The Wind Begins to Die Down
As he stroked the neck of his warhorse, roughened by the long march and the sea breeze, the prince gazed up at the sky.
Was it to shield his weary soldiers from the relentless sun?
Or was it to mourn the lives that would soon be lost on this battlefield?
His thoughts drifted as the clouds slowly swallowed the sun.
Yet the more time they wasted, the worse it became for Morea’s army.
Snapping out of his momentary daze, the prince lowered his gaze back to the battlefield and gave the command.
“Advance!”
-Advance!
The prince’s order echoed through the ranks as soldiers repeated the command, carrying it to every corner of the army.
A moment that had felt long—agonizingly so—had finally ended.
With hardened expressions, the soldiers stepped forward.
Some of them, no doubt, had realized the truth.
The enemy they were about to face was not the hated, feared Ottomans.
It was their fellow Romans.
Their fellow Greeks.
It was only natural that the hands gripping their spears tightened.
Yet none openly revealed their emotions.
There was no hesitation because they all understood what this battle meant.
If they failed to break through to Corinth, everything would end here.
Any hesitation now would render all their past struggles meaningless.
With this grim reality weighing on them, the Morean army pressed forward without pause.
But the prince’s order to advance was not the only movement on the battlefield.
Ivania’s cavalry on the right wing had begun their charge.
The Ottoman forces were also mobilizing.
The only difference was in speed.
While the Morean army swiftly closed the distance, the Ottomans moved sluggishly, their formation stiff.
The prince immediately grasped why.
It was the presence—or rather, the absence—of cavalry.
Fearing an attack from Ivania’s knights, the Ottomans had detached part of their forces to secure their left flank, forming a defensive square from the start.
They could have advanced first and then formed their defensive stance, yet they had chosen to move in formation from the outset.
That decision alone told the prince all he needed to know.
This was not an elite Ottoman force.
They were too afraid.
Too cautious.
Such movements were characteristic of armies lacking confidence.
The true Ottoman elite would never behave this way.
“They’re even deliberately slowing their advance to keep pace with their left wing’s defensive square.”
This maneuver certainly maximized their defensive advantage.
However, the lack of mobility meant that both their flanks could be isolated and forced into close combat.
It was a weakness caused by their lack of cavalry.
Even if the Morean knights numbered only a few hundred, the enemy clearly understood their destructive power and could not ignore them.
As a result, they had sacrificed maneuverability, creating a critical vulnerability.
More than that, the determination in their formation, built around their defensive stance, gave the prince another certainty—
The armies may have been similar in size, but their resolve was entirely different.
As the two sides neared the moment of impact, the prince finally voiced his conviction.
“Lower your spears toward the enemy!
They are slaves!
Cowards, already drowning in fear!
Show them that all our struggles have not been in vain!”
One by one, spearheads leveled toward the enemy.
The Ottoman spearmen, too, set their weapons in response.
Yet from the very beginning, the battle tilted in Morea’s favor.
The core of Morea’s army consisted of pike formations, personally trained by the prince to serve as an unbreakable anvil.
The skill of pikemen was measured by the length of the spears they could wield effectively.
And there was a huge difference in the length of Morean pikes compared to Ottoman spears.
As the spearheads clashed, wood struck against wood with sharp, splintering sounds.
Yet the shorter Ottoman spears needed to pierce through the dense forest of Morean pikes just to reach their targets.
Meanwhile, the Morean soldiers had only to thrust forward and keep the enemy at bay.
They were exhausted from their endless retreat, battered by defeat after defeat, But their pikes remained sharp.
And that sharpness was all they needed.
Contrary to initial expectations, the tide of battle was turning in favor of the Morean army.
The overwhelming difference in experience was evident from the level of proficiency displayed by the spearmen. At this point, the only option left for the Ottoman forces was to utilize their unarmed infantry to strike at the Morean army’s flank. However, the man leading the Ottomans—Paliotes—was unable to do so.
That was because the cavalry, led by Ivánia, had already begun maneuvering around the left wing, slowly closing in on their rear. If Paliotes withdrew the infantry guarding the main force’s flank, the entire army could collapse in an instant.
If victory was impossible, his only duty was to hold out until the Sultan’s reinforcements arrived. For him, making such a move was an unforgivable blunder.
In the end, Paliotes found himself both flustered by the completely unexpected turn of events and seething with rage toward the prince.
“So you truly… you truly intend to get us all killed!”
The left-wing formations, which had been positioned in anticipation of a flanking attack, were rendered useless as the main force was not only failing to gain the upper hand but was being utterly overwhelmed.
According to the original plan, the cavalry should have struck as quickly as possible to ease the burden on the main force.
Instead, they had been able to maneuver all the way to the rear. Even so, withdrawing the formations was not an easy decision. What if the enemy seized the moment they broke formation to launch an attack?
Burdened by such concerns, Paliotes could do nothing but watch the battle unfold unfavorably before him.
He had thought the enemy would be an easy match, assuming they had done nothing but suffer defeats against the Ottomans. He had only admired their resilience against a powerful foe, never understanding how they actually fought against the Sultan’s forces. He had believed they merely sacrificed innocent people as bait.
But what was this outcome before him?
At that moment, Paliotes recalled the Sultan’s stern command.
—Kill them all.
“S-Sultan…”
His voice trembled with fear as he was forced to ask himself the one question he dreaded most.
What if the Sultan’s true intention was not the annihilation of the Morean army under Dragases… but their own?
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