Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

"Why not just give us the keys to the gate, Your Majesty? We're finishing the south first, so they'll face the south. Well, Sire, you wanted to use the heavy cavalry. If this is really their battle plan, here is the opportunity."

Emeric nodded. "Light skirmishers and a testudo-covered ram on foot, as the sacrificial troops. Not too many. Use some of those Slovenes. And when the gates are full of arquebusiers-a two-prong charge. And tell the gunners not to aim for the gate any more. We want it to be able to open nicely and easily."

The moles had been basically complete since the previous day. Emeric made no effort to push troops across them yet, but kept the men working on them, widening and improving them; even clearing the sheltering mole walls, making the moles into causeways, under heavy Venetian fire. Then, in the morning, the first skirmishers began pushing across, using leather shields to protect them as best as possible. With them came the testudo and ram on its clumsy wooden wheels.

Watching from the southern postern, Falkenberg scowled. "Something's wrong, Prince. Even the captain-general can't believe that in an age of black powder and cannon, someone is going to sit and pound the gate down with a ram. They're waiting for a sortie. That's why there are so few of them. They are supposed to be able to get out of the way of the heavy cavalry, when it comes."

"We just happen to be wandering around with a hundred knights in full armor near the gate. We know nothing about this," said Manfred.

"And neither does that ass. Hark! There they go."

The trumpet sounded the sortie.

"Give it three hundred heart-beats before the first volley, and ten before the charge," said Falkenberg professionally.

He might have been off by two heartbeats when a horn blew on the Spianada.

"Here come the Magyars!"

Even from half a mile across the water they could hear the thunder.

"All right," said Manfred. "Out lances, Ritters!"

Commander Leopoldo, on foot among his arquebusiers, watched as it began going wrong. They'd burst out of the gate, the press of men behind him. The captain-general, perched on a showy gray, rapier in hand, attempted to organize them. The few Slovenes had fled, abandoning the testudo and diving into the water. "Reloa-"

The yells and thunder of heavy cavalry, massed and waiting between Emeric's earth cannon-ramparts, drowned the rest. Coming in a thick mass, ten abreast, Hungary's finest streamed onto the mole causeways.

Leopoldo gritted his teeth… waiting.

Emeric's cannon were not firing-too much chance of hitting his own troops, or possibly preventing the sortie. So, until that moment had Leopoldo's gunners been holding their fire also. Now all the Citadel's guns that it was possible to bring to bear on the causeways fired in unison. Leopoldo had had help from the blue-scarred Knot bombardier in ranging, and even in the choice of ball in those cannon.

The chainshot-intended to bring down masts, sails and rigging-hit the two Hungarian charges like sudden brick walls. One minute the Hungarians had been unstoppable.

The next… stopped. But the Knights had been right about their foe, Leopoldo saw. Not even that would stop them, and now the cannon would have to reload.

The pikemen on the walls poured the pitch and even managed to fling a few barrels to burst and shatter on the shingle just short of the north and south bastions.

"What are they doing!?" screamed the captain-general furiously. He waved his sword wildly at them. "Wait until they get to you, you idiots!"

But they were obviously too far off to hear that. Panicking, too. Some had even thrown a few faggots into the sticky mess. And in their panic, obviously everything else on hand-including caltrops and a number of burning brands. Leopoldo knew a moment's heart-stop when the naphtha and faggots on the south didn't catch. Pitch always was the devil to light. Then some brave soul tossed a grenade into it.

Between two fires, but still with half his men inside the gate, the captain-general yelled, "Charge!" His horse reared, and he waved his sword-a heroic figure.

And then he fell off his horse.

It's one of those things that will happen, even to the finest horseman-if a trusted sergeant has undone the belly cinch. But Leopold had no time to watch. He had a battle to deal with. He began bellowing orders.

Which did not include "Charge!"

The Knights of the Holy Trinity charged instead, sortieing from the northern and southern posterns. Hitting the flanks of the Magyars, they trapped some between the wall, the fire and themselves. Others they flung back onto the causeway. The Magyars had lost most of their impetus, the sheer weight of their charge that made them so unstoppable, in the cannon barrage. And then they'd had to gallop onto the thin strip of pebbles in front of the walls, and then the burning beach.

Horses-even well-trained war-horses-do not like fire. And the arquebusiers on the other side of the flames were making a very orderly retreat. Fire a rank. Step back. Within the gates, the officers had pushed the tercio apart and sent the men up onto the walls above.

The Knights of the Holy Trinity had the full two hundred and fifty yards to build their impetus. And on the narrow strip of land, superior numbers were no advantage. The Knights didn't like challengers to their position as the foremost heavy cavalry in Europe, and they inflicted a sharp lesson.

And once the causeway was packed with men dying, men fleeing, horses leaping into the water… they retreated at a sharp trumpet call. The near-rout was just being turning into a rally and second assault, when the reloaded cannon fired a second time. This time the targets were packed as tightly as possible. The carnage was terrible. The second charge of the Knights of the Holy Trinity was not so fast or fierce… but the resistance of the foe was gone.

The pride of Hungary were streaming from the causeways, and now the rout was unstoppable, even with Emeric's savage discipline.

The hastily following Venetian sappers, running up with kegs of black powder, whirling slow-matches and a prayer, had a good while in which to work, before one of Emeric's generals had the sense to push foot soldiers and Croats forward. Emeric himself had been too preoccupied shrieking threats at his cavalrymen.

The southern mole was blown apart, and only a narrow ridge remained of the northern one.

And someone had been kind enough to drag the captain-general inside.

Emeric seethed with rage, once he realized he'd stumbled into a trap. I will crush them. I will crack them like lice. Every man, woman and child in that citadel will die.

Despite his fury, a calm and calculating part of him was finally accepting the truth. The Citadel would not fall-not quickly enough, anyway-simply through military means. And while it might fall to treachery, treason was in the nature of things a slippery weapon.

I'll have to go back to Hungary and ask for help, damn her eyes.

"Ah… Your Majesty." Count Dragorvich, a clever man who always made sure that the king made all the crucial decisions-and took the credit for them, naturally-was without words this time. He just pointed.

The ricks of hay for the cavalry were on fire. Someone had obviously made the best of the distraction offered by the assault to attack their rear. Again.

"Get me the blond," Emeric hissed. "Now."

"You're supposed to be an advisor to the Emperor Alexius VI of Constantinople. Why are you still here?" asked Emeric, looking at the blond man.

There was a pause. "I am here to see to my master's interests."

An interesting reply, thought Emeric. Which master?

However, all he said was: "It is very much in your master's interests to see us win here, and win decisively and soon. So I have a task for you. There is one of these Venetians-or rather an Imperial-on the loose. He and his men are attacking our rear. Our supplies, our materiel, even our men."