Chapter 31
At the northern approaches into Déj
The sight of Captain Callenberk was most welcome. “Where the hell have you been, Captain?” Colonel Renz asked. “There’s a war on!”
Callenberk reined his horse to a stop. He saluted quickly. “Orders, Colonel. Slow and steady, so sayeth the commanding officer.”
It was a sound policy in a foreign land, especially in one as diverse as the Transylvanian plateau. So many places along the march to suffer ambushes, hazards. Move as one, consistent force, and keep from being divided and destroyed.
“Did you experience any problems en route, Captain?”
“Not a one.”
“Good,” Colonel Renz said, nodding, “then I want you to—”
A massive exchange of gunfire erupted near the southern approaches. Colonel Renz could not see what had just occurred, but he’d seen enough battle to know: volley against volley.
He pointed in that direction. “That’s our killing field right now, Captain. Change of plans. Do not divide your men as previously ordered. Lead all your men there and help Captain von Jori beat those bastards back. You understand me?”
“Yes, Colonel,” Captain Callenberk said. “Yaww!”
He was gone, and his company of dragoons followed.
Colonel Renz watched them pass with pride. He was beginning to feel much better about their situation.
At the southern approaches into Déj
Volley met volley, and the wooden fortifications around Christian weakened. The wagon he was on buckled to the ground, its rear axle splintering in two. The barrels in the wagon tumbled. The men standing alongside him lost their footing. He grabbed one before the man fell, held him tight, and said, “Reload! Double again!”
All up and down the line, the fortification that they had assembled began to weaken. Despite his urging and threats of discipline, a small number of the men had left their positions, had dropped off the back of the fortification, and were now milling about as if they didn’t know what to do. Other men filled those gaps, but the number of those were dwindling. By raw count on fingers, Christian figured he’d lost a dozen, perhaps more. Pistols lay on the ground unclaimed.
Another lull. Behind his barrier, he could hear the death moans of men on both sides. It hurt him deeply to hear it, no matter which side, though he couldn’t help but give deference to his men, those who still held their ground and fought as ordered. He understood the cowards; they were mercenaries. They fought for gold, for treasure. They would, if conditions warranted, turn at any time. That was the real price one paid for relying on mercenaries. But now was not the time, and here was not the place for such insubordination and cowardice.
“Fire!”
His fighting men rose and fired, full double barrels, into the lines of Moldavian musketmen who fired, fell back, fired, fell back, while the entire infantry block inched closer, closer. Bodies were still pilling up in their path, and Christian allowed himself the notion that perhaps they were wavering, reconsidering this heavy assault against his position. Such tactics could not last forever. Indeed, Christian had far fewer men than the Moldavians, but they did not have an inexhaustible supply of fresh soldiers either. Their slow approach could not last much longer.
They’ll charge…as sure as shit, they’ll charge…
* * *
Denise crouched for protection behind a wagon wheel as the space above her erupted in splintered wood and whistling lead balls. When the madness stopped, she held up a box of paper carriages, and said, “Here, take it!”
Lieutenant Enkefort took the resupply and shouted down to her, “They’re working up for a big charge, Fräulein. Time for you to leave!”
“Bite me!”
She waited a few seconds longer and then ran again to the three wagons that sat guarded about fifty feet behind the line. Luckily, the defensive wall itself had slowed down the enemy’s massive volleys such that the supply wagons had not taken any hits. A steady stream of men moved back and forth across the space, delivering resupply to Captain von Jori’s men still defending the battlements. It was a good system, but how long would it last? Lieutenant Enkefort was right. Denise knew next to nothing about war, but by God, anyone could hear and see that the enemy was drawing closer with every volley.
She grabbed another two boxes of cartridges, tucking one under each arm. They felt awkward, uncomfortable pushed up into her armpit, but she managed.
A shot ricocheted off a stone wall nearby, striking the runner down in front of her. Denise paused, stepped over the body carefully, and continued to the line.
* * *
“Reload!” Christian ordered. “Fire at will!”
He then jumped down from his damaged wagon and hefted his smoking pistol for the cowards to see. “What the hell are you doing back here? Turn, climb back to your positions, and defend the line.”
One man huffed, shook his head. “I’m not an infantryman, Captain. I ride a horse. I did not sign up for this kind of work.”
“Besides,” another piped in, rubbing black powder residue out of his beard. “We can’t hold this line forever. You know it.”
“I know that!” Christian said, yelling louder than he intended. Loud enough for a number of the men on the wall to take notice. “But that is not our decision. Not yet, anyway. We can still hold, and so I’m ordering you to—”
“Captain!”
Christian answered the man’s call by jumping back into his wagon and peeking through one of the many holes in the palisade.
The front lines of Moldavian musketmen had cleared away. Behind them, dividing the block of infantry, were three crews moving their six-pounder cannons into position.
“Kill the crews!”
* * *
Denise heard Christian shout, “Kill the crews!” At first, she didn’t know what that meant. Kill the what? Then she heard someone on the line say “cannon.” Of course, now it made sense.
She dropped her boxes, and a man picked them up and carried them to his portion of the line. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” she asked, but Enkefort didn’t respond. His attention was glued to a gap in the wall.
She climbed up beside him, keeping her head down. “Go away, Denise,” he said, trepidation in his voice, his eyes red from smoke and anger. “This is no place for—”
“Yes, a woman, I know. But here I am. Give me a gun, damn you. You need all the shooters you can get!”
He cursed loudly and pushed a half-cocked ZB to her with his boot. “It’s half-cocked. When I order, cock it fully and fire. You do know how to hold and fire a gun?”
Denise nodded. “I wouldn’t have asked you for one if I didn’t.”
It was a lie, of course. Yes, she knew how to fire her little up-time pistol. But this? It was nearly a foot long, and heavy. Maybe Christian is right, she said to herself. She could barely wrap her hand around the handle and reach a finger out to the trigger. Gretchen could fire this thing…but Gretchen was not here, was she?
Denise looked up and down the line. Defending it were a bunch of determined but terrified cavalrymen, and a girl from West Virginia.
She smiled. I like our odds…
* * *
Christian’s men were too far away for an effective shot, but they fired anyway and struck a couple in the advancing infantry block, a few retreating musketmen. Fire ricocheted off the gun barrels, but no crewmen were hit.
“Hold your positions!” Christian screamed, his voice cracking as he listened to the gun crews prepare to fire.
He prayed, something he rarely did. Not for himself, but for his men, even for the cowards. He looked back at them, but they were gone.
Orders from the officers of the gun crews rang out while his men, as required, fired at will. Every shot counted, Christian knew, even the ones that missed, for it created a wall of lead balls that would be difficult to navigate through.
At that moment, Christian wavered in his certainty. Am I wise to stay here? Are those cowards the ones who are wiser? They’re right: we’re cavalry. We’ve no business defending a position like this. I’ve no business defending one. We can’t hold. We’ve got to retreat…we’ve got to…
He rose up to shout the order.
The Moldavian cannons fired, and the wagon to his right, the one tethered to his own, erupted in an explosion of splintered wood and broken bodies.
The wagon he was in toppled backwards.
* * *
The wagons that erupted backwards from the cannon fire were far enough away that neither Denise nor Enkefort were injured in the blast. They were, however, tossed backwards off their wagons and to the ground.
Denise was surprised that she still gripped her pistol, had used it actually to support her fall. A soldier fell across her legs. His weight was painful, but she didn’t hear any cracking or tearing. He rolled over her small body. She shielded her face from the pressure of his weight and waited until he was up and away.
Enemy infantry poured through the gap, their collective shouting making it difficult for her to concentrate. Where’s Enkefort? she wondered. In the mass of men filing through the gap, she couldn’t make out many details. The world was nothing but a swirl of confused men howling and running and firing and dying. Through the clamor, she could hear sword striking sword, and she looked toward the sound.
Enkefort and a Moldavian swordsman were engaged. The scene almost seemed comical to her. In the midst of all this chaos, here were two men trading sword blows like in a Hollywood movie. She almost imagined herself sitting in a dark theater, holding a bucket of popcorn, feeding her face while staring at the hero facing the villain.
Enkefort was good with a sword. But of course, he was a cavalry officer, probably better with a sword than a pistol. He parried everything the Moldavian soldier sent his way, and it seemed as if the villain was tiring. His shoulders were dropping, his thrusts and hacks weakening. The hero was ready to deliver the killing blow.
Then Enkefort was bumped by passing men and twisted to the left. He lost his footing, and the Moldavian swordsman popped the lieutenant on the back of his head with the hilt of his sword.
Enkefort fell on his face and lay still. The Moldavian raised the sword to thrust it into his back.
“NO!” Denise screamed. She cocked both barrels, raised her pistol, held it firmly with both hands to ensure no severe kickback, and fired.
* * *
Christian could hear nothing, save for a ringing in his ears as a wave of Moldavian infantry poured through the gap created by the powerful cannon fire. For a moment, he did not move. The men pouring through the gap didn’t notice or care about him. They held their pikes, swords, picks, and axes firmly, and rushed into the street. His men were still fighting, but now in full retreat.
The man lying on top of him was one of his own. The man wasn’t dead, thankfully, just knocked cold from the focused cannon fire which had tossed him hard. Christian wanted to revive the man, but there was no time: enemy soldiers were flooding past them.
Christian pushed the man off and crawled backwards, away from the shuffle of enemy infantry. He reached toward his holster to pull his pistol. It wasn’t there. He groped around on the ground to find it. He found one, not his own. He cocked it, aimed it toward the mass of legs nearby, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing. He searched for another one, found it, cocked both hammers, and fired.
This time, the pistol sounded, and two Moldavian soldiers fell. The shots, however, didn’t seem to affect the stream of enemy infantry. Men behind the fallen simply stepped over the writhing bodies and continued. Christian tried to find another discarded pistol. This time, he found an old ball-butt wheellock that appeared to be loaded, half-cocked, and ready. He paused, not because he was afraid, but because for a moment, he forgot how to use one. It had been so long. Then, memory flooded back. He cocked it, raised it, and fired.
Another man fell, and this time, two Moldavian soldiers took notice.
Christian was not injured; he didn’t appear to be anyway, save for the small splinter cut on his cheek and the ringing in his ears which had diminished somewhat. He dropped the wheellock and scrambled backwards, then used a broken crate to pull himself up. He was dizzy, but otherwise, whole. He drew his sword, and the two men who had noticed his wheellock fire pulled themselves out of the charging herd and raised their muskets to shoot him.
Christian did not give them time to aim. He raised his sword, screamed an obscenity, and charged.
The strong, high-pitched note of a trumpet sounded.
Reflexively, Christian dropped. One of the men fired over his head. Then they heard the blaring sound as well, turned back toward the breach in the wall, and ran for their lives.
Captain Callenberk’s dragoons had arrived.
They did not bother to dismount. They simply charged into the Moldavian infantry as if they were nothing but a ripple of water, splitting them in two like a trowel through fresh spring soil. They were a little worn from their night ride, perhaps, but otherwise fresh, with unspotted cuirass armor glinting in the sun, long leather boots, long gauntlets. Each possessed two holstered ZBs and one sheathed ZB-1636 rifle on their saddles. On their backs—many now in their hands—were their much feared Panzerstecher heavy swords, hacking and hammering through the shocked Moldavians who, for their part, halted their charge and instead, fled to the rear.
It was a beautiful thing to see. Not only the Moldavians falling dead or falling back, but by count, Christian was already up to sixty horses. He continued to count, and it became clear that Colonel Renz had changed the order. He had sent all of Captain Callenberk’s dragoons to his position, not just half. Good decision. But why hadn’t he heard of the order? Why hadn’t Lieutenant Enkefort—
Then he remembered. Enkefort was on the other side of the breach. And where was he? Where was Denise? Christian tried looking through the mass of men and cavalry in front of him blocking his view of conditions on the other side. The other side constituted roughly half his men. How were they? Where were they?
A glut of bodies formed at the breach: Moldavian infantry that could not get through the gap quickly enough due to their panicked retreat; dragoons who were now using their pistols and rifles to kill as many as they could before the breach collapsed upon itself and cleared a path. Callenberk was giving no quarter. His men were firing at anything that moved. It became a slaughter, and Christian turned his eyes away.
The breach finally caved, and the Moldavian withdrawal became a total rout.
About a third of Callenberk’s men pursued beyond the gap, continuing the slaughter until the trumpet sounded to order them back. Christian’s line of sight to the other side of the breach now improved. He walked slowly through the mangle of bodies, pushing aside a dead man here, a wounded man there, searching for his lieutenant and Denise Beasley.
He found them, with Lieutenant Enkefort whole but apparently wounded. Denise held the man in her lap as they rested against a wagon wheel.
“Where are you wounded, Lieutenant?” Christian asked.
“A man clocked him on the back of the head,” Denise said. “Looks like he’s got a twisted knee as well.”
Christian checked Enkefort’s head. Yes, indeed: a right nasty bump on the back, near the neck. Swollen and bloody. “And what about you?” he asked Denise.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. The blood on my shirt is Enkefort’s.”
“I owe you my life, Fräulein,” Enkefort said.
Denise waved it off with her good hand. “Don’t worry about it. Buy me a drink when we get to Kolozsvár, and we’ll call it even.”
As his dragoons seized the breach, Captain Callenberk approached. He reined his horse to a stop and dismounted. Christian stood in greeting. “Captain Callenberk. Glad to see you.”
“I’m sure you are,” Callenberk said rather arrogantly, keeping an eye on his men as they began to take defensive positions along the much weakened fortifications. “How are you? Your men?”
Christian nodded. “Scattered. We’ll have to re-form, collect our wounded.” He pointed to Enkefort and Denise. “Lieutenant Enkefort will need to be taken to the medical tent.”
Captain Callenberk nodded. “You take care of your company, Captain. You can stand down. I claim the wall. Gather your men, take care of your wounded, and then I’d advise you to collect your horses and stand at the ready. We may have need of you later. I don’t think the Moldavians are finished with us yet.”
It was an unwritten rule in Colonel Renz’s regiment that the captains of the dragoon companies held seniority over all other commanders, minus the colonel, of course. In effect, both Callenberk and Kinsky were Christian’s superior officers. If they ordered him to do something, it was expected that he would. It wasn’t binding, however, and amongst mercenary soldiers, trying to get them to take orders from a captain other than their own was difficult at best. But in this case, Christian was delighted to follow Callenberk’s “advice.”
“Very good, Captain,” he said, “and I thank you.”
Callenberk nodded, mounted his horse again, and joined his men.
“Come on,” Christian said, offering his hand, “let’s get you to the tent.”
He and Denise helped Enkefort to his feet. The lieutenant winced under the pain of his twisted knee. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
And he did, all over Christian’s boot, which surprisingly was an improvement over the spattered Moldavian blood congealing on the blunt toe. “It’s his head wound,” Denise said. “I don’t know much about blunt force trauma, but I know that much. He’s got a concussion for sure.”
General Andrian Radu’s headquarters
East of Déj
General Radu took a final look at Sergiu Botnari’s up-time pistol, then handed it back. “Nice pistol,” he admitted, “but we’ve no time for this. You failed, Sergiu.”
“On the contrary,” the leader of the Impalers said, accepting his pistol back. “We damaged the plane. It has not flown since.”
“Yes, but you did not kill its pilot. You had an opportunity to do so, or so you say. You did not fire. Why?”
Sergiu shrugged. “As I’ve explained, General, cavalry came to her aid before my men and I had the opportunity.”
General Radu huffed. “Came too quickly to simply squeeze a trigger? That is inconsistent with everything I’ve learned about you.”
Sergiu said nothing to that. He simply stood there, quietly, and let a smile draw across his face. “As I said, time ran out. As it appears to be doing for you, General. Your southern attack against the enemy cavalry did not end in success.”
The general raged. “You are wrong, Sergiu. The attack did succeed. We breached those flimsy walls.”
“Only to be pushed back.”
“By fresh dragoons wielding those infernal up-time weapons,” General Radu said, pointing at Sergiu’s pistol. “All things considered, we’ve done well today. Our attack has depleted their men and materiel considerably. I do not need you lecturing me on field tactics.”
“No, General, you do not. You served Voivode Lupu well at Csíkszereda. That is why he gave you this command. But there, you were fighting against conscripted peasants. Here, you are fighting against trained men, mercenaries, wielding these.” Sergiu hefted his pistol.
“We still outnumber them eight to one.”
Sergiu nodded. “Yes, but for how long? Von Mercy is coming, General. He is but a few hours away. When he arrives, that advantage will diminish considerably.”
General Radu struck, in frustration, the makeshift table between them. The stones on the map in the center, representing units both friend and foe, toppled and shifted out of place.
“What are you proposing, sir?”
Sergiu cleared his throat. “I and mine are heading to Szamosújvár to continue to do what Voivode Lupu has charged me to do: burn fields, destroy homes—and kill if necessary—to ensure that von Mercy’s army suffers as much as possible as they march to Kolozsvár. I’d advise you to do the same.
“Right now, despite our losses, your army is still in good order, and your wise decision to divert men and cannon to the southern attack gives you the march into Szamosújvár. If you pull your forces out now, you can be there by morning, entrenched, and ready when von Mercy arrives.”
General Radu shook his head. “I have been informed that Prince Rákóczi is sending an army to Szamosújvár. It might already be there.”
Sergiu nodded. “You have proven yourself most capable of defeating a Transylvanian force, General. I don’t doubt you can prove yourself again.”
General Radu squinted, seemingly confused. “You’re advising that I get myself caught between a hammer and an anvil?”
Sergiu was now losing patience with this man. He held his tongue and said, “I’m suggesting that you disengage from an army that you—that I—don’t fully understand, and take your chances against one that you do. These up-time weapons—this pistol, their muskets—though not all that different in design from our own pistols and muskets, can make a force of four hundred fight like a thousand. When von Mercy arrives, there will be no chance to seize and control Déj. Fall back and fight another day, General. Our job, as required by Voivode Lupu, is to bide time.”
General Radu huffed. “That’s your job, Sergiu. Not mine.”
Sergiu watched as Radu turned away from the table. He paced through the room, rubbing his ample chin and seemingly conducting a heated conversation with himself. It was disturbing to watch, but Sergiu let him pace and mumble, uninterrupted, for perhaps somewhere in that anxious mind, Radu would find the right decision.
“Thank you for your advice, Sergiu Botnari,” General Radu said, turning back to the table. “Scurry off to Szamosújvár if you wish and do what you do best. My army will stay here. We will hit them on the eastern approach with everything we have, and we will bring Voivode Lupu his much deserved victory.”