Road To The Crown 234 First Victory

17th July 1574 late night/very early morning

As soon as my rifles spoke in the language known only to them, nothing really changed. Yes, several soldiers of the opposing troop fell to the ground only to remain there motionless, some more tripped and attempted to move back up to the line. 

Those people were not some novices that could be scattered with a single salvo, but battle-hardened veterans! Even with some of their brothers-in-arms falling, it would pose quite a huge challenge for me to find even a single man out of them who would even bat an eye!

Seeing how the enemies bravely marched on in a uniform and orderly step, I almost regretted what was about to happen.

Boom!

For now, the second salvo still sounded rather uniform, yet it already lasted for longer than just a fraction of a second, indicating that some of my men already started lagging behind the rest.

Yet it didn't matter at all.

Seeing how more and more of the enemy troops were falling to the ground, I felt the urge to avert my eyes from this ma.s.sacre, yet decided against doing so. While it pained me to see fellow brethren of mine die like dogs right in front of my eyes, there was virtually nothing I could do about it. Watching as they were dying, was the minimum that I could offer them.

Click. Boom. Click. Boom.

After only two salvos, the sounds of respective guns firing and reloading no longer meshed into a single avalanche of sounds, allowing me to connect the voice of each respective rifle with another body falling down in a pool of blood.

Standing in front of my men, I couldn't help but think what the other side was thinking. Even the greatest and bravest warrior, capable of marching to his death without even a flinch, always had this thought in the back of his mind. 

Maybe not me. Maybe not today. Maybe this irritating guy on the left. There is so many of us, so what are the chances of the reaper inviting me for a dance today?

Yet this kind of thinking could only last for so long.

Even though their initial impetus allowed them to carry on despite the growing casualty rate, by the time they pa.s.sed through half of the distance that initially separated us, enemy commander finally came to terms with the desperate reality.

"BREAK UP AND CHARGE!"

As brilliant in this situation as this command was, it was already too late. With the continuous fire of my men, the moment a single soldier dared to leave the tight group, he would fall down to the ground penetrated by several bullets. Yet as nice as it was to see my men keeping enemy in check, I couldn't allow for such frivolous behaviour!

"Shoot to kill only! Don't waste your ammunition! It's expensive!"

No matter how silly it must have the sound for my soldier, all that I cared about was slowing their shooting rate. In fact, it wasn't about the cost of making the bullets at all! For every battle that we would win, it would only take an hour or two for my soldiers to collect all the gunpowder left by the enemy and turn it back into bullets. 

It was the magazine reloading time that worried me!

Just a single look at how long the enemy commander managed to keep the cohesion of his unit was enough to tell me that the moment he would see even an illusion of opportunity, he wouldn't hesitate even for a second to throw all his forces at it!

Yet soon, my worries turned out to be meaningless. Before the enemy could make this last step, this last jump towards the reinforced line of my men, their morale finally broke. Starting with a single faint-hearted or rational man, the rest of the survivors swiftly followed suit, ditching their weapons directly on the ground and das.h.i.+ng towards the illusory safety of the building.

But even there, they couldn't rest, as, from the moment the outcome of the battle was decided, I knew that while counting on my garrison in the marketplace would be futile, the same couldn't be said about the private forces of the merchants!

With the cracking of the shoots appearing behind their backs, the spirit of the soldiers that still kept pressing forward completely dissipated, making them stop in their tracks and drop their weapons. Seeing how they did it all at once, I could tell that those brave men didn't dare to put their honour at risk, but were instead fulfilling the orders of their commander!

"Hold your fire!"

Seeing how those enemies of mine orderly dropped their weapon, I realised that there was no point in continuing our fight. If they were disciplined enough to listen even to the order to surrender, the chances that they would suddenly pick their weapons if the onslaught stopped, were small enough to be ignored.

"We want to… surrender…"

Before my men would suddenly feel the urge to fire just a single shot more, I stepped forward, seeing how the enemy commander did the same. In just a few moments, we finally met perfectly in the middle between the survivors of his unit and my own line of men.

"Lieutenant Herman Midit, in the service of the Ostros family. I wish to formally surrender."

Lowering his head ever so slightly while gritting his teeth in the powerless fury, the enemy commander clearly had a tough nut to crack by giving up. Just from his name alone, I could tell the fact that rather than being a proper polish n.o.ble, he was actually a d.a.m.ned mercenary!

And as happy as the realisation that I have yet to spill the blood of my countrymen, the fact that Ostros actually dared to employ foreign units for this strife meant that the entire situation might be way worse than I expected!

"Crown Lieutenant, Mike Tarnowski. I hereby accept your surrender. Fear not, I will get my men to prepare a holding place for you, and I won't see any problems with the remainder of your unit paying your way out under the promise of staying away from the conflict. Can you accept those terms?"