Chapter 199: Surrounded

Thousands of women, elders, and young squires rushed out of their warm timber barracks the moment the fortress gates slammed shut.

They surrounded the retreating mercenaries. Their eyes were wide as they searched the bloody crowd for familiar faces.

"Where is my father?!" a young boy cried out. He grabbed the freezing coat of a tall Spanish pikeman. "He was right beside you! Where is he?"

"My brothers... where are my brothers?" a young Austrian woman pleaded. Her voice cracked as she grabbed the shoulders of passing men.

The shivering soldiers could barely look their own families in the eye.

"The loud thunder from their rifles shattered the center of the lake. They fell in the dark water. We... we could not pull them out. The freezing cold was just too fast," one of the veteran mercenaries whispered.

"You cowards!" an old woman shrieked. She fell to her knees in the snow and beat her fists against her chest. "You ran away! You left them to die in the ice! You abandoned our blood to save yourselves!"

Voss slowly lowered the brass spyglass from his right eye. He pushed it closed.

"What are they doing?" Hans asked. His teeth chattered. "Are they getting ready to shoot more bolts at us?"

"No. They are fighting with each other," Voss sighed. He rubbed his bare hands together.

Brandt stepped up. "General Voss, we have our own problems. The sun is almost gone. If we stay standing on this exposed ridge, half of our men will freeze to death before midnight. We need heat right now."

"You are right," Voss nodded. "Pull the entire line back. Get the men off this windy ridge and move them down to the snowy edge of the pine forest!"

"But General, what if the rebels attack us in the dark?" Brandt worried.

"They will not," Voss grinned. "They are too panicked by the broken ice to cross the lake tonight. Tell the men to chop up those heavy timber logs the Austrian exiles dropped on us earlier. Build large campfires on the tree line. I want the men crowded together! Shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing body heat!"

"And food?" Hans asked.

"Yes, you hungry fool," Voss laughed. He slapped Hans hard on his back. "Tell the quartermasters to bring out the salted pork and the hard bread! We cook tonight!"

The freezing army sprang into action. They quickly moved off the exposed ridge and marched down to the snowy tree line.

Using their steel maces, they chopped the heavy pine logs into firewood. Within an hour, dozens of bright orange campfires roared near the forest, pushing back the dark night.

Though the men had just survived a brutal ambush and a harrowing lake collapse, their mood slowly began to lift.

They huddled close to the flames. They took off their wet leather boots to dry them. The rich, mouth-watering smell of fat salted pork sizzling over the open fires filled the icy air.

They laughed, shared stories of the battle, and praised the brutal effectiveness of their new maces.

Later that night, while Hans was happily chewing on a thick piece of cooked pork, Voss quietly stood up from the fire.

He grabbed a burning wooden branch and walked alone back toward the edge of the frozen lake.

Voss stood at the snowy shore. He held his torch out over the dark ice. He squinted. He looked at the sweeping hole in the center of the lake where his men had drowned just a few hours ago.

Something looked different. The dark water in the center was no longer rippling.

Voss crouched down. He picked up a heavy rock the size of a man’s head from the snowy ground. He took a deep breath, pulled his arm back, and threw the rock as hard as he could toward the dark center of the lake.

The heavy rock flew through the night air. It landed exactly where the open water used to be.

The rock hit a hard surface. It shattered through it like thin glass, and then sank quickly out of sight.

Voss stared at the small broken hole the rock had just made.

Brandt walked up behind him. "You should come back to the fire before you freeze your toes off."

"Look at the water," Voss whispered. He pointed his burning branch out over the lake. "The extreme cold of the alpine night... it is already doing its work. The open water is freezing over again."

"That is natural, General," Brandt said. He shivered slightly as he pulled his coat tighter. "By tomorrow morning, the large hole will be sealed with fresh ice."

"Yes... it will be sealed," Voss smiled. A wicked grin spread across his face in the orange firelight. "But it will only be one night old. It will be smooth, clear, and flat. It will look exactly like the rest of the lake."

Brandt narrowed his eyes. "I do not understand. Why does that matter?"

"Old ice is thick enough to hold an army. But new ice? Ice that has only had a few hours to freeze? It might hold the weight of one careful man walking alone... but if a group of heavily armored men tries to run across it, the new ice will shatter under their boots," Voss explained. His voice bubbled with sudden energy.

Hans came jogging down to the shoreline. He held a piece of half-eaten bread. "What are you two doing down here? The pork is almost gone, General! If you do not hurry, I am eating your share!"

"Hans... my friend," Voss said. He walked up and wrapped his arm around the tall man’s broad shoulder. "How fast do you think you can run on slippery ice?"

"What kind of question is that?" Hans frowned. He took a large bite of his bread. "I am pretty fast. Why?"

"We are going to use the lake," Voss said.

Brandt gripped his rifle. "How do we do that?"

"I have been thinking about something," Hans mumbled. His mouth was full of pork.

He swallowed hard. He pointed a finger toward the distant silhouette of the rebel fortress. "How do these people eat in this freezing mountain pass? We brought heavy supply wagons full of food from Augsburg. What do they have?"

Voss took a bite of his bread. "They do not have farms, that is for sure. The ground here is solid ice. To feed thousands of men every single day, they must be fishing or hunting for food."

"There are no wild animals in these pine forests," Brandt noted. "We marched through the woods for hours and did not see a single deer or boar. If they are hunting, they are starving."

Hans’s eyes widened in realization. He looked over his shoulder at the dark expanse of the frozen lake. "Then they are eating fish! They must be cutting holes in the ice every morning to drop their nets. The lake is their only real supply of food."

Voss nodded. "With that sweeping hole in the center freezing over with paper-thin ice tonight, the lake is compromised. But that does not solve our main problem for tomorrow."

They could not just sit on the tree line forever. They had four thousand Jaegers and a limited supply of salted pork and hardtack. The coal for the traction engines would eventually run out.

If Voss ordered his men to march directly at those timber walls, Reischach’s crossbowmen would shoot them to pieces from the high watchtowers before the rifles could even do any real damage. The heavy Spanish shields lined along the ramparts would stop the conical bullets.

"We can take a few people," Hans suggested. He leaned forward, gesturing with his skewer. "We send a small group of our fastest Jaegers. They run halfway across the lake, shout some insults at the walls, maybe throw a few rocks at the gates. We make them really angry, and then we run back! We make them chase us right over the thin ice in the center!"

Voss shook his head slowly. He took another bite of his hot pork. "It will not work. You think Reischach is a fool? If he sees ten men running at his fortress, he will not send his whole army out to chase them. He will just send the hounds, or a few dozen crossbowmen to shoot them in the back. A small bait will not pull the big fish out of the well."

"Then we do not cross the lake at all," Brandt offered. "Maybe try another way to go from the other side? We could pack up the camp tomorrow morning, march our men all the way around the outer edge of the lake, and attack the fortress from the base of the mountain."

"Too slow," Voss countered. He tossed his empty wooden skewer into the fire. "The snow around the edges of the valley is easily waist-deep. It would take us an entire day just to march around the water. Men would break their ankles. Exhaustion would take hold before we even drew our weapons. During that time, Reischach’s men would just sit in their warm watchtowers and shoot bolts down at us while we struggle in the snowdrifts. We need a fast, decisive victory, Brandt. We need to break their spirit in a single strike."

"..."

"What does Reischach want more than anything right now?" Voss muttered to himself. His brow furrowed.

Hans laughed dryly. "He wants to chop our heads off and throw us into the water."

"No... he wants more than that," Voss whispered. His eyes suddenly widened. "When they ambushed our scouts in the forest, they just wanted to protect their hidden camp. But today... Reischach saw how the rifles work. He saw the firepower. He saw the traction engines."

Brandt frowned, confused. "So? They still do not have any Swabian engineering of their own. They rely on stolen revolvers and old bows."

"But they know it is a weapon they can steal!" Voss said. He jumped up from the boulder. He paced back and forth in front of the warm fire, his boots crunching in the snow. "Reischach is a proud noble! If he defeats us, he does not just win a battle. He captures four thousand Pattern-3 rifles! He captures our traction engines! If he kills us, he suddenly has the power to march back to Augsburg and fight King Konrad on equal terms!"

"I got it!" Voss suddenly cheered. He slapped his bare hands together. "I can make Reischach’s army chase us! I can make every single man in that fortress run out onto the ice tomorrow morning!"

Hans stood up. He wiped the grease from his beard. "How the hell are you going to do that? Are you going to politely ask them?"

"No!" Voss grinned. "We are going to give them what they want. We are going to give them the Swabian arsenal."

Brandt stood up. "Please, explain."

"We are going to pack up this entire camp. We are going to look panicked. And then... we are going to start marching our men back up the snowy slope, heading toward the mountain pass," Voss explained. "If we pack up our camp and start marching back to Augsburg in a hurry, what will he think?"

"But General..." Hans pointed out. He looked out toward the lake. "If they charge across the lake, they will hit the new ice in the center. They will fall in."

"Exactly," Voss cheered. He threw his arms wide open. "We just let their own greedy boots break the new ice. The lake will swallow them whole, and we will not lose a single man. It requires zero powder and zero risk."

"It is a brilliant plan, General Voss," Brandt said. A genuine smile finally broke through his serious expression. "I will tell the battalion leaders to prepare the men for a fake retreat at first light. We will make it look as messy and panicked as possible. We will leave tents half-collapsed."

"Make sure they leave some coal crates behind," Voss instructed. "Make it look like we are dumping weight so we can run faster. Have the artillery crews vent steam from the engines to look desperate. Sell the lie, Brandt!"

"Yes, General!" Brandt saluted. He turned around and jogged down the tree line to spread the orders to the rest of the resting army.

"You really are a sneaky bastard, General," Hans chuckled.

Voss turned his back to the fire. He looked out over the dark, quiet expanse of the frozen lake one last time before getting some sleep.

But as Voss stared into the darkness, a sudden gust of wind blew down from the towering mountain... It carried a strange sound across the ice.