"By the Great Gods! Is this the Imperial Guard?!"
"Fall back! Fall back! Reform the shield-walls!"
Gilgamesh's voice was a roar of fury, nearly drowned out by the thunderous percussion of high-explosive fire. He watched with gritted teeth as his veteran formations—men who had stood firm against the desert's fiercest tribes—began to disintegrate.
After securing the North and resting for several weeks, Gilgamesh had marched his host southeast, intending to pierce the heart of the metropolitan provinces. He had expected chariots and spears. Instead, he had slammed head-first into the Imperial elites—a joint force of the Capital Sentinels and the private armies of the High Patricians.
It was only when he beheld the towering metal giants—which the scribes of the Order would later call "Bronze Colossi" (or Knights in the tongue of the far-off Imperium of Mankind)—that he realized the depths of the Empire's ancient power.
These were not mere machines; they were relics of a forgotten age, standing three stories tall, draped in heavy heraldic plates and bristling with cannons that spat fire like the gods themselves.
Even the most brilliant tactical mind could not immediately withstand a concentrated barrage from weapons that transcended the era. Though the Auric Reclamation maintained their discipline under Gilgamesh's rigorous training, they were now teetering on the edge of a massacre.
"Retreat! While we can still hold the center, pull out of the battlefield immediately!" Gilgamesh bellowed.
"But Sovereign, if those Colossi pursue us while we break formation, we'll be slaughtered!" Ur-Namu shouted, his face blackened by soot. The other commanders looked to Gilgamesh, their eyes wide with the primal fear of man facing a metal monster.
"There's no time! If we want to keep them from hunting us, we have to give them pause—we have to make them believe we have a way to destroy them. We must make this retreat look like a feint, a lure into a trap. They will hesitate if they suspect an ambush!"
"Father, you aren't planning to ride out there yourself again, are you?!" Siduri cried out, grabbing his cloak. "These aren't just men! These are mountains of walking iron!"
"What other choice is there? It has to be me," Gilgamesh replied, his face a mask of cold resolve. "Let me see if I can use my speed to 'decapitate' one of them. Once I take one down, the Imperial forces will be paralyzed with shock. Go! Lead the men to the pass! I'm going in!"
He didn't wait for a reply. He spurred his warhorse into the smoke and the sulfur.
The Great Families of the Alluvium, the "Lineages of the Twelve Houses," possessed these Colossi as heirlooms passed down from the Age of Darkness. This was the true source of their privilege. No Emperor was foolish enough to deny these aristocrats their status as long as their Knights guarded the Throne.
When Gilgamesh first rose, the Court tried to mobilize them, but the King had followed Enkidu-Sa's advice and retreated into the jagged western mountains, where the heavy machines could not follow.
But now, the Alluvium had flooded, and the Great Families' estates were under threat from local peasant uprisings. Having crushed those small fires, they had finally turned their full, mechanical wrath toward the "Golden King."
"Hahaha! Filthy sand-dwellers! Let's see you try your primitive tricks against my family's legacy!"
A pilot from the House of Balig laughed maniacally inside his cramped, leather-scented cockpit. He nudged his control levers, and the Colossus stepped forward, its massive hydraulic feet crushing a rebel chariot like a dry reed. "Come! Taste the thunder!"
The pilot watched in bewilderment as a single rider on a tall, golden-maned horse charged directly at him. "Is he mad? Does he wish to be stepped on?"
But the rider moved with a reaction speed that defied the laws of biology. As the Colossus swung its massive cannon to track him, the warrior leaped from the saddle mid-gallop, soaring through the air. He didn't fall; he clung to the mech's leg, climbing the bronze plates with the agility of a mountain leopard.
"What the hell is he—?!"
The thought was cut short as the cockpit's heavy iron hatch was ripped from its hinges with a scream of twisting metal.
"Hello there," Gilgamesh said, his rubicund eyes glowing with a predatory light. "I believe you're in my seat mongrel."
When the Imperial officers saw their lead Colossus suddenly stumble, its pilot's head tossed unceremoniously from the hatch before the machine crashed into the dirt, their hearts turned to ice. They assumed Gilgamesh had unleashed a secret weapon—a hidden strike from the gods.
Fearing a trap, the Imperial forces sounded the horn of retreat, abandoning their pursuit of the fleeing rebels.
Emerging from the wreckage, Gilgamesh didn't linger. He knew the illusion of his "secret weapon" would shatter if they saw he had taken the machine down with his bare hands. He whistled for his horse and galloped back toward his lines.
Late at Night
Rebel Command Tent
"We are still too lacking," Gilgamesh said, his voice heavy as he looked at his scorched armor. "We cannot win a war of the future with the tools of the past. We need heavy ordnance... we need our own giants."
"Your Highness," Enkidu-Sa spoke up, his voice steady. "Perhaps it is time you visited a certain hermit. A man named Hamilcar. He may have the solutions you seek."
"A hermit? You mean your mentor? Would he even agree to see a 'rebel'?"
"Well," Enkidu-Sa smiled confidently, "that is where I, his most troublesome disciple, come in. I believe once he sees the fire in your heart, he will find the silence of his cave quite boring."
"Then I leave it in your hands, Enkidu-Sa!"