Re: Steel and Gunpowder

For three days, the clash outside Veszprém devolved into a stalemate.

Refusing to march his men into another meat grinder, the Ottoman Grand Vizier adapted. Under the cover of night, thousands of sappers and Akinji light infantry dispersed into the pine forests and ravines surrounding the fortress. They dug zigzagging trenches, inching their bronze bombards closer, attempting to strangle Veszprém without stepping into the open.

Sitting in the Lord’s room at the peak of the fortress, Konrad ignored the distant pops of musket fire.

The door to the room opened. General Voss stepped into the room, his uniform dusted with chalky grit.

"Your Majesty," Voss said, offering a salute. "I apologize for the interruption."

Konrad didn’t look up. "Unless the Grand Vizier ordered a frontal assault, Voss, this better be important."

"No assault, Sire," Voss replied. "But the interrogators yielded results. The Sipahi captains broke."

Konrad stopped drawing. "Go on."

Voss unrolled a map of the valley.

He tapped three locations... a pair of pine thickets to the north, and a dried riverbed hugging the eastern ridge.

"The Vizier isn’t just digging trenches," Voss reported. "He concentrated eight thousand Janissary skirmishers and sappers in these three blind spots. They are using the terrain to shield themselves. Tonight, they plan to drag their siege bombards to the edge of the tree line and blast our gates at point-blank range."

Konrad stared at the map. "Mobilize the Third Heavy Artillery Battalion. Leave the field guns. Bring the twelve siege mortars to the highest courtyards."

Voss hesitated; the mortars hadn’t been fired yet.

"Triangulate coordinates for these three locations," Konrad ordered. "Load them with fragmentation shells. And Voss?"

"Yes, Sire?"

"Deploy three companies of Ironstorm Jaegers to form a perimeter around those tree lines. When the bombardment flushes them out, I don’t want a single skirmisher making it back alive."

...

Two miles away, within the northern pine thickets, thousands of Janissaries huddled in the underbrush, sharpening scimitars and checking matchlocks.

The dense canopy and steep incline blocked Veszprém from view. They were waiting for the sun to set.

Suddenly, a high-pitched whistling echoed through the sky.

An Ottoman captain looked up. An iron sphere, trailing a sparking fuse, fell vertically through the canopy.

It hit the earth in the center of a group of resting soldiers.

The Janissaries stared at the smoking iron ball.

Then, the shell detonated.

The iron casing shattered into hundreds of razor-sharp shards radiating outward. The concussive shockwave liquefied organs, while the jagged steel punched through leather and chainmail. The blast shattered the surrounding pines, turning the trunks into flying splinters.

Before the screaming registered, eleven more mortar shells plummeted from the sky, striking the ravine and thickets simultaneously.

The earth heaved. The hidden camps transformed into hell. There was no frontline to fight. Men were blown in half, limbs separated from torsos, raining down onto the forest floor alongside burning branches.

Every forty-five seconds, a fresh volley of twelve explosive shells dropped into the blind spots.

"Run! Get out of the trees!" a lieutenant screamed. "To the open fields! Retreat!"

Abandoning their weapons and dying comrades, the remnants of the eight thousand skirmishers scrambled out of the burning thickets.

They burst from the tree line into the muddy fields.

Waiting for them, arranged in staggered firing lines, were three thousand Ironstorm Jaegers.

The Jaegers stood in silence, rifles raised to their shoulders.

An Alemannian field officer lowered his saber.

"Fire."

The rolling crack of three thousand rifles tore through the air.

The volley tore into the fleeing Ottoman mob. The conical bullets punched through the Janissaries, leaving massive exit wounds. The front ranks collapsed instantly, tripping the men behind them in a bloody tangle.

The Jaegers took a step back, drawing fresh cartridges and ramming them down smoking barrels.

The few Ottomans who survived and charged with drawn scimitars were met with a wall of steel. The Jaegers thrust their socket bayonets, driving blades through ribs and throats. From the higher ridges, snipers assassinated any Ottoman officer attempting to rally the troops.

Within thirty minutes, the hidden force was utterly annihilated. The fields outside the thickets were carpeted with bodies.

Back in the room of Veszprém, Konrad watched the distant plumes of black smoke rising from the tree lines.

General Voss returned to the room. "It is done, Your Majesty. The staging grounds are destroyed."

Konrad nodded, turning back to his blueprints. "The Vizier has run out of tricks, he lost his vanguard, his cavalry, and his sappers. His supply lines cannot feed the eighty thousand men left sitting in the mud."

Konrad picked up his charcoal. "He has to attack the walls now,"

***

The morning sun broke through the autumn clouds over Veszprém.

Standing on the watchtower, King Konrad adjusted his Venetian spyglass. He had expected the Ottoman Grand Vizier to launch a desperate assault before his starving army mutinied. Instead, the horizon was quiet.

Through the lenses, Konrad watched the Ottoman encampment dismantle itself. Tents were collapsed and loaded onto ox-carts. The cavalry formed into rearguard columns. The nighttime mortar bombardment and the slaughter of their vanguard had broken the Vizier. Eighty thousand men were retreating south.

Konrad lowered his spyglass with a sigh.

He was disappointed; he had wanted to test the thermal limits of the Gatling barrels against a massive charge. Still, a bloodless victory preserved ammunition.

"They are breaking camp, Your Majesty," General Voss said, stepping up to the parapet. "I have never seen an Ottoman army abandon a siege so quickly."

"..." Konrad sighed, collapsing his spyglass.

Konrad descended the spiral staircase into the fortress.

As he walked through the inner baileys flanked by his Jaegers, the Hungarian defenders parted before him. They stared at the uniforms and Swabian rifles with a mixture of awe and terror.

Konrad ignored them and made his way to the Great Hall.

Count István Báthory was pacing by the central hearth, looking as though he had aged a decade in three days. He stopped, his eyes darting to the Jaegers flanking the King.

"Your Majesty," István breathed, bowing deeply. "The watchmen report the Ottomans are abandoning the valley. It is a miracle."

"I am pleased you survived." Konrad said, walking toward the table.

István watched as Konrad took the seat at the head of the table.

"Your weapons," István started. "Those rapid-fire carts... explosive shells. If you had not arrived, Veszprém would be ash. Tell me, how much powder do you possess? How many guns did you bring?"

Konrad leaned back, steepling his fingers. "What you saw was merely my expeditionary vanguard," Konrad lied. "I brought forty Gatling carts. Back in Augsburg, my foundries stamp out fifty new units every month. I have thirty thousand men drilling with grooved rifles."

Count István staggered backward into a chair.

Thirty thousand men? Fifty machines a month?

The numbers shattered his worldview.

If the King spoke the truth, Alemannia could march across the continent unopposed.

"My God..." István whispered.

"Which brings me to our true purpose," Konrad said. "I have met your allies. Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, and General von Harrach."

At the mention of the Austrians, István’s fists clenched.

"Do not speak of those cowards," István snarled. "We bled to protect Vienna, and they dragged their feet. When they arrived, they hid in the mud."