Free Web NovelChapter 741: The Battle of Nikomedia (9)
From above, the Roman defenders, now hollow-eyed and numb, drew their bows in silence, loosing shaft after shaft into the churning sea of labor and screams below. The cries of their own people—begging in Latin, Greek, and every dialect in between—had long ceased to move them. There were no choices left to feel.
Within mere days, the death toll among the local population—killed by bolts, starvation, torture, or exhaustion—climbed into the thousands. The once-glorious province of Nikomedia, famed for its coastal fertility and ancient heritage, was now a smoldering corpse. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Scouts reported a terrifying truth: Nine of every ten homes were now abandoned or destroyed. The once-green fields were nothing but charred earth .Livestock, even those meant for breeding, had been slaughtered. Grain stores, seed caches, root crops—all plundered. The Sultan’s men left no possibility for rebirth.
Nikomedia was dead.
Yet the siege itself had gained little ground. The fortress still stood. Roman supplies continued to trickle through the sea lanes. And every time the Sultan hurled another wave of soldiers into the storm of arrows and boiling oil, they vanished into the pit like offerings to a god of death.
The Sultan, watching from his elevated tent, seethed.
He had led this campaign with dreams of perfection—of swift conquest, overwhelming victory, and a triumphant return to Prusa laden with slaves, gold, and glory. Now he feared the opposite.
If he returned with empty hands...If his war ended here, in stalemate...Then the beys and pashas from Armenia Minor, whom he had enticed into service with promises of spoils and prestige, might not remain loyal. A crown could buy loyalty—but only while it glittered.
And so, like a wounded beast too stubborn to retreat, the Sultan now sought to drown the city in blood. "If fire and arrows cannot break them," he growled, "then we shall bury them beneath our dead."
But time is never on his side.
The ships departed the Harbour of Justinian beneath the shroud of night.
A fleet of fifty vessels—ranging from sleek dromons to heavy grain carriers—pushed into the Marmara Sea in tight formation. Their destination was clear: Libyssa.
Back on land, the siege had evolved into something monstrous. The Sultan, growing increasingly unhinged by the fortress’s resilience, threw in everything he could muster—men, beasts, slaves, even his last reserves of patience. The Turkish encampment now swelled with desperate activity, with smoke rising day and night, and bodies moving in every direction like ants upon a burning log.
Then came a new idea—a Roman defector.Once a student of the College of Thessaloniki, the man had been denied a position in the Rumelian bureaucracy. Consumed by bitterness, he crossed the lines months ago. Now, desperate to prove his worth, he proposed a method: undermine the Roman walls. Dig tunnels beneath the fortifications, then collapse them by fire and excavation, causing the walls to crumble from below.
The Sultan was ecstatic.
He placed the defector in full command of the operation. Immediately, four tunnel projects began under the guise of routine activity within the Turkish camps. The scene was chaotic yet relentless—ditches and mounds of earth scattered across the field, shovels scraping day and night, hundreds of laborers working under armed guard.
The siege became a war of exhaustion.
Each day, new waves of Rumelian prisoners and civilian slaves were marched to the front lines. Some were handed shovels. Others received nothing more than crude baskets and dull knives. None had armor. Flanked by Turkish troopers bearing shields and blades, they were forced to push siege engines forward—into the arrow-storm, into death.
They died by the hundreds.
As soon as their bodies filled the ground behind the Turkish charge, new slaves were marched forward. Those who survived their first push were lined up behind the army, acting as a buffer against any Roman cavalry sorties. The prisoners served both as shields and obstacles.
And still, when one group was consumed, another thousand were brought forward.
Inside the fortress, the Roman archers had long stopped speaking.They fired their arrows like machines, hands swollen and raw. Their eyes were distant, glassy. The cries of the dying no longer pierced their hearts. Their own people were being used as fodder by the enemy—mothers, cousins, farmers from the coasts. Yet they could not hesitate. Hesitation meant collapse.
Every day, more archers were removed from the lines—not for wounds, but because their fingers were torn open from drawing bowstrings endlessly. Many wept in silence when ordered off the wall—not from grief, but shame.
There was no pride in killing your own kin.
From his vantage on the towers, Giovanni Giustinianni saw it all.
He no longer slept. Day after day, he stood high above the encampment, commanding, directing reinforcements, rallying men wherever Turkish breakthroughs occurred. When weak points emerged along the slope or trench, Giovanni himself would descend to the walls, blade in hand, to help push the enemy back.
But he knew, deep in his chest, this could not go on.
The great trench and walls—once so masterfully constructed—were now slowly being buried by dirt, blood, and bodies. What once stood as a formidable barrier now formed a soft ramp, packed by the weight of corpses and earth, enabling the enemy’s siege towers to inch forward.
The air turned dry. The fire in the trees dimmed.Summer ended. The leaves in the Turkish camp began to yellow.
And still, the Sultan poured more lives into the fire.
"The Emperor will arrive by tomorrow."
Khalid stood atop the tower, a sealed letter in his hand. "It seems His Majesty has lost patience with our current situation."
It was expected.
Giovanni Junior now held almost the entire elite cavalry force that Antonius De Ricci had spent decades cultivating. With another several thousand conscripted infantrymen, the Roman force in Libyssa exceeded ten thousand. And yet, for weeks now, they had remained trapped, unable to break free, while the once-prosperous city of Nikomedia lay strangled under siege—surviving on a single tenuous supply line from the sea.
Of course the Emperor was worried.
He had taken the bold step of rushing to the front himself, not to take command—that would be foolish and politically dangerous—but to understand, firsthand, what was happening.
Giovanni didn’t respond. He stared wordlessly across the fields toward the sprawling Turkish camps, then turned to the glinting sea. His face was heavy with thought.
Just then, two soldiers were sweeping leaves nearby—one old, one young.
"When will this end? These leaves just keep falling," the younger grumbled, dragging his broom across the autumn ground.
"Quiet!" snapped the older soldier, smacking the boy’s helmet. "What happens when the Turks shoot flaming arrows into our camp? You want the whole place lit up like hell?"
"I know..." the younger murmured.
"You know nothing!" The veteran smacked him again. "Now finish this patch, or no breakfast for you!"
Giovanni’s pupils shrank. He spun his head toward the Turkish lines.
"Giovanni?" Khalid asked, seeing the change in his student’s eyes.
The young commander took a long breath, the autumn air dry in his lungs. "General Khalid... are you thinking what I’m thinking?"
The old general nodded, his eyes sharp. "Yes. I am."
Meanwhile, in the Turkish camp...
Sultan Mehmed Zaganos stood proudly before his assembled nobles, foreign legates, and officers, gesturing grandly at a detailed display of the tunnels—the secret project that now consumed one-third of the camp.
"With these tunnels," the Sultan proclaimed, "we will pull down those cursed Roman walls—without even firing a single catapult!"
He laughed triumphantly. The legates cheered.
"These Rumelians have no idea their destruction is already certain," the Sultan declared. "In just two days’ time, we will collapse their fortifications, overrun their pathetic camp, and erase their last claim to Anatolia. After that, we reclaim everything the Osmanli once lost. Six decades of shame shall be avenged!"
The audience roared. Some among them—those older, more cautious—remained silent. They had seen the blade of Antonius De Ricci in their younger years. They knew better than to cheer too soon.
"No matter!" the Sultan shouted. "Let us wait just two more days! Victory is already in sight!"
The nobles bowed and dispersed. The legates from Aleppo, Tabriz, Tbilisi, and Damascus came forward, each congratulating the Sultan on his brilliant strategy. He received them with glee, his booming laughter echoing through the camp.
Later that evening, the Sultan returned to his tent, humming contentedly.
As his servant helped remove his armor, a small mishap occurred—the stand that held his sword and lance was knocked over, the weapons clattering loudly to the floor.
The Sultan jumped slightly, startled.
The servant dropped to his knees, panicked. "Forgive me, Your Majesty! It was my clumsiness! Punish me, but spare my family, please!"
For a long moment, there was silence.
Then, uncharacteristically calm, the Sultan smiled. "Why would you think I’m that kind of man?" he asked softly. "Just put them back."
The servant scrambled to obey, shaken by the unexpected mercy.
Once alone, Mehmed Zaganos lay back in his bed. He was already dreaming of victory.
