Bloody end

19th march 1574 (a while after midnight)

In an instant, the darkness of the night got dispelled by the continuous tongues of fire coming off from the four barrels of the reaper guns at once. In theory, using only one barrel per gun provided longer suppression of the enemy forces, but with such a close distance between Peter's small army and my troops, there was simply no time to waste.

As soon as the Reapers started their melody, the line of horsemen started to break. Instead of falling one by one like in a movie, entire groups were bursting apart at once, with bullets unable to differentiate between a man and a horse, penetrating the mount, the rider, their companion behind, two trees and ending up somewhere in a bird's nest few hundred meters behind their line!

"Muskets! Rise!"