Over a month had passed since Honoria's disappearance, and despite the Byzantine imperial family's best efforts, they had completely and utterly failed to locate the girl. They were beginning to fear for the worst.
While the Emperor was struggling to deal with the fallout of his daughter's reckless behavior, Arethas was marching an army into Egypt. They had set sail from Ionia not long ago, and they arrived in Egypt not far from what remained of the territory of the Byzantine's decades-long conflict of invading the region.
Despite the Byzantines' best efforts, the Mamluke sultanate still held control of Egypt, Cyrene, and most of North Africa. Thus leaving the Byzantine Empire in a never-ending war for reclaiming lost territory. If not for the vast wealth gained from the Levant and the trade routes connected to the Mediterranean, the Byzantines would have had to give up this conflict long ago.
However, today was different; today, Arethas marched with an army of 15,000 men; these men were equipped with matchlock arkebuse firearms and pikes. Through Berengar's intervention in the timeline, the arkebuse, or arquebus, had become a reality far earlier than in his past life, and he had sold them in great numbers to the Byzantines while aiding them in the development of pike and shot formations.
The reason for this was simple, Berengar intended for the Byzantines to be a great power in the East and act not only as a bulwark in defense of the Muslim world but as an Ally he could rely upon to aid him against his enemies.
Berengar had thoroughly outraged the Catholic world with his reformation, and in doing so, created many hostile states surrounding his borders. If he did not foster a powerful alliance with the East, he would undoubtedly be fighting a coalition of the European powers by himself. After spending a lifetime at war, he would surely end up like Napoleon.
Thus in order to ensure that he would have a powerful ally, Berengar intended to restore the lost glory of Rome to fight alongside him against his enemies. Today was the first day that the Byzantine Empire showed off its newfound military might against the Saracens who sought to destroy her.
Arethas sat on horseback at the rear of his formation, protected by his guards. In the field, the Byzantine army equipped with their mirror pattern armor held their arkebuses and pikes in their hands as the Mamluke forces gathered on the other side of the sands.
Arethas had spent a significant degree of time, effort, and expense arming and training his army in the new weapons and tactics. Initially, he had desired to spend more time getting acquainted with their use, but unfortunately, Alexandria had fallen, and he was forced to move his forces to retake what was lost before their training was complete.
Unlike the Hussites, Berengar had not provided the Byzantines with any primitive form of field artillery. Thus at the moment, they were merely organized into arkebuse, pike, and cavalry units. The Mamluke army was a traditional medieval formation and was quite confused when they saw the formations and weapons wielded by the Byzantines.
Nevertheless, the battle had begun as the Mamlukes began to march into battle; seeing this, Arethas ordered his armies to meet the enemy in battle; soon, the troops would clash in the center of the field, where they would fight to the death to determine a winner. Eventually, the armies began to close the gap where Arethas shouted his commands, which the officers and NCOs relaid among the rank and file of the soldiers.
"Hold your ground! Hold your ground until you see the whites in their eyes!"
This was a phrase Berengar had given Arethas as the basis of when his troops should fire their weapons. Berengar had long since surpassed the need for such tactics with his rifled muskets. Still, for a smoothbore arkebuse, the effective range was limited, and to gain the most effective use of their weapons, they would have to fire upon their enemies when they were at extremely close range.
The Byzantines held their ground for some time. However, many of the men in their army did not have the discipline and strength of will to hold on until their enemy was mere feet away. Thus when the enemy drew near one by one, they would fire their shots, often missing their targets in the initial charge.
Though Arethas tried to control this, it created a ripple effect; pretty soon, the entire line had fired, and though many of their shots had hit their mark, cutting down the enemy infantry, the impact they had was not as destructive as it could have been.
After the rounds were fired, Arethas was forced to deploy the pikemen to protect his infantry as they reloaded. Thus the Mamluke soldiers quickly found themselves skewered at the end of the 20 foot long weapons.
By the time the Mamluke's had gotten past the pike wall, the Byzantine arkebusiers had fully reloaded and fired a second volley. This time the effect was far more devastating to the enemy line. Seeing his forces being rapidly cut down by the Byzantine firearms, the Mamluke general instantly ordered his cavalry to charge.
Thus the heavily armored Mamluke Cavalry rushed towards the Byzantine lines, and yet as they drew near, the pikes were lowered in their direction, causing the horses to buck wild in fright and flee in the other direction. Many of their riders had been cast from their horses onto the sand below as a result.
Others found themselves incapable of controlling their mighty steeds until they had reached a point where they were safe from the enemy pike wall—seeing this, Arethas merely smirked. The battle was beginning to head in his favor.
Though the Mamluke forces outnumbered them, the combined force of pike and shot was well beyond this Medieval era's capabilities. Though it was not as effective as Berengar's tactics, it was more than enough to crush the armies of the Mamluke Sultanate.
Arethas watched the sight of the battlefield with glee as the Mamluke forces began to route; quickly saying a prayer to God, he rallied his cavalry forces and began to charge the frightened Saracens. The Byzantine Cataphracts rushed down the hillside and into the fray, where they collided with the routing enemy while wielding their lances, skewering them upon impact and sending their souls to the afterlife.
The result of this battle was an overwhelming victory in favor of the Byzantine Empire. After cleaning up the battlefield, Arethas stood along with his ranks of men, where he began to chastise them for firing their first volley early.
"All of you are soldiers of the Empire, and yet you have failed in your duty. If not for the overwhelming advantage of our weapons and tactics, we could have lost this battle today.
Why? Because many of you were frightened by the enemy charge and fired your first shot out of fear, missing your targets entirely as you did so! I expect more of the men beneath my command, and thus during the rest of this campaign, I want you all to perform much better than you did today.
If every one of you can get to the point where you follow my commands to the letter, then this campaign will be an overwhelming victory for our armies! Glory to the Empire!"
After hearing Arethas' speech, the men of his army all began to salute him and yell their battle cry.
"Glory to the Empire!"
In doing so, Arethas looked fondly upon his men. They had suffered very few casualties this day, and though the Mamluke army had routed in large numbers, likely to return in the future for further conflict. This battle was an overwhelming success, one that inspired Arethas. While armed with these weapons and tactics, maybe, just maybe, the Empire could reclaim its former glory.
Arethas had one man to thank for this victory, his trading partner and friend to the West; he did not know what Berengar had planned for the future, but he was certain that one day the man would surely be a mighty King, and after this battle, he felt great regret for not trying to convince the Emperor to marry his only daughter off to such an outstanding young man.
Then again, Berengar was already happily engaged, and Arethas doubted he could convince him to accept Honoria as his lawful wife and instead turn his fiancee into another concubine. As for the Emperor, Arethas knew the man was too stubborn to make his only daughter the concubine of some King from the West. Thus it was simply not meant to be.
As he thought about this, Arethas began to wonder about what had happened to the Princess. Had she been found during the time he was away? Was she even alive? He would never guess that the girl had run off to Kufstein because of a few good comments he had made about Berengar.
These were the thoughts that plagued Arethas' mind as he campaigned to restore the Empire's borders in North Africa. This was just one battle of many to occur with the Mamluke Sultanate. Only time could tell if the Empire was to restore its former glory.
