Susan Johnson - Golden Paradise

Behind their redoubts, the Turks were firing with such rapidity a flaming red line of fire tore into the advancing columns. As they drew closer to the entrenchments the second and third attack battalions slowed down and began to falter. In horror, Stefan saw the first break begin, the first men turn in retreat before the annihilating fire storm, and knew not a moment could be lost or his men would lose heart. He had only two battalions of sharpshooters left in reserve, the best in his detachment. Quickly waving them forward, he put himself at the head of these, picking up the stragglers in his rush forward, reaching the troops that were considering retreat and giving them the inspiration of his own courage. He gathered up the whole mass as if with a single sweeping motion of his arm and carried it toward the redoubt with a rush and a cheer.

The entire fortress before them was like a vision of hell, enveloped in flame and smoke, the steady crash of deadly rifle fire a lethal barricade they must cross, but his men pushed on because their general was a dozen yards ahead of them and they wouldn't fail him. Stefan's sword was shot in two twenty yards from the ramparts, tossed aside and replaced in a reflexive blur of motion from his saddle scabbard; his uniform was covered with mud and filth, his cross of Saint George twisted round on his shoulder, his face black with powder and smoke, but he charged forward the last few yards with a savage yell and Cleo soared over the last ditch, the scarp and counterscarp, over the parapet and swept into the redoubt like a hurricane. Stefan was smiling, feeling the old frenzied energy and brashness. He heard his own scream with a sense of exhilaration, heard the answering roar of his troops streaming in behind him and knew his men would follow him anywhere.

Like a pressured damn breaking, the Turkish defenses crumbled against the onslaught of an army that shouldn't have been able to reach their entrenchments, that should have retreated against the superiority of their Peabody-Martini rifles, that was led by a maniac they all recognized as the phenomenal White General… Bariatinsky.

And twenty bloody minutes later the Tsar's army had taken the redoubt.

The question then was how to hold it, dominated as it was by the Tabias fort, exposed to the fire of sharpshooters concealed behind the next line of trenches and the artillery sights of the citadel. Stefan knew they would be counterattacked. Mukhtar Pasha had no other choice but to try to retake Karadagh and hold that and Tabias at any cost. Both armies understood the significance of the forts protecting the entrance to the citadel.

In less than ten minutes, Stefan's cavalry met the first rush of the regrouped Turks, giving the grenadiers and infantry time to scramble over the parapets, giving the last reserves time to advance up the hill, and ten minutes later what was left of the cavalry faced the Turkish counterattack pouring down the earthworks toward them.

The fighting was brutal. Stefan and his Kurdish troopers were in the thick of the combat, slashing and parrying, slashing and parrying, the motion of their sword arms dogged and automatic, their bodies numb to any sensation save the drive to survive. Sweat streamed down their faces despite the frigid temperatures, their bodies pumping adrenaline in a frantic effort to thwart death, their minds concentrated with focused intensity only on stopping the next fatal blow… and the next… and the next.

They fought mechanically without thought, by instinct alone, their skill a fusion of courage and tactic so ingrained the question of breeding or training was moot. They fought for two hours on the parapets and parade ground and paved squares of a fortress the English and Prussians had guaranteed invincible. They fought while the sky turned a dull gray and the stars lost their brilliance.

Stefan's uniform was no longer distinguishable as white; it was bloodstained and torn from numerous wounds, the worst a saber cut on his right shoulder that had cut clear to the bone. He was fighting now with his left hand. Cleo's reins were wrapped around the saddle pommel, for his right arm was useless even for the light guidance his trained mount might need. Cleo was lathered and foaming, her black coat sleek with moisture. Haci and his men, sword and dagger in hand, marshaled around Stefan, committed to protecting him with their lives. Twice in the past hour Stefan had sent for reinforcements, but in the melee of battle there was no guarantee his dispatches had gotten through and his position was becoming untenable.

With a feeling of unease, Stefan heard the ominous drumbeats of another Turkish attack, the rapid staccato rhythm signaling another sortie. His men heard it too, and knew the sound to be a warning of disaster. Even if Stefan's call for reinforcements had reached their base camp, the ascent up the side of the glacis was so precipitous that troops couldn't be brought up with the same speed as Mukhtar Pasha's attack force, and after hours of fighting, Stefan's remaining men were exhausted, low on ammunition and grimly aware the next Turkish assault could be mortal.

Calling on his last reserves of strength, reaching down beyond his pain and fatigue to an inner strength that had carried him through countless campaigns in the past when the odds were as slim or worse, Stefan shouted to the men, his voice hoarse and raspy, and rode toward the advancing Turks pouring over the entrenchment. They had to stop this attack or all would be lost; he had to rally his men or the hours of fighting would be in vain; he couldn't allow this Turkish counteroffensive to succeed or all the lives lost would have been useless.

Raising his sword high, he spoke to Cleo, nudging her forward with his knees. With her own valiant spirit undiminished, she broke into a trot.

The Turkish rifles ripped into his first line, his bodyguard began to fall, and a moment later Stefan's forward cavalry was fully engaged, the infantry short yards behind. They fought like men with their backs against the wall, knowing there were no options short of death. Soon the ground was slippery with blood, strewn with the dead and dying.

When Haci fell, Stefan saw him go down in the extreme border of his peripheral vision and, shouting for help, jumped from Cleo to go to his aid. The remaining seven of Stefan's guard followed him, and standing back-to-back against the Turks, they protected Haci with their bodies. The waves of Turks seemed unending as Stefan and his bodyguard stood in a circle on the paving stones laid in an intricate variation of a herringbone pattern. They kept coming while daylight rimmed the horizon; they kept coming while Stefan and his Kurds stood unflinching; they kept coming as Turkish bodies piled up in heaps around the phalanx protecting Haci, Stefan's men firing their revolvers in relays like a well-choreographed ballet of death.

But their own casualties mounted, too, against the expensive modern Peabody-Martini rifles the Ottoman Empire had purchased from America, and at last only three of the phalanx remained standing, and then, ten bloody minutes later, none were left…

The battle washed over their bodies in the muted light of dawn, as though their gallant stand had never existed, as though their human lives were no more than a flicker of an eye in the cosmic universe, as though the heir to the Bariatinsky-Orbeliani fortune and honor were a grain of sand on an ocean shore and the battle for Kars a vast tidal wave.

The Tsar's soldiers came up at last as color brightened the sky in numbers sufficient to force a Turkish retreat, but the Turks fought like demons, street to street, house to house, to the very end. Kars was their most important stronghold, the Sultan had poured a fortune into its defenses, and their generals and ruler and religion offered them paradise if they died in its defense. So they died instead of surrendering; they stood and fought at each corner and barricade; the citadel was emptied of defenders, the auxiliary forts and trenches were emptied, and hour after hour the Turks fought until at last it was over.