Three of them made it through. The other three fell, blocking the road completely.
Beyschlag, Merckel, and Bauer tried to get the young duke out of the line of fire, but there wasn't really any single line of fire. The shots from the trees were coming at them from at various angles and from various directions up and down both sides of the road.
Ulrich yelled, "Since we can't go back, go forward. You'll have to jump." The group headed forward, in the direction of the village. His gelding jumped. Beyschlag's shied and plunged into the trees before it followed. Merckel, on foot, ran around the pile of dead horses, trying to catch up. Bauer went down; his horse followed Merckel and sideswiped him, knocking him into a tree.
Von Sickingen's Jäger kept up a steady rate of fire. It might not be as fast as it would have been if they were equipped with up-time weapons, but they had worked together for a long time—most of them for a decade, some for nearly two. In a situation like this, they could almost read each other's minds.
Eberhard's group stayed together and were careful. They did not expect to come to the edge of the village, start to move down toward the location of the gunfire, and suddenly be charged at by a half-dozen panicked horses. They dove toward the shoulders and trees, but not all of them fast enough. Friedrich got his head and shoulders out of the way, but a horseshoe, a sturdy iron horseshoe affixed to the hoof of the mixed breed part-draft horse that had been pressed into service to carry Bauer's weight, came down on his left foot.
A half-dozen men came out of the brown house.
Merckel, still running toward the village, howled, "Look out behind you." Eberhard, turning, was hit by another of the horses and knocked down.
One of the men coming out of the brown house yelled back at Merckel. "Don't shoot us. If you're fighting Sickingen's men, you're our friends."
Merckel's best guess, in the middle of the whole mess, was that either the von Sickingen family were not popular landlords or that the village was populated by poachers. Possibly both.
The village men, with their weapons, almost evaporated into the trees from which the firing was coming.
"My name is Didier Schultz," the farmer said an hour or so later. "This is my house, where we were hiding in the loft, waiting for enough of von Sickingen's Jäger to come into sight at once to make it worthwhile for us to shoot them. If we had just picked off one, they would have pinpointed our location right away. The women and children are up in the hills. The livestock, too. That's the best practice. When soldiers come your way, run away. We would have been gone, too, but we just weren't fast enough. It's so close to dark now that there's no point in giving them an all clear this evening. In the morning, I'll send my son Henri up to bring everyone down. For now, though, I offer my hospitality, such as it is."
"We took Duke Ulrich next door," Merckel said. "Where it's a little quieter. His brothers, too."
Schultz nodded. "That is the house of my brother-in-law, Heinz Hochban." He gestured toward another man. "My son Henri is named for him."
"We don't have one of the famous up-time trained medics," Beyshlag said. "We don't even have a down-time trained medic. We're just a company, not a regiment. The surgeon went with Colonel von Zitzewitz and General Brahe. Heisel has already set Duke Eberhard's arm and splinted it, but he's pretty sure he has a broken collarbone, too. He isn't up to setting that. Is there anyone in the village who can do something for Duke Ulrich?"
"The priest might," Schultz said, "but he's up in the hills with the women and children. He's the papist priest whom the von Sickingens have forced on us. We were all good Lutherans here." He thought a moment. "You're fighting for the Swedes, aren't you?"
"Yes," Beyschlag agreed. "Under General Nils Brahe."
"Good Lutherans," Schultz affirmed, "just like the Swedes. But the papist isn't bad at doing things for the sick. I do have to give him credit for that, and at least he's an old man who doesn't fool with our women and girls. He knows tinctures that can break a fever or dry up wet lungs. Sometimes, at least. It's all the will of God, really."
"I have opium," Hochban said. "The apothecary in Landstuhl gave it to me back when my mother was dying of the crab and screaming all night so no one could sleep. There was some left, but he wouldn't buy it back. It's only three years old, so probably it's still good." He paused, looking hopefully at Beyschlag. "Cost a fortune, too, it did."
"Give it to him," Hertling said. "We'll pay."
"The horses are in the lot," Schultz said, starting with what was, in his view, the most important question. "The live bodies of your soldiers are in the church. The live bodies of von Sickingen's men are locked up in the new granary. The dead ones of both are in the crypt where they won't bother anyone in this heat until you can send a messenger to find your commander. Tomorrow morning, when everyone else comes back down, we'll harvest whatever is usable from the bodies of the dead horses. Then we'll push the rest into the ravine."