Eye of the sturm musket.., p.6
Eye of the Sturm (Musket Men Book 11), page 6
“That is true,” Medi affirmed. “There are many great metal workers in the Pure Well. I think they are the ones who build all of the pumps in the city.”
“They also make the famous cannons and the beautiful bells,” the Voice added.
“There is also the well we passed on our way up the hill,” Russel reminded them. “We can always get water from there. We are not going to die of thirst.”
“That last is not a good option,” Sturm noted. “Think of it as a last resort. Having to cart our water through that huge district would make us very vulnerable. So, let’s talk more about the Pure Well.”
“You would have to go through your gate into Bir Mushtarak,” Medi suggested.
“That means, the Common Well,” the Voice translated.
“From there you could travel to the entrance to Raqiat Jayidan,” Medi finished.
Lima frowned. “Bir Mushtarak is the most heavily populated district in the city. It is filled with the desperate poor—mostly beggars and day laborers.”
“That is an exaggeration, knight captain,” Medi corrected him. “There are many small shop owners and innkeepers in the Common Well. It is true they are prone to rioting, but then so is the district you entered the city through where the merchants from the deep south stay and have much influence.”
Sturm tried to picture the layout of the city in his head. So, this district with the foundries is right next to the one that holds this palace? Why isn’t there a gate to it from here?”
Medi frowned. “I’m sorry, great sheik, if I have unintentionally misled you. There are two districts, one on either side of the Royal Well, that house primarily the nobility and they insulate the high sheik’s palaces from the common craftsmen and the great foundries. Between the foundries and ourselves lies Hulwat Jayidan, the Sweet Well, where the most elite of our nobility live in grand urban estates. There is a gate from the Royal Well into the Sweet Well. But our elite noblemen do not want a gate from their own ward into the area where the foundries are far down the hill. So once again, you would have to enter into the Common Well to reach your destination. Does it not make more sense to go directly there from here through the Common Well?”
“You said there were gates,” Sturm reminded him. “Are the gates of the other districts like this one?”
“How do you mean?” Medi asked.
“Are they designed to keep the crowds out and armed with cannon and supported by a wall from which arrows could be fired into a crowd?”
Medi nodded. “I see now what you are asking. And while I am not a military man, I believe that you have accurately described the other gates.”
“That means,” Sturm said, “that the leaders of the Pure Well could resist our using the gate, fire upon us with cannon and other weapons, and quite probably rile the crowds into a riot as they did so. We are not going to go through the Common Well if we can avoid it.”
“So, what are you thinking?” Lima asked.
“We take the gate into the ward with the elite nobles in it,” Sturm answered. “What did he call it? The Sweet Well. Our gate is not designed to defend against us so entrance should not be a problem. Then we either take the district or put up barricades to form a corridor to the western wall. Our men can rappel down into the Pure Well from there.”
“It is a very long way down, great sheik,” Medi warned him.
“They’re Eisenland boys,” Sturm explained. “They know how to climb mountains. One wall will not be a problem for them. And from there we can secure the foundries and tell their owners what we need. We won’t be asking them to work for free. We can come to an arrangement.”
Lima did not look as if he were convinced, but the others were all nodding their heads.
“I’ll want to make our move first thing in the morning,” Sturm told them. “So, let’s finish securing the palace tonight and get the men some rest so they are ready for tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve: Through the River Gulley
Nahr Mahwel Bridge, Disputed Territory
The Strawberry Moon, Day 9, 1197
Tariq watched the last of his men to successfully cross the bridge get slaughtered on the far side without, as far as he could tell, injuring a single one of the cursed northerners. Now the bridge was blocked with the carcasses of his men and their horses and he couldn’t try to drag the bodies away because the little cannons were already reloaded hoping he would do just that. As he considered the problem, the bigger cannons, back on the hill, fired again, killing another twelve or fifteen of his men and horses.
A few moments later, four of the little cannon fired at him with the same effect.
“We cannot just wait here, my Sheik,” Uncle Malik warned him. “The men are getting angrier and angrier!”
“The only thing I can think to do is to dismount and attack them through the gulley,” Tariq confessed.
“Then that is what we must do,” Malik told him. “We cannot retreat now—not without having earned even a single bounty.”
“Let’s get the men ready,” Tariq decided.
“They’re dismounting,” Caldor said. “They are probably going to come at us through the dry river bed. Sir Lutz, this time the weight of battle is going to fall on your pikemen.”
“If they’re smart, they will shoot arrows at us from the far side of that gulley,” the knight said.
“I will spread out my musket men among your pikes and have them fire back,” Caldor promised. “And since we outnumber them, we should be able to have half the men carrying their shields.”
Lutz Faust nodded confidently. “I’ll go give the orders.”
Cannon fire once again ripped through Tariq’s men, even as they rushed toward the edge of the gulley and started to slide down the steep sides toward the bottom. Climbing up would slow them down and he was worried about the pikes, but his archers would hurt any soldier reckless enough to stand his ground waiting to strike back at Tariq’s brother warriors as they climbed back out of the gulley.
“They have shields, Tariq,” Uncle Malik warned.
Almost, Tariq tried to call his men back, but it was really too late for that. They were committed.
And shields or not, the northerners were only men while he and his brothers were the great Gocebe Insanlar. He might lose a few more men, but the day—and the bounties—would be theirs.
“Shields!” Sir Lutz Faust shouted as the nomadic archers opened up on his line of soldiers. A thread of nervousness wound its way through his body, but so did a cord of excitement. Fighting under Earl Sturm had thrilled Faust like nothing else in his entire life. He felt like a hero of old. They were actually reconquering huge swaths of the land lost by High King Bloody Hadrada. There would be books, poems, and ballads written about them and his young sons would idolize their conquering hero father.
The arrows crashed into the shields with only a few getting past to cause men to scream. The next flight came after the first with only seconds in between them but the men held—even the Southies whom Faust had to admit had worked out better than he would ever have dreamed. Those men believed in the Sturm Front. He had freed those who had been slaves, paid them the same wages as the northerners, and spoke to them with the same respect he gave his other soldiers. And they, to Faust’s utter astonishment, loved him for it.
Faust was no fool. He’d tried to emulate what the earl was doing, but it didn’t come easily to him. A life time of looking down upon and fearing the southern inhabitants of Al-Andalus was hard to overcome in just a couple of moons.
He watched the nomads reach the bottom of the dried river bed now and start up the other side as another wave of arrows crashed into Faust and his men. Musket men shot back at the archers, but there was only a hundred of them and so the effect of their attacks, while appreciated, was not going to make the difference in this fight. Caldor could have strengthened them with his cavalry, but had decided to hold the horsemen back in case some of the nomads managed to break through Faust’s lines.
His jaw tightened. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
Gripping his own pike in his hand, he darted forward to the very edge of the gulley and stabbed down, feeling an arrow bounce off his helmet even as his weapon drew blood from the man below him. That caused the nomad he’d injured to slip and slide back down the side of the gulley with dozens of his injured fellows. But the other nomads were not cowed by these losses. They pressed on, many grabbing the pikes of Faust’s men and yanking down hard upon them. If a man didn’t let go of his weapon, he was likely to fall into the gulley where more nomads happily hacked him to death with their curved swords.
Faust stabbed down into another man. He knew they were killing and maiming far more men than they were losing and while he hated the idea of a battle of attrition—he knew that with his superior numbers he would win such a fight.
The cannon kept going off over their heads, cutting bloody strips through the archers. But still the enemy came on.
A man grabbed Faust’s pike and the downward yank caught him by surprise. He took a step forward, but there was nothing there and before he knew what was happening, he fell face first into the nomads.
A southern voice from the top of the gulley shouted, “They have Sir Faust. Let’s save Sir Faust!”
Faust was already fighting to save himself. He grabbed a leg and upended a man even as he tried to swing his sword down on the knight. Another was more successful, cutting hard into Faust’s head and knocking the helmet off of him.
Then the whole tide of nomads fell backward as Faust’s whole line of pikemen came down into the gulley driving their weapons deep into the nomads and pushing them back toward the other side.
Shocked, the nomads finally broke. but there was nowhere to flee except up and down the river bed where Caldor’s cavalrymen fired pistols into the escaping enemy.
A hand reached down and grabbed Faust’s arm, pulling him to his feet. To his surprise, it was one of the southerners. “What’s your name?” he heard himself ask.
“I am Kamal. I saw you fall, Sir Faust, and called for my brothers to come rescue you.” He paused. “You are like the Sturm Front, not the other Alkhudar. We will always fight for you.”
Faust hesitated a moment, trying to process what he had just heard. He had tried to treat the southern men as the earl did, but he hadn’t realized that they had noticed. In a fit of emotion, he did something that would have been inconceivable before the madness that struck with the Festival of the Midnight Bloom. He stuck out his hand to a Southie.
“Kamal, you and your brother soldiers have done all of Al-Andalus proud in this war. I will mention your initiative to the earl when next I see him.”
Kamal smiled. “That would be very fine indeed. You can also tell him that I am a great friend of the mighty hero, Zane the Voice.”
The smile that came to Faust’s face surprised him, but it reflected his genuine acknowledgement that what Kamal said was true. He hadn’t thought of the Voice as a hero, but that was what the southerner was—riding with the Granite Knights to trick the invaders into opening their gates. Not to mention later trying to put his own body between the earl and an assassin.
“The Voice is one of the earl’s best men,” he confided to Kamal. “It is good to hear that he is also respected by our soldiers.”
He looked around to see his militia—southern and northern—slaughtering the nomads as they tried to escape while the musket men continued to shoot lead into the archers on the other side of the gulley.
This was turning out to be a very good day.
Chapter Thirteen: Schemes
Rabie Earniq (The Sweet Spring), Madinat Alharir, Disputed Territory
The Strawberry Moon, Day 9, 1197
“We must gather up our families and whatever we can carry and flee,” Omar urged his friends. He was a minor nobleman by Madinat Alharir standards, but with enough estates in the mountains to the west to provide very well for his family and household. It was to one of those estates he wanted to travel now but his friends were not supporting him.
“Our betters tried that and what did it get them?” Salman asked bitterly. He was an older man who had seen a lot in his decades and he believed himself to be the natural leader of this group. “I hear this Sturm Front captured every single one of them who fled south and now they are all locked in the dungeons in chains.”
“We are all doomed,” Yayha foretold. “It’s the Sturm Front we’re talking about—the Butcher of Steil Pass. He’s going to murder everyone and then burn our city to the ground.”
“We must remain calm,” Salman urged. “Every disaster brings opportunities for the men clever enough to grasp them.”
“What are you talking about, Salman?” Omar wanted to know.
“If the Butcher of Steil Pass really does murder the high sheik, his officers, and the highest-ranking nobles, there will be great room for advancement for those of us in this room. The trick will be demonstrating we are worthy of such advancement.”
“And how would we do that?” Yayha began to calm down.
“By leading the opposition to the Sturm Front and being seen to drive him from our city,” Salman said in a completely matter of fact tone.
Omar’s face twisted in confusion. “But I thought we already agreed that he plans to leave after raping and plundering fair Madinat Alharir.”
“That only makes our task easier,” Salman assured him. “It means we do not actually have to drive him out. We only have to appear to do so.”
“I don’t understand,” Yayha complained just as a servant ushered Fahad into the room.
“Were you successful?” Salman immediately demanded.
Fahad waited for the servant to leave. “Yes, Salman, I destroyed the pump in Bir Malakiun.”
Omar cringed in horror. “But Fahad, you and your entire family can be executed for that crime. The pumps of Madinat Alharir are sacred.”
“Not at this time they are not,” Salman snapped back at him. “Now they are only a weapon in our quest to drive out the northerner. Now, Fahad, how do you think the Sturm Front will respond? I suppose it is too much to hope that he will simply loot the palace and go home. The poor northern simpleton probably doesn’t even understand what the pumps are and why they are important.”
“That is not true, Salman,” Fahad corrected him. “The very moment that the fountains ceased to spray the Sturm Front and his men charged out to the pumping station. I barely got away unnoticed.”
Salman leaned forward with obvious interest. “What did he do?”
“I cannot say for certain,” Fahad answered. “You know that while I speak the northern tongue, I do not speak it well and the accent of these musket men is very difficult for me.”
“But…” Salman urged him.
“But I hung around the palace pretending to be one of the servants that they released. The Sturm Front held a secret meeting, but afterwards gave orders that led me to believe that they will go to Raqiat Jayidan and force the craftsmen there to quickly repair or replace the pump.”
“That is more astute than I expected,” Salman admitted. “Fortunately, I have thought of several things we can do to distract him from this task and the first involves the many cannon in Bir Eomiq.”
Part II Hulwat Jayidan—The Sweet Well
Chapter Fourteen: A Change of Plans
Bir Malakiun (The Royal Well), Madinat Alharir, Disputed Territory
The Strawberry Moon, Day 10, 1197
The next morning, Marshal Sturm stopped in front of his soldiers as they stood in ranks in the courtyard and permitted himself an approving nod. There were one thousand of his twelve hundred musket men, four hundred of his six hundred pikemen, and all three hundred Granite Knights arrayed in formation. Every single one of the men were dirty. Some had bandages visible on their arms or legs. But their weapons were clean, their backs were straight, and to a man they looked ready for battle.
“Very good!” he complimented them in a booming voice. “Your brother soldiers who are not with us today will be holding the Royal Well behind us. We are going to advance into the next ward to the east. It’s called Hulwat Jayidan—the Sweet Well—and it is the home of the elite nobility of Madinat Alharir, many if not most of whom are already in our new dungeon.”
Men nodded crisply in recognition of his words.
“Sergeants!” Sturm called out. “March the men over to the western gate. Officers, gather with me here so I can give you your final instructions.”
The men began to march to the west as captains and lieutenants ran to join Sturm, Major Russel, Knight Captain Lima, and the Voice.
“Our objective,” Sturm told them in a much lower voice, “is actually the next district beyond Sweet Well. It’s called Raqiat Jayidan—The Pure Well—and it has the mechanical experts who can fix or replace the pump in this ward. So, we’re going to go in hard and fast and set up barricades—”
“Excuse me, my Lord,” Lima interrupted. “I should have brought this to your attention earlier. I know that I was the one who pushed for a limited incursion into the Sweet Well, but my men have spent all morning arguing with me for a different plan and they have convinced me that they are right.”
Sturm masked the feeling of irritation that surged through him. This was not the time to change the plan—especially in front of junior officers. “So, what do you have in mind, knight captain?”
“If I may, my Lord, I’d like to have Brother Filipe explain.”
Sturm nodded and the southern man-at-arms of the Granite Knights stepped forward. “My Lord, I believe we have a unique opportunity to take the whole of the Hulwat Jayidan district with little risk or danger to ourselves.”
“Go on,” Sturm suggested, intrigued by the notion.
“Resistance in the Sweet Well will never be so light. Most of the leaders of the ward are already in your dungeon and people do not like to defend the property of lords who abandoned them and tried to run away. If you set the Granite Knights loose, we can quickly clear whatever resistance there is and then your pikemen can take the walls to secure the perimeter.”
