The Battle of Le Pont Noir – Midday
War, in stories, often ends with a charge.
Here, it began with the collapse of breath, the crunch of bone, the rattle of screams beneath a sky still bleeding flame.
A Francian knight stumbled forward, armor blackened by pitch, his helm half-melted into the side of his skull.
He didn't scream — he couldn't.
The heat had scorched the air from his lungs.
Still, he lifted his longsword, teeth gritted behind a fused visor, and lunged for the nearest Romanus dog he could find.
The legionnaire met him with calm brutality — gladius rising, angled perfectly beneath the exposed plate.
The thrust didn't hesitate.
It punched through mail, into gut, and twisted.
The knight fell backward like a dropped statue.
Cracked.
Hollow.
The legionnaire stepped over him without a second glance moving on to his next victim.
To the east, the Francian men-at-arms held a tighter formation.
