Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The fourth morning broke colder than the last — not merely in temperature, but in spirit.

A dull, oppressive silence gripped the valleys of south-eastern Francia, stretching from the charred forests near High Thandor to the wind-swept ridgelines beyond La Morienne.

No battle drums echoed.

No horns sounded.

No thunder of warhorses marked the dawn.

Yet within the camp of Romanus, tension thrummed like a drawn bowstring.

The legions had been still for three days.

Too still.

They were trained for endurance, for patience, for iron discipline — but there was only so long blood could remain unspilled before it boiled.

Men sharpened blades that needed no sharpening.

Drilled formations until their hands, and feet blistered.

Scouts begged to range deeper, to do something, anything.

The warriors of the Iron Cavalry rode circles around the camp, hungry, twitching, eager to be loosed.

Even the Praetorians, normally statuesque and stoic, had begun to shift more in place during briefings, their gaze drifting too often to the distant smoke trails that whispered of villages dying not by Roman hands — but by Francian ones.

And at the center of it all, Emperor Julius watched the frost settle into the scorched valley grass and knew—

The time to act was nigh.

~

Inside the war tent, the table was already lit with soft golden light from the morning braziers.

The new map — updated with the Root's gathered intelligence — was stretched taut beneath iron weights.

Sabellus, Caetrax, Gallius, and several senior legion officers stood at attention.

Julius entered without ceremony, his imperial cloak traded for a black cavalry cloak, fur-lined and clasped with a steel brooch.

He moved to the table, eyes already scanning the confirmed Francian positions.

"They've pulled back further than expected,"

Sabellus said.

"After the raids failed, most of Amaury's forces retreated behind La Morienne's outer wall. Civilian morale in the frontier has collapsed. Local militias disbanded. The few that remain now blame Amaury more than us."

"Good,"

Julius murmured.

He tapped a red circle at the eastern river crossing near Dunvalle.

"We march through here. Bypass the larger towns. Establish rally points in still-inhabited villages — ones untouched by the burnings."

"And if the Francians regroup?"

asked Caetrax.

Julius smiled faintly.

"They can regroup behind a wall or inside a coffin. Either is acceptable."

He turned to the side, drawing a new line through the map from the ridge south of Thandor to the northern coastline under threat of invasion by the Brittanian's.

"We don't just press north. We cut a wedge. One that cleaves the region in two — Seperating east from west, and shattering their supply lines, isolating La Morienne command, and creating a corridor we control entirely."

Sabellus leaned forward.

"We're fast enough. But if their reserves mobilize, they may try to block the Dunvalle ford."

"Then we don't use the ford,"

Julius said.

He looked to Gallius.

"Order the engineers to prepare pontoon bridges north of the ford under cover of night. If they expect us to charge the river directly, we flank their flank."

"And provisions?"

asked one of the logisticians.

Julius glanced to the updated Root scroll, already memorized.

"There's an untouched granary in Bellenne,"

he said.

"Loyal to a minor noble who's petitioned neither the crown nor Amaury in the last six months. Send an envoy — offer Roman protection in exchange for submission. If they resist…"

He didn't finish the sentence.

He didn't have to.

Francia was already at war, and though they did not know it yet, Romanus was about to open three different fronts, while Brittannia could open a fourth.

The time for Francian domination over the region was coming to an end, and Romanus was ready to be the one to drop the axe.

~

By midday, the horns of Romanus finally sounded.

Four long notes — the signal of coordinated movement across all major camps.

Soldiers erupted into motion.

Cohorts marched in lockstep, iron glinting in the cold light.

Banners rose — not in show, but in promise.

The Empire was moving.

And this time, it would not stop until stone walls crumbled and crowns fell.

~

Julius stood atop a watchtower constructed near the vanguard ridge, his breath fogging the air as he watched the vanguard detachments move.

The snow crunched beneath the boots of twenty thousand infantrymen.

Behind them, the auxiliary and siege columns followed with grim precision, and beyond that, the supply caravans rolled like a spine of steel and stone.

The march had begun.

Yet even as his army surged forward, Julius's mind remained tethered to one point.

Saint Joan.

The scout reports were coming in steadily now.

She had been spotted healing a wounded soldier with no more than prayer.

She had quelled a peasant mob with a word.

She had entered burned-out villages and inspired people to rebuild without command, without crown, without coin.

Julius found that… unsettling.

Not because she was miraculous — that could still be smoke and legend.

But because she mattered.

In a land already slipping from Amaury's fingers, she had become the rope people clung to in the flood.

The only single strand keeping the people from rallying to Romanus as liberators rather than against them as conquerors.

He hadn't expected her to matter this much.

But she did.

And that made her dangerous, an obstacle in his conquest of the kingdom.

Still, not yet enough to divert strategy, she was only a local figure for now, but if she became a rallying voice to bring the fury of Francia together, unifying the nation, the fight would become that much harder, but still far from unwinnable.

He would continue to watch her for now.

Not confront.

Not yet.

Let her comfort the dying.

Let her raise the broken.

He would raise something else.

A new order.

Born of conquest.

Anchored by law.

Built not on faith — but on unshakable, imperial truth.

~

As the vanguard crested the final hill into Francian lands proper, Julius lowered his spyglass.

The scorched fields beyond were barren — crumbling homesteads, salted soil, abandoned animals long since dead rotting under the midday sun, even as the cold winds tried their best to preserve the meat.

But farther ahead… signs of life.

Small hamlets untouched, miles from the border, the presumed frontline that Francian's had drawn to withstand the marching Romans coming across no-mans land.

Places worth saving from tyrannical orders that only harm civilians.

Julius waged war in the most humane way possible, civilians were just that, civilians.

If any rose up against occupation ceasing to be civilians but instead to be insurgents or rebels, he'd deal with them, but if they were shown respect and treated properly, hell even better than they were treated under another rule for what reason other than loyalty would they have to rebel?

He turned to his command staff.

"We march through the ashes,"

he said,

"but we do not become fire."

Gallius nodded.

"You mean to win them?"

Julius's voice was firm.

"I mean to replace what they had, francians are not people of Romanus, not yet. Just like Greccia they can become a part of our empire but to truly become Romanus born and bred they must earn the right."

He turned his horse.

"Let the soldiers eat well tonight. Tomorrow, we take Bellenne."

He glanced west — toward the mists of the forest.

Where rumor said Joan had passed the night before.

"Let the Saint walk with her peasants."

He pulled his cloak tighter.

"I'll walk with the future."