Chapter 100: The Grapeshot Bombard

Four hours later, Lucius stood at the head of the table, where a map of the Gallic-Alpine border, annotated with troop movements, lay spread across its surface.

Gathered around the table were Commander Valerius, Chief Engineer Decimus, and Director Isolda.

Silas was already confined to the medical wards, suffering from severe frostbite after delivering his initial debrief.

"We already know the manifest speaks of forty thousand men," Lucius said, looking across the map. "Valerius, you debriefed Silas’s scouts. Give me the tactical breakdown. How is Rufinus moving a force that size?"

Valerius stepped forward, unrolling a piece of vellum he had transcribed from Silas’s field reports.

"Dominus," Valerius began, pointing to the red markings near the Alpine passes. "The scouts confirmed the manifest. Rufinus commands roughly fifteen thousand Roman legionaries, while the gold from Alexandria and Antioch bought him twenty-five thousand mercenaries... Thracian cavalry, Syrian archers, and Balearic slingers."

Decimus let out a whistle, leaning against the table. "Dominus, even if we pull every *Custodes* off the city walls and arm every factory worker with an arbalest, we are outnumbered four to one."

Lucius sighed. "Forty thousand men require grain. Valerius, how is Rufinus moving his supplies?"

Valerius dragged his finger down the map, tracing the Alpine valleys.

"That is the vulnerability, Forge Master," Valerius noted, a smile touching his lips. "Rufinus is moving forty thousand men through the mountains in late autumn. His supply train is miles long, consisting of ox-drawn carts and pack mules. It is slow, and his lines are stretched to the breaking point. Silas confirmed that the Roman quartermasters are rationing grain. By the time they descend into the Gallic plains, they will be starving."

Isolda leaned forward. "If he is relying on mercenaries, a disrupted supply line is a fatal flaw. a Roman legionary will fight on an empty stomach out of duty. A Thracian mercenary will mutiny if he isn’t fed and paid on time."

"Precisely," Lucius agreed, nodding. "Which is why we are not going to engage them at the border. We are going to let the mountains bleed their morale, and we will let them march into the open plains of the Rhone."

Decimus frowned, tapping a finger against the map. "Dominus, the open plains are the exact terrain where Roman infantry and Thracian cavalry excel. If we let them form their battle lines without natural choke points, they will outflank our *Custodes* on numbers."

Lucius looked up from the map, meeting the chief engineer’s gaze. "The open plains are the worst place to be when facing unobstructed artillery."

Lucius reached into his tunic and pulled out a wooden model. He set it down onto the map, directly in the center of the Rhone plains.

The executives leaned in. It was a miniature representation of a weapon they had never seen before...

It possessed a carriage similar to a Roman ballista, but the firing mechanism was alien.

Instead of a single bolt, the weapon featured a wide-mouthed iron barrel, designed to be packed with clay and loaded with hundreds of cast-iron shrapnel spheres.

"I call it the *Grapeshot Bombard*," Lucius explained. "A standard ballista requires precise targeting and only kills the man it hits. This weapon is designed to annihilate dense infantry formations. When it fires, the explosive propels the iron spheres in an expanding cone of death. At three hundred paces, a single volley will obliterate a Roman *testudo*."

Valerius stared at the model.

As an infantry commander, he understood the battlefield implications.

"By the gods... a weapon like that would turn an infantry charge into a slaughterhouse. It would rip the limbs from their cavalry before they closed the distance."

"How many can you manufacture before Rufinus reaches the plains?" Isolda asked.

Lucius turned to Decimus. "That is the question of the hour, Chief Engineer. Can your foundries cast these iron barrels?"

Decimus rubbed his chin. "The barrels need to be thick enough to withstand the explosive force without shattering and killing our own crews. We have to use our steel, not pig iron. But... yes. If I divert production from the drydocks and reassign every lathe in the city, I can cast twenty of these Bombards in two weeks."

"Do it," Lucius commanded. "Halt all naval construction. The Mediterranean fleet is useless if we lose the capital. I want twenty of these weapons mounted on suspension carriages, and I want them loaded with maximum shrapnel payloads."

"It will be done, Dominus," Decimus swore, stepping away from the table to begin drafting the foundry quotas.

Lucius turned his attention back to Valerius and Isolda. "When Rufinus reaches the plains, he will expect us to meet him in battle lines. We will give him exactly what he expects. Valerius, you will deploy the infantry in defensive formations to anchor the center."

Valerius nodded, though confusion crossed his features. "And the Bombards, Dominus? Do we place them on the flanks?"

"No," Lucius smiled. "We place the Bombards behind our own lines, hidden from sight. We will let the Thracian cavalry and the Roman infantry charge. We will let them close the distance, confident they have broken our center."

Lucius dragged a piece of charcoal across the map, illustrating a maneuver.

"And right before they crash into our shields, our infantry will execute a retreat, opening gaps in our own lines," Lucius concluded, tapping the charcoal against the map. "Rufinus’s entire army will charge directly into those gaps. And they will find themselves staring down the barrels of twenty Bombards, loaded with grapeshot, at point-blank range."

"It relies entirely on the discipline of our infantry," Isolda noted. "If the *Custodes* panic and break formation during the feigned retreat, the Bombards will slaughter our own men."

"They will not panic," Valerius stated, his hand resting on the hilt of his spatha. "They will hold the line until the command is given."

Isolda nodded, but she knew that explosive artillery was only half the equation.

She turned from the table and gestured to a figure standing in the shadows. It was a man cloaked in wool, his face forgettable.

This was Cassander, one of the Directorate’s deep-cover infiltrators, who had spent three weeks riding alongside Legate Rufinus’s supply train disguised as a Syrian grain merchant.