Chapter 69
Northern battle line
His pistols spent and re-holstered, Christian drew his sword and slashed out at the closest Tatar face in his path. The man partially deflected the strike with his own sword. Christian’s blade instead struck the man’s shoulder, doing little damage but forcing him to reel back in his saddle. His steed, a dark-hided mori, raised up on its hind legs and took a pistol shot in the belly. It tumbled backward and knocked another Tatar from his mount. Christian split another face with his blade and spurred Alphonse forward.
He hacked left, right. The lines were confused, disorganized. Most of the dead or dying strewn across the ground were trabants, their bright red coats saturated with dark blood, even darker mud. Alphonse jumped over a crawling, screaming man as Christian drove his sword tip into the exposed side of a charging Tatar’s chest. He felt the crack of rib reverberate up the sword blade, yanked the weapon back, and finished the job by putting his shoulder into the howling man’s back. The Tatar dropped the reins of his horse and fell to the ground.
A mori slammed into Alphonse’s left flank. Christian winced and tried to move, but the weight of the enemy horse pressed his leg hard into Alphonse’s side. No cracked bone, Christian was thankful, but his ankle and foot screamed under the pressure of the hit.
Alphonse staggered to the right. Christian kept strong control of his reins, but the impetus of the blow was too much for the horse. Alphonse tumbled.
Christian uncoupled his boots from the stirrups and half leaped away from the fall. He struck the ground and slid several feet through mud and sharp pebbles, feeling the scrape of the rocks across his exposed neck. His buff coat and breast plate cushioned the blow. His weak eye pulsed. Strong hands grabbed him.
“Come on,” Lieutenant Enkefort said, all but spitting the words into Christian’s face. “Let’s go!”
He allowed himself to be pulled forward. “Where are we going?”
Enkefort did not answer, but soon, Christian knew where he was being pulled.
Close to the center of the fight, a small cadre of men held defense behind a pile of Székely bodies and horses. It was General Hatmanu and his personal guard.
Let him fall on his own sword. Captain Kinsky’s words rang through Christian’s mind. It seemed like the right thing to do now. In the midst of all this chaos, all this death, who cared about such a one as the cretin that now lay in abject fear behind a pile of men who had died from his own hubris? Let him fall on his own sword.
Christian grabbed a discarded, half-cocked musket from the hands of a dead trabant, stepped over the body, and joined Hatmanu and his men in their defense.
They did not speak, nor did the defeated general recognize Christian’s presence; he probably didn’t even know that Christian and Enkefort had joined their little redoubt. Hatmanu lay supine under the weight of his own aide-de-camp, who was sitting on him to protect his general from gunfire. Christian cocked his musket in full, raised it up, and fired at a Tatar coming on in full gallop.
On and on it went, until there were no more muskets or pistols to fire, no more ammunition to load. Another loud exchange of musket fire erupted as the Moldavian infantry, hiding in the tree line, now emerged and moved in good order down into the road. They fired, and the man sitting on Hatmanu was shattered by Murad mini-balls.
Enkefort then went down to a shot in the shoulder. Christian dropped in response, letting the whistling lead pass over his head and thunk! into dead bodies providing cover.
He heard a death scream and peeked out from his position.
General Marius Hatmanu had, once again, made a foolish decision: he had exposed himself while pushing his dead aide-de-camp away. Mini-balls struck his chest, his shoulders, his stomach, and he fell dead.
The gunfire stopped. A large shadow crossed overhead. Christian dared to look up. It was the airship, flying low, dropping yet another firebomb onto the mass of men below it. Christian searched the ground for another pistol and found one. He cocked the hammer and fired, as did other desperate men, taking their shots at the airship, hoping beyond hope that they could do it some amount of damage, for no other reason than to try and salvage victory over this—Christian’s—ill-advised charge.
Who was trying to cover himself in glory now? Christian wondered as another volley of gunfire sounded, and another firebomb fell from the airship.
“I love you, Isaac, my brother,” he whispered. “I love you, Andreea. Auf Wiedersehen.”
Christian closed his eyes as more of his men fired at the airship, as more Moldavian gunfire slammed into the bodies around him, and as another firebomb struck the ground and engulfed his position.
The Chaldiran
Another round of gunfire struck the gondola, and this time, Moshe knew something was wrong.
The laughter stopped. There was a thunk! near the stern, and Mordechai shouted.
Moshe turned and saw his engineer leap toward Vasile Lupu but missed catching him by inches. The voivode of Moldavia collapsed, his limp body striking the gondola floor with a kind of sloppy snap that suggested broken bones as well as bullet wounds.
“He is down!” Mordechai said, dropping to his knees to cup Vasile’s head with his hands.
“Take us up, Mordechai!” Moshe shouted as he fell to the gondola floor and crawled to his side. “Take us up! Now! I’ll take care of him.”
“You warned him not to go so low,” Sergiu said, his face a mask of smug contentment. “He paid the price.”
Blood pooled on the gondola floor near Vasile’s midsection. Clearly a bowel shot, but not the only one. Blood seeped from the voivode’s shoulder and face as well. There were likely other wounds too, though Moshe could not see them from the man’s thick clothing. He pushed his fingers into Vasile’s throat, leaned over and set his ear near the man’s face.
“He is still alive. He’s breathing, and his heart beats.” He turned to Mordechai. “Turn us toward our base camp. We must return there immediately, so his physician can try to save him.”
“Let him die!” Sergiu hissed like a viper. “We’re on the verge of victory here, and you want to return to camp and have word spread about this? Cause panic? Pull up, yes, but do not take us off the front until this matter is resolved.”
“He is not dead!” Moshe shouted. “And he is your voivode.”
Sergiu spit, pulled his pistol. He cocked a hammer, but kept the barrel pointed toward the gondola floor. “He’ll die soon enough with those wounds. Forget him.” He raised the pistol and pointed it at Moshe’s face. “I’m in charge now. We stay and finish what we have started. I’ve worked too hard, for too long, to let it all fall apart. I’ll get what’s mine, and—”
The Janissary guard shouted, pulled his sword, and rushed Sergiu. Moshe could see that the Janissary’s initial move shocked Sergiu, but the mercenary assassin was too fast, too skilled a gunman to be deterred. He turned quickly and fired. The shot tore through the guard’s chest. The man’s momentum propelled him forward. Sergiu stepped aside and let the body strike the starboard wall of the gondola and slide to the floor.
God in heaven! Moshe mouthed silently while falling back from the sudden violence. He then saw Mordechai and the last rifleman rush Sergiu. He found the courage to rise and assist them.
Sergiu, distracted by the fallen Janissary, raised his spent pistol as a club. Mordechai caught his arm before it came down on the rifleman’s head.
“Unhand me!” Sergiu shouted as Moshe’s fingers found the man’s throat and squeezed. “Unhand—”
He was strong, very strong, but three on one proved too much for the leader of the Impalers. Mordechai balled his fist and punched Sergiu in the face, again and again, while Moshe and the rifleman pushed him up and onto the larboard side wall of the gondola.
“Let me go! Let me…I’m going to kill you all! Damn you all to hell! Do you know who I am? I’m Sergiu Bot—”
Moshe grabbed Sergiu’s kicking legs and with one strong shove, they pushed the killer out.
Mordechai and the rifleman fell back, but Moshe watched as Sergiu, screaming, tumbled through the air, struck the ground below, and promptly disappeared in the rolling gun battle.
His anxiety spiked, his heart raced. Moshe raised his hand and saw that it was shaking. He grabbed it with his other hand and took a moment to calm himself. He breathed in and out deeply and appealed to God for strength.
“What are we going to do, Moshe?” Mordechai asked, his eyes a glaze of shock.
Moshe shook his head. Everything had fallen apart so quickly, and how fast indeed had he joined his crewmen to kill. A terrible, worthless man, for sure, but nevertheless, he had grabbed Sergiu’s legs and had helped toss the man to his death. He had never done anything like that before, and at this moment, he didn’t know how to feel about it.
Moshe shook his head again to clear away the shock and knelt again at Vasile’s side. He checked the poor man’s pulse and pulled away a bloody hand. “He’s still alive. Fly up…and get us back to base camp. Now!”
Mordechai took to the controls and the Chaldiran rose quickly and turned to cross over the Maros.