Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The early morning mist had not yet lifted from the low hills when the outriders returned with breathless haste.

Their mounts, foamed at the flanks, bore dust-caked riders with tight grips on their reins and fire in their eyes.

The forward camp—pitched atop the ridge overlooking the village of Tournelle—erupted into controlled activity as horns gave three sharp calls.

Julius, still in his campaign armor, was already rising from his chair when the first scout saluted sharply.

"Speak."

"Enemy force, my Lord,"

the scout said.

"Eight to ten thousand, by our count. Francian levy, under Lord Guilliame de Tournelle. They're not retreating—they're marching."

Sabellus blinked.

"They're sallying out? In open terrain?"

"That's suicide,"

Caetrax muttered.

Julius's expression remained impassive.

He turned toward the edge of the tent and pulled aside the canvas flap.

In the distance, just past the forested break beyond the valley, he could see faint plumes of dust rising on the horizon—disorganized, but numerous.

Movement.

Marching men.

And not away from the coming storm.

Toward it.

"Well then,"

Julius said calmly.

"We've found a noble with a spine."

"Or no sense,"

Sabellus added.

Julius smiled faintly.

"The two are often confused."

~

The Plains Outside Tournelle – Later That Day

The sun had risen to its zenith, pale and cold above a sky of washed-out grey, by the time the Romanus legions finished deploying.

Two full legions now stood shoulder to shoulder on the hill that dominated the mouth of the valley—a position that gave them the advantage of height, and wind, and ground hardened from days of frost.

Formations were laid with textbook precision:Three lines deep, with spear cohorts to the front, shield-bearers behind, and the archers and light slingers stationed on the flanks under mounted screens.

Behind the core stood the Iron Cavalry, silent and unmoving beneath their scale-mail cloaks, their horses eager but controlled.

To the rear of it all, Julius and his command staff took station at the field platform hastily constructed the night before.

Below them, a sea of Francian infantry—barely uniformed, poorly spaced, and wielding a mix of polearms, hunting bows, scythes, and axes—assembled with more fervor than discipline.

They looked less like an army and more like an angry mob held together by faith and desperation.

But eight thousand bodies could still drown a field in blood.

And at their head rode Lord Guilliame de Tournelle with a small company of knights.

Unlike his ragged soldiers, Guilliame wore polished armor—ornate, old, and inherited.

The crest of his family, a winged stag, gleamed from his chestplate.

His helm bore a crest of blue feathers, and his mount was a great charger from the royal stables, one of the few remaining warhorses in local hands.

The man raised his sword as he rode out alone to parley.

Julius watched him approach, then gave a brief nod.

"I will hear him."

Sabellus stepped forward.

"Your Grace, it is not—"

"—necessary? No. But I am not yet above listening to the dead before they die."

~

Parley – Midfield

The two men met between their lines.

No escort.

No banner of truce.

Just the wind and the field and the silence of thousands holding their breath.

Lord Guilliame reined in his mount, eyes narrowed as he studied Julius.

He was older than Julius expected—late forties, perhaps—weathered from hard years, not courtly ones.

There was no fear in his gaze.

"I've heard the stories,"

he said.

"You burn no churches. You spare the poor. You take land and ask its people to call it mercy."

Julius didn't blink.

"Would you rather I salted the earth as you've done?"

"I'd rather you stayed out of it,"

Guilliame said.

"Francia bleeds. You came with daggers to the wounded. And now you ask me to bend the knee?"

"I asked you nothing."

Guilliame's grip tightened on his reins.

"Then this ends in fire."

"It always does,"

Julius said calmly.

"But it needn't begin that way."

He gestured behind him.

"I offer quarter to your men. Safe conduct. Supplies. They can return to their farms, their homes, their children. They will not be Romanus, not yet, but they will live."

Guilliame snorted.

"And what of me?"

"You may live too. But not as lord."

Guilliame's smile was tight and bitter.

"Then we are already at war."

Julius nodded once.

"I will not offer the choice again."

The Francian lord turned without another word and rode back to his lines.

~

The Romanus Formation – Minutes Later

"Sir,"

Caetrax said, stepping beside Julius as he returned to the platform.

"He refused?"

"As expected, to attached to his inherited position to consider being anything less even at the gain of the people he rules."

"What are your orders?"

Julius looked down across the field.

The Francians had begun to chant.

Old war songs taught to them in stories of the past, meant to bolster their morale against the army whispered in ever rumor as of late.

"I want our archers to hold fire until they are in range of the second banner,"

Julius said.

"They'll be winded by then,"

Sabellus noted.

"They'll be dead by then,"

Julius replied.

"Enemy cavalry?"

"None worth noting. If they charge, flank and break them. But Guilliame will not risk a charge with peasants."

Sabellus nodded.

"And the signal?"

Julius turned his eyes toward the valley.

The Francian force had begun to advance, slowly at first, but now more rapidly.

The mass of bodies surged forward with scattered horns and shouted names of saints.

He exhaled slowly.

Then raised his hand.

The Roman banners fluttered.

And two legions moved as one.

~

-The Field Begins to Burn-

The moment passed into memory.

A final breath.

Then movement.

The Francians surged forward, shouting curses and prayers, teeth clenched, eyes wild.

And the Legions met them.

Not with shouts.

Not with bravado.

But with iron.

And purpose.

The first line of spears dropped to brace.

The second raised shields.

The third adjusted spacing, locking formations.

And then—

The field shattered into motion as 8,000 desperate men met the walls of a machine as if forged by centuries of war.

Steel rang.

Screams tore into the sky.

Blood hit the frozen dirt.

And Julius, from atop the ridge, watched the first ripple in the great ocean of conquest begin to spread.