Fourth Vector Ch. 42

For one, the road wasn't a straight one. It had two major turns as it winded its way to the top, and both those turns seemed to be well-situated for the defense. Concrete structures were stationed at each bend, and there were numerous machine gunners waiting to take out the first man that came around the corner.

They would have ample time. There was at least a hundred yards between the first bend and where the concrete structure was, meaning that the Allied troops would have to continue to push up the hill without much in the way of cover.

"No wonder they said this hill was going to be a bitch," said Greg. "Let's keep moving. If we coordinate some heavy supporting fire, we might be able to get up to the first bend without too much trouble."

As the mortars started blasting, Greg gave the order to send the first regiments barreling up the hill. They started taking casualties immediately, finding nowhere to hide on the smooth road. Those men in the rear were lucky enough that they were able to use the bodies of their fallen comrades as some kind of shelter but it was hardly enough to keep forward progress without exposing themselves to more risk.

Not to mention, the concrete bunkers were keeping the mortar rounds from having much of an effect either.

"We need to get to those bunkers and get them cleared out," said Greg to Lindy. "I'm just afraid doing so will cause a whole host of casualties in the process, but it's just about the only way we'll be able to scale this hill!"

"We're going to have to keep leapfrogging ahead," yelled Lindy. "It's not going to be pretty but it's going to be the only way we can get close enough to clear out those bunkers!"

"Give the order then," replied Greg while pointing through the darkness. "Or else we'll never get to the top before dawn!"

And so the order was given. The men at the front of the column were given orders to take cover a few yards at a time before getting prone and offering covering fire for the men behind them. With the machine guns blaring, it meant that those men in the front saw their life expectancy dwindle to nothing short of minutes in the process but in doing so, forward momentum was regained, and the Allies started trudging up the hill at a modest pace.

Finally, they were starting to get somewhere when the men started to drop the Swabians behind the bunker. It wasn't an easy road but soon the Swabians were taking casualties they couldn't replace, and several of them fell only to have their bodies hang over the low wall of the bunker, completely lifeless.

With the common soldiers soon went their gunners. Their machine guns started to fall silent one by one, and those replacement soldiers that tried to get them firing again were soon cut down where they stood.

It was the break they were looking for. Suddenly, the men in the front ranks that were still alive pushed up at once and made a mad dash across the rest of the road. Those remaining Swabians inside fired when they could, taking down several Allied soldiers in the process but it wasn't enough to stem the tide of the advance.

The first Allied soldier, an Apulian by the cut of his uniform, made it to the bunker a short while later, pressing his back against the concrete structure. He used his rifle to spray ammunition inside the bunker, killing whoever was left inside. He was soon joined by the rest of his comrades, and they cleared out the bunker completely, taking possession of one of the last remaining Swabian positions.

The first bend of the road was theirs.

"That's my boys, keep going!" yelled Lindy as he jumped ahead, rushing to get to the bunker with the rest of the regiments.

"One more bend and we'll be there!" said an excited Greg as he rushed forward beside Lindy. "Any time now, we'll be paying ol' Avila a visit!"

Lindy grinned. "It can't come soon enough!"

*****

"Where the fuck is Vukhoz? Why is no one responding to me?"

As Dagobern burned around him, Emperor Avila stalked around on his own separate warpath. With him now at all times as his great sword, sheathed to the side of his hip in anticipation of a great one-on-one duel with his mortal enemy.

It was a duel that Otto knew wouldn't come. There was no way that the tide of battle could be turned now. And there was a literally impossible chance that Jack Kincardine would accept Avila's offer for personal combat.

The only thing that could be done now was to survive the storm. There were many still within the imperial palace that understood that survival was the task at hand, and to that end, they tried to minimize all interactions with the Emperor, who still hadn't grasped that simple concept yet.

"I've sent him three separate dispatches now!" raged Avila as he shattered a porcelain vase not far from Otto's position. "This is insubordination! I'll have his head for this!"

Otto knew perfectly well why General Vukhoz wasn't responding to Avila's orders. It was due to the simple fact that none of those orders were reaching Vukhoz in the first place. With the Emperor's sanity deserting him, Otto made the decision to leave as much of the defense to the military-minded general as opposed to the mentally-lacking Emperor.

Those orders also came with instructions to surrender should all hope be lost, which became increasingly likely the more the night wore on.

At this moment, Vukhoz was across the courtyard from the palace, assuming control in what was left of the city from the Emperor's Guard barracks. Most of the Guard was now defending the slopes of the palatial hill although no one knew how long they could keep offering resistance.

Otto cared not how long those forces continued to fight. The only thing he cared about was leaving military matters in the hands of those more experienced than himself, such as Vukhoz.

"That's it! I'm going to the Guard barracks myself," said Avila, interrupting the silence that had developed in the room. "I'm going to kill Vukhoz with my own hands and assume control over the fight myself. We cannot lose if I'm in charge!"

Otto's eyes went wide as Avila charged for the door. If he managed to reach Vukhoz, it might quickly be discovered that his messages weren't reaching the general. If that was the case, Otto's life might suddenly be forfeit.

Now was no time to die at the hands of a madman. Especially considering that Avila's life might soon be over.

What was the point in Otto dying now of all times?

With those words on his mind, he searched around the room for whatever he could find. Operating on instinct, Otto quickly moved to the nearest tool he could get his hands on. In his case, it was a fireplace poker that jutted out from between a stack of two logs.

Otto grabbed the poker and stalked quickly to Avila, who had managed to get outside to the hallway. An explosion shook the palace and almost knocked everyone to their feet, but it didn't stop Otto from closing the distance and pulling back his arm.

The blow that took down Avila was remarkably smooth. The Emperor of Swabia didn't make a noise as he was knocked out cold, his body crumpling to the floor beside him. In fact, the only noise that was made was the sound of his sword crashing against the tiled floor.

Otto stood over the body of his emperor as his eyes went wide with terror.

What have I done, he asked himself internally.

The answer couldn't have been more clear--he did what was necessary.

Around him, the eyes of other servants glued to his body and the sight of his arm raised with his weapon still in it. None of them knew what to do but Otto couldn't help but see a sense of relief in their eyes as the main proponent of continuing to resist was now unconscious.

"Lock him back in the room," barked Otto to the nearest servant. "This fight is in General Vukhoz's hands now. Do what you can to survive the next few hours."

Two servants immediately leapt forward to grab Avila's body and dragged him back to the room. It was the first real taste of power that Otto had ever had.

And he quite liked the way it felt.

"Not much longer now," he muttered to himself. "Vukhoz, this fight is now on you."

*****

"Pull the men back a little," advised Jack through his radio. "I'm going to have the fleet soften up that hill a little more for you."

By now, it was well into the earlier hours of the morning during the final assault on Dagobern. Jack had been monitoring the situation on the palatial hill, and so far, the fighting to take the summit had been fraught with too many casualties. Both the western and eastern prongs of the attack had stumbled somewhere about halfway up the hill, and there was an obvious need for more firepower.

Thankfully, the palatial hill was still burning from the results of the earlier bombardment. That made it a brilliant, flaming target for his naval gunners.

For the next hour, salvos from theDestiny, theVisby, and half a dozen other ships pounded the hill with everything they had.

It was enough to make all of Dagobern shake. The naval ordnance exploded against the center of power in the city, adding to the flames and softening up their targets. It was only after the end of that hour that Jack radioed out to Greg and Art.

"How are we looking now?" he asked them. "Did that do the trick?"

"Good enough for us to keep pushing on," replied Art. "The western attack is resuming right now."

"Good luck, men. It's time to finish the job," said Jack.

With any luck, his men just might take the last of the city before dawn. They might also get their hands on Emperor Avila out there somewhere. Jack knew he would still be somewhere in the palace, but so far, there hadn't been any word from the Emperor since his last challenge to fight.

"I'm coming for you, Avila," muttered Jack. "Your time is limited."

*****

"All right, boys, you heard the King! Time to get moving!"

Art roared his instructions over the sound of battle as small arms fire resumed quickly. The regiments under his command were soon doing what they did best--making inroads in the treacherous western road that led to the top of the summit.

Despite not having the concrete bunkers of the eastern road, this side was no less dangerous. The thin and narrow road gave ample places for the defensive army to hide, and despite the naval artillery strikes, they were far from out of the fight.

One of the problems that Art kept running into though was the loss of his officers. Quite a few times, his field officers had taken direct enemy fire, and several of them fell in the field, never to rise again.

"We need someone down there that can take command," explained one of the wounded captains, a man not long for this world since he suffered a mortal gut wound. "Someone has to continue to direct the men on the ground."

Art wasn't sure exactly what made him do it. There was no shortage of other officers to lead the fight but something inside him told him that his place was near the front, commanding men directly as he used to do all those years ago. It was a place in battle that he missed, never being fully content with having to lead things from afar.

That was how Art found himself extremely close to the action, directing men as they continued to make forward progress on the hill.

The current trouble was getting past a barricade that had been laid by Swabian soldiers across the main section of the road. The barricade was made out of several trees that had been felled and stacked together, offering many such crevices the Swabians could use to shoot while being concealed.

Keeping the position under mortar fire was helping but so far the trees were absorbing a good portion of the damage and protecting the men behind them. This could only go on for so long before the trees were utterly destroyed but Art wanted to get his men to the top without any time to spare.

For that reason, he dictated that a handpicked squad of men be the ones to get behind the barricade, all the while supported with covering fire.

It was a squad of veterans. They were Galician soldiers that had seen a number of fights and had shared the losses equally. If anyone could clear the barricade, they could.

The Galician squad moved forward quickly, often taking stops to offer their own covering fire before dashing ahead once again. Two of the members were felled instantly by the Swabians behind the barricade but at least six men were able to reach the trees and fire off rounds between the gaps.

Several grenades were pitched over the top, exploding a short distance away on the Swabian side. It was just the break that Art's men needed. Now they were the ones able to use the barricade as a defense, and multiple waves of Swabians were mowed down as they tried to reach the barricade again.

The original six were soon joined by several other squads, and once more covering fire was laid down as they slipped between the tree trunks and emerged on the other side.

It took the combined movement of two separate squads to pull the trees to one side, opening the road again for steady movement of troops but it was one of the last main barriers to the top.

Art and his men were almost there.

Unfortunately, Art would never step foot on the top of the hill. He knew he was getting too close to the front lines when several bullets whizzed by his position but in the heat of battle, any senior officer learned to deal with it. Such was the case for Art but he never expected the shot that took him down.

Pain seared through his lower abdomen. All the air left his lungs and the power went out of his legs. Art crumbled to the ground as his hands clutched at his stomach.

A quick swipe revealed that they were covered in blood. His blood.

"General, you're hit!" came the voice of his subordinate.

Art could barely respond. Every time he tried to speak, nothing came out.

"Get him a medic!" snapped the subordinate to another officer. "And get him to the rear quickly!"

It was as he was being lifted onto a makeshift stretcher that Art lost consciousness.

At least he'd done his part today. At least the city was practically theirs.

*****

On the eastern side of the hill, the going was just as tough.

Greg and Lindy's forces had pulled back slightly to allow the navy time to bombard the hill, and once that was over with, they made the charge up to the second bend just about an hour before dawn. While the road was wider in this section than it was on the western side, they still had another concrete bunker to clear before they could get to the top.

"Slow and steady," advised Greg to his officers. "We've already cleared one bunker and I know we can do another. Keep up your fire and keep inching your way forward."

Fortunately for them, it seemed like the Swabians were finally starting to run out of men. Dozens littered the road along the way, many of them victims of the naval bombardment. It even seemed like there wasn't quite as much firepower coming from the second bunker as there was from the first but that didn't mean they were done yet.

It came down to a brave platoon that made the final charge up the hill to reach the bunker. Just as the skies were beginning to lighten, the men of the Samaran platoon in the lead crashed against the concrete structure and abruptly opened fire on whoever was still left inside.

Nearly a minute after their arrival, there were no Swabians left alive.

"Jack, the second bunker is taken," reported Greg not long after. "We're heading to the top!"

Jack's reply was bittersweet.

"Keep going. The western prong is almost there too but Art has been wounded grievously," replied Jack through the radio. "I have one of his subordinates in charge over there but keep moving for Art!"

For some reason, Greg knew that Art's wound was fatal. Perhaps it was Jack's tone of voice or perhaps it was the fact that he also knew that Art believed it was his last fight. For whatever reason, he pushed his men to get to the top if only for the brilliant Galician general.

The news about Art flowed quickly. It was disseminated through Greg's senior officers and down to their men, and if anything, the news about Art motivated them to keep pushing. Once they were around the second bend, it was only a short jaunt to the top of the hill.

The first squads crested the hill right as the sky started to turn from dark purple to deep orange. Dawn was arriving over Dagobern, and with it, the last center of resistance on the hill. From Greg's vantage point, that was centered on the remains of the imperial palace directly in front of them as well as another barracks just off to their left.

What was left of the imperial guard was forming a line of resistance right in front of the barracks doors but it was quickly shattered by the arriving Allied soldiers.

Then something entirely remarkable started to happen all along the front lines.

"General, they're surrendering!"

Greg could scarcely believe the words when they were reported in, but they came from multiple officers at the same time. Reports of white rags being thrown up in the air were the clearest sign of surrender, but so were the Swabian soldiers who tossed their rifles on the ground and assumed their knees.

The Battle for Dagobern was now over.

*****

Jack received the reports of surrender not long after Greg did. Once he heard the news, he immediately grabbed a car and drove through the ruined city with Ben and the rest of his bodyguard.

Dagobern was a wreck. The only thing that remained of many blocks were the charred ashes of the buildings that once stood there. In a way, it reminded Jack of Kalmar a year ago, when half the city had burned to the ground after Eric Rosdahl set it on fire.

Fate, it seemed, wasn't without a sense of irony.

Jack continued on through the city, amazed at how many surrendered Swabians he saw that were under guard. Many of them were in rough shape, with blood caked to their tattered rags as well as not a single ounce of fat left on their starving bodies.

All of them would get a chance to get some food now that the war was over but first, Jack had to get to the top to see who was left.

As soon as his car crested the hill, he saw a giant white flag flying from the highest portion of the Swabian imperial palace. In the courtyard in the front, where at one time Jack had been presented as a prisoner of Emperor Avila, was a small delegation of what remained of the Swabian government.

Many of them were on their knees as Allied soldiers surrounded them, making sure they didn't do anything rash, but it was clear from the start that they were a broken people.

Jack found Greg and Lindy standing not too far away.

"Is this all of them?" he asked the two generals. "All that was left in the palace?"

Greg shook his head. "Apparently, Avila is still in there. His staff of servants are bringing him down right now."

Jack winced at that response. "You make it sound like he's already dead. Did he die in the fight?"

"I guess not but it sounds like he didn't like what was happening too much," replied Lindy. "It sounds like they knocked him unconscious at some point."

Jack's eyes widened. "Unconscious? Well, perhaps there's hope for the Swabian people yet."

By the time the servants finally emerged out the front gate, the sun was slowly rising in the east. Just about everyone was tired, exhausted at having fought through the night. Jack was fueled at this point by adrenaline alone, but he knew that the entire army had earned several long days of rest as a result of this fight.

The servants of the imperial palace were few in number. It seemed there were only about two dozen left at this point, although Jack couldn't tell whether that was by design or whether it was natural attrition because of the fight. None of them were that remarkable in appearance, but it was who was dragged along behind them that caused many eyebrows to go up.