The Fall And Rise Of Reggio Perino

Reggio Perino led the weary rebels back north to their homes. The campaign had been a bloody failure, and as much as he was willing to fill up the holes with their Laurian dead, the supply of warm bodies was going to run out eventually. The wounded were recovering slowly on the march north, although the bumpiness of their carts probably wasn’t helping matters. Juan Batista was complaining about the staleness of the bread and the hardness of his saddle and the cowardice of his army, and Reggio was getting a bit sick of it.

It was therefore with annoyance that Reggio greeted the news brought by one of the remaining outriders: that Lord Francis was alive and well, for the moment, although engaged in desperate battle against a loyalist army with ten times his numbers.

It was clear that it was a lost cause. Reggio turned to his lieutenants to order the army to skirt wide around them, just in time to see that backward idiot Juan Batista spurring his horse onwards, yelling “To me, men of Lauria! To me and to glory! Tally-ho!”

Lord Theobald, Lord Pelayo, Lord Cortez… all of them charged onwards with swords lifted high, and their men, battered as they were, gave a great shout and broke into a stumbling run after them. Reggio’s mouth worked for a moment, as he considered the odds of him succeeding in this rebellion with only twenty able-bodied men after all the others in the army got slaughtered, and with a heavy sigh he led his own men into battle as well.

Lord Francis’ thirty remaining men had fallen back towards their reinforcing saviours, and Reggio arrived just in time to stop Juan Batista from leading them straight back into an uneven contest. He ordered the rebels formed up in their usual formation, but with a skirmish line of arquebusiers ahead of the pikemen this time.

The loyalist musketry took its toll on the ragged rebels, but Reggio ordered his men to wheel around to let the pike formation pass, ignoring the enemy gunners for now. As the enemy tercio marched past, he unleashed the cannon fire, and fully half of the loyalist pikemen were snatched backwards in a hail of grapeshot and iron fragments.

The surviving enemies, shocked by the concussive force of the shot, pushed on, but were whittled down by a volley of arquebus fire and then finished off in a swift and brutal melee. Reggio looked back to the pike formation, and what he saw was not encouraging.

The standard bearers and officers had been killed, and the tightly-packed formation had dissolved into a loose line. Reggio pushed his way to the front of the formation and ordered the survivors to form on him – he disliked putting himself quite so much in danger, but he had no choice. These morons in morions needed some more direction if any of them were to survive this. The rebel reserves were ordered forward, and quickly arrayed behind Reggio.

With fresh troops at his back, Reggio saw that Imelda’s loyalists had pulled back after their bloody nose, and were holding a hill a quarter-mile away, silhouetted against the sky.

The loyalists must have learned their lesson, for they made no move to attack Reggio’s forces; nonetheless, a withdrawal was out of the question. The bloody fighting earlier had evened the odds, and perhaps they were wary of these desperate rebels who pressed attacks despite their condition.

Reggio hit upon a famous plan to draw the enemy down from their position. Keeping the tercio in place, he sent the light infantry forward unsupported, in a loose mob. They would be the very definition of cannon fodder. Setting the main formation to a walk at a safe distance, they followed the poor footmen, who were under orders to feign a retreat the moment the loyalists broke rank to engage them.

The footmen did this, and Reggio was pleased to notice that only one of them was killed in the process; he hadn’t dared to hope for such a good ratio. The stupid bastard loyalists charged forward gleefully, and were met by levelled pikes and handguns. Their officers were killed, the nobles captured, and the battle drew to a close as the last loyalists turned tail and ran, or were encircled and cut down.

Things had gone better than Reggio dared hope. Their casualties had been heavy, with only 120 rebels left alive after this last battle, and the majority of them having sustained even more wounds. Lord Francis had only 3 able-bodied men under his command, and Juan Batista would be indisposed following his victory booze-up, undoubtedly. It was time to hunker down behind castle walls and lick their wounds – Reggio fancied he could find a few willing and impressionable revolutionary women to do the licking for him.

At that moment, a messenger rode up to their makeshift camp.

Oh, come on.

Butcher’s Bill: 51 men dead, 31 men captured.

Reggio Perino’s first order of business was to maintain the illusion of being a successful mercenary and not down on his luck in the slightest. Entreating Juan Batista to patience and making warlike noises, Reggio dashed back to the tavern, where he espied a very dapper mercenary, almost after his own heart.

Just one look at that majestic plumage told Reggio all he needed to know. The halberdier and seven of his friends were hired, using almost the last of Reggio’s personal hoard of denars. They were quickly presented to Juan Batista as an honour guard, and Reggio assured his soon-to-be-highness that the company was following some distance behind so that their rank yet bellicose odour would not offend his excellency’s nostrils.

The party of 13 (lucky for some, Reggio hoped) trudged north into Laurian territory and the heart of the rebellion: Fearichen.

Reggio gave the people a rousing speech about past injustices, and promised revenge on those who oppressed the villagers and taken their scant money and possessions to finance their pointless wars. The idiot peasantry swallowed it whole, and provided the rebellion with its first volunteers: seven Laurian arquebusiers. Well, it was a start. But peasant levies wouldn’t win the war. For that, Reggio needed noble allies, preferably ones who were easily swayed by the promise of riches.

Tehlrog Castle was the first port of call, just south-west of the capital Nibelheim. It belonged to Lord Fruela, and things were not looking good from the off. It turned out that Reggio had never even met Lord Fruela, and the crotchety old goat refused to countenance any sort of rebellion against his natural liege.

With his stubble set in a manly frown, Fruela sent Reggio packing. He paid him back by visiting Fruela’s holdings nearby and recruiting volunteers to Juan Batista’s cause, and – undeterred – continued westward. At Hrus Castle, he met Lord Cordoba, who he was passing familiar with and had saved in battle once or twice.

The ginger conquistador idiot was entirely ungrateful, however, and denounced Reggio as an inconstant traitor. Reggio had to agree – he was a mercenary, after all – and appealed unsuccessfully to Cordoba’s baser nature. Promises of wealth to come did not sway Cordoba, who loudly proclaimed that he preferred the bastard he knew to the bastard he didn’t. Reggio personally thought this was a bit off, considering Juan Batista was standing in front of him at the time. It was looking like Reggio’s best bet may even be to ask for help from Queen Imelda herself, as she still seemed to hold a soft spot for him despite his betrayal. The abandoning bitch.

The putative rebellion continued westwards, into the borderlands of the Laurian kingdom. At Curin Castle, things finally started to go right.

Reggio requested a meeting with the two lords currently at the castle, Theobald and Francis.

Although Theobald’s strange helmet disconcerted Reggio at first…

Both were good sorts, men after his own heart. They both professed to having heard the arguments he’d used previously and been convinced by them, as they were very much in favour of profiting from this civil war. Declaring that they would both be able to commission life-size golden statues of themselves once they’d melted down Imelda’s throne for scrap, Reggio easily convinced both men to join the cause. Containing his jubilance that chaos and vengeance were finally taking shape, he ordered Theobald and his curious headgear to join him while Francis and his men would garrison Curin Castle. With his new troops in tow, Reggio set out to the north, towards the city of Tihr, where he was unpleasantly surprised.

Lord Pelayo, seneschal of the city of Tihr, with 150 men at his back. Having flashbacks to the battle prior to his capture, Reggio rode forward to greet Pelayo.

His lordship was animated and apparently eager to grind Reggio’s band into the dirt, but Reggio knew Pelayo of old, and knew of his avarice. His lordship proved astonishingly susceptible to promises of bribery, and agreed to join the rebellion, bringing Tihr and its sizeable garrison into the fold as well.

Reggio Perino surveyed the lands that now formed the core of the rebellion and smiled. From little acorns great serpents could grow.

Or something.