Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

The Battle of Le Pont Noir – Midday

War, in stories, often ends with a charge.

Here, it began with the collapse of breath, the crunch of bone, the rattle of screams beneath a sky still bleeding flame.

A Francian knight stumbled forward, armor blackened by pitch, his helm half-melted into the side of his skull.

He didn't scream — he couldn't.

The heat had scorched the air from his lungs.

Still, he lifted his longsword, teeth gritted behind a fused visor, and lunged for the nearest Romanus dog he could find.

The legionnaire met him with calm brutality — gladius rising, angled perfectly beneath the exposed plate.

The thrust didn't hesitate.

It punched through mail, into gut, and twisted.

The knight fell backward like a dropped statue.

Cracked.

Hollow.

The legionnaire stepped over him without a second glance moving on to his next victim.

To the east, the Francian men-at-arms held a tighter formation.

These weren't conscript farmers or half-trained provincial guards.

They were trained soldiers, shield-bearers from noble houses, drilled for years in line combat.

They'd formed a proper phalanx, advancing up the slope into the Romanus left.

They managed twenty steps.

Then the pilum came.

A wall of Romanus javelins arced from above — iron-shafted, heavy-tipped.

They weren't meant to kill instantly, not always.

They bent on impact, twisted into shields, made them useless.

Shields shattered.

Men screamed.

The Francians, caught in mid-step, staggered as their lines lost cohesion.

And then the Romanus cohorts descended.

Six files across, tower shields up, pushing into the line rather than just against it.

Gladii stabbed forward — not wildly, but in rhythm. Always low.

Always precise.

A Francian officer raised his warhammer overhead, shouting something defiant in his tongue — only for his jaw to be crushed by a shield rim as a Romanus soldier rammed into him shoulder-first, then stabbed up through the man's groin.

Blood jetted like steam.

The line broke.

Near the valley's heart, fire rolled in sheets along the snow.

Ash and soot clung to men like second skins.

A group of Francian knights, perhaps a dozen in total, pressed forward, their horses long gone, boots slick with half-melted slush.

They weren't screaming anymore.

They were breathing — like oxen, labored and wheezing — trying to survive the heat and the crushing weight of Roman discipline.

One raised a kite shield against a Romanus spearman and swung wide with his axe, catching the legionnaire in the leg.

The Roman fell — but another stepped into his place, and another behind him, brothers fighting as one to protect the potential loss.

The knight roared, tried to press forward.

Then his visor snapped closed involuntarily — because it had been crushed inward by the butt of a tower shield.

He went down, twitching.

A pair of Francian bannermen tried to raise their standard again — the stag of Saint-Valais, now smeared with tar and flame — only for a burning jar to land directly at their feet.

The explosion wasn't large.

But it was close.

One was thrown backward, screaming, arms aflame.

The other dropped to his knees, clutching at his face as it peeled away from the bone.

Behind them, a Romanus formation stepped over the bodies and moved on.

To the south, the fighting turned feral.

The Francian elite cavalry, dismounted and enraged, attempted a counter-charge through the burning trench line, hoping to flank the Romanus siege crews.

They made it twenty meters.

Then the Iron Cavalry arrived.

They didn't clash like the old knightly tales, lance to lance under banners.

They collided — steel on flesh, hooves breaking bone, chainmail exploding like shredded bark.

A Romanus rider caught a Francian noble with his war pick under the breastplate.

The weapon snagged ribs, yanked the man sideways from his feet.

Another slammed his mount straight into two sword-wielders, trampling one, crushing the other's thigh under an armored hoof.

This was not jousting.

This was butchery.

Everywhere, Francian units fought back — but not together.

There were brave stands.

Men who died screaming prayers for the gods forgiveness.

Others who died silent, blades still swinging refusing to die until the end.

One group of archers, pushed back against a burning supply cart, tried to fire uphill into the Romanus flank.

They got off four volleys.

Then the Nymbrati arrived.

The white-clad assassins emerged from the smoke like ghosts.

They didn't fight in formation.

They didn't fight fair.

They slipped into gaps.

A dagger to the ribs.

A slash across the throat.

A shove into the fire.

One archer, turning to flee, found himself facing three shadows.

He raised his bow.

And dropped it, a throwing knife now buried in his palm.

He screamed.

Then fell silent.

The center of the valley had become a mire of shattered banners, mangled men, and ruptured earth. No one gave orders now.

It was too loud.

Too thick with smoke.

Too soaked in blood.

Every cry sounded the same — a warlord, a footman, a noble.

All reduced to the same sound: pain.

A Romanus legionnaire, his helmet cracked and dented, drove his shield into the gut of a Francian, slipped, and fell into the corpse beside him.

He didn't rise for a moment — couldn't.

His body was shaking, his shoulder dislocated.

He rolled, barely blocking the next blade in time.

Then his cohort-mate stepped over him and killed the man who had struck.

He helped him up.

They didn't speak.

They simply kept moving forward.

Snow no longer fell.

It had turned to steam.

Everywhere, mist mixed with smoke and ash.

Men stumbled blind, striking friend and foe alike.

One Francian knight, drenched in blood not his own, swung wildly at shadows.

His face was burned black, one eye swollen shut.

He struck a Romanus, but the blade bounced off the layered armor.

The Romanus slammed into him shoulder-first, wrapping an arm behind his elbow and snapping it with a sickening crunch.

The knight dropped his sword.

He fell on his knees.

And the next blade finished him.

By the time the third hour passed, the killing had slowed — not for lack of will, but exhaustion.

Men slumped against corpses.

Some Francians begged to be killed, broken weapons in hand, weeping through cracked lips.

The Romanus gave no reply.

They moved forward, always forward, their pace inexorable, unstoppable.

The battlefield was no longer divided.

There was no front.

No rear.

Just blood.

And fire.

And the unyielding sound of metal grinding against humanity.

Atop the ridge, the war-drums ceased.

Sabellus stood silently.

Even he looked pale.

Julius did not speak.

He simply looked.

Watched.

Below them, the field of Le Pont Noir burned.

And with it — a kingdom.

Not in fire.

But in despair.