Chapter 53: A Cheap Tally
The roar of the twelve-pounder guns tore through the morning air. The blast blew away the mist, filling the ridge with the foul smoke of burning powder.
Down in the valley, the thick ranks of the Rechberg peasants encountered a truly terrifying sight.
The bursting shells burst above the thick blocks of bowmen. The iron shells shattered into thousands of jagged, deadly shards.
Konrad watched through a brass spyglass.... the blasts tore the unarmored peasants to pieces.
Blind panic quickly took hold of the Rechberg lines. Men dropped their bills and broke rank, their fear of God washed away by the deafening roar of the cannons.
Baron von Rechberg, seeing his footmen broken, turned to the last hope of an old lord... he ordered the charge of his heavy knights!
The Swabian knights surged forward. They were a terrible sight... great warhorses draped in chainmail, riders locked in shining, heavy plate, their long lances lowered.
They meant to close the ground and crush the von Frundsberg footmen by bloody weight.
Konrad lowered his glass, he watched as Marshal Eckhard led the fourscore Reiters out from the flanks of the footmen.
The two bands of horse met on the valley floor.
The knights looked for a glorious clash of steel... they thought the lighter von Frundsberg horse would shatter under their heavy charge.
At a measure of but fifteen paces, Marshal Eckhard gave the sign.
Clatter! The Reiters halted at once, their horses holding still. They drew their heavy wheellock dags.
The clash held no ringing of swords or breaking of lances. It held only the sharp clicking of eightscore wheellocks making ready!
The mass volley of the dags was a rolling thunderclap that drowned out the cries of the charging knights!
The lead balls, driven by the best Baltic powder, struck the old knights with ruinous force.
The costly, fine plate armor of the Rechberg knights was useless... the lead balls punched through breastplates, shattered helms, and tore into the flesh of the great horses!
The front rank of the heavy charge collapsed instantly... horses and riders fell into the mud in a bloody tangle of broken steel and torn flesh.
The men behind crashed into the pile of the dead, snapping the legs of their horses and throwing the knights to the earth, where the weight of their own armor held them fast.
Within the span of a minute, the proud might of the armored knight was forever broken.
Marshal Eckhard’s Reiters wheeled their horses at once, riding back behind the wall of the von Frundsberg pikemen to reload, leaving the surviving Rechberg knights to be shot down by the advancing gunners.
"Their lines are broken, my Lord," Eckhard reported, his hand resting on his wheellock dag. "Their captains flee the field. I ask leave to send the Reiters to hunt them down. We can ensure not a single man lives to reach the border."
"You shall not ride..." Konrad commanded, his voice a flat. "You seek to wage a holy war when this is but a taking of lands. You do not grasp the true worth of this field."
"This?" Eckhard stiffened, struggling to hear the command. "Lord Konrad, the Emperor’s laws of war say a broken foe must be put to the sword lest they gather in the woods as bandits."
"Look at them, they are not a foe’s army. The day their Baron made war, his right to rule them died. Those men are now the farmers and smiths of the von Frundsberg lands. If you send the horse to slaughter them, you burn my own wheat. You destroy the very men needed to feed our forges. To slay them is to steal from my own purse."
"...we have already burned three hundred weight of Fugger powder today," Konrad said, making sure Eckhard saw the truth. "I will not add to that debt by spilling the blood of the men who must pay it back. The peasants will go back to their huts because they have no grain to go elsewhere. They will bow to our rule because we hold the silver to buy the bread they need."
Eckhard heard Konrad’s reason.
"The footmen shall not be hunted..." Eckhard confirmed, his voice taking on the flat tone of his master. "What of the fleeing captains?"
"The old lords are a burden," Konrad made clear, "The Baron’s captain and his remaining knights hold only to their foolish pride. Their lives are a waste of grain."
He pointed toward the narrow valley leading back to the Rechberg keep.
"Send the Reiters," Konrad commanded. "They are forbidden to strike the fleeing peasants. Their only mark is the Baron’s captain and any man who rides with him. They shall use their wheellock dags to pierce any plate armor. See that the old lords are slain before they reach the stone walls."
Eckhard gave a salute and rode down to the horsemen to pass the orders.
Within minutes, the fourscore Reiters rode past the fleeing peasants, ignoring the mob.
The sharp cracks of the wheellock dags echoed through the valley as the old lords were shot down, their armor serving only to make them easy marks for Konrad’s horsemen.
The joining of the wheellocks and the pikes had worked perfectly. The von Frundsberg men had lost fewer than ten souls, mostly to a burst barrel and stray crossbow bolts... a cheap and perfect tally for such a field.
Eckhard rode back to the high ground, his doublet clean of the blood he had overseen. "The old captains are dead, my Lord. The peasants scatter to their fields. The valley is ours."
"The valley is but the road..." Konrad stated, putting his slate back into his satchel. "The true seat of the Rechberg lands still stands."
Konrad turned his horse toward the east. "Bring forward the twelve-pounder great guns, we shall set the batteries four hundred paces from his main gate."
"All that expensive Bavarian plate, just to drown in mud..." a poor pikeman sighed.
