The camp awoke in an oppressive silence, broken only by the clatter of ill-fitting armor and the muffled murmurs of soldiers. Some fidgeted with their jackets, others with their dented helmets, some adjusted their gauntlets, and the lucky ones their sallets. It was a human tide with a patchwork of old and new armor, but almost everyone exchanged looks of fear and excitement to gather or give a little courage to their comrades-in-arms, to those they might not see the sunset. They were ready, or at least they pretended to be. As for Flavius, he still heard the screams and calls from his nightmare echoing in his head, reinforced by the heterogeneous pieces of his armor, some of which had belonged to his family. His father's right glove, his uncle's sallet, his elder brother's boots, all more or less well-adjusted on him. He felt his stomach knot, his legs turn to cotton, Cassius who was looking at him gave him a big slap in the face. "If you go like this, you won't last the first volley." Flavius, shocked but grateful, nodded.
Suddenly, Commander Valerius emerged from among the men, his massive figure draped in a deep blue cloak edged with gold, his harness gleaming in the sun's rays; he looked like a statue of muscle and iron. He towered over almost all the men by a head and a half. His face, scarred by decades of combat, remained fixed, impassive, but his deep black eyes pierced each man like a blade seeking the flaw within them. Flavius, like some others, recoiled before this imposing aura, as if he were crushing them just with his presence. He stopped in front of a frail soldier huddled over his sword. "Women have no place on the battlefield, go home or serve in the infirmary. It is enough to shed the blood of men; yours would be another burden to bear." he said. The soldier replied in his shrill voice full of hatred and bitterness, "They killed my father, my husband, and my brothers. I want to fight to avenge them." "Look! Soldiers! This woman has more courage and balls than you! You fear for your lives, but she wants to fight for those who died for her family, to avenge them, to give hope to those who are still alive! That's why we're here! For our dead, our families, those who are still alive so that they no longer have to suffer! We sacrifice ourselves for them, for those we love, fighting for Dauph is the greatest sacrifice of love you can make for those you love. Today, you will learn what it truly means to sacrifice for others! We will end this war so that our families never suffer again!" thundered Valerius, his deep voice rolling like distant thunder. Some soldiers, galvanized by these words, began to shout his name, and the others followed. After five minutes of cheering, he gave the order to march. The men moved, exhilarated by these words, and the march to the front was brief. Flavius, however, was not convinced, and each step brought him closer to a point of no return. The atmosphere was slowly suffocating him, taking him in its arms and squeezing him like a vise; he knew there was no escape.
He could see the scouts running, breathless, towards the officers' camp. Within minutes, rumors of the reports reached his ears; the cavalry of the kingdom of Fine was deploying on the flanks, and the infantry was massing on the ridges. The wait became unbearable; the euphoria and galvanization of the soldiers had faded, everyone holding their weapon and praying to see the sunset. The sun began to bake the soldiers under their armor; Flavius was sweating profusely, the infantryman beside him, unable to hold on after hours of waiting on the front, relieved himself in the middle of everyone, this immond smell adding to the oppressive atmosphere.
Finally, the dust carried by the wind indicated that the enemy army was approaching. He could see a swarming mass of soldiers, their armor glinting in the sun, their banners fluttering in the wind like the wings of crows. The cavalry, in tight ranks, made the earth tremble, a dull rumble that resonated even in Flavius's bones. His heart was pounding, a sickening mix of fear and adrenaline burning in his veins.
Valerius ordered everyone to form up, each man in his place, the orders barked by the officers relaying the message cracking like whips. Beside him, Cassius stood straight, his gaze fixed on the enemy lines, unyielding. "Not the time to falter, Flavius," he murmured, his low voice piercing the inner turmoil that was ravaging his companion. "When the first one falls, advance. Always!"
The signal sounded, a horn blast followed by the beat of drums, resonating across the plain before giving way to the soldiers' cries as they shouted to give themselves courage, to drive away the fear that twisted their guts. The battle opened with a deafening crash, steel clashing against steel, the blades cutting down the first souls who fell screaming in pain. The ground began to drink its first gulps of blood, like a greedy sponge eager for the next round. The cavalry roared, making the earth tremble, and a storm of dust rose, swallowing the world in a howling chaos. Flavius, in his worst nightmares, had not imagined such horror; his mind was not ready. The war he had imagined crumbled under the weight of a brutal reality: guttural cries, blades sinking into flesh, bodies collapsing in the mud. The enemy was charging, a wave of iron and hatred, and they too were advancing, driven by a force he did not yet understand. Stopping meant being crushed by the soldiers behind who were pushing, but also continuing meant being impaled by the enemy's lances. Doing nothing was death; doing something was welcoming the grim reaper. There was no room for reflection; reflecting was dying, so his most primal instincts took over, overwhelming him like a tidal wave. His mind reduced to what he could see, hear, and feel, to the metallic noise of swords, to the necessity of holding on and surviving. He brandished his weapon, striking an enemy soldier who impaled himself on his blade, the steel sinking into the ribcage with a sharp crack followed by a soft sound and a jet of red liquid that splashed his face. A fleeting sense of invincibility washed over him before the truth caught up with him. A scream tore through the air, followed by a wet, sinister sound. Tiberius collapsed at his feet, an arrow lodged in his throat, blood gushing out like a fountain as he choked in an atrocious gurgle. His body hit the ground with a dull thud, his fingers clawing at the earth, and then nothing.
The chaos intensified, waves of violence engulfing everything. His neighbor who had relieved himself lay armless in a grotesque embrace with a headless enemy, their blood mingling in a gruesome fusion, and the ground drank it all, never satisfied. Men continued to fall, disemboweled by blades, their skulls crushed by maces, their torsos crushed by hooves, their screams of pain blending with the din and the silent screams of those who had gone before them. Flavius breathed deeply, his breath ragged, forcing his mind to stay anchored. In the distance, Lysandre was carving a bloody path through the melee, his massive figure striking down the enemy with a savagery that chilled the blood. He was smiling, a wild smile as if nothing else existed, just this savage joy of slashing, of still being alive while taking the lives of others, then he disappeared into the whirlwind of battle.
The sun shone relentlessly, as if jubilant at this spectacle, as if it wanted to illuminate this world of chaos to give men a chance to see their enemies clearly to spread more death, suffering, and chaos. Only adrenaline and the fear of dying kept Flavius alive. He struck again and again; he no longer knew how many people he had killed, but did it matter? He was alive, and that was the only thing that mattered to him. His sword was deflected by a vambrace with a force that made his arms vibrate to the bone. An arrow whistled past, grazing his shoulder, ricocheting off his armor with a metallic sound that jarred him out of his automatisms and took his breath away. He staggered, fell to one knee, which saved his life; beside him, a soldier fell, and if he had not knelt, it would have been him lying on the ground with empty eyes. The earth trembled even more violently; the enemy cavalry surged like a storm of hooves, iron, and blinding light, destabilizing Flavius. Another soldier collapsed, arms outstretched in a grotesque parody of supplication, a lance embedded in his torso, blood flowing like a black river. Then Flavius saw his comrades-in-arms crushed under the horses, their screams stifled by the cracking of bones and the neighing of the beasts. He lunged forward, striking mechanically, dodging a horseman whose saber slashed the air a thumb's breadth from his head. With a desperate movement, he tried to plant his sword in the knight's side, but the armor easily repelled the blow. The horseman continued his path, mowing down the infantrymen like scything hay.
The ground was now a quagmire saturated with blood and viscera; it had had its fill and was beginning to regurgitate the blood it had drunk like a drunkard regurgitating his alcohol. The air grew thicker and thicker with the smell of blood mingling with the dust. Flavius breathed in this vitiated air with a metallic taste; his arms burned, his lungs rattled, fear clung to his legs, creeping up his body like a snake coiling in spirals. He continued to strike, dodge, surviving step by step, second by second. His gaze caught Lysandre again, cutting down the enemy with deadly precision, a god of war in this hell. He laughed loudly, making blood gush forth, a morbid and captivating art. This cost Flavius a dagger wound to the arm; his distraction had had a consequence. Under the pain, Flavius recoiled, tripped in the mire, and with an instinctive kick, knocked down his assailant. Without thinking, he smashed the pommel of his sword onto the man's skull, a sharp crack resounding as the body collapsed, lifeless. Another life extinguished under his hands, allowing him to continue living. A cold shiver ran up his spine, but there was no time for doubt, no room for distraction or soul in this charnel house. The sticky dust caked with blood clung to his hair, his clothes, stung his eyes, blurring everything; his companions lost in the tumult. The war had swallowed him, and all that remained was this whirlwind of iron, blood, and death.
A pain exploded in Flavius's back, a burning tear wrenching a silent cry of suffering from him. An enemy soldier he hadn't seen had struck him from behind, the metal biting into his flesh through his plackart and jack. He collapsed, his knees hitting the muddy ground with a dull thud, his vision blurring under a wave of black and white spots. The air began to fail him; each breath was like a blade in his lungs, and the slippery earth under his palms seemed to want to swallow him. As if the souls of those he had felled were pulling him towards them. By instinct, he rolled to the side, a fraction of a second before a blade struck where he had lain, cleaving the ground in a spray of mud and blood. The soldier who had given him the sword blow was trying to finish the job, his blood-drenched sword poised. If he didn't move, if he didn't react, he would join his father and the rest of his family; it would be the end for him. In this reddish mire, his story would end, and he would have to pay for taking the lives of others for the rest of eternity. The enemy soldier gave him a sword blow which he parried with his gauntlet, wrenching another cry of pain from him. He breathed deeply, a rasping rattle, gripped the blade, and pulled sharply, causing the soldier to lose his balance as he hadn't expected that. He straightened up, legs trembling, back screaming with every movement, hand on fire. No time to think. No time to die. The soldier who had struck him was already getting up, a gleam of hatred in his eyes, then of pain mixed with incomprehension. The tip of a lance protruding from his body at the level of the heart, a crimson geyser spurting as he collapsed, his hands vainly clutching the lance, his mouth gurgling a black flood of blood. Flavius averted his eyes from the macabre spectacle. No pity, no respite; he had to keep moving not to end up like him.
Another earthquake, followed by a terrifying rumble. A fully armored horse was charging at full speed, its hooves pounding the ground like thunderclaps, sending up a spray of blood-reddened earth and bits of limbs. Its rider, with a mace, was crushing everything in its path. Flavius's eyes widened; his body reacted before his mind. He dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the animal's armor and the mace. He hit the ground, falling on the soldier who had opened his back, rolled, grabbed the lance, got up, his heart pounding to the point of breaking his ribs, and in a vain hope threw the lance, which did not reach the horseman.
Around him, the battle had turned into a charnel house, a carpet of broken bodies, iron, and blood that clung to boots, clothes, and weapons like a shroud. The screams of the soldiers, the dying, mingled with the hoarse orders, the clash of blades, the neighing of disemboweled horses, all creating a sick orchestra. At his feet, the soldiers with empty gazes, some looking towards the sky, others towards the earth, cold, still warm, convulsing or frozen for eternity in his memory. The soldiers of Fines and Dauph in a deadly and fraternal embrace added to the scene, all with more or less purple staining their clothes and armor. He picked up a sword in better condition than his own, a less damaged helmet, and plunged back into the melee. Killing to survive was his only strategy. Luck had carried him this far, but she was a capricious mistress, and he knew it.
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He continued his mechanical work, his sword lunging in an instinctive arc. The blade cutting through the air and then the flesh, sinking into the enemies with sickening ease. The men collapsed, a rattle escaping their lips as the ground soaked up the red. Flavius felt the burn in his arm, the pain in his back radiating with every movement, but he paid it no mind. Not now. Not yet. A sudden flash of light, a dagger, appearing from nowhere, lunging towards his face. He had no time to parry. The icy blade lashed his cheek, a line of fire opening in his skin, hot blood immediately flowing, dripping onto his chin. The pain made him stagger, his vision momentarily darkening under the shock. His opponent gave him no time to recover; another blow struck him in the side, the world swayed, a gray veil threatening to engulf him, but a shadow moved in front of him. A soldier of Dauph, tall as a mountain, interposed himself with brutal speed. His blood-red sword glinted in the sun before plunging into the assailant's torso, who collapsed silently, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his blood mingling with the mud. Flavius gasped, his lungs burning with every breath. He was alive. By miracle, by chance, thanks to this stranger.
The soldier turned to him, their gazes meeting for a fraction of a second. No words, just a silent exchange, a raw acknowledgment, a remnant of humanity in this hell. Then the man moved on, a war cry bursting from his throat as he repelled another enemy, his sword dripping with fresh blood. He sought neither gratitude nor glory, just the next target, the next breath; he too killed to survive.
Flavius brought a trembling hand to his cheek, then to his side, the blood sticking to his fingers, his strength waning with each heartbeat that pumped blood out of his body. He shook his head to dispel the fog creeping into his mind, grabbed a piece of cloth from a corpse that had no earth, and wrapped it around his waist to staunch the bleeding. He straightened up; there was no time to linger, no time to yield; the battle raged on, merciless; he had to keep moving not to die.
The ground had become a foul quagmire where each step made sucking sounds as if the earth demanded more blood, more deaths, more souls. It was littered with bodies, some still twitching in their final moments, others frozen in grotesque poses, their eyes glassy turned towards an indifferent sky. The open bellies proudly displayed their entrails, adding the smells of bile, gastric acids, and excrement to the smell of dust and blood. The sounds of weapons clashing, the screams of agony from men and horses, the hooves crushing indiscriminately flesh and earth, formed a cacophony that pierced his skull. "Will I survive this? How many of us will still be alive tonight?" such were the questions Flavius asked himself as he looked at the massacre. "How can men be happy to go to war?"
He gripped his blade, his knuckles whitening with the effort. No turning back. No escape. Just the war, the massacre, and him, a bloody pawn in this cruel game for the powerful. He had to keep going to avoid being swallowed by the earth. One more step, one more blow, not thinking, not feeling the pain, moving forward or dying.
The battle did not end, stretching into an eternity of suffering and horror, a temporal abyss where each second devoured a life. Flavius's body was nothing more than a mass of flesh, bone, and pain; every step, every movement, every breath was a refined torture that wrung cries of pain and rage from him. The more he advanced, the more exhausted he became, wanting to lie down and end it all. But his instinct forced him to survive. He struck, dodged, parried, but everything blended into a mechanical haze, like a half-broken automaton. His arms trembled under the weight of the sword, his legs wobbled under his weight, but his instinct screamed that stopping meant death. Death, a tempting option his body refused. Swords still whistled around him, blades clashed in a deafening din, war cries echoed like whispers in a tomb. Everything was blurry, as if in a fog; he no longer had the strength to think. Kill or be killed; survival was the only option his body gave him. One blow, then another, and another, a reflex repeated to infinity.
In this stupor, he felt himself rise into the sky, the ground far beneath him, then his ears brought him back to reality—a roar tearing through the air, a rumble that shook the earth. He wondered if a horse had done this, but it would have had to be an enormous horse. Then he hit the ground on his back, knocking the wind out of him for a moment. He got up and saw a gaping chasm several meters away that had swallowed men and horses. Another monstrous detonation exploded, screaming in his ears, and shards of wood, metal, and mud flew, propelled from the ground, as if the earth were vomiting them. By reflex, Flavius raised his arms to protect himself, a futile gesture against the violence of the blast that threw him backward. Once again, he crashed to the ground, his back hitting the hard earth, the air forced from his lungs in a stifled gasp. And the macabre rain began: screaming horses, soldiers—friend and foe alike—weapons, and body parts fell in grotesque heaps. A deafening noise, then a few seconds later, an explosion that opened the ground, leaving a crater, and finally an immond rain. This rain seemed to last an eternity for Flavius, the dust mixed with water, blood, and other fluids he refused to identify invaded everything, seeping into his throat, making him cough violently, and burning his eyes. His ears rang from the incessant noise of explosions and screams. Then the noise stopped, the rain ceased, the dust slowly settled, and what he saw was even worse than before. Half a horse, its glistening entrails covering half a headless, armless man with a sword planted in his body like a flower. There, two men formed a single body; here, a sword with no owner but a severed hand. Before him lay only horror and chaos; he felt as if he had died and entered the antechamber of hell, but he knew he was not dead because his body ached, a dull, powerful pain pulsing in sync with his heartbeat. He understood! The artillery. Their artillery! They had unleashed their fire but too close to the front lines, indiscriminately mowing down their own ranks.
Flavius, panting amid the debris, felt a cold panic rise within him. If they continued like this, all the allied infantrymen would be wiped out. Not only would the army lose all its infantrymen, but everything would be swept away in this blind massacre, and the battle would be lost. All his suffering, everything he had just endured, all for nothing, drowned in this blind carnage. He tried to stand, but his legs, heavy as lead, refused to obey. A cry of agony pierced the air, making him turn his head. There, very close, a guttural, desperate sound that chilled his blood. He recognized the soldier, the one who had saved his life, lying on the ground, his leg crushed under the massive corpse of a horse. Their eyes met, the man's eyes shining with pain and terror, imploring. Flavius wanted to move forward, to extend a hand, but another detonation shook the ground; the inferno unleashed again, an explosion carrying away the soldier. The artillery, indifferent, resumed its macabre melody.
This was not a battlefield; it was a slaughterhouse, a grinder, an emotionless entity reducing men to bloody mud. He had to move; staying still meant offering his carcass to the massacre. He finally managed to stand, despite his fatigue, despite his legs giving way, stumbling through the chaos, each step a struggle against a fate ready to cut him down. He looked one last time at where he had seen the dying soldier who had saved his life. He could do nothing, and it gnawed at him.
Under the black symphony of cannonballs, the battle awoke, hideous and torn. They split the air, striking with indescribable violence, churning the earth into geysers of dirt and fire. The enemy lines slowly crumbled. Screams erupted—shrill, desperate—as soldiers disorganized under this blind deluge.
Impossible to hold under such a storm.
Then a voice pierced the tumult, an order shouted, sharp and cutting:
"Retreat!"
The enemy ranks disintegrated. Men fled en masse, stumbling over each other, abandoning all discipline in total rout.
Flavius, breathless, broken, his body drenched in sweat, mud, fluids he did not want to determine the origin of, and blood—a mixture of his own and that of other soldiers—stood frozen, observing this surreal scene. Around him, the soldiers of Dauph, as shocked as he was, exhausted but victorious, in a state as miserable as his own, caught their breath. In their eyes, one could see that they knew they had escaped the massacre. A few timid cries of triumph rose, quickly broken by coughing fits and cries of pain. In the distance, the cannons still roared, but not for them, for other beings as miserable as they were. Flavius remained silent, his eyes wandering over this chaos, this foretaste of hell of shattered bodies, disemboweled horses, and churned earth; what had been a plain less than twenty minutes ago now resembled a field of craters. Victory had a bitter taste, of ashes and blood in the mouth.
They had survived, yes... but at what cost? How many men had his regiment or the army lost in this carnage? So many unanswered questions swirled in his mind.
He took a deep breath. The foul air burned his dry throat. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting reality fade... if only for a second.
When he opened them, the men around him were stirring, returning to camp. Many wounded, dragging their still-living carcasses, some with broken limbs, others disfigured forever, others physically unharmed but haggard, their gaze lost in a world of terror that would never leave them. Some of the more able-bodied slowly regrouped, gathering the wounded, clearing away the fallen horses, their movements heavy, weighed down by a weariness that followed the adrenaline. He had survived this first day, but would he survive the next? Could he delay the inevitable? The enemy had retreated, but the war was just beginning, bringing with it new pains, new horrors, and lives to be broken.
It was then that Flavius saw him, a few steps away, lying among the corpses and the dying, the one who had saved his life, now just a broken vestige, half his body torn away by the explosion. His face, frozen in a grimace of pain and terror, bore the stigmata of a brutal end; his wide-open, empty eyes seemed to search for meaning in this carnage, a silent echo of the questions that haunted Flavius. He approached slowly, each step heavy as a stone, a dull pain in his chest. Flavius lingered for a moment to say a prayer for this unknown man who had saved his life. He closed his eyes for a moment to fight back a wave of emotions, but it was a mistake; he relived the moment when their eyes had met, just before he was engulfed by an explosion. It tore a piece of his soul away. Then he turned away, even more broken, walking slowly among the corpses, climbing up and down the craters. He refused to be overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions. If he wanted to survive, he had to push them away, bury them.
He wandered aimlessly towards the camp, looking for wounded to help. His gaze fell on a man crouched, clutching a bloody arm, his face pale with pain. "I need help..." he whispered, his voice trembling, at the end of his strength. Without hesitation, Flavius crouched down despite his own wounds and the blood that had begun to seep from his wounds again, grabbing his arm to support him. He helped him up, but the man staggered, his weight leaning heavily on him. Flavius gritted his teeth, ignoring his own fatigue and the suffering of his body, relegating them to the back of his mind. One step, then another step, that's how he had to do it to survive. If he did nothing, the man would die. "Hold on, we're going to the camp. They'll take care of you." They advanced slowly, cautiously, over treacherous, slippery, muddy ground, avoiding as much as possible the pieces of bodies, metal, and wood. The journey seemed endless; the man let out a rattle, fell to his knees, then his face hit the muddy ground with a sucking sound. He no longer moved; he had finished suffering. Flavius, his hands trembling, unable to control their movement, left him there and continued his journey of suffering to the camp.
Finally, he arrived at the camp, collapsed near a fire, his legs giving way, unable to support him any longer. His body was a mass of pain, dirt, and dried mud, sticking to his skin like a second armor. The smell of grilled meat mixed with the smell of embers, dried blood, and the lingering scent of powder still hanging in the air. A unique odorous cocktail close to that of death but not quite. The crackling of the fire, an almost tender sound after the horror he had just experienced, washed over him like a fleeting caress, barely soothing the cries of his raw nerves and flesh.
Around the fires, the soldiers gathered in small groups, gaunt beings, silent shadows in the growing darkness. Some furtively watched the stretchers bringing back the wounded, their moans carried away by the wind, and the dead, inert forms swallowed by the darkness. Others stared into space, their eyes hollow, lifeless, as if the war had sucked out their souls, leaving only empty shells. The atmosphere crushed them in a deadly silence, more oppressive, more deafening than the noise of battle; not a word, not a breath. The cold of war had seized them all, an insidious chill that infiltrated their bones, their hearts, their souls, stealing everything that made them men. They could pretend to be alive, but this void, this icy nothingness, was all that remained.
