Sturm Strike (Musket Men Book 10), page 2
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Weber said. “That was cogently reasoned and persuasively argued.”
Prime Minister Larsen’s frown twisted up into a painful smile. “I suppose it might be true that I’m letting my fears run away with me. It’s just—Al Andalus has been a problem for so long that it’s hard to think of that not being the case.”
“I know exactly what you mean, Magnus,” the exchequer agreed.
Larsen found a strained chuckle to go with his upturned lips. “And the high king is right. Even if Sturm’s raid is successful, he’s still going to have Ahl-Alnaar Ashomal breathing down his neck. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to conquer the region is it? Not with just a few thousand men.”
Exchequer Visser, Archbishop Jenssen, and High King Torben all joined in the prime minister’s laugh.
“No, Magnus,” Torben said, “I don’t think that is something we have to worry about.”
Master General Weber kept his mouth shut to avoid any possibility of lessening the victory he had just won. These men didn’t need to know that after all that Sturm had already accomplished, the master general wasn’t prepared to say that any task he set for himself was outside of the realm of possibility.
And would it really be so bad if Sturm brought northern Ahl-Alnaar back into the high kingdom’s fold?
Part I: The Spice Road
Chapter One: Bad News
Madinat Alharir, Ahl-Alnaar Ashomal
The Flower Moon, Day 4, Year 1197
“They what?” The Gloriously Exultated Rami, High Sheik of Ahl-Alnaar Ashomal, dropped the book of poetry he had been reading in the east tower of his palace where a breeze from the mountains helped alleviate the heat and gave his full attention to the trembling courtier kneeling with his forehead pressed against the dark wooden floor. The iroko used to form that floor and the walls of this tower had been imported at great expense from deep in the heart of Ahl-Alnaar Januban, the southern and admittedly stronger, portion of the empire. Rami acknowledged the nominal superiority of his brother high sheik, a first among equals sort of affair, but in practice the great wall that prevented the nomads that made Rami’s life so difficult here in the north from raiding the south, also made it problematic for Januban to cause trouble in Ashomal.
“Forgive me for being the one whose duty requires me to bear to you this horrible news, glorious high sheik. This lowly one would never wish to bring even the slightest irritation into your life. This one only wishes to exalt your magnificence and—”
“What happened?” Rami finally tired of the man’s protestations.
“The northern cavalry is raiding Shamal Intimad. They have captured caravans. Slain your loyal subjects. Taken hostages. And told everyone that the earl of Fortaleza is coming to hold you responsible for...”
The man broke off, unable to make himself complete his sentence, but Rami had stopped listening to him.
“How dare that cur betray me?” he demanded of his officers and retainers gathered at the edges of the room. There were plenty of slaves there as well, but Rami rarely spoke directly to a mere slave. “Did I not send gold and weapons to support him? Did I not send three of my wisest fallah to cause the city of Cidade Fortaleza to rise up and kill off the northerners intent on keeping him from his inheritance? Did I not send a battalion of my mighty Ghulam to hand the city over into his keeping? Did I not send an army forty-thousand strong to secure his hold on all of Al-Andalus? How dare he betray me in this fashion? I will have his head! No, I will take his body, cut off his tiny little balls, and feed them to him. Then I will have his stomach cut open so the balls can be recovered and he can eat them again!”
To Rami’s intense displeasure, none of his ranking officers and officials joined in the chorus of praise for the punishment that he had just decreed be inflicted upon the treacherous Joachim Adler. He thundered off his dais to confront them. “Why are you not cheering? Why are your mouths clothed and your voices silent? Do you dare to suggest that Joachim Adler has not earned the terrible retribution that I have decreed for him?”
None of the men spoke. Not Vizier, Ali, nor Treasurer Faisal, nor his ranking Ghulam officer, Kulunil Zabair, charged with the defense of the wondrous city of Madinat Alharir, nor even his personal fallah, Khalid, who advised him on matters relating to Almighty Naar. Clearly there was even more bad news that none of these officials wished to share with him.
“Ali, what have you not told me?” he demanded.
“I have no knowledge of these raids, magnificent one,” the vizier assured him. “But at the same time, I cannot believe that Joachim Adler would turn on you in this fashion. If Adler wishes to hold onto his earldom in Al-Andalus, he will only do so with the strong support of yourself.”
Rami completely agreed with that analysis, and yet, he had just been told that Adler was raiding his lands.
He turned to Kulunil Zabair. “You also were silent, Zabair. Why would my Jiniral Darwish permit Adler to turn on me like this?”
“The short answer, mighty high sheik,” the kulunil answered, “is that he would not. Recognizing this, however, raises additional questions. How did the earl bring sufficient force through the great northern pass to conduct these raids?”
“And my jiniral has nothing to say on the matter?” Rami pressed.
The kulunil spread his hands helplessly. “Mighty high sheik, we have not had any reports from Jinirial Darwish since he took possession of the pass and entered Al-Andalus.”
Rami paused to ponder this, realizing that the kulunil’s summation was accurate. He had heard no glorious accounts of the progress Darwish was making as he conquered Al-Andalus for the glory of Rami.
A second courier was announced in the doorway, this one from the town of Rahat Alrihla, one hundred miles down the Spice Road from the great northern pass. While the man had taken time to clean himself and don proper attire, one look at his exhausted face made it clear that he had journeyed hard to bring the high sheik his message.
“You may enter,” Rami magnanimously declared.
The man threw himself upon the floor precisely as the other courtier had done. “Most Magnificent High Sheik,” he greeted him. “It breaks my heart to tell you of the most terrible calamity that has befallen your town of Rahat Alrihla.”
Rami’s frown deepened. “Tell me.”
“The filthy Granite Knights descended upon it like a plague of locusts, killing men, setting fires, and taking many hostages.”
“The Granite Knights!” Rami screamed. He wheeled on his four officers. “How is this possible? Jiniral Darwish controls the Great Northern Pass.”
Three of the four men cowered back from the high sheik’s wrath leaving only Kulunil Zabair facing him as a man should.
“Well?” Rami demanded.
“If I might ask your courier a few questions, mighty high sheik?” the kulunil requested.
With an impatient gesture, Rami permitted the act.
The kulunil stepped up beside the first courier. “How were the raiders from the earl of Fortaleza dressed?”
“They wore white shirts and black or dark green pants, sahib,” the courier quaked.
“And how were they armed?”
“With pistols and swords, sahib,” the man was nearly on the point of weeping.
“And did they happen to say which earl of Fortaleza they served?” Zabair concluded his questions.
“What do you mean, which earl?” Rami demanded.
The kulunil gave his whole attention to the high sheik. “Mighty one, you sent bows and arrows to arm Joachim Adler’s cavalry—not pistols. Pistols are a weapon of the northern cavalry. These uniforms are also not in keeping with those worn by the soldiers of the previous earl. I think it more than likely that that this cavalry, allied with our ancient foes, the Granite Knights, serves the pretender earl, Marshal Sturm—not Joachim Adler.”
“But how could Marshal Sturm be raiding my lands?” Rami asked with genuine confusion. “Did I not send my fallah to raise the city up and kill him? Do I not have an army conquering Al-Andalus? Did Jiniral Darwish not tell me that he had taken possession of the Great Northern Pass in my name?”
“All of those things are true, mighty high sheik,” Zabair conceded. “And yet, our enemies are raiding your lands. I think that at the very least, we must concede the possibility that the pass has fallen back under the control of Kriegsturm.”
A great rage welled up inside of Rami. “This will not do!” he shouted. “I must have control of the pass returned to me immediately!”
Again, silence greeted him until Zabair finally ventured, “If the northerners have somehow regained control of the pass, that suggests that Jiniral Darwish has suffered a serious defeat. To immediately retake the pass, it may be necessary to recall Jiniral Yakob Badawi and set him against the northerners.”
“But Jiniral Badawi is engaged against my cousin near the Wall,” Rami protested. “If I pull him away from that fight, it will embolden my cousin against me.”
He shook his head strenuously from side to side. “No, I cannot do that. I will have to order the nomadic sheiks to wipe this northern scourge off my land.”
Vizier Ali steeled his nerves and stepped forward. “The sheiks never respond well to direct orders, magnificent one. Giving them one now is an admission that you cannot push back these northerners yourself. That may encourage them to take insult and join forces with your cousin.”
“Those sheiks have all sworn oaths to me!” Rami protested.
“Unfortunately, magnificent one, as you well know the nomads are not prone to keeping their word when they find that breaking it is in their interests.”
“But I cannot recall Jiniral Badawi,” Rami grumbled. “What am I to do?”
“When your great uncle was faced with similar problems,” Fallah Khalid spoke for the first time. “He called upon our brothers in the faith to do Naar’s work against the followers and Wotan and rewarded them with a bounty on each kill.”
Rami immediately seized upon this idea, turning to treasurer Faisal. “How much can we afford to pay?”
“This would actually be cheaper than building another army,” Faisal noted. “I would suggest that you pay a bounty of ten besans for each Granite Knight killed or taken hostage and five besans each of the northern soldiers.”
“Twenty-five and ten,” Kulunil Zabair immediately corrected the treasurer. “The bounty must be high enough to excite the nomads.”
Faisal unhappily agreed.
“And what bounty should I put on the head of Marshal Sturm for the indignities he has heaped on me?” Rami wondered.
“We don’t even know that he has left Al-Andalus to join the men attacking us,” the vizier pointed out.
“It would be foolish indeed for him to come,” the treasurer concurred.
“And yet, he is the man called the Butcher of Steil Pass and the Conqueror of Hekt,” Zabair reminded them. “He may well venture south of the pass.”
“I will make the bounty five hundred thousand besans,” Rami decided. “And twice that if they bring him to me alive so I can torture him properly for the rest of his miserable life.”
Chapter Two: Life Is Often Cheap
Vigilância Sul, Al-Andalus, Kriegsturm
The Flower Moon, Day 23, Year 1197
“Earl Fortaleza, watch out!”
Sir Marshal Sturm, Earl of Fortaleza, Knight of the Order of Harald the Conqueror, Hero of Steil Pass, and Liberator of Hekt took a surprised step to the side as his translator, a southern man called Zain the Voice, shoved him hard and tried to position himself between Sturm and an admittedly crazy-looking prisoner who had somehow slipped his bonds, found a knife, and was charging forward to stab him.
All around them, normally decisive men froze, trying to analyze just what problem had arisen. Knight Captain Leandro Lima of the Order of the Granite Knights who had been speaking with Sturm caught sight of Zain shoving his way forward and wrongly assumed that he represented the danger. His fist came up and struck Sturm’s translator on the jaw, knocking him to the ground and accidentally opening a path for the assassin to get to the earl.
At the same time, Sir Lutz Faust, Knight of the Order of Freyr, caught sight of the danger that Zain was responding to and, like the translator, attempted to impose himself between Sturm and the would-be assassin. Faust was a big man and a capable warrior who was well respected by the northerners of Al-Andalus, but he put a foot down wrong when Lima knocked Zain down directly in his path. The ankle twisted and he sprawled awkwardly against the Granite Knight.
“Die, Alkhudar!” the escaped prisoner screamed. At least, Sturm thought the first word was die. He didn’t actually speak the southern tongue, but when a man thrusts toward your guts while screaming at you, die appeared to be reasonable translation of his thoughts.
Sturm pulled a tiny pistol, smaller than the palm of his hand, out of his pocket, cocking it as he did so. Then he pointed it directly at the man’s face and shot him between the eyes from a distance of roughly three feet. Less than half a second later, the man’s knife scraped against his breastplate, carried forward by the man’s momentum even as the tiny bullet knocked his head back and killed him.
Every one of the several hundred men getting organized just south of the wall guarded by Vigilância Sul froze, gaping at the little drama that most of them had missed. Sturm stood over top of three sprawling men with a teeny tiny pistol smoking in his hand.
“My Earl,” a clearly horrified Lima gasped. “I am so sorry. I heard the warning, saw the Voice moving toward you and I, I just judged it wrong.”
Sturm clapped him on the shoulder with his left hand. “I’m not the one you owe the apology too. I saw that blow you gave Zain. He’ll be lucky if you didn’t break his jaw.”
He crouched down to look at the dead man who even then was being pushed to the side by Faust and Zain as they struggled to sit up.
“Is everyone alright?” Sturm asked.
“Us?” Faust protested. “I thought that man was going to kill you!”
“Well, he wanted to,” Sturm conceded. “Fortunately, after the first fifteen or sixteen attempts on my life, I finally started listening to Gunner and Else and armed myself with a weapon I can carry everywhere.”
He showed them the tiny pistol in his hand. “It’s no good at fifty feet, but at five—it packs quite a wallop.”
“Praise, Naar,” Zain exclaimed as he rose up. “I thought I didn’t see him in time.”
“You did fine!” Sturm told him. “The assassin got close. Without your warning, he might have succeeded.”
He stood up. “Now, does someone want to tell me how a prisoner got a knife and was able to get himself free just as he passed near me?”
“I do not know yet,” Knight Captain Lima acknowledged, “but I guarantee I will within the hour. Those are my men-at-arms bringing in those prisoners.”
He started off, but Sturm caught him by the forearm and pulled him back.
“Sir Lima, I want you to understand that while we want to be certain that something like this never happens again, we also don’t want to punish someone just for the sake of punishing them. Do you understand? I don’t want a scapegoat punished for the sake of good order.”
“I understand, my Lord,” Lima told him before striding off toward the rest of the prisoners and the men-at-arms standing guard over them. Sturm doubted very much that his wishes would be listened to in this case. Lima had been twice humiliated by this affair—first because he struck the wrong man and second because his brothers in the Granite Knights were responsible for what had happened. Every man escorting those prisoners was likely to be punished as a result of this blunder.
And maybe that was honestly a good thing. Sturm couldn’t be certain. He reached down to Faust to help him regain his feet and said, “I don’t want this incident to push us even further behind schedule. We’re already getting a late start. Get you men moving up the road.”
“Right away, my Lord,” Faust agreed before limping off to follow his instructions.
Sturm turned to survey the rest of his army. In addition to Faust’s three thousand northern militiamen, he had two thousand southern men under arms—like Faust’s trained to wield pikes, but many also had swords. He also had one hundred of the Granite Knights, but there were most of two hundred more somewhere up ahead on the Spice Road together with Sturm’s small cavalry force under Major Roel Caldor. They had been raiding for more than a moon while Sturm and the rest of his army dealt with the invaders in Al-Andalus. Shattering that army at Forte Firme and Torre de Força had gone a long way toward lessening the immediate threat posed by Ahl-Alnaar Ashomal. But after those actions, there had still been hundreds and maybe thousands of soldiers scattered throughout southern Al-Andalus and it wasn’t completely clear that they could not regroup and continue to pose a threat in Sturm’s rear.
So, the earl had wasted weeks taking more prisoners, but now, even though many argued the threat in Al-Andalus was not truly over, he had decided to push on and teach High Sheik Rami of Ahl-Alnaar the price of invading Kriegsturm.
In his own mind, he wasn’t completely certain what that price would be—humiliating raids or outright conquest. So, he had decided to play it by ear and see what happened.
His eyes fell upon the heart of his army—fourteen hundred of his personal militiamen trained in his new musket doctrine that had foiled Anjou so spectacularly at Steil Pass and Hekt. Supporting them were six hundred pikemen from the regular army. Normally, those pikemen would be considered a blessing and a mainstay of Sturm’s force. But in reality, they were among the worst soldiers in Kriegsturm—the dregs of five regiments that were left behind when their brother soldiers were pulled out of Al-Andalus to strengthen the defense against Anjou in the west. Most of the dregs had either been killed after treacherously attacking Sturm, eaten by the drug-crazed southern inhabitants of the city during the Festival of the Midnight Bloom, or had deserted. These remaining soldiers had performed adequately thus far, but in his heart, Sturm didn’t trust them yet.
