Scorched

The soldiers defending the city watched the enemy abandon their burning siege towers, leave behind heaps of corpses, and flee the walls in disarray. They raised their arms and cheered.

At that moment, Greeks and Venetians alike cheered in celebration at having repelled the heathens' attack once more.

But the smiles soon vanished from their smoke-blackened faces.

The enemy offensive returned, fiercer than before.

A siege tower clad in iron slowly approached. It stood six stories tall, with firing slits on each of its upper three levels. Before it had even reached the walls, muskets and arrows were already shooting from those slits.

One soldier operating a Greek fire projector had just begun aiming at the siege tower when an arrow struck him in the head.

The Kheshig Army beside Lothar immediately returned fire. Their exquisite marksmanship allowed many of their arrows to pass through the firing slits and strike the enemies behind them.

Soon, someone else took the fallen Greek soldier's place, turning the flamethrower toward the siege tower. The instant the scalding fuel met the air, it became a serpent of flame. But a dazzling barrier lit up around the tower, and the fire serpent merely slid off it to the side.

Lothar shouted, "Stop using Greek fire! Prepare to engage the enemy!"

Constantinople had ample food stores, and its cisterns held plenty of water.

But there was a severe shortage of arrows, Greek fire materials, gunpowder, and other siege-defense supplies. Constantinople, stripped of its limbs and torso and left with only a head, still had to share three-quarters of its profits with Venice and Genoa.

Greek fire fuel was the scarcest of all. The Venetians in the concession could at least support the city with other defensive supplies, and before the Genoese of Galata reached an agreement