Athelstan knelt before his drawn sword and his company did likewise praying before the sword as a cross. The artillery exchanges of formidable Hellenic ballistae and whistling French trebuchets made the very earth shake. The walls soon began to crumble. "May God have mercy upon us all." The eagerness of the crusaders led them on as the English company of lions held back and prayed. A decade of carnage and siege in the Lionheart's crusade had taught them many things. Firstly patience and respect for the foe. Hellenic excellence in siegecraft and machinery brought down seven siege towers and sent hundreds of men among the charging attackers into the air, limbs and bodies broken ere they fell into the dirt.
Willyame of Eskedale pointed to the far troop that ran forth under Mortimer's banner. There were Marchmen dying, calling out in the words of home. Athelstan turned to the troop and nodded, they stood, shouldered their hefty leather satchels and combat quivers with the weight of a large child on their backs, they buckled on their shields and began to breathe heavily preparing themselves for the charge into the foray and within range of the siege weaponry.
The lions with great experience of seeing men fall to catapults and ballistae in the Holy Land and at Sicily and Cyprus, observed the drop of the bullets as they boomed and rolled across the battlefield. Sprinting through the bodies of the screaming bleeding fallen and the shrapnel and dust cast up from the artillery hits; the Englishmen made it to the shadow of the Theodosian Walls without losing a single man. As Mortimer's men slowed in ascending the dark interior hollow of one of the very few remaining towers, the lions caught up with their fellow countrymen. They heard Mortimer's raging rallying call "For God and England!" And with more than a few smiles the lion company funneled into the wooden and hide shelter of the tower, clambering quickly upwards. The noise outside of chants and screams were made tenfold as sound echoed within this huge coffin. The blasts of artillery and crossbow fire drummed against its skin, men above soiled themselves in instinctual fear. Athelstan did not bat an eyelid at that, even men among his own ranks were shedding tears of regret for what was about to come. He himself found his hands and muscles shaking as he gripped the rope handles in the climb. Steadily more of Mortimer's men could be heard jumping out into the open air and drawing blood upon the walls.
Athelstan looked down, the tower was tall and lacked for light. His legs ached. Suddenly daylight was upon him and the noise of the violence opened up around him in every direction, there were already corpses and body parts flooding the white walls with black blood. Sounds of pain like animals giving birth deafened any orders that were called out. The lion company knew as much and used their eyes rather than their mouths and ears to hold their band together.
Willyame beckoned the men draw their bows. The enemy was about to suffer ten thousand English marksmen arrows a minute.