Chapter 98: The Five Reiters
Marshal Eckhard sat in Count Philibert’s ransacked room.
The velvet curtains had been torn down to use as makeshift bandages, and the expensive mahogany desk was now covered in disorganized piles of parchment.
Outside the windows, the town was quiet, save for the stomping of Swabian patrols and the occasional crackle of dying fires.
Eckhard rubbed his eyes.
The door creaked open, and Captain Ragnar marched into the room, followed closely by a nervous-looking quartermaster.
"Well?" Eckhard grunted, leaning back in the chair. "Give me the numbers, Ragnar. I need to know what we are sitting on before I send word to Lord Konrad."
Ragnar grabbed a silver goblet from a nearby shelf, ignoring the Count Philibert, who was currently bound tightly to a wooden chair in the corner of the room.
The mercenary poured himself a generous cup of looted Savoyard wine.
"It is a goldmine, Marshal," Ragnar chuckled darkly, taking a long sip.
"Or rather, a silver mine. The quartermaster just finished tossing the deep vaults.
Philibert might have stolen river rocks from our fake wagons, but he has been hoarding local taxes for a decade. We counted exactly 14,500 silver florins down there."
Eckhard raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed. "14,500? That is enough to pay the entire host for months."
"That isn’t all," the quartermaster piped up, adjusting his spectacles.
"The grain silos are completely packed. We secured enough wheat, smoked pork, and hard cheese to feed our 4,100 men through the rest of the winter.
And the town itself... we did a rough headcount. There are roughly 2,800 peasants and merchants living within the outer walls. We also disarmed exactly 612 surviving militiamen and locked them safely in the church cellars."
Eckhard picked up a piece of charcoal and began scribbling the digits onto a blank canvas ledger.
"2,800 civilians. 612 prisoners. 14,500 silver florins. We have to lock this place down tightly before Duke Charles figures out his 7,000 Bohemians are rotting in the mud."
"The men are already on it, Marshal," Ragnar assured him, leaning his frame against the wall. "I took 500 of our most veteran Reiters and placed them directly around the lower vaults and the armory. Nobody gets in or out without my explicit permission. If a local peasant even looks at the silver, we chop off his hands."
"Good," Eckhard nodded firmly.
He set the charcoal down and looked toward the window.
"What about Dieter and the artillery?"
"The boy is working his mechanics to the bone," Ragnar said, "He dragged all 21 of the 12-pounder cannons off the ridge and positioned them along the surviving western walls. They have a completely unobstructed line of sight down the main trade road leading deeper into Savoy... he also set up the 12 Gatling carts in the courtyard, completely covering the ruined gates."
Even so, Eckhard knew that static defenses wouldn’t hold forever.
They had crushed the anvil, but the hammer was still out there somewhere...
"We took casualties on the ridge," Eckhard stated, "The Teutonic vanguard hit us hard before the Gatling carts spun up, and the first volley from the Bohemians wasn’t blind. Give me the butcher’s bill."
Ragnar stared down into his silver goblet. "We lost 184 men, Marshal. Another 60 are badly wounded. Most of the dead were the new farm boys from the northern villages. They held the line against 7,000 mercenaries, but they paid the price in blood."
Eckhard’s jaw tightened.
184 dead. It was a miraculously low number considering the sheer scale of the ambush, thanks to Konrad’s modernized weapons and the rapid deployment of the volley guns.
But every single dead Swabian was a man Konrad had invested time, silver, and training into.
"Gather the dead," Eckhard ordered quietly. "Wrap them in clean linen and place them in the empty storehouses. The freezing cold will preserve them until we can cart them back to Swabia for proper burials. Their families will be generously compensated from the 14,500 florins we just seized."
"It will be done," Ragnar nodded respectfully.
Thus, the cannons were secured, the silver was counted, and the town was subjugated under the black banners of von Frundsberg.
Eckhard stood up from the desk, his joints popping loudly in the room.
He walked over to the bound, shivering figure of Count Philibert.
"You see, Philibert?" Eckhard whispered, looking down at the noble. "This is how a real lord conducts a war."
The Count squeezed his eyes shut, sobbing quietly into the dirty rag they had shoved in his mouth.
"Ragnar, find me 5 of our fastest, most reliable riders," Eckhard commanded, turning his back on the prisoner.
"They need to leave within the hour... they are riding straight back to Swabia to deliver the news to Lord Konrad."
"You aren’t going to send a shadow-walker?" Ragnar asked, looking slightly surprised.
"No," Eckhard shook his head. "Isolde’s spies are fast, but they travel alone and light. This dispatch is far too important. I want heavily armored men carrying this message. If they encounter any lingering Savoyard patrols in the eastern passes, they need to be able to shoot their fucking way through."
Eckhard grabbed a fresh sheet of vellum.
Lord Konrad,
The legal trap functioned perfectly. We have successfully secured the Savoyard border keep and the surrounding town. We seized 14,500 silver florins from the local vaults, along with enough grain to sustain the army for months. We hold 612 prisoners and govern 2,800 civilians. Our casualties number 184 dead, 60 wounded.
However, the initial intelligence regarding the Savoyard main army was completely false. It was a coordinated ambush. We were engaged by a vanguard of Teutonic Knights, followed immediately by 7,000 Bohemian mercenaries approaching from the east. The enemy force was commanded by a decoy wearing Imperial armor.
We deployed the 12 Gatling carts. The results were absolutely devastating. The Bohemian host was completely shattered, and the survivors routed into the woods. We hold the fortress. The 21 cannons are positioned on the western walls.
We await your further orders.
Marshal Eckhard.
He melted a puddle of black wax onto the bottom of the vellum and firmly pressed his seal into it.
An hour later, the morning sun had fully crested the jagged mountain peaks.
A small party of 5 Swabian Reiters sat atop their heavily armored destriers in the center of the keep.
Their black steel breastplates were polished, and their wheellock rifles were fully loaded and resting across their saddles.
They looked like reapers of death compared to the terrified peasants peeking out from the alleyways.
Eckhard walked up to the lead rider, a trusted veteran named Klaus.
"You do not stop for anything, Klaus," Eckhard ordered, handing the wax-sealed parchment up to the rider.
"You do not sleep. You do not engage in petty skirmishes. If a horse dies of exhaustion, you steal another one and you keep riding. This letter must reach Lord Konrad’s hands before tomorrow night."
"Understood, Marshal!" Klaus saluted sharply, tucking the vellum safely inside his doublet. "We will ride like the devil himself is chasing us."
Eckhard stepped back, raising his hand. "Open the gates!"
"Ride!" Eckhard barked.
The 5 Reiters violently spurred their horses. The beasts surged forward.
Eckhard watched them disappear into the morning mist.
They had won a unprecedented victory today... though the old Marshal felt a deep sense of pride, a highly troubling thought still lingered in the back of his mind as he stared down the empty road.
When Klaus and the 5 riders finally reached the von Frundsberg keep, they were going to ride into a courtyard filled with the Duke of Bavaria’s royal guards, a papal envoy, and the exiled vanguard of Württemberg... truthfully, their greatest trial lay ahead
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