EMPIRE REWRITTEN [Isekai ? Alt-History ? Strategy]

Chapter 69: The Siege of Livadeia

"Fire!" shouted the artillery captain. A deafening boom shook the morning as the cannons discharged. A cloud of sulfurous smoke enveloped the guns, and all eyes followed the stone balls as they hurtled toward the wall. With a resounding crash and a spray of masonry, one projectile struck near the parapet, knocking loose chunks of stone. Cheers arose from the Byzantine lines. Two more cannons followed, pounding at the heavy wooden gates.

Inside Livadeia, chaos erupted. The Ottoman garrison, perhaps still gathering arms, now rushed to man the walls under fire. They returned fire with arrows and a few sporadic shots from a couple of primitive small culverins, but the suddenness and intensity of the Byzantine barrage clearly rattled them. From the hilltop castle, a tiny muzzle flash signaled that the Ottomans had a cannon of their own—they fired downhill toward the Byzantine lines. The cannonball thudded into the earth harmlessly, well short of the guns. The angle was too steep and the range too far to hit the attackers effectively. "They can't depress their guns enough to reach us properly!" Andreas laughed, shielding his eyes to watch the castle.

Constantine observed the bombardment with steely focus. Every crash of stone on stone was one step closer to breaching the walls. His hands were clasped behind his back as he paced just behind the gun crews, trusting them to their work. On the walls, he could see the Ottoman commander gesturing frantically, likely urging his men to hold and return fire.

After a week of concentrated bombardment, Livadeia's outer wall sections were crumbling. Two large holes in the chosen wall segment, one breach was now nearly man-sized, rubble piling at its base. The gate, hammered by repeated hits, sagged on broken hinges. Smoke and dust blanketed the town's edge, and the morning air stank of gunpowder. Constantine knew it was time. He turned to his trumpeter and nodded. The call for assault rang out, a high clarion cutting through the haze.

"Pyrvelos and Infantry, forward!" Constantine shouted, drawing his sword and taking his place at the head of one formation. The Byzantine soldiers, adrenaline coursing, surged from their cover and rushed the walls with ladders and ropes. Constantine wanted to lead the charge himself, but Andreas firmly insisted that the Emperor stay slightly back to direct the overall attack. Reluctantly, Constantine acceded—his place was to command, though every fiber of him wanted to be shoulder-to-shoulder with his men in the breach. Still, he rode closer now, into the fray just behind the second wave, to see and be seen by his troops as they stormed Livadeia.

The first assault team reached the gaping breach in the wall where the cannons had done their work. Amid swirling dust, Byzantine soldiers clambered over the shattered stone. They met the Ottoman defenders in ferocious hand-to-hand combat on the breach itself. Swords clanged, men shouted in Greek and Turkish alike, and screams of pain mingled with battle cries. An Ottoman spearman thrust at the first man over the rubble, impaling him, but was cut down by a Byzantine right behind his victim. More Imperial troops poured in, fanning out onto the wall walk and the streets just inside the walls.

At the main gate, Thomas's contingent smashed through the weakened doors with a makeshift battering ram, a felled pine log carried by ten men. The gate burst open with a splintering crash. Thomas himself was among the first through, his sword flashing in the dim light under the gatehouse. Desperate Ottoman troops met them in close combat. Thomas parried a strike from a scimitar, riposting to fell his foe, and pressed onward with a shout: "For the Emperor! Ieros Skopos!" His men echoed his cry, pushing the enemy back step by step.

Soon the city of Livadeia was engulfed in chaos and brutality. Byzantine soldiers flooded the narrow streets, engaging pockets of Ottoman resistance. Some townswomen and children ran for shelter or cowered in doorways as the fight swept through. The local Greek populace, having endured Ottoman rule, mostly hid until the outcome was clear. In some places, bolder civilians even tripped up Ottoman soldiers or pointed hiding enemies out to the invading Byzantines. Here and there, small knots of Ottoman defenders threw down their weapons and attempted to surrender to avoid slaughter. Most of those who yielded were disarmed and corralled under guard, but in the heat of battle, some were cut down regardless—years of pent-up fury were being unleashed. Constantine had ordered mercy for those who surrendered, but controlling bloodlust amid street fighting was nearly impossible.