Chapter 500: Farewell, Sanjek, Hello, Epirus

"Only after Winter comes do we know that the pine and the cypress are the last to fade."

-        Confucius

"Drop your blade! Our merciful Caesar does not kill those who surrenders willingly!"

One old man, one shivering blade, and twenty cavalries riding in circles around him.

"Drop your blade, old man. Your fight is now over." Julian said to the old Sanjek in a much gentler tone. "Your ruler's commanding flag has fallen and is nowhere to be found, your Sanjek has fled, there is no point in continuing your war here, surrender and we shall keep you alive."

"…"

"Oi! Old man!" The guard beside Julian who has slain the old Sanjek's horse yelled in a threatening tone. "Have you not heard of my general's order? Drop your blade! Surrender! And we shall pardon your life!"

"…"

"Drop your blade! Old man! Our Caesar shall give you mercy!"

"…"

A few more mounts came to the spot and stood watching the scene from a distance away.

The old Sanjek stood there turning and turning pointing his shivering blade, but every where he turns to, there are enemies pointing their spear tip towards him staring at him. The helmet of the old Sanjek has already been lost in the field, his long ashen hair is left flying freely in the air. The thick wrinkles on the Sanjek face displays his long winded journey of life. His protruding eyes and black eyes showed his agony and hate towards these people. His wizened face told of the worries for his people in the future.

The mud and blood on his face cannot hide his past braveries;

The tiredness and weakness in his eyes cannot hide his desires to kill;

The trembling hands and unstable blade cannot hide his will to fight;

The Roman cavalries encircling him with blades cannot cast a single sense of fear in his heart.

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The Roman cavalries and their general Julian are still trying to persuade the old man into submission, convinced that this man must be an important commander, maybe closely affiliated with the Ottoman Sanjek, or maybe he is that Sanjek himself.

The Sanjek stood firmly there, he knows that if he chooses to attack again his weapon would be confiscated and he himself would be captured easily. He does not want to and definitely cannot be captured by these Rumelians, as that would be a great disgrace for all Ottomans, and another bit of disappointment for the soul of his former sovereign Sultan Murad II. Oh, he almost forgot that he has already disappointed the Sultan Murad II greatly today but wait! The Sanjek thought to himself, there is still a way that he can seek for pardon of his crime.

The Sanjek shifted his eye sight downwards, and saw the blade still in his hands.

He suddenly took the bronze blade up placing it between his unprotected neck and his shoulder. This gave everyone watching, including Julian himself a shock. But he quickly understood the emotions coming from this old man before him, gave a sigh and raised his hands to stop his subordinates. The old Sanjek saw this as well, made a cold humph and applied all of his remaining strength on his blade pressing it down sliding it through his neck. A thin stream of dark red blood splattered out of the old Sanjek's throat, he slowly collapsed onto the pile of bodies of his fallen comrades, with that bronze sword finally released from his hand sticking itself into the ground, creating a loud humming sound as if the blade is crying for the decease of her owner.

The eyes of the old Sanjek are still wide open, but there is already no reflection or motion in those pupils. The mouth of the old Sanjek is also wide open too, but no more words can come out from that mouth to lament his miserable fate.

The Sanjak bey of Sanjak-i Yanya, Hüseyin Çelik, died at the age of fifty two, through suicide with a blade in his own throat, killed through a way that is considered one of the greatest haram(sin) in the doctrine of Islam. He is heavily influenced by the old Sultan Murad II, granted by the Sultan as the governor of Epirus by Murad II's son Mehmed II, and made a vow after hearing the news on the death of the young Sultan under the cursed walls of Theodosian to protect the new Sultan Beyezid II. When he heard about the defeat of Thessaloniki and the death of the Grand Vizier Candarli Halil Pasha he too vowed that he shall keep Epirus under Ottoman rule and block off any foreign invasions. But in the end, he has accomplished neither of his vows.

Antonius just sat there on his mount watching this quietly without saying a word watching the entire drama happening before his eyes, while his mount casually lowered her back and started gazing on the dried grass patch and made a slight neigh sound in protest of the heavy scent of blood on these valuable winter food.

…

The biggest boss of the Ottomans is dead, but the war is yet far from over.

In fact, the Romans, inclusive of Antonius and Julian, still has no idea that the Ottoman Sanjek has just committed suicide before them, as none of them actually knows how the Sanjek looks like, there is no image capturing magic in this era of course.

The Ottoman army in despair made one last attempt to hold their positions by forming up another line of defence halting the progress of Roman infantries, casualty rate started climbing among the Roman cavalries as well as they started slowly losing their advantage on speed with many of them ended up getting pulled down their horses disappearing into the crowd of Ottomans. This forced Khalid to call for an immediate retreat back to a distance away and regroup.

In this kind of disastrous times when the entire Ottoman commanding structure has already collapsed with everyone knowing that they have sunk themselves into a desperate situation of facing attacks from three different sides at once, different people showed different behaviours. Some warlords and commanders chose the easy way out leading his men out of the war through the corners to save their own strength. Some commanders chose to jump board to another ship by ordering their men to lay down their arms and kneel, in the hope that they can be granted a piece of land and keep their troops, just like the usual practise last time when the Ottomans arrived in Europe sixty plus years ago. Some commanders who do not have the guts to confront the Roman cavalries again and is also not equipped with the shamelessness to run chose the path of their Sanjek, committing suicide with their own blade.

And lastly there is also a kind of people which no matter what nation, what religion, what race they belong to or came from, they are always trying their best to cling on to their believes or decisions without changing. They have once sworn their allegiance to the Sanjek, and now that swear is still engraved in their hearts. These people continued putting up a tough fight for the Romans giving Julian a hard time without running or surrendering unlike their colleagues. One might call them stubborn, but from Julian's perspective these people can be called true heroes. So, he gave these heroes enough respect – by allowing them to meet their sovereign in the under world.

The Ottoman army held on to their grounds for a few more hours retreating steadily to the top of a hill nearby. By nightfall the commander of the left flank Emir still managed to regroup a total of thirty thousand men and continued fighting while sending out search parties to seek the whereabouts. He does have the vague thought in his head that the Sanjek is already dead once he saw the fall of the commanding flag, but he still got to hold on for his sovereign until the Sanjek is confirmed dead. By far only around three thousand plus Ottomans are dead from direct combat, the rest are either dead from stampede, surrendered, and there are some units that went missing in action and simply disappeared from the battle order, well, it is no doubt that everyone knows where they truly went.

The plains outside the small town of Ptolemaida finally had some peace and quiet like its usual days before the war after night has fallen. Most of the remains of the Ottoman army are now tightly packed together on the hills where the supposed Mamluk cavalries and war banners showed themselves today.. The Mamluk cavalries in the end turned out to be just a small group of people running around in the woods to make it seem like there are a lot of them hidden here, and these war banners and standards are simply nothing but just silhouettes placed here to trick the Ottomans.

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