Chapter 111: Antonius De’Ricci

Just as Harald is ready to throw half of his men into the blood shed tonight to give a promising answer to his admiral for the night, suddenly a chain of cheers and roars, together with the banging sound of swords slashing against shields can be heard.

Harald dazed for a while wandering what kind of commotion is happening behind there, after slashing down an Ottoman janissary he took the time and opportunity to turn his back and look behind, and the moment he looked back, all thoughts inside his head paused for a brief moment as he entered a state which he is lost of words. His eyes and mouth gaping wide open as if it has been frozen there in a facial expression of utter shock and surprise.

What he saw is shocking, the very last of the fifty back ups are sent onto the raging battle field, but there is one thing making them different from any other regular reinforcement. Instead of carryings weapons and arms by their hands, they wave the banners and insignia of the mégas droungarios, the flags of royal Roman purple, and the different decorations of the navy surrounded by light torches.

Needless to say, the mégas droungarios, grand admiral of all Roman navy, Kouropalates donning imperial Phoenician purple threw himself out of the safety at the back right into the middle of the bloodshed with only fifty men by his side, coming right after the head of the Ottoman Janissary general aiming to achieve a decisive strike and paralyse the Ottoman central of command.

After a brief moment of awe, Harald took a deep breathe, lifted up his battle axe and charged forward without any hesitation chopping down one after another foe standing in front of him coming for the direction where the Ottoman red flag stands. His men around him, too, seems to have their energy refilled in their muscles, charged forward together with their leader.

…

The appearance of the Roman general on the front line did cause a fuss among the Ottoman defences while also a jump in morales of the Romans.

The Ottoman commanders, although not knowing what is the meaning of these flags, but using his sharp eyes he can see the imperial purple flag and the doubled headed eagle, thus assuming that it must be someone of high ranks probably the main Roman general. With that in mind, he too gave up on his previous targets, diverting his attention together with his forces to this direction, moving the Ottoman red commanding flag alongside with him, which caused some confusion among the Ottoman janissaries, lessening the pressure on Julien's side.

Realising that Antonius is now on the battle field, Anjelo quickly summoned a few people to go around shouting out the message informing everyone on the frontier that their admiral is now in action fighting alongside with them.

Mauro too acquired the information not long after. He climbed up the walls once again gazing at the direction and sighed. "Antonius De'Ricci… Just like what Giovanni has said before, he will never let his buddies down in urgencies, always showing up at the place where needs him the most in time."

With that, he tossed his cutlass which is now full of dents and cuts away to one side, picked up another blade and rushed back to fight the Ottomans motivating his men with him.

An arrow landed right on the ground in front of Antonius, but the man showed no fear on his face. He ordered a sailor to pick it up, took out his bow on his back and returned it to the Ottomans.

Back to Harald's side, with the return of the Ottoman commanders together with his Janissaries, the pressure he faces is now increased by another level. As his Varangians is mainly an offensive unit which is inadequately built in defences. It can be said that their only form of self defence is to kill all the enemies in front of them as quick as possible, then they can say that they are safe.

By this time Harald has already pushed into enemy formation too far away exposing his fragile flanks to his enemies. He is literally running naked on his flanks with only the sailors acting as his flanks guard but Harald could not bet on their durability with the stake of his army, the one and only action he can take now is to keep on advancing.

Harald let out a thunderous roar and lifted his battle axe up, then slashing it down running her blades into the limbs of a Janissary decapitating him within the blink of an eye, his fresh crimson blood surged out of his artery and vein through the already ripped flesh. The Janissary, around twenty years of age judging from his looks on the young face, submitted into a state of mental collapse as he cries watching his entire arm fall out from his body. But fortunately for him, he need to suffer no more as Harald wields his axe once again and sends his head flying, ending the pain and agony he has in this cruel world.

Harald is now covered in both dried and wet blood. The only part which is still non-red now is his eyes, making him look like a living devil walking the earth among humans now exposing his true form. Whenever he prowls the battle field, he always leaves a trail of blood behind. Perhaps it will be even better in visual effect if Antonius puts two horns on his head and sharp teeth in his mouth.

But nevertheless, being a human means having limits. Harald is now both exhausted mentally and physically. Each step he goes forward his steps become heavier, and with sweat and blood flowing down his face he can now hardly open his eyes, and the Ottoman janissaries certainly will not be that kind to give him some chance to wipe. Just as the thought of laying down the axe and resting his arms came up in his mind, a scream from the back covered up the rowdy warzone piercing through his eardrums into his brain.

"Antonius De'Ricci advanced twenty meters forward!"

"Antonius De'Ricci advanced twenty meters forward!"