Final Throne / Season 1, Episode 9
Blood on the Wind
The stone beneath my boots trembles as another roar splits the dawn, a sound like the earth itself cracking open. Dust cascades from the jagged edge of the Theodosian Wall, peppering my face, stinging my eyes. I blink through it, gripping the hilt of my sword, the leather wrap slick with sweat despite the morning chill. Below, in the scarred ditch beyond the outer rampart, Ottoman banners flutter like bloodstains on the wind—thousands of them, more than yesterday, more than the day before. Their drums pulse, a heartbeat of war, steady and unyielding. My own heart answers, heavy as the marble of lost basilicas, as I turn to Theodoros, whose face is a map of exhaustion, lines carved deeper than the breaches we’ve patched thrice now. “They’re massing again,” he rasps, voice rough from shouting orders through the night. His helm sits crooked, dented from a glancing blow two days past, and his left hand hovers near a bandaged thigh, though he thinks I don’t notice. “Janissaries at the fore this time. Not rabble. They mean to test us proper.” I nod, my gaze dragging back to the enemy lines. The Janissaries—Mehmed’s elite, trained from boyhood to kill without hesitation—stand in disciplined ranks, their curved blades catching the first light. Behind them, the great cannon, that cursed beast of iron,...