tales from the empire

a man stood in a crowd of others they were all grouped together in a bunch on a small landing ship the optio of the century of men stepped forward "men it is the will of our great leader High Emperor Tiberius III that we should capture the north from the barbaric peoples that call it their home and their blasphemer king Axuroth Nix Regnum will be ours we will civilize its peoples and total world domination which has long been the goal of our glorious empire will be ours at last the northern continent is the last thing standing in our way in mere moments we will hit the beaches the same beaches where Emperor Rexus was was betrayed by Axuroth just 23 years ago and murdered since then this invasion plan has been in the works and it will soon come to fruition we were told ahead of time Axuroth was unprepared for us and he is scrambling to ready his army however the blaspheming necromancer has left a force of reanimated corpses on the beach now men draw your swords its time we shall finally lay to rest those that Axuroth has seen fit to defile with his sorcery" just then the gangway lowered and the men leaped onto the beaches no be met with a swarm of dead decaying bodies there faces were grey and swollen entire chunks of flesh were falling off or missing entirely some of them saw ones with missing eyes some men threw up into the water they rallied and charged into the fray swinging wildly this was not the organized fighting they were used too they were told to just attack whatever or whoever attacked them and establish a beachhead no matter what they were told "aim for the heads the heads quickly we need to push them back" a soldier saw what was going on on top of the nearby ridge and shouted "Trebuchet!" a one ton rock was sent hurtling through the air men ducked an leaped out of the way but it was too late for on as he was crushed under the weight of the boulder but at last they had succeeded and Antonius stood on the beach looking around and realized "they weren't trying to stop us just slow us down i think this is a good sign we may already be winning even just with this beachhead send word back to Ilarus and Aurora tell them we won"