Emperor Constantine certainly thought his city was safe. Valnor shook his head and chuckled at affixing the prefix of Emperor to Constantine’s name. It was ridiculous. The word implied the man was master of a massive empire. In reality he was little more than the mayor of a single, albeit wealthy, city.
Constantine scoffed at the idea of using Valnor’s heavy bombardment cannon as a means to expand his wealth and influence. The coward was content to hide behind his walls and roll around in his riches while the rest of the world descended into anarchy around him.
The inaction was an unpleasant reminder of Hastelloy and his lack of leadership. If the captain had let Valnor work his plan a thousand years earlier, they would probably already be off this godforsaken rock by now. Instead they were stuck in this quicksand of darkness, death and societal degradation.
His tour through northern Italy and Greece gave a disturbing pictorial of just how far things had regressed. Under the civilized umbrella of his Roman Empire commerce flowed freely, and cities boasted feats of architectural engineering and scholarly study. Now these individual cities featured tall, thick walls with gaudy gatehouses closed tight in an effort to keep the spreading plague at bay. How could Hastelloy have let this happen?
What’s more, Alice and Thomas would still be alive. Their condition required a vaccine, a cure that was unavailable due to the disjointed and fractured society Hastelloy stood by and allowed to happen. Damn that man, was all Valnor could think as he paced away from the city walls of Constantinople.
Constantine was an infuriating individual. He, more than anyone else on the planet, had the potential to make a difference, but he felt safe behind his walls. So did all the great minds and artists who sought refuge in the place.
Not to worry though, there were other leaders nearby who had far more ambition and vision. Valnor checked one last time that the saddle bags containing his designs were secure and then mounted his horse. He gave one last look back at the towering city walls and then headed north on a mission to topple those very walls.
A week later, Valnor found himself seated before Sultan Mehmed II and a dozen of his military advisors. The twenty-one year old had recently assumed the throne of the Ottoman Empire. He inherited an immense fortune and a strong army. Of more importance to Valnor, he was eager to prove to the world that he had the right to rule.
The city of Constantinople had been a mocking thorn in the side of the Ottoman Empire for generations. The city’s command of the straights between the Black and Mediterranean seas robbed the Ottoman’s of their ability to tax commerce passing between the two bodies of water. Today Valnor would help them start to remove that thorn.
Valnor decided to open the discussion by laying all his cards on the table. “Honorable Sultan. My name is Orban, and I humbly offer my designs and engineering services to your employ so that you may finally own the Golden Horn and the city which protects that valuable passage.”
Valnor observed several men around the rectangular table, including the Sultan himself, straighten their posture a bit. The idea was not universally embraced however.
“It cannot be done,” one particularly fat man with a tangled beard barked. “Catapults, trebuchets, sapping tunnels. These have all been tried and failed to breach even one layer of those walls, let alone reach the city itself. This is a fool’s proposition and a waste of our time.”
Sultan Mehmed said nothing. The young ruler simply opened his arms slightly inviting a counter argument. Valnor was happy to comply. Across the table he unfurled a roll of parchment paper that covered half the table and oriented it to face the Sultan.
When he saw eyes widen with comprehension of his designs Valnor boldly declared, “If the walls no longer stand then there is nothing to impede you from conquering the city.”
After a few quiet moments the fat man continued his protest. “Anyone can draw a picture of a big cannon, it does not mean the thing will actually work. Plus, it is too large. How could we possibly move it into position, and once set up it would be too close to the target and draw constant attacks to destroy it.”
Valnor was ready for this debate. He took out a stack of smaller sheets of paper detailing the precise metallurgical requirements and shapes for the foundry moldings to render the weapon functional. He set the stack of pages in front of the protesting advisor. “Here are all the facts and figures to prove to your engineers that this is a viable design. It will work.”
“I cannot deny the cannon will be heavy,” Valnor conceded. “It will take at least sixty oxen and no fewer than five hundred men to move the weapon into position, but all that effort will be well spent in the end.”
“The cannon will be able to hurl a six hundred pound boulder over a mile to hit a target,” Valnor went on. “Attack from the defenders will not be a concern, and with that amount of force and weight anything it hits will be destroyed. In a matter of days the mighty walls of Constantinople will be little more than a paved entry way for your forces to secure a great conquest.”
Murmurs around the table debating the validity of Valnor’s claim came to an abrupt end when Sultan Mehmed II rose to his feet. “My engineers will review your designs. If your claims are confirmed, I will make you a wealthy man. If they are not, I will make you a dead man.”
With his orders given the Sultan left the command tent without another word. When all eyes fell back on Valnor once more he cracked a confident grin toward the engineers he was meant to impress. “Does anyone have an abacus?”
Chapter 26: Unfair Advantage
Kublai Khan looked out across the open grassland before him and shook his head with wonder. Five hundred yards away a Song army numbering perhaps twenty thousand strong lined up for battle against his men. Surely word of his prior victories had spread, yet the Song generals continued to use the same obsolete tactics ensuring this day would end like all the others.
The Song infantry carried long spears with metal tips and shields. For battle they formed up in square pike formations with the first four rows pointing their spears outward to defend against the now legendary cavalry charges for which his Mongol ancestors were known, but that was then and this was now. Kublai’s god had given him a new weapon that rendered pike formations a nostalgic relic of the past.
“Same as before, send the archer cavalry forward to draw their missile fire while the infantry move into position,” Kublai Khan ordered.
Like a tidal wave rolling onto the shore, he watched his mounted units accelerate toward the right and left flanks of the enemy’s squared up formations. As they drew near, a few riders fell victim to enemy arrows and slingshot pebbles. The riding archers, however, were able to give as good as they got since the Mongols were exceptionally well trained at firing their bows while riding. The casualties were superficial at best, but it did provide a wonderful distraction while the real threat moved in unmolested.
His foot soldiers marched forward with shields locked in protective position to stop any arrows that did happen to come their way. When his soldiers came within a hundred yards of the enemy he ordered the heavy cavalry forward and followed their lead.
Charging a wall of pikes head on with cavalry, even heavily armored horses, was suicide, but those pikes would not be in position for long.
Kublai Khan’s infantry came to an abrupt halt thirty feet from the menacing pike wall. The first four rows of his men took their own spears from their shoulders and planted the butt end into the ground and braced it with the instep of their foot. They then leveled the three foot long and one foot diameter tip toward the Song defensive line. To those men it looked like thousands of metal honey combs were pointed at them, but the sting of these weapons was far more potent than any bee.
“Fire,” came an order from the Mongol line commanders, and the world erupted with sparks, smoke, and carnage.
From the honeycombed metal cylinders leapt forth hundreds of tiny metal balls propelled by the explosive black powder Kublai Khan’s god instructed him to pr
oduce.
A wall of angry lead slammed into the Song infantry leveling the first six rows, and sending the remaining ranks to the ground under the destructive force. Thick white smoke billowing up from the Mongol front lines obscured Kublai’s vision of the enemy, but from prior experience he already knew their condition and gave his heavy cavalry the order, “Charge!”
A rolling wave of thunder spread across the battlefield as thousands of heavy horses drove their hooves into the ground to produce a mass of armor and lances rushing forward at thirty miles per hour. The Mongol infantry stepped into single file lines allowing the cavalry to pass and do their damage.
Hardly a single spear was still leveled in anger toward the charge as the enemy was busy getting back to their feet and recovering from the shock of seeing handheld explosive weapons flatten their lines. Some bodies flew as far as thirty feet through the air when the charge slammed into them. Others were impaled clear through by a sharp lance, and any man lucky enough to remain raised his hands in surrender and asked for quarter, but none was given.
The only men to survive the battle from the Song army were a handful of officers able to spur their mounts to outrun their attackers.
“Should I order the mounted archers to give chase?” General Kang asked.
Kublai Khan shook his head gently from side to side. “No, let their words carry the terror of this day to the rest of their soldiers and citizens.”
His general looked unconvinced. “They will all head for either Xiangyang or Fancheng. Even after laying siege to those fortresses for two years we are still unable to breach their defenses. We can’t let them receive even more reinforcements.”
Kublai Khan regarded his general with a level stare that slowly morphed into a sly, sideways grin. “Of course we can. This entire campaign has been about corralling all of the Song soldiers and royal family members into one place so that I may deliver a death blow to the entire dynasty all at once rather than allowing pockets of resistance to fester for decades to come.”
“Beware what you wish for; you just might get it,” General Kang responded with a huff. “I don’t see how we will be able to break them. Their defensive walls are too thick for our trebuchets to penetrate and their unlimited access to fresh river water means we cannot starve them out.”
Kublai Khan looked past General Kang toward his army’s encampment site. He directed his general’s attention to the train of fifty horse-drawn carts carrying stout lumber and scrap metal collected from prior conquests lined up along the southern barrier.
“Finish them off and continue moving the army toward Xiangyang to join the siege,” Kublai ordered. “My God has a plan for me, and since I started obeying his council we have known nothing but victory and prosperity.”
Chapter 27: Follow the Yellow Silk Road
Hastelloy looked down at the table which had a small pile of finely ground powder with the color and consistency of rust. The prospect was unappealing to him, but he owed it to his guest to try the sample. He calmly licked his index finger, dabbed some of the powder onto the moistened tip and then stuck the finger in his mouth.
The explosion of flavor made his eyelids snap open, and he instinctively opened his mouth to draw in a cooling breath to put out the intense burning sensation on his tongue.
“Intriguing isn’t it,” Niccolo said from across the table as Hastelloy reached for a glass of water. “It’s called cinnamon. I picked it up during my travels in the Far East. Do you think there is a market for it here in Venice?”
Hastelloy took one last gulp of water and set the glass down. “Forget about Venice, I think every baker and chef in all of Europe will want to get their hands on this. How much did you bring back with you?”
“Only a few bags to allow my trading partners to sample the product,” Niccolo answered with some regret behind his words. “My brother Maffeo and son Marco depart next week for the Far East again to set up final trade arrangements.”
“What else do you plan on importing?”
Niccolo’s face lit up like he was already mentally calculating the profits he would make, “Lots of things. Here feel the softness of this silk fabric,” he said while handing Hastelloy a patch of the vibrant blue fabric.
“I’ve also got my hands on some other spices like nutmeg, clove, peppers ...”
“What can we bring to them to earn profits going both directions on the trades,” Hastelloy quickly interrupted.
Niccolo reared back his head and let loose a mighty laugh. “You Medici’s are always trying to squeeze extra profits into a deal,”
“And you Polos have a habit of always thinking too small,” Hastelloy countered and then playfully tossed the silk fabric at his counterpart’s chest. “We must have something for them: steel, armor, swords?”
Niccolo looked down at the table and shook his head from side to side. “From what I saw over there, swords and armor might be a thing of the past, even the new steel ones.”
“What do you mean?”
“Black powder weapons are being used more and more over there now,” Niccolo responded.
Hastelloy was not convinced. “I’ve seen the local arms dealers try to use those explosive handheld weapons, but they always manage to blow themselves up more often than the enemy targets with them. Besides, the models I have seen don’t even have the power to penetrate a decent set of leather armor, let alone chain or plate mail.
“No, I think the loud bang and smoke they billow out might make a good terror weapon against those primitives out east, but here in the civilized world it is just a gimmick, nothing more,” Hastelloy concluded.
“It’s the wave of the future my friend. Somehow their powder is much more powerful than what they produce in these parts. I heard an invading army from the steppes of Mongolia is using some sort of hand cannon to blast apart shielded pike formations like they are holding a bolt of silk up for protection,” Niccolo countered while stretching the delicate silk patch in the air between the two men.
“Really,” Hastelloy said with a hint of alarm reaching his voice. It should take hundreds of years to perfect the explosive potential of gunpowder. This smelled of Alpha influence. Things had been relatively quiet around Europe recently. Perhaps Goron had taken his formless existence on the road and was now meddling in the affairs of the eastern empires.
“Oh yes. From what I hear, the weapon is so effective the Mongols are poised to take over the entire region in short order.”
Hastelloy took a few moments to ponder his options. “Do you have any extra room in the wagons heading east next week?”
Chapter 28: No Backup
In the back of an ambulance roaring down the city streets of Cairo with the siren blaring, Frank sat with an NSA network linked data screen on his lap. On the display he watched satellite imagery of the assault carried out earlier on his Humvee. Owing to the triangulation effect of multiple satellites focusing on his distress signal and image enhancement algorithms, he had a video of the events that would make even a Hollywood videographer proud.
Not only could he see a crystal clear image of the action from a top down perspective, the image enhancement programming actually allowed the view to be rotated and render a street side three-dimensional perspective as well. He could zoom in to check license plate numbers and even gauge the approximate height, and weight of the assault team members. The video picked up just as a paneled van sped away from the scene carrying the overly knowledgeable archeologists with it.
Frank watched twelve men dressed all in black with ski masks climb into the back of a delivery truck that had rammed the Humvee from behind. As that vehicle sped away he also saw the sniper come out of a five story building across the street wearing civilian clothes and holding a briefcase carrying his deadly instrument. The man casually walked down the street as if he was going to work for the day.
Frank zoomed the video feed out again and followed the paneled van and delivery truck as they took a direct path to the Chinese embass
y where their valuable cargo was unloaded and taken inside.
It certainly explained why most of the strike team members were so short, but the realization that the Chinese were involved in a smash and dash kidnapping of US citizens had him positively baffled. How did they know about the archeologists? How did they know the route to be taken well enough to stage a coordinated attack on a mobile target, and what the devil did they want with the archeologists?
He still had only questions, but he needed to inform Mark of the events. He pulled up a secure phone he borrowed from the NSA field agent driving the ambulance and put it to his ear. “Mark, believe it or not, this entire situation just got a whole lot more complicated.”
Frank spent five minutes walking Mark through the chain of events. The man did not value wordy explanations; just the facts, and that is exactly what he got. He absorbed in silence the cold hard fact that the Chinese government was now involved.
“Well that’s just perfect,” Mark finally said. “Like we don’t have enough on our plate right now so the Chinese thought they would add another helping. Alright, it’s done.”
“It ain’t alright,” Frank snapped back. “How the hell did they know we were even here, do we have a mole problem in our house?”
Mark’s matter of fact answer was immediate. “A Chinook helicopter deposited a SEAL team on the Giza plateau. Three armored Humvees have been driving around the streets of Cairo. That kind of activity tends to reach the desk of intelligence officers pretty quickly. I don’t think they used an informant, they didn’t need one. The question in my mind is what the Chinese want with the archeologists.”
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Frank answered. “They wanted to know what was going on and they snatched the two of them to get answers.”
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