Lothair slowly raised his brass spyglass back to his eye, trying to focus through the clouds of black powder smoke.
"They are coming!" Marshal Gauzlin suddenly shrieked, pointing a finger toward the far side of the valley.
"Look, Lord Lothair! Riders!"
Lothair adjusted the focus ring on his spyglass. Bursting out from a narrow ravine behind the smoking craters were half a dozen heavily armored men on horseback.
They were wearing steel mail and carrying repeating rifles slung across their backs.
They were galloping furiously across the broken gravel, ignoring the pits, heading straight for the lone man.
"Don't just stand there, you fucking idiots!" Lothair roared at the top of his lungs, kicking his horse and drawing his broadsword.
"Muskets to the front! Shoot them down! Do not let that man escape!"
The Frankish infantry scrambled entirely in a panic, trying to form a firing line at the edge of the tree line.
