Many feel that the Laws of Wotan clearly prohibit the use of muskets in combat, but that didn’t prevent the Empire of Anjou from introducing them and transforming the face of warfare forever. Now, a full generation after the heretical weapons drove the High Kingdom of Kriegsturm firmly onto the defensive, neither side is yet using the gun to its full potential.
That’s about to change.
Lieutenant Marshal Sturm, one of a handful of survivors of a battalion decimated by the musket-hating doctrine of his superiors, has developed a new tactic that could flip the battlefield upside down. The only thing standing in his way are the officers of his own chain of command. But the Empire is set to invade Kriegsturm again and the only thing that can prevent total annihilation is Sturm and his Musket Men.
Marshal Sturm is in trouble. With just one company of musket men and a battalion of dismounted cavalry, he has to stop the whole Angevin army from securing the eastern entrance to Steil Pass. Effectively, he’s the cork stoppering a bottle full of Angies with their thousands upon thousands of muskets, pikes, and cannon. Unfortunately for Sturm, that bottle is well shaken and its contents are about to erupt straight through the pass. Failure to hold back Anjou means a brand new front in the decades old war—a development that will almost certainly cost Kriegsturm Oosten Graanland. Nobody thinks he can hold, but the world is about to discover what happens when the unstoppable Angevin tide runs headlong into the Sturm Front.
Major Marshal “Sturm Front” Sturm, Hero of Steil Pass, has done the impossible yet again—he has liberated the strategically vital city of Hekt from Angevin hands. But the struggle to hold onto this jewel on the Markt River has only just begun. With an invading host of Angevin soldiers gathering across the river in Oosten Graanland, and enemy reinforcements rapidly approaching Hekt from the Angevin interior, Sturm is caught between two mighty armies. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the city also has large numbers of potential traitors—religious fanatics who didn’t want to be liberated by someone they consider to be a heretic. Will Hekt prove to be Sturm’s shelter or his grave?
Marshal “Sturm Front” Sturm comes to Aachen to consult with the high king of Kriegsturm before taking up his responsibilities as earl of Fortaleza. After a year at war, Sturm hopes for a well-deserved rest before journeying south, but the royal capital is filled with new dangers for the young earl. Some maneuver to steal his title and wealth, others hate the Hero of Steil Pass for his astounding victories on the battlefield, and some fear the headstrong young Liberator of Hekt will ignite a civil war in the contentious south when he claims his contested lands. Sturm is about to learn that his allies can be as dangerous as his enemies. Everyone else is about to discover that the battlefield is not the only place that a Sturm is rising.
Marshal Sturm has been given the seemingly impossible task of claiming the earldom of Fortaleza from the hands of a pretender who has had control of the territory for nearly a year. To have any hope of success, he needs an army trained in the musket doctrine he used to hold Steil Pass and conquer the city of Hekt. But where does a peer of the realm recruit an army when his fief is already in enemy hands? If you’re Marshal Sturm, you return to Eisenland, the territory you grew up in. But not everyone in his homeland is happy to see a local boy elevated to the top of the peerage. And old enemies and new view the isolated countryside of Sturm’s youth as the perfect place to trap and murder him.
Marshal “Sturm Front” Sturm has finally reached Al-Andalus to claim the earldom of Fortaleza from the usurper who has had control of it for most of a year. Unfortunately, the usurper is not proving to be Sturm’s biggest problem. The high king’s officials in Al-Andalus are so concerned with the possibility of civil war breaking out between the two claimants that they are trying to stop Sturm from doing anything that might actually permit him to take control of his lands. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the southern empire of Ahl-Alnaar is also showing interest in the situation, as the usurper shares their faith and might help to bring the whole province of Al-Andalus back under southern control. With every hand against him, Sturm will need to draw on everything he learned in Steil Pass and Hekt if he is to secure Fortaleza and preserve the high kingdom. As the storm clouds gather, all of Kriegsturm is bracing for the deluge.
The Festival of the Midnight Bloom was supposed to ignite feelings of love and lust in the southerners of Al-Andalus. Instead, the Pretender Earl of Fortaleza and his allies have used it to turn their co-religionists into berserk cannibals seeking to feast on northern flesh. Now Marshal Sturm, the legitimate earl, must figure out how to save thousands of northern survivors from hordes of mindless people who do not feel pain and seem to keep fighting even after they’re dead. All he has to combat them with is his bayonet, a few stout friends, and a handful of rickety barriers to bolster the defense. But not all of Sturm’s enemies are on the far side of that barrier; and they would like to find a way to use the berserkers to remove Sturm from the High Kingdom of Kriegsturm once and for all.