Chapter 36
Summer 1061 (453 from Hegira) around Qasr Yanna
Qasr Yanna was to fall, so they put the siege on the walls. First, everything that surrounded the city was devastated, from the entrance of Qal'at Xibet to the road to Qal'at an-Nissa. Then she waited, waiting for the nerves of the besieged to collapse or hunger to come. Notoriously, the Normans were not accustomed to siege techniques and weapons, being masters in enhancing their military value mainly in hand-to-hand combat. Nonetheless, Qasr Yanna was equipped with its own water sources and could boast some protected land within the walls. To judge something impossible is to betray the Giver of Faith, therefore no one would have admitted that Qasr Yanna was impossible to take. However, the truth was that without siege weapons an
