The doom of the Turkish host was certain.
General Helios knew it the moment he saw the inferno rising on the horizon—his instincts, honed by decades of war, told him at once. Yet, being ever cautious, he waited until dawn, when the scouts returned with confirmation: Giovanni Junior had struck like a thunderbolt, setting all three Turkish camps ablaze.
The fate of the Sultan's army was sealed in the flames.
Without delay, Helios moved every man under his command. Only eight hundred were left to guard the city; the rest he dispatched to throw up barricades and garrisons, one after another, stretching for miles across every road and junction. Two hundred cavalry roamed in packs, hunting fugitives, cutting down stragglers, and—most importantly—searching for the Sultan and his nobles.
