Ring of Fire III

A Relation of the Late Siege and Taking of the City of Yerevan by the Turk Including an Authentic Narrative of the Death of the Persian Commander and an Account of the Destruction Wrought by Terrible New Engines of War

Mir Arash Khan looked out at the trenches of the Ottoman army and marveled at his enemy’s industry. It had been scarcely seven days since the Ottoman cavalry had arrived and chased all his soldiers inside the walls, and already the city of Iravan was surrounded by their works. The Ottomans had moved with astonishing speed, appearing just five days after his spy’s first report of their advance from Sivas had reached him. The messenger had nearly killed his horse carrying that report-no army Arash had ever heard of had been able to march so quickly. He had been confident when he was appointed by Shah Safi to defend the city the locals called Yerevan and that the Ottomans had called Revan until Shah Abbas had recovered it thirty-one years ago, but the suddenness with which a force of thousands of Ottoman cavalrymen had appeared had shocked him. He had expected at least a week after the warning arrived to prepare for the arrival of the Ottoman army. That had been a costly mistake-his troops outside the walls had been scattered bringing in supplies or working on extensions to the fortifications. Many of those close to the city had made it inside the walls, but he had lost almost five thousand men on that first day. Of course, that had still left him with over thirty thousand-nearly three times the usual garrison. Indeed, his men were packed so tightly inside the walls that they were all but walking on each other.

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.

Now, today, he had a perfect opportunity to show what they could do. It would take moments to launch the full battery, and that would surely send the redheads scurrying back into their hole. Yet the command to loose did not come. He looked back toward the commander, who sat on his horse calmly watching the Persians form up to attack and doing nothing else.

Ahmed Pasha, sometimes called Kucuk-Little-Ahmed, watched the Persians forming up before the gate. His men were eager to get at them and he hoped he could hold them back long enough. He had allowed musket fire at them-it would have been impossible to prevent and would have made the Persian wonder if his men had done nothing. The gunners had wanted to fire too-he had had to have one of his guards knock the match from the hand of one of the gun crew-for good measure he had had the cannon tipped forward and the ball drawn out. Now the gunners were racing to reload it.

The sultan had ordered him to fix the Persians’ attention here at Revan for at least a month. Today would decide if he could do it. He knew from captives that the Persians had more men and more guns than he had. But he also knew that he had stunned the Persian commander by the ferocity of his initial attack. Now, it looked like the Persian had gotten over his initial shock. If the Persian succeeded, even in a small way, today, Kucuk Ahmed knew he would lose. The Persian would swamp him using his huge garrison, and he would have to retreat too early.

Kucuk Ahmed was not a good loser. He planned to stun the Persian again. But to do that, he knew he had to hold his men back until the perfect moment. The moment when he could do the most damage to their confidence. Which was coming up…now.

Kemal saw the Pasha suddenly turn his head to where the signalmen waited. Then-at last-the flags moved, signaling the time had come. He turned and slashed his hand, and his men bent to light their fuses.

Mir Arash Khan looked down with satisfaction. His men had formed up. The Ottoman musketeers had caused a few casualties, but not nearly enough. It looked like the gun crew he’d been watching had finished loading their cannon, but that would not be enough to stop-or even slow-his attack. He heard an odd noise, like a piece of cloth tearing, and looked back toward the Ottoman trenches. They had fired one of their rockets. Those toys wouldn’t stop the attack either. He watched it as it headed toward his troops-some moved to avoid the place it looked like it would fall.

Kemal cursed. There was always one fuse that burned differently than the others. This one had been fast. But at least it hadn’t misfired. And there went the rest-first the five that had been left in the rack that launched the first, and over the next seconds the others. One hundred seventy-nine rockets followed their premature brother toward the ground he had so slowly been allowed to range. As soon as the last left its rack, he waved the men forward to begin reloading.

Arash looked up as the odd tearing sound was repeated and magnified. Suddenly the smoke trail left by the first rocket was obscured by what seemed to be hundreds more. His troops began to scatter.

Kemal spared a glance toward the Persians as the sounds of his rockets bursting reached his ears. It had been perfect. Not one rocket had veered off course, not one had stayed in the racks. Now let them joke about fireworks.

To Arash’s ears, the sounds of the explosions seemed quieter than he had expected, a bit muffled. A part of his mind concluded that each probably carried no more than two or three times the powder of a grenade. Under ordinary conditions, grenades were a danger the men could deal with. But so many grenades never came at once. The sound of the Ottoman cannon firing was a sharp punctuation to the rockets. Arash looked down. A cloud of smoke covered a long section of the center of his line. As he watched, a man emerged, staggering back toward the gate, seeming covered in blood.

“Hurry. Hurry.” Kemal knew his men were working as quickly as they could, but still he felt he had to drive them on. He took a moment to look at the Persians. His rockets had cut a hole in the center of their line, and the troops on the flanks were looking shaken. Men were falling back by ones and twos to the gate, some making a pretense of helping wounded comrades, some simply heading for safety. Fewer men were leaving the Persian left, though. A brightly clad officer was moving about, clearly steadying his men. That simplified Kemal’s next decision.

“Shift right two turns.” He repeated the instructions a half dozen times, with variations in the degree of shift, moving down the line as his men finished reloading. He heard a curse from Mustafa-his crank had jammed. Mustafa and his loader bent down and lifted the back of the rack, manually turning it.

“Tell the gunners to concentrate their fire on the part of the trenches the smoke trails came from,” Mir Arash Khan instructed the runners. The launchers were completely hidden behind earthen embankments, but having cannon balls bouncing near them should at least slow them down. Given how long the rockets seemed to need between shots, with any luck his men could be on them before a second volley could be launched.

He looked at his troops. The smoke had cleared. It wasn’t-quite-as bad as he feared. They were among his best troops, after all. There was even a small group in the center that seemed to have reformed and looked ready to step off. And the left flank, where Aryo commanded, looked as ready as though nothing had happened. He ordered the signal for the advance to be raised.

And then he heard the sound of cloth tearing again.

Kemal watched his rockets fly toward the Persian lines. This launch was less perfect. Two rockets had left their racks on trajectories that were completely random, and Mustafa had shifted his rack too far-all his rockets would miss. But it would be good enough, he thought.

A ripple of explosions covered the Persians in smoke. He started to turn back when a flicker of motion caught his eye. Impossibly, the brightly uniformed officer ran out of the enveloping smoke. He was followed closely by two of his men, then four more, then…then nothing. A ripple of musket fire kicked up the dirt around the men running toward the Ottoman lines. They did not slow. A burst from one of the volley guns cut them down. Behind them, the remaining Persians were crowding the gate.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and whipped around. It was one of Ahmed Pasha’s runners, his red cap slightly askew on his head.

“Ahmed Pasha commands you to put one more volley of your rockets on top of the walls.”

“I can put a dozen more volleys there.”

“Ahmed Pasha said to tell you one more, and only one more, if you said something like that. He also said to tell you that you have done what he needed, and done it well.”

Mir Arash Khan sat in his hall, occasionally touching a cloth to the cut on his head. It was small, but seemed not to want to stop oozing blood. He had returned to his residence after the gates had been closed. The Ottomans had not tried to storm them despite the confusion created by the third volley of rockets, and all his men who lived had been brought inside the walls.

After the disaster of the morning, the day had passed quietly. The Ottomans had dug more trenches, but there had been only desultory exchanges of fire.

His commanders had pressed him to try again. They pointed out that only one man in eight had been lost-not so many for an attack on a fortified position. They ignored the fact that the attack had not even started. They argued that the fact the bombardment had stopped after the third volley meant that the Ottomans were out of the deadly rockets. They ignored the losses among his best gun crews, and his own near death.

Perhaps they were right. But Arash had been fooled once already. He had thought the Ottomans were weak and would fall before him. The bodies before the gate provided a refutation of that belief.

No, his orders were to hold the city. He would follow those orders. He had been led astray by pride, by a desire for glory. Never again. He would hold his position and let the Ottomans smash themselves against his walls if they dared.

Arash smiled as the scribe left the room. The man had obviously been confused by his reaction. He had come to tell his Khan that they needed to ration supplies, that at the current rate they had only enough food for three more weeks. Whatever reaction he had expected, it was clear that Arash’s peal of relieved laughter had not been it. It was also clear that he had expected a much larger reduction than Arash had ordered.

But then the man did not know what Arash did. After the disaster of yesterday, Arash had expected nothing but bad news. But it was clear that much of the food that had been planned for had been delivered and had made it inside the walls before the Ottomans had attacked. The scribe thought they had to plan for an indefinite siege, at least three months, perhaps more, before winter would force the Ottomans away. But Arash knew that Shah Safi was probably already on his way to break the siege.

For all that he had heavily reinforced Iravan, Shah Safi had not completely trusted the words of the magicians-Shah Safi did not completely trust anything-and so he had not placed his forces in front of Iravan at places where the Ottomans could have been ambushed before even coming into sight of its walls. But he had created a mobile force that he himself led and had positioned it so that it could move toward any spot that was threatened.

Despite the chaos of the day the Ottomans had attacked, several messengers had been sent and even if all had been caught, the failure of his usual weekly report to arrive would have caused the alarm to be sounded. In fact, by now, the shah’s army was probably marching to his relief. It was, at most, a four-week march away. If they forced their pace, they might even arrive before he would have needed to start rationing.

Better to be safe, of course. And cutting rations would actually be good for morale-the men would expect it as part of how things were done in a siege, and if any were captured, they would tell the enemy what he expected to hear. He had ordered the rations cut by enough to make them last six weeks. If he dug into what the inhabitants of the city had hidden away for themselves, he could probably stretch it to eight weeks. But long before that became necessary, he had no doubt that he would see the Ottomans crushed between the hammer of the shah’s army and the anvil of the fortress of Iravan.

Ahmed looked down at the map. He wasn’t sure if he liked these new maps-to be sure, they showed the geometry of the area with great precision, and the terrain-where it was shown-was accurate as well. But the old maps, despite their inaccuracies, had given him a better idea of how long it took to go between places, even if the actual distances were sometimes off. Still, if what the messenger his scouts had captured had told them was true, then the Persian relief force was at least a three-week march away. He could count on at least three days warning from his deli scouts or the Tartars who had spread out from Revan. So all he had to do to accomplish his goals was keep the Persians bottled up until he was told the relief force was close by, and then he could fall back on the positions being prepared by the sekban s who had followed his strike force. With any luck the Persians would chase him and he would get a chance to bloody their noses.

He looked at the man who had brought the report. “You are certain he said it was the shah himself who led the force?”

“Yes. He was emphatic about the vengeance that would soon fall on us.”

“Interesting.” He sent the man to get himself a meal while he thought about the possibilities. Shah Safi had a reputation for being…erratic. With such a man in command of the opposition, there might be opportunities.

Arash had much to be pleased about. The Ottomans had not advanced their trenches significantly, nor was there any indication that they were trying to undermine the walls. They seemed content to stand off and shoot at him-their bombardment had been continuous, yet the guns they were using were definitely on the light end of the scale for siege weapons. They were able to chip away at his walls, but the rate at which damage was being done meant that the walls were unlikely to fall in the next few months.

Yet, as he looked out over the Ottoman trenches, Arash fought an unhappiness that he knew was unreasonable, even ridiculous. Today had been, by his calculations, the first day it would be reasonable to expect the arrival of the relief force. And they had not come.

It didn’t help that he was accompanied on his walk of the walls today by Bestam, one of the shah’s loyal circle who Arash was convinced had been sent to spy on him. Bestam commanded only a thousand cavalrymen, all also fanatically loyal to the shah, but nevertheless he behaved as though it occasionally slipped his mind that Arash was in command. But the major reason that Arash would have preferred not to have him along was that Bestam insisted on always wearing his “Haydar’s crown,” the tall hat whose traditional red color had given the Ottomans their nickname of redheads for the Persians. It attracted attention that Arash would have preferred to avoid.

In fact, as he stood looking out over the field, his eye was suddenly attracted to one of the Ottoman guns. Its crew seemed to be working with great diligence to train the gun right where he was standing. He drew back, to Bestam’s apparent amusement. Arash was briefly tempted to let the man stand there. Instead, he waved him down.

An instant later he had the satisfaction of seeing Bestam’s face lose its amused look as the Ottoman’s ball sent stone fragments flying over the walkway. For just a moment he felt a bit of kinship with the man as Bestam tried to cover his loss of composure.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t think to bring along any of their real siege guns. Our walls would collapse in a few days if they had.”

“Once they got the range, anyway. This place is so small a real gun would send its ball over it-or through it.”

“Where do you suppose their big guns are? They’ve always brought a few along in the past.”

“I don’t know…” Arash hesitated. Something bothered him about this, and he felt that he was on the edge of an answer. But before he crossed that edge, Bestam decided to demonstrate his loyalty.

“Perhaps the shah sent someone to destroy them. They could have been far back, given how quickly these people arrived-a raid in their rear would have surprised them.”

Arash saw the men near them-who had been ostentatiously not listening to their officers’ conversation-straighten a bit at that. He knew that that wasn’t where his thoughts had been headed, but it was a possibility. Better yet, it was a possibility that would hearten the men. So he stopped trying to find his answer and contented himself with saying loudly enough to ensure he was overheard, “It could be.”

The footsteps of the messenger woke Arash before the man could speak.

“What is it?”

“Music,” the man was clearly flustered by the question from a man he had thought was sleeping. “We can hear music from the walls.”

Arash’s look spurred the man to further explanation, “Our music. Not the music of the Turks.”

Arash moved with a speed that he wouldn’t have believed himself capable of the day before. As he came out into the road, he heard the music. The sound was distinctive. It could only be from a band accompanying the relief force. It was distant, but the drums especially carried easily through the quiet that came just before dawn.

The quiet. The Ottomans had not allowed it to remain quiet for more than a few minutes at a time since the siege had begun. A basic tactic, aimed at denying the defenders rest. But it was quiet now.

“When did they last fire a cannon at us?”

The messenger who had followed him out into the twilight looked confused.

“I don’t know. Not since I woke tonight.”

They have good scouts-they would have known the relief force was coming. They must have waited for night to withdraw.

He grabbed the messenger by the shoulder.

“Go and tell my deputy to rouse the garrison. We must get ready to welcome the shah.”

The dawn sun shone on walls lined with men waiting to greet the army that had driven the Ottomans away. Arash looked out on the Ottoman trenches. It was clear they had left in a great hurry-they seemed to have abandoned all their heavy equipment in place and here and there in the trenches he saw furtive stirrings, as though men forgotten in the rush to get away were trying to move unnoticed. Arash supposed he should have someone fire on the stirrings, but he was so happy that the siege was at an end that he was inclined to be charitable and let the stragglers escape if they could.

Then the music swelled and the band came into view. The men began a cheer that stuttered away as the music changed abruptly into an Ottoman martial tune and the trenches that had seemed empty suddenly filled as the men who had been lying in them stood up and began to insult the defenders.

The delegation of his soldiers had been respectful, but firm. They knew how low the supplies were, and the Ottomans had made it clear that their relief had somehow been stopped. Breaking out was clearly impossible. If Arash wouldn’t negotiate he would be replaced by someone who would.

Now Arash looked out the new hole in the wall of his official residence-the Ottomans had punctuated their jeers with an artillery barrage that had reached inside the city-and prayed for a solution. He could hold on for two weeks, perhaps four, before food ran out. If the troops were willing, he could go further, but the troops had made it clear that they weren’t willing. But then…if word of a surrender reached Esfahan, whether he or his men acting for him had made it, his family would pay.

He had summoned his deputy Behmanesh and his watcher Bestram and told them that they needed to play for time. Behmanesh was to go and attempt to negotiate with the Ottomans. He pointed out to Bestram that, as long as they thought he was negotiating, the rest of the men would continue to resist, if only in the hope of improving the terms. After Bestram left, muttering that it would be better to kill the members of the soldiers’ delegation to remind the others where their loyalties should lie, he told Behmanesh to negotiate as though it was real, and get the best terms possible. And then he had spoken in a way that had clearly puzzled Behmanesh.

“You have no family, do you?”

“No. They were taken by the plague two years ago. Only I am left.”

“In these times, that can be a blessing. May Allah go with you.”

Ahmed Pasha had felt content. It wasn’t often that God made it so clear whose side He was on. When a Tartar messenger had brought word that the Persian army had stopped in the middle of the day while it was still a three-day march away-one day before he would have ordered his own forces to begin to fall back-he had concluded that he was no longer a distraction. Less than twelve hours later his conclusions were verified when another messenger had brought word that a newly captured prisoner had explained that the sudden halt was the result of word reaching the army that Sultan Murad had besieged Baghdad and that the army was now going to retrace its steps and go to relieve that city. He had immediately sent messages-and some of the sipahi cavalry-to ensure that the Persians would be harassed at every opportunity, and then turned his mind to his new task of ensuring that the garrison remained bottled up and unable to follow the relief force.

He’d wanted to do more than just keep them bottled up, however. Sooner or later he would have to end his siege, and that would leave the Persians with an intact army. He wanted to inflict more casualties on them. Destroying small raiding parties and picking men off the walls were just pinpricks. But aside from that one attempt, the Persian commander had offered him no real opportunities.

Then that troop of Tartars had ridden in with the instruments they’d taken as plunder after falling on a Persian band that had found itself left behind when the Persian army had changed direction. It had been too good an opportunity to pass up. Now the Persians knew their relief force wasn’t coming and, since prisoners had told him that their food was running out, that meant the commander would have to do something other than just sit there.

Yes, Ahmed Pasha had felt content. The feeling had lasted almost six hours. Then he had received word that the Persians had sent a delegation to negotiate with him. That was unexpected. It was clear that the Persians had almost as many men in the city as he had outside of it. Of course, he had been at some pains to keep them from realizing that. Now he would have to take even greater pains. The only thing to do was to offer such unreasonable terms that the Persian would have to refuse them.

But, just in case, he would have some of the sekban troops that had been preparing his fallback positions move up. After all, they had been sent along to garrison the city if he did manage to capture it. And letting the Persians see fresh troops arriving would help keep them from realizing how closely matched they were.

Behmanesh was downcast as he spoke.

“He was completely unreasonable. We are offered our lives as slaves to the Ottomans, nothing more, if we leave the city with all stores and weapons intact and only if we accept immediately. It was all I could do to get an extra day for us to consider the offer.”

Arash found himself relaxing. His course was now set.

“Well, I will talk to him tomorrow. Perhaps I can convince him to soften things a bit.”

Ahmed was hard pressed to hide his astonishment. Not only had the Persian returned for further talks, he had brought along the commander of the city. Their situation must be worse than he had thought. Against any reasonable expectation, it might just be that he could actually take the city. Perhaps a concession or two might be in order, although he would have to avoid anything that would let the shah get his garrison back.

When the Persians were ushered into the tent that had been set up for the talks, Ahmed found himself confused by the demeanor of the commander. Mir Arash Khan had sat through the initial round of diplomatic pleasantries giving every impression that his mind was elsewhere.

The Persian’s first words, spoken very softly after the pleasantries were over, were also a bit off key.

“Your sultan is not here then?”

“I am who you must deal with. My sultan has more important matters to attend to.”

“Of course. I meant no insult.”

The Persian seemed to be trying to bring his mind back from wherever it had strayed.

“Your terms are quite severe. We are to march out unarmed, leaving all intact, and become your slaves. And we must agree by today.”

“That is so,” Ahmed temporized, his mind racing. How to soften it so that the man would throw open the gates. He could get no feel for what the man wanted. Offer him something for himself and something for his men and see which he went for.

“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.

But now he had to deal with the Persians in the city. They had signaled that they wanted a truce. He would act angry, but in the end let them have the same terms. This attack would give him a reason for having them come out in small, easily controlled groups. His past experience told him that many of them would offer to forgo their false beliefs if it would save them from slavery. That would be good-even if they secretly continued in their errors, their allegiance would not be tested in the fight to come-these men from the future were all true infidels. And some of those who were adamant in their allegiance-perhaps a hundred-could be sent back to their shah with the body of Mir Arash Khan. A gesture of respect for a brave enemy, he would call it. That might make peace easier. And perhaps it might save some innocents in Esfahan.

Zaynab held her daughter and watched her son, who sat between her and the door. They waited in silence and near darkness. They had exhausted all possible diversions in the week that had passed since they had been confined after word had arrived of the fall of Iravan.

Zaynab was torn. She loved her husband. She had wanted Arash to return. But if he lived, and perhaps even if he did not, she knew she and her children would pay the price for his failure to prevent the loss of that city.

Beyond the fact that the city had fallen, she knew nothing. The servants who brought the plain food every day didn’t speak, and the guards that accompanied them also ignored her questions. All she had been told was that she and her children would be confined until the situation was clarified.

The sound of the bolt being drawn seemed to echo. It was too early for the meal. Rustem stood up, still facing the door. His stance said he intended to defend his mother and sister as well as a nine-year-old boy could do.

The door opened. Light spilled in, blinding her so that she could not make out the face of the man who stood in the doorway.

“Your husband has fallen in the service of the shah. Go home and mourn him.”