Chapter 145: Lack of Trust
A Swabian stable hand rushed forward, leading his warhorse. Konrad mounted the beast. Katarina stayed behind on the palace steps, her eyes promising swift execution to any Bavarian noble who dared to move.
Eckhard swung up onto his own gelding, barking sharp orders to the vanguard.
One hundred elite Swabian halberdiers snapped into a column.
"You," Konrad pointed his gauntlet at the Fugger executive.
The banker stiffened, clutching his book tight against his chest. H
"Walk with us," Konrad ordered. "I want you to see how much blood it takes to clear your accounts."
The executive nodded once. He stepped into the center of the column, protected by the very guns he had tried to extort.
The march began. But as the Swabian vanguard advanced toward the cathedral, a strange shift occurred in the city’s dynamic.
he blacksmiths, the dockworkers, and the weavers poured out of the side streets. They picked up their hammers, their pitchforks, and lit torches.
They fell into step behind the Swabian soldiers. A river of angry, starving citizens formed behind Konrad’s horse, eager to witness the unearthing of the stolen wealth that should have bought their winter grain.
The gothic architecture of St. Peter’s Cathedral loomed over the city blocks.
As the column approached the grand steps, a dozen local priests rushed out of the doors, their faces pale with terror. They saw the Swabian guns, the Marshal, and the roaring mob of their own parishioners closing in.
The contrast was jarring...
The priests wore pristine white robes, untouched by the mud and blood of the recent siege.
"Halt!" an older bishop cried out, raising a crucifix into the air.
"This is consecrated ground!"
"You cannot bring weapons of war into the house of God!"
"The Vatican will condemn your souls to eternal fire!"
Konrad drove his horse straight up the bottom steps, forcing the bishop to scramble backward to avoid getting trampled.
"..." Konrad sighed. "The Vatican already tried to burn my soul with their mercenaries. It didn’t work. Step aside, or I will let the mob crucify you on your own altar for hiding the Duke’s treasury."
The bishop looked past the Warlord. The holy men wisely abandoned their post, scattering into the side alleys and leaving the grand doors wide open.
Konrad dismounted. He reached into his belt and drew his wheellock pistol.
"Form up," Eckhard barked, dismounting alongside his King.
The one hundred halberdiers flooded into the cathedral nave. The mob of citizens spilled in behind them.
The Fugger executive walked right in the center, his eyes darting toward the back of the church where a set of descending stone stairs vanished into the dark.
They descended the spiraling steps. The Fugger executive tripped over a loose stone, nearly dropping his ledger, but he caught himself, refusing to make a sound. H
At the bottom of the stairs, the passage widened into a sprawling underground catacomb. Stone pillars carved with the faces of dead saints lined the hallway.
And at the far end of the corridor stood a set of reinforced iron doors, bolted shut from the inside.
"No demands, Lord Konrad?" Eckhard whispered, gripping his broadsword with both hands. "Do we offer them a chance to surrender the vault?"
Konrad raised his free hand, signaling the vanguard to halt.
He stepped forward, keeping the wheellock pistol raised near his face.
If the mercenary inside had multiple guns trained on the door, the first men through would be instantly shredded by flying lead.
"Raise the shields," Konrad ordered.
The front two ranks of Swabian veterans slammed their shields together. They locked their shoulders.
"Push!" Eckhard roared.
The halberdiers slammed their combined weight into the doors. The doors swung inward, crashing against the stone walls.
Konrad kept his pistol raised. He expected the deafening roar of a hidden artillery piece rigged to fire at the chokepoint. Instead, a chilling silence greeted them.
There were just men... Nearly sixty of them.
They were hardened killers, wearing mismatched boiled leather and dented steel half-plate. They were spread out in a jagged line across the front of a staggering pile of chests.
And every single one of them was using both hands to hold a shivering, naked human being.
The hostages had been stripped of every garment, standing barefoot on the damp stone. The mercenaries had explicitly removed their clothes to ensure no hidden daggers or armor could disrupt their leverage.
Some of the captives were weeping priests from the cathedral above. Others were local servants, tavern wenches, and stable boys snatched from the upper streets before the Swabian vanguard had breached the city gates.
The killers held them by the throat or twisted their hair into agonizing knots. Sixty early matchlock pistols and jagged steel daggers were pressed against sixty trembling temples.
"Halt the advance!" Konrad barked.
The Swabian shield wall ground to an immediate halt. If they fired a volley, the lead would tear through the soft flesh of the hostages before it ever touched a mercenary breastplate.
The Fugger executive peered over the top of the shields, his breath catching in his throat.
"Welcome to the vault, Swabian." a voice echoed from the center of the line.
A tall man stepped forward slightly, keeping his own weeping woman pressed against his chest.
"You must be the independent contractor Wilhelm hired," Konrad stated.
"Captain Silas," the man replied, a smirk twisting his lips. "I heard the stories. So, I adjusted my tactics. You cannot shoot us without butchering your own new subjects."
Konrad stared at the hostages.
After hearing such words, the angry mob of Munich citizens, packed into the stairs behind the Swabian vanguard, suddenly realized what they were looking at.
A woman screamed in agony, recognizing her naked son in the mercenary line.
A baker cursed, brandishing his pitchfork.
"Let them go, Silas." Konrad commanded.
"I am an honest worker, Konrad." Silas laughed. "I just want to walk out of this crypt with my fair share. You let my men load ten chests onto our wagons, and we drop the flesh shields at the city border."
If he refused and ordered the halberdiers to open fire, sixty innocent Bavarians would be slaughtered in the crossfire.
The mob standing right behind him would witness their new King murdering their families just to save his silver.
Konrad lowered his pistol just an inch.
"I hold sixty lives," Silas sneered, pressing the barrel of his matchlock harder against the weeping woman’s head. "If you take another step, her brains paint the stone. Then we pull the rest of the triggers and take our chances in the smoke."
Eckhard ground his teeth. "Give the order, My King. We can cut them down before they reload."
"No," Konrad replied, raising his left hand to keep the Marshal in place.
"You want ten chests?" Konrad asked.
"Ten chests, safe passage to the eastern border, and we leave the peasants alive." Silas confirmed.
Though he was protected by a wall of Swabian iron, the Fugger executive gasped, stepping out from behind a halberdier.
"You cannot give him the silver! That is bank property! The interest alone—"
"Shut your mouth before I feed you to him," Konrad snapped at the banker. The clerk silenced himself.
"You have a problem, Captain Silas," Konrad pointed out. "Ten chests of silver weigh over a thousand pounds. You have sixty men. If you break your line to carry the wood, you drop your shields. The second a hostage falls, my marksmen will put a Swabian bullet through your eyes."
Silas narrowed his gaze. "We will drag the chests with one hand. We are strong enough."
"And the stairs?" Konrad pressed. "You cannot drag a hundred pounds of silver up those steps while holding a squirming priest by the neck."
A ripple of unease washed through the mercenary line. A few of the men holding hostages glanced nervously at the stairs behind the Swabian vanguard.
"I am going to make you a counter-offer, Silas," Konrad declared, the unyielding iron of his will filling the freezing air. "You let the hostages walk toward my lines right now, and I will let your sixty men leave this cathedral with their lives. But you do not get a single copper coin."
"You are bluffing!" Silas shouted. "You won’t risk the blood! The mob will tear you apart!"
As Konrad stared at the naked bodies, a singular question burned through his logic.
If Silas was arrogant enough to bring primitive matchlock pistols into a damp underground vault... did the idiot mercenary actually realize that the ambient moisture in the crypt air was slowly ruining the exposed black powder in their firing pans, or was Konrad going to have to prove it by pulling his own trigger first?
"Hmm?" Konrad finally murmured. "I just offered you the best terms you will ever receive in your miserable life. You leave the hostages, and you walk out of this city with your skin attached to your bones. That is all I can offer."
"I am not leaving the silver!" Silas roared back. "If you do not let my men load those chests, we will paint this crypt with their brains!"
To emphasize the threat, Silas jammed the barrel of his matchlock harder against the woman’s skull. She let out a ragged scream.
The baker standing in the mob behind Konrad let out a feral roar, raising his pitchfork. The Bavarian citizens surged forward, their righteous fury boiling over.
"Hold the line!" Marshal Eckhard barked, slamming the flat of his broadsword against the nearest shield. The Swabian veterans braced their backs, holding the mob.
Konrad sighed. "Let us evaluate the ledger you are standing on. You just demanded ten chests of silver and safe passage to the eastern border. But you do not trust me. You know that the second you drop these hostages, my halberdiers will butcher your men on the stairs. You have no guarantee of safety."
"And I," Konrad continued, "do not trust you. If I let you walk up those stairs with my silver, I look weak. A King who pays extortion money to thugs loses his crown before the winter snow falls. I cannot let you leave with the Fugger capital."
"Then we all burn in the dark!" Silas whispered, his finger twitching on the trigger mechanism of his weapon.
"No," Konrad corrected. "Only you burn. Since we have established a mutual lack of trust, and neither of us will walk away from the florins... the only logical solution left is to kill you."
Konrad raised his pistol, aiming it at the space right between Silas’s eyes.
The killers tightened their grips on the hostages.
The mercenary captain realized the Warlord was actually willing to sacrifice the civilians to secure the vault.
"Kill them!"
"Kill the hostages!"
"Fire!"
Amidst the orders to execute the hostages, Konrad silently let the dampness of the crypt deliver his answer.