A Marshal of France never surrenders! One does not parley under the fire of the enemy!

The mood in Ney's command tent was sour.

A map of Falmart was laid across the main table, and General Brunelle studied it resentfully. He occasionally grumbled to General Courbet, who merely nodded and rubbed his brow. A chair creaked as Colonel Delon leaned back in it. General Messier stood in a corner quietly muttering to General Rousseau. Ney himself stood with Captain Barbier at his desk, idly examining Captain Duclos's written report.

All the while, their Elban astrologer, Abad, knelt on the ground and studied a pair of wax tablets. No one had invited the astrologer to Ney's meeting, but he came regardless. Ever since Italica's fall, Abad had been jittery. He was allowed to stay with Ney's permission, but only so long as he didn't interrupt.

A rustle from the outside broke the tent's silence and moments later Colonel Feraud strode through the tent flap. He was still dirty from riding.

"Christ, it's as lively as a graveyard here," Feraud snorted. He removed his riding gloves and settled into an empty seat. "Now what's so urgent that you needed me immediately. You know I just came in from patrolling with Chaucer's Boys, right?"

Awkward silence permeated as he finished.

Feraud glanced around the tent and raised an eyebrow. "What's got you all in a bunch?"

"Chaucer is dead," Ney finally said. He looked each of his officers in the eye. "Italica has fallen, and Zorzal is in the process of sacking the city. Captain Duclos managed to escape with his company, but they're the only survivors. As of now, we are cut off from our lines of communication and deep within enemy territory."

More silence.

Feraud leaned back in his seat. He breathed in deeply then grunted, "Well shit." He looked around. "So what's the plan?"

Ney inhaled. "That is precisely what I wished to discuss."

It only took a moment before General Rousseau spoke up. "We cannot stay here." He looked directly at Ney. "We had a plan, a fine plan, but it failed. These things happen; it is the nature of war. With Zorzal sitting on our lines of communication, we cannot hope to continue campaigning in Sadera. We should fall back to Castle Tubet and reestablish our connection to Elbe. Then we can decide what the future holds."

"Fall back?" General Brunelle spat. "You mean give up?"

Rousseau gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "What other option is there?"

Brunelle glared. He traced his finger on the map from Agrippas Valley to Italica. "We attack Zorzal and crush him like we did at Aquila Ridge," he growled.

Rousseau scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"We have every advantage," Brunelle insisted, "We have the firepower, the expertise, and the spirit. Zorzal has just crippled his army taking Italica. If Duclos's report is correct, he must've taken absurd casualties in the siege. Most of his monsters are dead, and his men are exhausted. We've beat him before, and we can do it again."

Feraud and Courbet were nodding, but Rousseau was entirely unconvinced. He looked at General Messier before looking back to Brunelle.

"Zorzal has Italica," he stated in an even voice. "He has its walls and food stores. Chaucer already stripped the countryside of food. If we attack, we will either be forced to assault a fortified city, or we will starve."

"We've done it before," Courbet interjected. "We took Italica by storm the first time. What's stopping us from doing it again?"

Messier shook his head. "We beat a city militia and a handful of garrison soldiers, and we still took horrific losses doing it. Zorzal has a professional army. Do you really imagine we will be as successful this time?"

"We have to try!" Brunelle argued. He glanced from Messier to Rousseau. "Have you two forgotten the purpose of this campaign?" Brunelle gestured to Abad, still knelt over his tablets. "A new gate is coming, and it's in Sadera! Not Elbe! Either we reach that gate, or we're going to be stuck in this godforsaken land forever."

Silence once again filled the tent. Brunelle was breathing quickly, and Ney watched him calm himself as the other officers considered his point. Rousseau and Messier kept giving each other looks.

It was Rousseau who finally broke the silence. He straightened himself and said, "I do not believe that it will be necessary to defeat Zorzal in order to reach the new gate."

Ney felt his blood cool. He had intended to allow his officers to voice all their opinions before he added his own, but now Ney found himself speaking. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded.

The general licked his lips. "I believe there might be diplomatic alternatives," Rousseau replied. "We might find a peaceful resolution rather than continuing the war."

Ney leaned over the table and stared Rousseau in the eye. "I want to know exactly what you are suggesting."

Rousseau met his eye and was quiet.

"We can make a deal with Zorzal," Messier finally said. "We let him have Italica, then we negotiate our access to the new gate. He doesn't want us here, and we don't-"

"You are suggesting surrender!" Ney snarled.

"We are suggesting peace," Rousseau retorted.

"You will give Zorzal everything and then attempt to negotiate from a position of weakness. That is surrender!"

Messier sighed, "It is what is necessary to achieve peace."

Ney bellowed, "Peace! Peace! It's easy enough to say the word. Am I to put my men at the mercy of Zorzal? Should we go begging on our hands and knees to that maniac? I am a Marshal of France! I will not surrender! I did not lead this corps from Russia only to capitulate to some petty princeling. You two may have forgotten your duties as Frenchmen, but I assure you that I have not."

Ney knew his face was red, but it was too late now. He curled his hands into fists.

Courbet shook his head. "You cannot seriously expect us to trust Zorzal. He already broke one treaty by reigniting this war. He'll use any opportunity to stab us in the back."

"If we retreat-" Messier started.

Ney glared him down.

"We will not retreat," he said, ice in his voice. "We will not surrender. We will not beg for Zorzal's mercy. I am this corps' Marshal, and I say that we will advance. We will defeat the Saderans, and then we will dictate our terms at bayonet point. Those are my orders, and you will follow them!"

Rousseau and Messier bit their lips. Brunelle looked at Ney cautiously. "To Italica then, sir?"

Ney shook his head. He was already calming, and he forced himself to take a breath. "No, no. They are at least correct in that regard; it would be folly to attack Italica." Ney leaned back from the table. "We're going east."

"Towards the capital? Sadera itself?" Courbet choked.

Messier spluttered, "You want to go further into enemy territory?!"

"Yes," Ney affirmed. "With our lines of communication cut, we have no choice but to rely on forage." He traced a circle on the map with his finger around Italica. "This land is barren. We've stripped it clean two times over with our campaigning. That means, as Rousseau stated, we cannot besiege Italica." He looked from the map to the general in question. "Our best option then is to fight where the food is. Across the Romalia Mountains is untouched land; it's the Saderan heartland, and the fall harvest is just waiting for us to seize."

Ney paused to allow his officers a moment to catch up. All of them stared at the map, eyes glittering at the possibility before them.

"Zorzal," he continued, "will either follow us or fortify Agrippas Valley and block the pass as we've done. If he follows us, then we double back and fight an open battle. Brunelle is correct, we would have every advantage in that situation. I was cautious to fight him at full strength, but now his army is a shadow of what it was, and we should have no problem beating it in the field. That is our best case scenario, and I pray Zorzal is brash enough to commit to an open battle."

An eager grumble came from Feraud. Brunelle was nodding.

"But Zorzal is no longer the rabid dog he once was," Ney sighed. "He has been learning since Aquila Ridge. Every time we fight him, we are teaching him how to conduct war. We saw this already when Zorzal chose to seize Italica rather than face our fortifications here. I do not think he will attempt to face us in the field now. We taught him caution, and I imagine he will seek to reinforce his army before he engages us."

Messier looked pensive. He met Ney's eye. "So we march into the Saderan heartland and then what? Zorzal will just gather more forces and then force us to face him."

"Eventually he will," Ney agreed, "but we can delay that." He tapped his finger on the map three times, each on a small dot. "Sadera, Telta, and Proptor," Ney read off, "the three largest cities east of the Romalia Mountains. When Zorzal sends for reinforcements, they'll come from these cities. We will be positioned in between him and the forces these cities send. Our goal is to neutralize each force individually before they can combine with Zorzal."

"Then he will send for reinforcements from the west," Messier argued.

"From where? Zorzal has just burned Italica and slaughtered its population. Rondel is so far away, it will take months for troops to come from there. Bellnahgo is even farther." Ney grinned like a wolf. "And by the time those troops arrive, we will already be through the new gate."

There was an immediate silence following Ney's plan. Eyes flickered from one to another.

"So we're rushing for the gate," Colonel Delon, who'd been silent for the whole debate, finally said.

Messier blinked. "You are certain the new gate will open in time?"

Ney gestured to Abad and shrugged. "Ask him."

Abad rose for the first time in the whole meeting. He shuddered and giggled. In a rasping voice, he cackled, "The stars are in line. A white bull leaps over a river in my dreams. The gods have aligned their interests. A new gate will be found on a hill outside Sadera, forged in death, tempered in blood. Three empires shall fall. One will be spared. And the eagles shall march again."

Rousseau actually laughed when Abad finished. He gave a derisive smile at Ney and shook his head. "That's our best hope? An old man's riddles?"

Ney nodded seriously. "This is our best chance.

"Then may God save us," Rousseau spat. "We certainly won't."


Ney's army marched from Agrippas Valley at first light. They went east, abandoning the fortifications they had sweated for, leaving the ruins of Italica behind them. At Reta's Turnpike, the army crossed a provincial boundary and invaded the heartland of the Saderan Empire.

The air was still warm here despite winter's approach. As soon as they were free of the mountains, Ney dispatched Colonel Feraud with all the cavalry to screen their advance. He marched the army at a quick pace to launch them deep into Saderan territory, then Ney slowed and detached hundreds of foraging parties into the fertile lands around them.

Winter was approaching, and the peasants of Sadera had just finished their last harvest of the year. Their stores were filled with food supplies that would see them through the lean winter months. The elders had worried if there would be famine due to the constant demands of the legions, but the recent harvest had soothed those fears. There would be enough food for winter, and at worst they'd only have to tighten their belts a little. It was a good year for the peasantry. Harvest festivals had been thrown. Cellars had been filled. Months of hard work had finished, and now was the time for a hardworking peasant to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The French stole all of it.

Small detachments of men spread like locusts through the countryside. They hunted down the countless farms that covered the Saderan countryside and made their presence known. Men broke down farmhouse doors. The cellars were emptied of food. Casks of wine were looted.

Not a single farm within fifty miles of Ney's army escaped the foraging parties. Thousands of carts, mules, donkeys, and horses were 'requisitioned' from the Saderan peasantry to carry away the very supplies being stolen from them. Tens of thousands of sacks of grain, intended to feed rural families, were instead carted to Ney's quartermasters where they were then carefully measured, counted, and placed back onto carts to join the ever growing supply train.

It was all needed for the army.

A man in Ney's army consumed roughly thirty-four ounces of food a day in bread, meat, beans, lentils, peas, and a variety of other foodstuffs. Ney had, at last count, roughly twenty thousand men in his army. That meant that the men in Ney's army consumed over twenty tons of food every single day. And that was only the men in Ney's army. It didn't include the cavalry horses, each of which consumed more than double what a man did in grain. It didn't include the camp followers, vital to the daily operations and maintenance of the army, who had joined in increasing numbers since Elbe. It also didn't include the growing number of draft animals which had to carry all the food Ney's army consumed daily but who, by their inclusion, also added to the amount of food required.

This was the real price of war, and Ney no longer had the means to pay for it himself, so he was resorting to forcing it onto the Saderan peasantry. His lines of communication were gone. His base of supply was nonexistent. Ney simply stole from the peasants and moved on.

The days soon became filled with smoke and blood.

Entire families were left to starve by the roaming bands of foragers. Farmers who resisted were simply shot. Many who didn't resist were also shot, if for no other reason than that they were Saderan and the Frenchmen were bored or impatient. Women were assaulted. Children were orphaned. And wherever it happened, the French would then set fire to everything they didn't take, creating distant plumes of smoke in any direction one looked.

The auxiliaries of Ney's army had no qualms about taking part in this wanton destruction. They were almost entirely men from Italica or the surrounding lands, and it was their home that had been laid to waste by Zorzal's legions. Many had been slaves and many more had been vagrants, but Italica had still been their home, and all of them had lost something when Zorzal burned Italica. Now it was their turn to inflict atrocities, and they did so with a vigor exceeding that of the French regulars. Massacres occurred in several towns. Tides of refugees were forced from their homes.

Ney didn't stop any of it. He wasn't certain he could if he tried.

This part of war was ugly, distant from glory or honor. It was the part of war they had fought in Spain and Russia. It was the part of war that too often escaped the pages of history.

This was the part of war that happened when the rules were thrown out. When officers refused to be gentlemen. When soldiers failed to act with honor. Many liked to disdain rules in war, seeing it as foolish to obey codes of conduct when engaged in struggles to the death. But the rules existed for a reason, and, when they weren't followed, everyone suffered.

Zorzal had started this ugly war when he'd sacked Italica. Ney's army merely continued it, and Ney doubted any of them felt guilty about their actions.

Not yet at least. The guilt would come later.

But perhaps the most terrible thing about this kind of ugly war was that it was effective.

A wave of refugees had been created in the wake of Ney's army, and all of them flooded towards Sadera itself, the Imperial Capital. They brought with them tales of destruction, and in doing so they created pressure on the Imperial government. Vast swathes of land were being ravaged. The peasants were suffering. People began to ask why the Imperial government wasn't protecting them, and that was dangerous.

Ney suspected that the Imperial government hadn't ever intended to meet him in the field. They wanted to hold out from the walls of Sadera until they could combine forces with Zorzal's experienced, professional army and crush Ney with the weight of overwhelming numbers. It was a good strategy. It was what he would do in their position.

But the devastation of the Saderan peasantry was now forcing them to confront him alone. They couldn't wait for Zorzal. If they let more of the countryside burn, they would lose their legitimacy and face a potential revolution.

So the Imperial government was forced to act. They needed to confront Ney with an army before more of the countryside could be burned. And most of the professional troops were with Zorzal's army, still resting after sacking Italica, so they had no choice but to call the Saderan militia into service.

Ney continued the army's advance further into the Saderan heartland. When Feraud reported the Saderan militia was being mustered, Ney drew back in all the foragers and doubled his cavalry patrols. He especially didn't want to be caught off guard in enemy territory. If something went wrong, there was nowhere to retreat to.

Then he joined Feraud on a patrol to observe the Imperial Capital.

Sadera was perhaps the greatest city Ney had ever seen with his own eyes. No one knew for certain how many people lived in its mighty walls, but Ney had heard it was at least a million, maybe even two million. The girdle of its walls had a greater circumference than any city in Europe, and, despite that, the suburbs spilled out its gates like a river into an ocean, so that there was a further girdle of dense habitation all around the city, more than a mile thick in some places. The single river it sat upon was insufficient for such a massive population, so two aqueducts had been constructed to augment the water supply needed to support the city. Roads and canals flowed into the city, allowing a constant stream of farm produce to trickle through it and feed its many residents.

Sadera was at least twice the size of Paris, the largest city in the French Empire.

It was probably bigger than London, the largest city in Europe, which had only grown to such a size due to the colonial might of the British Empire.

Ney observed all of it from atop his horse. Feraud's cavalry patrol had ridden to a position where he could see the city from a distance. It was every bit as impressive as he'd been told and more. It was a wonder that such a city could exist in a world lacking the sophistication of modern technology. Even the steep hill they'd climbed to see the city was dwarfed by the Imperial Palace, itself built atop an even larger hill.

Feraud whistled. "Fuck me; I thought Paris was impressive."

Ney was silent. It seemed like hubris to oppose such a city.

After some time, Feraud pointed at the distant mob of men that was the Saderan militia forming up outside their city. "Think we can beat them?" he asked Ney.

"Yes," Ney said, though perhaps that was hubris too. There were very few professional soldiers serving with the militia, those men were all with Zorzal or garrisoning the Empire's many frontiers. He had a feeling that his men, veteran soldiers all, could at very least hold the militia off.

But a city with a population of a million could field an army of one hundred thousand, so Ney was outnumbered five to one, worse odds than he'd ever faced against Zorzal. And they were all well motivated, too. Their homes were directly under threat by Ney's army; they had good reason to fight well.

Ney wasn't exactly afraid. He was alert.

"Have you found out who their commander is supposed to be?" Ney asked.

Feraud's patrols had supposedly made contact with someone willing to sell them information. A city of one million people was also bound to have some turncoats.

"Prince Diabo El Caesar," Feraud replied. "He's Zorzal's brother. Second in line to the throne."

"Military experience?"

"None. He's only in charge because the Senate needed to shore up support for the Imperial family. They haven't been popular recently."

Ney smiled. "It's a good thing we're facing amateurs. If we were facing professionals, half of my tricks wouldn't work."

And with that, Ney turned his horse and rode back to the main column. Both armies began marching at each other.

Three days later, Feraud took six hundred cavalrymen and rode far ahead of the army. They passed the forward pickets with enthusiastic hollers. An hour after noon, they caught sight of Diabo's advance guard forty miles from the suburbs of Sadera.

Feraud attacked them.

The Saderan cavalry was terrible, urban militiamen who could barely ride, and Feraud's veterans caught them in a shallow creek bed from two angles. The Saderans outnumbered Feraud maybe three to one, but they were driven back in less than a minute of fighting.

They regrouped a hundred yards from the creek and, having realized their numerical advantage, counterattack the French with one big charge. Feraud's men knew the game and fell back.

The Saderans chased them, but Feraud's horses were much better, and they outpaced the urban horsemen easily.

The Saderans lost direct sight of the French cavalry after five minutes of riding, so Feraud led his men a mile west to set an ambush between two groves of trees, and, like the amateurs they were, the Saderans fell right into it.

They were slaughtered to a man. French horsemen surrounded them from all sides, and the Saderan squadrons went into chaos. It was more a massacre than a fight, because the ambushed Saderans didn't know how to react, and they were all cut down easily. Their captured horses were taken to serve as draught animals; that's all they were deemed useful for by Feraud.

The rest of the Saderan cavalry refused to patrol.

In the course of an afternoon, Feraud had secured total cavalry superiority over the Saderan militia. Diabo still technically had a numerical superiority in horsemen, but they were terrified of Feraud, and that meant everything. French scouts now rode right up to Diabo's army, uncontested by enemy cavalry. The Saderan horsemen didn't want to fight, and nothing Diabo did could convince them to face Feraud's men.

A day of marching went by. Thanks to Feraud, Ney now knew exactly where Diabo was moving almost as it happened. The prince continued forward despite his cavalry difficulties, and Feraud punished him by pillaging his baggage train.

Ney marched his army towards Diabo at an intentionally slow pace. He inched his way forward like a tortoise and camped his men at midday, a good deal away from the Saderan militia. Diabo spent the rest of the day advancing towards Ney while the Third Corps rested. When the Saderans finally camped, they were close enough that Ney was able to see their campfires like a carpet of fireflies spread out across the plain.

A hundred thousand men made for an impressive sight. But Ney had a plan.

Two hours after midnight, the whole French camp was roused, and they marched into the night.

Ney's army was split in half. General Brunelle was given command of all the foot auxiliaries, four thousand regulars, and Colonel Delon's entire contingent of artillery. Ten thousand men and thirty-six guns in all.

They marched straight at Diabo's camp. An hour before dawn, they formed up at the top of a shallow slope with all the cannons positioned above them, well in range of the militiamen.

As the sun broke just above the horizon, all thirty-six cannons went off in succession, sending cannonballs plummeting through the camp. Like an anthill, the Saderan camp erupted into activity. Militiamen hurried to ready themselves for battle and organize into ranks. All their officers ran for orders.

Diabo was to be forced to determine his dispositions and draw up his massive army into battle order while under constant fire from Delon's artillery. But Brunelle didn't allow him even that much. As the Saderan militia hurried to gain some semblance of order, ten thousand French and Italican soldiers advanced down the shallow slope and engaged them with pikes and muskets while they were still organizing. Ten thousand ordered, well trained men against a hundred thousand disordered amateurs.

Ney wasn't there for any of that. He'd left Brunelle in full command of his portion of the army with Courbet and Delon as his subordinates. He trusted that the general would be able to do his part, and he knew Courbet could reign him in if necessary.

Ney wasn't there, because he was with the army's other ten thousand men, marching like the wind.

Ney's force had gone north, in the darkness, covered by a slight valley just low enough that it obscured them from the Saderan camp. Men on horseback with lanterns were waiting for them at every road junction to guide them through. They marched through the valley until they came up just short of a small village yet untouched by foragers. Then they turned east and raced past the Saderan flank, unseen in the darkness.

When the sun finally rose over Sadera, and Colonel Felon's cannons erupted as one chorus, Ney's force turned once more so that it came at Diabo's army from the rear.

This sort of maneuver was only possible due to certain conditions. Plenty of generals throughout history had come up with the brilliant idea of conducting a night flank march. Many of those same generals had gotten lost in the dark and were slaughtered. In Ney's experience, it was the preconditions of the maneuver that allowed it to succeed more than anything else.

In the day prior, Ney had already planned most of his route, and he'd sent Colonel Feraud to survey and secure it. Guides were left behind, so that when Ney came marching in complete darkness, there was a chain of men his army could follow without getting lost. But that was only possible because a day before that, Feraud had established total dominance over the enemy cavalry, and they weren't able to launch patrols that normally would have discovered the guides. It wasn't a snap decision or foolhardy bravery that allowed the maneuver. It was careful planning and good reconnaissance.

And a little luck, like Feraud smashing the Saderan cavalry so decisively.

So Diabo woke up to a camp under fire and his men under attack. He organized his forces as best he could and fed men to face the French assault. They had caught him completely off guard, but Diabo still outnumbered the French ten to one, and the weight of numbers was all he needed to win. With inexperienced vigor, Diabo committed his full might against what he thought was Marshal Ney's army with the goal of crushing him once and for all.

Only, that force was in actuality only a delaying force of half the army under General Brunelle. It was only after he had committed his army that this became clear. And that was because Ney suddenly appeared behind him with the other half of the army, marching as fast as he could into Diabo's rear.

Ney had all the cavalry and eight thousand French regulars. He had Feraud, Rousseau, and Messier, each handling a part of his men. Ney's force swept into the Saderan camp without resistance. It wasn't fortified like a legionary camp would have been.

French cavalry galloped down the streets of tents.

Many men were still getting ready for battle, and Feraud snapped up entire cohorts of men simply by riding to them then demanding their surrenders. He detached men to secure the prisoners and continued forward. Thousands of men saw them coming and took to their heels. No one fought back; all of the ready men were busy facing Brunelle.

At some point, Diabo fled from the camp. He wasn't leading his men in person; he hadn't expected to have his person threatened so soon. Feraud's riders charged through the camp, and he fled on horseback with his bodyguard.

When French cavalry emerged from the other side of the camp, they were suddenly only three hundred yards from the backs of the Saderan battleline. Brunelle had attacked while the Saderans were in the midst of dressing their line, so it was more of a mob than a formation. The Saderans were embroiled in brutal hand to hand against Brunelle's force. Their counter attacks had stalled against the auxiliary pike blocks while fusiliers decimated outflanking attempts with volleys of deadly musketry. Despite that, their overwhelming numbers were slowly driving the auxiliary center back.

Feraud was behind them, on a gradual slope, with no obstructions in his path. All of his men were well mounted. The sun was rising like a scene in a painting.

Feraud had no more than two thousand cavalrymen, both French troopers and Chaucer's Boy. There were at least ninety thousand Saderan militiamen in front of him. To attack such a force would be like attacking an ocean.

But it was perfect cavalry ground.

Feraud made his decision. He raised his saber, waved it over his head, and called out to his men.

"Send 'em hell!" he shouted.

It was all they needed to hear. They knew their odds. They knew this was insane. But they were cavalrymen under Colonel Feraud, and this was going to be glorious.

Feraud rode his horse across the frontage of his whole force. A sound rose like that of a sudden thunderstorm whisking over an empty plain. It started off to the right, where Feraud passed first, and where Captain Heidler first launched his squadron at the backs of the Saderan militia.

"TO HELL!"

French troopers had the avatar of Mars himself riding in front of them, and their shouts rose like the war god's fury.

"TO HELL!"

The auxiliaries picked it up as he rode past Captain Koda, many roaring the first French words they'd ever spoken. It spread and spread, and, as Feraud passed men, they spurred their horses and joined the charge.

"TO HELL!"

Feraud reached the end of the line and spurred his own horse forward. The rising sun turned their sabers into fire. Feraud's eyes glowed.

"TO HELL!"

Feraud cackled, and they fell on the enemy like an avalanche of steel and horseflesh.

The charge trampled its way over the backs of a thousand militiamen. They crushed men with their horses and sent them sprawling to the ground. Their momentum began to die the instant they entered the Saderan mass, but then they began carving a path further into the ranks with sabers, spears, and lances. Absolute chaos reigned while Feraud urged his men on and on, deeper into the Saderans. A bloody trail was left behind them of sabered bodies. Like a spearpoint through flesh, they went on, an unstoppable force.

The Saderan line shuddered like a wounded giant.

As it happened, General Messier barreled through the end of the camp with four thousand fusiliers. With a yell, they charged after Feraud's men, unloading a full volley into the backs of the Saderans before closing with bayonets.

Thousands began to panic. Tens of thousands. Entire legions worth of Saderan men dropped their spears and ran. They weren't cowards. They were the Saderan militia, and they were determined to defend their homes. But they couldn't do that if they were dead.

The Saderan line began to unravel.

General Rousseau arrived after Messier with the other four thousand fusiliers. Ney was with him, having restrained himself from joining the fighting too soon. Rousseau took one look at the battlefield, at the surrounded militiamen, at the thousands of panicking Saderans. He looked at Ney.

"We could have avoided this bloodshed," Rousseau hissed.

But he drew his sword regardless and rode to the front of his men. The men gave a roar, and General Rousseau led them into the rear of the Saderan line. Thousands fell to their volley. Thousands more fell to their bayonets.

And like a twig snapping under Ney's boot, the remnants of Saderan resistance collapsed all at once.

Men simply stopped fighting, exhausted and outmatched. Militiamen on the flanks were instantly routed. They ran in any direction they could. Those in the center saw what had happened and threw down their spears. Those men were allowed to surrender with dignity. But most men ran, because the French could never hope to catch so many men.

They were allowed to go. Seventy thousand Saderan militiamen fled as one while French gunners shot them from afar and Feraud's cavalry cut down stragglers.

Ney watched it all and wondered.

What if we'd tried peace?


In the wake of his defeat, Diabo managed to cobble together the remnants of the Saderan militia through sheer willpower. After the battle they'd been scattered across the countryside, so Diabo had to ride out personally to rally men to him. He gathered small bands of retreating men. He rerouted columns of fleeing militiamen. He did what he could to reform his army.

Of the hundred thousand men he'd brought with him, Diabo now only had forty thousand men.

Ney estimated that ten thousand had been killed or wounded. Of those, only a few thousand had actually died in battle. But the wounded had been abandoned in the rout, and so they were left to Ney's men. Some were captured and others were put out of their misery.

An additional ten thousand were captured by Ney's army, either having been caught in preparation in the camp or having been surrounded and unable to run.

Over forty thousand were missing, scattered throughout the countryside and unable or unwilling to rejoin Diabo's main force. They were militiamen. They didn't have the discipline to regroup after a rout.

Ney had lost around five hundred auxiliaries, two hundred regulars, and a few dozen cavalrymen; maybe eight hundred men in all. Thousands more were wounded, but they were expected to recover.

The battle had lasted two hours.

The French were exhausted after the battle, but Ney allowed precious little time for his men to rest. They were marching again by the first light, because Ney needed to chase the Saderans. He urged them forward, and they marched despite their countless complaints.

Ney's army covered fifteen miles that day. Diabo's covered five.

At noon on the second day following the battle, Ney caught up with Diabo's rearguard. They tried to make a stand on a ridge near the road, but artillery was brought into range, and the rearguard was smashed apart by cannon balls then run down by Chaucer's Boys. Ney captured five thousand men.

Diabo kept running with Ney in hot pursuit. He now marched twelve miles a day, using the desperation of the moment to keep his militiamen going beyond their normal limits.

The next day, French fusiliers broke through another hastily reassembled rearguard, and they pushed into the main column. Over eight thousand men were scattered into the countryside, and another four thousand fell into French captivity. Feraud reported at sundown that Diabo's army was bleeding men to desertions.

Another day passed of pursuit. In that time, Diabo's army shrank dramatically. Ney was constantly at his heels; the French could march almost double what the Saderans did. They were used to it. Diabo had to sacrifice more men from his rearguard to delay the French long enough for the rest of his army to march away.

It worked. For a time.

At the end of that day, French fusiliers finally broke through his rearguard and were able to engage the main column. They pinned it down with persistent assaults, while reinforcements were rapidly brought up to finish the Saderan militia once and for all.

Diabo was forced personally to lead a suicidal cavalry charge to buy time for his men to escape. He lost most of his troopers and was wounded twice, but his charge forced the fusiliers to form squares, and that allowed the main body to get away relatively intact.

At his desperate urging, the Saderan militia marched through the night.

Some of the deserters Ney's army captured said that Prince Diabo was the only thing keeping their army moving. He rode up and down the column, encouraging exhausted men to keep pushing. He told jokes and praised men's courage. At one point, he gave up his horse so that a wounded man could use it.

Then, on the fourth day, Diabo's men made it to Sadera.

A desperate rearguard action was fought by his remaining militiamen under the walls of the city. Ney's fusiliers launched three separate attacks, intent on destroying them before they could reach safety while cannonballs rained on the militiamen like hail. But Diabo led a stubborn resistance. He ran up and down the battle line, shouting to hold the French for just a few minutes. At great cost, his men drove back French attacks long enough to slip away into the suburbs, where Ney refused to continue his offensive.

Ney's army made camp just outside the suburbs. In the face of a city of over one million inhabitants, it seemed absurd that Ney's twenty thousand could pose any threat. Yet the city gates were barred shut, men lined the walls with crossbows, and the suburbs were being evacuated. He was, in effect, besieging the largest city in the world.

"What would we even do if we breached the walls?" Ney wondered that night in his tent.

Captain Barbier looked up from his papers. He pursed his lips.

"Even if we obliterated the militia in its entirety, we could never take a city as large as Sadera," Ney mused. "There's more people in that city than in three Moscows."

Barbier fiddled with his quill. "What do you intend to do then, sir?"

Ney shrugged. "I think I'll write a letter," he said. Then he went to find a translator.

In the morning, a messenger bearing a white flag rode up to the city gates. The man was allowed to deliver Ney's letter through a sally port before being sent away.

The letter was addressed to the Imperial Senate, and it offered to ransom all of Ney's prisoners in exchange for their value paid in gold or silver. He was asking for quite a lot of money, but Ney had quite a lot of prisoners.

The Imperial Senate debated the issue extensively, according to Feraud's informant. A divisive split had occurred as a result of Diabo's failure, and the issue was hotly contested. Ultimately, however, it was the decision of the Senate that money would not go towards the freedom of 'cowards and traitors'.

This was, of course, deeply unpopular with the Saderan population who had formed the backbone of the Saderan militia and whose friends and family were counted among the 'cowards and traitors'. An angry mob formed outside the Senate building, but they were ignored.

Ney responded by sending the same letter again, only he addressed it to Prince Diabo El Caesar.

This time, Ney received a much more favorable response. In an effort to free his men, Prince Diabo went to the senate and personally demanded they accept Ney's terms. They refused him, but when that failed, he used his own wealth, selling several priceless artifacts and family heirlooms, in order to raise funds for the ransom. He also made certain that the public was aware he was paying the ransom himself, which made him very popular with the common people.

Ney's gold was delivered in carts outside the west gate. In turn, he released all the prisoners that could walk and sent the ones who couldn't on stretchers. Diabo nodded to him from the battlements, and Ney waved back.

Then Ney began bombarding the city.

A modern fortress, the kind that French armies used in Europe, was built on the basis of geometry and resilience. Its walls were built at angles to deflect cannonballs. It used thick bastions of packed earth so that they could absorb force where pure stone would shatter. Overlapping rings of defenses ensured that no single breach could capture the whole fortress. Special attention was paid to the overall geometry of its perimeter so that defensive cannons could provide counterfire from any angle. It was designed, primarily, to defend against the heavy siege artillery a modern army could bring to bear. Old castle designs had proved woefully inadequate against gunpowder artillery. Their stone walls too easily collapsed under the weight of a cannonade, so new designs had been created to fend off cannons. Vauban, the greatest engineer of his time, had pioneered such designs working for the old French monarchy, and the century of warfare following his death had only further perfected them. A modern fortress was never impregnable, but it was designed to last months, even years, against unrelenting artillery fire from a determined enemy.

Sadera was not a modern fortress.

It started just after noon, and it didn't stop until sundown. All thirty-six French guns opened fire against a section of Sadera's curtain wall, battering it relentlessly with iron balls. French gunners had their mark by the second barrage, so their shots became deadly accurate, landing against the stone walls with tremendous impact. Each hit shattered stones and sent shrapnel spiraling through the air. Men on the walls died with shards of rock embedded in them. After six barrages, the base of the wall had been torn apart. The whole section collapsed, creating a breach large enough to send the frontage of a battalion through. Then the guns went to work creating more breaches.

Colonel Delon complained about the massive use of ammunition, of course. With Italica gone, there was no way to resupply his artillery train if he exhausted his supply. But Ney was confident that they had enough for the campaign, so he ordered the barrage to continue.

The guns were only silenced when the sun dipped below the horizon. By then, Delon's gunners had blown open eight separate holes in the curtain wall.

The Saderan populace was terrified. They expected an assault at any moment, and the remaining militiamen were mobilized to the breaches. The jails were emptied. Criminals were conscripted. Slaves were freed in exchange for service in the militia. Women gathered rocks and boulders to throw from rooftops. Prince Diabo opened the Imperial Armory to the common citizens. It was commonly understood that Ney would sack Sadera if he captured it, as retribution for Italica. Everyone in the city was ready to fend off the attack that would inevitably come, be it in the night or at dawn. Thousands of eyes watched the distant fires of the French encampment.

They were watching nothing.

Because as the sun dipped below the horizon, Marshal Ney gave orders for the army to march. The men packed up their kits, disassembled their shelters, and got into marching order. Then they lit a thousand fires behind them and marched away from Sadera.

In the morning, the people of Sadera still stood ready for a sudden assault. It took almost the whole day for Prince Diabo to become suspicious of the oddly quiet French camp. A detachment of men were sent to investigate, and they reported that the camp was empty.

By then, it was too late for Diabo to do anything. Pursuit was out of the question, and he didn't know where Ney was headed. It would take too long to find him.

Ney was miles away, leaving behind both Diabo's battered militiamen in Sadera and Zorzal's resting army at Italica. He went further into the Saderan heartland, away from the Romalia Mountains and Agrippas Valley. Ney's army marched southeast, along a well maintained trade road towards the coast.

His army was marching to Proptor, the Empire's single most important trade port. And after two days of marching, the vanguard of Ney's army crested a high ridge, looked at the distant horizon in front of them, and together gave a great cry.

Ney was with the center when he heard the shouting. He immediately spurred his horse forward to investigate, calling for reinforcements to follow him. They were deep in enemy territory, and he didn't know if someone had managed to slip a messenger past them.

But as Ney rode to the front, he saw men racing forward, taking up the shouting as they did. Then Ney heard the shout and could only laugh with joy.

It was the purest of French, two words repeated over and over again:

"La mer! La mer!"

The men roared together.

The sea! The sea!


I'll bet most of you can spot where I took that last line from. It's been a major inspiration for this story, so I just had to add this as a tribute to it.

This chapter has a heavy focus on warfare, and I must say it's somewhat of a guilty pleasure to write it. I write these chapters with a printed map of the Special Region in one hand and my copy of Jomini's The Art of War in the other. It's quite fun drawing out lines of march for Ney, Zorzal, and Diabo while planning campaign movements and the interaction of strategic decisions. Without a doubt, there are inaccuracies in this chapter and many of my other chapters, but I do my best to keep things as close to reality as I can. That's why I also base most of what happens off of real Napoleonic campaigns or at least snippets of them. I do wish though that a more detailed map of the Special Region existed, because the maps I've found and use are horribly vague.

Another thing I wanted to show in this chapter is the brutality of Napoleonic warfare, not in the battles (I think I've done that just fine already) but in campaigning. I touched on this a bit in previous chapters, but I don't think I did it well enough.

Many people are aware that Napoleon's corps system relied extensively on living off the land/foraging; it's what allowed his armies to move so quickly and bypass fortifications. What I think is lost in that understanding is what foraging actually entails. "Living off the land" didn't mean going into the woods and hunting deer or gathering berries. It meant going to local villages and taking their food at gunpoint. Sometimes they paid for this food, but most of the time (especially in hostile territory) they just stole it and left the peasants in poverty. In this chapter, I've tried to impart on the reader that Ney's army is doing a horrible thing to the Saderan peasants. It may be my fault that I've portrayed the French in this story as good or honorable, but in reality that's just not true.

Napoleon's soldiers were not good people. They may not have been necessarily evil, but they certainly did or were at least complacent with evil things. They raped, they murdered, they stole. Not all of them did this, of course, but it's a simple fact that Napoleonic armies ran off of foraging and most of the time that entailed some form of theft. That's not to say that they were unique in this (Coalition armies certainly did similar things, as did many armies throughout history), but that doesn't take away from the fact that they still did it. I try not to whitewash this fact, though admittedly I could have done a better job in previous chapters.

One final thing is about some of the criticism I've received. It's all valid, and my story is far from perfect, but I just wanted to address some common things people have brought up.

First: why didn't Ney relieve Italica?
This has to do with the original plan he had to defeat Zorzal. Ney did not want to face Zorzal in an open field battle. He was outnumbered, and Zorzal had brought to bear supernatural monsters like dragons which had the potential to offset the French technological advantage. Could he win a battle? Maybe. But there was a lot that could go wrong.

Instead, Ney's plan revolved around cutting Zorzal's lines of communication and forcing him to retreat to Rondel, starve at Italica, or attack Ney's fortified position at Agrippas Valley. He expected Italica to be able to hold out longer than it did, but Zorzal's monsters and numbers were too much for Chaucer's preparations or Jacques's tactics, so the city fell before Zorzal ran out of supplies.

Why didn't he try to relieve the city when it was close to falling? Because he didn't know it was about to fall. Chaucer didn't have a means of communicating with Ney, because Zorzal had cut off Italica from the outside, as one does in a siege. He could send scouts, but that could mean being contested by Jegu's cavalry, and the information a scout would get by observing a siege from a distance isn't actually that useful. So Ney had no idea what was happening until Jacques arrived with news from Italica and thus he had no opportunity to relieve the city.

Second: why is Zorzal acting the way he is?
I'll be honest and say that I don't like the original anime/manga anymore. It was written by a Japanese nationalist who refused to allow the JSDF to be threatened in any meaningful way and was used as a way to promote Japanese imperialism whilst condemning literally every other world power. Additionally, the harem of Lelei, Tuka, and Rory ranges from problematic to outright disgusting, and I've written it out for my own sanity. The concept of Gate is wonderful, and that's why I decided to write this story in the first place, but the execution is terrible.

All of this is to say that I don't really like going back to the source material, so the personalities and actions of certain characters might not match up to the source perfectly. Zorzal's character is one example of this. I base him after the Roman Emperor Commodus rather than using his characterization from the anime/manga. Does this make my Zorzal better? Probably not, but it means I have a historical inspiration, and I much prefer historical inspirations to ones from the anime/manga. If you don't like that, that's perfectly fine. I'm going to continue writing as I as see fit here, and you can decide if you want to continue reading or not. Personally, I think the story is fine with a slightly different Zorzal.

Third: there's not enough romance/emotion between Jacques and Vidal.
This is absolutely true, and the reason behind it is incredibly simple: I'm not a good writer. I started this story having done almost no creative writing, and I've only improved because I just never stopped. But that also means that I'm quite frankly bad at certain things like writing emotional/romantic scenes. If you want that in a story, I recommend finding an author who is good at it, because I don't know if I can improve or not. It's a completely legitimate criticism, and I agree with it in every sense. I am trying to get better at this type of writing, but I can't guarantee anything.

Anyways, that's all I can say about the criticism I've been given. It's all very legitimate, and I'm not intending to bash people for having critiques, but I just thought that I'd provide my thinking behind the decisions I've made. This author's note is way too long now, so I'm going to leave it off here. Thank you for reading and please leave a review if you liked it (or disliked it).