Swiss Arms

Chapter 165

Swiss ArmsChapter 165

-VB-

Count John von Toggenburg

He heard before he saw.

It was a low, rumbling horn blow.

From behind.

He whirled his body around in the mud that also covered his boots, body, face, cape, and armor, his horse long lost in the fighting, probably having run away like it had been trained to do.

So when he whirled around while surrounded by the desperate last five of his personal guards, he looked and saw salvation.

There, on the eastern rising slope of the valley that they were now in, was a line of men and even more men behind the first line.

And those men carried a single flag that made his chest pound as new hope flushed into his heart.

The tri-tipped black mountain.

Fluelaberg.

Hans.

"REINFORCEMENT IS HERE! COUNT HANS IS HERE!" he roared with the last strength his throat could muster. "HOLD YOUR GROUND!"

His soldiers - wherever they came from, they were his soldiers in this battle right now - looked at him, saw the reinforcement, and then … hunkered down.

The Habsburgs saw the reinforcements and desperately tried to finish them off. Their soldiers and knights tried in vain to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. But the narrow opening connecting Toggenburg Valley and Ricken Pass prevented their near three thousand troops from easily maneuvering.

John held the center and Louis, Hans's father, held the left flank. The right was now held by a St. Gallen knight in service to the abbot there, and all three of them held.

The dust plume in the distance grew closer as Hans and his soldiers charged down the valley.

"You think you'll live before they get here?!"

John looked up and saw a knight charging at him in full plate armor and a longsword in his armored hands. He recognized the heraldry on the knight's chestplate: a rampaging red lion upon a gold field.

Habsburg-Laufenberg.

Not just a vassal of House Habsburg but a branch house.

"You will die here like a dog like your father did!" the man laughed.

… That pissed John off.

John didn't say anything.

'Talking is not a consequence-free action.' Hans drilled that into him and everyone he trained. Only Hans got to talk because he was Hans. John wasn't Hans so he had to give this fight his all, especially since he was tired as fuck.

Instead, he raised the sword that Hans had gifted him. Something he called zweihander.

The knight came in, stepping in to strike from above.

John matched the move. He stepped in, and raised his zweihander to block the blow.

And that's when it happened.

The knight's longsword came down and came to a clanging stop at the end of the guard. Instead of parrying, he jumped forward.

The knight yelled. "What the -?!"

The knight was not Hans.

He was not as strong as Hans.

John trained under Hans and kept up the training.

Sparks flew between the two of them until he was right up against the knight. His blade came to a stop on the knight's armored neck.

That's when both the knight and John noticed something.

John was taller.

Much taller.

He took advantage of it immediately and pressed down.

The knight roared as he tried to push him off but John kept up the pressure.

The knight fell to one knee.

And John took a chance. Trusting in the heavy weight of his blade and his leverage, he let go with one hand and reached to his back.

And drew a dagger.

Before the knight could surrender, he struck.

The blade slipped into the eyeslits of the knight's helm.

The knight screamed as the blade found purchase.

And then John pushed it in through the bone and flesh.

There was a crack. A squelch.

And then the knight stopped moving.

John pulled the dagger out. He spared the dead knight a single glance before he moved on.

Just because he killed a knight, the battle didn't come to a stop.

He needed to keep killing.

Then he heard it.

A spear coming in from his left. It wasn't aimed at him, though. It was far away.

It boomed and then shrieked as it flew through the air less like a throw and more like a lance charging down the aisle in how straight it flew, dipping only just slightly as it traveled.

And then it slammed into the Habsburg's right flank. John's eyes widened as he saw bodies flying from the sheer impact of the spear and saw a few bodies jutting over the heads as the spear stabbed through … more than a few armored men.

Then he was there.

Hans almost flew down from a jump as the Habsburg right flank tried to turn around to face him.

But there was no stopping Hans! That was suicide!

The Habsburgs didn't know that, though.

Hans's soldiers crashed into the disorganized and broken right flank after their liege lord, and what was a desperate defense became a chase as the Habsburgs turned and fled.

And that retreat soon turned into a rout as Hans swung his giant sword and carved into the Habsburg army.

Each swing cut someone in half. Each stab punched through more than one soldier. Armor meant nothing.

And then his cavalry arri-.

Wait, Hans arrived faster than his cavalry…?!

John watched, flabbergasted, as what had to be less than a hundred cavalrymen thundered after the fleeing Habsburg soldiers while Hans brought himself and his vanguard to a stop.

John panted as he looked around.

They … won.

They won!

He grinned and raised his sword up.

"VICTORY!" he roared, and his army roared along with him.

-VB-

The Battle of Ricken Pass (1310)

Start of Battle:

Habsburgs (under Habsburg-Laufenburg's command) - 4,000

Compact (under Count Toggenburg's command) - 2,400

Prior to Reinforcement:

Habsburg - 2,000 (death: ~1,000)

Compact - 700 (death: ~700)

Reinforced

Habsburg - 1,750

Compact - 1,900

End of Battle

Habsburg - 1,000

Compact - 1,700

Total Casualties

Habsburg - 1,500 wounded, 1,500 killed

Compact - 1,100 wounded, 800 killed

Close Victory for Compact

---

The reinforcement for the Compact swiftly turned the tide of the battle. The Habsburgs, who had been ready to end the battle in their favor, quickly lost ground. Exhausted as they were for having fought for hours at this point, they were unprepared for (mostly) fresh Compact troops led by Count Hans von Fluelaberg from breaking their right flank. With their flank broken and suddenly outnumbered, the Habsburg vassals tried in vain to pull a fighting retreat.

But the Compact gave no mercy. What few cavalry they had were put to the task of running down the retreating Habsburg levies and soldiers, and the retreat turned into a rout as the Compact's halberd-wielding cavalry slashed and diced the would-be survivors.

When the battle ended, the result was clear for all to see: the Compact won a close victory. The cost had been high, however. The Compact lost almost all of their initial force to fend off the Habsburg vassals. The Habsburg vassals, on the other hand, lost three-quarters of theirs. The result of this was the draining of half of the Compact's ready reserve of manpower, especially those of St. Gallen, Chur, Werdenberg, and Toggenburg. The County of Toggenburg took the biggest loss with nearly eight hundred fifty out of the one thousand wounded or dead. In doing so, however, they saved the Compact from a war that would have seen thousands more dead in their home.

Count John von Toggenburg called his role in the conflict over, taking the rest of his troops, living, wounded, and the dead, back home to Neu-Toggenburg. The other participants did the same.

However, Count Hans von Fluelaberg was not done.

He took the surviving mercenaries, hired another six hundred, and struck Count of Kyburg, who now made up close to half of all immediately available forces of the Habsburg vassals.

While the following Siege of Kyburg was no less important in breaking the morale of the Habsburg's Swabian/Swiss vassals, the Ricken Pass became the battlecry for the Compact. Ricken Pass was the closest that the second iteration of the Compact came to falling, though scholars debate just how close that fall would have been or if the war would have simply ravaged the confederation.

The Battle of Ricken Pass showed three changes in the region the Compact held. First, the medieval idea of war where nobles held sway had diminished. Here, it was the militiamen, rangers, and irregulars styled in or trained in the Fluelaberg style of military formation and organization who had held the line, though under the command of Count von Toggenburg. Second, the Compact was no longer a disparate and disorganized mess of mountain villages but a reorganized and powerful collection of states, who were capable of punching way above their weight class when they fought united. Third, the lack of retreat even as they wilted down to the mid hundreds without routing showed a growing unification of the people's perception. They were no longer just a peasant, man-at-arms, knight, or lord of wherever they came from. They were citizens of the Compact who held the line alongside each other. While this was not nationalism as we understand it today, it was a remarkable form of sociocultural reorganization.

Regardless, the Battle of Ricken Pass became an example and symbol of what the people of the Compact were like: stubborn, hardy, and loyal to the end. And the people of the Compact would remember and honor the sacrifices their brothers, sons, and fathers (and a few daughters, sisters, and wives) made there at Ricken Pass.

"We hold this wall as our ancestors held the Ricken Pass!"

-Battlecry of the Fluelaberg's Free Company (Compact's 3rd Mercenary Regiment) during the First Ottoman Siege of Vienna. Fluelaberg's Free Company held the outer wall to the last man including Captain Sarah III Fluelaberg, leaving behind just seven survivors who were pulled back in the previous day's siege for medical treatment.