Late July light lay over the Dobrujan plain, too bright for a land that still smelled of blood. Iskander wiped sweat from his eyes as he and his rebels marched into the dusty main street of the newly liberated village. The small Ottoman garrison lay dead or in chains; villagers peered from doorways, torn between fear and hope. An old woman crept forward and pressed a kiss to Iskander's hand, murmuring thanks. He managed a reassuring nod and looked back over the blood-spattered square.
By midday, the rebels had secured the village. This was one of several villages now under their banner, a few thousand peasants and a few dispossessed minor nobles fighting as one people, lightly armed but fierce with purpose.
Toward afternoon, when the light had gone honey-colored and the sweat stung the eyes, a tremor came up the southern road, a drumbeat of hooves that thickened the air. Men paused mid-task. The square thinned to silence. Farid lifted a hand, and the scythes and spears rose with it, iron points catching the sun. From the shimmer of heat, a small party took shape: six, perhaps eight riders at an easy trot beneath a white flag marked by a crimson lion. Mail glinted. A lance-tip flashed. Someone muttered a prayer; another spat and shouldered his polearm.
They drew up ten paces short of the well. Dust breathed from their horses' flanks. The lead rider swung down, a broad-shouldered man in a travel-stained surcoat where the lion showed through grime, proud even in fading. He introduced himself as Boyar Stefan, envoy of Prince Fruzhin of Bulgaria. In courteous tones, Stefan relayed his master's proposal. Prince Fruzhin, he said, had also risen against the Ottomans and offered an alliance. Silistre, the last Ottoman stronghold in the region, was already besieged by Fruzhin's forces on the Danube. The prince invited Iskander to join the siege and help deliver the final blow. If Silistre fell, Fruzhin promised to recognize Dobruja as an autonomous domain under Iskander's guidance. Stefan spoke of the Sultan's weakness, Ottoman armies were bogged down fighting rebellions in Anatolia, and hinted that even Byzantium and Serbia were preparing for a new crusade.
Iskander listened in silence. When Stefan finished, he inclined his head, thanked him, and promised a swift answer.
That night, by lamplight in the tavern yard, Iskander gathered his closest advisors. The mood swung between excitement and suspicion. Farid argued they should seize this chance: Fruzhin's knights could help finish the fight. "We can't pass up an ally when the Sultan is weak," he said, eyes bright. But Selim shook his head. Scarred in body and soul from the failed uprising years ago, he warned, "We shouted 'Down with the masters' when we rose up. Will we now kneel to a prince? When victory comes, he'll forget his promises. Why invite a new master now?" Others murmured in agreement.
Iskander sat quietly, thumb running over the pommel of his dagger as he weighed their words. Years earlier, Constantine Palaiologos had vowed help from Byzantium, had even promised to spread the manifesto calling for the oppressed to rise. But nothing was ever sent, and no soldiers came. Dobruja's rebels had been left to fight for themselves. He cleared his throat.
"We cannot fight the Ottomans and the world alone," he said. "If we refuse Fruzhin, we may stand isolated when a larger war comes. We will take what help is offered, so long as it serves our cause; we need allies, even if they come wrapped in crowns." He met Selim's wary gaze. "We will join Fruzhin, cautiously. Together we can break the Turk here and win breathing space for our people. But we bow to no one. We fight alongside, not under, this prince. Agreed?"
Around the circle, heads nodded one by one. Their course was set with both hope and trepidation. The talk went on a little longer, circling the same doubts and fears, until they could no longer pretend there was any other path left to them. Every argument returned to the same hard truth: without allies, their rising would wither before winter. At last, even the doubters fell silent, and grim resolve settled over the gathering like a closing hand.
A week later, Iskander's band arrived at Silistre to find Fruzhin's army encircling the fortress. Tents and banners stretched across the summer-browned fields by the Danube. Prince Fruzhin greeted Iskander at the siege camp's edge, clasping his arm like an old comrade. The prince's green eyes gleamed with fervor in a battle-worn face. "We stand together today," Fruzhin declared. Without delay, he outlined his strategy: a war of patience. They would surround Silistre and starve it out rather than waste lives in a direct assault. Iskander agreed; his rebels had no cannons to breach those stout walls anyway, but they could help seal every road and ford, cutting the city off from all supplies.
Fruzhin was confident no relief would come. "Wallachia will not intervene," he assured Iskander, recalling that Prince Alexandru Aldea had quietly refused to aid the Sultan so far, undermining the Turks at a critical moment. In truth, Fruzhin added, Aldea was likely only biding his time, waiting for his own chance to cast off the Sultan's yoke and claim independence. With the Ottomans preoccupied far away, Silistre was isolated. Victory was only a matter of time, Fruzhin promised, clasping Iskander's shoulder.
The siege days dragged on under a searing sun. Fruzhin's seasoned troops and Iskander's rough fighters dug in side by side, ringing Silistre with watchfires. Inside the walls, the Ottoman garrison hunkered down, awaiting a rescue that never came. Each passing day sapped their strength. Outside, the allies tightened the noose steadily and without mercy. Yet Iskander could not entirely relax. By night he walked the perimeter, overhearing grumbles in unfamiliar tongues. Some of Fruzhin's knights clearly distrusted the Dobrujan rebels, especially the Muslims among them. Once, Iskander caught a low conversation: a sharp-faced Bulgarian noble muttering that Iskander's egalitarian talk of "one people" was a dangerous spark that had to be stamped out once the Turks were gone. A Hungarian mercenary spat in the dirt at the idea of fighting alongside "infidels." Fruzhin smoothed over such tensions whenever they surfaced, and Iskander forced himself to ignore the slights. Still, a sliver of unease lodged in his heart.
After two weeks of siege, Silistre's end came quietly. One sweltering afternoon, a white sheet fluttered on the fortress battlements: the Ottomans were surrendering. Their food was exhausted, their hope gone. Cautiously, Fruzhin's army entered the town and took charge. The remaining Ottoman soldiers, gaunt and hollow-eyed, laid down arms and were allowed to depart under watch.
In the central square at sundown, Fruzhin clasped Iskander's hand and raised it high to the cheering crowd. "A victory shared is twice victorious!" the prince proclaimed. Exhausted fighters from both camps applauded and embraced. For the first time, Fruzhin's red lion banner flew alongside a ragged flag that Iskander's men had carried, symbols of their unity. Iskander smiled and lifted his fist with the rest. When the cheering surged, he let his arm fall.
That night, a brief celebration united the victors in Silistre's citadel. Wine was poured and prayers of thanksgiving rang out. Amid the toasts and embraces, Iskander watched. A knot of Fruzhin's knights spoke low in a corner, glancing toward the Dobrujan tables. When the friar gave his blessing, he named saints and princes and moved on without looking their way. Iskander excused himself early.
Deep in the night, with Silistre's taverns and camps finally fallen silent, Iskander lay restless in a small inn chamber where some of his people had been quartered. The air was stifling and thick with the day's sweat and smoke. He was on the knife's edge of sleep when a figure slipped into the room and touched his arm. It was Yusuf, one of his scouts, and by the sliver of moonlight Iskander saw terror in the young man's face.
"Master, wake up, now," Yusuf breathed. Iskander was instantly alert. Around them, dozens of rebels slept in exhausted heaps. Yusuf's whisper trembled: "I overheard something… in the Bulgarian camp. Two of Fruzhin's knights. They're coming to kill us before dawn."
For an instant, Iskander wondered if he was still dreaming. Then the meaning settled, this was no nightmare but the betrayal he had half expected. "Kill us?" he asked, his voice low, testing the truth he already suspected.
"They said we're heretics," Yusuf answered, his voice shaking. "That our beliefs stir up the peasants. They want us gone, tonight, while we sleep. We don't have much time."
Cold shock washed over Iskander, banishing any trace of fatigue. The betrayal he had feared now loomed in plain, murderous terms. He squeezed Yusuf's shoulder. "Rouse the others, quietly. Do it now."
Within minutes, Iskander's core group was awake and apprised of the danger. Farid's face contorted with rage, and he reached for his sword. "Those devils, after all we've done—"
Iskander caught his arm before he could storm out. "No. We can't fight an army of them. Our only chance is to slip away unseen." Selim was already moving among the others, rasping orders to stay quiet as they gathered their few belongings. A couple of rebels still too wounded to walk were hoisted onto shoulders without a sound. Nobody argued. The resolve in Iskander's eyes allowed no debate.
They crept out of the inn and through Silistre's narrow lanes like ghosts. Ahead, a small postern gate in the eastern wall stood ajar, Selim had seen it left unguarded. The only sounds were the shuffle of sandals on cobbles and the faint whimper of a child quickly hushed by her mother. Iskander led the way, heart hammering. Each dark doorway could hide foes; every distant torch made them flinch. But fortune held. One by one, Iskander's followers slipped through the gate and into the open night.
They had just reached the cover of a moonlit field when the silence shattered behind them. A chorus of shouts rose inside the city, followed by screams. Glancing back, Iskander saw torches blooming along Silistre's walls and an orange glow of fires within. The slaughter had begun. Knights and soldiers who hours before, had feasted as allies were now cutting down anyone found in the Dobrujans' quarters. Even at a distance, the screams carried on the still air.
A few of Iskander's people halted, tears on their faces, as they realized what fate they'd escaped. Some slower comrades or wounded left behind were being butchered back there, sacrificial lambs to the new betrayal. Farid made a choked sound of grief and fury. Iskander stood rigid, fists clenched. He had known betrayal in his life, but this, ally turning on ally at the moment of triumph, was almost beyond bearing.
Selim touched his shoulder gently. The old fighter's eyes were hard and sad. "We're alive," he whispered. "That's what matters now."
Iskander nodded once, a curt, mechanical motion. Alive, yes. But everything had changed. In the span of a single night, the promise of brotherhood and shared victory had turned to ash. He felt something inside him harden into iron. We will never again trust our fate to the hands of others, he vowed silently. The only ones he could truly depend on were those now gathered around him in the darkness, the humble and the outcast, bound by the same dream of freedom.
He drew a long breath and raised his head. Beyond the fields, the black outline of the forest beckoned, a chance to disappear and survive. Behind them, Silistre flickered with the evidence of treachery. Iskander turned his back on that sight and addressed his people in a low, steady voice. "Move," he ordered. "We head east, now."
No one hesitated. Weary and heartsick, the rebels followed Iskander into the sheltering shadows of the trees. Not a word was spoken; none was needed. They all understood the lesson written in blood behind them.
Author's Note :Webnovel doesn't support maps, so if you'd like to see the campaign map for this chapter, it's available on Patreon, where this chapter is also unlocked and readable. Book Two is currently deep into its final major campaign arc there as well, the ending is actively unfolding, 15 chapters ahead for anyone who wants to read on!