Fortune, which had so often smiled upon him, had quite abandoned his cause just when he required miracles of her.

"Can you hit it?" Jacques demanded moments after he burst through the smithy door. "The cross, three hundred yards out from the wall. Can you hit it?"

Tullia Bato looked up from her forge. She was casting molten iron into a metal mold, face covered in soot, sweat drenching her shirt. Two of her apprentices hurried away carrying buckets of dirty water. The heat from her forge was oppressive.

"Hit it?" she asked, her eyes never leaving the casting.

"Your swivel guns," Jacques said. "Can you hit the cross with them from the city wall?"

Tullia finished pouring and set down her crucible. "Three hundred yards?" She straightened her back and placed a hand on her chin. "Not possible. The guns aren't accurate enough. They can shoot far enough, but there's not a chance you'll hit what you're aiming for. You need those big ones your main army uses. 'Cannons', I think you call them."

"Do we have any?" Jacques asked.

She shook her head. "Sent all of them to your Marshal. And we haven't got much bronze left in the city. Besides, even if we had them, we couldn't use them. The walls don't have enough space, and, if you fire one, the recoil will send it plummeting to the ground." She blinked and reconsidered Jacques. "Not that I've ever seen one fired, of course. But if I ever had seen one fired, that's what I'd imagine it'd be like. But I haven't, because Chaucer doesn't want us locals using your magic."

Jacques sighed. "You're certain there's no way we can hit that?"

Tullia bit her lip. "Actually," she started, "I've been thinking. Have you ever seen an arrow in flight?"

"Yes," Jacques replied. "Most of the time I see them coming at me."

Tullia nodded enthusiastically. "Right, but have you ever really watched one?"

Jacques shook his head.

"Well you see," she said, "arrows spin while they fly. It's part of the reason they have fletching. That spinning stabilizes them in the air, so fletching is added to make the arrow more accurate and longer ranged. Bad fletching means a bad spin, less stability, and worse accuracy. Good fletching means a good spin and a happy archer."

"What does this have to do with hitting the cross?"

"Ahah," she beamed. "I've been working on your guns for a bit now, and it's occured to me that your stuff doesn't use that concept. All your guns do is propel a ball really fast, but there's no fletching to get that ball spinning, because that wouldn't survive the propulsion. Not that a dirty local like myself knows how they work, of course. But I've been thinking on the issue, and I figure that there are other ways to get the ball spinning. Like if you carve a spiral groove in the barrel after it's cast; that would mean the ball is forced to spin when it's…"

Jacques was staring at her, so she trailed off. "You're talking about rifles," he stated.

"Rifles?" Tullia tried the word.

"We have them back in our world," Jacques said. "Exactly like you say with grooves and all that. We don't use them, but the English are keen, and the Russians have a few regiments who use them."

Tullia blinked. "English? Russians?" She blinked again and said, "So this already exists?"

Jacques nodded.

"Then what you're saying is that it works." Tullia smiled. "If we converted some of the swivel guns into these rifles then I might be able to hit the cross."

Jacques rubbed his chin. He'd never seen or heard of a rifled swivel gun. "Worth a try," he decided.

Tullia grinned like a fox.

Work began immediately on the rifling. Tullia, being an intrepid inventor, had already prototyped a means of creating grooves on her swivel guns long before Jacques had even come to Italica. Jacques suspected she'd been looking for an excuse to test her theory. She had commissioned a hand tool from the city's carpenters, just a simple wooden mechanism that pushed forward while simultaneously rotating a cutter on the end of a mount. The cutter was steel, specially forged by Tullia, and it could cut the bronze barrels of her swivel guns with somewhat accurate precision. With each push, Tullia could cut a single groove in the barrel. For maximum effectiveness, she'd determined that each barrel would need eight grooves. That meant hours of careful work with her new tool for a single barrel, and, if she messed up once, the whole process had to be repeated.

Bronze was, apparently, in short supply in Italica due to Chaucer's cannon demands months earlier. When Jacques suggested making iron barrels, Tullia laughed at him and told him that it was impossible. It was too difficult of a material, she claimed. Jacques, who had seen iron cannons regularly in French service, merely shrugged and accepted that.

Instead, they chose to use the swivel guns they already had. They plundered every extra swivel gun they could without stripping the towers completely bare. That added up to ten guns. Then they brought the guns to Tullia's smithy to be rebored.

It took her three tries to get the barrel right. The first had its grooves slightly off. The second she accidentally ruined with a bad cut. The third cracked when it was test fired because she'd cut out too much material.

All three failed barrels had to be melted down and recast. But when Tullia tried her fourth time, she got it right.

The newly rifled swivel gun shot an iron ball double its previous range and with far greater accuracy. They used custom forged balls, slightly larger than the previous ones, so that there was a tight fit between it and the barrel. It was difficult to load; the rifling meant that the gunners had to use a mallet to seat the ball then jam it down with a rammer. They shot at roughly half the speed of the normal guns. But the added range and accuracy was necessary for Jacques's plan.

Then came the grueling task of repeating that success nine more times. Tullia didn't trust any of her apprentices with such precision, so she was the only one reboring the barrels. She worked day and night on them, carefully cutting each barrel to fit her exacting specifications. Some she got the first time; others had to be done several times. It took nearly a week to finish all ten.

All the while, Rory Mercury screamed outside the east wall.

Chaucer was right; her voice didn't give out. Rory's suffering was ever present. Her voice could be heard from any point on the wall, even the furthest west. It was muted in the city, and for the most part, her screams couldn't be heard above the usual activity of the city. But sometimes, when the city became quiet enough, Rory's screaming would become just barely audible so that the people of Italica were reminded of the cruelty being inflicted on her.

It was a long week. The mood in the city had become noticeably disturbed. Jacques had a lot of time to feel guilty.

He found he wasn't sleeping much anymore.


The sun had fallen not much more than a hand's width above the horizon when the Saderan torturers returned from dinner to continue their work. Rory's limbs had never stopped producing blood, Jacques was appalled to find. It pooled just below the cross and had dried to form a black splotch that covered most of the ground of the Saderan outpost.

"You ever wonder how a person can do that to another person?" Tullia Bato muttered, shuddering. She stared from the top of the east wall at the cross Rory was nailed to.

"You're certain you can hit it from this distance?" Jacques asked.

"Easily," Tullia scoffed. "I did all the calculations this morning. My gunners can hit it without breaking a sweat so long as they follow my directions."

Jacques nodded. "Right. Just make sure you remember to stop firing when my men reach the earthworks."

"You don't have to worry about that," Tullia replied. "I'll be careful."

"Good." Jacques breathed in. "Time to go then."

Tullia smiled. "Good luck," she said. Then Tullia gave what could somewhat pass as a salute and turned away. She ran into one of the wall's towers and scurried up a staircase.

Jacques breathed out. Then he went down the stairs leading to the ground.

The Ninth Company was waiting for him at the bottom. They were assembled just before the gatehouse, formed up in a narrow column. A dozen nervous militiamen were on duty at the gatehouse and looked at the Frenchmen in awe.

"Open the gate!" Jacques ordered them. The militiamen rushed to do as he asked.

Astier nodded at Jacques when he approached. "You sure you still want to do this, Captain? She's not one of ours."

Jacques bit his lip. "Yes, she is."

Ten swivel guns went off in a succession. The sound swept over the city and drew the attention of men everywhere. A woman was shouting up in the towers, her voice distinct amidst the confusion.

"Guess that settles it," Astier sighed.

Ahead of them, militiamen shifted the gate open.

Vidal gave Jacques a reassuring look as he passed her. It helped push down his fears, and he smiled to show his gratitude. She smiled back.

Then he put himself at the head of the Ninth Company.

"Did you hear those screams?!" Jacques shouted to his men.

Heads snapped to him.

"Those bastards out there have spent day after day committing an act of horrific barbarity!" Jacques continued.

Men growled.

"Let's go and stop them!" he called.

They roared.

The swivel guns went off again as if to punctuate their roar. The militiamen had swung the gate fully open, and Jacques could now see Rory's cross. It was slightly right of the gate's path, and it looked like hell.

But Jacques had already been to hell. This was too light to be that.

"With me!" Jacques ordered.

They covered the first fifty yards at a fast trot. Then another fifty. It wasn't any marching pace. Jacques simply went forward at a speed that felt right, and his men kept up with him. They were moving well, and the guns kept firing overhead.

The Saderans looked terrified. Their three hundred or so men were huddled behind earthworks. Tullia's rifled guns were deadly accurate, and men who peaked up were eviscerated into bloody pulps of corpses. A collection of torn up bodies lay beyond the earthworks; the corpses of men who'd been hit by the first barrage.

Jacques's men crossed the line he'd imagined for crossbow range. They received no bolts from the Saderans, so he continued on. The Saderans were too busy taking cover to shoot at them.

Jacques had aligned his attack with the setting sun. It was an orange ball behind the Ninth Company.

No one said anything. They just kept trotting forward.

Another hundred yards passed in a blink. They still weren't receiving any fire from the Saderans. Tullia's guns were too effective for that.

Jacques laughed. He felt strong. There was no reason a frontal assault on a fortified position should be going this well. He could only assume the Saderans weren't used to bombardment. For a moment, Jacques considered that it was a trap; perhaps the Saderans had cavalry coming up to sweep them away. But if it was a trap, the Saderans had timed it poorly, because Jacques's men were about to reach the earthworks.

The outpost was fifty yards away. They were within easy musket range, if only there was something to shoot at. The Saderans were all cowering behind their earthworks.

Tullia's guns fired one last time behind them.

The Ninth Company was as well supported as it could be.

Jacques was sprinting in full kit. His sword was drawn, and he had his pistol in the other hand. The company was well enough formed, and the setting sun turned their bayonets into fire.

Someone peaked over the earthworks and saw them. There was a sudden burst of shouting, but it was too little, too late. The Saderans were paralyzed, waiting for another barrage.

Twenty yards out, Jacques knew his plan had worked. There was a certain glee in that, even if it meant the deaths of men. Besides, it was hard to find sympathy for these men.

The earthworks ahead were sloped with a ditch in front of them. Ideally, they'd force a man to go down the ditch then crawl up the rampart slowly while under a hail of missile fire. But Jacques had fought at Borodino, Tubet, and Italica. He had his own notion of how to tackle the earthworks. Jacques had no intention of waiting to be shot at.

Five yards out, Jacques pushed his legs to their limit. There were a dozen Saderans waiting at the top, no longer cowed by Tullia's guns.

All or nothing.

Jacques leapt.

He almost didn't make it. The ditch was wider than he'd expected. But he got his left foot on the slope, his right foot landed forward, and then…

And then he was fighting.

Jacques landed at the top of the dirt rampart. Below him were three hundred frightened Saderans, to his sides a dozen brave men. He shot the first man to attack him. The bullet went through shield and armor alike, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Jacques shoved his pistol into his uniform, then he turned and swung behind him. It struck a man on the helmet, knocking him down the rampart into his scared comrades. He exchanged blows with a man with a purple plume on his helmet, sword against sword, and was forced a step back.

But around him, blue uniforms came swarming up the rampart. They drove forward, and Jacques's opponent backed down the slope. Ninth Company fusiliers lined the top of the rampart. Most of the Saderans at the bottom were only just realizing what was happening.

"Fire at will!" Jacques screamed.

A dozen cracks sounded off instantly. Dozens more followed quickly. Fusiliers shot down the rampart into the huddle of Saderans below them. Musketry scythed through the legionaries, piercing past armor and into flesh with devastating effect. It was a rolling crackle of gunfire as men reloaded and fired in various intervals. Chaos took over amongst the Saderans. Their huddle turned into a mob at once, and legionaries began pushing and shoving in various directions. Mostly they tried to run away from the ramparts, but some men were braver or more desperate, and they tried to face the Ninth Company atop the earthworks. These men fared poorly. Forced to climb their own ramparts under thunderous musket fire, only a handful reached the top. Those few who made it were quickly skewered by bayonets. The rest of the Saderans continued trying to break away from Jacques's men, fleeing for the main Saderan camp. However, from their position atop the ramparts, the fusiliers had a field of fire stretching across the entire outpost, and they shot down over a hundred men attempting to run.

Then it was quiet.

Perhaps a third of the Saderans managed to flee from their outpost. They scattered across no man's land and ran for their main camp. Ninth Company fusiliers reloaded silently, looking on at the butchery they had committed.

Jacques breathed. He'd barely fought yet the outpost was now deserted. Saderan corpses filled the ground below him.

A whimper suddenly pierced the air.

Jacques blinked. He snapped himself out of the fog engulfing his mind and looked to where Rory Mercury was crucified. She hadn't seemed to notice what had gone on around her.

"Get her down," Jacques ordered, and four men slid down the rampart to rush over to her.

One of the men nearly slipped on a pool of blood. It was everywhere, so much of it that it had covered the earth completely. Rory had never stopped producing blood even after her limbs were hacked away.

The four men began prying out nails from Rory's body. Every movement produced a scream. Jacques hated it, but he couldn't look away. The nails had been hammered deep, and they oozed blood-

Astier's voice blared in his ear, "Captain, look!"

Jacques blinked again. "Huh?"

He pointed. "Look!"

Jacques looked and felt his stomach turn.

There were at least thirty of them. Massive humanoids, four times the height of a normal man, wielding giant clubs with their misshapen arms. Jacques knew them instantly. They were, after all, the first supernatural creatures he'd encountered in this world.

Ogres.

Jacques forced his fear down. He studied the ogres, emerging from the Saderan camp at a run, and considered his options. He knew the ogres weren't invincible; his men had fought and killed these creatures before. Of course, back then they'd been supported by cannons. And there'd only been four of the monsters.

That settled it.

"Time to run!" he announced. Everyone knew what that meant.

The ogres tumbled forward together. Even at this distance, Jacques could feel their movements in the ground.

He looked at Astier. "You and Vidal get the company back in the city. Don't wait for me. If they come for the gate, tell Tullia to open up on them with round shot."

Astier glanced between him and the ogres. "What are you going to do?"

"Something stupid," Jacques said. Then he did his best to smile. "No time to lose. Get going."

Astier's booming voice began to call men out of the outpost. Vidal joined him, and the Ninth Company streamed down the ramparts. The men working to free Rory were still prying out nails, but every so often one would glance over at the approaching ogres.

Jacques spat and scrambled into the outpost. He stepped through sticky blood to reach Rory's cross. The men there looked at him.

"You four get out of here. I can handle the rest," Jacques told them.

None of them hesitated. They immediately abandoned the cross and began running for the city. One looked back, but none protested his orders. Jacques couldn't blame them; the ogres were getting closer.

He tore his gaze away from the monsters. Rory Mercury had one eye open, watching him with what appeared like silent curiosity. Jacques took a breath and stepped closer.

The men had managed to free most of the nails driven into Rory's body. Her body had already healed those wounds. A single nail pinned her torso to the cross while four more stuck out of the limbs beside it.

He took another breath. The ground was rumbling. His stomach didn't feel right.

No time to lose, he told himself.

Jacques forced himself to grip the first nail, sticky with blood, and pull. A shriek erupted from Rory, but the nail refused to budge. He tried again and only produced more shrieks.

The ground continued to rumble.

Jacques found that his hands were shaking. With a deep breath, he gripped his sword and positioned the blade against the nail's head. He put it across Rory's body like one massive crowbar, the hilt leveraging off the end of her torso. With one hand on the handle, the other on the blade, Jacques looked into Rory's distant eyes.

The ground shook.

"I'm sorry."

He pushed.

Rory screeched.

The nail came free all at once, and Rory's torso dropped from the cross with a thump. She stopped screaming a moment after she hit the ground, and Jacques flipped her so that she was face up. Rory blinked as if coming from out of a dream.

The limbs were easier. Rory couldn't feel pain in them, so Jacques set about the gruesome job of ripping them out off the cross without first removing the nails. It was quick. He put them onto her torso, each going onto a blood nub the Saderans had left. There was something unholy about watching Rory's flesh knit back together, reaffixing the limbs to their proper positions.

Jacques shuddered. He breathed. He looked at the ogres, maybe a minute from reaching him. The ground quaked.

Rory lay on her back, unmoving, staring at the sky like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Fuck," Jacques breathed. "Why did I have to do this alone?" he asked aloud.

No time to lose.

He sheathed his sword. The ground was thundering.

"Fuck."

In one movement, Jacques scooped Rory into his arms. She was limp, and she was lighter than Jacques had expected. Her head rolled back, and Rory's eyes looked into Jacques's. Her gaze lazily drifted to the side, to where her giant halberd was stored in a crate.

Jacques considered it. He considered it for a quarter of a second. Then he began running.

The ogres were nearly at the outpost, and he was out of time. He ran from the cross, leaving the halberd behind, and clambered up the side of an earthwork rampart. Rory Mercury jostled in his arms.

There was a belching roar behind him. One of the ogres pounded the ground with its club, and the rest began a lumbering sprint forward.

Jacques felt sweat wash over him. He pumped his legs and clung onto Rory. His lungs worked like forge bellows. The ogres were big, and their long legs covered immense distances with each stride. Jacques lost ground rapidly. He could hear the monsters' breathing.

But there was also another sound.

The sound of gun crews shouting to each other.

"Load!"

"Ready!"

"Fire!"

They were in French, Chaucer had mandated all gunners use French terms, and they were followed by a rhythm of swivel gunfire.

One - two - three - four - five.

Closest ogre to Jacques took an iron ball to the chest. It tore through flesh and bone, into its chest cavity and out the other side. The ogre stumbled and fell. The next two closest took two shots each, and they dropped dead too.

One - two - three - four.

The second barrage erupted from the wall. One ogre took a hit to the head, crashing to the ground in an instant. Another took one to the shoulder and kept running. The last two shots merely grazed their targets.

One.

Jacques was almost to the gate when the final shot was let loose. It pitched through the air spinning, entered the throat of an enraged ogre, tore out its nape, and spiraled into the monster behind its chest, through skin, through muscle, through bone, into an oversized heart, dropping both with one shot.

Jacques tumbled through the east gate. It was open, Astier and Vidal had ensured that much, and he slumped to his knees the second he was through. Militiamen immediately pushed the massive doors close. Jacques dumped Rory to the ground unceremoniously.

He sighed. Breathed. Calmed himself.

"Captain! You'd better get up here!" Vidal called.

He groaned and pushed himself up. His legs felt overused. Vidal was on the wall where Tullia's gunners were reloading, and Jacques had to climb the stairs leading up, wincing with each step.

He was halfway up when the walls shook. It felt like someone was beating a massive gong. Sudden shocks repeated again and again. Fear gave him the energy to scale the rest of the way.

"What the hell is that?" Jacques demanded as soon as he reached the top.

His question got lost in a chaos that was the top of the wall. There was a flurry of movement everywhere. Gunners were finishing reloading their swivel guns while ammo carriers ran back and forth currying crossbow bolts. Two militia sergeants barked orders. Crossbow-armed militiamen ran to various points on the wall's edge and loosed bolts. Vidal and Tullia were leaning over the side of the wall looking at something all the while the wall continued to shake.

Jacques hurried to the side. He leaned out to get a look and saw three ogres beating at the gate with clubs. It was visibly bent inward. The rest of the monsters pounded the base of the wall, causing it to tremble with each hit.

Jacques's brilliant plan suddenly seemed like hubris. It had gone too well.

Vidal finally noticed Jacques and withdrew from the edge. "The gate won't hold for long, Captain. Each of those monsters is like a battering ram."

"I can't hit them with my guns; the angle's too steep," Tullia added.

Jacques nodded and tried to think. He looked over the edge again, then he looked to the city. "Vidal, tell Astier to get the Ninth Company formed up thirty yards from the gate. Then find whoever's in charge of the militia for this sector and get their spearmen arranged at the base of the wall."

Vidal nodded, saluted, and hurried off.

Jacques looked to Tullia. "Face your-"

"Dragons!" someone in the towers shouted.

"Legionaries coming this way!"

"Orcs headed for the western breaches!"

"More legionaries marching for the south!" a final voice cried.

Jacques looked out from the wall and swore. Someone in the Saderan camp knew what they were doing, and Jacques watched as a three pronged assault seemingly materialized from nothing. Columns of legionaries streamed from the south end of the Saderan camp, accompanied by orcs to the west and more legionaries coming to reinforce the ogres in the east.

An assault like this must've been prepared far in advance. Perhaps it was a trap for Jacques's sortie. Perhaps Jacques had simply forced their hand early. It didn't matter. This was all or nothing now.

"We have time before the other attacks are underway," Jacques said, mainly to himself. He looked back at Tullia. "Send someone for Lagos; I want the entire reserve here as soon as they can. Then get your guns ready to repel those dragons."

Tullia didn't salute; she wasn't a soldier. However, she did follow his orders. She immediately began barking commands, and a skinny boy went running for Clan Formal's mansion.

Meanwhile, Jacques went to rejoin the Ninth Company, already reforming at Astier's direction thirty yards from the gate. He scurried down the stairway, legs curiously no longer aching, and ran for his men.

Behind him, the gate was being pounded on, and with each hit the wood seemed to bend further inward. It appeared on the edge of splintering.

To his side, Vidal herded a mob of militiamen with spears into something resembling a formation. She had a terrified man next to her translating her commands from French to Saderan while militia sergeants did their best to follow her lead.

Jacques nodded at her as he passed. She nodded back.

He reached Astier and the Ninth Company. Men kept looking between each other and the gate.

They were nervous.

Of course they were nervous. They were fighting monsters. Everyone was nervous, Jacques included.

"Listen up!" he roared, because that helped to drown out his fear. It helped more than just him, and men snapped to attention. "Those creatures will be through any moment now, so here's the plan! The militia will hold the monsters in place while we shoot above their heads. We'll fire by rank. Always shoot at the closest one. If we do this right, each volley will kill an ogre. You understand?"

There was a murmur of affirmation. Nothing big, but it was the best that could be hoped for given the circumstances.

The gate began to splinter. Then all at once the wood shattered in a wave of splinters, and the two massive doors burst inward.

Two dozen ogres roared together.

"First rank, present!" Jacques roared back.

Ogres lumbered through the broken gate into the city of Italica. Their size was actually a detriment due to the dimensions of the gate, and only two were able to make it through at a time. Still, the first two were devastating. They barreled into the militia ranks, and killed fifteen men just through the impact of their charge. Then the ogres began swinging with their clubs, and men were quashed like ants.

"Fire!"

The whole weight of the first rank's volley fell upon the closest ogre. Over thirty bullets struck it at once, punching through skin and muscle. There was a great shriek as the monster tumbled back. It flailed wildly, striking unfortunate militiamen with its club, before falling back into the masonry of the wall. Only then did it seem to realize it was dead, and it slumped to the ground all at once.

"Second rank, present!"

Men of the first rank went to one knee at once. They began reloading while the second rank leveled their muskets. At the same time, two more ogres squeezed into the city. The militiamen fought them as best they could. They jammed their spears into legs and knees, fighting doggedly to keep the monsters in place. But it was a one sided affair, and the ogres killed dozens of men in a matter of moments.

"Fire!"

Another ogre was flayed by musketry. It fell forward and crushed seven men with its corpse, but men saw the thing die and gave a cheer. Spear-armed militiamen surged forward, pressing the remaining ogres back a small distance with the spirit of their charge.

"Third rank, present!"

"Fire!"

Jacques gave the order as quickly as he could, because momentum was everything in battle, and their side had it for the moment. The third rank's volley was less accurate than the previous two, but it did its job. A third ogre was hit by musket fire and stumbled to one knee. Encouraged, the militiamen swarmed the wounded ogre like a hive of angry bees. Men leapt onto the monster, stabbing whatever flesh they could find, and scrambling onto its chest. Their collective weight brought the ogre onto its back, allowing more men to swarm onto it. Over a hundred militiamen kept the ogre down, pinning its limbs and torso while constantly wounding the monster. Eventually it stopped moving, dead by a thousand spear thrusts.

More ogres poured into the city, but it was too late for them. The thunder of footsteps became clear in the air, and Jacques saw Lagos running down the street with the entire thousand-strong reserve.

Jacques left Astier to take charge of the Ninth Company and headed to the approaching reserve. They met twenty yards behind where the fusiliers were positioned.

"I need two companies of your spearmen and all your crossbowmen to join the fighting," Jacques said without preamble.

Lagos nodded and shouted, "Gaius and Rutil, your companies to the front! Potitus and Terte, bring your boys up beside the Ninth Company and open up on the monsters!"

Jacques was amazed he could keep up with the man's Saderan. He watched as the companies one by one detached themselves from the main column and advanced to the fighting. The added weight of their numbers helped to stabilize the block of spearmen holding back the ogres while the crossbowmen added to the fusiliers' firepower.

"Orders, sir?" Lagos asked once the companies were committed. "When I left, the enemy had just begun their attacks on the south and west walls."

Jacques looked at the fighting. "We fared better here than I thought we would," he admitted. "I want to place the remainder of your men and the Ninth Company back into reserve. I think we can hold-"

Ear-piercing screeches suddenly sounded out over the city. Jacques looked up to see dragons swooping for the tops of the walls. They dove in succession, one after the other, eight of them in total.

Tullia's ten swivel guns fired at them all together. Seven of the dragons took hits. They tumbled in the sky, suddenly losing control of their flights and plummeting to the ground.

Only one remained unscathed, but that was all that was needed. With the swivel guns empty, there was nothing left to contest the dragon, and it landed on the wall with a screech. The gunners immediately abandoned their positions, but it was too late for most. Its claws tore open men left and right. The rider personally speared two men with his lance.

Tullia Bato didn't run. She screamed her defiance and leveled a heavy crossbow. As the dragon reached to tear her apart, she loosed the bolt. It struck the rider square in the breast plate, put a giant dent into the steel, and knocked him out of his saddle so that he fell and twisted his neck.

The riderless dragon screeched again.

Tullia Bato, stubborn as ever, refused to back down.

Jacques watched her die, a dagger in hand, even as the dragon's jaws closed around her.

"Lagos, I need your best company to follow me up the wall," Jacques demanded.

"Only if I'm the one leading it," Lagos spat. Then he saw something, and his expression softened. "But I don't think it's necessary."

Jacques saw the same thing.

Rory Mercury was on her feet.

She was sprinting up the wall's stairway, wielding a spear in place of her halberd. Rory moved at a lightning pace, her strides covering three steps at a time so that she made it to the top in a matter of seconds.

The moment her foot reached the top, Rory leapt. She shot into the air, far higher than any normal human could, and soared over the dragon to land just behind it.

Her spear licked out three times in the blink of an eye. Each thrust found a soft point in the dragon's scales.

The dragon roared. It turned to snap at Rory, but she was already moving. Her body danced away from the dragon's head, and she slid under it, emerging behind the beast.

She thrust three more times, and the dragon roared again. It shuddered and screeched. Finally, the dragon fell to its stomach.

With one final thrust, Rory put her spear through the dragon's eye.

Jacques blinked. He shook himself out of his trance.

"We should get back to the reserve," Jacques decided. He straightened himself. "Lagos, take your uncommitted men back to Clan Formal's mansion. I'll follow up with the Ninth Company."

"Sir!" Lagos affirmed, saluting. He began giving orders, and his companies gradually shifted to march back where they'd come from.

Jacques ran to the Ninth Company. Astier was still giving firing orders, but the ogres had been hemmed in. The added firepower of Lagos's crossbowmen meant that they had pushed the ogres out of the city and were fighting them in the chokepoint that was the gate.

"Astier!" Jacques roared above the musketry. "Astier, we're pulling back! I need you to find Vidal!"

"Aye, Captain!" Astier shouted back. He fell out of line, leaving Jacques back in command.

Jacques stepped out ahead of the Ninth Company. "Shoulder arms!" he ordered.

The men shuffled, and those in the front rank stood. Their muskets went to their shoulders. A moment later, Astier and Vidal came scurrying back to the company. They nodded to him.

To the beating of the company drummers, Jacques led his men away from the fighting. They joined with Lagos's men and headed for the mansion at a quick double step, leaving behind the militia and Rory Mercury to hold the east gate against the remaining ogres.

Clan Formal's mansion was already in chaos when Jacques arrived with the reserve. A long dining table had been set up in the gardens with two maps of the city strewn across it. Officers and couriers entered and exited the gardens from all directions, running to deliver hastily scribbled reports before returning to their posts. Chaucer and Lelei stood leaned over the table. They gathered information from the men running and made notations on the maps.

Jacques let the men rest as soon as they reached the garden. Men dropped like sacks of grain, and a pile of resting men soon appeared. Jacques hurried over to Chaucer's table.

"Colonel Duclos!" Chaucer greeted. "I see you've kicked the hornet's nest with your little attack this morning."

Jacques shook his head. "They were planning this in advance. Something this big can't just be ordered in a few minutes."

Chaucer gave a mirth grin. "Ever the blameless hero, I see."

Jacques ignored the comment. His eyes glanced over the map. "The east gate is holding for now. I left four hundred men from the reserve and Rory to reinforce it. How are the other gates doing?"

"It's a full assault from all sides," Chaucer relayed. "The west and south walls are getting hit the hardest, orcs and legionaries mainly. There was an attempt on the north wall, but they held firm, and the Saderans are still regrouping there. I've got reports of at least two dragons shot down in the north and one in the south. I take it you dealt with some in the east?"

"Eight dragons," Jacques confirmed. "Tullia Bato died defending the guns," he added as an afterthought.

Chaucer blinked. "Oh." He looked down at the map. "I see. Eleven dragons then. They, uh, they must not have many more, probably. Foolish of them to waste them all like that. Foolish."

"It'll be infantry and ogres from here out," Jacques said, nodding. He looked at the maps slightly closer, mentally noting the numbers assigned to each gate. "I'm going to lead the reserve to see if we can push the Saderans back from the south and west walls. If we do, it'll buy us some more time while they regroup."

Chaucer nodded slowly. "Yes, yes, of course." He sniffed and rubbed one eye. "On you go then, Colonel."

Jacques rallied his men together on the garden grounds. He ordered Lagos to push the Saderans from the west wall with his six hundred militiamen. Then he took the Ninth Company and ran to do the same at the south wall.

They arrived just as Saderan legionaries had crested the gabion wall with scaling ladders. The south wall was manned by grenadiers, the only other French company in the city, and that meant there was a familiar rattle of musketry in the air when Jacques's men arrived. Said musketry had had a devastating effect on the Saderans. Arrows and bolts were effective, but there wasn't anything in the world like a volley of musket. It drained the soul and mind just from smoke and sound, let alone the casualties it could inflict.

All that meant that the Saderan had paid a heavy price scaling the gabion wall, and they were already shaken by the time they began making it to the other side. The grenadiers were quick to engage in melee. Grenadiers were all tall men, mandated by regulation, and they were perhaps the best bayonet fighters outside of the Imperial Guard. They held firm despite obvious numerical inferiority and inflicted even more casualties against the Saderans.

That was the situation the Ninth Company arrived at. The Saderans were exhausted and demoralized. The grenadiers were stubborn but outnumbered.

"En avant!" Jacques shouted immediately

The Ninth Company charged. The arrival of fresh troops seemed to have an impact disproportionate to their actual numbers. Saderan legionaries didn't wait to receive them; they fell back, first as a trickle but then soon as a rush. No man wanted to be the only one left behind, so eventually they all fell back from the gabion wall while French soldiers fired into their backs. When all the Saderans had gone, Jacques pushed to find Captain Raoult.

"That's just bought you maybe thirty minutes," Jacques said, gesturing to the retreating legionaries. "Then they'll regroup, gather some reinforcements, and try again."

Raoult nodded. "I know this game, Captain. When they try again, we'll make them pay even worse than last time."

"Good, because we can't stay," Jacques stated. "If your line buckles, send someone, and I'll try to give you what I can. But the whole city's under pressure, so we're going to be stretched thin."

Captain Raoult gave him a steely look. "We'll hold."

Jacques nodded. "Good luck."

"Death or glory, Captain," Raoult replied.


The Ninth Company returned to the mansion at a run. Lagos was already there. He'd beaten the orcs in the west with his timely reinforcements. Orcs didn't run, so his men hadn't been able to fully push them back, but they'd been able to stem the tide and force the orcs out of the city. He'd left a hundred men to stabilize the line then returned in case another sector needed support.

It went on like that for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. The Saderans reformed their ranks and listened to speeches from their officers, while the sun climbed higher and higher to warm bodies and create a stench throughout Italica. Then, worked up to suitable enthusiasm, legionaries, orcs, and ogres stormed forward, and the killing continued.

Jacques committed his reserves like a beggar spending his last Franc. Half a company here, half a company there. On and on as the Saderans committed their own reserves to match Jacques's efforts. They ran out of orcs after the first hour, because those creatures refused to retreat from hopeless situations, and there were only so many of them. The ogres were next, cut down by swivel guns, crossbows, and determined spearmen until their animalistic wills snapped, and they retreated where the orcs hadn't. Now it was only legionaries. Men being sacrificed against the walls of Italica. It was bloody business, and the Saderans were trading two legionaries for every militiaman killed thanks to the fortifications. But someone on the other side had done the simple calculations; the Saderans could sustain those losses, while Jacques could not. So Jacques's reserve dwindled from six companies to four to two and finally to one, the Ninth Company, now only ninety men strong. And as his reserves trickled from his fingers, the wounded quickly piled up. They had no surgeons, but some of the city's women knew healing, and they acted as both nurses and doctors to the dying men. Wounded men's screams echoed through the city streets amidst gunfire and spear fighting.

It was an hour or two after noon, Jacques judged by the sun's position. He was finally beginning to understand what had happened. This was it. The final assault. Zorzal's last gamble. He was throwing everything he had at Italica, and, if it failed, his army was finished. Even if it succeeded, Zorzal's army might be too badly crippled to face Ney in the field. But that was little consolation to Jacques and the rest of the men and women stuck in Italica.

Jacques sighed as he looked over the city maps. Lelei had gone off to gather a report from the north and Lagos was at the east gate, but Chaucer was still with him.

"We're not going to make it to nightfall," Jacques admitted. That had been his hope. Darkness would mean a halt to the attacks and time for rest, but it was beginning to seem farther and farther away.

"Mhmm…" Chaucer muttered.

"Maybe they'll give up." Jacques went on. "We've killed quite a lot of them and there might be a mutiny of some kind if they keep attacking us like that."

"Mhmm…"

Jacques sighed and pounded the table. "Will you just say something? You were right! It is just numbers. Everything I accomplished was just pointless dithering while the inevitable crept up on us. All I did was delay what was always going to happen. Zorzal has the numbers, and now we're all going to fucking die because of it."

Jacques rubbed his face and smeared blood onto his hand. He didn't know whose blood it was.

Chaucer had a small smile.

"Yeah yeah," Jacques muttered. "I was wrong and you were right. War is just numbers."

"Oh no," Chaucer finally said, "I was just considering how much better we did than I'd expected."

"Doesn't change the fact that we failed."

Chaucer's smile widened. "No it certainly does not. But at least we tried."

Jacques felt something flow out of him. Worry, stress, guilt, it all went away. He chuckled, "Right… At least we tried."

An agitated militiaman suddenly sprinted into the mansion's garden. He made it to Jacques and Chaucer, snapping a firm salute.

"Sirs!" he said. "The west wall, sirs. They're breaking through the breaches. We've lost the chokepoints. We're down half our numbers, sirs!"

Jacques looked to Chaucer. Then he sighed. "It's been a pleasure."

"Go be a hero," Chaucer replied.

Jacques ran to the Ninth Company, his last remaining reserve. Astier and Vidal had guessed his intentions already, and they were shouting men to their feet. Almost everyone looked drained.

There was no time to say anything; Jacques merely drew the Elban sword and away they went. They hurried down the streets of Italica, following a route they'd mapped what seemed like decades ago. Wounded men lined the streets, laying in pools of their own blood while the few women around tried to ease their suffering.

A swivel gun fired in the distance, somewhere off to the right. Tullia's gunners had fought on through her death, and their grapeshot had been key in holding back Zorzal's hordes. But now ammunition was running low, and they were forced to save what they had for opportune targets.

Jacques turned a street and saw the west wall.

The Saderans had indeed made it through the breaches. They'd expanded like a blob from the wall while Italican militia tried to press them out of the city. On the far edge, a gap had opened where legionaries had managed to break through the men there. Jacques led the Ninth Company to face the gap.

He didn't need to give any order, nor could he think of any words to say. He ran forward, and his men followed him. Jacques had three seconds to pick his target.

They impacted all at once. The Ninth Company barreled over the first rank of men with the momentum of their charge, and Jacques's sword got caught in a man's armpit.

He ripped the Elban sword free, stepped forward, and slammed it into the next man's helmet before he was even conscious of what he'd done. It made a dent, a finger deep into the iron rim, and stupefied him for three precious moments. Jacques cut again. It sheared through his unarmored neck, embedding at an angle, through the collar bone so that a flood of blood came spurting out of the wound.

Another legionary filled the man's place. He thrust with his spear while Jacques was pulling his sword free from bone. Corporal Boulet saved Jacques's life, his musket reaching from the side to parry away the spear.

Jacques got his sword free and pushed. He stabbed a man to his side, loosening the melee and allowing Boulet to push in with him.

Together they brutalized the legionary ahead of them, Boulet's bayonet going high and the Elban sword sweeping low. With him dead, they pushed together again, and three more fusiliers joined them.

Their weapons shot out together.

A hole, the width of five men, opened in the Saderan formation.

They pushed again and attacked five legionaries. Two died.

The third flicked away Boulet's bayonet with his shield. Jacques swung at him, but he moved his shield just a sliver, and the Elban sword danced off it.

The legionary rammed his spear into Boulet's head. His skull jolted back, dead in an instant, and the legionaries around them pressed inward.

Whatever momentum they'd had was gone. And they were six steps into the enemy formation.

Blows began to fall on them like hail. The spear thrusts came from all sides, and two of the fusiliers with Jacques were dead in the time it took to blink. He fell back three steps, but he was surrounded, and someone behind him punched with their shield.

Jacques fell. As he fell a spear hit him just below the left shoulder, and his body felt like it was on fire. But he couldn't scream. He could only gasp for breath.

Above him, his last fusilier died. The man fell onto Jacques, knocking the wind from his lungs. There was a spear wound in the corpse's chest, and Jacques was coated in sticky blood.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't see.

His body felt like it was dying

Above him, men fought and died in the press. Fusiliers and legionaries exchanged thrusts with spears and bayonets, both sides in equilibrium. The legionaries had armor and shields. The fusiliers were brave and desperate.

Someone, Jacques couldn't tell who, shouted above the din of battle, "Ninth Company!"

There was a cry, all at once, "Ninth Company!"

Jacques forced his eyes open. They were coated in blood, and they stuck at first.

Light.

He could see.

He was not dead.

And that meant he still had to try.

Jacques pushed with everything he had. The corpse on him was heavy, but it slid off as he managed to bring a knee up. There was movement all around him. He was jostled and shoved. But he kept pushing, and eventually he got his feet under him.

With one great effort, Jacques forced his body to stand.

He stood.

Legionaries around him took a startled step back. They knew who he was.

He was the only one with a sword, it was still clenched in his hand, and only one person in the Ninth Company carried a sword. Captain Duclos.

"Captain's up!" Vidal screamed.

There was a sound like a waterfall, a roar like a waterfall, and the Ninth Company pushed.

Jacques allowed himself one breath while the legionaries were still stunned. Before he'd been surrounded at a distance. But now he was inside their front, too close for spears to hit him. So close he could grab their shields. He gripped the Elban sword in one hand and started hacking men to the ground.

Behind him, Astier yelled something Jacques couldn't hear. Men pressed in with him.

The Saderans were pushed back another step, and another.

Jacques cut men down in droves. The Elban sword struck men all around him. Armor and flesh in equal measures. Men tried to back away. Some dropped their spears and drew shortswords. Most just died.

The pressure began to lift from him. He was carving a space with the men he killed.

And all around, the Saderans were losing ground to the Ninth Company.

Jacques stopped. Pivoted and pushed into the legionaries directly behind him. There were only two ranks, and both were facing the wrong way.

The Elban sword descended on the closest. Its pommel cracked his skull like an eggshell. The legionary had no helmet.

The next man turned. But that only left him open to the fusilier now behind him, and he died with a bayonet through the back of his throat.

Jacques pushed forward. Slid. And was engulfed into the mass that was the Ninth Company.

"Ninth Company!" he screamed in French, so they wouldn't think he was Saderan.

"Ninth Company!" they roared.

Everyone pushed forward together, and Jacques went with them. The force of their united push sent the first rank of the opposing Saderans stumbling back. Legionaries died with bayonets in them. The Ninth Company continued forward in a rush, and the legionaries were pushed towards the breach.

The Ninth Company went forward. Again and again.

The Saderans lost their nerve.

It happened all at once. They'd lost too much ground, and certain parts of their formation were threatened with being cut off. But when they tried to pull back, it collapsed into a rout, and their order disappeared.

They fled from Italica while the Ninth Company and what remained of the militia pushed them out of the breaches.

Jacques fell to his knees. The spear wound below his left shoulder was bad, and he couldn't fully raise that arm. His ribs felt bruised, from when he was crushed beneath a corpse. Everything else was sore.

"Sir!" someone called. "Sir, it's urgent!"

Jacques opened his eyes and stood. The speaker was a grenadier with a long mustache. "What?" he managed.

"The south wall has fallen, sir. They had ogres… and… it's all gone… Some of them are coming this way."

A pit entered Jacques's stomach. It was inevitable, of course. Jacques had committed his last reserve, so there was nothing left to reinforce a falling sector. He just hadn't expected it to come so quickly.

Jacques felt himself sway. How much blood had he lost? He had nothing left to give, and if there were ogres already inside the city…

The Ninth Company was around him. They'd heard what had been said.

Jacques looked around. His eyes settled on Corporal Flandin. "What do you think? Want to go down fighting?"

"Yes, sir," Flandin instantly replied.

Jacques turned. "What about you Laurent?"

The corporal straightened himself. "Of course I do, sir!"

Jacques looked over. "Malet?"

"To the death, sir."

"Astier?"

The sergeant snorted. "Do you even have to ask?"

Finally, Jacques turned to Vidal and tilted his head.

"You know I would," she said.

"Well," Jacques sighed. "It's a good thing you're not the ones in charge."

They all looked at him.

"Someone get me a white cloth and something to tie it to. We did everything we could, but we lost." Jacques steadied himself and breathed, "This is over, and we're not going to die for a lost cause."


"This is all Ney's fault," Chaucer muttered, making another notation on his map of the city. A messenger had just reported the fall of the north gate. That left only the east gate still standing. Ogres were pounding down the streets of Italica, opposed only by hastily constructed barricades. He'd already had to evacuate his command post inside the mansion.

The city's hours were numbered.

Clan Formal's mansion was a flurry of activity. Couriers and junior officers ran this way and that way. Scribes wrote out final orders. Many were abandoning their posts, realizing that the city would not hold against the Saderan army. Zorzal would certainly punish collaborators if he found them

"He shouldn't have gone to Elbe," Chaucer continued. "He left to fight a monarch's war and didn't bother to secure his rear against the Empire. He left me to clean up his mess… Well, I can't work miracles, and it doesn't matter what orders I give now. Just because I can manage numbers doesn't mean I'm any good at defending a city."

Nobody was listening to him. His messengers were all gone, running orders or simply having deserted. All his soldiers were out fighting. They were being pushed on all fronts, and every soldier was needed.

Not that it mattered. They could only delay what was inevitable.

"Our real problem was finishing what we started," Chaucer said, marking down a final notation at Clan Formal's mansion. It would be the next to fall. He could hear the nearby fighting already.

He considered suicide. It's what he'd said he'd do. He'd considered it before, back in Paris. The day Robespierre was guillotined.

"Finishing what we started," he continued. "Really it's been our problem since the beginning. Since the Revolution. We ousted the king and the nobility, but we never finished the job. Royalists, conservatives, moderates, all enemies of the people. They enabled Bonaparte to become a monarch. They undid everything."

There were roars coming from outside, the ogres seeking bloodshed. The beautifully decorated doors to Clan Formal's mansion bent under the pressure of an ogre's fist. With each hit, the entire building shook.

Chaucer sighed. "What we should have done is finished them off like we did the nobility. We ought to have done that here. We should have killed Zorzal and his sister, marched against Sadera, and done the same to Molt and every noble in the city. That would have fractured the Empire rather than allowing it to regain strength. Of course, that would have meant a new Terror, one larger and more expansive than anything Robespierre had dreamed of, which would have meant roundups, seizures, mass executions. Men, women, children; anyone with a claim to a title."

Chaucer breathed in.

"There'd have been a slaughter like the world had never seen. The streets would've been flooded with blood. Guillotines running day and night. Carts and carts of headless bodies. An entire generation culled from existence. And if we'd done that…"

He trailed off, watching as the doors to the mansion splintered open. Two monstrous ogres tumbled through the hall. Windows shattered as they burst through walls and pillars. A thin ray of sunlight shone through the shattered windows and onto the marble floor.

"If we'd done that," Chaucer admitted, "we'd have been worse than the monsters we replaced."

Screams filled the mansion. Scribes who'd remained were helpless against the ogres. The blue haired girl, Lelei, his translator and closest assistant, was slammed against a wall. She let off a surge of magic, but the ogre silenced her with a swing from its club. Chaucer stood as he saw the life drain from her eyes, determined to the end.

He closed his own eyes. Did any of it matter? What good was it all when we all just ended up dead?

Chaucer opened his eyes and walked forward. He pulled his sword from its sheath and stared at the massive beasts charging toward him. It raised its club against him.

Chaucer smiled.

At least I tried.

And everything went dark.


And so falls Italica. With it, farewell Chaucer.

This chapter pushes the word count for this story to over 200k words, which makes it longer than many published books. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it.