Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The orders had been given.

The ink had barely dried on Julius's war map when General Elheat, commander of the Iron Cavalry, was already moving.

As the sun rose on the Eternal City, casting golden beams across the white-stone towers and bustling squares, the Iron Cavalry mustered.

Twenty thousand horsemen.

Five thousand banners.

Twenty thousand oaths sworn to one man.

To one empire.

To one future.

~

At the outer mustering grounds near the Via Augusta, Elheat rode slowly along the front ranks of his men, his black warhorse snorting clouds of steam into the crisp morning air.

The Iron Cavalry gleamed like a moving wall of metal and crimson: polished breastplates catching the light, heavy iron helms adorned with the eagle-winged crest of Romanus.

Spears were strapped along the horses' flanks; swords and war hammers hung from belts; shields were stacked neatly across backs.

This was no unruly horde.

This was a machine.

A tide of disciplined fury.

Elheat paused before the assembled officers, raising his gloved fist.

"Men of Romanus!"

he bellowed, his voice carrying across the field like a cannon shot.

"We ride today not for plunder, not for petty glory—"

He turned, sweeping his gaze across the sea of helmets.

"We ride for the Empire! For vengeance! For the blood of those who would dare lay a hand upon what is rightfully ours!"

A roar answered him, rolling across the field like thunder.

He smiled beneath his helm.

Good.

They were ready.

More ready than any force he had ever commanded, even at the height of the old Lunan campaigns.

~

By the sixth hour of the morning, the bells of the Eternal City rang out in announcement, signalling the march.

The Iron Cavalry rode eastward.

Fast.

Unyielding.

Across the great paved roads Julius's engineers had perfected and the system had lain — Romanus roads, built to move armies not merely across provinces, but across history itself.

Within days, they reached the borderlands where Romanus territory met the smallest edge of Germania's borders.

The green fields gave way to rolling hills and thick dark forests — lands where Roman control ended and chaos of tribal rule still reigned.

~

There, as planned, the army divided in two.

Ten thousand riders under Elheat himself turned southeast — racing toward the frontlines in Achae where Germanian warbands clashed in blood and smoke against the local defenders who recently stalled the Germanic advances.

The other Ten thousand, led by his second-in-command, Praefectus Gallius, turned northeast — tasked with reaching the vulnerable frontier near the Baltic rivers, where the Francian invasion columns would likely try to pour into Germania proper in their bid to secure territory and cut off the Germanic Forces from their supply lines.

Each force carried with it the same mission:

Hold.

Harass.

Bleed the enemy.

And above all — prepare the way for the approaching Legions.

Elheat watched from a ridge as Gallius's forces disappeared into the northern mists, a wedge of iron cutting through the landscape.

Then he turned his horse without a word and spurred his own men onward.

Toward war.

Toward destiny.

~

The days that followed were a blur of disciplined chaos.

The Iron Cavalry thundered across Germanian soil, making contact with scattered tribes and battered warbands who were suffering from the demands of the horde who constantly called for more young men and food to feed the frontlines in their war.

Elheat had no time for politics, he and his forces peacefully rode past these tribes.

No patience for negotiations, they didn't try to acquire replenishment of their own supplies and rations.

Where Romanus banners were raised, order followed.

In the north.

Where Francian colors were spotted — fire and death answered.

Small Francian scouting parties were ambushed and butchered.

Villages sheltering Francian forces were stormed, their enemy occupants slain to the last man, and any Germanian survivors given a simple offer:

Bend the knee to Romanus — or fall alongside the Franks.

Most bent the knee.

The reputation of Romanus discipline and Julius's justice had spread even here, beyond the great rivers.

The Germanian people had long memories.

And they had not forgotten that when Romanus came, to Greecia, it built roads and schools, not just prisons and graves.

~

By the end of the first week, Elheat's forces had advanced deep into Germanian territory.

The Iron Cavalry had crossed four key fords across the rivers.

Confirmed two critical supply depots for the Germanic advance columns.

And most importantly — established a defensive corridor stretching from the southern forests to the northern hills.

A corridor the marching Romanus legions could follow safely.

A spearpoint aimed directly at the heart of the Francian invasion.

And already, skirmishes along the line were beginning.

Francian knights — heavy and proud — found themselves bogged down by hit-and-run attacks.

Chevaliers, once terrifying forces on open ground, fell screaming as Iron Cavalry harried them from the flanks, setting ambushes among the narrow forest paths, and once unhorsed these noble fighters tried to claim amnesty since they were in Francian territory only to become food for the wildlife, as the Romanus cavalry legion knew they were still within Germanic borders.

Elheat's men fought like ghosts — never meeting the enemy head-on unless the field was already tipped in their favor.

"This,"

Gallius growled one evening to his senior officers as they reviewed captured Francian maps,

"is how we win."

He stabbed a dagger into the table.

"Not by throwing our strength at their walls."

He sliced cleanly across a cluster of enemy banners.

"But by tearing apart their foundation before they even realize the battle has begun."

The officers nodded grimly, drinking in their commander's brutal clarity.

Victory here would not be a matter of one grand clash.

It would be death by a thousand cuts.

A slow bleed.

And by the time the Francian lords understood what had happened, their forces would be too scattered, too demoralized, and too outmaneuvered to resist the coming hammer blow of the Romanus Legions.

As the fires of their camps flickered against the darkening skies, Elheat stood alone atop a rocky outcropping, surveying the distant horizon.

Somewhere out there, across the mist and bloodshed, the future of the continent was taking shape.

He tightened his grip on the reins.

"We ride for Romanus,"

he whispered.

"For the Emperor."

"And for the world we will forge with steel."

Behind him, the Iron Cavalry gathered like a brewing storm, ready to strike again with the dawn.

The first blood of the new campaign had been drawn, by their northern contingent, but the eastern force was approaching the frontlines and would be able to join up with their ally force shortly.

And the Iron Cavalry had only just begun their extermination campaign.