Chapter 344: 339: The Worn Out Sultan

"But yet I'll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live."

-        Macbeth, Willian Shakespeare

"Incoming! Yield!" 

"Enemy projectile incoming! Hide yourself!" 

Almost eight hundred Roman miles away, a grand battle is too ongoing between the ferocious army of Zaganos Pasha, and what is remaining of Sultan Orhan. They fought all the way from Eskişehir, then to Ankara, forcing Sultan Orhan to flee all the way to Sivas, and finally making a final refuge under the prehistoric Pontic mountains, in the last citadel of Trabzon, or better known to some as the city of Trebizond, which was brought under the rule of Sultan Orhan merely one year ago from the remnants of the Komenians. 

Some times Sultan Orhan just feels like fate has played a joke on him. He was right here when his men broke through the final Rumelian outpost in Anatolia, dragging the descendants of the past Rumelian emperor who is now the Despot of Trebizond out of their city like a bunch of dogs bringing them out for execution, and now, in the same place, he is going to be the next in line following those Komnenian nobles being dragged out of his room by the soldiers of Zaganos Pasha now and then brought for execution. 

After having figured out what he is going to end up as, Sultan Orhan now lost all wills to continue fighting knowing that his current forces is definitely no match for the army Zaganos Pasha has brought with him, and the city is going to be taken in probably less than a month's time. So, he has entirely sunk himself entirely to enjoying life soothing his sinful lust in a quiet room under ground evading from all bothers in the outside world with wine and women. 

However, one day, when he is lying there getting drunk and taking a doze in the arms of a lass, a guard of him bursted in to the room making the Sultan almost thought that it is the foes under Zaganos who have finally came to hunt him. 

"Sultan! Sultan!" The man exclaimed excitedly, almost stuttering at one point. "Sul…Sultan!" 

"Make your words quick and clear." The still on tipsy Sultan Orhan is annoyed. 

"Those foes have retreated! They have start pulling out!" 

"Huh?" The Sultan frowned with a blushing red face, and after some brief thinking he sneered and replied waving the wine cup in his hands. "This is a dirty trick by that old bastard Zaganos, in which he wants to lure us out of our walls… And attempt to chase them down! Then they shall lay an ambush and come back for us in a short time… Pass the message! We shall keep still in the citadel!" 

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"But my Sultan…" The guard bowed down and pleaded. "Please, do have a look yourself! You will believe my words that the foes have truly retreated with your very own eyes! They have demolished their own encampments!" 

"No! I shall not be leaving this room to torture myself under the sun light!" The Sultan gave a hard rejection to the proposal. "Leave me! Now! At once!" 

The guard dared not say any more words, bowed down towards the Sultan who is still drinking and left the court room. As he closed the door behind him he the guard immediately bowed down to another armoured man with a white goat beard who was standing behind the door all alone eavesdropping on to the conversation in the room. The guard sighed and shake his head to the armoured man, and the man in turn sighed too leaving the door without any delay in his footsteps. The guard looked at the back of this man holding the grip of his blade hesitating whether he should pull it out, as he knows that he might not see this man again.

However after a brief thought of the image of the Sultan he saw merely a minute ago he threw that thought from his head away; True, he has sworn his loyalty to the Sultan when the Sultan offered him enough food to feed his parents, but he knows that he should not and cannot expect that similar amount of loyalty from others, especially when their sovereign has been driven in to such a pathetic state like this. 

Later that night news came that the second in command of Sultan's army, Berat Bey who is known as the 'white beard' left the city of Trebizond with his remaining two thousand men going back to their home land, throwing all the loyalties and responsibilities for the Sultan away which can definitely be considered as a betrayal, but of all the people that was along the bey's path no one was there to stop him; The Sultanate has crumbled and the Sultan has given up on his ambitions, now every person here is trying to find a way out for their future. 

Though all of these things going on at Trebizond have got nothing to do with Antonius, as he is way too busy with his own issues on the plate than bother caring about his good old friend thousand of miles away. He has designed his battle plan in a way that he has predicted every single step that the enemy could possibly take and made counter plans on what to do if the enemy made these moves, however this time it seems like he got some surprise from this new foe that he has called Hamza Pasha. 

There are several things odd regarding the current battle situation, the Ottoman army brought heavy machineries that are obviously targeted to pull down these Roman fortifications, but instead they did not and just sat there all day waiting for moss to grow on their siege weapons. Second is that instead of making their troops regroup back in their fortresses the Ottoman army continued lining up in formations outside the range of Roman projectiles; And the third thing is that it came as a shock to Antonius for the fact that the Ottomans knows about the effective range of the new Roman crossbows which is just designed less than two years ago in Orban's work shop, thus there must be some imposter in his current system who sold this piece of valuable information to the foes.

Thus the battle field is now caught in a state of awkwardness, the Romans are putting up lines after lines of defenses trying to copy their past experience under Thessaloniki, but the Ottomans just stood there every single day in formations outside the first Roman defense lines without doing any thing, this narrow strip of land connecting between Thessalia and Thrace is then caught in a strange sense of peacefully quiet state despite the fact that there are almost a hundred thousand men crowded around the region waiting to kill the other side.

By now the main intentions of that Hamza Pasha is clear, he placed five thousand troops in formations before the Roman lines of defense every single day with Kurdish scouts scourging the mountains above taking a clear view of the Roman side just in case they are trying to demolish their own walls again. This formation outside the Roman walls effectively squeezed the army of Antonius that if they want to come out of their camp and face the Ottomans, they would find themselves having a much narrower battle width, and their advantage in numbers will not be properly shown grinding the Ottoman formations while their foes can casually move their reinforcements to the front line who are always on stand by at the back taking a rest in their fortress.

With the bulk of Ottoman troops on stand by at the back Antonius too knows that if he dared to unleash his marines on to the Ottomans they would absolutely be crushed by their foes. Of course, he can choose to let the marines drag on to the Ottomans while he tries to take down these five thousand Ottoman foes first. However, he still hesitated when he asked himself this question; Is he capable of eliminating these enemies before the Ottoman reinforcements ten miles away eliminate his marines and come here for aid in time? And is it worth it to sacrifice his battle hardened marines for an operation like this?

Antonius could not make the decision, he ordered the entire army to halt any more operations to expand their lines of defense giving his soldiers a rest, and then ordered them to sharpen their blades, prepare their armours, assemble their arrows and wait for battle. However, after he sent these orders he still just sat there all day long staring in to that map on the walls of the tent, trying to gaze a way out of the current dilemma he is put in which is totally unprepared by Helio in his tactical planning report. 

The Ottomans continued standing there outside his walls, trying to lure the Romans out for battle every single day.

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