9. Chapter 9

I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.

When General Courbet's soldiers crashed into the flank of the Saderan horde and Colonel Feraud's cavalrymen descended like wolves on the rear, Ney could not help but laugh.

His entire body was wracked with pain. He had allowed himself to become stuck in the fighting and almost died as a result. Worse, he had isolated himself from command and cut off his ability to react. Had things gone differently, Ney could have very well lost because of that mistake.

But fortune favored him, and things went the way they had, so he laughed.

He'd watched from the top of Aquila ridge as Courbet's regiment soared across the field and struck Zorzal in the side. Then he'd seen Feraud's charge into their backsides, and he'd known the battle was over.

It was an odd thing to watch. In one moment, the Saderans were one enormous horde swarming the base of the ridge. In the next, they were tens of thousands of panicked individuals. Their formation exploded. It seemed to sweep the entire army in a wave, the realization that they were losing. Those engaged in combat threw down their weapons. Entire cohorts surrendered as one because there were French infantry to their front and side and French cavalry to their rear, so they had nowhere to flee. The few that kept fighting were quickly butchered.

Even so, Ney's trap was not all encompassing. Courbet and Feraud did not have enough men to fully envelop Zorzal's army, and there were large gaps which became alleys of retreat for the panicked legionaries. Feraud did his best at herding the fleeing men into surrendering, but it was not enough. Ney watched perhaps a sixth of their army escape from the field because there were simply too many Saderans to round up.

"Not good enough," he spat to himself.

"Sir?" Captain Barbier asked.

Ney took a deep breath. He had just devastated an army four times his own, and yet it was still not enough. He wanted- He needed - a total victory over his enemy. Allowing thousands of legionaries to retreat back to Sadera would not do.

He pointed to the fleeing men. "Get us horses and send for our baggage train to bring up fresh mounts. We'll join with Feraud, remount the cavalry, and pursue the enemy."

Barbier had the good sense not to argue. "Yes, sir!"

Colonel Feraud's cavalry were tired. They'd charged the enemy, and now their horses were just about ready to drop. The men weren't much better, exhausted from the rigors of battle.

Regardless, Ney needed them ready to pursue their foe, and his baggage train was run by veteran caretakers. As the infantry gathered together prisoners, a third army appeared from behind Aquila Ridge in the form of wagons carrying barrels of water and men leading herds of horses, captured Saderan warhorses from their previous battles. The water and remounts became the focus of six hundred cavalry troopers; it was chaos, but a controlled chaos, with officers shouting for men to drink up then fall in. Every man collectively took a moment to breathe and rest and clear their heads.

It took thirty minutes in all. Precious time that could have been used pursuing the Saderans if Ney had any sort of cavalry reserve. Ney did not, so the Saderans were given time to flee. He made note of that.

Colonel Feraud rode to him, bloody saber in one hand and canteen in the other, maneuvering his horse across the corpse-strewn field without his reins like a modern centaur.

"A victory for the ages, sir! They'll be telling stories of this for the next millenia!"

Ney shrugged. His body still hurt. Badly. He looked to the horizon and said, "We're not done yet. Are your men ready to pursue?"

"Ready as they'll ever be. I've got a decent body of light horse with heavy horse to back them up. We should get started before night comes."

Ney was in agreement. "Go, Colonel. Go until they are destroyed."

Feraud beamed. "We'll send 'em hell!"

And so they did. Feraud's light cavalry swept east, to the Appia Road where most of the legionaries had instinctively ran to. His heavy cavalry followed, formed in two main bodies half a mile apart, to support their lighter brethren in case they met firm resistance. Ney rode with them until they reached the main road. He discovered that his bruised body did not appreciate horse riding, and Ney chose to return to check up on the rest of his army. Feraud did not need him there.

Ney crossed the field back to Aquila Ridge. Already he saw his generals working to reorganize the army while simultaneously gathering prisoners and collecting wounded. Messier and Rousseau saluted him when he approached.

"Where's Courbet?" Ney immediately asked. "And Brunelle and Delon?"

"Courbet's working on sorting out the prisoners, sir," Messier answered. "He's trying to separate the officers from their men to reduce the chances of revolt. Brunelle is organizing stretcher teams to collect the wounded, ours and theirs alike. Surgeons will be working through the night with all that's happened. Last I saw, Delon was doing an ammunition count."

"Courbet says most of the senior officers fled. We've only found centurions so far," Rousseau added.

"And Zorzal?"

"Gone as well, sir."

"Damn," Ney cursed. A dozen things went through his mind, but he refocused himself to the current situation. "Clear out a section near our camp for the prisoners. I want them guarded day and night, no exceptions. If anyone is too much trouble, shoot them," he ordered. Then he pointed across the battlefield to the very distant now abandoned Saderan camp. "Have a company you trust head over and start collecting valuables. Spread word that everything in that camp is property of the army, and that looters will be hanged as criminals."

Messier stroked his chin. "What do we do with camp followers we find? And slaves?"

"Set any slaves free. Drive off the camp followers. With any luck they'll spread word of what happened here, and by the time it reaches the ears of Emperor Molt we will have become demigods capable of obliterating the world." Ney glanced off to the east, where Feraud was pursuing the remaining Saderans. "Messier, you have temporary command of the army. I'm going back to the pursuit."

"Very good, sir." Messier saluted. Then he and Rousseau rode off to distribute orders.

Captain Barbier, who'd been silent at Ney's side, wiped his brow of sweat. "I quite like being your aide. Interesting perspective to see."

Ney glanced at the man. "You've hardly done anything as my aide."

"I saved your life."

"Fair enough."

Barbier pursed his lips. "Are you sure you want to rejoin the pursuit? You should be resting after a near death experience."

"Very true," he said and then rode to rejoin Feraud's cavalry.

They returned to the Appia Road half an hour later, and there were guides waiting for them. A pair of dragoons indicated that the open ground of the south side of the road had already been swept, and they pointed them towards the rougher terrain along the north side. The road itself had patrols running up and down it.

Ney led Barbier north and then east, parallel to the Appia Road, for several miles. The sun began to set, and they passed the first corpses. There was a man alone, his weapons nowhere in sight, corpse curled on the ground like a babe, and then another deadman missing his head, and then three more deadmen together, mutilated by hussars. More appeared, most with saber wounds in their backs and few with any sort of weaponry in sight.

Ney considered just how much it seemed like murder rather than war.

Their path became a trail of death. Feraud's men were thorough; there were no wounded Saderans. They came to a village with a collection of tiny hovels that stood in for houses. There were more corpses here. Men in armor, fleeing legionaries, and men without armor, Saderan peasants caught in the crossfire. All had saber wounds from French cavalry.

Ney and Barbier rode on, past the village, and found the ending of a desperate fight. Some legionaries, unable to outrun Feraud's horsemen, holed up in a barn preparing to sell their lives while a dozen hussars waited outside laughing.

Ney rode up. A hussar lieutenant noticed him and went to shout him off until he saw who Ney was.

"You're in command?"

"Yes, sir." The hussar saluted stiffly as if to make up for his initial disrespect.

Ney nodded then approached the barn. He called out in German for the men inside to throw down their arms.

"Fuck you! Bluecoat!" shouted back a thickly accented voice.

"I tried," Ney sighed.

The hussars gathered dry branches and sticks. They piled it up against the barn, and then Ney asked for the Saderans to surrender once more. He received a similar response, so the hussars barred the door, set fire to the branches, and burned the barn down. The Saderans inside died choking on smoke and had their bodies charred by flames.

Terrible business. But it had to be done.

They continued parallel to the road. With each mile the number of bodies they found exponentially multiplied, and it looked like the scenes of a dozen massacres. Here and there they found a spot where the Saderans put up a fight and killed a Frenchman before heavy cavalry was brought in to run them down, but those instances were few and far between. Most men were killed without resistance. Many looked to have been surrendering.

"Feraud's not taking prisoners," Barbier muttered.

Ney grimaced. "He doesn't have enough men to escort them back. Easier to just kill them here and not break off the pursuit."

Barbier stared at a corpse, its head smashed inward by a horse hoof, and they continued on.

Finally they found Colonel Feraud. He was with two dozen cuirassiers, and they surrounded a stone windmill occupied by Saderans. The cuirassiers all had their swords drawn, and they were shouting obscenities. The Saderans inside did likewise.

"Colonel," Ney greeted.

Feraud turned. "Marshal!" He smiled and looked like a demonic being, uniform covered in gore and his saber dripping blood. "Appreciating our handiwork?" he asked, gesturing to the corpses around them.

Ney didn't feel the need to respond to that. He looked at the windmill. "Imperials holed up in there?"

"Not just any!" Feraud laughed. "We have the Imperial in there. Prince Zorzal himself!"

Suddenly it all felt worth it. The murders and massacres. The needless death. All justified for this ultimate prize.

Ney dismounted and walked to the windmill. "Give up!" he yelled, hoping someone in there understood the language of Elbe.

"You will only kill us all!" was their reply.

"We are collecting thousands of prisoners at Aquila Ridge. Give up the prince, and I will see to it that you are well treated."

There was a pause. Then a burst of argument in their native language that Ney had no ability to understand. He thought he heard someone get very angry. Something inside the windmill was moving, a struggle perhaps. Then someone screamed, and the struggle ended.

The door to the windmill opened. A tall blonde man gilded armor came out, hands tied behind him. Three others pushed him forward. Behind, Ney saw two corpses lying in pools of blood.

"Here, have him," one of them told Ney. It was a different voice to the one he'd spoken to before. The blonde man was pushed forward.

Ney's eyes met with the blonde man's and then he gave a slight nod.

"Prince Zorzal. A pleasure to finally meet in person."

The army spent two days cleaning up at Aquila Ridge then marched straight for Italica with a column of prisoners that just by itself dwarfed the army in size. The prisoners were so numerous that Ney had to order half rations because they hadn't brought enough food for them all. But that wasn't it. When French soldiers sacked the Saderan camp they found more than just trinkets; they found slaves and camp followers; twenty thousand of them.

Ney's orders had been to drive off camp followers and set free slaves. Some of the camp followers went willingly, mostly officer's wives and families who feared French reprisals. However, a great deal more simply refused to go. These were the servants, prostitutes, washerwomen, cooks, and generally anyone who had nothing to go back to in Sadera. The slaves also refused to go. They feared being put back in chains if they returned to the Empire, so they stuck to the French like a swarm of fleas. When Messier asked if they should drive them off with bayonets, Ney said no. He didn't feel like potentially ordering another massacre. Especially not against civilians.

So now Ney had roughly twelve thousand soldiers to control about thirty thousand prisoners and a further twenty thousand civilians. His corps was once more outnumbered five to one by Saderans. His only saving grace was that no one wanted to fight anymore.

There was also the matter of a few hundred female prisoners. Pina's Rose-Order of Knights, who'd been commandeered to fight for Zorzal's force. Courbet had brought the matter to him immediately, fearing they would be raped if they were placed with the rest of the prisoners. Ney agreed and had them separated, guarded not by regular soldiers but by a loyal company of grenadiers because Ney could not trust his own regulars anymore than the Saderans.

They reached Italica after three days of marching. They should have made it in one day, but their newfound camp followers clogged the roads and caused a thousand small delays that caused Ney's temper to flare. He nearly had a woman hanged for sabotage after her wagon broke its axel and blocked the French artillery train for three hours. General Courbet's calm demeanor swayed him from that course of action.

But, in spite of their additional 'baggage', the French returned to Italica five days after the battle. They were let into the gate by the tiny garrison Ney had left, and they proceeded to parade their prisoners through the streets in a grand triumph.

There was a mixed reception. Some cheered his men when they showcased their victory, early acceptors of their new reality. Others booed and hurled insults at the French, Saderan loyalists who rejected French occupation. The vast majority were stoney silent as the Ney's men passed, fearful and uncertain of what was to come.

It was better than Ney had expected. No angry mob came to confront him in the streets. No prisoner revolt attempted to undo his victory. Things were peaceful.

The army was soon quartered in the city's barracks, and the prisoners were taken to be housed in empty stables and abandoned warehouses across the city. Their new camp followers dissipated into Italica's slums, though a great deal continued to stick by the army, loitering near their barracks and offering a variety of services.

Ney went immediately to the city's palace, now his army headquarters and unofficially his prison for important captives such as King Duran, Princess Pina, and now Prince Zorzal. Pina was there to welcome him at the palace gates, escorted by a French grenadier. Ney reunited the princess with her captive brother, and it was immediately clear they held no love for each other.

Prince Zorzal, as Ney had discovered, spoke very poor and halting German, so Pina remained the prime negotiator with Ney in spite of her subordinate position. They were taken to a room by the palace maids, served some very excellent tea, and negotiated new peace terms.

"Five hundred thousand Suwani…" Pina gasped.

Ney nodded. Equivalent to a hundred million gold Francs. Roughly two-thirds the indemnity Napoleon demanded from Prussia in 1807. Double what Ney had initially requested upon first seizing Italica.

Zorzal furrowed his brow, probably only understanding a fraction of what Ney had demanded. Pina, beside him, whispered something in their native language, and he remained silent.

The princess looked like she might faint. "I had thought you only demanded half that."

Ney shrugged. It was a very good shrug, and he was proud of it because it masked his countless concerns behind a wall of indifference. He made himself smile and replied, "That was before I killed five thousand legionaries in battle, slaughtered another five thousand on the pursuit, captured the remaining thirty thousand, and took the Crown Prince of the Empire as my prisoner."

She struggled for words, "But… I... You-"

"The rest of the terms are unchanged," Ney interrupted. "You will find that this is a very generous treaty considering the circumstances.

Zorzal clearly didn't like the tone Ney used. He burst up from his seat. "You Bluecoat barbarian! Make bad request, no like! Bad thing!" Zorzal shouted in his broken German, shaking his fist at Ney.

Ney ignored the prince and turned to the princess. "Your armies have met defeat after defeat. This was your father's last gamble and it failed. How far away is your nearest intact legion? A month? My army can be at the walls of Sadera in two weeks. We can take the city in a day. You saw us do it here. What makes you think Sadera will be any different?"

Pina bit her lip, and Ney knew that his bluff was working.

"Accept the terms and urge your father to do the same," Ney coerced. "It is the only way."

Zorzal spoke in his own tongue, a rapid burst of harsh sounding words that only Pina understood. She replied with her own rapid burst, softer in nature and far more collected than Zorzal's. They went back and forth, and Ney tried to imagine what they were saying. Pina was probably convincing her brother to accept the treaty, or maybe she was being informed that there were a hundred legions ready to march against Ney and all this was a clever ploy, or it was also possible they could both be conspiring to murder him as soon as they signed his treaty. Whatever it was, it ended with some kind of consensus, though it appeared tentative.

Pina redirected her attention to Ney and sighed. "We agree to your terms and will send the treaty to our father."

Five minutes later, when Ney had left the room and was joined by General Courbet in the hallway, he was finally able to let out his breath. It was a hell of a bluff. He'd almost thought it to be too much. But now Ney had his peace, or at least it was now within his grasp. Molt still had to agree after all.

"So they signed it?" Courbet asked as the two of them walked through the palace.

"They have indeed. God is looking out for us."

"God loves fools, drunkards, and soldiers."

Ney grinned. "Are we fools or soldiers?"

"Both," Courbet replied, and they both laughed.

Ney shook his head, still smiling. "While you're with me, I should let you know that I've replaced you."

"With Captain Remy Barbier I suspect?"

"He saved my life and has a decent head on his shoulders. You're too senior to be an aide anyways. I want you to handle administration over Italica while we're here. God knows I'm not suited for that."

Courbet nodded, undisturbed by the sudden assignment. "I had expected you'd do something of this sort, sir. To that end there's someone I'd like you to meet. He's actually in your office waiting for us."

Ney raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Who?"

"Citizen Jean-Pierre Chaucer."

"Citizen?"

Courbet quietly coughed. "Officially he's listed as Captain Jean-Pierre Chaucer, but he prefers citizen. He's a quartermaster for the 134th."

Ney hadn't heard anyone refer to themselves as 'citizen' since the Revolution, back then it had been essentially mandatory. "And why should I meet him?"

"He's good at his job, sir. Damn good. From what I've gathered, Chaucer has been serving France since Valmy back before Louis lost his head. He has taken part in several of Napoleon's campaigns and was on Marshal Berthier's general staff before Russia. Apparently Berthier liked Chaucer."

Ney whistled. Marshal Berthier's praise meant a lot, especially for staff officers. "If he's this good, why is he only a captain?"

"Insubordination," Courbet answered immediately. "Disrespect towards superior officers, and worst of all he speaks openly against Napoleon. If he could keep his mouth shut he'd probably be a major general on someone's chief of staff. As it happens, he's barely able to avoid court martial."

"Of course," Ney sighed. "But I suppose we need him?"

"If you can handle his manners, sir, he'll sort out your soldiers and this city better than I ever could dream."

"Fine then." They reached the door to Ney's office. "Let's go meet him."

Ney had never actually stepped foot into his office before. When they first took the city, it was still being cleared out and made suitable for him. Then he'd marched away to Aquila Ridge and fought the Saderans, so this was the first time he saw it himself. It was a medium sized room, probably a guest room before the French requisitioned it, with a large desk against the far wall, two chairs facing it, and one behind the desk. A tall, skinny man in a captain's uniform was sitting in one of the chairs.

"Ah! Citizen Ney!" The man, Chaucer presumably, called as they entered. He neither stood nor saluted. "What brings you here on the eighteenth of Frimaire!"

In spite of Courbet's warning, Ney nearly flinched. "You are Captain Chaucer?"

"Citizen Chaucer, actually," the man corrected. "We are all citizens under France and the Revolution, and thus we are all equal."

"The Revolution is over," Ney said dryly.

"The Revolution can never truly be over," Chaucer retorted. "But I do concede that ever since Citizen Bonaparte, may the Supreme Being curse his unvirtuous soul, unlawfully seized power, things have been less than ideal. If only Citizen Robespierre was still at the helm. Things would be better."

"Robespierre was a tyrant."

"He was a liberator of the masses and protector of the Revolution."

"He brought the Terror."

"So said his enemies, yet they had no qualms about using the same methods for their own ideology."

It was like speaking with a man twenty years out of place. Everything about him was… outdated. He reminded Ney of a Représentant en mission, but those had not existed since the Terror.

Ney cleared his throat. "I am told you could help me run the army."

"Ah! So my petitions to Citizen Courbet have not gone unnoticed!" Chaucer cheered. "Yes, the situation here is clearly unprecedented. We came into this world with plenty of gunpowder and ammunition, but that is nearly gone now. The 134th had exactly 103,424 paper cartridges for muskets when you formed it from the stragglers. Now it has exactly 45,932 as per my last count, give or take some that the soldiers miscounted and some such. At ten shots per battle, the standard for most engagements, the regiment has enough for two and a half battles, give or take some, and that is of course assuming we do not conduct regular drills of which would typically mandate firing twelve cartridges daily, which would of course drain our ammunition reserves considerably. Presuming the conditions are similar in the other five line regiments, I believe that we are indeed in a very poor situation."

Ney was certain the man wouldn't ever stop talking. Despite that, Chaucer had just listed one of Ney's incessant problems which he'd so far successfully ignored.

Chaucer didn't seem to notice Ney's annoyance and continued on, "This is also of course not to speak of our small artillery company. Having discussed this with Captain Delon, I have discerned that the situation is not ideal there either. Tearing down the walls of Italica cut his count of cannonballs in half, and I believe he only has barely enough powder for one more battle. A very poor situation, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes…" Ney ground out.

"Nothing to fear, though!" Chaucer clapped. "I have a solution, fairly simple really. Ça Ira goes the song."

"What's your solution?"

"We make our own of course."

"Just like that? Is it that simple?"

Chaucer laughed. "Of course it's not that simple! It just sounds and appears to be simple. The hard part is in the details. Gunpowder is a simple recipe, we just need charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. The first can be obtained easily. The second is not terribly difficult to achieve. The third is where we find problems. Saltpeter is hard to get, but rest assured I know how to get it. Back when Robespierre was still around I helped oversee the collection of soldiers' pisspots to manufacture saltpeter. There are other methods, of course, such as finding caves with bat guano and mining them with- But I digress. Musket balls shouldn't be too hard to get at. We just need lead and a cast. If we had time, I could convert one of Italica's towers into a shot tower to speed up the process, but I doubt that will be necessary. Then of course we need paper. I'm not certain the Saderans have invented paper. If not, we'll just have to rely on powder horns. See? It sounds simple when I say it outloud. For cannonballs we can requisition some of the local forges and create a-"

"Alright, alright!" Ney relented. "You know what you're doing, I'll give you that."

"I haven't even gotten started. I'll have detailed reports of everything I do on your desk the moment you put me in charge of this."

"Consider it done. You'll be directly under General Courbet. He'll provide everything you need." Ney said. The man was willing, capable, and understood Ney's problems better than Ney did. He couldn't be refused no matter how disrespectful he was.

"Excellent decision, Citizen Ney. I'll have fresh ammunition ready in no time. While we're on the matter, might I also start training an auxiliary division?"

The man spoke so fast that Ney almost missed it. "An auxiliary division?"

"Soldiers drawn from the local Saderan population, of course. I'm certain you've already considered the idea yourself."

Ney had in fact considered the idea. He had considered the idea ever since they first started marching against Italica. They were cut off from France, and there wasn't any way of getting French reinforcements, so if he wanted to even his numerical disadvantage he'd have to recruit locally. The problem, the one Ney had gone over relentlessly, was that he had no way of recruiting suitable men. He was a foreign invader from another world. Who in God's name would volunteer to fight for his army? Conscription was out of the question. That could result in a revolt if he started drafting men for duty.

"The solution to that is also rather simple," Chaucer replied when Ney explained those issues to him. "We won't recruit the average citizen of course. They won't fight willingly and conscripting them would be unpopular. No, instead we must recruit the scum of Sadera. Slaves, criminals, lowlifes, drunks, the undesirables of society. No one will object to us conscripting them off the streets, and, being undesirables, they have little loyalty to their homeland. Some harsh discipline and they'll be made loyal and proper soldiers."

"That's what the English do," Ney protested. "They draft the scum of the earth into their army. It's what makes them such poor soldiers."

"These are the same poor soldiers who drove you and Citizen Masséna from Portugal?"

Rage filled Ney. "That was Masséna's blundering!" he shouted. "His disastrous leadership was what destroyed us! We were this close to Lisbon, but because of Masséna we got stopped at Torres Vedras! I never should have been put under that-"

Chaucer's eyes told Ney the man didn't believe a word he was saying. Ney took a deep breath.

"I suppose even poor soldiers are better than none at all," he conceded.

"Excellent!" Chaucer stood from his chair for the first time. "I'll begin drafting orders immediately." He headed for the door. "Have a fine day, Citizen Ney, Citizen Courbet."

Chaucer left them both, and Ney took another deep breath.

"I warned you," Courbet said.

"Is he always like that?"

"No." Courbet shrugged. "He used to be more radical."

Jacques was tired. It was night, and for once he was laying in a proper bed inside a real barracks with a good roof and a clean blanket. Most men were dead asleep in an instant. They were all tired after the march back to Italica. But Jacques could not sleep.

He closed his eyes and…

It was cold. Bitter winds in the streets of Moscow.

The girl locked eyes with him. She mouthed words to him. Jacques could barely speak the language, but he understood.

Kill me. Please.

He had his musket. Felt his finger tighten on the trigger. Then…

A deafening cacophony erupted with smoke. Bullets mangled the mass of men and women swarming Aquila Ridge. Then the French charged. Jacques could not stop himself. His feet moved against his will. He shouted though he tried not to.

Crush them!

He rushed forward, bayonet gleaming, and killed a man too tired and too confused to parry. More like murder than battle. Blood dripped to the ground and soaked into the grass.

Push, goddamn it!

He did. And he shattered a woman's jaw with his stock. Her teeth sprayed. His heart pounded. Dead and down. Next.

He advanced. His bayonet slammed down, breaking a girl's fingers through gauntlets, and then leapt up like a fish rising from water into the girl's face, she wore no helmet, and the girl was dead. Her body collapsed, and he stared into her mutilated eyes. Next.

He killed a girl. Thrust from his waist up. His bayonet rammed into her jaw and continued through her skull. Next.

Executed a wounded girl. Next.

Butchered a pleading girl. Next.

Murdered a crying girl. Next.

…he forced his eyes open.

"Sergeant?"

In the dim light, Jacques saw Vidal standing by his bed. He took a shuddering breath and tried to make himself calm. Except his hands were shaking, and he could not stop them. He made himself sit up in the bed and found that he was sweating as if he'd been fighting.

"Sergeant, are you alright?"

"Fine," he said too quickly. "I'm fine."

"Sergeant…" She didn't believe him. It was clear in her voice.

"Go back to sleep," he ordered.

"Captain Courbis said-"

"I know what Courbis said," Jacques snapped. "Go back to sleep. I'll be fine."

She left him, and Jacques was not fine. He stared at the ceiling, counting the minutes as they passed, unwilling to shut his eyes and relive Moscow.

There were rats. They scurried along the rafters, occasionally letting out a soft squeak, and sometimes dropping down to investigate the sleeping soldiers for food. He lost count of the minutes around twenty and listened to the rats. They seemed happy. Happier than Jacques at least.

He was tired, and he needed sleep. The nightmares would not let him sleep. Atonement for all the horror he'd committed.

Someone shifted in their bed, and Jacques watched them through the darkness. He wondered what dream they were experiencing. A happy dream of home? Some nightmare from Russia? Many possibilities.

Eventually he'd had enough. Waiting until he bored himself to sleep wasn't working, and he couldn't make himself face the terrors no matter how hard he tried. Jacques slipped out of his bed, grabbed his coat, and stumbled to the barracks entrance.

He needed some air.

There were supposed to be two sentries on duty, but the march from Italica had been tiring, and both were asleep. Bad soldiering and a serious offense if they were to be attacked. Good for Jacques's current situation.

He staggered from the barracks and went at random down an alley. Jacques had no idea where he was going, so he wandered. Italica at night was nearly deserted. There was no one on the street except for a few sleeping beggars, and only moonlight illuminated the city. He passed through the alley, walked along a road for some time, passed dozens of empty merchant stalls, and found himself in some kind of city square.

At some point, Jacques figured that he was lost, but that was not a pressing concern on his mind at the moment. He tottered around the dark city square, trying to see anything. A distant light, the only light in the entire square aside from the moon, caught his eye. A building had its doors still open and there were men inside drinking. A tavern.

Perfect.

Jacques made his way to the tavern. The door was wide open, and he could see four large tables with groups of men huddled around them. A bar was tucked into the corner where drinks were poured. The men laughed. They looked and sounded like soldiers. Maybe retired veterans or deserters. All the proper Saderan soldiers were under lock and key.

He stepped inside, and the men stopped laughing. Everyone turned to stare and noted the uniform he wore. Some spat.

Jacques walked to the bar. A middle aged man cleaning a tankard eyed him with suspicion. Everyone in the tavern watched him.

"Do you have wine?" he asked, then realized he'd said that in French. "You have wine?" he repeated in German.

The bartender grunted at him then tapped the counter.

Jacques stared.

He tapped the counter again with more force. Men watching began to shift in their seats.

"Right," Jacques muttered to himself and groped through his uniform. He found a coin, solid gold, minted on one side with the face of Napoleon wearing a laurel wreath, and on the other the words 'EMPIRE FRANÇAIS' and '20 FRANCS'. Jacques couldn't recall where the coin had come from or when he'd last received his army pay.

He set the coin down and shrugged. The bartender inspected it in one hand, bit it to ensure it was real gold, and pocketed the coin. Jacques could feel the whole tavern relax at once.

"Wine," he demanded again as conversations began to pick up around him.

The bartender poured a brownish liquid that was very clearly not wine into a wooden cup and set it down in front of Jacques.

He wasn't in a mood to argue. Instead, Jacques brought the cup to his lips and ventured a sip. "Fuck," he coughed as the taste registered. It was only stubbornness that allowed him to take another, and he felt the vicious stuff burn its way down his throat and into his stomach.

"Good?" The bartender asked. "You like?"

Jacques choked on his drink. "You do speak German."

"German?"

"The language of Elbe."

"Little bit," the bartender replied.

Jacques decided that, while it wasn't wine, whatever he'd been given was strong enough for his purposes. He drank the rest of his cup in one go and violently coughed when it'd all gone down. Then he put the cup down and demanded more.

One drink led to the next. He toasted Napoleon on his second. Then, out of respect, he toasted Marshal Ney on the third, General Courbet on the fourth, and Captain Courbis on the fifth. At that point everything was a little blurry to Jacques, but he was fairly certain at one point he planned on toasting every French Marshal, all twenty-four of them.

Because maybe then, he thought at the time, I won't dream.

Jacques wasn't certain how many drinks he had. Everything seemed to go by in a whirl. Time lost its meaning. He remembered staggering out to piss in the street. There was a moment when he had to search his uniform for another gold coin. Another where he yelled in French at one of the Saderans. Stumbling to piss again. Drinking more. Producing another coin.

And then he was in the present. Slumped against the bar counter, half remembering what had led up to this moment. From the corner of his eye, Jacques noticed someone watching him. Not unusual; he was an odd sight for most in his foreign uniform. The noticeable part was that it was a girl.

The girl was very out of place. She wore a black and red dress that was cut scandalously short and yet she couldn't have been older than fifteen. She hadn't been there when Jacques first came in. It was the dead of night, but people were still coming and going from the tavern. Now that he thought about it, he had a vague memory of her arriving. He only remembered because the tavern had gone silent for a minute, similar to Jacques's own arrival. Some words were spoken in Saderan that he didn't understand, and he'd moved on with his drinking undisturbed.

He would've found it more strange if his head wasn't so foggy.

How long has she been watching me? He was annoyed to discover he didn't know.

Jacques was by no means subtle in his observations. In fact, there was almost no way that the girl hadn't noticed him gaping at her. She didn't stop looking, though. Most people would stop when they were caught staring. She continued, studying him intently like a hawk observing its prey. The girl was unnerving.

Jacques resolved to ignore her and drink more. Maybe if he was sober he'd have a better plan, but he was not, and that seemed to be the right idea at the moment.

Then he noticed more people watching him. Perhaps it was the realization he was already being watched that heightened his senses. Perhaps it was dumb luck. But for the first time, Jacques noticed a group of hard looking men glaring at him from a table near the back. Unlike the girl, they had been there since Jacques entered. Soldiers, he recalled assuming. Veterans or deserters.

It was time to go, he decided. Back to the barracks and away from wherever this place was. Too dangerous. Too much suspicion. He was not welcome. Jacques tried to get his legs working and was almost standing when the girl sat next to him.

"You smell of death," she said in perfect German.

Jacques blinked. "What?"

"You are a killer," she purred. "You have… brought the end to many people."

"Yes," he choked, and he remembered Moscow in spite of his drunken state.

She grinned in a way that reminded Jacques of a demon. She leaned into his ear and whispered, "How lovely. I enjoy killers."

And then she was gone. Out the door to the tavern before he even understood what was happening. Jacques wanted to puke, and it wasn't just the alcohol.

He sat there for God knows how long, unable to get up. He knew he needed to leave, but he couldn't muster the willpower to do so, even as he saw the soldiers watching him begin to play with clubs and daggers.

"Duclos!" shouted Captain Courbis, and Jacques was instantly ripped from his stupor.

At first, Jacques thought he'd imagined the voice. However, as he jerked his head toward the door it came from, he saw Captain Courbis in the flesh with Astier, Vidal, and six fusiliers from the Ninth Company carrying muskets with bayonets affixed.

"Get over here, Sergeant!" Courbis growled.

Jacques obeyed. He was terrified to find how little his legs worked, and he stumbled drunkenly to his captain before giving a messy salute.

The soldiers at the table noticed this and stood all at once. They picked up their clubs and knives, glaring at Courbis's intrusion. One of them spat at the Frenchmen.

Courbis looked more annoyed than angry. "Duclos what the hell is this?"

"I…" Jacques began, but he had no answer.

The captain shook his head. "I'll handle this in the morning. Let's get back to barracks."

The Frenchmen extricated themselves from the tavern with Jacques stumbling behind them. However, they were followed. The Saderan soldiers left the tavern as they did and formed a mob behind them. They held their weapons with clear intent.

"Going somewhere Bluecoats?" one shouted in poor German. He had an eyepatch over his right eye.

"Fucking invaders!" another with a broken nose laughed. He and Eyepatch were clearly the leaders of this mob.

None of the Frenchmen other than Jacques spoke German, but they could easily discern what was going on. The six fusiliers formed a line and presented their bayoneted muskets.

The Saderans hesitated when the muskets were presented, and they stopped approaching the French. Broken Nose and Eyepatch shouted something in Saderan.

Courbis placed a hand on his sword. "I don't want a damned massacre." He looked at Jacques. "Tell them that we are leaving and they need to disperse!"

Jacques relayed the message, the seriousness of the situation quickly making him sober.

"Fuck that!" Eyepatch shouted back. "Fuck Bluecoats!"

Broken Nose was in agreement. "Go back to where you came from! Leave Italica alone!"

Courbis looked back to Jacques. "What are they saying?"

"They say we- Fuck!" he swore because the Saderans started throwing rocks at them; he had to cover his head. He looked back to Courbis. "They say-" And Jacques froze.

Courbis lay stretched out on the cobble road, eyes rolled back, a stone brick next to his head. He was breathing. More than that, Jacques couldn't work out.

"Hold fire!" he ordered because Jacques was now in command and he did not want to ignite a riot. "Hold!" he shouted even as another storm of rocks was thrown at them.

"Sergeant, we need to go!" Vidal yelled.

Astier lifted Courbis onto his shoulder. "I've got the captain!"

Jacques was in agreement. "Fall back!" he yelled. "To the barracks!"

So they ran. Astier had Courbis, and the Saderan soldiers fortunately did not follow them. They ran through the night all the way back to their assigned barracks where there were two very awake sentries waiting for them.

They put Courbis onto a bed and tried to see how badly he was hurt. The captain didn't respond to anything they did, though he still breathed and he faintly mumbled to himself. When they tried for the fourth time to call his name and he did not respond, Jacques went to find a surgeon.

There was one sleeping in the next room over. Jacques shook him awake. The surgeon was very unhappy to be woken at such a late hour.

"Please," Jacques begged. "I don't know what to do."

The next few hours passed in a horrible ecstasy of waiting. Jacques heard Vidal explain her side of the story. She'd noticed him leave and immediately went to Astier and then the two of them went to Courbis. The captain assembled men to find Jacques, and they spent a while searching the city until they found the tavern. She said she didn't blame Jacques for what happened. He didn't believe her.

The surgeon examined Courbis for a long time, pulled back his eyelids, felt his skull, and jotted down notes on a piece of paper. Eventually he shook his head at Jacques.

"I give him till morning." The surgeon said. He shrugged. "His brain has been damaged, and I am a battlefield surgeon, not a doctor. I doubt even a doctor could help him."

"He's a very tough man," Jacques said. "Stay with him, please."

The surgeon shrugged. "I will stay with him, but it will not change the outcome."

Three hours later, Courbis died.

A feeling came over Jacques. It took him time to recognize rage because he had only seldom felt true rage. Jacques was a professional soldier, but he rarely spent the energy to hate an enemy. Hate was reserved for those who deserved it. Sergeant Levett perhaps, but even that paled in comparison to what he felt. He was suddenly enveloped in it. Hate.

He sat in their barracks, carving into a tabletop with his bayonet. The sun was rising. He still hadn't slept.

The entire company was awake. He was scaring them, he could tell.

"Everyone in the company knows what happened," Astier whispered. "They're just as angry as you."

Jacques doubted that. He thought of Broken Nose and Eyepatch. He gripped his bayonet tighter.

"I want the men who killed him," Jacques said so every man could hear. "Damn the consequences. We're going to get them."

No one objected.

A new chapter and far quicker than I had expected to get one out. In this chapter I wanted to touch on the aftermath of battle that all too often gets ignored by movies, television, and books. The pursuit is a vital part of war that can decide whether a battle becomes a great victory or a minor success. Often times pursuits inflicted more casualties than the actual battles did, and I am glad I finally was able to get around to writing one. Beyond that, I also touched on logistics and some of the solutions to Ney's logistical problems in the form of a new character Chaucer. I hope it doesn't bore people too much because logistics won't be going away anytime soon. Then of course Jacques's events which I shall refrain from commenting on in fear of potentially spoiling something.

I used a few terms which I'm sure people aren't familiar with, mostly French Revolutionary terms, so here's a small glossary.

Citizen: During the French Revolution, it became widespread to address people using "Citoyen" (Citizen) as opposed to "Monsieur" (Sir/Mister) because "Monsieur" had connotations of nobility, and so in the spirit of equality people were referred to as "Citoyen".

Marshal Berthier: Louis-Alexandre Berthier was the "Indispensable" Marshal during Napoleon's reign who served as France's Minister of War. He was vital as Napoleon's chief of staff where he interpreted and distributed Napoleon's orders, administered the army, handled logistical challenges and troop movements, and collected and interpreted reports on the enemy, terrain, and local features. Berthier excelled at staff work, and his staff system underpinned many of Napoleon's famous victories.

Frimaire: The third month of the French Revolutionary calendar which correlates to the 21st of November to the 20th of December on the standard Gregorian calendar.

The Supreme Being: The Cult of the Supreme Being was a deistic religion formed by Maximilian Robespierre during the French Revolution. It aimed to oppose atheistic practices while also opposing Catholic practices. It emphasized civic duty and public virtue with belief in a supreme being or god. Ultimately the cult lost prominence with the fall of Robespierre and was officially banned in 1802 by Napoleon.

Maximilian Robespierre: A highly influential figure during the French Revolution who rose to power with the Jacobin Club and effectively ruled France during the Reign of Terror in which many political opponents were guillotined. There is actually some historical debate over just how influential Robespierre was, if he really was a dictator, and if the Reign of Terror was any different from other political killings conducted during the French Revolution, so I will avoid making definitive statements on these matters. He was eventually guillotined by his opposition and his fall led to the Thermidorian Reaction. I won't explain anymore as I am unqualified to do so, but I highly encourage readers who are interested to read more online. The French Revolution is a fascinating topic which I have unfortunately not devoted enough time to in my personal life.

Représentant en mission: "Representative on mission", these were envoys of the Legislative Assembly and the later National Convention who were responsible for maintaining law and order in French provinces and armies. They were given absolute power and used to quell rebellions against the Revolution. Additionally, they were used to supervise and ensure the loyalty of generals and officers in the army. They can be seen as similar to political commissars used by the USSR.

Marshal Masséna: Another Marshal of the Empire during Napoleon's reign. He served under Napoleon during his Italian Campaign and continued to serve with him throughout the War of the Second Coalition and the War of the Third Coalition. In 1810 he was assigned command of the Army of Portugal (a command which he despised) and led the invasion into Portugal in which he was defeated by Sir Arthur Wellesley, later known as the Duke of Wellington. It was during this invasion that Marshal Ney was placed under his command. Ney was infuriated that he was placed under Masséna's command and criticized every action he took. Ney believed the Masséna's poor leadership was the reason for their failure. Eventually Ney was openly insubordinate to Masséna and Ney was relieved of his post.

That's all for this chapter. I would like to thank everyone who reads my work, and I encourage everyone to leave a review if they liked (or disliked) the chapter. I just ask that everyone is respectful and understanding that I am a relatively inexperienced writer.