Friday, August 27, 1683
Xavier
Vienna
Xavier and three of his men ran along the top of a Turkish trench that zigzagged its way toward the bastions. They’d left their solid defenses and were in the middle of another sortie, a large one, trying to push back the ever-advancing Turkish siege works. Leitner lit a bomb and dropped it into the trench. Charges of that size were large enough to damage earthworks and the miners and sappers inside but not so large as to create a new crater.
A massive battle raged around them. They’d barely sallied into the ditch when Ottoman reinforcements appeared, almost like the Turks were expecting them to launch another sortie. Still, there were three hundred musketeers and a few dozen cavalrymen. The Imperial forces were strong enough to hold, at least for a time.
Xavier gathered his musketeers and formed them into rows. Elsewhere, groups of men threw grenades and larger bombs into the trenches and the entrances to Turkish tunnels. But he and his men could best help by holding off the mass of reinforcements coming from the Ottoman camp.
“Musketeers in the front rank will retire to the back when they have fired. The second line will hold its position. It will not step through.” The men would be moving back with each volley, and given the number of Turks they were facing, a slow retreat was exactly what the situation called for. As long as it was slow enough, it would allow the other Imperial troops to wreak havoc and destruction on the enemy forces and their works. Razing what the Turks had built in the ditch would buy Vienna a few more days.
“Give fire!” Xavier gave the order, then gave it again and again as his men did their best to slow the enemy and protect the other members of the sortie.
But after only six volleys, the enemy was too close.
“Fix bayonets!”
Xavier drew his saber. The fighting was hot and intense, and the Turks kept coming. Before the sortie, there had been mention of what to do if they took ground, but for the most part, they’d known their sally was like a wave of the ocean. It would reach out and wash away as many Turkish siege works as it could, but it wouldn’t stay. Eventually, it would recede, returning to the more solid defenses that the Turks hadn’t yet managed to wrest away from them.
A janissary ran at Xavier. He blocked the yataghan with the saber he held in his right hand and thrust the dagger he held in his left up through the man’s heart.
Pain in the heart. There had been a lot of that since yesterday.
Xavier shook away his memories of Katja and Toby. He had to hold his men together and keep them effective and united as they withdrew. Retreats became deadly when disorder crept in.
Several men from a different company came by, bringing with them the body of the colonel who had led the raid. His death seemed to seal the verdict: it was time to withdraw.
But Xavier wouldn’t let his men panic. He kept them together, a solid block of bayonets, swords, and spears meant to stab at any Turks who came too close. Gradually, a few steps at a time, they made their way back to the safety of the bastion.
In the press of bodies, there was a mix of emotions. Some mourned the loss of the colonel and the other men who had fallen. Others were more optimistic. “We set them back at least three days.”
Three days. That was something, if the man was right. But would three days be enough? The Turks kept winding their way closer and closer to the walls of the city. Would three extra days buy them the time they needed to hold out until a relief army came, or would it just postpone the inevitable fall of the city because no one was coming to help them?
Yesterday, he might have thought three days were worth fighting for. Now he wasn’t so sure. Three more days of a slow death made up of exploding mines and desperate sorties and continuous struggles to stop unrelenting Turkish assaults. Three more days of brokenhearted misery for his sister and for his friend.
Xavier and his men filtered out of the Löbl Bastion, making more room for the men assigned to stay there. That was when Balth caught up to him.
“How was the wedding?”
Xavier cringed. He’d avoided Balth before the sortie in an attempt to evade the topic. He’d even hoped Balth would forget. Jilted outside the church. Xavier didn’t understand how his sister could do that to Toby. Happiness shouldn’t be avoided just because it might get snatched away. “My sister decided that the middle of a siege wasn’t the most opportune time to get married.”
Xavier had gone to talk to Katja, but it hadn’t done any good. She’d insisted that pain now, however strong and harsh, was better than the same pain over and over and over again in the future. She’d held her head the way she did when it ached, and her exhaustion had been so complete that he hadn’t pushed her for long. What was done was done, and fear and worry had ruined a chance for joy.
“Oh.” If that was all the response Balth was going to make, Xavier had been foolish to avoid him. But of course Balth said more. “How is Fräulein Schor taking it?”
Xavier sighed. “I didn’t see her this morning.” A good night’s sleep could do wonders to restore optimism, but he doubted she’d had a good night’s sleep. And few things illuminated mistakes and turned them into bitter regrets the way the dawning of a new day did.
“How was she last night?”
“Heartbroken. We were late, Toby and I. We were fighting off that second Turkish assault, same as you. She thought we were dead, and the fear did something to her.”
“Fear does something to all of us.” Balth scanned the city walls. “It takes the color out of life, makes everything gray and black and sharp.”
Fear. It was nibbling at all of them, but yesterday, it had given Katja a larger, more dramatic wound, one that would soon seem self-inflicted. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Katja to regret her decision and ask Toby for another chance or if he agreed with her, that now was no time to pursue a future because the Turks were going to steal that future away from them anyway.
“How did the counterminer take it?”
Toby hadn’t cried, not in front of Xavier. He’d been calm on the outside. But even in the dark, Xavier had picked out something in the way his lips moved, something in his eyes. “He’s devastated.”
“And you’re caught in the middle.” Balth gave Xavier a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
Xavier nodded at Balth’s perception. Xavier loved both of them—his sister and his friend. He would have liked to see them happy and together instead of miserable and apart. Instead, he faced the task of comforting both without betraying either.
A rumble knocked Xavier off balance.
“Another blasted mine.” Balth reached out a hand to help Xavier steady himself.
The Turks had already sprung a mine under the ravelin that day to go along with the two they had sprung the day before. But despite how cratered the ravelin was with mine excavations, it could still support the Burg and Löbl Bastions and remained key to the city’s defenses.
Xavier hoped the blast was one of their countermines, but rumors soon corrected his false hope. The garrison hadn’t sprung the mine. The Turks had. Only they hadn’t blasted away at the ravelin yet again. This time, they’d come frighteningly close to the Burg Bastion.
More bad news hit him as they passed one of the countermining galleries. Two men came out, coughing and covered in dust and dirt. They directed their words to a wizened man who stood outside the entrance, marking the names of those who went in and those who came out, but Xavier still heard.
“The blast was too close. It made one of the branches collapse.”
Xavier walked closer.
The old man had the same question Xavier did. “Was anyone else still inside?”
One of the counterminers nodded. “Three men.”
Somehow, Xavier already knew the answer to his question, but he asked anyway. “Is one of the trapped men Tobias Vischer?”
The man with the list studied the paper before answering. “Vischer went in. He hasn’t come out.”