Re: Steel and Gunpowder

The Adriatic Sea, aboard the Desert Pearl, en route to Trieste.

Two months had passed since the slaughter of the Ottoman vanguard at Veszprém, and the shockwaves had finally washed over the shores of the Middle East.

The world was changing, and for the men who dictated the flow of global commerce, the scent of blood on the wind was indistinguishable from the scent of ungodly profit.

Aboard the Desert Pearl, a triple-masted Mamluk xebec cutting smoothly through the azure waters toward the Adriatic Sea, two immensely wealthy men sat under a shaded silk canopy on the aft deck.

Tariq al-Mansur, a senior trade emissary of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, adjusted his embroidered silk robes and took a slow sip from a tiny porcelain cup of dark coffee.

Across the table sat Faisal ibn-Rashid, the premier iron and spice baron from the Kingdom of Hejaz.

"The Sultan in Cairo breathes easier these days, praise be to Allah," Tariq murmured. "For three years, we have waited for Suleiman the Magnificent to turn his Janissaries southward and march on Egypt. But instead, his Grand Vizier is rotting in a Hungarian courtyard, and eighty thousand Ottoman widows are weeping in Constantinople."

Faisal chuckled, a rumbling sound that shook his gold-threaded vest.

"Suleiman’s pride drove him into a meat grinder," Faisal agreed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "My spies in the Levant tell me the Ottoman logistical train is in absolute ruins. But it is not the Sultan’s humiliation that brings us on this ship, Tariq."

Tariq nodded slowly, setting his cup down. "King Konrad of Alemannia."

"...." Faisal sighed, a greedy smile touched his lips. "They say he has swallowed the coal fields of Bavaria whole. They say his capital, Augsburg, is a sprawling hellscape of red brick and black smoke, churning out steel at a rate that defies human comprehension. And most importantly, they say he despises the Pope and the Habsburg Emperor just as much as we do. The Venetians are making a fortune acting as the middlemen for Konrad’s new cast-iron tools and plows. But middlemen take a cut. We are going to dock in Trieste, ride north through the Alps, and sit at the table with the Swabian King himself."

Faisal leaned back. "A direct trading pact with Alemannia and the occupied Bavarian industrial zones. We offer him the finest saltpeter from the eastern deserts, sulfur, and raw Egyptian cotton to feed his looms. In exchange... we secure an exclusive import license for his firearms."

"The French King paid a hundred tons of silver for a shipment of Swabian muskets just last month," Tariq noted. "The Pope has declared a total embargo on Swabia and Bavaria, threatening excommunication to anyone who trades with the heretic King."

Faisal scoffed, waving a hand. "The Pope’s words are wind. The Venetians ignored him, and so shall we."

Tariq agreed, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked out over the port side of the vessel. "But papal galleys might."

Faisal frowned, following Tariq’s gaze.

Emerging from the faint morning mist, cutting a violent angle across the Desert Pearl’s bow, were three sleek, low-riding galleys. They were European warships, propelled by hundreds of oars that smashed the water into white foam. Fluttering from their mainmasts were massive banners bearing the crossed keys of the Vatican, superimposed over a blood-red cross.

The Pope had unleashed his newly minted zealots to act as holy privateers, blockading the Adriatic Sea to starve Konrad’s industrial machine of raw materials.

A shout rang out from the crow’s nest of the xebec. "Corsairs! Papal galleys on the port bow! They are raising the red flag! No quarter!"

Faisal’s face drained of color. He stood up so quickly he nearly knocked the coffee table over.

"Madness!" Faisal hissed, panic edging into his voice. "We are a sovereign Mamluk merchant vessel! If they attack us, they risk war with Cairo!"

On the deck below, the Arab sailors were scrambling in chaos. The Desert Pearl was a heavy merchant vessel, built for carrying massive cargo holds of saltpeter and silk, not for outrunning sleek war galleys. The Mamluk guards, clad in chainmail and carrying traditional recurve bows and scimitars, rushed to the railings, but they were hopelessly outnumbered.

The lead Papal galley closed the distance with terrifying speed. Faisal could clearly see the heavily armored Spanish knights standing on the enemy deck, their white surcoats gleaming, their broadswords drawn.

"They have bronze rams!" Faisal shouted, drawing a curved dagger from his belt. "Tariq, we have fifty guards!"

Tariq finally stood up, brushing a speck of dust from his silk robes.

He gestured to his personal captain, a veteran sailor standing near the helm. "Captain. Bring up the Venetian crates."

The captain grinned. He barked an order, and a dozen Mamluk guards abandoned the railings, sprinting below deck.

A moment later, they returned, hauling three crates sealed with iron nails.

Faisal watched in utter confusion as the guards pried the lids off with crowbars.

Inside, nestled in heavy grease and straw, were dozens of long firearms. They were bulky, smoothbore weapons featuring a precision-machined flintlock mechanism.

The Pattern-1 Swabian Musket.

"King Konrad sold ten thousand of these to France. Did you truly believe a few crates wouldn’t "fall off the wagon" during transport?" Tariq murmured.

Faisal stared at the weapons.

"Distribute them to the port guard!" Tariq roared. "You drill with them all week! Show me that my gold was well spent!"

Fifty Mamluk guards discarded their bows and eagerly snatched the Swabian muskets from the crates. They bit the ends off pre-packaged paper cartridges, poured the powder down the smoothbore barrels, and rammed the spherical lead balls home.

Fifty heavy flintlocks were pulled back, locking into place with a snap.

The lead Papal galley surged closer, crossing the fifty-yard threshold. The Spanish zealots clustered at the bow, screaming Latin prayers and swinging heavy iron grappling hooks. They saw the Mamluk guards pointing metal tubes at them, but they laughed.

It was raining lightly, a mist blowing across the waves. Every European knight knew that sea spray and rain instantly extinguished the burning match-cords of traditional firearms.

"Deus Vult!" the Papal commander screamed, raising his broadsword. "Purge the heathens! Leave no survivors!"

Tariq stood on the aft deck, leveling his own Pattern-1 musket over the railing. He looked down the iron sights, centering the blade on the chest of the screaming Papal commander.

"Fire!" the Mamluk captain bellowed.

The heavy flint sparked instantly, entirely unaffected by the damp sea air.

A cloud of white smoke erupted from the deck of the Desert Pearl.

Across the water, the sheer force of the Swabian volley struck the Papal galley like a sledgehammer. The spherical lead balls slammed into the clustered Spanish knights with devastating blunt-force trauma. While the rounds did not pierce the highest quality plate armor, the kinetic transfer was catastrophic.

Breastplates caved in. Helmets were snapped back, breaking necks instantly. The unarmored oarsmen and lightly armored sailors behind the knights were shredded. The screaming Papal commander was thrown backward off his feet, his chest plate dented inward by Tariq’s direct hit, his ribs pulverized.

"Reload!" Tariq commanded, stepping back through the smoke and drawing a fresh paper cartridge from his pouch.

The Mamluk guards moved. Within twenty-five seconds, fifty more flintlocks snapped back into place.

The two trailing Papal galleys, witnessing their flagship’s vanguard get vaporized by weapons that defied the weather, aborted their ramming angles in panic. The oarsmen furiously back-paddled, the ships grinding against the waves as they desperately tried to pull away from the merchant vessel’s lethal broadside.

"Second volley! Fire!"

Another thunderous crack echoed across the sea. Another brutal storm of heavy lead hammered the retreating galleys, splintering their wooden railings and dropping knights into the frothing water.

Within three minutes of the engagement starting, the Papal blockade was broken. The surviving zealots, realizing they had sailed into a meat grinder, abandoned their holy mandate and fled south, leaving the heavily armed Desert Pearl to continue its journey unhindered.

The smoke slowly cleared from the deck.

Faisal stood perfectly still, staring at the retreating galleys in absolute, open-mouthed shock. He looked at the smoking iron musket in Tariq’s hands, and then down at the empty wooden crates.

"Fifty men... broke three galleys. And this is merely the weapon the Swabian King sells to foreigners?"

Tariq lowered the musket, a smile spreading across his face.

...

The Alcázar of Toledo, Spain.

Emperor Charles V, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Spain, and supposedly the most powerful monarch on the face of the earth, sat slumped beneath a tapestry of the crucifixion.

His famously pronounced jaw was clenched tight, and his foot rested on a velvet stool, bandaged to soothe a vicious flare-up of gout.

He was staring at a crumpled piece of parchment bearing the papal seal.

The ink detailed the horrific destruction of three Vatican war galleys in the Adriatic, dismantled by an Arab merchant vessel wielding Swabian firearms.

"The world is going mad," Charles whispered to the empty room, tossing the letter onto a desk buried under mountains of unpaid mercenary contracts and desperate pleas from the Austrian nobility. "God’s own vicar cannot even blockade a silk merchant."

A knock echoed against the doors.

Charles squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his temples. "Enter."

The doors groaned inward, admitting Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the Duke of Alba.

Despite his exhaustion, Charles felt a flicker of profound gratitude. In a court filled with sycophants, backstabbers, and bureaucrats, the Duke of Alba was the only pillar that hadn’t cracked under the weight of the Swabian threat.

"My Emperor," Alba said. He offered a bow.

"Fernando," Charles sighed, waving a hand. "Please, spare me the formalities. My brother is a broken vassal in Vienna, the French are buying weapons from a heretic, and my treasury is hemorrhaging silver just to keep the Italian states from revolting. Tell me you bring me a sword to cut this Gordian knot."

Alba stepped forward. "The crusader tax you negotiated with the Pope has been collected across Castile, Aragon, and Naples. The church bells have been melted down for bronze. We have mobilized the largest Catholic host since the days of the Crusades."

Charles leaned forward, fighting through the pain in his foot. "Numbers, Fernando."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!