The Ram Rebellion(194)

"I did think that we ought to bring it to your attention, though. And mention it to Saunders Wendell, since he's the UMWA man in Würzburg. Maybe Grantville could even send somebody from the geology survey down here. Anything to bolster up the Franconian economy. Even just a little."





Vince Marcantonio added a hearty "amen."





Mitwitz, Early July, 1634




"They're doing pretty damn well, wouldn't you say?" Scott Blackwell remarked. "Given that they don't have any napalm."





Sitting on a horse next to the USE's military administrator in Franconia, Johnnie F. considered the irony of the situation. He was normally far more inclined toward what you might call "revolutionary activity" than Scott was. Here, though, where the farmers were quite literally running amok, it was Scott who was observing the scene with something approaching equanimity—and Johnnie F. who was doing his best not to shudder.





The castle at Mitwitz was an inferno, by now. Lacking napalm or not, the thousand or so farmers who were besieging the Schloss hadn't had much trouble overwhelming the Freiherr's few dozen mercenary troops. Those of his soldiers who hadn't run away as soon as the mass of farmers appeared, that is, which had been most of them. Once the farmers got into the castle—helped inside by the servants, often enough—they'd set fire to it in at least a dozen places.





Stone walls wouldn't burn, true. But any Schloss was full of incendiary materials. By the time the raging fires died out, hours from now, the castle would be a gutted ruin. Parts of it were already starting to collapse, where the stone work had depended on wooden supports.





There was no opposition, any longer, except from a knot of soldiers at the front gate. The only reason they hadn't surrendered, Johnnie F was quite sure, was simply because they couldn't. The farmers were taking no prisoners.





For a moment, Johnnie F.'s gaze drifted to the left, before he forcibly took his eyes away. He had a bad feeling he'd remember that pile of butchered corpses for the rest of his life. After killing every soldier they'd dragged out of the castle, the ram's people had stacked their bodies in one place. More or less. He didn't think a single one of those bodies was still intact. The farmers had used their tools-turned-into-weapons with a vengeance.





There was a sudden flurry of motion at the front gate. A body of horsemen was emerging, with four mercenaries in the lead.





Horse-people, rather. There was a woman in the center of the group, riding alongside a well-dressed man.





"That'll be the Freiherr and his family, trying to escape," Blackwell said, calmly. "He's got one kid, if I remember right. A boy, somewhere around eight years old."





The soldiers in the lead were trying to cut their way through the mob at the gate. One of them fired a wheel-lock pistol. A farmer stumbled to the ground, spilling a weapon that looked like a scythe blade attached to a long pole.





A big man stepped out from behind a tree, to their right. A Jaeger, from his clothing. He was perhaps sixty yards from the battle raging at the front gate. His rifle came up—





Johnnie F. hissed. That was no—





Crack!





The soldier who'd fired the wheel lock was swept from his saddle. "That's an uptime gun," Johnnie F. muttered.





"Sure is," agreed Scott. He leaned over his saddle and spit on the ground. "Don't think we'll ask where he got it, neither."





Easily, fluidly, the big Jaeger worked the bolt on the rifle and brought it back up to his shoulder.





The Freiherr had now broken away from the soldiers and was driving his horse toward the road.





Crack! Down he went. Within seconds, half a dozen farmers had surrounded his body and were hacking him into pieces with axes and those ungainly looking scythe-weapons.





Johnnie F. heard a woman scream. Several of the ram's people had seized the reins of the Freiherr's wife's horse and were dragging the mount to a halt. He saw another farmer stab her in the side with a long spear. The woman screamed again and slid off the saddle.





Johnnie F. saw that she'd had her son perched on the saddle in front of her. The boy landed on the ground along with her. But, scampering like mad, he evaded the axes and scythes that were already butchering his mother and made his escape under the horse's belly. Once clear of the knot of farmers around his mother, he raced for the nearby woods.





Eight or nine years old, sure enough. His face was pale, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a soundless scream.





Johnnie F. saw the big Jaeger tracking the boy with the rifle.





"Oh, Jesus."





Crack! Then, after jacking another round into the chamber, he fired again. His first shot had probably killed the boy already. The second one, striking the prone little body, was just to make sure.