning itself to strike from a different direction against the wooden fortress. Inside the Roman camp, alarms rang out with growing urgency, shaking the camp to its core. Soldiers, many of whom had only just laid down to rest, were jolted back to their feet by the blood-soaked cries of panicked sentries returning from the outer watch and the thunderous rhythm of hooves pounding against the forest floor.
Dawn had only begun to break.
Slivers of morning light pierced through the dense canopy of trees, casting long shadows across the ground. The Roman soldiers, bleary-eyed and weary from a night without proper rest, rushed into their combat positions. The earth beneath them rumbled with a growing intensity, and then—from the darkness of the woods—a swarm of horsemen burst into view.
The riders didn’t charge outright. Instead, they galloped just within range, then raised their bows and loosed a storm of arrows, each tip burning with flame. The fiery volley arced through the sky before raining down near the outer perimeter of the fort—most of the projectiles harmlessly falling into the isolation belt just beyond the walls. But the message was unmistakable:
This time, the enemy meant war.
A tension gripped the defenders as smoke began to rise from where some of the arrows had landed. Even if the fires didn’t catch, the panic certainly did.
Within half an hour, the full might of the Sultan’s cavalry emerged from the forest, spreading like a tide across the land. They moved with chilling coordination, nearly encircling the entire Roman camp. The neighing of horses, sharp and shrill, cut through the air—and then fell into an unnatural silence, as if the host of riders were communing wordlessly, selecting the precise point from which to begin devouring the Rumelian resistance.
By now, the sun had fully risen, casting its golden light across the battlefield.
Only then did the Romans truly comprehend the scale of the force that stood before them.
What had seemed like waves of attackers now revealed themselves as a boundless sea of steel and banners. The Sultan’s army stretched far into the horizon, disappearing into the depths of the forest—no end in sight. Sunlight gleamed off their countless blades, creating the illusion of a glittering forest of iron. The glare stung the eyes of the defenders, and an overwhelming sense of dread settled over the camp.
Gasps and murmurs rippled through the Roman ranks.
This was no probing attack. No skirmish. No feint.
