Chapter 452 - Mathamatician

The Sanjek narrowed his eyes and let a warning glare upon the still bowing advisor, totally looking unlike that of a incapable fragile man. "Who told you to tell me these?" The Sanjek continued staring at him, with his sight turning colder and colder and started interrogating the advisor. "Who made you say these kind of shat? Who sent you here to create a split between my army and my pals? Is it the Rumelians?"

Cold sweat started dripping down from the advisor's forehead like rain drops tainting his cloths wet as he hurriedly kneeled down to seek for pardon and forgivingness, repeating again and again that he said this for nothing but the pure intention of loyalty and worry for his lord. But apparently the Sanjek is not here to listen to his words as he summoned his guards and ordered them to bring this man out and have his head, for trying to disturb the morales and unity of the army.

The bellows and cries of the advisor can be heard further and further away, the Sanjek sighed and laid down in to his couch again feeling nostalgic out of a sudden. A slight worry started appearing in the side of his eyes as well, knowing that what the advisor said is true, his child who is still inside his mother's belly has no idea what a cruel and chaotic world he is going to face when he comes out, and the Sanjek knows that he has to live long enough to secure the environment and at least watch the child grow up before passing.

So, he must live.

On the other hand he knows that information leaks out of his tent like a sieve, every one standing in his tent right now including his guards, his maiden, his advisors might be a potential imposter and he knows the reason behind it very well, for his is merely a fragile old man who might lay down in to dust any time soon, and so they must find another ship to jump upon when this ship sinks. What is the best way of proving one's sincerity to the next boss? By selling away the current boss of course. What this advisor mentioned today might be true, but with the possibility of his words being leaked out to the owner of Kastoria very soon, the Sanjek cannot risk any thing especially when he need the young man to fight the Rumelians.

So, the advisor must die.

Even if he is truly loyal.

Meanwhile the lord of Kastoria has already arrived at the sight with the guards. The nature is already trying to recover herself from the wounds and bruises created by her children, the black tainted sites of the explosives is already starting to be covered up through the winter wind and dirt, the blown up trees and trunks is already turning in to brand new habitats for fungus and petite animals, but the bodies are still there of course.

Ceylant Şemseddin did not come unprepared this time, he came with a Saracen mathematician.

"Your highness." The Saracen mathematician approached Semseddin after an excavation on the site. "According to my calculations and testing of angles, there are no where within a hundred Qasbah where there is a place with a suitable angle large enough to house a large amount of artilleries to launch a bombardment of this size to this place, the main obstruction between this place with the nearest flat terrain is this hill adding up to almost two hundred meters tall."

"So you mean that it is impossible for the Rumelians to launch a shell strike on to our current location?" Semseddin took over the sheets of calculations filled with Arabic numerals and started scrutinising, he has received a profound education of a noble inclusive of the studies of Geometry by Al-Khwarizmi, a kind of studies that many Europeans does not have at his times.

"Almost impossible." The mathematician added a few more lines on to the sketches. "Unless if the Rumelians have created a kind of miracle artillery that lets say… is able to fire shells in a high arcing ballistic trajectories, create an indirect impact on to its intended targets. But that would bring another two questions, one is that I cannot imagine how much black powder they managed to fill in to those shells to create such a explosion and still some how to make it fly over here with such a thrust and energy. Second is I have no idea how would they make their location of strike so precise limiting to this place, I do not recall any form of measurement instrument that enable them to do this."

"I see…Then…" Semseddin sighed and tried to make his conclusion.

The Mathematician seems to have been absorbed in his own world of Arabic numerals and interrupted his employer with a saddened and discouraged emotion. "But if what I mentioned is true, then I can only say that not only has the infidels managed to catch up with our mathematical and scientific knowledge in the Abbasid era, taking advantage of our internal disunity, chaos and infamy brought to us by ourselves, Muslims. They might have even exceled more on top of our achievements…"

Semseddin opened his mouth and tried to refute the mathematician's idea, but he found out that he could not provide any point with logic and evidence that can prove the Mathamatician's words wrong."

So instead, this young Ottoman war lord Semseddin, embracing the genes of bravery and valour from both a Turk and an Epirote, grabbed his helmet and called out for the guards belonging to the old Sanjek. Upon them forming up, he threw them an idea that gave them an utter shock.. "I am going to inspect the frontier camps of the Rumelians myself to find out what kind of artillery they are using, and see if I can obliterate it, any one coming with me, please step one step forward."