Watching, Mike winced. He could already hear the swelling shrieks of the Spanish soldiers burning to death inside the castle.
"That is some nasty shit," muttered Frank. "Been so long I'd half forgotten."
A new voice came over the radio, instantly recognizable. Hilda was the only German woman who had so far enlisted in the U.S. army and made it past Frank's screening. Since her English was good, if heavily accented, she had been assigned to serve as a radio operator.
"The main gate is opening! Main gate is opening!"
Mike raised his binoculars. Sure enough, he could see the heavy gate starting to swing aside. A moment later, waving pikes and arquebuses, a mob of Spanish soldiers surged through.
That gate was the only entrance to the castle from which large bodies of men could issue quickly. For that reason, Frank had positioned the M-60 to cover it. The men manning the machine gun didn't wait for orders. There was no need. Frank's instructions had been crystal clear: If they come out armed, kill 'em.
The M-60 stutter-stutter-stuttered. The packed mob of soldiers were cut down as if by a scythe. Stutter-stutter, stutter-stutter. Stutter-stutter-stutter.
Mike lowered the binoculars and looked away. In less than a minute, the M-60 had left a small hill of bodies. The gate was almost blocked by the corpses. The Spaniards who survived had stumbled back into the castle.
He watched another cannister of napalm explode over the battlements. The entire castle now resembled a bonfire. The resemblance was an illusion, more than a reality. The Wartburg was stone, not wood, and the lower levels of the castle would still be untouched by the flames.
An illusion-so far. Even stone castles will burn, if given enough of a start. Not the walls themselves, of course. But all castles are full of flammable substances. Wooden beams, furniture, tapestries, textiles-with enough napalm, the interior of the castle would be a firestorm within an hour. Nothing at all would survive. Over ten thousand men, thinking they had found a haven, had discovered instead a hideous deathtrap.
Mike opened his mouth, about to issue the command to cease fire. Then, seeing Frank's cold eyes on him, he fell silent.
No choice. The Spanish army trapped in the Wartburg still outnumbered the U.S. forces by a large margin. Until they surrendered-marched out, unarmed-Mike could not afford to ease up the pressure. So, tightening his jaws, he said nothing.
Burn and burn and burn. The first men started popping out of the castle; stumbling through a multitude of exits, even scrambling down the walls. Most of them were unarmed. The few who still carried weapons dropped them quickly enough, when they heard the voices shouting at them in Spanish. They had no thought but survival-anything to escape the holocaust which the Wartburg had become.
Now, dozens of unarmed Spaniards started pouring out of the main gate, pushing aside the mound of corpses by sheer weight of numbers. Then hundreds.
"It's done," said Frank. Mike nodded and gestured at Ferrara. A moment later, Ferrara passed along the order. The catapults stopped firing.
Mike stared at the burning castle. There was no way to stop the conflagration now. By the next day, the Wartburg would be a gutted ruin.
He tried to find humor somewhere. Whimsy, at least. "You know," he mused, "that's probably a historical monument, in the world we came from. Makes you feel a little guilty, doesn't it?"
"Not me," snorted Frank. "A castle is a castle is a castle. Just a robbers' den, far as I'm concerned. Thieves braggin' about their thievin' great-grandfathers. Good riddance to the whole lot."
Mike didn't know whether to laugh or sigh. In the end, he laughed.
"What can I say? You're right."
When Rebecca saw the horsemen charging out of the trees, her jaw dropped. Sharp terror held her frozen. Part of her mind was paralyzed, but the rest had no difficulty understanding what was about to happen. The grinning savages racing their horses down the slope were not even bothering to unsheathe their sabers. They would keep her alive, for a while.
Rebecca Abrabanel, the Sephardic maiden of a year ago, would have still been standing in the road, petrified with terror, when the Croats took her down. The Becky Stearns of the present, heavy with child, was rummaging in her large handbag within seconds, whispering thanks to her hillbilly husband.
Mike had insisted that she learn to use a gun. Obediently, Rebecca had tried. Tried, and failed. Failed, at least, insofar as accuracy was concerned. Whatever her other qualities, even her husband had finally agreed that she couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
So be it. There are guns for barns, too. Harry Lefferts had been delighted to provide her with one. "A gift for a pretty lady," he called it, with Appalachian gallantry.
When the first Croat was ten yards away, Rebecca hauled the sawed-off shotgun out of the handbag. At five yards, she cut loose with the first barrel.
Five yards, with a sawed-off twelve gauge loaded with buckshot.
She missed. Completely. Didn't even scratch him.
The horse, on the other hand, was killed instantly. The pellets ripped the beast's throat wide open. Its legs buckled, spilling the rider.
An animal as big as a horse, moving at that speed, has too much momentum to be stopped by any handheld firearm. Squawling with anger and fear, Rebecca managed to dodge the horse. But her now-ungainly figure could not avoid the rider. He plummeted into her shoulder, knocking her to the pavement.
The impact dazed her, but she managed to hold onto the shotgun. Lying half-sprawled on the road, she shook her head. Her long black hair spilled loose and free. For a moment, her only thought was a sharp fear for her unborn child.
That fear was driven out by another. She felt a hand seize her hair. An instant later, with a vicious jerk, she was hauled to her feet.
Off her feet. The Croat was a powerful man, and filled with rage. He didn't quite understand what had happened to his comrade, but he had no doubt who was responsible. He started hauling Rebecca onto the saddle.
"Fucking Jew-bitch!" he shrieked.
Rebecca didn't understand his language. She didn't need to. She still had the shotgun.
The Croat's fury fled, then. Replaced, not by fear but simple astonishment. He stared at the hard object pressed into his groin. He had time to recognize it as a firearm of some kind, before Rebecca pulled the trigger and blew his testicles off. Along with his penis, his lower intestinal tract, his bladder, and a portion of his spine.
Her hair released, Rebecca collapsed back onto the pavement. She landed on her posterior. Again, the impact dazed her a bit-and then, flattened by the leg of her victim's skittering horse, she was momentarily stunned. Her eyes were still open, and she could see. But her mind could not process the data.
She saw that the horseman on the other side was blinded, his face splattered with blood and flesh. The Croat was clawing at his face, trying to clean away the gore. Out of action, for the moment.
The first horseman, the one whose mount she had killed, was just starting to move, groaning. Also out of action, for the moment.
The other Croat, the last of the four, was not. He was preoccupied, true, bringing his startled horse under control. But the mount was a warhorse, accustomed to the sound and flash of battle. The Croat reined him in. Then, snarling at Rebecca, drew a wheel-lock pistol from its saddle holster. He was not thinking of rape, any longer. He was just going to kill the Jew-bitch.
Rebecca still had the shotgun in her hand, but both barrels had been fired. She twisted on her hip, desperately searching the pavement. There were more shells in her handbag. When she spotted it, lying by the side of the road, she was flooded with despair.
Too far. She could hear the clatter of the Croat's horse, as he guided it toward her. He was about to shoot. Despair was washed aside by simple sadness. I so enjoyed my life.