by Eric Flint
"After you led an almost successful charge with only two hundred hussars against the same flying artillery that crushed the French cavalry at Ahrensbok. Stop flagellating yourself, young man. We're Catholics, not heathens." A smile removed the sting from the last words and turned them into a jest.
The grand hetman signaled a servant standing by a far wall. "Some wine," he said, when the man came over.
As the servant went about his task, Koniecpolski turned back to Lukasz. "Regardless of who made the observations, I think they're accurate. The only way I can at least partially nullify the Swede's many advantages is to refuse to meet him on terrain and under weather conditions that favor him. I will have to maneuver as long as necessary"-his expression became bleak-"and allow as much ravaging by the enemy as I must, in order to fight a battle under those conditions which favor me. Or, at least, counter some of the enemy's strengths."
The servant returned, with a bottle and two goblets. After he poured the wine and retreated, Koniecpolski raised his goblet.
"Once again, my precious nephew has done right by us. A toast! Here's to drenching rain and blinding fog and the Swedish bastard's downfall."
Chapter 23
Dresden
Dresden was chaos. The cavalrymen escorting the ambulance wagons to the army hospital were making no more headway than an old woman pushing a cart.
So it seemed to Eric Krenz, anyway. He stuck his head out of the rear flap of the covered wagon and tried to look forward. But that was impossible, between the stupid design of the wagon-what idiot thought it was a good idea to turn a nice open wagon into a heat trap?-and the relative immobility produced by his healing wound.
Disgusted, he flopped back onto the bench. "What we need are some Finns." He made chopping motions, as if wielding an ax. "Haakaa paalle! Haakaa paalle! That'd clear the way for us, see if it wouldn't."
"Shut up." A Pomeranian corporal whose name Eric couldn't remember said that through clenched teeth. "You're giving me a headache."
Judging from his condition, Eric didn't think the fellow would be suffering much longer. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking. The corporal had been groaning and moaning most of the way here, when he wasn't snarling at everyone else if they moaned and groaned.
Well, it should be over soon. A nice army hospital, friendly nurses, what could be better?
He must have said it out loud. The soldier slumped next to him, a young lieutenant whose name Eric had also forgotten, raised his head. "You've been to one?"
"Well. No. Never seen one, in fact. But the stories all agree. Especially about the friendly nurses. What's your name again?"
"Nagel. Friedrich Nagel."
"Eric Krenz. A pleasure." They shook hands.
"It's a pigsty," was Nagel's summary. He nodded toward the one and only nurse visible in the huge…?whatever the room was. Judging by the sour smell and the dank walls, probably one of the adjoining castle's less frequently used storerooms.
"As for that nurse," the lieutenant continued, "let us pray that she never comes near us. Lest she become friendly."
Eric wasn't entirely sure the nurse was a "she" to begin with. The distance was great enough that it was difficult to tell.
The Pomeranian corporal started moaning and groaning again.
"And to think our lives will end here," mused Nagel. "Such is ignominy."
"Do you think we could get something to eat?"
"Must you dredge up my worst fears?"
They got nothing to eat that night beyond a half-loaf of bread. The same nurse came through two hours later, followed by two orderlies carrying baskets full of bread. At each pair of cots, the nurse would take out a loaf, rip it into halves, and hand them to the wounded soldiers, then, without saying a word, move on.
The orderlies were female. Mediocre versions of the gender, to say the least. But definitely female.
Eric still wasn't sure about the nurse.
An hour later, the same trio passed down the line of cots in the great vaulted room again. This time, the orderlies were carrying buckets of water, from which the nurse would fill what looked like an old soup ladle-best not to think about the precise nature of the soup-and place it to the mouth of each soldier. The one poor fool who tried to hold the ladle bowl in his own hand to keep it from spilling got the ladle snatched away and his ear boxed.
Clearly, this was not a nurse to be trifled with.
For the selfsame reason, Krenz refrained from pointing out to the trio of medical geniuses that it would have made more sense to give them water first, and food later. That being every human body's definite priority.
But he kept his silence, swallowed what he could from the ladle-from the taste, he thought it had probably once been a Mongol ladle, used to serve kumiss or whatever the heathens called that horrid fermented milk they drank-and let the nurse and her companions pass on.
He still hadn't determined her gender. "We need a name for it," he whispered to Nagel.
"Leviathan comes to mind," he whispered back. "Though I'd favor Moloch, myself."
"Moloch it is, then."
Things did not improve in the morning. Moloch was absent, thankfully, but the nurse who replaced the creature was little improvement. True, she was female. Unfortunately, of the elderly rather than youthful disposition; and, far worse-Eric had a very good-natured grandmother, after all-she subscribed to that school of thought which held that in old age a woman should cultivate the virtues of haggery and witchery. Had there been milk, she would have turned it sour.
There wasn't, of course. Water and bread, as the night before. The bread was stale. The water had a definite green tinge to it.
"I am becoming disillusioned," Eric announced to Friedrich.
His new friend proved to be an educated man. "I had no illusions to begin with. Having studied the classics, I know the fate of man. The best you can hope for is to fuck your mother, put your eyes out, and die in exile."
Eric thought that was something of an exaggeration. Not much, though, judging from current evidence.
"There's one piece of good news," Nagel added.
"What's that?"
The lieutenant jerked a thumb in the direction of the moaner and groaner's cot. "I think the Pomeranian finally died."
Alas, that too was an illusion. No more than two seconds later, the corporal started moaning and groaning again. Calling out for water and bread, if you could believe it.
***
Reprieve finally came at noon. There was a commotion at the entrance and a small group of people forced their way into the room. "Forced" was the proper term, too. Moloch and the harridan-nurse were trying to prevent them from entering. Quite forcefully, in fact.
That all ended when a short, stout person in the midst of the newcomers knocked the harridan flat with a mighty blow and even caused Moloch to back up a step or two. Thereafter, the nurse-Leviathan was kept pinned to the wall by two more of the newcomers, armed with spears of some sort.
The one who'd sent the old witch flying marched down the aisle in the center of the room. By the time she was within thirty feet, Eric realized she was a woman. Young, too. And what he had taken from a distance for stoutness was mostly something entirely different and far more admirable.
"She's a vision!" he exclaimed.
Nagel was made of sterner stuff. "She might also be your mother. Take care, Saxon. We live in perilous times."
The vision and her cohorts had come to empty the storeroom of its wounded soldiers and place them in billets, as Torstensson had promised. An hour later, Krenz and Nagel found themselves lodged in a house no more than two blocks from the Residenzschloss in the direction of the Elbe. Judging by its appearance, the three-story house had been the home of a prosperous burgher. He and his family had apparently left the city, since they'd taken the time to pack up and carry off everything in the house of any value.
With the exception of the furniture. That must have been too bulky. So, Eric and Friedrich found themse
lves sharing a very comfortable bed on the second floor. There were even pillows of a sort.
Then, blessing piled upon blessing, one of the men who'd been with the group that took them out of the storeroom came through the rooms passing out food. Not just bread, either-and this bread was fresh. He also had cheeses and sausages. Even some cucumbers.
Best of all, he gave them a bottle of wine.
A fine fellow, no doubt about it. Still, he had his flaws. He was neither female nor a vision.
"Who is she?" Krenz asked.
The question was ignored. "You'll be taken care of by the city's Committee of Correspondence from now on," the man announced.
"Who is she?" Krenz asked again.
But the man had left, taking food and wine to soldiers in other rooms of the house.
"If you're that excited," said Nagel, "I'm going to insist on a new bedmate. I'll accept dying in exile after fucking my mother and poking my eyes out. I will not accept being struck down by the Almighty for buggery."
Eric grinned. "Oh, I don't think He's done that since the olden days. But you can relax. I'll do everything in my power to make sure you die many years from now in exile, blind and condemned to eternal torment for unspeakable sins."
"Thank you."
They fell asleep, then, and slept through the day. It had been a very rough few days, and the bed was truly comfortable.
Another CoC man came through after nightfall, passing out more wine and food. Eric and Friedrich ate, drank, and immediately fell asleep again.
They probably would have slept all through the night, too. Except there was an imperfection in paradise.
The Pomeranian had been moved to this house as well, it turned out. They could hear him moaning and groaning in an adjacent room.
All night. Every hour of the night. Every minute of the hour.
"How does he not die of exhaustion?" wondered Eric.
"Fate won't allow it," replied Friedrich. "He must not have fucked his mother yet."
Dawn came, finally, and with it the vision returned. Not long after he woke up-amazingly, he'd managed to fall asleep in mid-moan-Eric heard a woman's voice in the main room below. It was that of a young woman, from its tone and timber.
Hope sprang alive in his chest. Could it be?
A few seconds later, he heard the sound of a woman's feet clumping up the stairs. He knew it was a woman from subtleties in the sounds being made.
The clumping noises were on the heavy side, too, for a woman as short as she had to be judging from the pace of the footsteps. Hope flared brighter still. Just the sort of sounds that might be made by a shortish woman who was mistaken for being stout at a distance but whose heft was in fact not evenly spread at all.
Then, she appeared in the doorway. Indeed, it was the vision. In the bright light of the room, with its open windows letting in the sun, Krenz could see much more of her than he'd been able to in the dark cavern in the castle.
She was quite pretty, in a modest sort of way. No Venus here, just an attractive young farm girl or-Eric raised his head to study her shoes-no, town girl. Maybe a butcher's daughter. Fox-colored hair-very rich, too-dark blue eyes. Perfect in every way.
"I'm Eric Krenz," he announced. "From right here in Saxony. Not Dresden, though. Leipzig."
She greeted that information much the way a milkmaid greets the sight of flies in a barn. Takes brief note of the pests; dismisses them as an unavoidable but minor nuisance.
Eric recognized the symptoms immediately. Mentally, he struck a line through his original guess that she was a butcher's daughter.
"Your father owns a tavern, doesn't he?"
For the first time, the girl showed some interest in him that transcended "recognition of pest." After a couple of seconds, she said: "How did you know?"
Her voice was marvelous. Just the way Eric remembered it from the castle, except without the angry shouting overtones that went along with putting a harridan-nurse flat on her ass.
An honest answer would be unwise. I know from the long experience of getting clouted by barmaids annoyed at my advances.
But an outright lie would be equally unwise, assuming this infatuation had a future. I know because my own father owns a tavern was the sort of claim that could easily be shredded by a tavern-keeper's daughter.
So, he opted for mysterious silence.
The girl sniffed. "Got boxed on the ears enough times, did you?"
She took two steps into the bedroom, and planted her hands on her hips. Very ample hips, Eric was pleased to note.
"My name is Tata and I'm giving you fair warning. I have a short way with irritating men. Give me any trouble and I'll beat you black and blue."
Eric's hand clutched at his chest. "Oh! I adore domineering women!"
Chapter 24
The Vogtland
In the end, all of Captain Lovrenc Bravnicar's efforts to protect the elector of Saxony proved to be pointless. A massive explosion erupted just as John George and his wife and son passed through a narrow defile in the mountains.
The sound was almost deafening. Bravnicar, riding at the front of the column, twisted around in his saddle. The little gorge was filled with gunsmoke. He could hear the sounds of shrieking men and horses. Several riderless horses were already racing away from the disaster. He could see two bodies-presumably their former riders-lying still on the ground. Another horse was dragging a cavalryman whose boot had gotten stuck in a stirrup. His head smashed against a rock and he lost his helmet. Blood spilled out to cover his face.
Lovrenc thought the man was already unconscious. He hoped so. There was no way he was going to survive, the way his horse was dragging him down the rock-strewn incline. You couldn't even call this a road. It was simply a trail created by men and animals passing through the mountains for centuries.
"Gott mit uns," he whispered. Slovenia was now a Catholic land, but Bravnicar's family were Protestants who'd been driven out at the turn of the century.
Men were starting to stumble out of the smoky gorge. All of them were cavalrymen. The infantry marching behind must have been spared. One of the cavalrymen seemed to have a broken arm, and another's leg was bloody. A third just seemed dazed.
Bravnicar drew his sword and swept it in a half-circle. "Stand guard! We're under attack!"
Immediately, his Slovene veterans began forming a perimeter, drawing out their wheel-lock pistols. For his part, Lovrenc trotted his horse toward the defile. The smoke was beginning to clear away.
On the wooded slopes above, lying hidden on their stomachs, Georg Kresse and Wilhelm Kuefer studied the scene.
"What do you want to do about the Slovenes?" asked Kuefer softly.
"I don't know yet. It depends on whether the elector survived or not."
"Survived that? I don't think so." Wilhelm had overseen the laying of the charges himself. They had many former miners in their ranks, who'd done an excellent job of drilling the holes that held the powder. Once they'd covered everything up, the huge mines had been all but invisible, even though each charge had at least ten pounds of iron scrap lying on top to serve as shrapnel.
Wilhelm Kuefer had never heard the term "Claymore mine." But what he had created in that tight and narrow gorge was a line of them on either side. The shrapnel those blasts sent flying would not cover every square inch of the ground, but they would probably cover every square foot. Wilhelm didn't think a rabbit could have survived, not even an armored one.
"He's probably dead," agreed Georg. "But we need to be sure. If he is…" The leader of the Vogtland rebels made as much of a shrugging motion as a man can manage while lying down. "We've got no personal quarrel with the Slovenes, and I'd just as soon avoid unneeded casualties. If they leave, we'll let them go."
Kuefer grunted softly. That seemed reasonable. That was probably Captain Lovrenc Bravnicar's company down there. Wilhelm thought he'd recognized him. If so, just as Georg had said, they had no great quarrel with him or his. The Slovenes had refrained from com
mitting the sort of atrocities that Holk's men were guilty of.
"What about the infantry?"
Kresse's expression hardened. "That's a different story. Not one of those pigs leaves these mountains alive."
That also seemed reasonable.
Bravnicar found the elector soon enough. Most of him, anyway. It took a while longer to find the missing leg, and he never did find the missing hand. Given the incredible force of the explosion, such a small item might well have been blown out of the gorge altogether.
The elector's wife had been scattered more widely, but Lovrenc didn't try to find all the pieces. There was no doubt about her identity. She'd been the only woman in the group and her face was almost unblemished, allowing for the oddly flat shape. It had been blown completely off her head and was plastered onto the hindquarters of a dead horse.
Oddly enough-explosions could be freakish-their sixteen-year-old son Moritz was almost untouched. Only one projectile seemed to have struck him. Unfortunately, that one had come in through one temple and out the other, passing under the helmet.
He heard a volley of gunfire coming from the northern end of the little gorge, followed by more scattered shots. Then, the blast of a cannon. A five-pound saker loaded with canister, by the sound of it.
Lovrenc had dismounted to examine the bodies. Now, he ran toward the noise in a crouch, leaving his steed behind. The stallion was a well-trained warhorse and wouldn't run off unless he was directly attacked.
As he neared the end of the defile, Lovrenc moved more slowly. After half a minute or so, he was able to peek his head around a boulder and see what was happening.
His infantry force-what was left of it; there were at least twenty bodies scattered not far from the gorge entrance-was in full retreat. Rout, rather. No, even "rout" didn't do justice to it. They were racing off like so many mice, discarding their weapons and even their armor as they ran.
Thereby displaying the intelligence of rodents, as well. Disarmed and scattered, in these mountains, they'd never survive the pursuit that Kresse's men were sure to set underway.