Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The candlelight flickered across the parchment as Julius leaned over the map table, fingers tracing the river valleys where the coming conflict would spill first.

His mind was sharp, calculating.

Amaury.

The boy had fire, that much was clear.

But fire without direction always consumed its wielder first.

Still, a sliver of doubt wormed through Julius's thoughts.

Would he truly strike first?

Or would he skirmish and skulk until his royal father dragged him home by the collar?

Julius had seen lesser nobles hesitate at the brink, hoping bluster would earn them spoils without war.

Perhaps Amaury was the same — all posture, no iron.

He stared at the border markings once more, deep in contemplation.

Could he afford to wait?

Could he afford not to?

Then, like the sudden crack of a lightning bolt, a shout tore through the quiet.

"To arms! To arms! Enemy sighted at the western rise!"

The tent erupted.

Chairs scraped.

The flap burst open as guards shoved through, one breathless and mud-caked.

"General Sabellus, Legate Gallius — the outlying pickets have been hit! Francian riders. Two hundred strong, maybe more. They came out of the woods—fast. Banners sighted seem to be of Prince Amaury."

Julius didn't move at first.

His eyes closed.

A breath.

Not of frustration.

Not of fear.

But of relief.

So.

The boy had drawn first blood.

And now, he would be bled dry for it.

Julius's eyes opened — flint-hard.

"Sound the horns,"

he said, voice like drawn steel.

"All cohorts to battle stations. Raise the shields. Lock the camps. Caetrax, bring the praetorians to the second ridge and prepare for cavalry interception."

"Orders for retaliation, Your Majesty?"

Sabellus asked.

Julius buckled his gloves.

"None yet. We hold formation. Let the child show us how far he's willing to go."

Sabellus nodded and disappeared through the tent flap.

Julius turned to his armsman, snapping out his command like a war drum.

"My armor. My horse."

He would ride out himself.

If Amaury wanted to rattle the door of war, Julius would show him what waited on the other side personally.

~

The night blazed to life with fire and movement.

Horn calls rang through the ridges in sharp rhythmic bursts, their patterns instantly understood by every legionnaire in the sprawling three camps.

Men flooded from their tents, snapping into formations with a speed born of brutal discipline.

Torchlight threw dancing shadows across iron helms and polished shields as the Romanus war machine rumbled to life.

The western sky burned.

Flickers of orange and red where the Francians had set fire to one of the outlying supply caches.

Smoke churned up from the tree line, where the enemy cavalry had broken through a foraging party and clashed briefly with a squad of light auxilia.

The clash had been brief.

And it had ended with dead germanian blood on frozen grass who had been employed by the Romanus Legions.

Julius mounted his horse just as Caetrax returned, helm under arm.

"We intercepted a small wave trying to break for the camp's flank. Routed them — but they didn't fight like bandits. They knew exactly where to hit, and they weren't looking to loot."

"Then it's official,"

Julius said.

"This is war."

He could feel it in his chest — that familiar fire building.

Not rage.

Not vengeance.

Focus.

In another life, he might've hated it.

The way war sharpened him.

How alive it made him feel.

Now, he had come to accept it.

He turned to Gallius.

"Give the command. Torch the trees west of the supply road. If Amaury thinks the forest is cover, let's make it his funeral pyre."

Gallius grinned, barking orders to the waiting siege engineers.

"And the central command?"

Caetrax asked, gesturing toward the massing legions.

"Lock down position. Full perimeter shield wall. No pursuit yet. If Amaury wants us to step over the line, he'll need to push harder first so we have a worthy chase to undertake."

"And if he does?"

Julius glanced toward the ridge, where the hills were beginning to glow from more torchlight — Francian torchlight.

"Then we crush him here. Entirely. Not as a warning — as a declaration."

~

Within an hour, the first true engagement had begun.

The Francian cavalry swept down the western hills like a hunting lance — five hundred strong now — supported by dismounted infantry in rough blue and silver tabards.

Amaury had committed.

It wasn't a raid anymore.

It was a vanguard.

Julius sat astride his black warhorse on the forward command knoll, overlooking the field as the enemy charged straight for the outer ring of the western camp.

The Romanus walls held — tight, locked, and unbreaking in the face of this invading force.

The clash was thunder.

Francian riders met the phalanx like waves against a cliff.

Spears pierced flesh from atop the wall as the riders raced past.

Screams and steel tore the cold air.

Auxilia lines shifted, firing endlessly into the night, while Romanus heavy cavalry flanked from behind a southern ridgeline.

It was brutal.

Efficient.

Decisive.

Within minutes, the Francian charge began to falter.

Within an hour, the survivors were either captured or fleeing into the trees.

Julius himself never moved from the ridge.

He simply watched.

Expression unreadable.

Only when the final horn sounded — signaling full retreat and Romanus' control of the field — did he dismount and speak again.

"Capture the wounded,"

he ordered.

"Treat them. Question them."

"And the dead?"

Caetrax asked.

Julius looked down at the field of fallen enemies.

"Burn them. But leave their weapons. And their banners."

"Your Majesty?"

Julius's gaze turned east.

"They'll want to come back for them."

~

That night, the fires of victory burned tall.

But Julius didn't celebrate.

Instead, he stood in the shadow of the war table once more, now lit by new symbols drawn in red ink.

Markings of attack vectors, troop deployments — all now updated in real time.

He stared for a long moment at a single flag marker.

The one bearing the sigil of Amaury.

The boy had struck first.

And now, all of Francia would bleed for it.

Julius turned slowly to Haddin, who had remained behind with a full courier team ready to distribute orders at a moment's notice.

"Tell General Elheat: the coastline must be taken within the month. Naval staging is priority one."

"And the Legions here?"

Haddin asked.

Julius's voice was low and final.

"We no longer wait."

He looked out at the horizon.

"No more questions. No more border talk."

He turned toward the table again and picked up the silver figurine that marked his own command presence.

He moved it over the Francian line.

War had come.

And this time, it would not stop until a crown lay broken beneath Roman boots.