The dawn after the failed raid broke red and cold.
Smoke hung low over the valleys like mist, curling through the charred remains of Francian dead.
Crows gathered in the still silence between camps, their cries harsh and echoing.
Soldiers trudged through the frostbitten fields with practiced grimness, dragging bodies into pyres or laying them out for rough identification.
The numbers had come in.
Over 1,500 Francians are dead across all three camps.
Three coordinated assaults.
Three crushing defeats.
Romanus losses?
Fourteen dead.
Fifty-nine wounded.
Julius had read the reports in silence, eyes flicking across the bloodless ledger like he was reading grain manifests.
Numbers, in the end, told a story far clearer than any spy or scout ever could.
This was not just a miscalculated raid.
This had been a probing strike — a gamble.
A gamble Amaury had lost.
Badly.
