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Sturm Line (Musket Men Book 5), page 1
MUSKET MEN
BOOK 5
STURM LINE
By Gilbert M. Stack
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2024 by Gilbert M. Stack
Cover Copyright 2024 by Chris L. Adams
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Map of the Three Empires and the Surrounding Regions, 1196
Table of Contents
Map of the Three Empires and the Surrounding Regions, 1196
Dedication
The Commandments of Wotan
The Rule of Wotan
Prologue: The Sign of a New Earl
Chapter One: The Brigand
Chapter Two: The Minister
Chapter Three: Home Coming
Chapter Four: A Few Good Men
Chapter Five: Worth Dying For
Chapter Six: Posters
Chapter Seven: Old Friends
Chapter Eight: The Constable of Tief Graben
Chapter Nine: Childhood Home
Chapter Ten: A Long-Delayed Farewell
Chapter Eleven: Assassins
Chapter Twelve: Plots
Chapter Thirteen: The Messenger
Chapter Fourteen: Threats
Chapter Fifteen: Public Speaking
Chapter Sixteen: Recruiting
Chapter Seventeen: A Dark Conversation
Chapter Eighteen: The Rule of Wotan
Chapter Nineteen: The Graf of Tief Graben
Chapter Twenty: An Interview with Minister Brandt
Chapter Twenty-One: The Bandit
Chapter Twenty-Two: Extended Family
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Plan
Chapter Twenty-Four: Happy Birthday
Chapter Twenty-Five: Problems of Status
Chapter Twenty-Six: An Argument
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Holiday Gifts
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Indiscreet Instructions
Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Reading from the Book of Wotan
Chapter Thirty: The Proper Order of the World
Chapter Thirty-One: Solstice Night
Chapter Thirty-Two: Hate and Blood
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Sound of Muskets
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Calm before the Storm
Chapter Thirty-Five: Men
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Siege
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Decisions
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Smoke
Chapter Thirty-Nine: No Going Back
Chapter Forty: Minister Brandt’s Stand
Chapter Forty-One: Fire
Chapter Forty-Two: To the Death
Epilogue
The Kriegsturm Calendar
Ranks in Kriegsturm and Anjou
Excerpt from Preternatural 6 All Hallow’s Eve
About the Author, Gilbert M. Stack
About the Cover Artist and Mapmaker, Chris L. Adams
Other Works by Gilbert M. Stack
Contact Gilbert M. Stack
Dedication
This novel is dedicated to David Gemmel, sadly departed master of the fantasy genre. One of the things that fantasy authors struggle with the most is developing realistic religions for their worlds—revealing the spiritual side of their characters in a way that advances the story and feels believable. Gemmel settled on the simplistic, but totally effective idea of the Source—a deity that always struck me as reminiscent of the Judeo-Christian God—a non-personified all powerful being the worship of whom led people to strive for justice and to act well toward their fellow humans. It also permitted him to have priests and monks much as we expect them to look in the western world. So, thank you to David Gemmel who helped me see the possibilities in a well-constructed fantasy religion.
The Commandments of Wotan
Thou shalt always remain faithful to Wotan.
Thou shalt always defend your king.
Thou shalt always maintain your oaths.
Thou shalt always face your honorable foes blade-to-blade on the field of battle.
The Rule of Wotan
A man is:
Brave
Loyal
Trustworthy
Strong
Steadfast
Zealous
And
Right
Prologue: The Sign of a New Earl
Fortaleza, Al-Andalus, Kriegsturm
The Frost Moon, Day 20, Year 1196
Captain Haagan Bille fled the bitter northern cold of Frost Rige when he was fifteen years old after the authorities had finally figured out just who it was who had been stealing from the collection plate on Church Day for the last seven moons. He’d gone south—because where else could you run when you lived in Frost Rige—and discovered much to his delight that there were lands down there that had never even seen snow. Always a handsome youth, he’d used his good looks and easy smile to attract the attention of a Sturmkuste merchant trading in Al-Andalus, doing his best to exhaust him so he’d sleep through the night. To everyone’s misfortune, the man proved to have a bit more endurance than Haagan expected and woke to find him appropriating the surprisingly robust contents of his strong box. Haagan had been forced to kill him to keep him from calling the authorities down upon him. He absconded with the box and other items, and gone on to get very drunk with a bunch of young military officers who somehow convinced him to spend the money he had just liberated on a commission in the royal army with the five of them to attest to his good character.
The next day, after he’d sobered up, Haagan had discovered that joining the army as a lieutenant of pikes was a lot like going to prison. He was stuck. But he was a bright and handsome young man with no compunction at all about using his newfound authority—limited as it was as a mere lieutenant—to find ways to better his financial situation. Cidade Fortaleza offered thousands of opportunities for a little graft and a little extortion for a military man and he’d quickly put together enough income not only to live a comfortable lifestyle not imaginable in the frigidly restrictive moral climate of Frost Rige, but he’d even managed to buy his way into the rank of a captain which greatly enhanced his opportunities for a little criminal mischief.
Life hadn’t just been good—it had been fantastic.
Then the earl of Fortaleza had died and Haagan Bille’s dreamlike existence had started to twist into nightmares. For some reason, all the stupid Southies thought that one of the third earl’s bastard sons should inherit the earldom. Haagan had never paid much attention to politics, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that was never going to happen. But the Southies got riled up and started demonstrating day after day demanding that the government make Joachim earl. Haagan’s superiors all thought the mobs were paid to do this and speculated on where the money was coming from, but Haagan’s protection business gave him enough connections to know that this was not the case. Oh, a few instigators might be getting money to help direct the crowd, but the vast majority of the mobs shouting for justice for Joachim honestly believed the nonsense they were spitting out of their brainless heads. Their anger was righteous. And they were starting to turn their venom on everyone from the north who disagreed with them.
His men started getting beaten when they went to collect his money and the crowds were looking for any excuse to turn on the greenie thieves who were keeping Joachim from his inheritance. Very quickly, it wasn’t safe for a man to be out in his green and black Kriegsturm army uniform in less than platoon strength.
Then the stupid war with Anjou heated up again after that idiot everyone was calling the Sturm Front led some heroic last stand in Steil Pass. Five regiments were pulled out of Al-Andalus leaving just a few battalions, pieced together from the companies commanders hadn’t wanted to take to a real war, to hold the line in the south. Haagan felt contradictorily pleased that his company had been left behind—nobody sane wanted to face the Angies’ unstoppable tide on the battlefield—and terrified that there were no real soldiers left to face down the Southies if they actually rose up and tried to do anything.
With no graft left to boost his income and no real freedom to go sample the wares of the thousands of willing women who happily prostituted themselves in Cidade Fortaleza, life had become a form of hell for Haagan and his men. Then, things had gotten both worse and better at the same time when he and his company had been transferred to garrison the fortress of Fortaleza—seat of power of the earls of Fortaleza just a few miles down the coast from the city. It was worse here because there was even less opportunity to enjoy some soft Southie flesh. It was better because, with stout walls around him, Haagan was actually safer than he’d been any time since the real army had gone off to fight in the west.
At least he had been before today…
Looking down from the gate tower barring entrance to Fortaleza, Haagan stared with great unhappiness at the mob of some three thousand men who were rapidly coming up the road toward him. It wasn’t hard to see that the open wagons they escorted carried cannon—not particularly big cannon, but cannon none the less.
Haagan also had cannon to defend his walls, but unfortunately, his idiot superiors hadn’t sent a cannon company to g
“What are we going to do, sir?” Haagan’s irritating lieutenant asked. The man was even less dedicated to his job than Haagan was and since Haagan wouldn’t give a farthing to rescue his entire company, that was really saying something.
The captain eyed the cannon again before saying, “You leave that to me, lieutenant. Just make sure the men are on the walls looking fierce and ready.”
His men were good at looking fierce—it was necessary if one were to extort protection money out of merchants. What they were not good at was being ready. Now that the real army had gone west, Haagan had stopped drilling them completely—something that a small voice in the back of his head told him had been a mistake.
A properly drilled company could probably hold this mob until reinforcements arrived from the city even after the cannon blew open his gates. Haagan was absolutely certain that his men couldn’t do that. He also had serious doubts about reinforcements ever coming. It often felt like Kriegsturm had already written off Al-Andalus—why else would they have sat on their hands while Joachim Adler murdered bankers and drove the army off the streets of the city? If he was going to survive the next few days, he was going to have to start looking out for himself—something he had always been very good at doing.
He cleared his throat and addressed the mob in a loud and surprisingly confident voice. “What are you doing here?”
Evidently, they were expecting some sort of challenge for a very large man with the biggest falchion that Haagan had ever seen pushed to the front of the line some ten yards from the front gate to answer him. “We are escorting the earl of Fortaleza to the seat of his power, greenie!”
Haagan forced himself to smile. “It’s about time!” he shouted back to the man. “We have been waiting a long time.”
Obviously, this was not the answer that the man was expecting. “You have?”
“Yes, syid, my orders are to hold this fortress for the earl of Fortaleza and turn it over to him when he returns.”
He could see that these words fit better with the man’s initial expectations. The Southie squared his shoulders and challenged, “And I tell you, he is here! Open the gate!”
“I would be a poor guardian,” Haagan responded, “if I opened the gate to just any mob claiming to represent the earl. Can you show me the signs that a true earl has returned?”
“Signs?” the man blustered. “I have no—”
Another man, smaller and more rotund than the first man, stepped forward and touched the giant’s arm. “Qasim, I will take over now.”
Qasim bowed to the newcomer, confirming Haagan’s suspicion that this was Jacob Adler. If he had a few dozen muskets on the wall there was about a fifty-fifty chance that they could end the problem in the south right now. But Haagan didn’t think he’d try to do that even if he had any muskets. Where, after all, was the profit in that?
“Gate guard,” the new man called out. “What is your name?”
Haagan cleared his throat again. This was it. He either won or lost everything with this roll of the dice. “I am Haagan Bille, captain of Fortaleza, in service to the new earl.”
“I see,” the man told him. “And I am Joachim Adler, Fourth Earl of Fortaleza. Open my gates.”
“Please be patient with me, my Lord,” Haagan told him. “For while you certainly look like Earl Adler, I cannot open the gates until you prove yourself by providing the sign.”
Adler did not look angry at this, only thoughtful. “And what sign are you looking for, Captain Bille?”
“It is customary,” Haagan responded, making up his words as he went, “for the new earl to reward his loyal garrison with a bonus before taking possession of his estates.”
“Ah,” Adler did not hesitate even a moment in answering. “I am very familiar with this custom. My loyal guard will each receive a bonus of three months salary and a raise of half again their regular wages. My loyal captain will have his wages doubled and a thousand gold crowns in thanks for his devoted service.”
“My Lord,” Haagan responded. “Please permit me to be the first to welcome you back home to Fortaleza.”
Chapter One: The Brigand
Near Tief Graben, Eisenland, Kriegsturm
The Cold Moon, Day 15, 1196
“Hold up!” Sir Marshal Sturm, Earl Fortaleza, Knight of the Order of Harald the Conqueror, Colonel of Muskets, Hero of Steil Pass, and Liberator of Hekt lifted his clenched fist to signal to the men marching, riding, and driving behind him to stop advancing and set the brakes on the wagons. A man had just stepped out of the trees to appraise the caravan from the side of the road and out of Sturm’s peripheral vision, he could see a good many more men hanging back in the trees observing them. The fact that Caldor’s scouts had noticed nothing when they had ridden out ahead confirmed the suspicion that these men were not simply out for a stroll through the forest on this bitterly cold afternoon. They were brigands and the supplies in Sturm’s wagons, especially the muskets, the cannon, the black powder, and the ammunition—not to mention everything necessary to set up a large gun factory and a brewery—had to make Sturm’s little caravan a very tempting target for those who preferred theft to an honest day’s work.
He sprayed his fingers wide on his uplifted hand and everyone in his wagon train including women and older children quickly lifted a loaded musket. Most of them didn’t see the danger yet, but there were roughly seventy of them in the convoy—including a dozen vets from the Musket Club in Aachen—and all of those weapons had to give these bandits pause.
It didn’t.
Instead of backing away, many of the bandits lifted muskets of their own, each with a long bayonet gleaming on the end. The others mostly wielded pikes.
Sturm frowned, wondering how many enemies were out there. He was not in command of a company here. The best he could be said to have was a platoon and a bunch of armed civilians. This was not Steil Pass or even the defense of Hekt.
“Cold day to be traveling,” the bandit who had stepped out on the road told him.
“Cold day to be left by the side of the road with your guts spilling out of your belly,” Sturm answered as he got off his horse, bringing his musket with him. Like the man he was speaking to, he held his weapon in his left hand. Neither of them had pointed the muzzle at the other one yet.
“Now that doesn’t sound friendly,” the brigand told him.
“I don’t know about that,” Sturm responded. “I think that warning a man he’s courting a hard death is about as friendly as it gets.”
The brigand chuckled. “I suppose that is friendly, isn’t it?”
“I thought so,” Sturm agreed.
“Nothing south of the road,” Sergeant Benedict Gunner announced and many of Sturm’s men began to reposition themselves to take advantage of the cover the wagons gave them.
The spokesmen for the outlaws frowned. “That sounds remarkably like a sergeant.”
“It is,” Sturm confirmed. “Most of my men are vets.”
“Mine too,” the brigand warned him.
“They’re not vets like mine,” Sturm argued. “When was the last time you ran a drill?”
“When was the last time your men had to try and kill someone?” the brigand countered.
“That would have been just before we left Aachen at the Battle of Cheapside,” Sturm told him.
“Battle you say?” the brigand laughed again. “Sounds a little grandiose—”
“Fifty dead on their side, none on ours,” Sturm cut him off. “The numbers were small compared to my active service days, but it was a battle. Make no mistake about that.”
Sturm could see the man was no longer certain about fighting them. He had probably thought he could simply intimidate them into standing down. Now he had to consider reality. Even if he won, he was going to take a lot of casualties. It probably depended on how desperate he and his men really were.
