1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 388: I Shall Be With You

"Onward! My sons! We cannot afford to crumble over here! If we fail! We shall lose every thing we have gained on the path to here!" The emperor shouted out at his soldiers with his emerald engraved sword, waving it in the air and holding the front line side by side with his men. His horse has already be slain by an arrow in to its neck during that down pour of arrows a few minutes ago. But Constantine is not frightened by this at all, he has seen even bigger projectiles coming at him before for multiple times. 

The second wave of arrows came plunging in to the Roman formations which still are largely consisted of light infantries, sweeping down a few dozens of people causing the entire battle line to show some signs of collapse. But immediately the shouting of their emperor from their back, together with the cross of the Ecumenical Patriarch forced them to continue standing at the front, guarding their vital body parts with only a limited amount of protection. But still, this kind of morale boost can only last for a while, the army shall still crumble if the Ottomans decided to flung a few more rounds of projectiles. 

The situation turned better at last, when Mauro got concerned with the situation in the front line sending out a fleet of spare archers and mercenaries armed with shields and chain mails coming here to prevent a potential Ottoman break through from the front. Constantine had no time to offer any thanks, just a nod to the commander of the incoming reinforcement and hopped back supervising the front line. 

The reinforcement toppled the worsening situation over here with the archers gathering together under the cover of the mercenaries, pushing forward while throwing back retaliation projectiles at the Ottomans, forcing them to start retreating towards the back, moving their range out of the main Roman defences, and with just two charges from the Aragon mercenaries in chain mails the Ottoman archers crumbled and started fleeing to the back. While the mercenaries did not give chase and started falling back to their archers. 

But although their charge did solve the threat on their formations by the Ottoman archers, they created another threat unknowingly. Mercenaries being mercenaries, a little too valorous and free in combat some times, they have gone way too far and this left a gap between them, the formation of light infantries and their back up. This now leaves Constantine with two choices, either to stop retreating and extend the battle line to cover the mercenaries while they fall back in to the line preventing them from being trapped in the next Ottoman offensive and being eaten as a whole, or continue retreating hoping that the Aragon mercenary band can come back as fast as possible. 

Though looking at the state the mercenaries are in, they seem to be a little overly excited from the achievement they acquired, while most started falling back still remembering their assigned task of providing cover for the archers, some are being reluctant to these as they wanted to go further in the belief of cutting down a few more non believers shall cleanse their sins and guilt they accumulated through out their lives, which is grinded in to their head since young. Not only did these people drag on with the process of falling back, they also further extended the formation of the mercenaries by trying to stick to the Ottoman archers in their uncoordinated attack. 

Hamza Pasha also got his attention at this direction, in his point of view seating on the mount this portion of the Romans seems to be pushing way too forward from their back bones, and after such a prolonged time they still have not pulled back yet, instead it seemed like they are having some miscommunications among themselves on what to do next. Now the portion of the Romans poking out in to the Ottoman territories looked no longer like a spear head, instead it looked as thin as a finger, a middle finger to be more precise. 

So now it is the time for the butcher to grab the chance, Hamza Pasha thought, as he ordered to his signallers. "Send the orders to Mahummad Pasha's cavalries on the right, and Emir Bey's cavalries on the left! I want them to charge full out on to the Romans from both sides and cut the ties of connection between the two parts quickly as possible! Remember, this is their time to repent their crimes for failing the Sultan, so I do not care and do not want to hear about they are complaining about their losses or what so ever, I only want the heads of the infidels! Go!" 

The head signaller gulped and only translated the first part of the pasha's message. In a minute's time the ground can be heard to start shaking, increasing bit by bit and finally it almost give people the feeling that the Earth is tumbling as if a violent earth quake is going on beneath their feet. No doubt it is the work of two thousand plus horses galloping, the last bit of calvaries that the Sultanate in Edirne can assemble at this point of time after losing all of its horse breeding grounds in Bulgaria and Anatolia, but still it is a formidable force in the region that even out matches that of Antonius' calvary forces after the Mamluks have left. 

Cavalries being cavalries, still the world's most effective combat forces from the west to the east showed the impact they can make in hammering through enemy defences again this time. The two surge of cavalries acted like blades slicing through the thin connection between the mercenaries and the rest of their regiments. Under the reddened eyes of Constantine, the Ottoman cavalries sang their usual songs of praises and weird howling, waving their kilij blades slicing it on to the backs of the mercenaries from all directions. The flag of the mercenary band which carried their honour and history fell first, followed by their leader, and finally every one else left standing. 

Within no time the band of Aragon mercenaries specially assembled by Constantine for the past three years in the aim of setting up a professionally paid guard unit that is only loyal to the emperor of Romania, has became a Thrace of smoke that flew away with the wind in the past. However, the emperor now has bigger problems he got to face rather than to regret about his decision earlier on. The cavalries continued galloping and formed a beautiful curve before the Roman lines, then galloped towards the back as fast as possible giving the archers least amount of time to aim and shoot, while in the process some ear less heads are being thrown right in to the Romans, with one of them rolling beneath Constantine's boots. It does not take many thoughts to know that these heads are the Aragon mercenaries just now. 

The Romans have no time to celebrate the fact that the Ottoman horse men have left the premise, every one with a few years of experience against the Ottomans know that this is a common tactic they love to use, to fall back to a few hundred meters away, and re charge towards their enemies gaining their maximum acceleration in the process to have the most impact when they collide with their enemies. This has always worked in the past and even traditional anti horsemen formations like the traditional pikemen have failed miserably against these natural horsemen. 

"Gather around me my sons! Gather around the flag! The archangel of Saint Michael shall bless your souls! Christ is with us!" Constantine bellowed in the chaotic battle field, despite the fact that not many can hear him. He chose to remain with his soldiers at first, and now he no longer has an option of leaving since there are way too many people huddling around him forbidding any path that can allow him to exit. Though that is what he wanted in the first place, he shall always be there fighting along side his men in the posture of an inspiring leader. 

The Ottoman cavalries came back as expected, with that familiar earth quake going on again. Some Roman recruits who are not yet mentally trained almost fell back down on to their back with their feet shaking with the ground. But after seeing the war banner of the scarlet double headed eagle, he stood back up holding the sword in his blade cursing. "Why the hell has the mud, swamps and snow affected these pricks with hooves?" 

The Ottoman cavalries showed up in the border line of their eyes, and within a minute their image appeared larger and larger till it almost filled the frame of the Roman soldier's eyes. "Hold still my sons!" Constantine cried out to every one around him. "Do not let any one shake your mind! Stay with me! I shall always be here with you!"