Brace For Impact

"Ready yourselves boys! Brace for impact!"

Antonius shouted out to his men behind the cover of his shield, the Ottoman horsemen have come into a distance dangerously close.

The next second, the two forces collided against each other like a rogue wave hitting hard a cliff. The only difference in this case is that, the cliff moved.

The power of horses is completely irresistible for human bodies. The more built up ones are forced to fall back a few steps to hold his grounds, while the weaker ones are knocked into the air by the sheer force of the horse. The circle formation that seemed to be unbreakable just now against the Ottoman infantries appeared to be as weak as a child when facing cavalries.

Before artilleries and muskets appear, horse is the true king of war, unchallenged for more than a thousand years.

Antonius too is badly hit by this collision, streams of blood began flowing down his lips and hands, he knows that this crash has already damaged his internal organs when he felt a sensation of burning and flaming inside his guts, heart, stomach and intestines. But still he managed to hold off this crash and not collapse, with the consequence of a numb right arm that is.

Biting his teeth and using all of his might, he drawn out his dagger and sliced it into the throat of the horse bringing the beast down with its rider immediately, then he laid off his shield, jumped onto the rider whose legs are crippled by the horse, and then gave him a load of punches making his face completely distorted sending teeth flying away and immediately out of breathe.

The Ottoman cavalry units started dispersing and going back to where they came from, ready to do the trick again, giving Antonius and his men some time to get back some breathe.

Antonius looked around him; of the hundred and two men fighting alongside shoulder to shoulder a couple of minutes ago, thirty of them can no longer open their eyes, stand up and fight ever again. Then there's about twenty brave souls who probably will have to live a life on wheel chairs. In other words, with one crash by calvaries, the Roman formation lost its seems to be invincible functionalities and suffered a loss of half of the entire force. This is the capabilities of the king of ancient warfare, cavalries, capable of devastating a company of experienced and well experienced heavy infantries.

"Drag them inside, close the circle!" Antonius ordered anxiously towards those who are capable of standing up but lost the abilities to engage, and also those people waiting inside the gates.

Twenty-five men formed a long spear formation in front of the city gates waiting for the next cavalry charge covering up for those pals lying down to get back to safety. Abdullah also got on his nerves running around gathering more men onto the walls to shoot at the approaching Ottoman infantries at all costs, he even picked up a bow and a quiver of arrows and started shooting at his own countryman.

The Ottoman cavalries came back with their mounts even faster this time, forming a spearhead with Talmi and his vice captain. Even in a distance Antonius can see that excited blood shot eyes of the Ottoman rider whom he forgot the man's name again. Antonius gripped his spear in hand tighter waiting for a chance to pierce.

However, Antonius suddenly caught the glimpse of a smirk from Talmi's face and immediately realised something is not right, before he could respond, the Ottomans slung their spears into the air sending it directly into the back of the twenty five standing Romans' formation. It does not need Antonius to turn back to know that now most of his men are dead.

A few Ottoman cavalries are brought down by arrows but that do not help against the situation, a surviving Roman heavy infantry felt a sharp pain in his feet, and when he looked down, he saw a spear that penetrated right through his legs sticking his body attached to the ground and blood began spilling out of his body tainting his armour and the ground below him red, the young man started weeping and howling in shock, it must be a pretty gruesome sight to see to make a warrior into this state.

Several Romans standing by Antonius' side can no longer hold their spears steadily, dropped it on the ground and escaped. But Antonius cannot blame them, they have already showed enough courage, no one can really hold their grounds when they know they are going to die, their natural instinct of survival will force them to run away.

Seeing this, the Ottoman cavalries halted, laughed and jeered at the Romans saying curses and referring them as cowards.

"Easy, sir, we will not die that fast yet." The old mercenary, still standing by Antonius' side, and comforted him in a rather special way. "Seems like our enemies want to play with us... With us being the toys."

"You not running away?" Antonius is quite surprised when he realised not all his men has ran away.

"Of course, not…"

"Furthermore, I have no reason to live anymore, I bought an estate and a business in Genoa, my son is serving as a mayor under the king of Naples, and my grandchildren have already married… I would rather go to heaven earlier to meet my wife…"

"Then why did you join this kind of knife licking job? For that fifty Ducats per annum? Or is there something else you are after?" Antonius feels like he has just heard the most unbelievable thing of this year.

"Just to experience life when I was young, I am not that kind of person who can retire into a peaceful life, you know, I love the scent of war… the lice of bunks and cheers of my mates…. Not dying by old age on a bed surrounded with women and my children."

"I see…"

"Easy admiral!" The old man laughed and patted Antonius' back.

"Today is a good day to die."