Achaea

On October 17, Vitus arrived safely on the western coast of the peninsula. Ahead lay a small harbor town called Kyparissia.

Unexpectedly, the town seemed completely undefended. Its gates stood open, and Vitus could see empty streets, houses, and a dozen or so roosters wandering around.

An ambush?

Vitus sent a company of heavy infantry to secure the eastern gate, then dispatched more troops to take control of the remaining gates and towers. After a thorough search, it seemed the enemy really had withdrawn.

"Are they conserving their strength, waiting for a chance to land a heavy blow?"

Following the plan drawn up before their departure, Vitus continued north along the coastline. Every time he took a castle, he left some soldiers behind to garrison it. Half a month passed, and the Eastern Roman army was down to 2,800 men.

"Your Highness, I suggest borrowing another batch of troops from Morea." Ever since the war began, they had been unable to find the enemy's main force. Piero grew more and more uneasy, spending all day jumping at shadows and suspecting the enemy army was hiding somewhere in the mountains.

"I sent them a letter, but Theodore is pretending he knows nothing. What can I do?"

Vitus gazed at an abandoned watchtower not far away. Its upper half had collapsed, and deep green vines crawled over its walls. A shepherd was curled up in a sheltered spot, fast asleep. More than twenty goats were scattered nearby, their bells ringing out melodiously from time to time.

Soon, the scouts woke the shepherd and offered him a gold coin in exchange for information about the area. To their surprise, he had something useful to tell them.

The scouts brought the shepherd to Vitus and had him repeat what he had just said:

"I don't know where the duke is. Three days ago, the knights nearby sent men to our village to requisition grain. I was out herding at the time, so I fled here to take shelter. I'm waiting for things to quiet down before I go back."

Over the next half day, the scouts found more villagers fleeing their homes. They came from different villages, but all had encountered the duke's emergency grain requisition squads. Even an Eastern Orthodox monastery had been forced to hand over its grain.

Vitus unfolded a map and marked the approximate locations of the villages and monastery. He estimated that the duke was only half a day's march away.

"Finally lost his patience? I expect he'll ambush me somewhere up ahead."

The next day, the Eastern Roman army continued in the same direction. As they neared a valley, Vitus ordered the entire army to halt and sent out all the infantry scouts.

As expected, sporadic cries of battle soon rang out from the woods. The Eastern Roman army quickly unloaded its baggage wagons and arranged them into ten loose Hussite Wagon Forts. The soldiers fitted thick wooden planks into grooves along the edges of the wagons, forming protective sides to block arrows. Behind the planks, the crossbowmen took cover and aimed at the figures appearing in the distance.

Inside the centralmost wagon fort, Vitus ordered the soldiers to pile up the grain sacks. He climbed to the top to survey the situation and saw a large number of enemies charging out of the woods to the east. Some were cut down by grapeshot and crossbow bolts. The survivors reached the edge of the wagon fort and tried to climb over the wagon sides, only to be toppled one by one by the defenders' spears.

The next moment, a faint tremor ran through the ground. A group of knights suddenly appeared on the road to the south. They formed a loose line and charged straight toward the Eastern Roman army's southernmost wagon fort.

The commander of the southernmost wagon fort was Marcus. As the thunder of iron-shod hooves drew closer, he paced back and forth inside the fort, rallying his men.

"Hold steady! No firing early!"

As the horses reached full speed, the knights leveled their lances. Just then, the Three-Pounders positioned in the gaps between the wagons opened fire. The crossbowmen behind the wagon sides pulled their triggers in unison, killing more than a dozen knights at the front.

Seeing their comrades fall ahead, the remaining knights slowed and veered around the bodies on the ground. They closed in on the wagon fort and attacked the defenders behind its sides with lances, longswords, and flails. Some dismounted to fight on foot, since it was difficult to strike effectively from horseback.

"Fire at will!"

Marcus hurriedly shouted the order, grabbed a spear, and rushed to the edge of the fort. He jabbed at the knight in front of him, but both thrusts glanced off the slightly curved steel breastplate. Two militiamen nearby jabbed wildly with their spears too, but their weapons couldn't pierce the plate armor. They only shoved the enemy back a single step.

Desperate, Marcus snatched a halberd from a terrified farmer and brought its axe blade down hard on the knight's helmet. At last, he dented it. Before he could catch his breath, a plate-armored knight to his front and side charged at him with his shield raised, knocking down two militiamen and opening a gap for his comrades to follow...

Before long, the wagon fort at the rear of the column was in grave danger. Vitus called on the nearby forts to reinforce it. "What fearsome fighting power! It's a shame the Peloponnese produces too little grain to support many knights."

At that moment, several hundred mercenaries also charged out of the valley to the north. Now that their ambush had been exposed, there was no point in hiding there, so they rushed toward the Eastern Roman army's foremost wagon fort and became entangled in a fight with the soldiers led by Damien.

With the battle at this stage, there was little Vitus could do. He remained atop the pile of grain sacks, watching as the enemy launched fierce attacks on his forces from the north, east, and south.

The brutal siege rapidly exhausted both sides. The Achaean mercenaries were the first to withdraw, followed by the duke's guards and the forces of the Achaean nobles.

Vitus had men count the casualties, then moved the army to camp on a nearby gentle slope. The Eastern Roman army had suffered more than four hundred casualties in the battle, most of them militiamen with little armor.

Having realized the importance of armor, the surviving militiamen fought back their disgust and stripped armor from the fallen nobles and soldiers. They wiped away the blood with leaves and dirt, then put the armor on for protection.

"Damien, have them wear a surcoat over their breastplates, so they won't mistake each other for enemies in battle." Vitus suddenly remembered the thick gray woolen cloth he had "borrowed" in Mistra. It would come in handy now.

The next day, Vitus dispatched a convoy to escort the wounded back to the castles in the rear to recover. The remaining 2,300 men continued their march. On November 5, they reached Andravida, the capital of the Principality of Achaea.

On the eve of the siege, the city sent an envoy to request peace talks. They were willing to discuss any terms as long as Vitus stopped the attack, including ceding territory and swearing allegiance to Constantinople.

"Constantinople?" Vitus looked at him as if he were an idiot.

"Listen carefully. I'm paying for this war out of my own pocket, and it's kept me from working for the monarchs of Europe. Now that my army is at your gates, if I let you wriggle out of this, what happens to the money I spent? What about the mercenary contracts I gave up? Who's going to make up for those losses?"

Vitus dismissed the envoy and began bombarding Andravida's walls. At this point in the war, no one—not Venice, Naples, or Constantinople—could stop him.