Free Stryker and the Angels of Death (Ebook) by Michael Arnold Page B

blast was louder and brighter than Stryker could have imagined.
    He had seen black powder at work when ignited in a compact environment, such as a grenado or petard, and knew that it could be devastating, but he also knew that left loose in a barrel the grains would only flash and burn. It would be bright and hot and dangerous, but it would not explode. And that was why he had placed charge in the midst of those other vessels, the hardy hogsheads that were heavy with liquid. It started small, the match dangling from Buchwald’s pinioned wrists catching the piled powder with a hiss and a roar, but then the flame found the first consignment of palinka, and then the next and the next, and the potent spirits took up the spark like Greek Fire of old. They leapt out, licking and lashing in tongues of flame, turning the air about the wagon to an irresistible heat. And then the wagon erupted. It consumed Buchwald first, the traitor vanishing in an instant like a heretic at the stake. Stryker shrank away, stumbled on to his haunches, saw that the Husaria could not flee, for they were too close to the clouds of orange and red and green fury, and he could only wince as the brightness took hold, blinding him as his face felt the heat.
    The cavalrymen screamed. Their cries were shrill and desperate, lingering, and with their blackened wings they really looked as though they were part of a hellish host. The flames retracted, sucked back as the spirits were devoured, leaving only the remnants of the lancers, charred and seared, roasted and destroyed. And then Stryker was on his feet, for the survivors were coming.
     
    He gave the order to fire. It was repeated by Sykes, and the musketeers jerked back their triggers. The muzzles flamed, the pikes close by were cloaked in a thick pall of white smoke that stank of rotten eggs and seemed to take an age to drift clear. Out of that dirty cloud came horses, but there were not as many as before, and some were riderless, simply bolting the way they faced in utter terror.
    ‘Pikes!’ Stryker shouted. ‘Charge for horse!’
    He need not have given the instruction, for the pikemen were ready and willing. They braced themselves for whatever the lancers could muster. Stryker saw Antczak then, leading the charge, but his helmet was off, his face horribly twisted by burns, his magnificent wings withered and black. And with him were less than twenty Husaria . The rest were gone. Blown to pieces or devoured by flame or punched from their saddles by Stryker’s redoubtable musketeers.
    He now ordered those same men behind the small barricade of ash staves while they hurriedly reloaded, and went to follow them. As he did so, he looked across to the tree line, where a young man with blonde hair and a round, ruddy face waited, bouncing on the tips of his toes. Not for the first time, Lancelot Forrester put Stryker in mind of an excitable puppy, and Stryker grinned. He raised his blade high, brought it down in a swift arc, and the ensign went to work.
    From the trees came more pikemen. Only the remaining eight, but they were not expected by the furious, wounded hussars, and they ran with their vast spears levelled in front, smashing into the flank of the cavalrymen just as Antczak led his snarling troopers into Stryker’s waiting line. The staves shot straight through the tangle of horses, wings and men. The cavalrymen twisted to the side to engage this new threat, and that allowed Stryker’s force to push back at the horses who no longer knew which way to turn. The pikemen screamed. They peeled back their lips in rotten-toothed grimaces, snarling, gnashing and cursing. Stabbing up with their pikes again and again and again.
    Stryker saw Lujan Antczak in the midst of his force, and he shoved his way out through the pikes. Antczak saw him too, kicking forth so that he might cut the Englishman down. Stryker knew that he was no match for a man on horseback, so he took a knee, gripping his sword in both hands