snowstorm do not combine to make for good marksmanship.
Happily, good marksmanship didn't matter that much to a volley gun battery.
He glanced back and forth. All the guns he could see had been brought to bear. Good enough.
'Fire!' he screeched, in that high-pitched tone he'd learned to use on a battlefield. Not even the heavy snow coming down could blanket it.
Only two guns in one of the batteries hadn't been brought in line yet, but their fire came not more than three seconds later. Twenty-five barrels to a volley gun, six guns to a battery, six batteries to a company. Subtracting a few misfires, almost nine hundred musket balls struck the enemy just a few yards away.
That was equivalent to the fire from an entire regiment-except an entire regiment couldn't fire its muskets all at once. Not on that narrow a front.
Thorsten couldn't see most of them, but the clustered units his volley gun battery had just fired upon were two of the four companies of the Ostergotland Horsemen. That first murderous volley killed and wounded dozens of them, including the commanding officer Colonel Claus Dietrich Sperreuter. The rest were sent reeling backward-where they collided into the other two companies and cast them into further confusion.
'Reload!' Thorsten screeched.
As orders went, that one was superfluous to the point of being asinine. His men had already started reloading before he finished taking in his breath. What else would they be doing on a battlefield? Picking their teeth?
But it was tradition. Elite units took traditions seriously, as pointless as they might be.
The term 'elite' was no empty boast, either. The company was ready to fire again in ten seconds-a better rate of fire than even musketmen could manage.
'Fire!' he screeched.
This time, all the guns went off together. There were misfires, here and there, but not many.
Again, almost nine hundred balls hammered the milling cavalrymen. Thorsten's men still hadn't taken more than a couple of dozen shots fired in return and so far as Thorsten could tell, all of them had gone wild.
Dozens more were killed and wounded. The one company that had started to form up was shredded again, its captain thrown out of the saddle by a ball that struck him in the head. He survived the shot-just a crease, he wasn't even stunned-but after he landed on the ground his horse stepped on his head and crushed it into the hard soil beneath the snow. He survived that, too, although he was no longer really conscious. Then his horse and another trampled his ribs before they stumbled off, away from the guns.
He survived that as well. But three ribs were broken, he was now bleeding internally, and everyone who looked at his body assumed he was dead. Engler's soldiers did too, when they passed by.
So, a while later, he died from hypothermia. He'd never managed to get his boots on. He died in his socks- and both of them had holes. His had not been a wealthy family and the Swedes had been late with the pay.
Again.
Thorsten gauged the enemy, as much of them as he could see. Then, decided to take the risk. Instead of ordering another volley, he ordered the guns moved forward.
'Ten yards up!' he screeched.
Jeff Higgins heard the screech, although he couldn't make out the exact words. In the half-blindness of the snowfall, his volley gun company had gotten separated from the regiment and charged ahead. He'd been groping his way forward with the infantry battalions, trying to find them before it was too late. The volley guns were murderous but they were a lot more fragile than the gunners themselves liked to admit. If they got caught between volleys by cavalry-even well-led infantry that could move quickly-they were dead meat.
Engler was particularly oblivious to that reality, damn him. How could a man who planned to become a psychologist behave like a blasted lunatic on a battlefield? If Jeff didn't find him and reunite the volley gun company with the regiment's infantry, things were likely to get very hairy. The Hangman was light, when it came to regular artillery, so they relied a lot on the volley guns.
He heard another screech. Again, he couldn't make out the words, but it sounded closer.
The words had been: 'Come into position!'
Thirty-six volley guns swiveled on the snow, gliding easily on their Bartley rigs.
'Come on!' Jeff shouted, raising his sword and waving it. He detested the thing almost as much as he detested horses, but it was just a fact that an officer leading a charge had to wave a stupid sword around. Waving a pistol just didn't do the trick, not even a big down-time wheel-lock.
Yes, it was asinine. Nothing but a pointless tradition left over from the days when illiterate men went into battled armed with nothing but oversized swords and blue paint. But the Hangman was an elite unit and elite units take tradition seriously.
Thankfully, Jeff was a big man and had big hands even for a man his size. So he probably wouldn't lose his grip on the sword more than twice before the battle was over.
Somehow, it never occurred to him that he might be dead or maimed before the battle was over. He never thought of that, in the middle of a battle. He'd only think of it as he tried to sleep afterward, when sometimes he'd get the shakes.
He heard another screech. He might finally have been close enough to make out the words but the screech was immediately drowned by a thunderclap. Nine hundred volley gun barrels going off at once made the term 'noisy' seem inadequate if you were anywhere nearby.
That third volley-again, at point blank range-destroyed the Ostergotland Horsemen. Most of them survived, as men somehow do on a battlefield. Most of them weren't even injured. But as a fighting formation, they were done. On this battlefield today, at least. The survivors raced to the rear, insofar as men could race through heavy snow and insofar as they could tell where 'the rear' was in the middle of a heavy snowfall.
The sun was still invisible. It would remain invisible through that day and most of the next. But there was now enough light that a man could distinguish, approximately, between east and west. And, that done, determine which way was north-which is where they wanted to go. Back into the siege lines.
Miserable they might be, those trenches, but they weren't as miserable as being savaged by musket balls fired by an unseen enemy.
Not more than one soldier in five of the Ostergotland Horsemen had caught so much as a glimpse of the men who'd been killing them. Not more than a dozen had gotten a good look at them. Of those dozen, only two were still alive.
One of them was now hiding under the carcass of his horse, trying not to scream because of a broken leg. He was playing dead in the hopes that none of the enemy soldiers passing by would spot him. They were likely to cut his throat if he couldn't offer ransom, which he couldn't. His had not been a wealthy family, either, and the Swedes had been late with the pay.
Again. Dresden, capital of Saxony 'Where? Where?' Jozef demanded, as soon as he came onto the platform around the tower.
Eric Krenz pointed to the south. 'Over there. Somewhere. It's hard to be sure, exactly.'
Wojtowicz peered into the snowfall. You really couldn't see anything worth looking at. From this high up in the Residenzschloss, you couldn't even see the city's own walls.
Gretchen Richter came onto the platform, followed by Tata.
'So what is happening?' she asked.
'We're not sure,' replied Friedrich Nagel. He was standing next to Krenz. Both lieutenants had their uniforms on, but neither one had finished buttoning up their outer jackets. Like Jozef himself, they must have scrambled out of bed in response to the distant gunfire.
Suddenly, Jozef saw a flash. A dim one, but it was definitely a flash. Followed, a moment later, by a muffled boom.
'That was an artillery piece,' he said. 'Pretty big one, too. Probably a twelve-pounder.'
He looked at Eric and Friedrich. 'Does the Third Division have any field ordnance that size?'
They both shook their heads. 'Biggest we've got-unless something got added after Zwenkau-are six- pounders.'
So. Baner's forces. And from the flash, not more than a mile from the trenches the Swedes had dug.
Jozef came to a decision. 'Now,' he said. 'We should sortie now.'
Krenz and Nagel looked at each other. 'Are you sure?' asked Eric.
