From above, the Roman defenders, now hollow-eyed and numb, drew their bows in silence, loosing shaft after shaft into the churning sea of labor and screams below. The cries of their own people—begging in Latin, Greek, and every dialect in between—had long ceased to move them. There were no choices left to feel.
Within mere days, the death toll among the local population—killed by bolts, starvation, torture, or exhaustion—climbed into the thousands. The once-glorious province of Nikomedia, famed for its coastal fertility and ancient heritage, was now a smoldering corpse.
Scouts reported a terrifying truth: Nine of every ten homes were now abandoned or destroyed. The once-green fields were nothing but charred earth .Livestock, even those meant for breeding, had been slaughtered. Grain stores, seed caches, root crops—all plundered. The Sultan's men left no possibility for rebirth.
Nikomedia was dead.
