The order did not arrive with ceremony — it arrived as contradiction. A sealed directive from the Sultanate command required the immediate retrieval of relics uncovered beneath the trench line, artefacts unearthed when sappers cut communication tunnels through the crypts of the ruined cathedral. Within the hour, Antiochene officers of New Antioch were declaring the same relics a divine sign revealed on the frontier of the Kingdom of Hungary — proof of heavenly favour and therefore Antiochene custodianship. The front had stabilised; the Heretic Legions had fallen back beyond the skeletal houses and broken bell towers that loomed over the trench network. In the uneasy quiet, both sides turned inward, toward the mud-choked arteries carved through the bombed-out town.
The confrontation began along a fire-step reinforced with carved gravestones and splintered beams from merchant houses long since reduced to ribs of stone. Antiochene troops moved down a support trench toward the cathedral sector, relic-casket already in hand. Sultanate soldiers blocked the traverse without raised voices, rifles levelled across sandbags packed with powdered masonry. Someone invoked obedience. Someone else invoked God. The first shot tore through a plank revetment and showered both sides with dust from a collapsed guildhall above. Fighting spilled through communication trenches and shell holes where market stalls once stood; bayonets flashed beneath hanging tatters of laundry fossilised in mud. Overhead, the shattered shells of medieval buildings watched in silence while former allies grappled in the trenches they had bled to hold. Beyond the wire, the Heretic Legions did not need to advance. The line was breaking itself.
The Balkans are aflame and alliances don’t always hold firm. Ciarán and I played a 700 ducat game on our new trench terrain at the weekend. His New Antioch faced off against my Iron Sultante.
The game played great and looked great. Everything a wargame should be. We played to a draw, which was a very fair result in the end. His grenade launcher mech was the model of the game, hitting a Lion of Jabir and a Jannisary with a single shot, taking them both out. His downed captain was caught in the blast, but was unhurt!
Until next time,
Owen