The sun had begun to falter, bleeding low and red across the smoke-slick sky, casting long shadows over a battlefield that no longer resembled land at all — only a mire of churned snow, broken steel, and steaming corpses.
Le Pont Noir had become unrecognizable.
Where once the valley dipped shallow and serene beneath the pines, now it boiled — a cauldron of agony, of flame and fatigue, and broken mortal men.
The field had stopped being a place of tactics and had instead become a place of endurance.
Even victory, now, had teeth.
The Francians Held.
Not for glory.
Not for strategy.
Only for pride.
They were nobles, the royal army, entrusted with achieving victory in repelling the vile invaders of their beloved Francia!
They fought in clusters, pockets of resistance pressed into corners by encircling Romanus formations.
Some fought blind.
Some fought limping.
Some fought because it was all they had left.
