He had so many soldiers because the Ottomans had been expected. The shah’s English friends had shared with him information about Murad obtained from the magicians from the future who had appeared in the Christian lands. They had said that Murad would attack Iravan this year. Murad was supposed to have refused to believe in the stories told, indeed, to have refused to believe in the magicians, but Shah Safi had clung to the predictions. As a result, he had decided to reinforce Iravan. He had also decided to execute Tahmasp Quli Khan, the man who, in the magicians’ histories, had commanded the city and who had yielded it to Murad. The execution had been an excruciating affair, the sort of thing that left one with disturbing dreams. Arash knew this because, when he had been plucked from obscurity to command the defense, he had been forced to witness it as an encouragement to do his duty. Of course, if he surrendered to Murad, there would be little Safi could do to him, but his family had remained in Esfahan. And on that first day, watching as the sipahi s had ridden his men down, he had feared that even his best efforts might be to no avail. The second day had been no better, as the Ottomans had rapidly dug a network of trenches and begun to raise gun platforms, and his watchers had reported seeing flashes of the distinctive headgear of the janissaries in the trenches. When the tents of what could only be Sultan Murad’s pavilion had been erected, tantalizingly just out of reach of even guns laid by his best gunners, he believed his worst fears had been realized. But on the third day, he had begun to wonder. The guns in the Ottoman emplacements seemed to be awfully light for siege artillery. Indeed, opposite this gate they seemed to have only a single cannon mounted on an odd high-wheeled carriage and to be using a sort of fireworks rocket to try to fill in. The rockets were a bit frightening, and dangerous to anyone near when they burst, but they seemed to need a long time to set up-so far the shortest interval had been five minutes apart-and they were not any danger to the walls.
And then there were the empty trenches. He had sent out raiding parties to try to disrupt the progress and perhaps gather in a prisoner or two to get a better feel for what faced him. They had not brought him a single prisoner. The men who returned said that, when they reached the first line of trenches, they were empty. It was only as they explored them that they ran into sudden ambushes. This experience was repeated on the next two nights. It was possible, of course, that the Ottoman commander was withdrawing his men as Arash’s men approached in order to lead them into ambushes. Certainly it seemed to be an effective tactic-only about three in ten of his men came back. But to detect all his raiding parties in time to carry out such a withdrawal (for there had been no sudden firing along the front to suggest that any of the parties were annihilated at the first line of trenches) stretched credulity to the breaking point.
In fact, he was beginning to suspect that the force surrounding him might not really be the Ottoman army at all. Mir Arash Khan was increasingly convinced that what faced him was only the vanguard of that army. Murad was young and inexperienced. He was also supposed to be confident of his physical prowess, his skills with weapons, and his horsemanship. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had let ability in one area convince him he had ability in all. And to a young, strong, and impetuous man, the allure of the glory that could be attained by dashing ahead with his cavalry to try to seize the city could have been overwhelming.
If he was right-if all that Murad had with him was his cavalry and a few soldiers who had run along with them-then it was possible that glory would go to Mir Arash Khan for ending the war by defeating-perhaps even killing or capturing-the Ottoman Sultan. The English had taught his men how to stand against cavalry on an open field, and he had more than enough men to mount an assault on the trenches if all the soldiers available were the mounted troops Murad could have mustered. If he acted decisively before the bulk of the enemy army could arrive, then his chances of victory were great.
And so he had planned a counterattack. The plan was simple. He would send five thousand of his men out this largest of the three city gates against the Ottomans. Fortunately, the works he had constructed immediately outside the gates had not fallen on that first mad day, and so he still controlled enough ground to allow a substantial force to be assembled. He had put his best guns and gunners on the gun platforms that had been built flanking the gate. He had had many to choose from-if all the guns that had been brought into the city were fired, they would use up all the gunpowder in a day-and he knew that they could keep the Ottoman cavalry from interfering with his troops as they formed up. They would also be able to keep the Ottoman artillery and musket men from being effective against his men as they formed up-the few guns the Ottomans had in place might have sufficed to break up a small sortie, but against an attack of the scale he planned they would be useless even if allowed to fire unimpeded. In fact, the works the Ottomans had built opposite the gate were just strong enough to fend off the sort of small attack usual in sieges. Only one real cannon, although there were some odd-looking assemblies of what seemed to be musket barrels on high-wheeled carriages like that of the cannon-and the fireworks, of course. It seemed his opponent had decided to concentrate his men and resources in accordance with an Ottoman plan of attack. Another sign of inexperience, not thinking that one’s enemies might not act in accordance with one’s plans.
Today was the day. He turned and gave the order, the horn was sounded, the gates swung open, and his men began running out to form up on the open space just behind the ditch while the men with ramps laid them over it. Arash felt a smile tugging at his lips as he saw signs of frantic activity in the Ottoman gun emplacement. Apparently they hadn’t even kept their cannon loaded against the chance he would send a raiding party out of the gate. His own guns began to fire-the Ottomans’ entrenchments would protect them, but only if they kept down. His men would have plenty of time to form up and move on the trenches. And the volume of matchlock fire coming from the trenches suggested that they were held by a few hundred men at most. Today would be a glorious day.
As he watched the Persians spill out of the gate, Kemal gritted his teeth in frustration. For eight months, ever since he had been assigned to the rockets, he had put up with the “friendly” insults of his fellow gunners. He had been told that it was a great honor that one so young had been chosen-but he knew he had been assigned to the rockets because he was junior to the others and probably also because he was from Anatolia-there was always a prejudice against Turkish gunners. Fireworks master, they called him. He had laughed, and reacted by working to truly become the master of the rockets.
He had expected that he would have a chance to make them swallow their mockery on this campaign. But Ahmed Pasha had seemed not to understand the potential of his weapon. He had refused to allow them to be used in any of the skirmishes they had already fought and, when setting up here, he had placed insane restrictions on them. Kemal had not been allowed to fire more than one rocket at a time, and had had to wait at least half an hour before firing from the same launch rack a second time. It had taken him nearly three days to get all the racks properly ranged. It should have taken less than an hour to ready all thirty racks.