“I know you’re doing the best you can,” Belhina shouted. “But we’re losing people because we don’t have enough medicine and when the war gets to our walls, it’s all going to get—he has a knife!”

  The last words came out in a scream and Else spun just in time to see a sharp steel blade stabbing toward her stomach.

  “No,” Henna stated with absolutely no compromise in her voice. “I have given you the price I am willing to pay. Either take the money or take your goods back out of the city. But whatever you decide, stop wasting my time.”

  She had been buying up all the food brought to the city since the festival had ended, and still these arrogant merchants thought they could haggle with her to get a better price. She wondered if they would have tried these shenanigans on her if she was a man.

  The merchant grudgingly accepted her offer and moved out of the way. The next man stepped up and she immediately realized that something was wrong with him. He was dressed as a southerner, but the eyes peeking out from beneath his turban were Sturmkuste blue.

  She saw the knife a moment later and shot to her feet. “Guards!”

  Moving caused the knife to enter her stomach instead of her chest, but that was small consolation as the man ripped the blade higher, slicing her intestines so that she feared they would spill out in front of her.

  She collapsed to the ground, even as her guards belatedly rushed to her defense.

  Abbess Belhina saved Else’s life by trying to grab the man’s arm as he stabbed at her. Her efforts caused the assassin to waste a critical couple of moments backhanding the other woman out of the way.

  Else used that moment well, digging her hand into the little pocket she had sewn into her dress.

  She pulled out the tiny pistol she had shown to Major Hart and the others just a few days before, wrapped her finger around the trigger, and shot the man in the forehead.

  People who hadn’t quite realized what was happening earlier reacted to the sound of the shot by screaming and trying to run away. Else’s guards belatedly turned back to her, even as her assailant collapsed to the ground. Twenty seconds later, the area had cleared sufficiently for the abbess to squat down next to the body and pull off the man’s turban.

  “This isn’t a southerner,” she exclaimed in surprise.

  Else, heart still pounding in her chest from her brush with death, examined the man’s face more carefully. He had dark hair and brown eyes, but the face was most definitely that of a northern man.

  The attack against Brandt wasn’t personal.

  They really did have a northern traitor hunting them.

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Cannon

  Outside Forte Firme, Al-Andalus, Kriegsturm

  The Pink Moon, Day 18, Year 1197

  Ruus studied the enemy regiment standing east about two thousand yards on a straight line at the base of the hill solidly in the path that Sturm would have to take if he were to try and help them as he did in the last battle. He had eight cannon now thanks to the bounty they had captured at Vigilância Sul. They were small as cannon went, but for what he wanted to do right now, small was probably better. A fist-sized ball was as likely to hit a man at this distance as one twice its size.

  To the north east, a battalion appeared to be forming up, getting in position to ascend the hill, but they had a lot of time before it would get up to them. Besides, a battalion really wasn’t that many men. They had already seen a battalion off in the last battle and Ruus felt very confident that if that was all the enemy had in store for them, they could do it again.

  The problem was, it wasn’t going to be all they had or else they wouldn’t have put a whole regiment in Sturm’s path. This was going to be a hard day any way you looked at it.

  “We’re ready, sarge,” Corporal Owens said to him.

  Ruus turned to Bell. “Permission to commence firing, sir.”

  “Permission granted, sergeant.”

  Ruus grinned. He simply loved to play with his cannon: “Alright, boys, let’s break up those pretty little formations of theirs.”

  A moment later, he gave the signal and all eight guns fired.

  Kulunil Burhan Khouri frowned. Eight cannon had just gone off—all small—probably only eight pounders, but it was still twice as many as he had expected. What was much worse, those cannon were not targeting the men preparing to climb the slope of Puoco Firme. Those men could move from point of cover to point of cover, meaning that many shots would flat out miss and others might get at most one or two men. No, these cannon had targeted the regiment waiting to head off any relief force attempting to come to the aid of the men on Puoco Firme. That was far more astute of the northerners than Khouri had expected. How long could he keep regular poorly disciplined army men standing in formation while furrows were cut through their lines? They were not Ghulam. Would they understand that it was worth a few hundred of their lives if holding their position permitted him to seize the high ground?

  He shook his head. No, they would not. Each cannon ball was probably only killing three, or at most four, men, but the regular army was filled with honorless cowards. If he wanted them to fill their role and discourage the musket men from coming out to help those on the hill, he needed to quickly relieve the pressure on them. And that meant he had to advance his timetable.

  “Tell Rā’id Oman to begin his attack,” he instructed a messenger.

  As the man ran off, eight more cannon fired from the top of Puoco Firme. That was much faster than he had expected. That was almost Ahl-Alnaar speeds in reloading those cannon.

  This could get bad.

  Rā’id Oman frowned as he heard his revised orders. Only his forward katiba was in position. The plan was to get the whole assault force ready so he could feed them up the hill in one overpowering flood, not piecemeal.

  He sighed.

  He was Ghulam. He could not disobey his orders even when he knew he was correct.

  “Rā’id Taatheer, you may start your assault.”

  The rā’id had received his rank because of the wealth and status of his family. He did not have the experience to realize that the rest of the army was not yet in position to properly support him. He grinned happily and bowed. “We will take Puoco Forte for you, Rā’id Oman.”

  Oman kept his face an expressionless mask.

  It was possible that Taatheer was correct, but it was also possible that the first katiba would all die.

  “Here they come,” Gunner announced.

  “Are the men loaded and ready?” Bell checked.

  “Yes, sir,” Gunner reassured him. Then in an unusually cocky impulse, he added, “I guarantee you that none of this first battalion is going to reach us.”

  “It looks to me,” Bell worried, “as if they are getting a second battalion organized down there.”

  “If they have any sense,” Gunner foretold, “they will have seven or eight more battalions behind that one, because we’re not giving up this hill without a fight.”

  They paused their conversation while the cannon fired. It was no longer in a single unified roar, but in a ripple as the different crews reloaded at slightly different speeds. When their ears stopped echoing with the sound, Bell confided, “If you’re that confident, sergeant, then I will keep Sergeant Ruus focused on that infantry kindly providing such an easy target for him.”

  “I think that is an excellent plan, sir,” Gunner agreed. “We don’t need Ruus’ cannon yet. There will be time to turn then against our own foes long before they reach the top of the hill.”

  “Very good,” Bell said. “I’ll go check on Sergeant Ruus and his men, but have no fear, I will be back long before those infantrymen climbing our hill come within musket range.”

  “That is not an easy climb, sir,” Gunner reminded him. “You’ve got at least four or five minutes.”

  Kulunil Burhan Khouri scowled as he stared up at the cannon firing from the top of Puoco Forte. He had expected the northerners to change their targets to his men climbing toward them. That would likely greatly limit the damage they could do. The cannon balls will bounce off the mountain and out into the air, many hitting no one. But they had more wisdom and greater discipline than he had anticipated.

  Not that it should matter in the end. A few more minutes and they would be forced to change their fire to defend themselves—either that or they would fall and stop firing all together.

  The earl stood with Major Russel at the head of the pikes watching as the cannon knocked down more of the enemy soldiers. “What’s that now, major?” he asked in his most jovial tone. “Six volleys?”

  “Yes, sir,” Russel answered. “How long do you think the Southies will stand and take it?”

  “I suppose it depends on how many men they are losing with each volley,” the earl mused.

  He turned to the pikemen’s senior noncom. “Sergeant Lasser, you’ve been around a long time. How many men do you think each of those cannon balls is hitting?”

  Lasser fought to keep the edges of his mouth from turning upward when the earl sought his opinion. He had spent his whole career seeing what scams he could run and trying to keep from having to do much real soldiering. And while he still had concerns about actually charging into battle, he admitted to himself that he was pleased with how the muskets had performed so far. Now things had just gotten even better. His commanding officer who had conquered a city and taken down that pretender earl like he was scraping shit off his boot, had asked his opinion.

  “It’s difficult to know for certain, sir,” he hedged. “Those balls are coming down from a height and bouncing unexpectedly. I think that’s what makes them so unnerving to the men under fire. The ball plows through the man behind you and then bounces off in another direction taking out two or three more.”

  “So, you think each cannon is killing maybe three people per shot?” Sturm pressed.

  “I think three per shot is a good guess sir,” Lasser agreed. “But, if I may sir, I had to endure cannon fire when I was a private. It isn’t the number of men killed that is the true value of those shots, sir. It’s not knowing when the next blow will come and not being able to do anything about it.”

  The earl considered that answer for a moment, before saying, “So, what you’re telling me is that the longer Sergeant Ruus can drop cannon balls on those men the better.” He smiled as if he had made a small joke. “Are you advising me to hold back here, sergeant?”

  “The boys will go forward if you order it, sir,” Lasser told him, even though he would clearly prefer to stay and watch the show. “But it isn’t hurting our morale either to see those men ahead of us getting chewed up by Cannonball Ruus and his crews.

  The earl surprised Lasser by barking with laughter. “I agree, sergeant. We may have to intervene, but for now this is Lieutenant Bell and Sergeant Ruus’ show.”

  He took out his spyglass and examined the enemy lines. “Lasser is right, Russel. Those men are very unhappy just standing there. If this keeps up, we may get lucky.”

  “Do you think they’ll break or charge?” the major asked.

  “Either one would be fine with me,” Sturm answered.

  Lasser, to his surprise, found himself agreeing.

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Opposing Orders

  Outside Forte Firme, Al-Andalus, Kriegsturm

  The Pink Moon, Day 18, Year 1197

  Rā’id Oman ground his teeth together in frustration as his second katiba finally reached the base of the hill. The first group should have been within firing range of those muskets by now, but they were moving more slowly than expected. That was good, because so were the rest of the piss-poor regular soldiers. The only encouraging note was that the northerners were still shooting their cannon at the fwij east of Puoco Firme. Every shot they wasted on those other soldiers let his slow moving katibas close a little more distance.

  He strode off to find out why the third katiba still wasn’t in position behind the second one.

  Kulunil Amad of the regular army stared nervously up the slopes of Puoco Firme and wondered just how long that inhuman Ghulam monster thought his men could just stand there while those cannon fired at them. Didn’t he understand that they were dying? If he just continued to stand here, eventually the northerners would kill every single one of his men.

  Another volley sliced into his ranks knocking men over before the balls hit the ground and flashed off in another direction. Ten feet from Amad, a soldier screamed as his leg was ripped away by the rebounding ball of lead.

  Amad wanted to vomit.

  He didn’t think he could take much more of this pressure.

  He wasn’t going to stand for it any more.

  “Give the signal to advance,” he snapped to his aide. “We came here to kill the northerners, not to let them practice firing cannon at us.”

  Kulunil Burhan Khouri’s head snapped up in shock when he heard the horn signaling an advance. He had given no such orders. What the hell did Amad think he was doing?

  He turned to an aide. “Go tell Kulunil Amad to get his men back into position or I’ll have his head.”

  The aide ran off but Khouri knew that if the northerners were alert, it might already be too late to fix things.

  Sturm smiled when the enemy blew its horns and began to advance. He pulled a royal out of his pocket. “Sergeant Lasser, I know we didn’t actually bet on what the enemy would do, but I wish we did, because he’s doing exactly what you predicted.”

  He flipped the coin to the sergeant who snatched it out of the air. “Thank you, sir.”

  Sturm had already turned away from him. “Major Russel, prepare your men. Remember to have them keep low as we’ll be shooting over your heads.”

  Russel saluted and turned to face his pikemen, ready to give the order for them to kneel and ground their pikes. They were the last barrier protecting the musket men if the enemy managed to get this close. Sturm didn’t intend to let that happen, but it was always good to be prepared.

  The enemy continued to advance until they reached a spot about five hundred yards away. Then their formation abruptly broke apart, with the center halting while the two flanks advanced, turning them into wings.

  Sturm didn’t know what was going on, but he sure as hell was going to take advantage of it. “The battalion will advance.”

  Khouri’s aide reached Kulunil Amad when the fwij was approximately five hundred yards away from the enemy. “Kulunil Amad,” he shouted. “Kulunil Khouri commands you to turn your men around and go back to the place he told you to hold.”

  Just as the young man finished speaking the cannon on the hilltop fired again, ripping paths of crimson destruction through their lines. At the same time, the men closest to Khouri’s aide, tried to stop advancing even though Amad had not yet given the order to halt. The two sides of the army didn’t hear the order and so continued forward.

  “We can’t go back there!” Amad protested. “Those cannon are ripping us apart.”

  “The kulunil did not ask your opinion,” the aide snottily reminded Amad. “He says if you do not follow his orders, he will have your head.”

  Amad grew red faced with outrage. “He cannot speak to me that way! I don’t care if he is Ghulam. I am a kulunil too!”

  “Look!” One of the soldiers shouted and then all of them started blabbering and pointing toward the south.

  Amad and the aide both turned to find that while they had been arguing, the Alkhudar had begun to advance.

  Sturm watched with increasing joy as confusion continued to spread through the enemy regiment. The front of the wings were only a hundred and fifty yards away now, while the center pointed in obvious fear. Sturm decided to target the larger group. “Battalion halt! Pikes kneel. First rank, target the soldiers on our left.” He waited two additional seconds before shouting, “Fire!”

  Tongues of flame erupted from the muzzles of the first rank’s guns, staggered the front lines of the left wing whose men immediately stopped, staring at Sturm’s army in pure horror.

  “First rank to the rear and reload,” Sturm continued. “Second rank, take aim at the soldiers on our left. Fire!”

  A second volley of lead knocked down another chunk of enemy soldiers. They were teetering, obviously in shock. Sturm suspected they would break if he charged his pikes into them, but he didn’t forget that there were thousands more enemy soldiers behind these.

  “Second rank to the rear and reload,” Sturm ordered while an officer whose brain worked began advancing the right wing again.

  Sturm ignored him. “Third rank, take aim at the left wing. Fire!”

  The left wing broke. They’d only lost perhaps two hundred men, but they felt alone and exposed and they fled back toward their own lines.

  Sturm kept attacking. “Third rank to the rear and reload. Fourth rank, take aim at the right wing. Fire!”

 

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