"Yes, you are right." Aristedes said.
"So, the first serious attempt at an assault then?" Denes added with an ugly and appreciative smile.
"I count at least a two dozen storm ladders and half as many storm tents, Captain." Ioannes said, squinting his eyes towards the lumberworks far off in the Seljuk camp.
"Very well. How is the training of the peasants going?" Aristedes said.
"Well, they are willing, and training has given them something to do, so it has been progressing decently. Armament is poor though, and armour even worse so. I have about a hundred men, but many are as old as me and some have old injuries poorly healed or have starved over winters and seen their physique detoriate..."
"Let me rephrase that, Sergeant." Aristedes said. "Give me a short and consise report."
"Aye Captain. Two dozen spear-armed decent men, with pressed linen or quilted wool armour, leather helmets, young and strong. Half a dozen with hunting short bows and about a dozen with axes or swords and shields and some kind of protection. The rest, including women and children have wooden clubs and waterbuckets to quell any fire."
"Good." Aristedes said.
"I wonder why they have not received reinforcements? After all, we have seen several units march past us." Ioannes said.
"My guess is that they have encountered more resistance than expected further west, or they need the men to lay siege to The City. We're insignificant, these herders can keep us contained and there'll be plenty of time to deal with us when the real battles have finished." Aristedes said and watched as the Seljuks were lining up out of archer range, bringing storm tents forwards.
"I actually think they might have some problems. Theodore Lascaris has been known as a military man, perhaps The City rallied to his cause when the Turks closed in. There might be hope for us yet..." Ioannes said, his young face a study in determination.
"Don't get your hopes up yet, Lieutenant!" Denes said and laughed.
"The Lieutenant is right, you know. We exist here as long as the Turk is busy elsewhere, which means at least one of our five or six current Emperors have not rolled over and died. There might indeed be hope for us yet."
The men watched the exchange atop the gatehouse, some wondered if the Captain took an optimistic stance to keep morale up, but in hushed conversations others took them out of that notion. The Captain had never been one to lie to them, if he said so, it was true.
"Alright men, you know the drill. All to walls or positions! We have Turks coming, and this time it will not be as easy as last time, but we are still here, that means that the enemy has bigger fish to fry, and if there are big fish out still, it means the Empire has not rolled over and died." he took the banner and held it high. "So let's keep this flying in defiance, wether we are liberated or die here!"
A roar of acclamation rolled out from the battlements of the pallisades, met with a battleroar from the Turks, who had now advanced to the line of arrows in the ground in front of the fort, banging scimitars against round shields, stamping rythmically in the ground, making their half-a-thousand or so numbers felt, intimidating their enemy. Sitting on a horse was their leader, brandishing a scimitar in the air.
"Denes, do NOT miss this time!" the Captain growled. Denes smiled his ugly, toothless smile and ran off to one of the towers, climbing it and then, dexterious for a man of his size, climbing up on the pointed roof above the tower. There he quickly strung his bow and laid an arrow on it, aiming for a heartbeat or two and then letting it fly.
"Allah Akba..." the Turk leader had his head thrown back, yelling at the sky, when the arrow struck him at the right cheek and went through tounge and neck, coming to a stop protrouding from his left shoulder. A stream of blood came from his mouth and he then fell of the horse, to a collective moan from his men at this bad omen.
Then the men at the fort rose and let loose arrow after arrow. The Turks, confused without their leader and suprised that the fort's men could fire further than the furthest out arrows in the ground, broke and ran, leaving their ladders and storm tents in the grass along with many of their comrades, to the cheers of the men at the fort.
"Hah! I got him!" Denes said triumphantly as he jumped down from the roof of the tower to the battlement, the entire pallisade trembling under his weight.
"You nearly missed. I take you aimed for the chest." Aristedes said, but could not hide his smile. "The effect was the intended one, and here is your reward as promised." he said and threw a small water sack to Denes. "Last wine of out precious fort."
"To the slow roasting in hell of heathen Turks!" Denes exclaimed, opened the sack and allowed the purple red content to pour down his throat, the the acclamation of the soldiers.
"This is no time for festivities." Aristedes boomed. "This is not over yet." he pointed towards the Turks, who had been rallied under a second in command and now had volunteers rushing forward towards the storm tents. Some of the Turks fell under the arrow fire. But some also got to the tents and rolled them back to their comrades along with the ladders carried in them.
The Turks organised themselves and advanced steadily towards the pallisade again, now under good protection from the storm tents. A few arrows hit the tents, but generally, the fort's garrison held their fire, unless a Turk showed himself. Soon the tents reached the pallisade and ladders were raised. Screams in panic came as the defenders poured down boiling oil and threw down stones. However, it was like pouring sand in the sea, yet more Turks came and climbed the ladders.
A few ladders were tipped over, but these were higher quality woodwork than the ones before, and held and were raised again. Soon, Turks were at the battlement and a vicous melee ensued. Denes swinged violently, just a little bit drunk and near-berkserk and stained by Turk and Greek blood like his sword was like the scythe of death sweeping among the tightly packed turks, severing a head, sening it flying high and far, plunging his sword through leather armour scewering another Turk. He stood at the front and held the Turk advance towards the tower, while the men bedise and behind him used spears to push Turks not back down, but rather down into the fort, where they were assaulted by the peasant militia. A Turk jumped down, rolled when he landed, cut down a peasant and then rushed for the gate, only to be attacked by four or five yelling women bludgeoning him with wooden clubs until a peasant caught up with him and ran him through from behind with his spear.
At the gatehouse, Ioannes threw down rocks upon the turks milling about, trying to get from under the stormtents to the ladders, while Aristedes carried another pot of boiling oil towards to battlement.
"Damn waste of fine olive oil." he said as he poured the contents over the battlements, seemingly unphased by the desperate cries of pain that met him from below as he poured. He looked out of the battlement and winced as a Turk arrow missed him by half-a-foot. Archers in the towers were dueling with about a hundred Turk archers now that most of the fort's garrison was busy fighting on the battlements.
"Damn." he said and ducked as another arrow sweeped by, even closer now.
"They're trying to pay back in kind, Captain." Ioannes said between heavy pants as he threw another stone that bounced heavily off a helmet of one Turk, the man himself falling backwards, with his eyes white and blood from his nose and temples. Ioannes himself had at least three arrow shafts sticking out of his chest, but seemed unaffected by them.
Aristedes took out a small wooden whistle and blew it, the high-pitched sound cutting through the sounds of battle all around. From the two towers and from the gatehouse brave volunteers started to swing ropes around and around, soon letting them fly. The Turks caught on quickly and soon intensive arrow fire was directed at the men with the ropes, and two of them fell with several arrows lodged firmly in their bodies, and one screamed in anger and pain as two his his shoulder and arm. One missed, but the others managed to get the iron hook at the end of the rope stuck at a stormtent.
"Pull!" Aristedes yelled and at the fort's dirt floor peasants started to pull with all they had. Some Turks realised what was happening and tried to pull the tents down again, hanging from their roofs, but they were too tightly packed to get a organised response in time, and soon dozens and dozens of Turks were without protection as their stormtents flipped over.
That was the turning point of the assault, as Denes drove Turks ahead of him with a fire of hell in his eyes, and the men behind him started to pour arrows and stones down on the now unprotected Turks milling about in front of the pallisade. The Turks got over the wall in numbers at the other side of the gatehouse, but a determined counterattack from the tower, from the peasant militia and from the gatehouse drove them into a corner where they were slowly hacked to pieces, until the last few threw down their arms and surrendered, or were blugdened unconcious.
They tried to get over the walls one more time, and then retreated to lick their wounds. An eerie silence descended upon the fort, only broken temporarily by the sobbing of grieving women who had lost relatives and the occasional cry from a wounded outside the wall.
"Let us say thanks." Ioannes said, breathing heavily, kneeling among the strench of burned flesh, on the slippery blood-soaked planks of the battlement. The men watched Aristedes, who nodded and made an approving gesture, urging the men to kneel, and doing so himself. Almost to a man the men and women of the little fort kneeled and was led in a short and improvised prayer from the young Lieutenant, saying thanks to the Heavenly Father for the Victory he had bestowed upon them and for delivering them from the Turk, proclaiming their ever faithful and humble belief in Him, fearing no evil, for they knew He was with them.
Denes, surly and angry after his buzz had worn off, took no part in the prayer, instead, he walked back and forth along the battlements, listening for cries from wounded, leaning over and using stones, if any were available, or his bow and arrow, he silenced them.
