The Master of Muscigny (The First Admiral Series Book 5)

by William J. Benning

  At three hundred metres altitude, Billy was able to spot the cloud of dust that was being kicked up by the Templar knights.

  Except that the cloud was rising from the west. The cavalry had withdrawn from the Templar camp and had made their way up the road to Acre before swinging westwards. Raising the field-viewers to his eyes, Billy saw the numerals dance along the top of the image as he focussed on the gleaming helmets, white surcoats, and lance pennants that bobbed in the distance amidst the dust and heat haze. For a brief moment, Billy wondered why the Templar commander would send his knights over to the west, away from the battlefield.

  Then, the realisation hit Billy like a slap to the face. The Templar infantry attack was strongest on their left wing. The Templar commander was drawing the Landing Troopers from their defensive positions to fend off that left wing’s attack. He could then smash into the weakened Landing Trooper position with his cavalry on his right. The cavalry hadn’t been withdrawing as Billy had speculated. They had moved to the west in order to fall onto the Landing Trooper flank and rear across ground that hadn’t been torn up by the Eagles or the pulsar-rifles. It was a very dangerous strategy for the Templar commander to employ. Dividing his cavalry from his infantry always presented the threat of his horsemen being caught out in the open with no infantry support. Except here, at Muscigny, the Landing Trooper force was barely three hundred strong and would be swept away like bugs before and angry householder’s broom.

  Looking round from the Templar cavalry, Billy knew that he had to get the Troopers out of that position and back to the Aquarius. He knew that he would have to sacrifice the estate and, perhaps, the Citadel. The Templars would trample underfoot the drainage and irrigation ditches as well as the carefully laid out fields and boundaries. The crops had only just been planted. At least, Billy considered, the people and the animals would be safely aboard the Aquarius where the self-defence turrets would tear to red-ruin anything that dared to show its face on the long rolling western slope. The Templars would be denied the road to Jerusalem, but the estate would be lost. The fields would be destroyed, and Billy knew that they would never be able to plant new crops in time.

  “Down!” Billy ordered the Trooper pilot, who gently scaled back the power to the anti-gravity generator.

  As the Personnel Carrier began to drop, the first of the Eagles swept in from the east to strafe the Templar attack. The leading Eagle swooped down into its attack run and let fly with its six pulsar-cannon on rapid-fire. In the blink of an eye, Billy watched as the Eagle tore up the ground and any unfortunate Templar along the crest of the rise. In that split-second, Billy watched the plumes of dirt blossom into the air all along the crest of the rise as Templar banners fell amidst the screams and yells of dying soldiers.

  Silently, Billy cursed the Eagle pilot as the massive sonic boom drowned out the din of the battle raging below. The Landing Troopers needed their air support as close to their positions as possible. The first Eagle pilot had strafed the crest of the rise, and, although he had probably killed hundreds of Templars, his firepower was more needed closer to the front of the attack. That did, however, present problems for the Eagle pilots. How did they get close to the front line without laying down fire on their own Troopers?

  The answer, Billy knew, was that they couldn’t.

  Even the most foolhardy or skilled pilot could never judge exactly where their stream of pulsar-bolts would land, and each pilot factored in their own margin for error. The first Eagle pilot had factored in a more than generous margin for himself, and it annoyed Billy.

  With the Personnel Carrier still dropping back down towards the Landing Trooper line, Billy caught a brief glimpse of the estate’s animals being driven into the Landing Bays of the Aquarius before his line of sight was blocked by the rise of the western slope. At least the animals would survive, Billy considered as the anti-gravity generator whined loudly once more to stop the vehicles descent.

  The second Eagle was just beginning its attack run as the Carrier landed amidst the Landing Troopers who were pouring their deadly fire into the onrushing horde of Templar infantry.

  “Sir!” Garn welcomed Billy back to the battle line. “We can’t hold this position much longer!”

  “I know, Garn!” Billy replied, jumping out of the Carrier as the tumultuous roar of weapons fire from the Eagle erupted. “Their cavalry is swinging in from the north and west to charge our left flank,” Billy ducked down, and indicated the direction from which he expected the Templar cavalry to charge.

  And, as he ducked, a huge cascade of dirt and debris tumbled down onto the Landing Trooper position. The Eagle pilot had made his run perilously close to the Troopers’ line.

  “That was close!” Garn smiled as he too ducked behind the Personnel Carrier from the torrent of dirt.

  “Get as many Troopers as you can into these Carriers and get back to the Aquarius, the rest follow me on foot!” Billy ordered as the Eagle’s sonic boom cracked and echoed loudly overhead.

  “Negative, sir! We’ve only got ten Carriers, it’s not enough for all of us. We all go, or we all stay!”

  “That’s an order, Garn!” an astonished Billy replied.

  Billy had never known Garn to disobey an order. But, the Landing Troopers were a proud, tenacious and stubborn unit. They left no one behind, alive or dead. And, for a brief moment, Billy’s outrage at the disobedience flared before the more pragmatic mind of a First Admiral asserted itself. There was no point arguing with or threatening Garn. The tough, wily Landing Trooper could hide behind a maze of regulations, and there was no time to argue the finer points of military law on a battlefield.

  “All right! All right!” Billy grumbled. “Get the Personnel Carriers out of here and tell them to give us covering fire!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Looking over the edge of the Personnel Carrier, Billy saw a huge wall of destruction erupt amidst the attacking Templars. Weapons, armour and bodies were scattered like chaff in the wind as another Eagle streaked overhead, its attack run culminating in another echoing sonic-boom. The twin pulsar-gunners on the Personnel Carriers were adding their fire to the carnage that was unfolding in front of the estate boundary. The heavy CHUT-CHUT-CHUT-CHUT of the twin-barrelled weapons barely audible above the screaming and shrieking mayhem of the Eagle strike.

  “Right, Troopers!” Billy ordered into the open channel. “Back to the Aquarius, best of order!” he called and held his right fist straight up in the air. “Over the wall! Follow me!” he ordered and leapt over the boundary wall.

  “Come on, lads, over you go!” Billy heard a Troop Sergeant order his beleaguered men as he bundled the agile Troopers over the low estate wall.

  “Sling those rifles, Battle Shields and pistols!” Garn ordered as the first of the Personnel Carriers began to lift off.

  “Come on, men!” Billy ordered as he stood at the other side of the wall to check that all of the Troopers were getting away.

  Turning to his right, Billy saw the first lines of Templars approaching. Like hell-bound spectres, the white coated infantrymen, scorched by flame and streaked with mud, raced towards their enemies wide-eyed with terror and adrenaline driven panic. Their teeth bared, they snarled like wild animals as they attacked to escape the shrieking, exploding nightmare behind them. In a few moments they would be clambering over the low wall of the Muscigny estate, and Billy Caudwell had no intention of being around when they arrived.

  With one last look to ensure none of the Troopers was being left behind, Billy Caudwell, the last man to leave the position, turned from the wall and sprinted over the muddy fields of the Muscigny estate. In front of him, the Troopers were already covering the ground rapidly.

  It may have been a retreat, but they were going to fight all the way.

  Chapter 42

  South of the Muscigny Estate

  King Baldwin the Fourth held up his mail-gauntleted fist to stop the column of blue and white clad knights that formed his personal bodyguard.
Behind him, the order to halt was passed by word of mouth down the line of weary and footsore soldiers that trudged along the road from Jerusalem to Muscigny.

  Standing up in his stirrups, the young King stared into the distance and saw a strange flying craft diving down from the clear blue sky to disappear below the ridge line. A heartbeat later, the ground beyond the ridge seemed to erupt in flame and violence as the Eagle strafed the unseen ranks of Templar infantry before streaking back into the sky with a deafening roar. Never in his life had Baldwin seen so much violence and fury in one place. The Outlander Admiral had turned his flying machines loose on the Templars, and, for the briefest of moments, Baldwin felt a pang of pity for the men who would be suffering under the ferocious assault of these strange and powerful weapons. As quickly as the feeling arose, Baldwin dismissed it. The hard reality of ruling a Kingdom, and protecting its people made the emotion redundant. The men suffering beneath the Outlander Admiral’s flying killers were the same ones who would carry out the massacre of innocent people in Jerusalem.

  Casting his eye across the horizon, Baldwin saw a faint trail of dust blossoming from the west mixed with the dull, flickering flashes of sunlight on burnished metal.

  “My Lord Edessa?” Baldwin summoned the Seneschal of Jerusalem forward.

  “Your Majesty?”

  “What do you make of that? Over to the west?”

  “Horsemen, Your Majesty? They’re moving too fast for men on foot.”

  “It would appear that our friend the Admiral is already entertaining, with some further uninvited guests about to arrive.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Take half the knights, My Lord Edessa, and make sure they don’t join the festivities.”

  “And, divide the army, Your Majesty?”

  “From what the Admiral’s picture-box tells us, this Templar upstart has barely two thousand knights, we outnumber him four to one with horse, even with half our knights we are still easily double his numbers.”

  “As Your Majesty commands,” Joscelin replied and pulled on his reins to turn the charger.

  “And, My Lord Edessa?” the King added. “Please do us the courtesy of not getting killed.”

  “Your Majesty.” Joscelin bowed from his saddle, pleased at the compliment, and galloped off to follow his orders.

  Scanning the western horizon, King Baldwin the Fourth watched the rising plume of dust carefully. If this was the Templar cavalry, they were a long way from their infantry support. Only a fool or a tactical genius would leave his cavalry so exposed. Raising his hand, Baldwin indicated for his army to advance.

  He was going to Muscigny to find out just which one it was.

  Chapter 43

  The Muscigny Estate

  Splashing through the heavy cloying mud of the Muscigny estate, Billy Caudwell breathed heavily as he drove himself after the Landing Troopers who were fleeing from the position in front of the boundary wall. The carefully set out irrigation ditches were being broken down, leaving the ground like a quagmire, and the first crops were in danger of being ruined. Overhead, the shrill whine of anti-gravity generators announced that the last of the Personnel Carriers were cleared away from the abandoned defensive position. Driving his legs onwards, Billy also heard the faint ZIP of arrows as they started to land in the mud. The surviving Templar archers were adding their limited firepower to the evolving battle to harass the escaping Troopers. To his left, Billy caught sight of a Trooper with an arrow sticking out of his left leg whilst a comrade hauled him to his feet. Another comrade was aiming steady burst of pulsar-pistol fire into the advancing Templars, whilst protecting his injured comrade with his Battle Shield.

  Ahead of him, Billy heard Garn issuing instructions to the Troopers.

  “Stand here! Form a line, here!”

  Catching up to the Troopers who were forming a ragged line in one of the muddy fields about forty metres from the wall, Billy immediately spotted Garn’s intention. The first of the Templars were scrambling over the low wall of the estate which the Troopers had just abandoned. The wall itself was a barrier and would delay the advancing Templars, even if for only a few moments. But, Garn understood that even the slightest delay broke up the momentum of an attack, making the advancing troops vulnerable.

  “Come on, stand here!” Billy joined the rapidly-forming line as he pulled retreating Landing Troopers into position.

  The first of the Templars were just starting to clamber over the estate wall when Garn gave the order to open fire.

  Immediately, the pulsar-pistols opened up on rapid-fire releasing four pulsar-pellets per second in a vicious stream of destruction. The leading Templars were brutally cut down by the zipping red-hot projectiles as they crested the wall, or a few brief moments after making the hazardous crossing. White coated bodies tumbled like nine-pins from the impact of the projectiles which tore relentlessly into flesh and bone.

  “Keep firing!” Billy ordered as he mustered the few straggling Landing Troopers into the makeshift line. “Get those wounded teleported out!”

  Already, arrows were starting to drop amongst the Landing Troopers, and, despite their Battle Shields, some of the projectiles were finding their targets.

  “Sir!” Garn called into the open channel of the Comms Net. “Aquarius reports power failure on all systems!”

  “What!?” Billy exclaimed and made contact with the War Room. “WATO, what’s happening!?”

  “Sir! We’ve got power loss on all major systems. The Engineers are trying to fix it now! We’re trying to maintain contact with you on emergency.”

  “Do we have force-shielding and the self-defence turrets!?” Billy asked as he watched more Templars falling at the wall.

  The pulsar-pellets zipped and whined as they struck bodies or stone with the red-hot ricochets whizzing off in every direction. The Templars trying to cross the wall were suffering heavy losses with bodies piling up on the estate side like cordwood. However, there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of warriors who scrambled, clambered, or sprang over the low wall straight into the torrent of pulsar-pellets. Some Templars, with the heavy, metal shields were afforded some degree of protection. However, the red-hot pellets quickly melted through to strike down the shield-bearers. But, despite the intense fire, some men were already across the wall and starting to advance into the estate.

  “Negative, sir.”

  For a moment, Billy Caudwell cursed silently wondering what else could possibly go wrong. Then, after a deep breath, the First Admiral began to think. Without the force-shielding and self-defence turrets, the Aquarius would not be able to halt the Templar advance. They would very quickly be able to by-pass the Muscigny position and head down the road to Jerusalem where King Baldwin would have to deal with them. The Templars would most likely be stopped by Baldwin’s troops, but the whole of the Muscigny estate would be ruined. With all of the irrigated fields trampled over there would be no crops and the people would have no harvest. All the hard work of the previous weeks would be for nothing.

  “Shut down everything non-essential! Get the force-shielding and the self-defence turrets up!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do we have any news on King Baldwin!?”

  “Negative, sir. Scanners are down.”

  “Right, we have to make a fight of it here! Bring all of the Eagles to station just above the crest of the western slope and send out everyone who can handle a weapon!”

  “Erm, Negative, Landing Bay doors are all inoperable, no one can get in or out.”

  With another silent, bitter curse, Billy reached a decision. Looking at the partially-completed Citadel, Billy knew that he didn’t have enough Troopers to hold the fortress. If enough Templars survived the slope, they would very quickly overwhelm the unfinished Citadel. And, from the situation down by the wall, the Templars were starting to make inroads into the estate in large numbers, despite the Landing Troopers’ fire. Billy also knew that there were insufficient Personnel Carriers to
evacuate all of the Landing Troopers, and Billy Caudwell was not about to play God as to who lived and who died simply for the lack of space on a few Carriers.

  “WATO! We have to stand on the crest of the western slope!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The part of his mind that was the memories and experiences of Teg Portan quickly ran the permutations and made the decision. The western slope would present a problem to any advancing cavalry, plus Billy knew that he could dominate the northern part of the estate with the firepower from the Eagles, Personnel Carriers and the Landing Trooper pulsar-rifles. But first, he had to get the Troopers onto the crest to establish his position.

  “Garn! We have to stand! We have to hold the road and stop them getting onto the southern plain!”

  “Understood, sir!”

  “Start evacuating the wounded up the slope! Use the Carriers and form them up on the crest of the western slope!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Several hundred Templars had already managed to clamber over the boundary wall unharmed. Despite bodies piled three and four deep in places, the white-coated warriors were advancing quickly on the Landing Trooper makeshift line. On the right flank, where the Templars had massed greater numbers, the losses had been heavier, but far more survivors were now approaching the Troopers.

  Behind the advancing Templars, the terrifying explosions, the plumes of dirt and destruction had all ceased as the WATO had recalled the Eagles. Those who had survived the savage bombardment would now be free to join the attack on the western slope. And, for a moment, Billy caught sight of the body-strewn rise where the Eagles and the Troopers had decimated the Templar ranks. The scorched ground, smouldering from the hundreds of thousands of pulsar-bolt strikes was churned up beyond recognition.