Swiss Arms 25 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms
Chapter 25

-VB-

Mobilization … was alright.

With mountains between two of our seven members and a long, winded valley barely connecting the rest, we were not exactly a centralized nor prepared group.

However, enthusiasm made up for a lot of it.

Within a week, we had eight hundred fighters ready to go and kick noble ass!

Unfortunately, most of them possessed little to no experience when it came to fighting. It was basically up to me to train them.

“And thrust!”

“HA!”

“And pull!”

“HA!”

“Swipe!”

“HA!”

“Stab!”

“HA!”

And so I trained them.

I walked up to one of the volunteers, a graying bearded man with pock marks from small pox and pimples from his childhood and adolescent respectively, and gently pushed and pulled his arms until he had the proper stance.

“Like that.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied with a gruff grunt. It was just how David talked.

I nodded and moved back to the front of the training fighters. “And pull!”

“HA!”

I hadn’t prepared for something like a war of this scale breaking out directed against us. If I had, then I might have spent a lot of time making halberd heads for spear shafts instead of spending a month patrolling the entire Compact. However, it was also that patrolling that led me to encounter the hostile knight and his men-at-arms instead of hearing about it after they burned down Maienfeld.

It worked out in the end, but it didn’t change the fact that we were missing a lot of equipment.

“Thrust!”

“HA!”

“Swipe!”

“Stab the foot!”

“HA!”

“Pull and stab the neck!”

“HA!”

This was why despite the fact that there were eight hundred fighters in Maienfeld right now, only three hundred of them had spears. This wasn’t bad. In fact, this was pretty alright.

No, the problem came with the two hundred out of the other five hunred who didn’t have any weapon nor weapon training.

They were the people I trained right now, who I spent the most time training.

“And stop! Attention!”

They pulled back, thumped the butt of the thick and heavy sticks they were using as training weapons down onto the ground, and stood with their chest out, spine straight, chin pulled down, and their free arm and hand straight and stuck to their side.

“Your last training of the day is to run around the village five times in your assigned squads! Get to it!”

“Yes, sir!”

And off they went.

Squads were also something I put to use instead of grouping the entire army into large units. A squad was made up of ten people and one among the ten was the squad leader. Five squads made up a platoon, and one of the squad leaders was also the platoon leader. Two platoons, composed of one hundred fighters, made up one company.

As such, the current roster of fighters gave me eight companies, or a single battalion, to take to the field.

I had already assigned platoon leaders and company leaders, and taught them every night what my signals would mean, what they must do for each signal, and what their jobs entailed.

This also meant that, for myself, I had little to no rest. I went to sleep at around midnight, woke up at five, spent an hour training for myself, spent thirty minutes eating, and spent another hour using Maienfeld’s own smithy to make weapons.

Arnold, my boy Arnold from Davos, had done well when he arrived just yesterday, because he brought two-thirds of the iron bars I had in reserve, which total to about three metric tons of iron. That was enough to arm everyone with at least a pike or a spear. It was a blessing to have iron to work with.

But where there was a upside, there was a downside; aside from me, there was only one other blacksmith capable of forging spearheads, nevermind blades, in Maienfeld.

“Herr Hans.”

I turned around and saw the mayor of Schiers.

“Burgermeister (mayor) Gerald,” I greeted the man, and spotted someone else with him.

He gestured to the man. “This is the blacksmith of my town, Ronald Smith.”

I blinked at the smith before looking back to Gerald. “I…”

“War is upon us, Hans. I understand that … you might not have the highest opinion of people,” the older man frowned. “But understand that just as the Chief of St. Peters understood what awaits us, all of us do as well. If you need help, then do not be afraid to ask. No, you must ask, because had it not been for you, Maienfeld would have burned and then it would have been us in Schiers who would have burned next.”

“... I understand.”

He nodded. “Can you show where Ronald can work then? I understand you have been helping Wendel where you can,” he asked. Wendel was the blacksmith of Maienfeld.

“Got it.”

Ronald turned out to be a surprise, because he was a fast and precise smith. Thanks to him, we managed to put out more spearheads and arrowheads than what Wendel and I could have made on our own.

Another week and additional two hundred volunteers later, war came to Maienfeld. Fortunately for us, we had people, fast people, out in the field looking out of the enemies.

-VB-

In his opinion, the Count of Toggenburg was wise to not partake in a battle against the vicious Count Killer.

Additionally, this left him, Baron Hans von Wildenburg, in charge of the thousand men the count intended to use to crush the nascent and rebellious peasantry. Of the thousand, only six hundred were levies. One of them were horsed men-at-arms, and the rest of the three hundred were horseless men-at-arms.

In Wildenburg’s personal opinion, this was overkill. Each of the three offending villages he’d been sent to crush, Maienfeld, Schiers, and Klosters, possessed less than three hundred able men, each. It was unlikely that they could call up their volunteers quickly enough.

Of course, this didn’t mean that he could be wasteful with his men’s lives. Aside from the fact that one hundred regularly men-at-arms and thirty of the horsemen were men from his Wildenburg barony, two hundred came from the Count of Werdenberg, one hundred-fifty from Count of Montfort-Breganz, one hundred from Gorizia-Tyrol, and the levies from his own liege lord, Count of Toggenburg.

Had they not needed to wait for the Gorizia-Tyrolian soldiers, then they might have been able to attack and put an end to the uppity peasants earlier.

Oh well. As the Franks say, c’est la vie.

Wheeee….

He paused.

That … sounded like-?

His head snapped up.

Arrows.

“AMBUSH!” he roared as he got off of his horse in a hurry.

The men who rode along side him also got off, knowing that they could not protect themselves without most of their armor equipped.

Screams rung out as arrows landed and pierced into horses and men alike.

“ATTACK!” someone roared, and the baron looked around frantically to see who could have-? His eyes widened as he realized that the tall spring grass on either side of the road parted by the hundreds and men armored with spears rushed out with fury on their faces.

But they only came out from one side-?

Wheee-!

His face paled.

Archers on one side and melee ambushers on the other side. If they fought the spearmen, then they would have to turn their backs to the arrows.

Gritting his teeth, he drew his sword. “Kill the ambushers first!” We can’t protect ourselves unless we get the-!”

And then he froze.

Walking out of the tall grass was a tall man in metal mask and dark brown bear cloak.

“No, no, no-!” he hissed as he realized who he was facing. “Men-!”

With roars, hie men-at-arms charged the monster.

And the monster swung his sword - a slab of metal almost as wide as his chest was - and crushed the barely armored men-at-arms who dared to charge at him.

The baron gritted his teeth. “Stop, stop, we surr-!” he tried, only to be cut off by another one of his men-at-arms getting stabbed and killed.

“There is no surrender,” the masked man hissed, glaring down at him with cold, cold eyes. “A thousand dead here means a thousand we won’t have to fight later. Kill all of the men-at-arms!” he ordered, and the panicking and unprepared soldiers died as the stabbed into them with spears from the front and arrows from behind. The baron saw the levies in the back of the marching line breaking and running, tossing down anything that would drag them down!

The ambushing peasants didn’t charge into the fray. No, they kept their formation, thrusting with their spears at maximum range, and moved in groups. They broke apart any defenders who looked like they were about to group and split them apart!

“Cowards!” he roared as he drew his sword. “Unchivarlous -!”

“We’re not knights, you dumb fuck,” the masked man, the Count Killer, laughed. “Chivalry is for people not fighting for their lives.”

“Retreat!” he shouted as the man came for him. “Men, fighting retreat!”

Some of the still-living men-at-arms did just that, and they fought back, shuffling and jumping back whenever needed.

But they still died to that horrible man’s blade. He moved like a rabbit, bouncing and jumping with ease despite the cloak, metal armors, and the giant blade he wielded, and struck like a falcon. Every single strike left someone dead. Someone screamed and died with each flash of his blade.

Compared to the monster, the baron knew he was nothing.

But he could at the very least alert his liege lord to the amassed army that looked poised to strike back.

He ran. He grabbed one of the still-living horses and booked it. He shrieked when several spears sailed across the air for him but missed him when his horse suddenly turned.

That’s how he approached his liege lord. Three-fourths of the army provided to him gone, sweaty, dirty, ragged, and frantic.

But at least he got the information.