Tyranny of Steel

In the fields outside the city of Acre, tens of thousands of soldiers marched towards each other. On one side was the mighty crusader army composed of fifteen thousand men, on the other was the Byzantine-Timurid alliance, which held an equal number of soldiers. While the infantry marched towards one another with killing intent, the artillery had begun to open fire on their adversaries. 

The Byzantine Artillery officers were well disciplined, having received their training from German Military Advisors. The individual members of the artillery batteries loaded their weapons from the muzzle, before lighting the linstock and using it to ignite the cannon. With a thunderous echo, the cannonballs rained onto the crusader armies, blasting bodies apart as they burrowed their way through the enemy ranks. 

Aubry was not the kind of man to lead his troops from the front, rather, he, like his English counterpart, stayed safely behind their own lines, and observed the battle as it took place in the field below. The boy king could not help but exclaim in shock as he witnessed the carnage inflicted on the crusader armies by the superior Byzantine artillery. He pouted lightly as he condemned Berengar for selling him bad goods.

"That German bastard! If I had known the cannons, he sold me were inferior to his allies, I would have never bothered paying full price!"

As he said this, another bombardment struck the Crusader lines, turning men into meat paste. However, because they were not explosive shells, the cannon balls were far less effective than the artillery that the German Army had at its command.

King Lawrence merely scoffed when he heard this before scolding the boy for his own stupidity.

"What? Did you honestly expect Berengar to sell you, a hostile neighbor, the same weapons that he sells to his allies? You're more foolish than I thought..." 

Despite his harsh words, the English king was more worried about what was happening with the byzantine Infantry. While the Timurid soldiers approached the Crusaders armies with religious fervor, the byzantine musketeers had stayed behind, and guarded the artillery, firing their rifled muskets at great distances into the enemy ranks, unwilling to approach the front lines while using their superior range advantage against the crusader forces.

The volley fire performed by the Byzantine Musketeers who reloaded their guns as quickly as they could ruthlessly cut the English, French, and Hospitaller forces down in massive swaths. Because they were lacking in quick loading tubes, it took the Byzantines well over ten seconds to load their guns before firing. However, despite this, they were still faster than the enemy arkebusiers, who still were not within range of firing their weapons.  When the English King saw this overwhelming range advantage, he called out to the Crusader artillery and issuing them new orders.

"Focus your guns on the Byzantines! The Timurids are not a threat!" Do you want to read more chapters?

With this command, the Crusader artillery shifted the aim of their guns onto the smaller forces of the Byzantine Empire and fired their cannonballs into the enemy position. The Byzantines had not prepared proper fortifications and instead felt the sting of the one and six-pound cannonballs rip through their ranks at high velocity. 

When Aubry saw this command being issued, he realized that the biggest threat to their army was the five thousand Byzantines, as for the Timurid soldiers, they were merely your standard medieval force, and against the mighty guns of the Crusader army could easily fall by the wayside. 

Despite the cannon fire targeting the Byzantine forces, they continued to load their weapons and fire at the charging enemy, who were desperately trying to approach the firing range of their smoothbore weapons.

Eventually, they succeeded in their endeavors, despite the literal piles of bodies that formed at their feet. Those who were armed with firearms quickly formed ranks and fired a volley on the Byzantine and Timurid forces, ruthlessly cutting down their front lines. 

The reality was that advanced firearms like muskets were a relatively new technology that had only recently spread to the rest of Europe in limited capacity. This was thanks to the influence Berengar had on the timeline. The downside of this was that none of the armies present really had any field practice with their weapons, having only really used them against inanimate targets. It is because of this that both sides lacked proper tactics for how to most effectively wield their weapons. 

Thus, the Generals of both factions merely lined their soldiers up and fired at one another. As for the Timurids, they could only overwhelm the volume of fire with sheer numbers, and because of this, the soldiers of the Muslim Empire recklessly charged into the Crusader lines and collided with them, forcing them into melee combat. 

Aubry smiled as he witnessed this. Even though he had armed a substantial amount of his levies with matchlock firearms, he still had several heavily armored knights who took the vanguard the moment the battle turned into a melee fight.

He noticed a particularly tall French knight thrusting his sword through the heart of a Timurid warrior, spilling the man's blood on to the sand beneath his feet, and kicking the corpse over. This man was one of the Aubry's lovers, and nothing turned him on more than watching one of his men dominate on the battlefield. Thus, the French King licked his lips as he gazed at the gory scene. 

However, in the next minute he watched in horror as the man was gunned down by several minie balls that had been fired at his position by the Byzantine musketeers, who continued to stay back and use their ranged advantage in the chaotic melee. The tall French knight fell to his knees in shock as he bled through his breastplate before collapsing onto the field of bodies. Aubry could not help but cry out in tears as he witnessed the death of one of his many lovers. Come to p a n d a-n o v e l,c o m

"Jaques, No!"

When the English King heard this, he looked at the feminine King and scoffed at him before making a comment at Aubry's expense. 

"So, I take it he was one of your lovers? Don't worry, you can always find another."

Aubry did not take this insult well and immediately stared at King Lawrence with a hateful gaze.

"Shut your mouth!"

Upon hearing this, the English King merely smirked before turning his attention back to the battlefield. Smoke and blood filled the air as the rear lines of the Crusader army opened fire on the Timurid forces, cutting them down in a symphony of bloodshed. By now, the Muslims had lost over half their forces and were beginning to panic. They had not expected the enemies' firearms to be so effective. 

Gunshots continued to roar in the air, but despite the significant range advantage of the Byzantine Armies, their crusader rivals simply had too many firearms employed by its forces. The moment they closed the gap, they would open fire on both the Byzantine and Timurid forces. Every arkebusier who fell was replaced by a pikeman within their ranks who merely scavenged a firearm and used it himself. It was becoming increasingly clear that if something did not change soon, the tides of war would fall within the Crusaders' favor.

Unfortunately, as the Byzantine and Timurid forces were struggling to maintain their ranks, a horn of war blew in the distance and the Crusader cavalry appeared on a hill above. Evidently, the Knights of the Red Dragon had arrived at the scene, led by their Grand Master, who was carrying something akin to a cavalry carbine in his arms.

The Knights of the Red Dragon were one of the many crusader orders formed by the Catholic Church in an attempt to counter the growing threat of the Berengar Heresy. Since its inception, its grandmaster had been obsessed with firearms and had been one of the leading contributors in their development.

This army of knights were fully equipped with such weapons, and rushed down from the hilltop above with their matchlock carbines, and rained fire upon the Byzantine and Timurid forces, collapsing what little resistance that had managed to muster. With the arrival of more crusaders, and the volleys they fired into the enemy's ranks, the Byzantine and Timurid armies found themselves overwhelmed. Eventually, the Strategos of Palestine issued a retreat.

"Retreat! Retreat to Acre!" 

Those who could do so began to route as the Red Dragon cavalry swept by them with blades in hand, cutting down those who could not escape their pursuit. The French and English Kings gazed in awe at their victory. Throughout the entire battle, they had a lingering suspicion that they would be defeated, but those worries appeared to be moot. 

With this defeat, the Byzantine and Timurid soldiers who survived the battle would retreat to the nearby city of Acre, where they would be forced to defend it in a siege. Though the field battle had been won by the Crusader forces, it would be pointless if they failed to take the city. Thus, the upcoming weeks would be filled with fierce conflict as both sides battled for supremacy within the Holy Land.