1453: Revival of Byzantium

Probably these people got to thank the unsung hero Antonius for them staying alive, but certainly Antonius would not want to have this kind of appreciations on him at this point of time. Although he has already heard about such things in the reports given to him, but it is only here did he manage to have a full look on the terrain and landscape of the battlefield. 

Antonius and his crew climbed to an elevated point which is a mere two hundred meters away from the enemy walls, a dangerously close proximity under the cover of the winter woods. The spot where the Ottoman decided to build their fort is a piece of typical elevated terrain, the forts are built on the elevated point with a difference of altitude of roughly five meters and ten meters on the highest peak, with an inclined angle of around ten degrees. It might seem to be small but combined with the fact that there are at least six hundred defenders standing on those forts, the advisors and mathematicians speculate that they shall need to have around five hundred casualties in order to remove this fortification, which is utterly unacceptable.

The forts are built in a 'S' and 'V' shape valley with each fort having a three hundred spacing to one another, ensuring that if one fort is under attack, the enemies can only attack them from one side instead of surrounding it. And if possible, the various forts can safely reinforce one another under friendly covers. These forts built a chain of connecting points which forms a passage for the Ottomans to maneuverer during a possible siege. It seems like the designer of these fortresses, whoever that is, must have been preparing here long time ago just to prepare a feast for them.

However, it seems like Antonius is not a bit worried about these bunch of fortresses made from wood, he complemented about the forts saying that the designer and planner of these forts must be an experienced and talented one, perhaps even better than Helio. Instead of focusing on these forts and think of a way to break through it, he started observing the surrounding geography and landscape. The entire valley, the mountains, rock and the streams surrounding it is formed in a rather strange way where by it seems like it has been moved by some thing.

So rather than discussing about these defences the enemies prepared for them, the military leaders and advisors started eagerly discussing things like how is this piece of unique geographical landscape formed. Some says that it must be the ancient Pagans Greeks digging this valley out of the mountain range to make way for a Monastery, some says that it is because there are too many people walking along the same route in this valley for the past hundred thousand years that created this valley, but of course, most says that it must be Christ who created this valley with his power, as he is feeling pitiful and compassionate for the residents of Epirus who will need to always climb through the mountains in order to reach the relatively more advanced Aegean coasts to see what is called true prosperity. Many agreed with the last piece of reason except for two people. One being the now no longer young man Fisnik, and the other one surprisingly is Apostolos, who is still with Antonius.

According to the oldest man Apostolos, who have a rather different perspective of view as compared to the other folks, this valley is not created by God, nor is it created by the men, instead it is created by the nature. This immediately raised a round of debate among the men, but to Antonius having a different opinion is actually a good thing and so he lifted his hand up to quieten the rest of his men down, and let Apostolos to speak to see what words of wisdom he has this time.

"Your majesty, from my knowledge, I think that this stream diverted its way not because of those… supernatural or credulity beings. Rather I think that it is because of the intuitive causes."

Antonius stopped the clergy behind him who eagerly wants to jump in to the debate with this unknown old man who came from a rural village, and asked again. "Intuitive causes? What is it? You think that it might be a mighty earth quake that trembled the stream flow out of its original position?"

"No, your majesty." Apostolos shook his head as he climbed down his mule, walked to the original flow of the stream and gently touched the already dried up ditch smelling his fingers under his nose. "You see, there is a curve in the original passage of the stream meaning that it used to flow in a curved direction being blockaded by several rocks and boulders. But what many people do not realise is that although water is soft, it has power too. So, through the hundreds and thousands of years of constant charging and washing, the water slowly eroded the foundation of the rocks blocking its path of freedom, and finally the surge of stream pushed these boulders away, and so it changed its course of flow to where it is now."

"I see." Antonius jumped down from his mount too and remarked. "Even some thing as soft as water can erode away its seemingly impenetrable hurdle that is hindering its path towards the freedom of flow through constant effort. Apostolos, what do you think about the terrain here?"

"The terrain wise…" Apostolos looked up towards the mountain ranges on the other side and counted back on his memories. "I remember that when I was still a junior, the war between the Palaiologans raged on and their armies threw animal carcasses in to the water sources around our village in order to poison them to spread plagues, which in turn made the water around us unsafe to drink causing multiple kids to die from infections and diarrhoeas. So, we are forced to dig a well for a new unpolluted source of water underground."

"You know, your majesty. Our village is located on a piece of high land which forces us to dig deeper for water. I remember that we dug for days to a depth of around twenty meters deep before water finally started gushing out, and it is there that I found some thing, it is a group of shells, but already turned in to solid hard rocks making it different to differentiate in the dirt. After that we dug two more wells in the village until the war is finally over, and I found stony sea shells and what it looks like turtle shells in these wells as well, all the wells have a distance of around half a mile so I made a daring conclusion, that is there was a god forsaken age long ago before we human even existed where the entire continent beneath our feet is a vast ocean…"

"You mean that these valleys and mountain ranges we are looking now are probably the boulders beneath the ocean way back in time?" Antonius is awed by such hypothesis. "Then the sailors during that point of time must have a pretty troubled time sailing among these waters…"

"Indeed, so what I speculate is that the world around us is in a motion of constant changes since the day of its creation, even before history is being recorded in words…"

"Your majesty!" Suddenly, a clergy man who is also a representative from Constantinople stepped up and interrupted in an urging tone. "You must condemn this man from further speaking! He is trying to spread heretic views that is vastly beyond the politically correct ideologies and believes set by the Ecumenical Patriarch! The world and human are created by God in seven days, every one knows that means and so I demand you, as the legate from the chantry to shut this man from further spreading his wrong knowledge immediately!"

The Caesar gave this man, who is already in his fifties full of beard and refused to wear any armour or protection in order to show the robes and ribbon he is wearing which displays his social statues, and decided to ignore him. He turned back to the group of military commanders and advisors, gathering them up and commented.

"People always say that the world around us never change from the day it is created, but if what Apostolos says is true, then I got to say to some people that even the bigger world revolving around us is changing by itself every single day, then why we as humans be so reluctant towards changes? Must be only wait until the moment when the bigger tide of history pushes us towards the inevitable change, then we change our ways of life? No, we must change as soon as possible by ourselves, we must take the initiatives, we must embrace ourselves for the future before the others."