1632

They could not keep that up forever, of course. The problem was not with them, but the guns. The cannons had been firing for three hours, now. Each of them had discharged close to thirty rounds. After another ten rounds, at that rate of fire, the guns would be so hot that they would have to sit idle. For at least an hour, probably, to allow the barrels to cool enough to be used safely.

"Let the blasted things melt!" roared Torstensson. He flung his hat toward Tilly's tercios. "I want those battles broken! Broken in pieces, do you hear?"

The grins faded from his gunners' faces. Torstensson was dead serious now, they knew. If need be, he would keep the guns firing long past the point of safety. The artillerymen sweated through the rhythm. So be it. If a crew died because of a burst cannon, so be it. Torstensson himself would pick up the rammer.

Cannonballs began tearing great holes in the tightly packed Catholic formations. Torstensson's gunners were the finest in the world, and they knew what their commander wanted.

"Grazing shots!" Torstensson slammed the flat of one hand into the other, as if skipping a stone off a lake. "Nothing but grazing shots! I see two balls in a row plunge into the ground I'll hang the crew! Hang 'em, do you hear?"

His men laughed. Another idle threat. Almost every round they fired was the good artilleryman's sought-after "grazing shot."

The "grazing shot" was useless against fortifications, but against men in the field it was devastating. The balls landed dozens of yards in front of their target and bounced forward at a shallow angle, instead of burying themselves in the ground. From that first bounce, their trajectory was at knee-to-shoulder height. The cast-iron missiles caromed into the packed ranks of the enemy like bowling balls-except these balls destroyed men instead of knocking down pins. Even a three-pound ball, in a grazing shot, could easily kill or maim a dozen men in such close ranks. The twelve-pounders wreaked pure havoc.

Torstensson's artillery was ripping the tercios like an orca ripping flesh from a great whale. Blood began settling the dust. The men in the rear tercios slogged through mud left by their comrades' gore-and added their own to the mix. Graze, graze, graze, graze. Death wielded his sickle that day, and mercilessly.

Not even Tilly's men could shrug off that kind of fire. Courageous as always, the recruits following the lead of the veterans; they obeyed their orders and plowed stubbornly toward the angle in the Swedish line. But their formations became more and more ragged and broken. Pikemen were being injured by the weapons of their mates, now, as men stumbled over corpses and lost control of the great blades.

***

Tilly saw, and grew pale. Near the front of his advancing tercios, he reined in his horse and stared back at the carnage.

"God in Heaven," he muttered. Wallenstein had tried to warn him of the Swedish artillery. Wallenstein-that black-hearted Bohemian! Aye, he-and a dozen Polish officers in Tilly's service. But Tilly had not believed.

"God in Heaven," he muttered again. For a moment, he thought of changing his attack. Wheeling, and driving down on those cursed guns.

Wheeling…

Tilly dismissed the notion instantly. His battles did not "wheel." Could not wheel. They were instruments of crushing victory, not clever maneuver.

"Victory," he growled. Seventy-two years old he was, not a day less. Seventy-two years, not one of whose days had ever seen defeat.

"Onward!" he bellowed. The old general drew his sword and trotted toward the front. He waved the sword at the Swedish left.

"Onward!" he bellowed. "Victory is there!"

The tercios obeyed, and obeyed, and obeyed-seventeen battles, down the line, slogged tenaciously forward. Not one of them faltered in their duty. Not one tercio, not one rank, not one file, not one man.

Torstensson splattered their entrails across the land. No matter. Those men had marched through entrails before. Torstensson painted the soil with their blood. No matter. Those men had bled before. Torstensson savaged them like no artillery in their grim experience. No matter. Tilly had never failed them before.

Murderers many of them were. Thieves and rapists too. Cowards, never.

The broken Swedish angle was in front of them now. Like a bear trailing gore, the tercios were about to mangle their prey.

At last!

"Father Tilly!" they bellowed. "Jesu-Maria!"

***

But the angle was not broken. Not any longer. Horn-trusted Horn, trustworthy Horn-had reformed the line even before his king's orders arrived. The Swedish left now formed a solid corner for the battlefield. The imperial heavy cavalry had already broken against that Baltic rock. The tercios lumbered up and did no better.