Chapter 29: The Era of Knights Ends Here

Under the cover of night, the army raised by Seraphine covered the distance separating Karsfeld from Eisenwald at a breakneck pace.

Before dawn broke, the soldiers had seized the mining settlement and detained the local laborers answering to Ulrike.

Combat sappers from Karsfeld immediately set to work erecting field fortifications around the encampment.

By the day's end, the makeshift settlement resembled a miniature version of the entrenchments Evelyn remembered from reading about the Siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War in her former life.

The volunteer militia garrisoned the redoubts and firing embrasures, while other detachments interrogated the detained laborers.

Major Katarina Falk personally oversaw operations. She began by questioning the laborers Seraphine had brought with her from Karsfeld - women bound to their mistress with unyielding loyalty.

They had known nothing of the assassination plot, yet the moment they learned Seraphine was trapped underground, they laid bare everything they knew without hesitation.

They testified that the pit boss had personally escorted the heir deep into the drift during a routine inspection, after which she had issued an odd command ordering the immediate withdrawal of the remaining crew.

No one had seen Seraphine since.

Moments later, a tremendous detonation shook the cavern, which the laborers had dismissed as routine blasting work. When they inquired after their lady's whereabouts, the overseer brushed them off with a lie, claiming the young noblewoman had gone to visit Lady Ulrike von Eisenwald's manor.

Hearing this, Katarina immediately had the captured overseer dragged forth, subjecting the traitor to ruthless torture as she demanded the exact coordinates of the collapse. After a harsh dose of unvarnished justice, the woman began singing like a canary, and the rescue effort launched in full force.

Meanwhile, Seraphine remained trapped behind the collapsed drift. Deprived of food and water, she was feeling the brutal physical toll of the cave-in.

That she had survived at all was a veritable miracle - she had sustained a mild concussion and a cracked rib that, fortunately, had spared her lung.

Her throat burned with liquid fire from thirst and stone dust. In the suffocating gloom, a cold, unyielding rage against the conspirators festered within her. She swore to herself that if she made it out alive, she would personally reduce Ulrike's manor to smoldering ruin and drag the vassal by the throat straight into the dungeons.

There was not the slightest doubt that Lady Eisenwald had dirty hands in this affair.

She was ripped from her dark musings by a muffled voice carrying through the rubble, in which she barely recognized Sabine Keller:

"My lady! Can you hear me?! Are you alive in there?!"

In a hoarse, strained voice, Seraphine managed to answer through the fissure in the rocks:

"Sabine?... Is that truly you? How the hell did you find me?"

A radiant smile of relief broke across the burly master artisan's face. From behind the wall of debris, she answered with a touch of embarrassment:

"Aye, it's me, my lady... Far be it from me to judge the amorous dalliances of highborn ladies, but your sister's betrothed... well, Lady Vivienne... burst into the smithy in tears and begged on her knees for us to ride to your rescue."

Seraphine could not suppress a soft chuckle, which instantly devolved into a pained groan - her cracked rib throbbed with a dull ache with every deep breath:

"Heavens... I truly adore that girl! She saved my neck once again... This time she's getting a royal reward for it!"

Sabine easily caught the suggestive undertone in the heir's voice and sighed heavily:

"Ah, youth... But hold on tight, my lady! I brought hundreds of our workers with pickaxes; we'll have you dug out in the blink of an eye."

Seraphine grasped the gravity of the situation in an instant. Operations on such a scale could never escape Ulrike von Eisenwald's notice - after all, they were standing on her land. Once the vassal realized the target of her assassination was still drawing breath, she would dispatch her armed retinue to erase evidence and finish the job.

"Sabine, order Katarina to prepare the defenses this instant! The moment Lady Eisenwald catches wind of the excavation, she'll hit you with everything she's got to leave no witnesses!"

Sabine chuckled softly:

"Rest easy, my lady. General Falk and her soldiers are already in place. All six hundred women of the militia and six steel cannons are holding their lines, ready to defend this mine to the last drop of blood!"

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Six hundred soldiers and six cannons?! Christ, I'll have to give these girls a massive raise! Seraphine thought, leaning against the rock wall to await the breaching of the gallery. If Ulrike attempted to assault them with her feudal host, she would slam headlong into a wall of steel and fire.

***

Along the earthen ramparts, one of the militiamen focused intently on cleaning her musket. Designed personally by Seraphine and dubbed the Karsfeld Model 1417, the firearm was a distinctly anachronistic piece of engineering.

It was fitted with a 46-inch barrel and a flintlock mechanism, yet the stock and furniture recalled early modern English Civil War musket designs.

It featured sling swivels with a leather strap, while the muzzle was turned down to accommodate a socket bayonet with ease.

The weapon blended lethal simplicity with striking elegance. Women in grey and green linen field tunics inspected their flints and priming pans.

Though the vast majority of them had never set foot on a battlefield, the cohesive defensive line and the veterans serving as non-commissioned officers formed a formidable backbone for the regiment.

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, one of the sentries pointed toward the road winding toward the Eisenwald stronghold:

"Mounted scout! Where is our sharpshooter?! Take her down before she reaches the castle!"

Seraphine had drilled a modern doctrine into the battalion, assigning a designated marksman armed with a long, rifled hunting carbine to every platoon.

The chosen marksman had her piece loaded and ready. The scout was galloping at roughly two hundred and fifty yards - a range utterly unreachable for a conventional crossbow, yet child's play for a rifled carbine firing a Minié ball.

The composed peasant girl in a simple tunic knelt upon the parapet, aligned her sights, held her breath, and smoothly squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the shot and a billow of grey smoke tore through the air. The heavy .58-caliber conical ball streaked across the valley, striking the fleeing warrior square in the back.

The lead cone punched through her iron brigandine as if it were a single layer of linen, tearing a gaping exit wound through the scout's chest. The woman collapsed limp into the dust of the road, while her mount, spooked by the thunderclap, bolted riderless toward the castle gates.

The sight of the warhorse returning without its rider instantly alerted Ulrike von Eisenwald.

The vassal realized that the rumors of armed forces occupying the mines were no mere fabrication. Someone had breached her borders and seized control of the workings!

Assuming she was dealing with a common band of brigands, she assembled her personal retinue of a dozen armored knights and roughly a hundred mail-clad guards. They were seasoned veterans of border skirmishes, utterly confident in their superiority.

When Ulrike reached the mine, she was struck dumb. Stretched before the entrance to the adits were regular trenches and ramparts manned by hundreds of peasant women armed with bizarre poles tipped with blades.

Having no concept of firearms, the vassal dismissed her foes out of hand. She trotted her mount up to the palisade, raising her voice:

"I am Lady Ulrike von Eisenwald! By whose authority do you invade my borders and occupy my mines?!"

From behind the defensive works stepped Major Katarina Falk. Unlike the rank-and-file militia, the veteran donned a prototype plate half-harness and a burgonet - a crested Renaissance helm centuries ahead of local armorcraft. In her hands, she leaned upon a musket with fixed bayonet planted against the earth.

"I am Katarina Falk, sworn commander in the service of Lady Seraphine, firstborn heir to Baroness Adelgarde Karsfeld! It is by her sovereign will and command that we stand here!"

Ulrike's expression darkened in an instant. So Seraphine was still breathing and had somehow summoned reinforcements! Fortunately, the vassal was convinced that no one could tie her to the cave-in.

"As far as I am aware, Seraphine left my lands long ago without so much as a parting word. Why would she send an armed host here?"

Katarina spat ostentatiously beneath the hooves of the woman's warhorse - a blatant slap in the face to a highborn noble:

"Stop your lying, my lady. We know full well that you orchestrated the collapse of the adit. I advise you to lay down your arms this instant and cast yourself upon the mercy of justice. If you name the true mastermind behind this assassination, I swear upon the name of my mistress, Seraphine Karsfeld, that we will treat you leniently."

Ulrike trembled with rage.

Who could have betrayed her?! Had Cordelia turned on her co-conspirator? Or had one of the servants talked?

She could scarcely comprehend why Adelgarde had dispatched this rabble instead of her own knights. She failed to realize that she was looking upon the personal army of Seraphine herself.

"When I return here with my host, I shall teach you obedience in the art of war!" the vassal snarled menacingly.

Katarina burst into a loud, mocking laugh.

"What amuses you so, mercenary bitch?!" Ulrike hissed.

The veteran pinned her with a look of cold disdain:

"Even if you mustered ten times as many, my lady, the outcome would be the same. Nothing awaits you but an early grave for you and your farmwives. And if you hide behind the walls of your manor, I promise you we will pound those stones to dust, and Lady Seraphine will personally drag you from your seat by the throat!"

Ulrike boiled with fury, shedding the last vestiges of composure:

"Truly? And just how do you propose to accomplish that without a single armored knight?!"

She thought to cow the peasant women, yet looking into their eyes, she found only icy resolve and mockery. Common women leveled gun barrels directly at her, devoid of the slightest reverence for her nobility.

Katarina Falk raised her weapon, delivering her final warning through gritted teeth:

"If you do not bend the knee, I shall prove to you that the era of knights has come to an end."

Ulrike snarled in fury, wheeled her mount around, and galloped back toward her estates.

While subterranean labor feverishly progressed to free Seraphine, Lady Eisenwald declared a general levy across every subordinate hamlet, assembling a peasant levy fifteen hundred strong armed with pitchforks, scythes, and axes.

She was prepared to sacrifice every last one of them, if only to drown the militia in blood and ensure the heir of Karsfeld never emerged from that adit alive.