Chapter 185: The Gathering Storm

Prince Maximilian sat cross-legged on a Persian rug inside the Swabian guest house.

Two days had passed since the daring defection of Archduchess Isabella and her younger brothers from Vienna.

The ten-year-old prince was holding a complex arrangement of interlocking brass gears, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Archduchess Isabella sat near the hearth, nursing a cup of hot cocoa, watching her brother with a mixture of amusement and relief.

Suddenly, the doors of the parlor swung open.

Princess Elise strode into the room, flanked by two Ironstorm Jaegers. She carried a ledger under one arm and a rolled piece of vellum in her hand.

"Isabella," Elise greeted, waving for the Jaegers to remain by the door. "Please remain seated. I have just received an intelligence dispatch from our network in the Mediterranean."

Elise walked to the center of the room, unrolling the vellum.

She had utilized the specialized alkaline solution to reveal the true text of Dieter’s report, hidden beneath the citrus-ink lies the Spanish had approved.

The contents were a geopolitical earthquake...

"Emperor Charles has mobilized," Elise stated. "A hundred and forty thousand men. He is emptying the treasuries of Castile and Naples to buy every bushel of wheat and every pound of saltpeter he can find. Furthermore, the Duke of Alba is driving the Toledo foundries to exhaustion attempting to reverse-engineer our breech-loading rifles."

Isabella gasped, her hands trembling around her mug. "Elise... if my uncle marches that many men to your borders, he will simply overwhelm your fortresses by sheer weight," Isabella whispered, the terror returning to her eyes. "He doesn’t care how many zealots die in the crossfire. He will burn Swabia to the ground just to make an example of King Konrad."

"..." Elise sighed. "My brother is already restructuring our industrial output to counter the disadvantage. However, this intelligence presents a problem."

Elise pointed to a specific line in the dispatch.

"The Emperor has ordered the Duke of Alba to establish a forward hub in the Brenner Pass," Elise explained. "If they secure the alpine crossing before the spring thaw, they can funnel those hundred and forty thousand men directly into Bavaria. My brother cannot leave the capital. He is personally supervising the final casting of the traction engines."

Elise rolled the vellum back up and tapped it against her ledger.

"Therefore," Elise concluded, "Konrad requires General Voss to take command of the Third Jaeger Battalion and march south immediately to reinforce Fort Kempten."

Isabella blinked. "General Voss? But he is the commander of your royal guard. Who will protect the palace?"

Elise allowed a chilling smile to touch her lips. "I am in charge of the palace security, Isabella."

Elise turned on her heel and marched out of the parlor, she found General Voss in the main courtyard, inspecting the brass casings of a Gatling cart.

"Voss, you are marching south."

The veteran General stopped inspecting the cart and stood up, saluting the Princess. "South, Your Highness? To the border forts?"

"The Emperor is mobilizing," Elise said, handing him the sealed orders. "Konrad wants you to fortify the Brenner Pass. If the Spanish secure that crossing, they choke our coal imports from Austria."

Voss frowned, looking down at the wax seal. "If I march the Third Battalion south, I leave the capital’s internal security solely in the hands of the militia."

"And my intelligence network," Elise corrected. "You do not need to worry about spies, General. Focus on the Spanish pikemen."

Voss sighed. "Understood. But if the King is stealing his chief of security, he owes me compensation."

Elise raised an eyebrow. "Compensation? You are a General of the Alemannian Army, Voss. You do not negotiate deployments."

"I am negotiating my sanity, Princess," Voss countered, a smile touching his face. "If I am going to freeze in the Alps for three months watching Spanish zealots die in the mud, I want a prototype."

Elise sighed, recognizing the commander’s stubbornness. "Fine. What do you want?"

"One of the new breech-loading rifled carbines," Voss stated. "The shortened variants Baron Klaus is developing for the cavalry. I want one packed in my saddlebags before noon."

"I will have it requisitioned," Elise agreed, turning back toward the administrative wing. "Do not break it, Voss. They are expensive."

Voss chuckled, watching the Princess march away. He turned back to the Jaegers assembling in the courtyard.

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the far side of the armory.

Voss spun around, his hand instinctively dropping to his saber.

A group of five Swabian conscripts, tasked with loading iron cannonballs onto a freight wagon, had lost control of a wooden crate.

The crate had shattered, sending dozens of twelve-pound iron spheres rolling across the stones, nearly crushing the foot of a passing blacksmith.

"Listen to me!" Voss roared. "Every man who helps reload those munitions in the next five minutes gets an extra ration of hot stew and a pint of lager for dinner! Every man who stands there like an idiot spends the night scrubbing the latrines! Move!"

Voss crossed his arms, watching the scramble... It was going to be a long winter.

***

Vienna, Occupied Austria November 12th, 1526

Chancellor Wenzel sat behind a desk inside the commandeered Ministry of Finance.

Six months had passed since King Konrad had utterly crushed the Austrian vanguard on the plains and forced Wenzel to sign the parasitic Swabian treaty. Since that day, the Austrian economy had been brutally restructured to feed the roaring foundries of Augsburg.

Wenzel was currently reviewing the monthly coal extraction ledgers. The numbers were staggering.

Because of the terrifying threat of Swabian artillery, the acting Austrian government had poured thousands of silver thalers into expanding the alpine mines.

They had conscripted thousands of laborers, working them around the clock to meet Konrad’s impossible quotas.

"The output is exceeding the minimum threshold, Chancellor," a minor clerk reported, standing nervously before the desk. "We are delivering twenty-five thousand tons of raw coal to the Bavarian border every month. The Swabian quartermasters are satisfied."

Wenzel nodded grimly, closing the ledger. "We are keeping the beast fed. So long as the coal flows, King Konrad’s Gatling carts remain outside our walls."

Wenzel stood up. He dismissed the clerk and walked out of the Ministry, stepping into the overcast streets of Vienna.

He walked toward the central garrison, heading for the holding cells located in the deepest crypts beneath the stone fortress.

"Open it," Wenzel ordered the two guards.

A guard produced a ring of keys and unlatched the deadbolt. The door swung inward, revealing a dark cell.

Sitting on a pile of dirty straw was Baron von Reischach.

Reischach was the towering, red-faced nobleman who had drawn a dagger on Wenzel six months ago, demanding that Vienna fight the Swabian King to the death.

When Wenzel surrendered the city, Reischach had attempted to rally a loyalist militia to attack the Swabian supply lines.

The Austrian guards, terrified of Konrad’s retaliation, had arrested him immediately...

Reischach looked up. He spat on the ground near Wenzel’s boots.

"Have you come to gloat, you treacherous dog?" Reischach snarled, his voice hoarse. "Have you come to tell me how you are licking the boots of the heretic?"

"We delivered twenty-five thousand tons of coal this month, Reischach," Wenzel stated calmly, ignoring the insult. "The city is intact. The citizens are not being atomized by fragmentation shells. We are surviving."

Reischach gripped the bars of his bedframe, his knuckles turning white. "You are surviving as slaves! You are feeding the man that intends to crush the Emperor!"

"The Emperor abandoned us," Wenzel countered. "He left us to face an army with nothing but wooden pikes. You tried to burn a Swabian supply train. All it earned you was a cell while the rest of Austria adapts."

"The Habsburgs will return," Reischach hissed. "And when they do, you will hang for treason."

Wenzel crossed his arms. "You represent everything that was obsolete about our empire, Reischach. Every time I see you rotting in this cell because you refused to acknowledge the reality of Swabian firepower, it reinforces my decision to surrender."

Wenzel took a step closer, lowering his voice. "However, If you drop your suicidal rebellion, I can offer you a pardon. You can sit at a desk in the Ministry and count the incoming grain shipments from Hungary."

Reischach’s eyes widened in disbelief. "You... you would trust me?"

"If you attempt to sabotage the supply lines again, King Konrad’s Jaegers will simply shoot you," Wenzel clarified. "This is your only avenue out of this crypt."

Reischach stared at his filthy hands, the dampness of the cell finally breaking his pride.

"I... I can manage a ledger," Reischach muttered, the fight drained from him.

"Excellent," Wenzel declared. "You will begin your duties at the logistics office on Monday morning. Do not test my patience."

Wenzel turned and walked out of the cell. The guards pulled the door shut, but crucially, they did not throw the deadbolt.

Reischach sat in the darkness for several minutes, listening to the echoing footsteps fade away.

He slowly stood up, his joints popping from the cold. He pushed against the door. It creaked open.

He walked ten paces down the corridor and stopped in front of the adjacent cell. The lock on this door was also undone.

Reischach pushed the door open, peering into the gloom.

"You can come out now," Reischach whispered.

Two men stepped out of the shadows.

The first was a scarred mercenary wearing a leather gambeson, an unstrung crossbow slung over his shoulder.

The second man was shorter, wearing a dark woolen cloak that obscured his face.

As he stepped into the light of the corridor, the man pulled back his hood, revealing the features of Lord Kinsky, the Habsburg’s premier spymaster.

"By the Saints, Wenzel loves the sound of his own voice," Kinsky murmured, brushing a speck of dust from his cloak. "I have been sitting in that cell for three hours."

"Kinsky," Reischach hissed, pointing a finger at the spymaster. "Do you truly believe we can walk out of this fortress? The Swabian garrison patrols the upper levels! If they catch us, they will execute us on the spot!"

The mercenary chuckled. "I have a covered wagon filled with rotting cabbages waiting near the eastern postern gate. You will smell terrible, but the Jaegers won’t look twice."

Reischach rubbed his face, his mind reeling.

He had secretly spoken to Kinsky through the wall three days ago.

Kinsky had promised to extract him, but Reischach thought it was the desperate lie of a doomed spy.

"I do not understand..." Reischach demanded. "Chancellor Wenzel just offered me a full pardon. I am a free man. Why do we need to hide under rotting vegetables?"

Lord Kinsky laughed. "My dear Baron, did you truly believe a man like Chancellor Wenzel pardons rebels out of the goodness of his heart? That entire speech he just delivered was orchestrated by Princess Elise von Frundsberg."

Reischach’s jaw dropped. "Wenzel... Wenzel is working for the Swabian intelligence network?"