Swiss Arms
Chapter 180
-VB-
Hans
1310
They came.
A thousand soldiers came rushing over the Fluela Pass on horseback and some kind of veiled carts carried by oxen.
I frowned.
I was very tempted to go out there and sweep the board, so to speak. At the same time, I was loathed to do so because then rumors about my martial prowess will start along with renewed accusations of witchcraft. My soldiers also won’t be getting the experience they need to grow stronger if I take care of all enemies like I usually do.
So I let the Habsburg soldiers, who didn’t even know that they had already lost the war, play their cards.
“Count, your orders?” one of the militia captains asked me. I glanced at him before looking back at the Habsburg soldiers. “Even though we have a wall, they can still put this siege of the valley under siege.”
“I know,” I replied. “I’m just waiting to see what they will do.”
Because they were doing something. It was obvious what they wanted to do: charge in and raze my city. But the stone boulder wall sitting between them and the city prevented them from moving in. And cavalry weren’t exactly the best at -.
My eyes narrowed as they put the carts on the high ground and pulled the sheets off of them.
It took me a second to recognize them, and when I did, my eyes widened.
“Shit -!”
Because the things those carts were carrying weren’t some ration, supply, or anything else.
Those were ballistas.
Where the hell did they even get those?!
They never intended to enter my city!
They were just going to burn it!
I quickly grabbed one of the spears next to me as I watched the Habsburg soldiers wrap oily cloth around the tip and shaft of the bolt.
And they cranked the bolt back.
I threw my spear.
I clicked my tongue irritably when my spear landed too far away from them in the front, having traveled some … three hundred yards? Four hundred yards? No, closer to three hundred and fifty yards. It was too far for any of my archers to hit.
Worse, because the enemy was made up mostly of cavalry, any army I sent out will die a dog’s death while trying to reach the ballistas.
I ignored the way the militia around me were gawking at my throw, and instead grabbed another spear to throw. I made a slight adjustment and let it loose.
Unfortunately, in the time that it took for me to grab a spear, aim, throw, and have it land near them, they finished cranking the ballista.
I had to watch them light the oily cloth on fire and shoot it.
I grabbed another spear and aimed not for the ballistas but at the flaming bolt that was sailing over my head.
I threw… and missed.
I watched helplessly as the bolt landed into the side of a … brick house.
I let out a sigh of relief.
I turned back to the Habsburg cavalry and their ballista.
Yeah, I needed to take care of them right now.
“Men, we will sally out,” I said.
The militiamen around me quickly nodded and prepared themselves by gathering more men. Soon, I had close to five hundred men rallying to me even as those who didn’t hear about the sally were out there in the city trying to contain the fire.
Another ballista bolt sailed over my head.
(I will find out who gave the Habsburg a ballista because, last I checked, those weren’t used by the Habsburgs or any of their vassals.)
Once enough of us gathered, I turned to the guards by the gate.
“Open the gates.”
A group of five guards undid the barricades and quickly opened the gate.
And all five hundred of us charged out into the valley.
The Habsburg cavalrymen saw us. Without hesitation, the majority of them quickly got on their horses and counter-charged down at us.
Obviously, there were only five hundred of us to their one thousand. So it should be an easy fight for them.
Or so they would think.
“Spear,” I demanded to the soldier to my right as we jogged forward at the head of the pack.
He quickly gave me one of the spears he held in a bundle.
I grasped it, spun it around, ran up, and then threw it.
While there wasn’t quite a boom that went with it, I and everyone around me felt a burst of air pressure from my throw.
The spear shrieked across the air and slammed into one of the Habsburg cavalrymen and threw him clean off of his horse.
For a moment, the counter-charge stuttered when they saw their most decorated soldier missing among them.
Then I grabbed another spear and slung it again.
Another shriek broke through the air and this spear punched through the neck of a war horse.
My militia saw the enemies falling to my attacks - impossible attacks that was still happening in front of them anyway - and roared out. Soon, they were overtaking me as they rushed to bring down the enemy.
I kept jogging at a sedate pace with half a dozen soldiers carrying the spears I needed.
The Habsburg cavalry still charged despite losing the fanciest looking one of them all.
And that’s when my militiamen did something unexpected to the Habsburgians.
They suddenly pulled out their shields, slammed them down, and pointed their spears, pikes, and halberds outward.
Had they been against a heavy cavalry, this would have been a doomed move.
But this Habsburgian army didn’t have any heavy cavalry. Most of them were light cavalry, riding on lightly armored horses if they were armored at all.
So when they saw my militiamen making a spear-tipped shield wall, they quickly veered away.
And that left them completely open and unobstructed for me to throw more spears.
---
Heimbruhen
He had no idea what the hell was going on but he was doing what he had been training to do for the last three years.
“HOLD!” Johan, the captain of the town guard, shouted.
Bruhen watched as the cavalry thundered down toward him… before parting around him and the others behind the shield wall into two streams.
And then he heard it again. The ghastly shriek of a spear impossibly shooting across the air and the inevitable thunk on its destination.
He risked a glance over his shoulder at the count leisurely jogging up toward their position. He would repeatedly stop to grab and throw a spear, and another enemy soldier would die.
Then he saw the enemy - soldiers of House Habsburg - try to circle around to hit them in the back.
But by then, his liege was there with a pair of axes and just six men supporting him.
“BREAK!” the count shouted, and the shield wall broke apart as his fellow men sprung into action.
He hurried after them. He realized as he grabbed his shield and got up that the horses had slowed down enough that they weren’t at risk of being trampled to death.
So he did what he could and attacked with his halberd. The cavalry he chose to charge with three others was trying to whirl around but his halberd came around and nicked the horse’s ankle. The beast let out a ghastly shriek as it stumble around before falling. His comrades rushed in, pristine daggers and spear tips quickly becoming wet with blood as they were used to kill men who were above them in station.
Bruhen felt a shiver as he realized that.
He risked another look.
And saw the count at the center of a bloodbath. He moved like the storm itself. He was a blur as he jumped from one foe to the next, spinning and slashing. Blood flew everywhere and entrails spilled out from screaming men.
And the count looked like he was more at home on the battlefield than at home in their city.
The awkward lord who did weird things and making money hand over fist was gone. In his place was a warlord who’d killed a dozen men in the brief glance Bruhen had made.
“Come on, you whoresons!” the count shouted tauntingly. “Is this the best you can do against us?!”
And then TWAAAANNNGG rang out from higher up on the valley.
Something swirled as it flew over his head.
Bruhen whirled forward and then back toward the count. And he caught a glimpse of it.
It was that flaming bolt that the enemy had sent into the city at the start of the battle.
And it was aimed at the count.
The count took one look at it … and he moved.
Still spinning, still slashing, still fighting. In the midst of it all, he threw his axes, lodging them into a man and a horse, and then reached over his shoulder to grab his brutal weapon of war he called a “sword.” He pulled it free from its thin strap holster and brought it down with one last spin just as the man-length flaming bolt reached him.
The sword struck the bolt and sent it straight into the ground.
The bolt - something closer to lumber than an arrow - snapped at where the count struck and sent embers and fires in every direction.
That’s when the Habsburgs acted. They saw the count finally stop moving, and they rushed in on foot and atop horses.
Fools.
Someone on foot thrust a spear forward.
The count let go of his sword and ducked.
Someone else thrust another spear.
He jumped, twisted midair, grabbed the spear shafts mid-spin, and pulled them out of their wielders’ hands. Then just as the spin came to an end and he landed back down, he tossed both spears to the opposite ends of where they had come from. The action was almost casual. Like he was doing an underhand toss.
The effect was anything but.
The spears flew, not quite shrieking like the previous spears had, and stabbed into the soldiers. One soldier gurgled out a scream before he fell to his knees and then fell to the ground sideways while the other had the spear punching through him. He stumbled backward and had the unfortunate fate of getting slammed by his own ally’s war horse. That sent him spinning away to faceplant into the muddy ground below.
Bruhen did not know what he was watching.
What the hell was that?
How does a human being move like that?
The ridiculous killings had everyone stutter and pause to stare, and the count took that chance to pull his sword out of the flaming ground that he had driven it into. Some of the oil from the fire had clung onto the blade, and it made it look like the count was now holding some kind of a devilish sword, flames licking and crackling at anything that came too close.
“Bruhen, we have to stop those giant crossbows!” his captain shouted, and he quickly turned back to look east toward those crossbows.
They were reloading again!
He growled as he and his comrades rushed forward.
“Break it!” someone shouted as they rushed at the giant crossbows and attacked the enemies manning them. They tried to fight back but they weren’t defending their homes. They lacked the desperation and ferocity that he and his comrades had.
And so they ran when it looked like they were going to die fighting.
Bruhen and his comrades then tore into the giant crossbows, breaking the wood and draw-string(rope?) to destroy it utterly.
When they finished their jobs and turned back to look, the Habsburgs were running away atop their horses.
He looked around.
… Was that it? Did they defend their homes?
Bruhen watched a few of the militia and town guards chase after the Habsburgs, but the Habsburgs had horses and they didn’t. The chase didn’t last, and they turned back to the count.
The count raised his giant fuck-off sword into the air in one hand like it was a shortsword.
“... VICTORY!” the count roared out, his voice booming across the valley.
“Victory!” Bruhen repeated, swept up by the jubilation of … victory!
People laughed. Some cried.
But all around them, there were still bodies, licking flames, and blood.
He made his way to loot the bodies but he suddenly stumbled forward and then landed on his hands and knees.
Huh?
Why did he fall? Why did he feel weak?
Ow, wait, what’s th-.
He looked down and saw something sticking out of his gut.
Oh.
That’s an arrow.
He hadn’t felt that. What the hell?
“MEDIC!” someone shouted above him, and he looked up to see one of his friends reaching down. “Arrow to the gut! We need a medic!”
Bruhen swallowed as pain started to come down hard.
Oh, dear God, this was not good…!
He reached up and grabbed his friend’s arm. “H-Heinrich…!”
“Hey, hey, keep still, man!” Heinrich hissed at him.
“Heinrich…!”
“What?!”
“You… you gotta save me some loot!”
Heinrich looked like he wanted to punt him over the head.