The Fall And Rise Of Reggio Perino

Reggio Perino had his mouth set grimly. The opening moves of the battle had an appreciable advantage to the rebels, though the Lion Throne’s troops were still generally of higher quality and were still ready to put up a good fight. The Lion Throne’s generals had decided that a strong counterattack was best, and so Reggio directed his officers, who dressed the lines once again and prepared to meet the renewed onslaught. The pursuing Laurians had advanced the front lines into a lightly forested area, and formed their line on a hillside.

Several enemy nobles decided to encourage their troops by leading almost suicidally brave lone charges against the Laurian pikemen. They were quickly dragged from their horses and beaten senseless by the incredulous Laurians, but this seemed only to give the enemy infantry more heart.

Their standard bearers and officers led the slow advance, while the Laurian arquebusiers poured fire onto them. At this range, little of the fire was telling, except for Reggio’s cannon shots. The closely-packed enemy formation climbed the hill and attempted to flank the pikemen. Reggio led his light troops around to the side and unleashed deadly musketry into the sides of the Lion Throne formation, doing great execution.

As the attack faltered, the Lion Throne fell back to reform while their officers harangued them. Reggio had never seen the point of promising Heaven to soldiers; they were far more likely to enjoy hell. He gave the Filaharn-botherers a parting shot from his cannon as they retreated, leaving a bloody clump of twisted corpses for the reinforcements to step over.

The enemy attacked again, to no great effect, and Reggio was exultant. They were slaughtering them.

He was so exultant he didn’t see the armoured horsemen with the Radiant Cross emblazoned on their chests until it was too late. Reggio was barged to the ground with a great thump and was out cold immediately as a tonne of steel-plated horseflesh charged into him.

When he awoke, the sky was dark. There were still sounds of battle, though the screeching and clanging of steel on steel was more distant. Marnid assured Reggio that they were winning, and that Lord Pelayo had taken command of the army while he was indisposed.

The soldiers on both sides were exhausted from the day’s battle, but still they fought. Reggio was content to sit back and let them do so while he nursed his headache with a bottle of Imperial Brandy and a wet towel, although he judged by morning that he could no longer maintain the facade of being too injured to fight, and he joined the fray once more. Such as it was.

The Lion Throne army had disintegrated overnight, and scattered groups were being rounded up by the pursuing Laurians. One last band refused to surrender. 17 men led by Yelu Dashi of Kara-Khitan defied all demands and offers, and brandished their blunted weapons proudly. The Laurians tolerated them at first, but as the band started making their way towards Lion Throne territory, Juan Batista gave Reggio a peremptory order. Kill them all.

Reggio shrugged, and ordered the advance. If some fools wanted to die out of pride, it was no skin off his recently-broken nose.

The Laurian cavalry charged the group, to little effect, as the ragged survivors stood firm and cut down the lightly armoured cavalry. Juan Batista was outraged at this, but Reggio took it in his stride. He recalled the cavalry and ordered the arquebusiers forward.

So much for pride.

Yelu Dashi was found still breathing, draped in a flag bearing the Radiant Cross. He came around fairly soon, and seemed entirely unconcerned that he had survived while his loyal followers had not. Reggio rather admired his style, and the man would be a useful prisoner, but he had more to worry about at present.

Only 238 rebels had survived the battle, and almost half of them were wounded. In one battle, it had ceased to be a force to be reckoned with – Reggio knew that Queen Imelda’s personal army alone numbered almost as many. Certainly there was no question of pressing the siege of Etrosq Castle.

And Lord Francis was nowhere to be seen…

Butcher’s Bill: 44 men dead, 31 men captured.

Reggio Perino listened to his liege-lord’s demands with restrained patience and a beatific smile. Juan Batista was insisting that the fledgling rebellion needed to show its strength and that instead of picking off caravans and the occasional company, it should storm one of the Laurian castles to send fear into the heart of the loyalists and send a rallying cry to all those who wished to join his cause. The poor sod was not to know, of course, that most of the lords pledged to his banner were in it for their own riches and glory rather than a belief in the righteousness of his claim.

Reggio convinced the prince that attacking one of the strongly-held Laurian castles with their scant forces would be a bad idea, but he relented when Juan Batista pointed out the two castles near Lion Throne territory. They had both been captured from the fanatics, largely with Reggio’s aid, and defended against three overwhelming assaults with Reggio’s company forming the backbone of the meagre defence each time. Their garrisons were ever ragged and undermanned, and the arrogant princeling was right that they would make an easy target. And so, Reggio called the banners to war.

The rebel army set out, 425 men under arms all told. They travelled south over a day and a night until they reached the vicinity of Etrosq Castle, but the Lion Throne had thrown a spear into the spokes.

They had 416 men besieging Etrosq. Evenly matched, although their troops were of higher quality, but doable. Certainly doable. Their sentries spotted Reggio’s men making a wary circle of the siege camp, and as the Papal disciples formed up, Reggio ordered an attack. Neither army was entirely prepared for battle, but the Lion Throne’s readiness was lower, and the rebels were able to bring more men to bear.

Chucking more men at a problem generally helped to solve it, so Reggio was confident. He ordered the pikemen into formation, as was now customary, and kept strict command of the arquebusiers and gunners himself. The Lion Throne, seeing the danger, moved a large infantry formation to meet the Laurians.

The brigadiers and their auxiliaries kept formation well, circling around to attempt to flank the Laurians and hit the arquebusiers. Reggio ordered the gunners back as the pike tercio wheeled to face the enemy infantry. The arquebusiers fired and fell back in an orderly fashion, with the musketry and Reggio’s favoured hand cannon doing great execution.

Goaded by the hail of shot, the enemy abandoned their flanking attempt and charged pell-mell into the Laurian formation, pike against broadsword and spear. A terrible melee ensued.

The Laurians came out on top, although all semblance of order disappeared as the standard bearers were cut down in the press. The surviving soldiers of the Lion Throne fell back in a disciplined line, to reform around new standard bearers, and Reggio arrayed the rebel infantry in a ragged single line to receive the next charge.

Archers and gunners of the Lion Throne moved up to pepper the ragged Laurians at range, and a bloody duel ensued while the main enemy infantry reformed for a second charge. When the charge came, Reggio smiled, for they were mostly Ellisian auxiliaries, not the heavily-armoured Brigadiers. But among them came two Hands of the Pope, the heaviest and most dangerous of all Lion Throne troops.

These servants of the Lion Throne were rarely seen in field armies, and each was worth ten enemy soldiers.

Their halberds did fearful execution on the rebel pikemen, but luckily Reggio could easily spare twenty poor saps to bog them down. They were cut down by sheer weight of numbers, and the remaining Lion Throne troops routed from the field. The Laurian rebels cheered and shook their fists in defiance at the fleeing fanatics; over a hundred of them lay dead in the long grass, with perhaps thirty dead Laurians and as many wounded alongside them. They had won a costly victory.

And three-quarters of the Lion Throne troops remained, readying for the next attack.

Oh damn.

Butcher’s Bill: 42 men dead, 31 men captured.

Meet Reggio Perino, famous Laurian mercenary.

Reggio Perino, mercenary extraordinaire

Veteran of a hundred battles, expender of a thousand bullets, nemesis of all Queen Imelda’s enemies. Starting with nothing more than the shirt on his back, his father’s perfectly-balanced sword, and breath stinking of smoked fish, he decided to make his fortune. When he left his home in Lauria across the sea, his father had handed him the sword (which had been his father’s, and his father’s before him), and spoke words of sage advice:

“Be true and honourable, Reggio, for if a man cannot sleep at night then he is nothing. Fight for the side of good, for honour is its own reward. And always remember where you came from, when you raise this sword. Think of me.”

Reggio remembered these words the day he sold his father’s sword to a craftsman in Nibelheim, smiling as he clipped his new masterwork sabre to his belt and slid a heavy purse of Calradian denars across to the smith. War had been good to Reggio Perino, and he had made sure it was good by putting his native cunning first and foremost. The first time he’d used his father’s sword on a fellow human being, it was to kill a merchant to safeguard the Lord of Tihr’s reputation. He had blooded his mercenary recruits putting down peasant revolts while collecting taxes. He had sat back and grinned as his men stormed castle walls for 40 denars a day, without Reggio having to lift a finger. Queen Imelda of Lauria had praised him and his men, and had even deigned to offer Reggio lands of his own.

The bustling centre of Fearichen, the village that always sleeps.

The village of Fearichen was poor, but a steady source of new recruits for Reggio’s Banditti after that time that Reggio had driven had some bandits out of the village and secured their devotion (despite taking their every worldly possession as payment for this service). The poor bastards couldn’t wait to die for Reggio’s dubious cause, although dying wasn’t often on the agenda. No matter who came up against his Banditti, they were shot down.

Sea raiders…

I know you can fire three rounds a minute. But can ye stand?

Disciples of the Lion Throne…

Where is your god now?

Even the heavily-armoured Ellisian legions fell before the guns of his Banditti.

Close formation proves ineffective against firearms. A valuable discovery!

In every battle, he was victorious.

That's right, boys, cheer.

His reputation was immense, but Reggio knew not to bite off more than he could chew. He made sure to stay close to the larger Laurian armies, and was not averse to running away when it was prudent. But then things went south.

The mission sounded simple enough – scout the area around Grunwalder Castle, on the border of the territory of those fundamentalist nutjobs, the Lion Throne. Reggio knew that he had to get close in order to scout, and he definitely couldn’t count on the support of the main Laurian army, who were buggering about some miles to the north-west, around Etrosq Castle (which Reggio’s men had been instrumental in taking and defending against massively superior Lion Throne armies, much thanks he’d got).

Things did not go according to plan.

Oh dear.

Two Lion Throne brigades had surrounded his men, and they were faster than his foot-bound mercenaries. He had no choice but to fight it out.

Men of Fearichen, stop your dreaming! Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?

His men had faced worse odds before, though admittedly with the safety of castle ramparts to hide behind. Reggio Perino unshouldered the Ormeli hand cannon he had taken from those janissary bastards to the south, and opened fire.

Boom! Groundshot.

His pistoleers and arquebusiers followed suit, as did his four lieutenants. The volley was shattering, but the Lion Throne kept coming, their cavalry and skirmishers acting as a screen for the heavy infantry formation behind.

They're coming out of the goddamn fog!

When the two forces clashed, Reggio kept his men wheeling backwards from the phalanx of Brigadiers and Propugnators, while his men fired pistols on the move and cut down the cavalry who attempted to break up the formation.

The chaos of battle.

Reggio kept firing, taking out clumps of men with the hand cannon at fairly close range, but his men were being chipped away and the Lion Throne’s reinforcements kept coming. As he was overwhelmed in hand-to-hand combat, the last thing Reggio Perino saw was his lieutenant Marnid swinging away with his halberd, going down fighting.

Cutting four men down with one swing. Not bad for a merchant.

But it was not enough.

God dammit.

Butcher’s Bill: 22 men dead, 31 men captured.