When the Saints

CHAPTER 16

Vlad ran down the stairs to the armory, roaring orders to anyone he met on the way. He had divided Anton’s forces into three “battles,” naming them after city churches. Currently St. Andrej’s had the watch, St. Petr’s was on standby, and St. Sebastijan’s was off duty. By the time he reached the armory, the tocsin was clanging and St. Petr’s men were already running in to report for duty.

Dali Notivova arrived at his heels, bare to the waist, with shaving oil on one side of his face and two days’ beard on the other.

“Cute whiskers,” Vlad said. “Latest Italian style?” He peered around and located Sir Teodor looking for orders. He was a local rancher, well into his forties and too old for real roughhousing, but he’d fought for the Hungarians against the Turks and could handle men. Vlad had made him captain of St. Petr’s Battle.

“Muster,” he ordered, “and prepare to sortie out the north gate. Dali, muster the cavalry.” All twelve horses. “Take every horse we’ve got, but save the biggest for me.”

All around him jaws dropped, eyes widened.

Vlad raised his voice to address them all. “You felt that thump a little while ago? And heard thunder a little later? I’ve met that before, when a mine went off. I tell you now the Wends’ powder store was struck by lightning! If I’m wrong I’ll eat my own balls. Our Blessed Lord smote the evildoers for us! He blew half of them to hell. Now we’ll go and finish off the rest.”

They cheered like lunatics. Any action was better than being trapped in a cage while an enemy prepared to break in and kill you. Having God fighting on your side was good too. They would have to be lunatics to join a charge up that road in a howling blizzard, but he would lead them, and they would follow. He found the armor he had chosen for himself, the biggest in the castle but still damnably tight on him. Excited boys came running to help him.

Vlad felt no guilt about taking the Lord’s name in vain. Every action he had ever fought in-too many to count by now-had begun with someone assuring him-or him assuring others-that God was on their side. The Church, if it ever learned about young Wulf’s exploit with the bed warmer, would certainly claim that he had been helped by the devil, but that was just jealousy, because he could work miracles and they couldn’t. What a kid! Made a man proud to be his brother.

“No horse armor,” he told Dali. “No bows, just pikes and swords. Can’t see to shoot.” The snow was wet enough to soak bowstrings, and pike handles would make useful pry bars if they found the bombard where it might be rolled off the road. “You stay here and untie any knots.”

He›

“I don’t think they’ll be crazy enough to attack in this weather,” Vlad said, arms spread as a boy struggled to strap his cuirass around him.

“No, my lord.”

“We are, but they’re not.” He leered.

Unwilling to seem less brave, Karel leered back.

Vlad said, “Don’t let your guard down on the south gate, but we’ll need men to work the north gates for us. We can go out by the sally port, but after we’ve gone and know it’s safe, you should open the outer gate to head height in case we need to make a fast return. Hey, Sir Teodor?”

The knight shouted acknowledgment through the mob, being halfway into armor and unable to move.

“See that you bring four men with shovels and two carrying spikes and mallets.” Shovels in case they needed to clear the road, spikes in case they were able to reach the great bombard. One spike hammered into the Dragon’s touchhole would make it scrap metal.

It took longer than Vlad wished but less time than he had feared to get the sally organized. The infantry were ready first, and marched off through the streets toward the barbican before he rode out with Jachym at his side and another ten horsemen at their backs, comprising the fearsome Castle Gallant cavalry. He thought the snow seemed less heavy than it had been. Word of the explosion had spread, and crowds cheered the forces. Out into the Quarantine canyon they rode, then through the inner gate into the barbican.

“Follow as quick as you can,” Vlad told Karel, “but you may have to clear some drifts. You must be ready for a very fast retreat if we run into a wolf pack. One other thing: don’t march your men over the edge of the cliff. It’s a long way down.”

“Aye, my lord. I mean, no, my lord.”

Vlad urged his mount over to the sally port. Men swung it open, snow swirled, in and he was shocked to see that the drift out there was thigh deep. His horse was even more discouraged. Seeing that it would take too long to get everyone out that way, he roared for the main gate to be opened. The men stationed up there must have been listening through the murder holes, because chains and wheels began to clank and squeak at once. If the enemy had crept close under cover of the snow, there would have to be a fight.

The instant there was enough clearance, Vladislav Magnus ducked his head under the steel base plate and rode out to war. He spoke the prayer thathe ava Father had taught him for that moment. For centuries it had served the warriors in the family well. It had not shielded all of them, but enough had survived to carry on the family line.

The drifts were patchy, and in places there was no snow at all. Already he had snow inside his helmet, up his nose, sticking to his eyelashes; and yet, the accursed stuff was certainly not coming down as fast as it had just a few minutes ago. He hoped that this might be just a lull between flurries, but soon he could see halfway to the bend where the road entered the gorge. The sun had gone behind the mountains, the wintery twilight was fading, and the flat light made it hard to judge the drifts or where the edge of the cliff was.

Still, no sniper was taking potshots at him, and once he had made a trail the rest could follow more easily. Pressing his spurs against his horse’s flanks, he rode up the Silver Road. As a mercenary, he’d come this way four years ago, but that had been in summer. He’d not been senior enough to meet the count, and all he had seen had been the Quarantine Road, nothing of the town or castle.

Long before he reached the corner, the snow had stopped and the way ahead was clear. Still, he saw no Wends. Poor lads had given up and gone home to bed? The blindings they had set up at the bend had blown over, leaving no cover for snipers.

The post seemed to have been abandoned: not a soul in sight. He found that almost creepy. The bombard wasn’t there yet. He paused to inspect the work and let the rest of his cavalry catch up with him. Progress had been slow, but the size of the trench they were planning was impressive. He revised his estimate of the time the enemy would need to emplace the big gun. On the other hand, recoil usually shifted the seating after a few shots, but once the Dragon was nested in the bedrock, it should be able to fire indefinitely without adjustment.

Vlad looked back and saw that the hundred or so men of St. Petr’s Battle were making much harder work of the snowy road than the horses had. Whatever happened, the Wends would have to wait a few days for the thaw before they could attack. And before they could hope to move the Dragon.

Even if they still had powder to use it. Yea, Wulfgang!

The rough side of this situation, of course, was that if a company of Wend archers did break cover now, the Cardicians would be trying to flee back home through all that snow with a hail of arrows following them the whole way. So the cavalry had better advance smartly and flush the whoresons out.

He glanced at Jachym and realized that he felt as cold as the man looked. He waved his arm as a signal to follow him, and urged his horse forward again, past the litter of snow and timber the Wends had left, and around the bend.

He had taken part in some mad escapades in the last dozen years, but never anything quite this mad. The air and the ground were all white, even the rocky wall to his left. The corner was abrupt, taking him suddenly into the gorge, but the crossbow bolts he half expected failed to arrive. No sentries leaped to their feet in alarm; no trumpets blew. The footing became treacherous, covered with scattered spars and shorter timbers, rtexpectedcollapsed tents, a few barrels, shovels and axes. No people at all.

Vlad’s horse balked, understandably, so he dismounted and tied the reins to a heavy beam. Drawing his sword, he set off to pick his way through this appalling clutter, hearing Jachym shouting orders behind him. The going improved as he left the work site. He walked along the road unchallenged until he came upon a couple of empty carts with their oxen still yoked, but no carters. He glanced at Master Sergeant Jachym, who was one step back on his left. “You think the devil came and took them all to hell?”

The old warrior’s nervy grin barely showed under his helmet. “My guess, sir, would be that they heard the devil taking a lot of them, and the rest ran back to help the wounded.”

That sounded logical.

The snow had stopped, but the light was fading fast under the trees. To walk until nightfall would be ridiculous, asking for trouble. But still there was nobody! Still, no quarrels came hissing out from the quiet.

Where were all the Wends?