Chapter 18
Leibenstadt as a whole would be relatively easy to take. The people there are disorganized, disunified, and many of them were lukewarm on the Empire at best, especially after the Empress’s crushing of the Leibensburg rebellion. The city of Leibensburg and Bergzitadelle Frederick would be the hard part.
Most villages and towns that the Bickenstadt Liberation Forces passed surrendered without a fight as soon as they saw hundreds of thousands of men over the horizon. A few even went so far as to pledge fealty to Bickenstadt and offer up their own militias for the cause, which the Baron politely declined. The fighting, when it actually took place, was likely to be intense, and the Baron had a generally low opinion on the morale and military readiness of militia units.
The Baron’s men were marching towards Leibensburg at a decent pace and facing no resistance. Many of them were joking around or complaining about the lack of combat, waxing poetic about the need to prove their manhoods by means of glorious warfare.
Before they would taste battle, however, the Baron needed to link up with his allies from the Land of Everlasting Rain, Waffenstadt, and the various Anarchic Horsemen groups.
The men of Regenstadt had already arrived and had been marching with them for a few days and the horsemen were slowly trickling in, while the Waffenstadt battalions were still miles out.
A lone horseman, a scout from Helmut’s regiment, approached the Baron.
“Sir! I believe we are on an intercept course with Grand Imperial Army scouts! What do you want us to do?”
The Baron scruffed his beard in thought.
“How many?”
“Not entirely sure, sir, but I believe at least one hundred men.”
“Well, send Helmut’s company, and take some anarchic horsemen with you. I want to know how well they do in combat.”
The rider saluted the Baron, slamming his fist over his heart.
“Yes sir!”
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Helmut and his men were walking up and down the rolling hills and through the tall grasses of Leibenstadt on a collision course with Grand Imperial Army scouts. The Anarchic Horsemen had said they had yet to be spotted, and Helmut had decided to trust their expertise.
After traveling for around thirty minutes, a horseman returned, causing the regiment to stop. He looked at his comrade, who nodded and spread the word that the enemy was near. Helmut gave the order to spread out and hide amongst the grass, hills, and sparse trees.
Before long the first of the scouts could be seen, moving in a rough block of spread out but neatly spaced and still in columns soldiers. Thanks to the camouflage from the Anarchic Horsemen, the scouts didn’t notice them until it was too late.
Soon, Helmut gave the order by firing a flare above the scouts. As they looked up men all throughout the formation began to fall off of their horses as rifles blew golf ball sized holes in men’s chests and heads.
The scouts immediately raised their guns and looked around to find their attackers, easily able to identify their positioning by the clouds of smoke. They picked targets and fired, downing a few sof Helmut's company but largely missing with their less accurate smoothbores.
Then, the pounding of hooves began, far too close for the skirmishers to react and form any sort of square, the best defense against cavalry. As gunlances were leveled they fired, tearing through more scouts as the horsemen drew closer and closer. Finally, they made contact, and lances began to pierce all the way through bodies, sending them flying or slamming into the ground with the force of a horse behind the tip.
It took just seconds for the hundred strong scout regiment to be reduced to a fraction of its former self, forty men all dead in the blink of an eye. In the face of this, the remaining men surrendered quickly, and soon enough they were walking with hands tied and bayonets at backs to the Bickenstadt Liberation Forces.
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The Baron rode over to the sixty or so captured men, looking down on them from his elevated position. He smiled brightly and bowed his head.
“Hello there, I am the Baron von Bickenstadt of the Bickenstadt Liberation Forces, and it seems that you are taken prisoner. Because I am a magnanimous man, I will offer you all two options: You may either leave your belongings behind and be repatriated to your home provinces, or you can join the Bickenstadt Liberation Forces on our quest to save the soul of the Empire. You have twenty minutes to decide.”
He gestured to Udo and Helmut.
“If you wish to leave, go to Udo. If you wish to stay, go to Helmut.”
Very quickly the vast majority made their way over to Udo, while a handful moved to Helmut. The Baron nodded his head.
“Excellent, I like decisive men! If any of you are from the northern provinces you will be allowed through our blockade, so do not worry! You are safe under our administration!”
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February 19th, 1663.
The defenders of Fort Kauber were holding strong, despite it all. Their five hundred men strong garrison was straining under the weight of nearly three thousand angry Bszerci, but still, hold they did, right up on the walls of their motte and bailey fortress.
Imperial soldiers thrust down at men climbing ladders and clambering up handholds in the rough walls, knocking over ladders and chucking down boulders as quickly as they could. An Imperial parried a saber thrust and ran his opponent through, twisting the bayonet and withdrawing it before kicking him back over the walls.
An Imperial lay on the parapet, bleeding profusely from a massive gash in his neck. He watched as a group of Bszerci swarmed his comrade with sabers and bayonets, hacking him to pieces in a matter of seconds. A few seconds later one of them noticed the still breathing soldier and thrust their bayonet into his heart, putting him out of his misery.
Imperial soldiers pushed their enemy back as hard as they could, fighting with the determination of damned men. Two men crossed muskets, pushing back against each other until the Bszerci was leaning over the parapet. The soldier headbutt his opponent, stunning him just long enough to be thrown over the wall, screaming as he plummeted to his death.
The garrison commander drew a pistol and fired, nailing a rebel dead in the chest. He slashed the neck of another before parrying a thrust aimed at his flank. He slid his saber up theirs and slashed their wrist, cutting them down as they dropped their weapon and grabbed their destroyed wrist.
“Fucking Holenstadters. Men! Abandon the motte! To the bailey!”
He turned and grabbed a group of soldiers, ordering them to follow him into the bailey and spread the word that the motte was to be abandoned with a fighting retreat.
An Imperial’s eyes widened as a woman vaulted over the wall and bayoneted another soldier, kicking him off and firing her shot at another charging man, killing him instantly. She turned and blocked another strike but found a gun butt smashing into the back of her head, taking a bayonet to the gut a few seconds later as he tried to crawl back up on her feet.
The fighting inside Fort Kauber was intense, frantic, and bloody. The disciplined lines of the new style of warfare were gone, replaced with a wave of infantry crashing against the walls and flowing through the defenders like water through a river, knocking them down to the courtyard and pushing them back to the inner structure, the bailey, within the fort. Their last line of defense.
The garrison commander ordered any furniture, from the smallest chair to the sturdiest cabinet, to be placed up against doors or together in great barricades. The tide of Bszerci crashed against the doors of the bailey, breaking through quickly. At this point, the garrison was heavily diminished, taking nearly two hundred and fifty casualties defending the motte.
The Bszerci were funneled into the small doorways and hallways of the bailey, not allowing them to use their significantly higher numbers to its full advantage.
Each step was hard fought as the Imperial garrison were determined to sell their lives dearly in the hopes that reinforcements came in time, even though they knew it was impossible. Worst case scenario, they wear down the attackers enough for their reinforcements to retake the fort.
The garrison commander unloaded a shot directly into the face of a man clambering over their makeshift barricade, sending him tumbling back into his comrades. He drew another pistol and killed a woman crossing the barricade, shocked at the number he had seen fighting alongside the men.
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The Grand Imperial Army had a few, but there were dozens constantly crashing into their wall of steel and wood. The commander heard the sound of a fuze being lit and immediately jumped on top of the barricade, identifying the person with the grenade and shooting him dead.
The grenade rolled across the floor and exploded, taking with it a small knot of Bszerci, eliciting a cheer from the garrison. The commander fell back and heard the terrifying sound of bullets whizzing by his head, missing by a margin small enough to make him shiver.
“Fall back! I saw more grenades out there!”
His men acknowledged his orders and got behind the next barricade, leveling their guns at their abandoned position. They were within spitting distance, able to make out the small details of their opponents’ clothing, so their volley was absolutely devastating, with nearly every shot finding its mark.
Bszerci were thrown back by the force of a dozen bullets punching into them, but they were swiftly replaced by more, angrier Bszerci, and they were eating up the distance quickly.
“Hold the fucking line men! Send these traitors back to the hovels in which they dwell!”
His men cheered and readied themselves, thrusting and pushing as soon as they saw the flash of steel and pink of flesh crossing their makeshift defenses. The commander glanced back nervously.
They only had two more defensive lines left before their backs were literally against the wall, the only thing remaining being the wide open basement used for holding captives. It was wide enough for his few hundred remaining men to form a line, which was bad, as it meant the enemy could spread out as well.
He raised his saber and let out a warcry.
“Do not let these savages take a single step without spilling their guts! This fort is for Imperials, let us keep it that way!”
His men let loose battlecries as they fired their shots and deflected thrusts.
A bayonet carved out a trail of gore across the commander’s face, which he responded to with a chop to the man’s throat, cutting halfway through his spine. Another bayonet bounced off of his cuirass, and another bounced off his chausses. They were already getting overwhelmed, as the Bszerci had realized they were nearing the end and redoubled their efforts.
His men were pushed back, slowly and steadily, killing and injuring dozens of Bszerci with each step back. Eventually, they were pushed all the way to the basement, forced to create a firing line to take as many men with them before they inevitably fell.
As soon as Bszerci started to flood down the stairs and men fired, killing multiple men with each shot by virtue of a musket’s piercing power at such short range. The Bszerci returned fire, dropping more and more men until they finally clashed with the remnants, fifty defenders fighting against a crowd hundreds strong.
Soon, the basement floor was covered with blood, men splashing it all around as they thrashed around violently, desperate to kill their enemy before they killed them. Soon, only twenty men remained. Then ten. All until a single man stood, coated from head to toe in enemy and friendly blood, covered in a thousand small wounds, completely exhausted.
The only thing which kept him alive was his armor, deflecting blows that he was too exhausted to put up any resistance to. He swung wildly, killing any who dared approach him, until, finally, he was overwhelmed, tackled to the ground by a crowd of angry men. A dagger was plunged into his neck, gun butts slamming and feet stomping on his head until there was nothing left but a bloody pulp.
The Bszerci raised their weapons and screamed all throughout the fort, bellowing war cries and celebrations as the last man fell. The fort was in their hands after hours of constant, bloody, viscerally nasty combat.
Krysia walked through the halls with her hands clasped at the small of her back, stepping over dead men as she made her way to the commander’s office. She was followed by her boy aid, who was visibly affected by the death and destruction around him.
Krysia turned and chuckled at the boy, who was nearly turning green at the sight of so many dead men, as the smell of gallons of blood covering the floor.
“It’s ok, you can throw up.”
The boy immediately turned and blew chunks all over a dead Bszerci, immediately fretting over the body and apologizing for sullying it. Krysia laughed and gestured for the boy to follow, which he did after lingering for a moment to stare at his lunch.
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A Bvarian scout shook his head and lowered his looking glass. He turned to his partner and spoke solemnly.
“I think that’s the last fort on their side. They’ve done it.”
His partner nodded solemnly.
“Seems that Kauser fought to the end, though. Didn’t see anyone fleeing.”
He sighed and stood, lifting his bag and throwing it back over his shoulder and holding his rifle in his armpit.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of work to do, Frederick.”
Frederick chuckled.
“Yeah, this is gonna be a shitshow, I can tell.”
The scout smiled.
“Say, are you still loyal?”
Frederick nodded.
“Udo what kind of question is that? We’re loyal to the end, that’s the oath we swore.”
Udo smiled.
“Good, then let’s find another spot. I get a bad feeling about here, a little too close for comfort.”
The pair made their way through the mountain forest, moving through it with the grace and confidence of a fox, slipping around trees, vaulting fallen logs, jumping off of rocks, and climbing sheer cliff faces with their specialized gear, enchanted climbing picks and shoes, able to bite into stone the same way ice gear bit into glaciers.
As they slid down a hill Udo raised a fist, causing Frederick to drop to one knee behind a nearby rock. Udo gestured towards a small group of Holenstadt scouts, just four of them wandering around, likely looking for men just like them.
Frederick nodded his head and Udo smiled, stalking over to them, silent as an owl flying through the air, and leaving behind about as much evidence of their presence. They managed to find a small ravine and climbed on top, laying flat in the snow to hide their presence. The pair heard the group enter the ravine and pulled back their hammers to full cock.
Udo and Frederick took aim and fired in less than a second, blowing massive holes in the necks of two of the Holenstadters. Their discarded their guns immediately as they slid down and laid into the surprised scouts with enchanted picks, piercing clean through their helmets and down into their brains. One of them croaked in a disgusting way as Udo tried to dislodge his pick, the other twitching violently as Frederick kicked him over.
Before they even knew what was going on, the group of Holenstadt scouts were already dead.
“Do we leave the bodies?”
Udo nodded.
“Empress said to ‘make sure they know the cost of rebellion’, so I assume we should.”
Frederick breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good, I hate moving around bodies. Dead weight is a lot of weight.”
Udo drew a notebook and jot down an observation.
They’ve made it a few miles into our territory, we should up the skirmisher presence here.
“Right, let’s get back to base, for real this time. We’ve got some very valuable data.”
Frederick nodded.
“Right, let’s go.”
He gestured for him to go first.
“Lead the way, captain.”
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The Baron was speaking to a man named Johan von Puckelsmark, the general of the Waffenstadt Armed Forces. He was a shrewd older gentleman, small in stature and fairly gaunt, with short, cropped gray beard and a bald head. He wore a light brown Waffenrock with six golden buttons and dark gray trimming as well as light brown dress pants, a style of officer uniform pioneered by the Waffenstadt military.
“...it is good to be amongst fellow believers of freedom.”
Von Puckelsmark shrugged and spoke sarcastically, his voice coarse and rough due to decades of yelling.
“We believe in the freedom of Waffenstadt.”
“That’s good enough for me, any port in a storm! Though I am still always happy to assist the army of my brother-in-law.”
Von Puckelsmark nodded.
“I am happy to do my duty to my lord.”
“Good, I imagine we have a lot of duty to do.”
“Yes, the city of Leibensburg will prove to be a harrowing ordeal, I’m afraid. Hopefully your expertise will carry us to victory.”
The Baron chuckled.
“Well, I have participated in a siege of Leibensburg already, so hopefully this should go smoothly. What I am truly worried about is Bergzitadelle Frederick.”
Von Puckelsmark nodded.
“Yes, I wish to make sure of our numbers. We are bringing sixty thousand men to the table.”
The Baron nodded his head.
“If everything goes smoothly, for the siege of Leibensburg I am bringing forty thousand men, as the rest of the Bickenstadt Liberation Forces are to keep the Empress’s forces from crossing the river. For the siege of our beloved mountain citadel we have the aforementioned forty thousand alongside ten thousand men from the Ottoman Empire and fifty thousand from the Brayherds of Caprae Loco, and possibly some reinforcements from a far flung empire named Tlanzoma.”
Von Puckelsmark looked impressed.
“You managed to involve the Brayherds in our fight, I can’t wait to see them in action. I hear they are some of the hardest fighters in the world.”
“Yes, they are quite formidable, they will be of great usefulness.”
The Baron noticed a blur of movement to his side, and suddenly a horseman appeared, seemingly out of thin air, his puff and slash ghillie suit swaying in the wind as he came to a halt.
“Sir, the garrisons of Leibensburg and Frederick are coming to meet us.”
Von Puckelsmark raised an eyebrow.
“The entire garrisons?”
The horseman shook his head.
“No sir, seems to be four battalions, and I see a lot of pikes.”
The Baron smiled and turned to Von Puckelsmark.
“Do you think your men are up for it?”
Von Puckelsmark nodded.
“Of course. We will meet them in the field.”
The Baron smiled.
“Excellent. I’ll send my officers to observe the first blow against the Empress’s slavers. If you find any elven slaves in their camp, send them to me.”