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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 7: The Siege of Sternberg

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Sternberg Castle operated without rest, like one enormous machine.

The food storehouses steadily filled with emergency provisions János Hunyadi had gathered, including wheat, beans, and salted meat.

The clang of iron rang from the smithy day and night. While the blacksmith Tomáš devoted himself to building catapults, his assistants hammered dented armor back into shape and sharpened chipped blades without pause.

In the courtyard, the soldiers learned how to use Ulrich's Wrath.

"This isn't like a sword or a spear! The moment you panic and drop it, you'll roast not only yourself but the comrades beside you! Understood?"

"Yes, my lord!"

I drilled them over and over, from how to light it properly to throwing with the wind at their backs and the precautions needed to avoid harming allies.

At first, some soldiers nearly dropped the weapons on their own feet. Given time, they learned to throw them in a decent arc.

I also recruited additional defenders. When I promised bread and weapons, thirty strong men volunteered from the village below the castle.

They were new recruits who knew nothing but how to thrust a spear, but once they were outfitted with the old armor piled in the storerooms, they looked passably like soldiers.

Of course, I knew adding a few more men would not dramatically change the unfavorable situation. Even so, I did everything I could to survive.

Despite those desperate efforts, the ominous tension surrounding the castle only grew heavier.

The soldiers often stood atop the walls, staring over the distant fields as they swallowed dryly. The servants inside the castle flinched at every small sound, their shoulders drawing tight.

The mood in the village below was even worse. Some trusted their lord and remained, but more people secretly packed their belongings each night and fled the domain.

Rumors even spread that some had sided with the Hussites and promised to open the castle gates for them.

Then, at last, that day came.

The moment a dust-covered scout reached the gate, he shouted between ragged breaths.

"My lord! They're... they're coming!"

Without a word, I looked beyond the horizon.

Far away, where earth met sky, a vast cloud of dust rose. At its center, a blood-red chalice banner billowed like a wave.

The soldiers on the wall stiffened like statues, and dry gulps sounded from every direction.

Yet the first to reach the castle were neither farmers carrying axes and sickles nor armored knights.

"My lord! Please save us!"

"Please open the gates!"

Hundreds of refugees ran toward the castle.

Having seen the Hussites advance, the villagers had fled to the castle, placing their last hopes in it.

In an instant, the space before the gates filled with the clamor of weeping, pleading, and screams.

"Open the gates."

Before my command had even finished echoing, Konrad, the chamberlain, stepped in front of me with a grim expression.

"You mustn't, my lord. Please consider this calmly."

"What do you mean?"

"The moment we let them all in, our stored food won't last even a week. There isn't enough space in this cramped castle to house so many people, and if an epidemic breaks out, it will be impossible to contain it. And..."

Konrad paused, choosing his words before adding his greatest concern.

"...there is a very high chance enemy spies are among them."

"..."

Instead of answering, I looked down from the wall.

'Thinking coldly, Konrad is right. There isn't a single advantage to letting them inside.'

Below the wall was pure chaos. An old woman carried a hastily packed bundle. A mother covered the eyes of her terrified, crying child. Others stood frozen in fear, their minds blank.

Every one of them called my name and begged me to save them.

'But if I abandon them here, would winning this battle even mean anything? A lord who abandons the people of his domain when they are in danger. Could the soldiers trust and follow a commander like that?'

I gripped Konrad's shoulder firmly.

"Konrad. The disgrace of turning away while my people are slaughtered before my eyes is greater than the danger of spies being among them."

"But, my lord, your safety...!"

"I've already made up my mind."

I raised my voice toward those below the wall.

"Open the gates! Let every refugee into the castle!"

Rumble!

With a heavy rumble of iron, the gates opened, and the people of the domain poured into the castle in tears.

"Ahhh...!"

"The gates are opening!"

"Thank you! Thank you, my lord!"

They collapsed to the ground, offering their thanks.

"János Hunyadi, take them to the church. Keep them under control so no one wanders around freely."

"Yes, my lord. ...But you know we don't have nearly enough men to control this many people."

Just as János Hunyadi feared, the atmosphere inside the castle quickly turned cold.

The people of the domain had fled here in desperation, while the soldiers watched them with cold eyes.

The soldiers clearly resented having to share their already scarce food and space. Anxiety also hung in the air that Hussite spies might be among the refugees.

Watching them, János Hunyadi cautiously asked, "...Did we really have to let them into the castle? Some of them may support the Hussites. Surely they wouldn't harm fellow farmers?"

"Throw away that kind of naive thinking first on a battlefield, János Hunyadi."

My answer was cold.

"Whether they support the Hussites or not, to the enemy, this village is nothing more than the property of a Catholic lord. That means they have more than enough justification to plunder it."

At that moment, a sentry's scream burst from the watchtower.

"They're here! They're... they're here!"

Everyone on the wall turned toward the horizon. Beyond the thick dust, an enormous shape slowly emerged, accompanied by a deep rumble that shook the ground.

Sir Kuno made the sign of the cross with trembling hands.

"God..."

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of wagons linked by chains approached, forming one immense wall. They crawled along the horizon like a centipede.

Soldiers armed with flails, crossbows, and hand cannons stood atop the wagons, while hundreds of red banners fluttered overhead.

"A... a Wagenburg! It's the Hussites' Wagenburg!"

The soldiers cried out in voices shaking with fear, as though an old nightmare had returned.

'That is the rebels' moving fortress I've only heard about... the Wagenburg.'

The wagon formation advancing before us was almost like a moving castle wall.

Overwhelmed by its presence, I swallowed hard.

* * *

The Wagenburg.

A moving fortress created by the peerless strategist Jan Žižka.

When Sigismund's crusaders first faced this strange wagon formation, they burst into laughter.

It was not even a proper fortress, only a structure made by linking farm wagons together. They believed it was a clumsy trick that only poor farmers could have devised.

That arrogant carelessness soon turned into miserable screams.

The charge of heavily armored knights, considered Europe's strongest at the time, was helplessly stopped by the Wagenburg's sturdy barricades.

The enemy, trapped in place, became easy targets for the hand cannons and crossbows firing from the wagons' gunports.

As the knights struggled in confusion beneath the barrage, gates between the wagons opened. Hussite infantry carrying war flails[1] poured out and smashed their skulls to pieces.

With this brilliant tactic, Jan Žižka's peasant army, once no more than a disorganized mob, began to forge an undefeated legend.

At the Battle of Nekmíř, which marked the beginning of the war, they successfully defended against an overwhelming enemy. At the Battle of Sudoměř, they defeated crusader knights five times their number.

At the Battle of Vítkov Hill, where Prague's fate was at stake, Žižka performed the miracle of holding back a thousand crusaders with only thirty soldiers, including himself.

The very Wagenburg that had brought hell to the crusaders and Imperial faction now encircled Sternberg Castle to take it.

On a hill facing Sternberg Castle, two men sat on horseback side by side, observing the castle from afar.

One was Mikuláš of Hus, a fierce commander and one of the Hussite leaders.

The other was Hynek Krušina of Lichtenburg, a moderate noble leading the Prague Alliance forces.

Both were major Hussite figures who had crushed Sigismund's crusaders alongside Jan Žižka at Vyšehrad, yet their views of the same castle could not have been more different.

Mikuláš spoke with contempt.

"What an imposing castle. It suits a filthy Catholic nest, built on ill-gotten wealth squeezed from farmers."

Born a farmer, he saw the noble's castle before him as nothing more than a symbol of the old order that had to be destroyed.

"There's no need to waste time. The number of soldiers on those walls is pitiful. Before the day is out, that young lord's head will hang from the highest point of the wall."

Mikuláš spoke with confidence, but Krušina disagreed.

"Brother Mikuláš. Bloodshed is not always the answer. The lord of that castle is a young boy who has only just inherited his house. Crushing him without giving him even a chance to repent would not be the justice pursued by God's warriors."

"Justice? You call showing mercy to an infidel's son justice?"

"No. I am speaking of practical gain."

Krušina's eyes gleamed coldly.

"Sternberg is an old family of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Rather than killing that boy and seizing the castle, sparing him and winning him over to our side would be a far greater political victory. It would set an excellent precedent for swaying the other Imperial faction nobles."

"Hmph. I know nothing of politics. All I know is how to cut off the heads of corrupt priests and nobles."

Krušina answered Mikuláš's blunt reply with a dry smile.

"...You are aware that I am one of those nobles, are you not?"

"I know very well."

The scar at the corner of Mikuláš's mouth twitched.

"Is that not why your head is still attached to your shoulders, brother? If we did not serve the same cause, your head would have been hanging from that wall long ago."

"Ha ha, then your head would not have remained safe either, brother."

Krušina was smiling, but a chill lay in his eyes.

"The Noble Alliance and the Prague Alliance forces would not have stood by and watched."

Their gazes collided in the air.

One was the leader of the Noble Alliance's moderate Utraquist faction, which advocated compromise with the Church to protect its privileges.

The other was the fierce commander of the farmer-centered radical faction, the Taborites, who sought to destroy not only rotten religious authority but the entire feudal order.

They were united under the same name of Hussites, but their uncomfortable alliance existed only because they shared one common enemy, Sigismund.

"...Fine. Do it your way, noble lord."

Mikuláš disliked the nobles' methods, but he could not simply ignore Krušina, the moderate faction's commander.

Besides, taking the castle without shedding a drop of blood would not be bad for the Taborites either.

Krušina smiled gently.

"Thank you, brother. Then I shall write a letter advising them to surrender."

Krušina unrolled parchment atop his horse and wrote down the terms of surrender without hesitation. Once he finished, he handed the letter to Mikuláš.

A hollow laugh escaped Mikuláš as he read it.

"Ha! You have taken all the credit for being merciful, yet the contents of this letter are harsher than a blade. You make me, the man who would kill them in one stroke, look gentler."

Krušina gave a faint smile.

"If they see this force and still refuse to kneel, that is not courage. It is foolishness. There is no need to show mercy to foolish heretics."

"Ha ha ha! That is true."

Moderates and radicals differed only in their methods. They all remained Hussites in the end. They agreed that when they had the chance, they had to crush their enemies completely.

Mikuláš gave one final warning.

"But if their answer is delayed, or they refuse, then I will wash those walls in blood, my way."

"Then I will gladly take up my sword as well."

A short while later, a messenger rode from the Hussite camp toward Sternberg Castle's tightly shut gates.

Footnotes:

[1] They were two-handed weapons consisting of a very long wooden shaft (the handle) connected by a flexible joint; such as leather, rope, or a chain, to a shorter, heavy wooden baton (the striking head or swingle). Hussite peasants frequently added iron bands, metal studs, or spikes to the striking end to help deliver crushing blows against armored knights.

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