Stryker and the Angels of Death (Ebook) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Praise-God Sykes mutter amongst the crowd, ‘he took his rebellious adherents with him.’
    Stryker caught the intimation and wondered if that demonic host had really come to the River Oder this day. ‘What are they, sir?’
    ‘ Husaria ,’ Captain Loveless hissed, rubbing his grey stubble with thick fingers. ‘Get over the river.’
    Stryker turned to him. ‘ Husaria ?’
    But Loveless was already moving away, waving at the men to fall back, gesturing to his musketeers on the far bank to move up in support. ‘Get the wagon over that fucking river, Lieutenant!’
     
    Major Lujan Antczak gripped the long lance until he felt his knuckles burn and ran his tongue over his teeth. He crouched lower behind his roaring stallion’s stone-hard neck, watching the panic spread through the ranks of the surprised infantrymen ahead, and felt his pulse quicken. The river coursed at the musketeers’ backs, trapping them around their little cartload of barrels, and he silently prayed they would at least try to defend it, for it had been too long since his troopers had tasted real action. Peace treaties and politics had seen his men languish on garrison duty along the length of the border to the east of the Oder, and they were getting soft, fat and lazy. He thanked the Holy Mother that Sweden had finally overreached herself.
    This mission, of course, was undertaken in a clandestine capacity, for the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth was not at war with the Protestant Union or her allies, but that did not mean she would sit idly by while Gustavus Adolphus inveigled his way on to the mainland. The Commonwealth was vast – more than twice the size of France – and its people believed wholeheartedly in its natural position as ruler of the Baltic. Gustavus Adolphus, the arrogant king of Sweden, had come to the mainland to further his ambition, all the while hoping that the Poles were sleeping. They were not sleeping.
    Lujan Antczak was a Rotmistrz , which meant that he commanded a Banner of Husaria: sixty killers of the very highest calibre. He was almost forty years old, which was reasonable for a man of his rank, though he knew he looked much younger. It was all in the eyes, people said. From a pale, almost gaunt face, wide at the forehead and sharp at the chin, which gave it a peculiarly triangular shape, a pair of azure eyes glinted clean and bright like precious gems. Antczak enjoyed the misconception, encouraged it, for it meant that folk underestimated him, and that, as sure as the magnificent eastern Commonwealth would persist for a millennium, was a dangerous mistake to make.
    Antczak stood in his stirrups and whooped to the suffocating canopy above, revelling in the clang and jangle of his armour and weapons. His men joined the cry, crowing of their strength and courage. Their armour was made from layered metal sheets with wings fixed to their backs to create a terrible rushing sound as they charged. The wings alone would break an army well before the charge hit home.
    But today they faced no army. The men at the ford were little more than a single company, all on foot, and already in retreat, their pickets silently slaughtered out in the trees. Antczak did not know who they were, nor did he care. His commander, the oleaginous Mikrut, had told him that a rag-tag detachment of mercenaries was due to meet a Swedish spy at this godforsaken place, and that he and his winged lancers were to charge headlong into that meeting and snare the traitor. A warm September morn of easy pickings and, according to Mikrut, lavish reward.
    Lujan Antczak could see the whites in his enemies’ eyes now, and the sight exhilarated him. He settled into his saddle and leaned in, lowering the huge lance in his right hand so that it pointed out, past his steed’s pricked ear. It was the weapon of his trade. Made of fir wood, more than four yards in length, with a razor tip of forged steel and a large taffeta pennon dangling just behind. It would unhorse an