Vampire Impaler (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 6)

by Dan Davis

  Behind the sipahis, the Janissaries began to manoeuvre out to both flanks. It appeared as if they meant to encircle our infantry while the sipahis kept them engaged. Our infantry were already being pushed back by the Turks and even if they were not surrounded by the Janissaries, their line might well have been broken and the order of the battle would disintegrate and in that chaos the numbers of the Turks, especially of mounted men, would mean the end for us.

  It was the high moment in the battle, where most soldiers of both sides were engaged and only the reinforcements would decide the outcome. In the wooded hills all around us, King Stephen and his heavy cavalry waited for the moment when their charges would turn the tide in our favour.

  But the enemy had tens of thousands of men close at hand, just across the river. If they could somehow be brought across before the day’s end, while the king’s cavalry was engaged, then everything might change.

  “Rob?” I called. “Take ten men and ride around back to the river. See if you can see what William is doing. Do not engage anyone, even if it means returning without reaching the river.”

  He called out the men he wanted and they thundered off toward terrible danger. I wondered if I would see him again.

  “He will cut his losses,” Stephen said, riding forward to give me his opinion. “He will retreat. It is his nature.”

  “He needs a victory,” Eva said in response, “or all his work with the Turks will have been for nothing.”

  “What is a century to William?” Stephen countered. “Even if Mehmed orders him from—”

  “Enough,” I snapped. “We shall see.”

  Trumpets sounded from the trees, echoing through the hills. From the fog-filled woodland ringing the valley, the sounds of horses and men built until I could make out the colours and banners emerging from the shadows between the pines. King Stephen’s Moldavians in the centre, with the detachments of Hungarians and Poles on the flanks. As they advanced, I saw masses of the peasant army marching behind with their spears and flails and mattocks in hand.

  Walt called to me. “Rob’s returned, Richard.”

  A company of sipahis chased him but they broke off when they saw how many we were and retreated, allowing Rob and all ten of his men to approach.

  “Turks trying to ford the river,” Rob said, breathing heavily from his gallop. His horse shook beneath him, its chest heaving, and Rob patted and rubbed its neck with his stump. “Thousands of them trying to use pieces of broken bridge and other timber and rocks and anything to make a dam or a ford at least.”

  “Will they succeed?”

  “Men being swept away. Water must be colder than ice. But there’s thousands of them. They’ll do it eventually.”

  “Damn him!” I growled. “He will win the battle.”

  “Should we stop them?” Eva said. “Take the sluji and stop them coming across?”

  “They have cannons and guns. And he will send his Blood Janissaries to sweep us away while he remains unassailable on the far bank. No, we shall assist in the destruction of this army as swiftly as possible. Ready the men. We will assault the enemy after the nobles and the boyars complete their charge.”

  “Who do you fancy?” Walt asked. “Get us some sipahi officers, you reckon? Lots of nice stuff on them, jewels and gold and the like. Nice for a drink, and all.”

  I considered charging the sluji at the enemy cavalry but discounted it. “We will flank these Janissaries and wipe out as many as we can. They are the Turk’s best soldiers. The more we kill, the better it is for Christendom. And tell the men to steal their hand-guns, the ammunition and the gunpowder. If we survive this day, we should arm ourselves properly.”

  The Turks had advanced so far into the valley that a good number of the Hungarian and Polish cavalry and Moldavian peasant forces emerged fully behind the main body of their army. There was no escape for them.

  I brought the slujis close and arrayed them in two lines while the Polish horsemen rode by us, two thousand of them in whites and blues and reds, with pennants fluttering above them. The wealthiest lords were clad in shining plate and even the lowest of the riders were superbly armoured, as were their horses.

  Like storm waves crashing against a promontory, the heavy cavalry crashed into the Janissaries, the azabs and the sipahis in the centre. The enemy were overwhelmed and crushed by the weight of the charge. Our men-at-arms were fewer in number than the enemy but were still unstoppable.

  Their great charge flattened hundreds of Janissaries, many fell dead from lance strikes or were bowled down and crushed by the horses themselves. Those that avoided the first charge were met by a second line which brought down even more. The Poles slowed and turned about or moved through the Janissaries, thrusting with their lances or using their swords or axes or maces. Others formed up beyond them and prepared to charge the thousands upon thousands of sipahis in the centre.

  My slujis’ war cry had often been the name of Vlad Dracula or that of their country. But considering there were Wallachians fighting in William’s army, we needed something else that would proclaim which side we fought for. There was one that all men knew, that was even older than I was.

  “Christus!” I shouted, lifting my lance high over my head. “Deus vult!”

  My men took up the cry behind me and we advanced on the Janissaries. I knew I would not need to tell my men to end the fight by taking a number of our enemies prisoner so that we might later drink their blood. We had fought together for years and they knew their business.

  Despite being mortals, exhausted by their slog through the sodden ground and the shock of the heavy cavalry, the Janissaries put up a strong and sustained resistance. They were strong and well-trained individuals and even broken by our attacks they formed groups and fought back to back. None wished to surrender. For the thousandth time I cursed the Turks from ripping these fine men from their Christian families as boys and turning them into Mohammedan slaves, their minds broken and infested by the infidel religion. But my anger at the Turk and the sympathy for the boys that were and the men they might have been did not stay my hand when it came to cutting them down.

  In time, all the living Turks in the valley broke and tried to flee. All were chased down and killed or captured.

  And despite his attempted crossing of the gorge and freezing river, William did what he always did.

  He took the remnants of his army, and he fled.

  They all rushed south, back toward Bulgaria where they would be safe. All but Basarab and his Wallachian horsemen who abandoned William and rode west for Wallachia.

  With William on the run, we knew we had a chance to catch him and kill him but he had a half a day head start and he somehow managed to keep his army in good order throughout the retreat. Though they were no doubt distraught by the loss of so many of their comrades, and the fact that they rushed through a winter landscape devoid of food or water, they maintained their cohesion. We attacked the rear guard repeatedly and each time we killed hundreds of them but our horses were no less exhausted than theirs were. The Poles and Moldavian light cavalry that rode with us were excellent soldiers but they were exhausted also by the battle they had fought. It was bitterly cold.

  Four long days and nights, we whittled away their rear guard. We lost hundreds of men through enemy hand-gunners and ambushes and through accidents and exhaustion. We could not have pushed our people or our horses any harder. And still the Turks, and William, got away.

  When the reports came in to King Stephen of the enemy losses, he had them checked again by his own priests and monks. And yet it was true. Our small army had killed forty-five thousand Turks in the valley and during the retreat. We had killed four pashas in the valley and a hundred enemy battle standards were taken.

  In addition to the dead, we took thousands of prisoners of both low and high rank. The lords, King Stephen kept, while the commoners he had impaled.

  It seemed he had learned a thing or two about frightening Turks from his cousin.


  Unlike Vlad, though, he soon after ordered them cut down and burned rather than leave them rotting.

  By any measure, it was a great victory, and King Stephen could do as he pleased without hearing a word of criticism from anyone. Indeed, the Pope proclaimed him an Athletae Christi, just as old Janos Hunyadi had been years before.

  In Hungary, Mattias Corvinus did everything in his power to claim the victory as his own. In truth, not only had he not been there but he had sent the barest minimum of his men to fight the battle and yet he wrote a series of letters to the Pope, to the Holy Roman Emperor, and to all manner of other kings and princes of Europe telling them that he, Mattias Corvinus, had defeated a large Turkish army with his own forces. It was truly an incredible bit of dishonesty and whatever lingering flicker of respect I had for the man was gone the moment I found out.

  King Stephen on the other hand not only refused to celebrate his victory but instead he fasted for forty days in order to show his devotion to God.

  “It is to God that this victory should be attributed,” he said when I saw him a week after it was fought. “It was God that brought down the High Bridge.”

  “It was your well-placed cannons that brought it down,” I replied, frowning. “And Zaganos Pasha sending too many sipahis over it at once in his eagerness to crush us.”

  The king would not hear it. “God smote the bridge with his own hand.”

  “Perhaps he did but it was the drummers and trumpeters that brought the enemy across.”

  King Stephen smiled. He looked tired. “Yes, and I am certain that you would like to claim this victory as your own, Richard. But who placed that thought in your mind?”

  “I did.”

  His smile dropped. “God put it there, Richard, so that Moldavia would be saved.”

  “Well then, My Lord King, I shall praise God for his deviousness and his martial cunning.”

  Stephen frowned. “For his wisdom, yes. Now, you asked to see me and I believe I know what you wish to discuss.” He leaned back in his chair. “Wallachia.”

  “Basarab turned traitor. He must be removed.”

  The king sighed. “And your friend must be returned to the throne, is that it?”

  “My friend and your cousin, yes, My Lord King.”

  He leaned forward. “What will Zaganos Pasha do now?”

  “Our agents suggested that this was the last chance he had to conquer Christendom. Now he has failed, Sultan Mehmed will take his armies east and south.”

  King Stephen closed his eyes. “Then we shall have peace. Praise God.”

  “If those things come to pass, perhaps. But if the Sultan takes his army a thousand miles away and leaves only garrisons, would this not be the best time to launch a reconquest?”

  The king interlocked his fingers and peered at me. “We would struggle to fight off another invasion at this point. Launching one of our own is out of the question. Do you comprehend the size of Bulgaria? What would you have me do, besiege and conquer Sofia?”

  “To begin with, yes. But not alone. With an ally on the Wallachian throne and support from Hungary and the Poles, it would be possible to—”

  “No,” he said. “It would not. We have been ravaged by these wars. We need time to heal. Years, you understand, not months. By the time we are recovered, Sultan Mehmed may have defeated his enemies and then returned to assault us once more.”

  “Precisely why we must attack now.”

  King Stephen smiled and then laughed but it was with a certain affection. “I have long admired your military vigour, sir, and your relentless enthusiasm for war and conquest. But you have never understood us and our kingdoms here. We have been beset by the Tatars of the Golden Horde to our north for generations. The Turks have been at our gates in the south for almost as long. This is our life. Our burden. God is good to us. He has given Moldavia the wealth of the plains and the safety of the mountains. He has given us wheat and sheep and timber. He made our men courageous and our women strong. Moldavia will endure these barbarians from this day until the end of days and we shall prevail.”

  “I pray that you will.”

  “You want Vlad Dracula on the throne of Wallachia and I would not object. But he is bound to Corvinus, now. It is not my words of support you require but the assent of the King of Hungary.”

  “Perhaps you might consider sending—”

  “Yes, yes,” King Stephen said, waving his hand. “I shall have letters written.”

  “There is of course the small matter of Basarab occupying the—”

  “If I can spare the men when the time comes, I shall spare them. You have my word. Is that all or would you like to cut my purse while you are here?”

  I bowed deeply. “Your wisdom and generosity is matched only by your prowess commanding armies, My Lord King. I will take the sluji west and do what I can to restore Vlad to his throne.”

  The king nodded as if he did not much care either way. “And what will you do with regards to your brother? Our dear defeated Zaganos Pasha?”

  “I pray only that he flees far from here along with the Turks.”

  King Stephen pursed his lips, nodding slowly and regarding me closely for a few moments. He then abruptly dismissed me without any courteous words and I was escorted from the hall with Walt at my heels.

  “Not true, is it?” Walt asked me, following me out. “We’re not praying William has fled with Mehmed?”

  “Of course not, you bloody fool.”

  “What will we do then?” Walt asked, lowering his voice. “How are we going to kill William now?”

  “I have a notion,” I said. “But we will need to see Dracula return in order to achieve it.”

  17. Dracula Returns

  1476

  After the snow thawed, I took my men into Transylvania to meet Dracula, where he had been residing. When we arrived, however, Dracula was not there. Instead, he had travelled to Bosnia with Mattias Corvinus and an army of five thousand soldiers.

  We set off immediately for Bosnia but arrived too late.

  The Hungarian forces had captured the city of Sabac and Corvinus declared his campaign a success and left Dracula in command with the task of taking the city of Srebrenica from the Turks. The area around the city was teeming with silver mines so it was no wonder Corvinus wanted it.

  Any doubts that Dracula had lost his edge during his long relegation from the front lines was dispelled when we heard what had happened next.

  He disguised his soldiers as Turks and sent them into Srebrenica during the monthly market day. Those men quickly captured the gates and then Dracula himself came charging in at the head of thousands of soldiers. While the gates were held open, Dracula and his Hungarians rode inside and caused chaos until the Turkish garrison surrendered the city.

  Dracula had every Turk impaled. The city was burned to the ground and everything of value taken.

  It was a brutal sacking that deprived the Turks of a key regional source of income and extended the strategic reach of the Kingdom of Hungary. What was more, it declared to the world that Vlad III Dracula was back.

  When we returned with him to Transylvania, we set about building an army to retake Wallachia. With support from Hungary and Moldavia, plus soldiers from Serbia and loyal Wallachians, Dracula assembled a force of twenty-five thousand men.

  King Stephen, good as his word, brought his army of fifteen thousand into Wallachia from the east while we swept in from the west in order to crush Basarab between us. In addition to his native forces, Basarb had eighteen thousand Turks.

  Our armies met near a small town named Rucr in the Prahova Valley. Half of the battle was fought in a woodland and there it ended amongst the trees. It was hard fought and bloody but the sluji helped to win it, as they had done so many times before. This time, fifty of them were armed with hand-guns which added a considerable tactical advantage.

  Each army lost close to ten thousand men. Basarab fled south and ultimately escaped to the Turks but his rule was over
after that battle.

  It was devastating for Vlad to witness so many of his people dying. In the aftermath, I found him sitting on a fallen tree, watching the wounded and the dead being carried away by their friends. He was alone but for his bodyguard standing at a respectful distance.

  I sat next to him in silence for a while before he spoke.

  “Wallachians slaughtering each other.” Vlad shook his head. “Those men there should have been brothers and yet they died with each other’s blades buried in their guts. I have come back to take my throne but, Richard, I wonder. I do wonder. The longer I go on, the more I think this war is nought but madness.”

  “They are fighting for survival,” I said.

  His gauntleted hands made two fists before him. “Why will they not unite against the most dangerous foe? Why can they not see it?”

  I grunted. “I have been asking these same questions for thirty years.”

  He turned to look at me then. “Is that how long you have been in Wallachia?”

  “In Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Constantinople, and yes, most of all, in Wallachia. All of these kingdoms I have found peopled with strong, proud men and beautiful, terrifying women.” When I said this, Vlad smiled. I continued. “On the one hand, these lands are wild and virginal and on the other it is as though the feuds within and between the peoples are as old as time. I know these lands, have fought in them, have fought for them, for longer than some men live. And I will always be a thorough outsider. I must admit that I do not understand your people and I never will. My own people, the English people, I know them in my heart. Although it is three hundred years or more since I was born and raised there, the people are the same as they ever were and I understand their concerns and their interests. I can predict, without conscious thought, how my people will respond to any given difficulty or boon. Whether commoner or lord, I know their sense of humour for it is also my own. They frustrate me and even enrage me at times with their manner but it is in the same way that a family feels about itself. For they are my family. Each time I return, the faces are new but the people are the same and I know that I am precisely where I am supposed to be. Your people are, I am sure, just as fine as mine. But I will never know them nor will I understand them.”