“Of course, I would be willing to offer safe passage for yourself and your family, and,” a nod to the Persian’s deputy, “some of your senior officers as a token of my respect for your determined resistance. And, of course, any of your men who should choose to abandon their false beliefs might well be freed to serve in our ranks.”
Interesting. The deputy had shown irritation at the first offer and started to object when he made the second offer. But Arash simply gestured to stop whatever objection Behmanesh was going to make.
“My men are urging this course of action…”
An astonishing admission.
“…and I cannot know what they will do, although you may find fewer who will abandon the truth than you think. As for my family, they are in Esfahan.”
Those last eight words were the key. The words themselves, written down, would sound like defiance-a claim that his family was safe from Ahmed. But the tone in which the words were spoken was one of despair. And then came a shock.
“Very well. I will accept those terms with one stipulation. As a matter of honor, I and my personal guard must be allowed to ride out under arms to make our surrender.”
The deputy had a look of confusion on his face. Ahmed agreed with it-he had never heard such a proposal before-but he elected to ignore it.
“How large is your guard?”
“One thousand men.”
Ahmed looked at Arash. And what he saw in his eyes convinced him.
“It is agreed then.”
Arash was not surprised when Bestam strode into the hall, hand on the hilt of his shamshir.
“Is it true? You are surrendering? Wasn’t it made clear to you what would happen?”
Arash looked at him for a moment and then said, “Yes. Yes. And yes.”
Bestam froze. Apparently he had been prepared only for denial.
“I received very good terms for myself. I have even secured permission to leave the city accompanied by my personal guard under arms.”
“What? What are you talking about? You don’t have a personal guard.”
“Of course I do. You command it.”
Bestam seemed unsure whether he was being offered some sort of a bribe or just dealing with a madman. Arash pressed on.
“Think! If we try to assemble for an attack, they simply shoot fireworks at us, and use their new volley guns to kill those the fireworks miss. But tomorrow we come out in an orderly fashion and start to come toward them at the walk…”
Light dawned, “…we get out of the place they have their fireworks aimed for, then we can make a charge. I guess I don’t need to kill you. Perhaps I will get to kill Murad instead.”
Arash hesitated. That possibility clearly justified his actions to Bestam. Only Behmanesh had heard him ask the question, and Ahmed hadn’t-precisely-said that the sultan wasn’t here.
“Perhaps.”
Bestam had moved his men to the gate the night before, replacing the soldiers who had been on duty there so that they could complete their preparations without anyone realizing what they were doing. Arash’s own preparations had been simple. He had gotten dressed, handed Behmanesh with a letter naming him commander in his stead, and given him a final command: “Whatever happens, once I am gone, wait an hour and then do what you think best.”
And now Arash was riding over the ground that had seen the failure of his first attempt to sweep the Ottomans away. It was a remarkably pleasant day, with a slight breeze and a few fluffy clouds in the sky. He found that he was easily distracted. Fortunately Bestam was occupied with the business of getting his men in position.
Bestam had given a lot of thought to getting outside the area that the rockets had swept. He had had bridges built to let the horses cross over the ditch and had had the one placed in the center weakened so that it collapsed as the second horse walked over it. This gave an excuse for the cavalry to spread out and present a wide front outside the ditch, while the excitement at the center explained why the troop didn’t close up again quickly. Still, it took a while for a thousand men to get into position. Arash didn’t mind.
But eventually they were all across the ditch and Bestam gave the prearranged signal. Arash didn’t like the man, but his men were good at what they did. As one they turned and began their charge. Arash simply tried to keep pace with Bestam.
Kemal had watched with growing concern as the horsemen had crossed the ditch unmolested. He had been told it had to be allowed by no less a person than Ahmed Pasha himself. He had also been told that he would have to be ready to break up any charge that might be made. When he had pointed out that once they were outside the ditch, they would be inside the range at which the rockets were intended to work, he had simply been told to find a way.
He had quickly concluded that increasing the angle at which the rockets were launched was probably a bad idea. The horses would be moving fast, and he wasn’t sure just when he would be ordered to send them at their target. Calculating the right angle as cavalry closed was not a task he wanted to try. Instead he had lowered the angle. The rockets would be sent nearly horizontally at the Persians if they decided to attack. He had picked a place a little over halfway between his position and the ditch as an aiming point because it looked like a place where any attackers would have to bunch up.
He had also personally picked out the rockets they would use, avoiding any that seemed in any way imperfect. There had been some unpleasant surprises, including a rocket that had exploded before it had left the rack, killing the luckless Mustafa. Oddly, the explosion seemed to have fixed the launch rack-the adjusting crank no longer jammed.
He had also trimmed each of the fuses himself. The rockets would launch almost in the instant the fuses were lit-the men lighting them would have just enough time to leap away.
Then he turned away from the Persians and looked toward Ahmed Pasha. The commander had positioned himself a bit farther back and higher up, with two of the men with the new long barreled “rifles” and two men with traditional bows. As Kemal watched, he pointed at something back where the Persians were. The four men all shifted, clearly concentrating on what the Pasha had pointed to, but Kemal kept his attention on Kucuk Ahmed. He didn’t want to chance even a second’s delay once the Pasha gave the order to launch.
Suddenly and within a heartbeat of one another the riflemen fired and the bowmen loosed their arrows. At the same moment the Pasha looked at Kemal and made a slashing gesture. Kemal didn’t wait for the formal signal, but turned back to his launchers, and for a moment his voice froze in his throat. The Persian cavalry was closing the distance incredibly quickly. “Light them, light them,” he screamed, running toward his launchers as if he could somehow make the rockets launch sooner by his presence.
Arash found himself on the ground looking up at the clouds. He had had the wind knocked out of him when he was shot off his horse, but somehow it no longer seemed important to try to breathe. He knew he had done everything he could. If God willed, it would be enough to save his family.
He didn’t hear the sound of cloth tearing.
Ahmed Pasha looked out over the ground where the bodies of the Persian cavalry lay. It had been an hour since a single volley of rockets had broken their charge. Even trained warhorses didn’t like the noisy flame-spitting rockets, whether or not they were hit by them. The cavalrymen trying to control their mounts had been defenseless against his cannon, his volley guns, and even his men with their old matchlocks. He had not lost a single man.
The stories that would reach the redheads about the fall of Revan would terrify them. Terrifying the sultan’s enemies was a good thing and Ahmed felt no regrets about doing it. If this new way of making war did not terrify the Persians into making peace, then Ahmed would urge the sultan to let him pursue them with the new weapons until they were utterly annihilated. Not because he hated the Persians. He didn’t. If they made peace, so much the better. But the day was coming when the Ottomans would be facing men who also fought war in this new way, and when that day came they could not afford to still be fighting the Persians. He didn’t hate those men either. The men who claimed to be from the future. The men from whom the knowledge of the new gun carriages and the new rockets and the new design of volley gun and, most importantly, the best ways to use them had come. He didn’t hate them, but he knew he would have to fight them. And they would be harder to terrify.