Chapter 167: Sword of the Sultan
A deafening shriek tore through the air. Osman jerked his reins as a series of black iron cylinders plummeted from the clouds.
They struck a quarter-mile ahead, directly in the center of the Akinji cavalry’s forward formation!
The ground bucked beneath Osman’s horse. Columns of black dirt and orange fire erupted.
These were not solid iron cannonballs; the shells exploded on impact, sending a hurricane of shrapnel ripping through flesh and bone.
Over two hundred riders were instantly vaporized.
"What was that?!" Kemal screamed, struggling with his mount. "They hit us from two miles away!"
Panic rippled through the Janissary lines... Men who had stood firm against heavy cavalry were suddenly backing away.
"Hold the line!" Osman roared, drawing his scimitar. "If any man breaks formation, I take his head!"
He turned to Kemal. The southern approach was a death trap.
"Pull the vanguard back!" Osman commanded. "We shift our axis of advance to the Western Gate!"
"The Western Gate? Pasha, the walls there are the highest!" Kemal blinked.
"Not if the gates are opened from the inside," Osman sneered, pulling a wax-sealed parchment from his breastplate.
"A raven arrived before dawn with the seal of the Austrian vanguard commander, General von Harrach," Osman explained. "The imperial relief force is mutinying. The Austrian promised that if we spare his knights, he will throw open the Western Gate at noon. We let the infidels hand us the keys to their own fortress."
For the next two hours, the Janissary vanguard pivoted away from the southern ridge, trudging toward the western face of Veszprém...
As they approached the Western Gate, a heavy silence hung over the battlefield.
Osman raised his spyglass.
There were no cannons visible on the ramparts. No musket barrels.
The gatehouse doors were shut, but fluttering above the parapets were the black and gold banners of the Austrian Archduchy.
"You see, Kemal?" Osman laughed. "Their alliance is a joke."
Osman spurred his horse forward, breaking from the infantry squares to within a hundred yards of the gatehouse.
"I am Osman Pasha, Sword of the Sultan!" he bellowed at the quiet stone battlements. "General von Harrach! I have come to collect on your promise! Throw open the gates!"
For a long moment, there was only the wind.
Then, a figure stepped up to the edge of the highest battlement.
He did not wear gilded Austrian armor, but a stark, dark-grey uniform. King Konrad leaned against the crenellations, looking down at the Ottoman commander.
"I’m afraid General von Harrach is indisposed, Pasha," Konrad’s voice drifted down. "He is currently tied to a chair in the dungeons, writing apologies to my quartermaster."
Osman’s smirk vanished. "Who are you? Where are the Austrians?!"
Konrad chuckled. "The Austrians are exactly where I put them... in the inner courtyards. I didn’t think my forged letter would actually work. I assumed you would look at this sloped terrain and realize you were marching into a perfectly engineered crossfire."
Konrad raised a gloved hand and snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the Austrian banners were tossed over the wall. In their place, the blood-red and black flags of Alemannia were hoisted into the sky.
Hundreds of dark-grey uniforms stepped up to the embrasures. Dozens of Gatling carts were shoved forward, locking into their tripods.
From the higher watchtowers, Swabian field cannons were angled directly at the dense Janissary squares.
Osman realized he had marched his fifteen thousand troops into a three-sided box of stone. They were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with no cover.
"Trap!" Osman screamed, yanking his reins. "Fall back! Break the lines and scatter!"
High above, Konrad looked down at the frantic scrambling.
"Fire," Konrad ordered quietly.
The whine of dozens of hand-cranks filled the air.
BRRRRRRRRRRRT!
Thousands of precision-machined brass rounds rained down from the battlements in a continuous torrent of lead.
Osman Pasha didn’t have time to spur his horse. A burst from a Gatling cart swept his position, shredding his mount and ripping through his ceremonial armor.
The Ottoman commander was thrown into the mud, his chest reduced to a ruined pulp.
Behind him, the massacre was absolute...
The tightly packed Janissary squares were mowed down.
Overlapping fields of fire left zero blind spots.
The grooved rifles of the Jaegers picked off fleeing officers, while the Gatling carts swept back and forth.
Then, the Swabian field cannons fired.
They shot canister shot... tin cylinders filled with lead musket balls, acting as giant shotguns!
The blasts tore massive gaps through the retreating lines, turning the field into a sea of dismembered limbs and shattered muskets.
Kemal crawled behind the corpse of a horse, pinned down as the continuous roar of the Swabian guns shredded everything around him.
The Hungarian defenders on the lower walls watched in stunned shock.
High on the watchtower, Konrad watched until the squares of the Janissary vanguard were reduced to a bloody carpet. When the Gatling barrels began to smoke white, he raised his hand.
"Cease fire," Konrad commanded. "Conserve ammunition. Let the survivors run back to their Vizier."
He turned away from the carnage, adjusting the cuffs of his uniform. He looked at his stunned generals.
"Well," Konrad said mildly. "I believe we have their attention."
...
While King Konrad enjoyed the undisputed high ground of Veszprém’s battlements, Grand Marshal Eckhard was given a far messier task.
The initial slaughter of the Ottoman vanguard had been a resounding success, but the Grand Vizier of Suleiman’s army was not a fool.
Realizing that the fortress walls had been turned into a meat grinder, the Vizier ordered his heavy bronze siege bombards to be deployed at a safe distance.
If those cannons were allowed to entrench two miles out, they would slowly pound Veszprém to dust, bypassing Konrad’s Gatling carts entirely...
Eckhard’s orders were painfully simple: march out into the Hungarian mud, intercept the siege crews, and break the Ottoman center in the open field.
The Grand Marshal’s boots squelched in the blood-soaked earth as he led a detachment of four thousand Ironstorm Jaegers out of the shattered western gates.
Alongside the marching infantry, teams of draft horses hauled twenty of the new Swabian mobile field guns.
"Set the batteries here!" Eckhard barked, pointing his saber toward a slight elevation in the plains.
"I want overlapping arcs of fire on their engineering lines!"
"Do not let them unlimber those bronze relics!"
Within minutes, the Alemannian artillery crews unhitched their field cannons.
The reports of the solid-cast guns echoed across the valley, entirely different from the low, booming thunder of traditional artillery.
Explosive shells arced through the sky, plunging directly into the Ottoman lines.
Eckhard watched with a critical eye as the shells detonated among the enemy ranks.
Plumes of black smoke and screaming men were tossed into the air, shattering the Vizier’s attempt to set up his siege train.
Yet, the Ottoman army was vast, and their pride was deeply wounded...
Rather than retreat from the explosive bombardment, a wave of Janissaries and Anatolian infantry broke from the Ottoman encampment.
There were at least ten thousand of them, roaring battle cries that shook the ground, charging faithfully into the storm of Swabian artillery to meet Eckhard’s infantry head-on!
Eckhard stood at the very front of the Alemannian lines. He rested the blade of his saber against his shoulder, looking at ease as the enemy horde closed the distance.