Chapter 168: Unyielding Squares
Arrows and rudimentary matchlock musket balls began to rain down on the Ironstorm Jaegers. A few men grunted as projectiles grazed their limbs, but the hardened steel cuirasses of the Alemannian front lines easily deflected the outdated Ottoman fire.
"Hold your fire, boys," Eckhard called out. "Let them tire their legs in the mud. Wait for the optimal spread."
He watched the encroaching wave... Five hundred yards. Four hundred.
When the screaming Janissaries crossed the three-hundred-yard threshold, Eckhard raised his saber high into the air.
"Level your weapons!"
A terrifying clatter rang out as four thousand Jaegers snapped their grooved rifles into their shoulders. The front rank dropped smoothly to one knee, while the second rank stood tall behind them, creating a solid wall of blued steel muzzles.
"Set iron sights!" Eckhard bellowed.
Thousands of thumbs pulled back the heavy flintlock hammers of their proprietary rifles.
"Unleash hell!"
Eckhard slashed his saber downward.
Four thousand rifles detonated in the exact same fraction of a second. The resulting roar was deafening... a singular crack of thunder that pushed a cloud of smoke over the mud.
At three hundred yards, the Swabian conical lead rounds did not merely pierce the Ottoman lines; they devastated them.
The bullets tore through the bronze scale armor and chainmail of the Janissaries as if they were made of damp parchment.
Men were thrown backward off their feet, their chests caved in, their bones shattered by the sheer force of the ballistics.
The entire front line of the Ottoman advance simply ceased to exist, collapsing into a bloody heap.
Up on the walls of Veszprém, Count István Báthory and the Austrian commanders watched the field engagement in silence.
"My God," General von Harrach whispered, his hands trembling as he gripped the parapet. "..I have never seen a musket kill a man from that distance. It’s impossible. They are executing them like cattle."
Down in the mud, the screams of the dying Ottomans were drowned out by the clattering of the Jaegers reloading.
The Ottoman field commander, a furious Beylerbey adorned in a gilded turban, realized his infantry was being atomized before they could even draw their swords. Desperation took hold. He signaled his trumpeters, and a new sound rumbled across the valley.
The Sipahi.
Over five thousand heavy Ottoman cavalrymen, clad in chainmail and riding armored warhorses, burst from the flanks of the shattered infantry.
They kicked up a massive cloud of mud and water, screaming praises to God as they leveled their lances.
They fully intended to crush the Alemannian infantry under a tidal wave of hooves and steel.
Eckhard’s eyes narrowed as he felt the ground vibrate beneath his boots. He turned to his lieutenants.
"Infantry! Rally to squares!" Eckhard roared. "Fix socket blades!"
The commands were echoed down the line by a dozen NCOs.
The Jaegers moved with a speed born of drilling back in Augsburg. The long, horizontal lines of infantry rapidly folded in on themselves, forming massive, hollow squares.
The Austrian and Hungarian levies who had sallied out behind the Jaegers screamed in terror at the sight of the charging cavalry, instantly breaking ranks and fleeing back toward the castle gates.
Eckhard stepped into the center of the largest square, surrounded by his men.
The Sipahi closed in.
The faces of the armored horses were clearly visible, foam flying from their mouths.
"Thirty yards!" Eckhard shouted. "Front ranks, fire!"
The lead rounds shredded the charging horses, blowing massive holes through their armor and chests.
The front line of the Sipahi charge collapsed...
Hundreds of horses flipped end-over-end, crushing their riders in a horrific tangle of snapping bones and screaming animals.
The cavalrymen behind them tripped over the sudden mountain of corpses, creating a catastrophic pileup of flesh and steel.
Those few riders who miraculously navigated the carnage and reached the Alemannian lines were brutally impaled by the socket blades of the unflinching Jaegers...
"Second rank, fire!" Eckhard commanded.
Another devastating roar. Another wave of cavalry turned to bloody mist.
The Sipahi, the pride of the Sultan’s army, broke. The survivors violently pulled their reins, desperately trying to turn their panicked horses away from the spitting walls of Swabian fire.
As the Ottoman cavalry routed, the Alemannian artillery suddenly ceased its bombardment. The sudden quiet was eerie, but it only lasted for a moment.
From the northern ridge, the blare of brass horns cut through the smoke.
King Konrad’s heavy cavalry — the Swabian Cuirassiers and Dragoons — swept down the hillside.
Konrad had authorized no quarter... The Alemannian riders crashed into the fleeing, disorganized Sipahi, their swords hacking down the routing Ottomans without a shred of mercy.
The mud ran red as the hunters became the hunted.
Eckhard ordered his squares to stand down.
The Grand Marshal stepped out of the infantry formation, his boots crunching over the carpet of brass casings and dead bodies.
He walked slowly through the carnage, flanked by two of his officers, surveying the shattered remnants of the enemy charge.
A few yards away, a massive armored stallion lay dead in the mud. Pinned beneath the beast was the Ottoman Beylerbey. The commander’s gilded helmet had been knocked away, revealing a face covered in mud and blood.
His chest heaved erratically, his ribs clearly crushed by the weight of his fallen mount.
Eckhard approached the dying man, looking down at him with a gaze of respect.
"Are you the commander of this vanguard?" Eckhard asked quietly.
The Beylerbey coughed, a spray of dark blood painting his lips. He glared up at the Alemannian Marshal with eyes burning with defiance.
"I am," the Ottoman gasped, struggling to draw a breath.
Eckhard slowly drew a beautifully engraved flintlock pistol from his belt. He cocked the hammer back with his thumb, the click sounding incredibly loud in the aftermath of the battle.
"Do you regret marching your men into this valley?" Eckhard asked.
The Beylerbey managed a gurgling chuckle. He spat a mouthful of blood into the mud at Eckhard’s boots.
"With every beat of my dying heart, infidel."
Eckhard nodded slowly, accepting the warrior’s final truth. He leveled the barrel of the pistol at the commander’s forehead.
"Then let God sort the rest," Eckhard murmured.
He pulled the trigger. The pistol barked, and the Beylerbey’s head snapped back into the mud, his suffering brought to an instant end.
Eckhard holstered his weapon and turned his gaze toward the distant Ottoman encampment on the horizon. The Grand Vizier’s army was still massive, but the damage had been dealt.
"Re-form the lines," Eckhard ordered his lieutenants, wiping a speck of blood from his breastplate. "The Vizier knows we are here now."