1632

"Take the cannons!" Gustav roared. Ignoring the imperial gunners and rammers scattering to the rear, the Finns stooped onto the guns like hawks. The few knots of artillerymen still trying to stand their ground were butchered within a minute or two. By the time Gustav Adolf and the slower Swedes galloped onto the scene, Tilly's entire artillery had been seized.

Gustav trotted back and forth on his charger. He had scabbarded his saber and was back to waving his hat. "Turn them around!" he bellowed. His powerful voice, as always, carried well in a battle. "I want those guns turned on Tilly! Now, d'you hear? Now! Move, move, move!"

The Finns ignored the command, knowing it was not intended for them. While they maintained a guard against enemy cavalry, hundreds of Smalanders and East Gothlanders dismounted. Hurriedly, they picked up the spikes discarded by the routed Catholic gunners and began levering the great weapons around. Even before the guns were repositioned, other cavalrymen were already beginning to load the pieces.

They were slower and less adept than Torstensson's men would have been, of course. But, unlike the cavalry of other armies, Gustav's men were cross-trained to serve as artillery or even, if need be, as infantry. Swedish cavalry, like the cavalry of other nations, was dominated by noblemen. But the Swedish aristocracy had little in the way of continental hauteur-and what little they began with was soon drummed out of them by their king's training and discipline.

Soon enough, the huge cannons were brought to bear on their target. Gustav did not wait to fire a coordinated volley, as Torstensson's artillery was trained to do. Each gun fired as soon as possible.

The fire was ragged, slow, and indifferently aimed. It mattered not at all. Tilly's army was now a crumpled and half-broken thing, distorted almost beyond recognition by the pressure of the battle. The rigid formations of the tercios had collapsed, compressed between Horn's unyielding line and the battering of Torstensson's artillery. Now, adding to their destruction, came the heavy fire of their own cannons. The huge mass of Catholic soldiers-not much more than a mob-was a target impossible to miss, even for the cavalrymen manning the captured guns. And the size of the cannonballs made up for their lack of accuracy. Unlike Torstensson's well-trained and experienced gunners, the cavalrymen failed more often than not in making the grazing shot. But against thousands of men packed so tightly they could barely move, the twelve- and twenty-four-pound balls which landed caused pure havoc.

For one of the rare times in his life, even Gustav was not tempted to launch another charge.

Well… Not much.

"Perhaps…" Jonsson heard him mutter. "Perhaps…" The king was squinting at the distant enemy, raising himself up in his stirrups. His huge frame seemed like that of a brown bear, eyeing a crippled moose.

His bodyguard spoke hastily. "It's a done thing, Your Majesty." Jonsson pointed at the imperial forces with his saber. "They're finished. It's over."

The king took two or three deep breaths, and then eased himself back into the saddle. "Yes."

He heaved a sigh. "They should surrender now. Their cavalry has all fled. No chance of making a sally. They're trapped."

Jцnsson said nothing. There was no chance at all of their enemy surrendering. Not with Tilly in command.

"Poor Tilly," mused Gustav. "Pappenheim has ruined him twice. The butcher of Magdeburg. And now-forever-"

The king's near-sighted blue eyes scanned a landscape that could have been nothing but a blur. But the sight still seemed pleasing to him.

"And now, forever. Breitenfeld."

***

"God damn Pappenheim," hissed Tilly. The old general's face grew pinched as his aide tightened a bandage, but he made no sound of protest. Just another hissing curse:

"God damn Pappenheim."

Tilly was lying on the ground near the center of his army. He had been wounded twice already. The first wound was minor, not much more than a bad bruise caused by a musketball glancing off his cuirass. The hip wound which his aide was now bandaging was more serious. A pike head sent flying by those infernal Swedish guns had torn him badly. His entire leg was soaked with blood.

Tilly's verbal curse was for Pappenheim. His silent one, for himself.

I should have listened to Wallenstein. So fast! So fast! I never saw an army move that fast. How did that Swedish bastard do it?

The old man was tempted to close his eyes, from sheer anguish and humiliation. But he resisted the impulse, even when-not forty yards distant-he saw another dozen of his men turned into a bloody, bone-splintered mess by a bouncing cannonball. No man would ever say that Tilly-Jan Tzerklas, Count Tilly!-could not face ruin with the same fearlessness with which he had always faced triumph.

Two of his officers approached and knelt at his side. The faces of both men were haggard.