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

opposing cavalryman or impale a crouching foot soldier, and its very presence, like the massive swan-feather wings, announced his presence to an enemy more effectively than any banner. The men at the ford might not know him, but they would know to fear him.
     
    ‘Winged goddamned lancers!’ Captain Ferdinand Loveless bellowed as he hurriedly ushered his men to the ford. ‘Hard bastards from the east!’
    Stryker and his twenty men were with him, scuttling backwards in loose order. The men had their muskets primed and ready. They blew on the dangling cords of match that were coiled about their forearms, some already positioning them within the jaws of the waiting serpentines that loomed over their firing mechanisms. One man fired, the panic of the moment tempting him to folly, and he was berated by Loveless as he hurriedly reloaded.
    The cavalrymen were coming at a gallop now, the distance less than a hundred paces, and more and more muskets were primed. The guns were huge, cumbersome beasts, too big to be effectively fired on the move, and Loveless ordered that his men deploy their rests. The musketeers formed a line where they stood, stabbed their forked sticks into the crumbling earth and rested their musket barrels upon them. Loveless screamed at them to hold their fire, turning instead to Stryker. ‘I told you to get the cart over the water, lad.’
    Stryker turned, sheathed his sword and ran to the vehicle that was now at the edge of the bank. He splashed into the water, feeling his ankles wobble unsteadily on the causeway of collapsed stone, and took the bridle of one of the animals which had so far managed to venture no more than three or four feet into the swirling shallows. He twisted back to stare up at the driver, Sammer, who clutched the reins with white knuckles. ‘Get them moving!’
    Musket shots rang out now, punctuating the roar of the charge. A single scream told him one of the cavalrymen had been hit, but the rest of the leaden balls had evidently rattled off amongst the trees to split nothing but bark. More shots banged, this time from the west bank of the Oder where the rest of the company had been waiting, the howling lumps of lead whirring past Stryker, but their aim was obscured by the wagon and their comrades now clustering on its far side. And still the Husaria came. Still the wings beat the balmy air.
    Stryker hauled at the bridle, snarling a savage oath as the palfrey jerked its powerful head from side to side in stubborn refusal. Men screamed at his back. The charge was hitting home. He stepped away, peering past the wagon and between the rearmost bodies of his comrades to see the first of the horsemen slam into the clustered English ranks. Vomit bubbled up into his mouth and he was certain he would piss his breeches at any moment. He knew the lances had enfiladed his men, puncturing bellies, chests and faces. Most of the musketeers wore buff-coats to protect against bladed weapons, but a long, heavy lance brandished at such speed would pierce their tough layers as though they were naked. He could picture all this in his mind’s eye, and yet all he could see were those wings. Ghastly and huge, white and fluttering, climbing above the melee as more and more horsemen lent their weight to the charge.
    He grasped the bridle again, this time refusing to let go as the horse snorted its complaint, and dropped his shoulder as he pulled, lending his whole body to the tussle. The palfreys juddered forwards, aided by the terrified driver. The hogsheads lurched and clattered in the rear, the two seated men thrust out hands to grip the timbers below as the wagon rumbled on to the uneven ford, and water splashed Stryker’s boots and up the huge spokes of the wheels.
    He could hear Loveless braying at the river’s edge, and he twisted to see that the hussars had disengaged. Still his view was limited by the milling, battered throng that was the unit he had led across the ford, but through the mesh of