Napoleon of Another World!

Chapter 15 - The First Battle

He had to be that Daemon they talked about so much.

I could see General Ron welcoming the newcomer with a grimace of disgust, responding with a frown to his orderly's request that he send an ambassador to the rioters to try and settle the matter peacefully.

"No discussions. No negotiations. Spread the word. Whoever slaughters the most slaves will get a promotion. And I'll promote to Centurion whoever brings me that bastard Sheriff's head."

The archers were sent forward first, protected on the flanks by two small platoons of privates.

The rebels did not respond to their advance, silently watching them as they marched to cover the space necessary to get within firing range.

"Soldiers of the Imperial Army!" yelled the human rider when the optimal launch point was just a few steps away. "If you value your life, don't take another step! Fold up your insignia and go back! We're not going to fight, but we won't stop if provoked until you're all dead!"

Anyone else would have been laughed in the face at such an apparently out of place display of force, but this guy's aura of supremacy was so great that I too felt a shiver down my spine.

Even the archers seemed to hesitate, but their officers urged them to move on.

They had reached their position and were preparing to fire the first volley of arrows when the first line of slaves opened like a theater curtain, revealing six large guns mounted on wheeled and solid wooden carriages.

"Fire!"

The roar almost made the earth tremble and dozens of our comrades fell to the ground overwhelmed by heavy metal balls which, bouncing or rolling on the sloping ground, took away their legs, arms and heads.

"Reform your ranks! Return fire!"

Confused and frightened the archers fired, but by then some of the slaves had already begun work reloading the cannons, and since all of them had large wooden shields place behind their backs, only two or three were significantly hit.

"Broadside two, fire!"

The second broadside was even worse than the first, hitting the crowd with terrifying accuracy and killing or maiming scores of soldiers.

One of those balls kept rolling until it reached our line up; Marcus, a card mate of mine, instinctively put his foot down to stop it, and a moment later we saw him being led behind the lines by his mates screaming in pain, his leg severed from the knee down.

"Get the infantry forward!" the General yelled at the sight of the archers who, after the third broadside, ran away almost halved.

Tightly in formation, covering ourselves as best we could with the little oval auxiliaries' shields, we began to move forward with spears in remains. However, we were all so frightened by the idea of seeing those infernal cannon fire upon us that our officers had to threaten us with terrible punishments in order to be able to keep the youngest and most inexperienced in line.

We advanced at a double pace, covering in a few moments the distance necessary to be theoretically too close to be effectively targeted by the guns.

"The hard part is behind us now, soldiers! Even if they fired, they would never be able to hit us effectively!"

Then why are they reloading?

This time however it was different, and instead of with iron balls, it seemed they were loading the cannons with lighter clay spheres.

If only we had known what was about to rain on us; literally.

We were practically close to the cannons and were about to order us to charge, when that Daemon raised his arm.