This is how I imagine the Sarmatian Nikola Zrinski

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=62557834104

In the epic poem (and in the national opera of Croatia), Nikola Zrinski and his officers corps smash through the Turkish lines, break out of the city, charge into the Turkish headquarters camp, and Nikola Zrinski kills Suleiman the Magnificent in a duel before being shot to death himself.  This is a suitable epic and badass way to end the story, and you can bet your nutsack that this is how they’d end the Hollywood biopic. 

But in reality it didn’t go down this way.  

In fact, Suleiman the Magnificent was already dead on September 8, 1566 – he’d died of old age three days before, but the Grand Vizier had kept his death a secret so that his men wouldn’t lose morale or abandon the fight.  In reality, the initial attack was devastating, but it did not take the battle-hardened Turks long to regroup.  Zrinski took two musketballs to the chest and an arrow across his head.  He would beheaded as he lay dying, and his head was placed outside the city walls on a spike.  The officer’s wife killed a few of the enemy as well before eventually being shot to death herself.  Of the 600 men in that final attack, only seven would survive – men who were spared by Turkish officers who had been impressed with the bravery and fighting spirit of their enemies.