Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Before the Austrian loyalists could even realize they were tricked, three hundred Jaegers on the left side of the path stepped out from their cover.

The loyalists stood right in the open. They held empty crossbows. They looked entirely confused.

A wall of thunder erupted from the left side of the forest. Three hundred barrels flashed with orange fire. They spit lead bullets across the snow at incredible speeds.

The effect was devastating. Screams of agony replaced the sounds of the whistling bolts.

The conical bullets tore through the white furs. They shattered bones and threw the hidden crossbowmen backward into the snow.

Thick smoke from the black powder filled the clearing. It stung Voss’s eyes, but he could not stop grinning.

"Reload!" Voss shouted. He stepped out from behind his boulder and drew his mace. "Right side, keep your eyes open! If anything moves in that smoke, shoot it!"

But nothing moved. The enemy ambush line was broken in a single volley.

"That was brilliant!" Hans cheered. He slapped Voss on the shoulder.

"Good work, men!" Brandt praised his soldiers. His face remained serious as he scanned the tree line. "Keep your weapons loaded. We do not know how many more of them are out there."

The soldiers slowly advanced. They kept their maces drawn and their rifles ready to fire. They walked past the trees where the enemy had been hiding.

Voss stopped next to a snow-covered bush. Lying in the bloody snow was one of the loyalists they had just shot.

The man had a hole in his chest from a rifle bullet. He wore dirty furs. A wool scarf covered his face.

"Check his weapons," Brandt ordered a nearby Jaeger. "I want to see what kind of crossbows they are using."

The young Jaeger leaned down. He grabbed the wooden crossbow from the dead man’s hands. He then pulled back the man’s winter coat to check his belt.

He stared at the dead man’s belt. His eyes widened.

"General..." the Jaeger whispered. He pulled an object from the belt and held it up so Voss could see it.

Voss narrowed his eyes. He stepped closer.

Traditional Austrian sidearms were crude matchlock pistols. They fired one shot and took a minute to reload. But the weapon in the Jaeger’s hand was forged from crucible steel.

It had a short iron barrel. A rotating cylinder sat in the center, designed to hold six conical bullets.

"Wait," Voss muttered.

"What is it, General?" Hans asked, stepping closer.

Voss let out a loud sigh. "Look at this engineering! This weapon was forged in Augsburg. It bears the mark of Baron Klaus’s foundries."

Brandt frowned. "But... the cylinde. That is a Swabian revolver. How did a wild Austrian rebel get his hands on our experimental weapons?"

"He did not steal it," Voss grumbled. He crossed his arms over his fur coat. "That revolver was sold."

When King Konrad funded the war effort, he did not just rely on taxes. He exported inferior versions of Swabian weapons to neutral territories to fill the royal treasury.

The revolvers were exported to the Venetians and the Swiss. They used them to guard their merchant caravans...

"So, you are telling me that these people hiding in the trees are using our own steel against us?" Hans muttered. He scratched his beard.

"They are remnants," Voss corrected him. "When we took Vienna, some of the stubborn Austrian nobles refused to surrender. Men like Baron von Reischach and General Kaelen. They packed their gold and fled into the mountains. It seems they bought our exported revolvers from the Swiss black market to arm their loyalists."

The Austrian exiles used the silent crossbows to set up an ambush in the pines, but they carried Swabian revolvers for close-quarters combat. They used the six-shot pistols to slaughter the fifty scouts in their sleep. They stole the scouts’ supplies and set up traps in the forest to protect the pass.

"Well, this changes things," Brandt said. "They might carry our guns, General Voss, but they spilled the blood of Alemannia."

"I know," Voss said quietly. He drew his mace once again. "They made their choice when they fled. Reform the lines! Keep your eyes on the trees, but we do not stop moving until we are entirely out of this forest!"

The Jaegers quickly fell back into formation.

The army marched forward. For the next hour, they moved through the dark pine trees.

Whenever a shadow moved in the thick branches, a dozen rifles would instantly aim at it. But the forest remained entirely silent.

"Do not feel too bad about killing them," Hans teased lightly. He tried to lift his friend’s spirits as they dodged a snowbank. "We all have annoying neighbors we want to hit with a steel mace every now and then."

Voss let out a short chuckle. His shoulders finally relaxed a bit.

The dense pine trees slowly began to thin out. The gray mist that had choked the forest started to lift. A stronger, colder wind blew it away. The snowy path began to slope downward. The trees gave way to exposed, icy rocks.

"I can see the sky ahead!" a soldier from the front line shouted. He pointed his mace forward.

"Keep your weapons ready!" Brandt barked. He matched Voss’s quickened pace. "We do not know what is waiting for us on the other side."

Voss pushed past a snow-covered bush. He finally stepped entirely out of the dense forest. He walked onto a wide, snowy ridge.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Hans and Brandt stepped up beside him. Both men instantly fell silent. Their eyes widened.

Voss had expected to find a small camp of starving Austrian exiles huddling in the snow. The reality before him was something entirely different.

Spread out below the ridge was a sprawling, sweeping valley. At the very center of the valley sat a frozen alpine lake.

Looming directly behind the lake was a towering mountain. Dark smoke drifted from its snowy peak.

There were tents. Not just a few temporary shelters or crude wooden lean-tos.

There were hundreds and hundreds of solid timber barracks lining the shores of the frozen lake.

There were campfires. Thousands of bright orange campfires burned throughout the sprawling settlement. They sent columns of gray smoke up into the sky.

The valley was alive with movement. Tiny figures chopped wood, hauled supply carts, and rushed between the timber barracks.

"By the Maker," Hans whispered.

"There must be more than ten thousand men down there," Brandt whispered. "Maybe more. If even half of them are trained soldiers... we are outnumbered."

"We have the rifles and the traction engines," Voss replied.

"But they have a wooden wall," Hans pointed out. He gestured toward the timber palisades protecting the main cluster of barracks near the mountain’s base.

Flapping above the walls were the yellow and red banners of the Spanish Empire. They stood right next to the black eagle of Austria.

The Duke of Alba’s vanguard had already arrived. They had linked up with Reischach’s loyalists.

Voss stared down at the sprawling encampment. He saw groups of armed men already rushing toward the timber walls. They were alerted by the surviving crossbowmen who had fled the forest.

"General Voss," Brandt asked quietly. "What are your orders? Do we set up the artillery here on the ridge, or do we march down and demand their surrender?"

A loud horn blew from the center of the fortress. It was a booming sound that echoed off the mountain. It shook the snow beneath their boots.

The gates of the fortress slowly began to creak open.

Voss narrowed his eyes. He strained to see who was coming out.

A figure emerged from the gates on a warhorse. The rider held a black flag high in the wind.

"General..." Hans whispered. "Tell me my eyes are playing tricks on me."

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