Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The second week of the campaign dawned under a heavy gray sky, with the chill of northern winds sweeping down from the hills.

Yet even as rain threatened to muddy the roads and slow lesser armies, the banners of Romanus pressed onward like an unstoppable tide.

General Elheat, seated atop his massive black charger, surveyed the latest arrivals with sharp, assessing eyes.

Three legions had now reached the forward staging grounds — their crimson banners snapping in the cold breeze, their armoured ranks gleaming dully in the gray light.

The Legate of the First Legion, Lucius Varro, dismounted before him and offered a crisp salute.

"General Elheat,"

Varro said.

"Our forces stand ready for your command."

Elheat returned the salute without ceremony.

"Good,"

he growled.

"You'll march with us — not behind. We aren't waiting for the Achaeians to dig in, and we can also eliminate those troublesome Francians who are influencing this war as well."

He turned, pointing southward where the thick forests began to break apart, giving way to rolling fields and the faint smell of saltwater on the wind.

"There,"

Elheat said, his voice low.

"The southern coastlines."

The officers gathered around leaned closer.

"The Emperor's naval raiders should have struck these villages by now,"

Elheat continued.

"If they have, the coast is weak — bleeding, panicked."

He jabbed a dagger into the crude map spread across a nearby crate.

"We move south. Fast. We raid along the edges, secure supply lines, and cut off any reinforcements trying to link up from the west. We can completely cutoff the region from the achaeian and francian's who want to stabilize their forces inland, they'll have to expose their backs to us."

Varro frowned slightly.

"It will pull us away from the central advance..."

Elheat's mouth twitched in a grim smile.

"And it will force the francian lords to decide whether to split their armies. One side to hold their flanks against our cavalry raids in this proxy war over the Achaeian lands, one side to hold the line against the full weight of the Legions marching north."

He let that sink in before adding:

"The fools will try to defend both, their government allows their local leaders to much freedom, so they will be out for their own gains rather than the nation as a whole."

The other officers nodded, seeing the brutal logic of the plan.

Divide the enemy.

Bleed the coast.

Collapse their cohesion before a true battle even began.

~

By the noon bell, the entire southern detachment — Elheat's ten thousand Iron Cavalry and the three Romanus Legions — was already on the move, breaking themselves away from the main Germanian forces that had resumed their warpath through the Achaeian lands.

It was a breathtaking sight.

Tens of thousands of soldiers winding like a living serpent through the hills, cavalry scouts racing ahead while engineers quickly repaired or reinforced key crossings behind them.

The Iron Cavalry formed the razor-sharp tip of the march, moving in wide, aggressive sweeps.

The Legions, meanwhile, moved as a vast anvil — steady, disciplined, inevitable.

Any isolated Francian, or Achaeian garrison they encountered was obliterated within hours.

Villages caught sheltering Francian forces were stormed under precise orders: no looting, no unnecessary bloodshed among civilians, only surgical strikes against the occupying forces and their collaborators.

Romanus was not here to pillage.

Romanus was here to conquer.

And to those who bent the knee, Romanus offered protection — and opportunity.

Already, Germanian warbands were trailing the columns, eager to ally themselves with the army that moved like thunder and struck like a god's wrath.

~

Three days into the southern push, the first coastal stronghold came into view.

A battered hilltop fort — hastily repaired by the locals, manned by a garrison too small for real defense but too proud to abandon it.

Elheat studied it from a nearby rise, a wry smile beneath his helm.

"Perfect."

He turned to his officers.

"We take it before sunset."

The plan was simple.

And devastating.

Iron Cavalry would encircle the hill at dawn, severing every possible retreat route.

Archers from the Legions would rain fire from the nearby woods, forcing the defenders to cluster atop the walls.

Then the heavy infantry would advance under tower shields — a slow-moving wall of death — and breach the fort's gates with fire and ram.

Any forces who fled into the woods would find themselves trapped between hammer and anvil — cavalry cutting them down like wheat, infantry closing the noose.

It was a textbook assault.

And it succeeded within hours.

By sunset, the Romanus banners flew from the fort's shattered ramparts.

~

That night, as fires crackled in the ruined fortress and scouts reported no major reinforcements nearby, Elheat stood upon the battlements.

From here, he could see the coastline glittering under the starlight.

Dozens of villages lay ahead, faint points of fire marking their locations.

Weakened.

Scattered.

Waiting to be seized.

Behind him, the Iron Cavalry, rested — sharpening weapons, tending to their horses, preparing for the next day's march.

The Legions too slept in tight, orderly camps — ever ready for a dawn assault.

The Emperor had sent them into Germania to crush an invasion.

But what Elheat now realized was far greater.

They weren't just stopping an enemy advance.

They were laying the foundations for Romanus to rise over this wild land.

This would not be a war for survival.

It would be a war of conquest.

A war to shape the world itself.

And in the distant dark, beyond the smell of blood and salt and smoke, Elheat could almost hear it —

The iron footsteps of history.

Advancing with them.

And with the conquest of the Achaeian coastline, and the assistance provided to the Germanians they could request the territories be transferred to Romanus upon the wars conclusion, and since Germania does not conduct much if any naval trade at all the offer should be easily accepted opened the ground to expand the Empire's borders further.

Almost like the Japanese during the 2nd world war, Julius could great a fortress wall to block access to his empire by sea, while being able to commit and field his armies for land combat in the future.