Thursday, August 12, 1683
Xavier
Vienna
It was two days short of a month since Xavier had pulled his men into Vienna to bolster the garrison. From the Burg Ravelin, he looked out at the progress the Turks had made since then. After capturing part of the counterscarp, they’d filled in the ditch between it and the ravelin. A few nights ago, a long stream of men from Vienna had taken wheelbarrows into the remaining ditch in an effort to dig it back out. It hadn’t gone well. The Turks had seen them and thrown down arrows and grenades, and the defenders had withdrawn with casualties, without exposing the guns the Turks had brought up, which were now in far better range to batter Vienna’s defenses.
Things had been better before the Turks held part of the high ground. Just yesterday, they’d sprung a mine under the tip of the ravelin. If the ravelin fell, both the Burg and the Löbl Bastions would be more vulnerable, and if the Turks had those, it would be a simple matter to blast a hole through the curtain wall, either by cannon or by mine, and then they’d rush into the city.
If? Was it if, or was it when?
Derfflinger and Hosp stood on the ravelin’s parapet, just to the side of him. They were keeping a good watch but were also laughing about something. To have something to laugh about in all this—if everyone could keep their morale up the way those two did, the city might have a chance.
Xavier scanned the defenses. Balth was on duty too, with his men just to the left of Xavier’s. Captain Heisterman had spoken to them not long before, had told them to slow the Turks down as much as they could. Make them fight for each bit of ground. Sell every life as dearly as possible.
The ground jolted beneath Xavier’s feet, flinging him into the parapet.
“Ensign Schor? Ensign Schor!”
Xavier’s head throbbed, and he could barely breathe. He spat out earth and swiped at something wet on his face. The cuff of his jacket came away red.
Derfflinger called his name again. Xavier stared at Derfflinger, then at what had been the point of the ravelin. Part of it had disappeared, and in its place was a huge causeway. Somehow, the explosion had thrown the debris into a solid-looking incline.
“Can they plan for their mines to make a ramp like that?” Derfflinger asked.
“I don’t know.” If it had been planned, the Turkish miners were miracle workers. If it hadn’t been planned, the enemy was incredibly fortunate because they now had a sloping pathway that took them directly to the ravelin—a pathway wide enough for fifty men to rush at once. “We’ve got to stop them.”
Muskets wouldn’t be enough. They needed more men, and they had to put together some type of barrier.
“Are you all right, sir?” Derfflinger stared at Xavier’s forehead.
Xavier brushed his sleeve against his head again. He still bled, but it couldn’t be helped, not right now. They had to save the ravelin. If it fell, the bastions would fall, and then the city would fall. Xavier pushed himself to his feet and ignored the way his head swam with a painful swooshing motion. “Grab whatever you can find and make a barricade.”
That was easier said than done when the men had their muskets to haul with them. He altered his orders. “Every fourth man, take the muskets. The other three grab gabions or bales or whatever you can find!”
“Shall I bandage your head for you, sir?” Derfflinger asked.
They didn’t have time for that. The Turkish war cry sounded in his ears—they were charging, or would be within moments. “We can’t wait.”
Xavier felt a hand on his shoulder. Balth. “I’ll see to it. We can’t have Ensign Schor’s brains leaking out, can we?” Xavier opened his mouth to protest, but Balth cut him off. “It will only take a moment. My men are grabbing what they can for the barricade too. We’ll be done long before they need someone to call out volleys.” He pulled a cloth from his pocket and pressed it onto Xavier’s head. “Hold that.”
Xavier complied. “How bad is it?”
Balth shrugged while digging through his supplies. “I can’t tell. There’s too much blood. But it is just blood so far, nothing else. Your brains are buried so deeply in that thick skull of yours that I’m sure they’re undamaged.”
“How did the Turks do it? Make the explosion give them a way to rush the ravelin?”
“Don’t know.” Balth wrapped a long, narrow bandage around Xavier’s head a few times and tied it off. “I thought this was the type of thing our counterminers were supposed to stop.”
Xavier gritted his teeth. “They’re doing the best they can.” Toby and the others hadn’t asked to be counterminers. And even if they’d had more experience, trying to find a tunnel by digging for it had to be like trying to find a specific cannonball in a full armory. The miners had all the advantages. The counterminers had none.
Balth grunted. “Well, time for us to do the best we can.”
Together, they ran to the breach. Xavier drew his saber. The Turks rushed forward, not as an organized wave but as a determined horde. Xavier waited for them. He’d let them trip on the gabions and bales already blocking their path, then he’d greet them.
He didn’t wait long. Through the dust, an enemy approached with a curved blade. Xavier slashed his saber across the neck of the charging janissary and stabbed at a second man who came running at him. A pike lay on the ground, so Xavier plucked it up and stabbed it into the thigh of another charging Turk, then finished the man off with a stab of his sword. Balth and others waged similar struggles in his periphery. There wasn’t enough time to reload muskets, so after their first shots, the musketeers used the butts of their firearms as a weapon or put their bayonet in the barrel and stabbed with that.
Xavier used the pike again, but the pike stuck in his next victim, and as he fell, Xavier lost his grip. He went back to his saber and was soon surrounded by a pile of men he’d slain. Noise from the melee bombarded his ears. Cannon from the nearby bastions blasted at the advancing Turks, but they still rushed at the small group of defenders.
Derfflinger cried out as he struggled against a tall enemy. Xavier rushed toward him, but a charging janissary barred his way. Xavier slashed his saber into the man’s side and shoved him with his foot, sending him toppling. Then he stabbed the Turk who’d been attacking Derfflinger. He grabbed a leather strap on the man’s back and yanked him away. The two had been in some sort of hand-to-hand struggle, and Derfflinger’s half-strangled face was purple. A dagger jutted from his side, and blood had turned his coat from bleached gray to red.
Xavier gripped Derfflinger under his arms and pulled him away from the worst of the fighting. “Hold on a while longer. Stretcher-bearers will be here soon.” How soon was guesswork, but Derfflinger was relatively safe now, so Xavier rushed back to the thicker fighting.
Imperial men brought chevaux-de-frise forward. Xavier lent a hand with one and watched in satisfaction as it plowed into a pair of janissaries. Then they threw over bales of cotton to give themselves more of a barricade. Flimsy as the material was in small amounts, a big bale thwarted movement and blocked most balls and arrows.
With the barrier intact across the ravelin, Xavier organized his remaining men into three firing lines. Some were missing—he hoped their wounds were light. “Give fire!” he shouted again and again and again. The men fired, then stepped back to reload while the line behind them stepped to the front.
Cannon fire from the Löbl and Burg Bastions decimated the charging Ottomans, but more filled in the ranks of the fallen. The enemy had no shortage of courage; Xavier had to give them that. Xavier’s men were also brave, standing calmly in line, following orders with precision while the enemy rushed at them.
“Give fire!” Xavier’s voice nearly choked on the dust and smoke and on a sorrow that grew larger and larger as more of his men fell and the ranks of his musketeers dwindled. He knew which ones had sweethearts, which ones had children, which ones had enlisted mostly because their other choices involved starvation or crime.
Hosp was the first to run out of full flasks on his bandolier. His line moved forward, and he stayed back, using his powder horn.
“Take your time, Hosp. If it misfires, it will do no one any good.” The men had all practiced loading from a horn, but doing it correctly during the heat of battle was something they had little experience with.
“Give fire!”
As the forward line stepped back, Xavier grabbed Leitner by the arm. “Find Captain Heisterman and let him know our status. Down to horns and balls.”
“Yes, sir.” Leitner ran off.
Xavier started to give a command when a Turkish grenade landed in the middle of his men. “Get down!”
The blast threw Xavier to the ground. He fought dizziness and anger as he crawled his way back into position. How many of his men had been injured? Hosp and Wagner didn’t move. Brunner moaned in pain, and Dorn managed to sit up again, but even through the smoke, Xavier could pick out the blood streaming from a wound in his stomach. One of his men, without being ordered, aimed at the Turkish grenadier and picked him off.
The action pulled Xavier from his stupor. He would think about casualties later. “Good shot, Eder. The rest of you form up again.” If they stopped firing, they’d be overwhelmed. Xavier slowed the pace so the men could fill with horn instead of bandolier flasks and kept them at it. Every time he glanced at Hosp or Wagner, he put it from his mind and focused on the task before him. It felt callous, but he’d have far more casualties if he didn’t keep his line firing at a steady rate.
After what felt like a long time, Heisterman managed to send a group of fresh musketeers up. While they took over, Xavier checked his men. Hosp, Wagner, and Brunner were all dead. Dorn still breathed, but his gut wound was probably a death sentence. A long, painful death sentence. Eder helped him back from the barricade.
The reinforcements gave several rounds of quick fire, and the Turkish charge finally ebbed.
Xavier went back to where he’d left Derfflinger. He was dead too.
Rage burned Xavier’s throat and clenched his fists. The Turk who had killed Derfflinger still lay on the ground a pace away, where Xavier had left him. He yanked the body flat, grabbed the man’s yataghan, and hacked off his head. Then Xavier stuck the man’s head on a pike and planted the end of it in the barricade, a warning to the enemy of what happened when they dared attack his men and his city.
His anger wasn’t spent, especially not when he saw the Turkish soldier who had thrown the grenade at his men. If anything, the fury was worse. Xavier used a long pole hook to pull the body closer to the barrier, then he stepped between two chevaux-de-frise and dragged the body back. The Turk wasn’t dead. Eder’s shot had pierced his chest, but he still struggled for breath and his hands still tried to fight. Xavier stomped on the man’s face and dragged him behind a bale, where no Turkish arrows could hit them. An abandoned pike lay nearby. Xavier beheaded the man and made another deadly warning for the Turks.
Another janissary sprawled on the ground a few paces away. Xavier stalked toward the corpse and stopped only when Balth grabbed his arm. “Xavier, what are you doing?”
“I’m ruining Turkish morale.”
Balth glanced at Xavier’s most recent trophy, the bodiless head staring blankly at the Turkish lines from atop a pike. “You’re an officer.”
Xavier pointed. “And that Turk killed at least three of my men.”
Balth’s grip tightened. “The assault’s been stopped. I think you ought to have your wound tended. You’re covered in blood.”
“Most of it isn’t mine.”
Balth didn’t loosen his grip. He glanced at the head on the pike, and a look of disgust crossed his face. “We’re supposed to be defeating the Turks, not adopting their ways.”
“Leave me alone. It’s not as if I’m parading them through the streets.” Plenty of other men had hoisted decapitated heads through the city. Xavier strode to the third Turkish body he’d been planning to behead. But he didn’t draw out his saber. He just gave the dead man a savage kick and turned to catch up with his men.
* * *
It wasn’t until Xavier had washed up and put on a clean uniform that his hands started to shake. Seven men dead, eleven wounded, and most of those would probably die within the week. Fever would set in, and their wounds would swell, and they would suffer far more than the ones who had died on the ravelin.
Balth was right. Xavier shouldn’t have desecrated Turkish bodies. Yes, the Turks did it when they got hold of Imperial bodies. And yes, some of Xavier’s comrades did it too. But Xavier didn’t want to become like his enemy. He was supposed to be better than that. Life had felt like a war for a long time—a war between his ideals and the reality of the empire, a war against his temper, a war against Wilhelm. Now a real war—against the Turks and against a part of himself that was proving ugly and powerful.
He ought to visit his wounded men, and he needed to apologize to Balth. As much as Xavier didn’t like to admit it, he’d been wrong and his friend had been right. But both those tasks would take strength, and Xavier was spent. He’d visit Katja first. Maybe some of his men were at the Ursulinenkirche and he could see them as well.
The sun had passed its zenith but remained high enough to be visible above the tall buildings of Vienna. His company was still supposed to be on the ravelin, but the attack and the way his men had been decimated had changed their assignment. Von Starhemberg himself had come to defend the ravelin, and he knew the value of giving men rest when they were desperate for it.
When Xavier arrived at the convent, he nodded his recognition to the stern nun who gave Katja her orders and found his sister sitting beside a feverish patient.
“Of course you’re going to get better.” Katja continued speaking to the patient—a young soldier with no visible wounds. The patients on either side of him were the same, so it was probably a row of sick rather than injured, probably suffering the same illness he’d had. “And someday you’ll tell your baby girl how hard you fought to keep her and all the rest of Vienna safe.”
“I’m not fighting now.” The man’s voice was raspy and weak.
“You fought before, and you’ll fight again.” Katja cleaned the man’s face and hands, then moved on to the next man.
Xavier interrupted her. “Katja.”
She turned to him, and her eyes immediately locked on the bandage around his head. “Xavi, what happened?”
Xavier put a hand partway to the bandage. “Just a cut. I got knocked over by a mine and must have bumped into something hard.”
“Are you otherwise whole?”
“Yes.” That was a lie. Something about the bloodthirstiness he’d felt that afternoon wasn’t healthy, but he wouldn’t burden Katja with the details.
“I’m glad to see you safe.” Katja stood and examined his bandage. “That blast was strong enough that we felt it here.”
Xavier took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’ve felt any more powerful than that one. And the fighting that followed . . .” He shook his head as if that could clear his mind of the images. “We lost a hundred men.”
Sorrow showed on Katja’s face. “Some of them men you knew?”
Xavier nodded. “Yes. Some of them were mine. But I don’t think Toby was harmed. That was going to be your next question, wasn’t it?”
A flush grew on her cheeks. “Maybe not the very next, but I do worry about him. Especially when I could feel the mine all the way here. What must the shaking have been like beneath the ground?”
“Terrifying.” Above the ground, the shaking meant a mine had gone off nearby. Beneath the ground, it meant the earth might be about to collapse on them. “Anyway, I wanted to see you. It seems anything with a steeple is a target for the Turkish artillerymen.” Xavier gestured to the roof.
“I’m far safer than you.” She pulled him into a firm embrace. “I try to stay busy enough that I don’t spend my days worrying about what’s happening at the walls, but sometimes I can’t help it.”
Whatever had happened that day, not all was wrong in the world. Xavier still had his sister, and though he wasn’t about to tell her of the Turkish heads he’d mounted on pikes, he knew she wouldn’t turn him away, even if she knew.
“I should go back. I’ve wounded to visit, and I lost my head a bit with Balth. I should apologize.”
“What happened?” Katja’s brown eyes widened with concern.
He didn’t want to burden his sister, but he didn’t want to hide from her either. “He was trying to help, but I wasn’t ready.” He could tell she wanted more, but he shook his head. “You know, I think I’ve been too hard on Wilhelm. Remember how I would throw all the awful things that happened to the Protestants in his face? I blamed the emperor for letting the Jesuits stoke the fires of hatred so hot that Christian armies could butcher the inhabitants of Christian cities. But now, I don’t think it was Leopold’s fault. It was certainly never Wilhelm’s. That’s just war. That’s what it does to people, regardless of whether their cause is right or wrong.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I can take a break, and we can go for a walk.”
“No. Just seeing you helped. Thank you, Katja. I might come home later. Maybe you can play for me.”
She nodded. “Be careful, Xavier. You’re a good man. I know you are.”
Xavier felt a flush of embarrassment. He’d sought comfort from his oldest friend, so he shouldn’t have been surprised when she read between the lines. “Thank you, Katja.” She believed her words. He just wished he could believe them too.