Chapter 104: Good Friends Hold Hands Forever

It is the very first time that a foreign army managed to lay a successful assault upon the defense of the queen of all cities who has seen hundreds or thousand of years of peace is now dressed in a blatant blanket of bloody cold corpses laying in every corner of the streets, dangling on window panes, hang in mid air by spears, pierced to the last breathe on wooden barricades.

The men on both sides at this point of time are exhausted, stripped off of any strength to carry on, they are using up their last bit of force fending off enemies' attacks. They are famished, drenched in sweat but thirsty craving for water. But they cannot stop wielding their blades, at least stop before their foes collapse.

Glittering light of blades and sound of arrow tails tearing through the friction of air can be heard all over the places, accompanied be random crying of civilians who are trapped shivering in their houses in the middle of the battle field forms a unique choir of war, a choir that has the tune of tragedy containing no remorse, no humanity, and obviously no memories of whom they have slain.

"Push them back! Advance! Push them back to where they came from! Do not forget your formations!"

Julian can be seen desperately trying to put all the fighting forces in shape and spread them across the battlefield, although he did a relatively poor job due to the reason of language and lacking chains of commands.

He has half of the soldiers under him, mostly Venetians, that do not understand Greek at all, and another half who understands only Greek, with a tiny portion of people who understands neither Greek nor Latin. Then due to the messy situation of the battle field and the overly complicated terrains in the streets, it is hard for the messengers to find the respective commanders to pass the orders from Julian, and even harder for the commanders to find all of his men.

Tragic can happen to an army when its general do not know his soldiers and his soldiers knows nothing about his general.

"This wont work! Young man!" Cried Anjelo by Julian's side busy translating his orders to Latin. "You need to try some thing else! If things continue going like this all hell will go wild!"

"I need your advice, old man!" Julian turned around and held the hands of Anjelo with his eye pupils glistering the light of eagerness and plead. "Abdullah said that you are a man with superb intelligence, then you must have, quick enlighten me!"

"Sure, sure, but please release my hands first, young man… Why not jump out of the box and think some other solutions? You see…"

"Do not say anything extra, just tell me the plan!" Julian increased the strength on his hands as he continued staring at Anjelo.

"…. Since there is a lack of communication because of language, why not show something that they all understand? Like, the flag? Release my hands, please, young man, you are hurting me!"

For one moment Julian seems to be enlightened by Angelo's words but immediately he changed his face and squeezed the poor old man's hands even further. "But I have no commanding flags with me, old man! Where am I supposed to find a flag for you under this situation!"

Anjelo felt so much pain coming from his bones as his bones and joints squeaks under the immense pressure applied by his pal. He dared not speak anymore fearing that one more word he might anger the discourteous young man further and cause the rest of his pathetic elderly life to live on as a handicap. He shifted his head towards one direction and signaled Julian trying to grab his attention. "Look at there! Release my hands!"

Julian reluctantly turned his head to look at the direction, finally loosing his insistent iron grip on Angelo's hands which the latter used the opportunity to escape the eagle claw.

There is a dozen of scarlet red textile being hang outside the walls of a cobble stone building which used to be a garrison of Komnenian Pronoiars guard unit a few centuries back, leased out to the Venetians as a ware house couple of decades ago during the reign of Manuel II Palaiologos, who knows what the Venetians are after picking a venue close to both the walls and the palace of the Porphyrogenitus.

Wasting no further time, Julian rushed to tear down the textile from the walls, snatched a spear from a soldier and attached it with the textile, then climbed onto the roof of a building raising the flag high up sending it flying in the bellowing northern wind creating noises of the flag flapping in the air. He looked around and acquired a clear birds eye view of the surrounding situation and finally understood the real situation of the battle field and the reason why they are on the lower hand despite having the advantage in numbers.

"Everyone! I am the captain in charge of defending the walls of Blachnarea on behalf of my lord Antonius! Listen to my command!" Julian shouted out using all of his voice built up by years of services on ships in the raging seas, creating a violent sound wave travelling through the air. "Listen to my orders! Soldiers! Push them towards the walls! Encircle them!"

"Guards on the right flank! Push forward down hill! Push them towards the first and second towers of the Theodosian walls! Soldiers on the left flank! Support the central army and close the Gate of Kerkaporta as soon as possible! Your speed of retaking the gate matters the life and death of the city! Venetians..."

"… Aut…come…scuto aut in scu?"

"Charge!"

With the last word out from Julian's mouth and waving of red flags, the troops from three different directions finally started to act as one having a unified leadership, and they all clearly remembered the name to their heart, a commander who risked himself getting shot by enemy archers just to give them a coordinated command, the man called Julian.