Swiss Arms 161

Swiss Arms

Chapter 161

-VB-

King Henry of Bohemia (Gorizia)

February 1310

“Your Majesty!” a man shouted as he ran into the court. 

Henry frowned as he looked up from where he had been looking down at a Czech noble. The man bore the sigil of Tyrol. 

The man ran around the petitioners and quickly got down to one knee. “I come from Tyrol, Your Majesty! The Habsburg! They’ve put Innsbruck under siege!” he reported while panting and sweating like a pig. 

No, that was uncharitable. The man had pushed himself to do his duty. 

Henry nodded. “Go. Rest. As for the rest of you, I now have a bigger problem. The Habsburg have attacked my people without declaring war, and I must convene my war council.”

The petitioners quickly left, realizing that a serious situation had come. 

Once every petitioner and noble who had no business being here left, leaving him alone with just his most critical advisors, marshall, his wife, and the guards, he turned to the still panting messenger.

“Tell me the situation,” he ordered.

“T-Two thousand soldiers have put Innsbruck under siege. They fly the Styrian flag. Thanks to the early warnings of the Compact rangers, we were able to evacuate everyone into the castle, but they won’t last for long, Your Majesty. The castle has food for only six months!” 

Six months? That was plenty of time… if his brother followed his instruction. 

“Did my brother send a messenger to Fluelaberg?”

“Y-Yes, he did, milord.”

Henry nodded grimly. “Then I am not worried about -.”

“Your majesty!” 

Another messenger burst into the room. This time, this one wore the heraldry of a southern Czech noble. He hurried to the side of the still kneeling messenger and knelt as well. 

“Habsburgs have struck the southern border with an army of six thousand, Your Majesty! What’s more, we were struck from the east as well by soldiers and knights flying the crests of Cieszyn, Wroclaw, Opava, Zagan, Glogow, Bytom, and Opole!” 

Henry froze. 

… All of those were Silesian dukes. Had they joined hands with the Habsburg?! 

The court grew quiet and heavy at the announcement. 

“Are you certain?”

“I saw it with my own two eyes, milord,” the second messenger said as he looked up to meet his eyes. 

And Henry saw only honesty and terror. 

This wasn’t just a war anymore. 

It was a civil war on top of the undeclared war. 

“Then I must gather the banners…!” he hissed as he shot up. But then he turned to the one man in this room who didn’t fit. “And I have a job for you.”

The man, wearing a heavy cloak with splotches of green, dark green, lighter green, and a few brown patches, stepped up and bowed slightly. “Your will?”

“I know how capable you rangers are. It’s why I pay your lord handsomely so that I can have just fifteen of you as my guards. However, I do not need that many guards right now. Right now, I need at least ten of you to go into the lands of those Silesian nobles. Do not harm the commoners but any men-at-arms, knights, and lords fighting against us? Kill them all.”

The man tilted his head. “You are asking a lot for just ten of us.”

“I know. If you have to focus on one Silesian duchy at a time, then do so. But I need them caught off guard, their supply caravans burned, and their own subjects fearful of me.”

“... As you will it. I will need maps and sample crests of the … nobles we will be attacking.”

“My steward will give them to you.”

The steward, an elderly man, nodded. 

With that done, he turned back to the first messenger. “Unfortunately for you, I have a need of you to swiftly return to Innsbruck to see if the siege has been lifted.”

“M-Milord?” the messenger asked in surprise. A few of his advisors also appeared surprised. 

“If you reached me right now and another messenger was sent at the same time, then that first messenger should have reached Fluelaberg at least a week ago,” Henry replied. “A week is plenty of time for Count Hans to have finished his preparations, if not outright already at Innsbruck fighting the Habsburgs.”

The Compact ranger scoffed. “Poor bastards,” he muttered loud enough for everyone to hear. “I wonder what kind of horror they’ll be up against this time.” Then he shuddered. “Last I remember, the count had devised handheld explosives that could be thrown. And it’s filled with scrap glass, rotting shit, and some kind of dust that causes a rash you can’t ignore.”

Henry slowly turned back to look at the ranger. 

The ranger grinned underneath his hood. 

“... Hans is sadistic, isn’t he?”

“My liege prefers ‘deterrence,’ Your Majesty,” he chuckled. “Imagine seeing your comrade in arms getting hit by one of those handheld explosives. He’s dead but the guy next to him screams as glass shards penetrate his skin and eyes and then rashes start to appear within an hour. He can’t stop scratching. He can’t stop screaming. If that wasn’t all, then he’ll come down with fever from the sickness that those glass shards and powder were kept in. Bleeding from everywhere with pain that won’t ever heal, slowly bloating from the rashes, and then becoming green with sickness to the point of constantly shitting? Imagine that’s what the average levy and men-at-arms sees when they fight my liege.” He shuddered. “It’s a perfect deterrent. If they keep fighting after that, then their upcoming horribly slow death is on their choice.”

By the end of his speech, everyone had stepped away from the man. 

Henry included. 

“... Did he have to go so far?” he asked slowly. 

The ranger shrugged. 

Henry felt … morbidly curious as to how Hans came up with this kind of idea. Did he just have a council of the most horrible people who spat out crimes against God and good sense? 

And he was also glad.

Because that monstrosity was on his side. 

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

February 1310 

It took me just a week to gather all of the troops and march out from Fluelaberg. I have been preparing for this for close to a year now, so when the frantic messenger came begging for help, I accepted. 

It was an honest to God call to arms in a defensive war. 

And now, my army stood just on the west end of the Innsbruck town. 

“How many castles?” I asked while looking at the town.

Innsbruck was the Alps town in my opinion. It sat in the middle of a mile-wide valley that went from west to east, sloping ever so gently in the aforementioned direction. It was surrounded by farmlands all around. 

Snow was just starting to melt. 

“F-Four, milord,” the messenger replied. “King Henry’s brother, Duke Otto, is in the newly completed Castle Hasegg in the eastern end of the town. Thaur Castle sits north of it, but I fear it may have already fallen because of how weak it is. Castle Martinsberg and Fragenstein Castle are both behind us and still under my liege’s control. The Habsburgs haven’t pushed this far into the valley; they really wanted Castle Hasegg.”

I hummed. “Are you sure it was under your people’s control?”

“Y-Yes, milord. I saw the flags they flew.”

“Got it. And how many soldiers did Habsburg bring?” 

“Two thousand, milord.”

Two thousand. 

Against my one thousand five hundred. 

Yeah, this was going to be easy. 

However, the rangers weren’t going to be of much help because of how wide the valley was. 

I turned to one of the ranger captains. 

“Captain Reynold!” I called for him, and my voice cut through the clatter of men and women preparing to settle down for the day after a long march. The captain was quick to come to my side. 

“Yes, milord?” 

“We will not engage the Habsburg in battle immediately. Instead, I want you to take the 203rd company and so havoc in their camps. Target knights, nobles, and anyone else taking advantage of the good people of Innsbruck. And if you can, poison their food supplies. You know which vials to use?”

“Of course, milord. The Saint John’s Rangers will see your will done,” he said. 

I nodded as he slinked away and I shooed away the messenger, telling him to take the rest of the day off. He did so hesitantly.

Once I was alone, I scoffed. I was dumbfounded by how poorly the Habsburgs planned this war. 

No scouts. No ambushes. Two thousand soldiers just holed up sieging mountain castles. 

“There’s a reason your mum didn’t cross me even when I was a mere baron, Rudolf,” I hummed to myself. “But it seems like you aren’t as smart as your mum.” 

Rudolf had done some research when he hired my rangers to fight for him in his Hungarian campaign. He knew what they could do. In fact, he might even be expecting my rangers to pop out of the shadows soon to attack his nobles and officers. Hell, he might even have more cavalry than what was usual in army formations of the era specifically so that he could send them out to hunt down my rangers. 

Which was another point to consider.

The Habsburgs had many knights and cavalrymen, and I did not have many; in my army of one thousand five hundred, I had exactly fifty cavalrymen. This meant that I could not afford to take them in a straight on face-to-face battle.

Since that was the case, my plan was to poison their supplies, kill off their officers, nobles, and knights who could coordinate and command the levies and men-at-arms, and then attack them once they have had a week to suffer. Oh, and that would be a week during which they would suffer the closest thing to cholera I could find. And by the time I actually marched up to his army and attacked them, they would have been demoralized from lost nobles and knights, sick from constantly shitting themselves, and exhausted from a month-long siege. 

‘How will you fight back, Rudolf of Austria?’ I thought before I turned around to tend to my own needs: dinner.