1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 242: Faded

"Old soldiers never die, 

Never die, never die, 

Old soldiers never die, 

They simply fade away."

-        "Kind Thoughts Can Never Die", Famous after being used by General Douglas MacArthur.

"Good evening! Lords and nobles of Thessaloniki! I am your host today, Nikolas, tell me lords, are you enjoying this feast?" Nikolas flung the door wide open and asked the panicking Ottoman nobles inside shouting. 

"What is the meaning of this, Nikolas?" 

"What is the meaning of this?" Nikolas chortled. "Sorry I have no choice, it seems that my business partner Antonius wants this city pretty badly, so he got my help, and by this is what I means." 

He then turned around facing his men and ordered unemotionally. "Tie them up, but keep them alive, especially that officer of the gates." 

"And then hide him, don't let that Julian guy find him." 

Nikolas then left this bath facing the opposite direction with the hundreds of his followers as they gush in to the building like a swarm, unleashing their fists on to these Ottoman noble men beating the crap out of them, literally. Then they tied these men with black eyes, broken capillaries, violet bruises tightly like how they dealt with the crabs they sell in the fish market. 

"I am the lord of Salonika! My brother is the Grand Vizier of the Ottomans! I am going to be the future Pasha of Rumelia! You cannot do this to me! Peasants!" In the messy situation an elderly, fully naked and still hugging two local Rumelian drinking wine when he was found, protested and howled in anguish as his empty buttock is being dragged across the floor with his sagging ding dong exposed outside. 

Hearing the title of this old man the rebel hesitated and stopped dragging him.

Seeing this the old man felt like he has grabbed the last string of hope and yelled planking himself on the ground. "That is right! That is right! My boy, let me go, I shall give you a lordship making you an instant noble, I can give you enough coins for you to squander for life, I can give you enough women to form a harem, just let me go boy!" 

However, his pal beside him apparently had some different opinion. He lifted up the spade he is carrying and gave the old man a pretty good whack right on his soft abdomen causing blood to ooze out of the corner of the old man's mouth as he squirms on the ground coughing in agony. The rebel carrying the spade gave this old man another kick with his straw sandals and a spit. "Stop talking you stinky flibbertigibbet chinless wonder, shut your mouth before I gave you another tight smack on the arse!" 

The old man coughed consistently as he continued to be dragged across the mud to the city center. On his path he saw some thing even more shocking; These citizens and peasants who used to behave as obedient as dogs last time under his rule of an iron grip, now all rose up holding spades, rods, kitchen knives and fire torches as they gather and march on every street of the city big and small forming rivers after rivers of light in the dark sky, including men, women, children, elderly and the young. The old man gaped as he looked at this shocking sign of the people suddenly becoming unafraid of the Ottoman guards as they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of violent rebels and torn down one after another. This scene is entirely unthinkable to him in the past, and it is until now that he finally realised that his decade of rule in the city have failed. 

Thousands of citizens of Thessaloniki gathered themselves on the streets shouting out their slogans and mottos desiring their will of leaving Ottoman rule, parading through the streets with the basic weapons in their hands forming a unique but powerful army. At least at this point of the time they are unified, motivated, willing to fight under the same banner of Antonius, although they have not yet seen the admiral in face. Together as one force they demonstrated a power that not only proved how strong the people of Thessaloniki are, but also how weak and disjointed the Ottomans stationed in this city is.

The entire thing is just like another version of Avlonya, but Antonius is not a crusader.

The Ottoman defenders are squeezed to several corners of the city including the walls, the towers and fortresses using the elevation as their advantage trying to keep hold of the situation. The calvaries that they excel in are provided to be almost useless in the cramped terrains of the city interior now blocked with burning barricades and trapped. The citizens used their superior knowledge of every inch of Thessaloniki to their advantage making every street and valley in to an ambush always causing some surprise for the Ottomans.

Mean while the respective Ottoman officers are still trying to find where the heck is their men superior generals. Caught in a state of soldiers unable to find officers and officers unable to find their higher commands the entire chain of command of the Ottoman army is shattered in to pieces. Which proved as catastrophic as the Ottomans now cannot even organise a counter attack of more than a hundred soldiers inside their own city.

The citizens of Thessaloniki, now fighting in a battle field that also saw their fathers and grand fathers fighting to their last breathe for their autonomy and preventing their families in to slavery. The brave citizens wield their simple 'weapons' bricks, stools, spades, pickaxe, kitchen knives, any thing they can find over their past lords and conquerors with out showing any mercy. The wounded and dead from both sides quickly filled up the thickening muddy ground tainting the dirt with their burning scarlet flood.

The elderlies of the city led the battle, vowing that they shall not let the mistake they made thirty years ago come to them again, charging at the front line these experienced veterans expected the heaviest casualties in the fight with the Ottomans. However, the gaps of the battle field is then quickly filled by the next generation, men in middle ages wielding their weapons jumping over the still warm corpses of their fathers on to the Ottomans. And after they die, the gap is filled up with their sons, leaping over the bodies of their grand fathers and fathers on to the foes with their mind filled with nothing but hatred.

There is a price to be paid for freedom, and a price even greater to hold the freedom.

Julian runs around the city trying to collate the different segments of the battle field putting them under a single command by him with the experienced warriors from Antonius' fleet he brought. Honestly speaking the rebels of Thessaloniki has almost no unified command just like their enemies all fighting by their instincts. The longer the fight is the more worried Julian gets. He knows that Thessaloniki is the biggest city in the entire region, and that also means that it is the biggest channel of communication where the transmission of information is the fastest, the surrounding Ottoman armies and towns could have already received news of Thessaloniki under attack and sent reinforcements.

If the rebels are unable to chase the Ottomans out of the walls, towers and fortresses fast enough, the enemy reinforcements can just be gladly welcomed in to the city through the gates the Ottomans are still controlling, it would increase the difficulty of taking Thessaloniki significantly.

However, there is a key difficulty of taking the city, the rebels lack the siege equipment to be able to make it on to the walls and towers. They don't even have enough ladders, and thus when the Ottomans kept their gates shut, the rebels could only try to climb up the rooves of the civilian housing in the nearby and jump on to the walls, which proved to be a job far too risky causing a ton of unfortunate death in the process. Now Julian and his men needs every thing, from explosives to blow down the walls, ladders to climb up the towers, and projectiles to take down thee gates, though he now has none. 

Julian rushed to the port side in Constantine district, and it is there he found his good pal Nikolas, busy sacking every thing he can find, from wares, to gold from the treasuries, to ancient artifacts and manuscripts, loading all the valuables on to his ships planning to use them to gain a quick profit once all of these is over. 

Seeing this Julian grabbed Nikolas by his collars and gave an order right at his face. "Nikolas! I need you to set sail and spot the admiral's fleet, now! Stop loading all these craps!" 

Nikolas frowned and pushed Julian away tidying his cloth. "Don't worry, your admiral should be here in less than an hour."