The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [174]
“You tellin us or God?” Monique winked at Awa, who always stood close enough to von Stein to control the walking corpse and have it parrot a word or two if needed. “But lump’s got a point, don’t he, Bernie? What’s the scheme?”
“When the killing starts we secure a small area we can keep people out of, and you, if you’re sure—” Awa began.
“We’re sure, we’re sure,” said Monique as the column began to move. “What we gotta do?”
“Protect me,” said Awa. “That’s all. Make sure no one disturbs the circles I draw.”
On an open plain without cover such a seemingly simple request might prove impossible, but her two friends nodded. Saint Niklaus enters the scene, he thought with a smile, and they were off, moving with agonizing slowness across the field. The stiffly marching corpse of von Stein did not respond to the coded orders one of Lautrec’s pages gave him to wait for the French artillery to bombard the fortified position of the Imperials, instead pushing ahead across the field of Bicocca. The second column, led by a provincial Swiss captain jealous of von Stein’s bravado, did not wish to be left behind and likewise ignored the order to hold.
Then light appeared in the east and the Imperials, embedded atop the earthworks they had built immediately behind the sunken road that cut across the field, opened fire, a second dawn blooming in the south as a hundred muzzles flashed. The noise was deafening, not of the guns but of the pikemen screaming as they fell by the score. A mist of blood enveloped the columns as they rushed forward, scrambling over their fallen comrades, and every few breaths another volley would cut down the first few rows of charging Swiss. Awa had never experienced anything like it, but neither had Manuel or Monique or any of the men present, and only the sight of their brave captain von Stein trudging ahead with half his arm blown off kept the troops from routing.
“Cowards!” Manuel screamed, his voice cracking to see the Imperials hiding atop their wall. “You fucking cowards! Cowards!”
Awa kept a wall of marching dead men in front of her and her friends, and if any of the Swiss mercenaries noticed that their companions rose despite mortal wounds they themselves were killed before they could spread the word. Then the columns reached the high wall of mud the Imperials had built and the massacre worsened. Looking beside him, Manuel was horrified to see that two of the dead men carried Awa between them, the witch no longer disguised as Bernardo, her eyes twisted back in her head and foam running from her lips, a piece of damp parchment clutched in her hand.
“Fuck!” Manuel screamed, pressing himself flat against the wall as gunners leaned over the edge to fire down into them. “What do we what do we what do we—”
“Lump!” Monique slapped him in the mouth. “Shut it! She’s been ’avin that fit since ’alfway cross the plain, so jus’ fuckin shut it! The, the dead ones are still walkin, aye? So she knows what she’s bout, aye?”
“I don’t know,” Manuel whined, his face covered in blood. “I don’t fucking know!”
“Well I do.” Monique grabbed Manuel’s arm and impatiently began dragging him along the wall, as if it were a country hedge they were strolling beside and not a deadly fortification. The corpses carrying Awa followed them, which encouraged Monique even if she was not sure what it portended. “There, that cart stickin out the fuckin wall. Let’s get under there an’—”
Another volley from just overhead brought bells to their ears, and as the cloud of black smoke rolled down the wall to envelop them Manuel saw von Stein’s corpse methodically climbing straight up the mud embankment, pikemen rallying behind him. Couldn’t they see that the morning light was spilling