Matthias clung to Stryker as a drowning man might cling to driftwood, but Stryker shook him off roughly. ‘The rest of you,’ he addressed the other pikemen, ‘come with me.’
And then he was away, stumbling over the treacherous rubble of the ford, water spraying liberally up his breeches as his boots kicked on, the smoke-wreathed east bank in his sights. A couple of sporadic shots coughed from the foot soldiers’ position, fired by men too slow in loading their weapons. More cracks rippled out in response, but these were different, higher pitched and crisper, the sounds of pistols. And Stryker knew that he should have stayed with the wagon. Because the ford was lost.
Lujan Antczak could not believe his good fortune.
He had brought his remaining horsemen to within fifty paces of the river while the men on foot were blinded by their own powder smoke. Antczak’s men each carried a brace of pistols. And each rider had been taught to bring those arms to bear by turning his horse to the left, drawing the pistol holstered on the right-hand side of the saddle, and firing at right angles. It was common sense, of course, for the Husaria took pride in their mounts, and to shoot directly over the horses’ heads would be to risk burning the precious beasts’ ears. But the short-barrelled weapons were also notoriously inaccurate, and this tactic allowed for them to be discharged in a dense volley that, when aimed at an equally compact target, would be devastating.
But even Antczak had not reckoned on the sheer folly of this enemy. He had sent forth a smaller force in the hope of drawing some of the vicious musketry that awaited his winged riders, the deaths of a few perhaps preventing greater casualties when the main charge was loosed. Yet the diversionary assault had sapped the entire capability of the musketeers in a single moment for the cost of around ten men, and now it was left to Antczak to thank the Holy Mother and attack at his leisure.
Many of the infantrymen were down, raked by the pistol balls, and now he waited for his remaining ten riders from the smaller charge to rejoin the main force, before giving the order to wheel to the left so that his heroes might draw their remaining firearms. The manoeuvre was executed with slick precision, and even as fifty left arms were levelled he could see the eyes of the beleaguered defenders dart this way and that in the hope of escape. They were like rats trapped in a pit.
‘Fire!’
The volley pulsed across the broad line, slamming into the hedge of men backed against the Oder. Pistol balls did not have the pulverising strength of their long-barrelled cousins, and Antczak knew that from this range, the limit of the small weapons’ capability, the damage would be minimal. But he also knew that the volley would serve to pound and bully and tenderise his prey. And crucially, to prevent them from reloading before he launched his coup de grâce. To that end, he thrust his pistol back in its saddle holster, took the reins firmly in his left hand and gently eased his lance into a diagonal position just above his stallion’s right ear.
As the pistol smoke slewed sideways to reveal the glassy river, Antczak harrowed his black stallion’s flanks with his spurs, and the magnificent animal screamed in rage, surged in obedience, and the Rotmistrz was at full tilt. His wings soared at his back, catching the wind to make the wooden frame strain and creak at its straps, and he knew in that moment that this was the greatest feeling a human could have. Thunder rolled behind him, with him, the hooves and oaths of his Banner of Husaria, the finest warriors in Christendom. He dipped his lance, the pennon swept back along its shaft, and squinted at the line of musketeers, picking out the man who would be first to taste its steel.
Innocent Stryker reached the east bank of the Oder and reckoned he had been given a glimpse of Hell.
The second barrage of pistol shots had picked off half a dozen men, and he could see those bodies lying twisted and grotesque within the ranks, but that threat was now, at least, spent. It was the charge that mattered: the wave of crashing, screaming horses and men that now came raging out of the powder mist like winged gargoyles. He had known this would happen as soon as those first high-set pistol cracks had sung across the river, because it meant that there were more lancers out in the forest, and he realised that the first, failed charge had been nothing more than a feint. Though he was as green as any officer in Europe’s Protestant armies, even Stryker understood that a full volley loosed in the faces of those sacrificial horsemen meant that the English had exhausted any hope of stopping the second, larger attack. They had pikes, and those were designed for this kind of fight, but the men Stryker had fetched for Loveless were stuck at the throat of the ford, unable to filter up on to the bank in time to meet the horses, and the musketeers must have known their fate, for they were turning away from the thundering threat, only to find themselves prevented from stepping on to the narrow causeway by the pikemen pressing up behind.
Stryker looked on in horror as the desperate soldiers were trapped between the enemy cavalry and their own pikemen. They shoaled at the water’s edge, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, discipline seemingly swept away with the Oder’s swirling current.
The charge smashed home. Horses drew up in snorting fury as the men on their backs stabbed down with their long lances at heads and backs that were turned desperately away. Those spears drove impossibly deep, some plunged through torsos completely, their wicked tips reappearing as if part of some macabre magic trick, glinting red and draped in gore. The men further into the broiling mass of bodies were forced to turn back to face their persecutors, for they knew they would be skewered before they reached the water, and they lurched up, clubbing the horses with their heavy musket stocks or jabbing with their blades. But the lancers had drawn their own swords now, and were hacking and slashing at the nearest men, carving inroads into the tight wedge of frightened faces.
From back on the ford, Stryker caught a glimpse of young Forrester. The ensign was out to the left-most side of the braying herd, his blue eyes like twin moons, his face as pallid as a corpse. He shouted at the men, and Stryker realised that it was his words they heeded. They were holding the river’s edge at the behest of the young aristocrat. But Stryker was no longer jealous, only fearful, for where in all this was the captain? His eyes fell upon a prone form just outside the right flank. Stryker could not see the face, but he knew the clothes well enough, and the crumpled hat at the limp body’s side. Loveless was down.
Stryker swore, bit down on his instinct to turn tail and run, and plunged between the shoulders of the rearmost pikemen who had still not moved forwards far enough to be of any use. Almost immediately he ran into men pushing in the opposite direction, petrified musketeers with gaping wounds, working their way back through the melee to the safety of the river.
He let them go, for their presence only added to the panic. The Englishmen needed to get their pike points into the horses’ faces, and the fewer ineffectual bodies remaining in front of them the better.
Stryker stepped off the bridge of crumbled masonry and on to the dusty bank. ‘Skaithlocke’s!’ he bellowed so that his throat burned with the effort. ‘Skaithlocke’s!’ A few of the men caught his eye and let him through, weaving his way towards the front of the heaving throng. He began to grab at the musketeers’ coat sleeves, hauling them roughly back on to the ford. They instinctively resisted, but soon saw that, as he removed men from the melee, he replaced them with pikemen. And those pikemen carried their staves of ash that were sixteen feet long, tipped with sharp steel, and angled out over the heads of the beleaguered musketeers to harry and prod at the muzzles of the enemy mounts. Those mounts immediately started to sheer away, one reared, throwing his master clean off, and then more pikes were there, plugging gaps made by their lieutenant’s feverish attentions.
‘Muskets back!’ Stryker shouted. ‘To me! Muskets to me!’
He stood up on the tips of his toes and saw that Forrester had heard him. The ensign repeated the call, and one by one the herd began to shift. It was awkward work, but the impact of just a handful of the long pikes had taken a toll on the lancers, and they could no
t coax their horses further in. They were forced to settle with slashing down with their blades at the outermost men. But all the while Stryker ushered more of his pikemen into the loose block, and with each one that entered the fray, another few musketeers could get back on to the ford, and all those who escaped were able to begin the process of reloading their vengeful weapons. Within the space of a minute, all of the pikes jutted out to form a hedge over which not even the bravest horse would leap. Stryker shoved himself between two of the pikemen, edging out to the right. A lancer spotted him, kicked forwards, but found himself pinned back by a well-timed pair of steel-tipped staves that quivered in the air at his face and chest. He wrenched on his reins, turning his wings to the pikes, and Stryker scrambled on all fours to where Ferdinand Loveless lay. The captain was alive, but his breathing was wracked and his skin pale. Blood bloomed like rose petals at his collar. Stryker tried to lift the burly officer but was not strong enough. Snarling a spiteful oath, he took the thick boots in his hands, ignoring Loveless’ agonised groans as he heaved, and dragged the captain’s inert bulk back behind the pikes.
Rotmistrz Lujan Antczak wheeled his stallion back in frustration. It had all gone so well until the pikemen had arrived. The feinted charge had worked wonders, and all that was needed was for the charge to scatter the impotent musketeers, but somehow they had held their position long enough for the pikes to deploy.
He barked orders at his men to fall back on the tree line. They could not hope to breach the new barricade with swords alone. What it needed was another charge. It would be dangerous work, deadly for some, but his Banner enjoyed numerical superiority. The ford’s defenders had, by his count, nearly twenty pikemen, and they would be difficult to destroy, but it was nowhere near enough to keep fifty charging Husaria at bay.
Antczak had thought he might charge immediately, but now he noticed the last few musketeers. There were not many, for most lay slaughtered at the mouth of the ford, but the dozen or so that remained, huddled behind the pikes, had managed to reload their firearms. He would at least give his men the respite they had earned.
Captain Ferdinand Loveless gripped Stryker’s hand. ‘Deserved.’
Stryker crouched over his captain in the fading light, forcing his face to remain impassive even as the powerful grip crushed his fingers like brittle twigs. ‘Sir?’
Loveless coughed bloodily. ‘This,’ he croaked. Stryker presumed he meant the wound and began to shake his head, but Loveless cut him off. ‘Shouldn’t have fired that volley. Wasted our only hope.’
They were on the Oder’s west bank, back in the dubious safety of Pomeranian territory as dusk cloaked the sky and lengthened the shadows. As soon as the Husaria had disengaged, Stryker had set about organising a fighting retreat, with pikemen pacing backwards across the treacherous ford and musketeers quickly reloading their firearms before the Poles could make any attempt to cross. The glowering faces of the Husaria could still be seen below their great wings as the big horses trotted back and forth along the opposite bank, but for now their murderous ambition was stifled.
Loveless had been carried by four men, and he had cursed them as each jolting step sent waves of agony through his broken body, but they had made it to the far bank, which was more than any of them might have hoped for. Now the captain lay on his back, surrounded by a dozen of his battered charges, staring blankly up at the high canopy and grimacing with each intake of breath. A pistol ball had lodged somewhere in his neck, but no one could bring themselves to find it.
‘Any of us would have . . .’ Stryker began.
‘Panicked,’ Loveless interrupted remorselessly. ‘Saw those wings, seemed like so many of the bastards. Just panicked.’ His large head lolled to the side suddenly, and Stryker realised that Loveless was trying to look at him. ‘I saw you saved us with the pikes. You did well.’
Stryker felt himself colour. ‘Too late.’
‘How many did we lose?’
‘A handful,’ Stryker lied. In truth it had been more costly than he could have imagined. Both sergeants were gone, as was one of the company’s pair of corporals, while they had lost eighteen musketeers and a pikeman.
‘You have the spy?’
The question surprised Stryker, for in the chaos he had completely forgotten the reason they were at Moczyly and its godforsaken ford. He glanced across to where the three Germans – Matthias, Buchwald and the driver, Sammer – waited together. ‘Aye, sir, we have him.’
‘Then it was not too late.’ Loveless bolted upright, the sudden spasm making Stryker jump back in surprise. The assembled men gasped, but then his thick jaw fell open like a drawbridge and a steaming torrent of crimson vomit spewed over his chin and down his coat. He collapsed when it was done, his breaths markedly more laboured. ‘Be sure an’ tell her I miss her.’
Ensign Lancelot Forrester, his forehead scored by a livid gash, stepped forward. ‘Tell who, sir?’
Loveless rolled on to his side, bringing his knees up to his chest. ‘Mother, o’ course.’
Forrester caught Stryker’s eye. ‘He swoons, sir.’
Stryker had seen a man in his death throes more times than he ever cared think upon in his short service with Skaithlocke’s Foot, and yet somehow he had never thought such a fate would befall the walking wall of granite that was Captain Loveless. And yet here he was, balled up like a newborn, blood pooling around him, whimpering like a whipped pup and calling for his mother. He steadied himself and cleared his throat. ‘I’ll tell her, sir. I’ll tell her.’
Loveless gave a high-pitched mew that sounded almost like a child’s laugh. ‘Thank you, Stryker. I should like to try one of her Lombard slices too. Would you send for one?’
‘I will, sir. That I will.’
‘Good. You’re a good lad. A good officer.’
Stryker found himself inspecting his filthy boots, for he could not look into the face of their stricken leader. He wondered if the others could read his shame.
‘Gone, sir,’ the deep voice of Praise-God Sykes cut through his reverie. ‘He’s gone.’
Stryker knelt beside the captain, felt for the thick wrist, then probed at the bestubbled neck. He swept his palm across the captain’s face to push closed his lifeless eyes, and twisted back to look at the corporal. ‘What now?’
Sykes shrugged. ‘What say you, sir?’
In that second Stryker wished the Oder would break its banks and carry him away. He had lamented losing Loveless, for the war-hewn captain was his leader and mentor, but never had he considered the implications as second-in-command. He felt his insides twist. ‘What say I?’
‘The company’s yours, sir,’ Sykes confirmed what Stryker dreaded. ‘What’s left of it. ’Til we get home, that is.’
‘We fight the buggers,’ another man barked, his voice a strange mix of hard warrior and soft youth.
Stryker rounded angrily on the speaker. ‘Hush your mouth, Ensign Forrester!’
Forrester stepped forth, his round face crimson. The ensign had fought well, and though Stryker had been the one to deploy the pikes, it had been Forrester who had held back the Polish tide when Loveless had fallen.
‘Ja, Herr Stryker,’ a voice belonging to Pomerania saved Stryker from an uncomfortable confrontation. ‘I am with you. They will kill us. Kill us all.’
All eyes turned upon the lawyer, Buchwald, the man who had guided the company here in the first place. Stryker glanced at the men, seizing the opportunity to rid himself of prying eyes that he suspected were judging his ability to lead even before the captain’s corpse was cold. ‘Leave us.’
‘They will get across this ford, sir,’ Buchwald pressed when only he and Matthias were left with the two officers. He offered a staccato nod in the spy’s direction. ‘We must give them this fellow and return with our skins. I beg you.’
Matthias’ jaw dropped. ‘Give them? Who are you to offer me up to— ’
‘Enough,’ Stryker snapped, holding up flattened palms for peace. He turned to stare a
t the river. It rushed over the ford in a frothing torrent, and he was glad of its power, for it meant that his enemies could cross nowhere else. They thronged the far bank, moving back and forth beside the water like hungry lions in a cage.
‘Of all base passions,’ Lancelot Forrester muttered, ‘fear is the most accursed.’
Stryker looked across at him. ‘Ensign?’
‘Henry the Sixth, sir. Part One. Should we fear these fellows? Ones who would ride to battle so feathered?’ The fresh face creased in scorn. ‘Christ, sir, I’ve seen more fearsome beasts at the London playhouses.’
‘Why don’t you stand at the rear, Ensign?’ Stryker said irascibly.
Forrester’s face flushed. ‘Sir, I . . .’
Stryker saw the unswerving belligerence in the ensign’s expression and suspected that the contrast with his own emotions might be too stark for the men to miss. ‘Did you not hear me?’ he blustered. ‘Have you wool crammed in your ears, boy?’
Forrester stepped back. ‘I am second-in-command here, sir.’
‘You are nothing, sir,’ Stryker bit back caustically. ‘A stripling. A fop. A creature of fine words and manners but nought of use.’
Forrester’s thin neck convulsed as he swallowed thickly. ‘I am a soldier, sir.’
Stryker forced out a bitter chuckle. ‘You are a mouse before a troop of fucking cats, Forrester.’ He waved a hand at the malevolent ranks on the opposite side of the river. ‘Go parlay with them if you wish. Speak of your friend Shakespeare and see if they do not stick a lance in your belly for the trouble.’
The shout came from across the Oder, making everyone start, all eyes darting to rest upon the figure who had walked his mount to the edge of the bank near the ford. Without needing an order, a handful of musketeers moved out on to the tumbledown causeway, training their long-arms on the rider, who calmly handed his lance and helmet to a waiting aide and raised both hands in supplication. One palm was swathed in leather, the other in the metal of a glinting gauntlet, and he made a funnel of them around his lips, shouting again, though the words were no more intelligible to Stryker than the babble of the Oder.
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