Chapter 30: The Battle of Eisenwald

The peasant host under the command of Ulrike von Eisenwald assembled throughout the entire night.

The vassal had outfitted the peasant women with whatever scrap she could scrounge from her storehouses - not that anyone cared for the lives of simple farmwives anyway.

These women had no inkling whom they were marching against or why they had been summoned to arms; the vast majority had never in their lives held a spear or a war scythe.

Had they known they were marching against Seraphine Karsfeld, rightful heir of the barony, committing blatant high treason and open rebellion, they likely would have turned their blades upon Ulrike herself.

Hounded and terrorized by threats of execution, however, they obediently carried out their lady’s will.

When the sun rose above the mountains, the dull thuds of shattering rock echoed through the ranks of the militia.

The rescue crew had labored without pause day and night until the cave-in finally gave way.

When the final wall tumbled down, letting beams of light from the safety lamps flood into the subterranean tomb, Seraphine shielded her eyes with her hand. Suddenly, she felt a strong, familiar grip clamp onto her shoulder.

She raised her gaze, catching sight of the soot-stained, deeply emotional face of Sabine Keller.

"My lady! Thank the heavens, you're alive!"

Seraphine let out a raspy chuckle, choking on the stone dust hanging in the air.

"It seems I'm rather hard to kill," she managed with a wry smirk as the master artisan helped her to her feet and carefully guided her out from the gloom of the gallery.

"Come, my lady. We must dress your wounds at once."

As they emerged from the adit into the daylight, hundreds of peasant women and soldiers greeted the heir with deafening cheers, as if welcoming a legendary warlord returning from a triumphant campaign.

Evelyn had never witnessed such raw enthusiasm in either of her lifetimes. The crisp alpine air cleared her mind.

She sank onto a wooden stool, allowing a field medic to swab her wounds with distilled spirits, which burned like liquid fire, scorching out any festering infection.

When forming the militia, Seraphine had taken great care to train field medics and furnish them with standardized medical kits.

Remembering the dysfunctional healthcare system of her past life - where she had preferred sewing up her own wounds with needle and thread rather than paying thousands at the emergency room - she had thoroughly drilled her subordinates in disinfection, tourniqueting hemorrhages, and dressing trauma.

Once the dressings were in place, Major Katarina Falk stepped forward, resting a hand upon her shoulder to deliver a crisp, concise report:

"Ulrike conspired against you with Cordelia. The captured pit boss sang like a bird. Yesterday evening, the vassal showed up in person demanding our withdrawal. We refused, so she vowed to return with an army. What are your orders, my lady?"

Seraphine sat with her torso bound in bandages. Her milky skin was smudged with soot and rock dust, and the pomade in her hair had gathered grime like flypaper.

She rinsed her mouth with water from a canteen, spitting a bloody sludge onto the stones. She met Katarina's gaze with cold, predatory resolve:

"What do we do? We wipe them out to the last woman! Every single one marching in arms against these positions is guilty of high treason. I don't give a damn if they are merely following blind orders. Let us show these traitors what happens when you charge trenches manned by six hundred muskets!"

The heir's words echoed across the ramparts. A wild, bloodthirsty battle roar erupted from the militia ranks. Seraphine rose slowly, lifting a hand to quiet the lines, before speaking in a ringing, powerful voice:

"I look upon you, and I do not see peasants, subjects, or rabble! I see the free people of Karsfeld - sisters, mothers, and daughters! Under my leadership, we have stepped into a new era where a woman's worth is not measured by the coat of arms she was born into, but by her own toil and contribution to our realm!"

"Most of you were torn from the yoke of serfdom, from breaking your backs upon fields not your own. Today you work in workshops and manufactories, earning fair wages and dignity!"

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"Those marching up this valley want my life, but above all else, they desire to strip away the freedom and prosperity we have forged together!"

"I do not ask you to bleed for my dynastic grievances - we stand in battle to defend our new order! Today, we will crush anyone who dares halt the dawn of the industrial age!"

That brief speech struck directly at the hearts of the common women, burning away the last lingering remnants of doubt. In that very instant, the bellow of war horns carried from beyond the hills.

A mass of sixteen hundred armed women appeared upon the road under the banners of Eisenwald. The militiamen rushed to their positions, loading their arms and readying the artillery batteries.

Seraphine strode toward Katarina:

"Major Falk, I need a musket!"

The veteran looked at her in helpless astonishment:

"My lady, you can barely keep your feet! You haven't eaten in three days, you have a cracked rib, and a concussion!"

Seraphine pinned her with a freezing glare:

"I have no intention of cowering behind the backs of women dying for me! Bring me a musket, immediately!"

Before Katarina could even issue the command, a young militia recruit dashed up to the heir, offering a loaded piece and a cartridge box:

"Your weapon, my lady!"

Seraphine buckled the sling, tore open a paper cartridge with her teeth, primed the pan, and spoke sternly:

"Rise, soldier. In my presence, one salutes; one does not drop to one's knees. Now to the front line - I want to put the first lead into those treacherous bitches myself!"

***

Meanwhile, Ulrike von Eisenwald lurked safely at the rear of her host, surrounded by her household bodyguard and armored knights in full plate harnesses.

The vassal was a craven - she preferred driving the peasant levy ahead of her so their bodies would fill the trenches and smother the obstacles, after which her mounted chivalry could sweep into the settlement and carry out the slaughter.

Ulrike herself gleamed from head to toe in forged plate armor with an open visor, eyeing the makeshift enemy ramparts with utter contempt. She commanded a handful of archers who were to shower the defenders with arrows, clearing a path for the rest.

When her contingent of archers closed to four hundred paces - still well beyond effective bowshot - fire suddenly erupted from behind the militia’s concealed redoubts.

Six steel twelve-pounders roared in monstrous, guttural unison.

A hail of canister shot tore shrieking through the air, slamming into the packed ranks of archers. Iron balls ripped through gambesons and chainmail like wet parchment, tearing limbs and torsos into bloody ribbons.

Ulrike nearly swooned in her saddle - never in her life had she heard such thunder or witnessed such horrific butchery. In a fraction of a second, her archery detachment ceased to exist, pulverized into red mist and gore.

Before the smoke could clear, the cannons spat a second volley straight into the advancing mass. Scores of bodies crashed into the grass, blood drenching the slope in rivers. Blind panic swept through the peasant women, and the knights' warhorses began rearing wildly.

"Hold the line!" a panicked Ulrike shrieked. "Drive those peasant cows forward! Anyone who turns back tastes the sword!"

The knights mercilessly cut down the fleeing peasant women of their own villages, forcing the packed crowd to surge straight into the murderous fire of their adversaries.

***

Up on the ramparts, Seraphine kept her soldiers' nerves in check:

"Hold your fire! Hold the line! Wait until you see the whites of their eyes!"

Though the cannons reaped the enemy's ranks, nearly a thousand armed women still surged forward, driven by terror of the knights' blades behind them. The militiamen tightened their fingers on their triggers, waiting on the heir's command.

When the crest of the enemy wave was barely twenty-five paces away, Seraphine roared:

"FIRE!"

The roar of five hundred muskets merged into a single deafening crash. The volley erased the leading line of attackers in the blink of an eye. The .58-caliber slugs tore fist-sized craters through flesh, shattering bone and ripping tendons apart.

The screams of the dying filled the air as the disciplined militiamen reloaded their pieces smoothly in twenty seconds flat:

"Reload! Present! FIRE!"

The second and third volleys turned the killing ground before the trenches into an inferno. No feudal levy could ever withstand such concentrated volley fire. Ulrike’s peasant levy hurled down their makeshift weapons and broke into a frenzied rout, trampling their own knights without a care for threats.

Ulrike von Eisenwald watched the slaughter with madness in her eyes. Katarina Falk’s words regarding the "end of the era of knights" struck her with shattering force.

As the panicked vassal seized her reins to wheel her horse around, another cannon shot cracked from behind the breastworks. This time, the muzzle spat no canister - a solid, steel twelve-pound ball tore screaming from the smoke.

The projectile struck Ulrike dead center in her forged plate breastplate, blowing steel, bone, and flesh into a crimson spray. The vassal was killed instantly before her mount could even dig in its hooves.

Seeing the sudden death of their liege, the surviving knights and retainers wheeled their mounts and fled Eisenwald in headlong panic, bolting past the frontiers of Karsfeld and all of Tyravia, desperate to escape that demonic engine of fire.

A dead silence settled over the battlefield, broken a moment later by the triumphant roar of several hundred women who, without losing a single comrade, had routed an army three times their number.

Seraphine stood in the trench with a smoking musket in her grip, the warlike symphony of volleys still ringing in her ears. In that moment, looking upon the smoldering ruins of the old feudal order, she experienced an epiphany that altered her soul forever.

In that exact instant, she understood her true destiny. She was never meant to be a modest baroness peddling textiles and iron.

Her destiny was to remake this world of women and become Empress of the Alarian Empire.