Ambush

Sensing the Greeks' movements, Sudak reacted swiftly. He gathered the nearby cavalry and headed for the eastern flank, swearing to annihilate this audacious force.

The ground began to tremble with increasing intensity. Vitus ordered a halt, drew his sword, and walked to the very front of the formation, his gaze sweeping over the faces of his matchlockmen and artillerymen.

"Anyone who fires without orders shall be executed!"

The next moment, he turned around to see hundreds of Ottomans cavalrymen charging toward them with a roar. The heavy cavalry held their lances tucked under their right arms, their vibrant turbans and pennants dancing in the wind.

The distance closed to one hundred meters. The sound of hooves was deafening; Vitus heard soft prayers being whispered behind him.

Seventy meters apart. The light cavalry in the vanguard began to draw their bows and nock arrows. Vitus lowered his visor, yet still gave no order to fire.

In a few short seconds, the enemy reached their maximum speed. He could even clearly see the ferocious expressions on the faces of the riders and the vivid patterns embroidered on their robes.

"Fire!" Vitus swung his sword.

In an instant, two rows of matchlockmen fired in unison, merging into a scorching wall of flame. The three-pounder cannons also spat out orange-red fire, and dense lead shot shrieked as it swept across the fan-shaped area ahead.

The leading Ottomans cavalry seemed to crash into an invisible wall. Warhorses collapsed to the ground with mournful cries, and riders were thrown from their saddles by momentum, rolling several times on the cold ground before falling still.

However, more lethal than the lead shot was the roar and flame that merged into one, enough to make the soul tremble. The warhorses in the rear were terrified, spinning wildly in place as their riders pulled the reins in vain, unable to reorganize their formation.

"Quickly, change formation!"

Vitus issued the command, ordering the first two rows of matchlockmen to retreat into the formation while the spearmen behind filled the gaps, creating a dense phalanx of pikes. Once the reloaded cannons fired a second round of grapeshot, Vitus ordered a shift from defense to offense.

The spearmen marched with heavy, rhythmic steps—starting with a trot, then accelerating, shifting from a walk to a run, and finally merging into a gray torrent that charged straight into the chaotic mass of the Ottomans cavalry.

They trampled over the corpses of men and horses, stepped across blood-soaked mud, and thrust their sharp spearheads without hesitation into the fallen, or into the chests of any riders attempting to organize a resistance. The pike formation acted like a precision killing machine, ruthlessly grinding through the disorganized enemy ranks. The surviving Ottomans cavalry attempted to counterattack, but having lost their momentum, they held no advantage against the dense wall of pikes, and their sporadic resistance was soon swallowed by a sea of spearheads.

Meanwhile, the two hundred Morea cavalrymen temporarily under Vitus's command charged into the Ottomans' flank, further exacerbating the chaos within the Ottomans army.

The collapse began.

The surviving Ottomans cavalry looked at the approaching forest of steel, their remaining courage finally spent. They turned their horses around, beat their startled mounts with the backs of their blades, and fled in the direction from which they had come.

Having repelled this force, Vitus had his heralds blow their horns to reform the ranks before heading toward the Ottomans' siege camp.

"Fire!"

He blasted a section of the palisade open with solid shot and instructed the cavalry commander, "Your mission is to disrupt the main camp. Remember, operate in ten-man squads: burn tents, cut down banners, scatter the cattle, sheep, and horses in the pens—the more chaos, the better."

Immediately after, he led the remaining infantry south, aiming for the first breach where fierce fighting was underway.

Midway, Sudak hastily assembled a group of infantry to intercept them, consisting mainly of swordsmen, spearmen, and archers. With the two armies one hundred and fifty meters apart, the Ottomans army stopped in place and loosed arrows at the Eastern Roman Empire troops.

Vitus led his troops forward at a brisk pace until the distance between them was less than a hundred meters. He had the spearmen retreat into the formation, while the matchlockmen formed two loose horizontal lines in front, engaging in a volley exchange with the Ottomans archers.

During daily training, the matchlockmen maintained a rate of fire of two rounds per minute. In the heat of actual combat, they became flustered, taking forty seconds to barely complete a reload. The Ottomans fired five volleys of arrows, while the Eastern Roman Empire musketeers managed only one.

In Vitus's view, this was enough.

The musketeers were uniformly equipped with captured iron helmets and brigandines, sufficient to withstand arrows loosed from a hundred meters away. The Ottomans archers' lamellar and chainmail, however, could not withstand the penetration of lead shot.

In less than five minutes, the Ottomans archers were routed. The remaining infantry attempted a charge, but were met with concentrated fire from muskets and grapeshot halfway, scattering in an instant.

Having repelled two waves of blocking forces in succession, Vitus finally reached the first breach in the wall, coordinating with the defenders to strike the enemy from both sides and forcing them to surrender.

According to a rough count, the vast majority of the captives were from the Balkans, belonging to the lowest-ranking auxiliary troops.

He had the defenders guard the captives and moved west along the wall to the second breach, where he captured another eight hundred low-level soldiers.

Under these multiple blows, the Ottomans army fell into uncontrollable chaos, and Sudak was forced to gather his troops and retreat slowly. Seeing this, Theodore, located at the westernmost breach, suddenly grew interested. Ignoring the objections of others, he led the militia out of the breach, only to be met by a fierce counterattack from the Ottomans...

Ten minutes later, Vitus arrived in a hurry and found Theodore under a corpse. Fortunately, Theodore's expensive plate armor had blocked the enemy's attack, and he was physically unharmed, though severely shaken, staring blankly with empty eyes and muttering something unintelligible.

Time was of the essence. Vitus had people send Theodore and the other wounded back to the infirmary and instructed Psilos, "You continue to be responsible for the wall's defense. Do not kill the captives; these people are still useful."

He did not let this rare opportunity slip by, having his army pursue with two hundred wagons to collect the weapons, armor, cannons, and grain discarded by the enemy along the way. For every hundred captives taken, the Tuna Legion would bind their hands with ropes and have a squad escort them back.

Pursuing along the road until the afternoon, the Tuna Legion left the buffer zone between the two sides and officially entered the territory of the Duchy of Athens. Marcus asked, "Your Highness, shall we continue the pursuit?"

"Yes, pursue them all the way to the walls of Athens and toy with the Duke of Athens on the other side."

After two days of continuous pursuit, Vitus did not reach the city of Athens, but instead found himself surrounded by the enemy.

"After suffering a defeat, they still have the confidence to face the pursuers? Is this the Ottomans in their period of national ascent? I truly envy their Sultan."

Enemies surged in from all directions. The Tuna Legion quickly deployed five Hussite Wagon Forts, using cannons and muskets to repel Sudak's counterattack. The battle lasted for a moment before the Ottomans army's morale was exhausted, and they began to withdraw from the battlefield one after another.

Marcus once again urged Vitus to retreat. The latter sighed, "I originally intended to ask the Duke of Athens for some construction fees, but since the brothers can no longer hold on, everything ends here. Retreat!"