Tyranny of Steel
chapter-535

On a hill overlooking the City of Milan and its boundaries were two men of rather striking appearance. Both men dressed in regal fashion in the colors of their houses. On the left was none other than the King of Austria, Berengar von Kufstein.

As per usual, he had slicked back golden hair in an elegant style befitting of his handsome appearance. The only detraction from his otherwise stunning figure was the scar across his right eye, which was concealed by a rich black leather eyepatch, which had a golden iron cross embedded in its center.

His standard black and gold kingly attire displayed the wealth and power of his Royal Dynasty as he rested his hand upon his Damascus steel cavalry sabre, whose gilded sword knot hung gracefully from its hilt.

Standing next to this imposing figure was none other than the King of Lombardy. This was a man slightly older than Berengar, at roughly thirty years of age. Surprisingly, he was nearly as handsome as his Austrian Counterpart. With flaxen blonde hair and baby blue eyes, his Germanic heritage shown itself on his regal features.

The man gazed upon the King of Austria, who was his suzerain, and pouted slightly, inwardly he could not help but admit defeat in terms of glamor when compared to Berengar. He now understood why, despite the Austrian King's brutal reputation, people still adored the man, and women from all over desired to be with him.

When Berengar noticed this expression, he chuckled slightly before placing a hand on the man's shoulder to console him in his defeat.

"Do not pout Bruno. Few men can compare to me in terms of handsomeness. I am quite certain that your wife has no complaints about your appearance."

The man named Bruno simply scoffed when he heard such a shameless comment from his Austrian Counterpart. Instead, he shifted his attention to the soldiers gathered below before switching the topic.

"You have invested quite a bit of coin and effort into training and supplying this defense force. Are they up to your standards?"

Berengar gazed upon the Lombardic Soldiers who had taken up defensive positions while waiting for the Austrian Infantry Brigade to descend from the Alps. Their attire appeared to be reminiscent of the Italian Bersaglieri from the Unification Wars of his past life. For this exercise, they were issued Needle rifles, and equipped with special paper cartridges that used wax bullets intending to be non-lethal in combat.

When compared with the Austrian Royal Army, these men were severely lacking in defensive equipment, but that was not a concern of Berengar's. After all, the entire purpose of this Defense Force was to deter the Kingdom of Naples, and buy enough time for Austrian Reinforcements to arrive in the event that they were invaded. All in all, Berengar had no complaints and thus made his thoughts known to the Puppet King by his side.

"They appear to be sufficiently armed and trained for their task. In the end, that is all I can ask for."

Upon hearing his suzrain's approval, the Lombardic King nodded his head in silence. After a few moments of observing the Soldiers prepare their defenses, he began to ask the question on his mind.

"I must ask, your Majesty... Though my soldiers are not the most efficient fighting force in this world, there are 10,000 of them, and they have received ample training from your advisors. Do you honestly believe that this Infantry Brigade of recruits you are dispatching to my lands has the capabilities to defeat my forces?"

Berengar shook his head before responding to this question. There was a slight smirk on his face as he gave his answer.

"Not at all, only a truly capable General could rally such an inexperienced unit to victory against such overwhelming odds. This is an impossible task that I have given my Field Marshal Candidate. If he manages to defeat your forces with his limited means, then I will already consider this exercise a success.

As for fighting the rebels afterwards, I merely intend to give him a brutal experience that he can learn from, and hopefully improve upon, in the future. There is only man in this world who I think could truly succeed in this test that I have designed, and sadly, he is retired."

Bruno understood very well who Berengar was talking about, Eckhard's prowess as a General was well known across the western world, the fact that Berengar would speak so highly of the man, proved further in the Lombardic King's mind that perhaps some of the more exaggerated stories he had heard about Eckhard were in fact true.

The Austrian King was about to further comment on the situation at hand when he gazed into the distance and saw the field of Black and Gold gathering. A smug smirk appeared on his face as he saw this before confidently responding to the event.

"Let the games begin!"

Heimerich loaded his wax bullet into the chamber of his G22 rifle. He and his soldiers hard marched from Tyrol into Lombardy, and were now expected to engage in fierce combat against an enemy that held a fortified position.

Despite this, he did not plan to attack such an overwhelming force head on, such a thing would be suicide. Unfortunately for him, he was severely lacking in artillery and could not batter their defenses before charging. After all, he had a single Infantry Brigade of new recruits beneath his command.

Even the officers were fresh out of the academy. The only veterans among his ranks were the Non-Commissioned Officers selected for this exercise. He could hardly believe he was given such an impossible task by his cousin. Could he not show him a bit of favoritism? Apparently not, because this was the barrier between him and the esteemed position of Field Marshal of the Royal Guard.

Between him and the enemy was about three hundred yards of open ground, without a shred of cover to protect themselves from the enemy fire. To march into such an area would only result in disastrous casualties. However, if he wished to flank the enemy's position, he would need to draw their fire. Thus, the man had no choice but to send a unit to their "deaths". Luckily, this was an exercise, or else such a thing would weigh heavily on his conscience.

After gazing upon the soldiers in his army, he randomly selected one of his units to act as the Forlorn Hope and gave their commands.

"First Battalion, Third Battalion, you orders are simple. Draw the enemy's fire while Second and Fourth Battalions flank their positions. Remember, anyone shot by the wax projectiles is considered dead, and will no longer be able to participate in this exercise. So I expect you to treat this as if it were a real battle, and do your best to survive!"

The soldiers beneath his command threw up their salutes and yelled their battle cries as they prepared to charge into the line of fire.

"Hail Victory!"

After saying this, roughly 2,000 men split off from the main army and charged towards the enemy's fortified positions, unleashing a storm of wax bullets as they ran into the enemy's fire. When Berengar gazed upon this act from the hill above, he sighed heavily before placing his head into the palm of his hand.

"It would appear my officers have become used to fighting technologically inferior foes. I will have to reprimand my cousin for such a pointless sacrifice when this is over."

As Berengar said this, Bruno continued to watch the battle unfold. The sound of gunfire echoed in the air as wax bullets flew out from both sides and into each other's ranks. Those who were hit collapsed to the ground faking their deaths. It quickly became apparent that the Lombardic Defenders had the advantage.

With weapons capable of a similar rate of fire as the G-22 rifles, hundreds of Austrian Soldiers were pelted by the wax bullets and fell to the ground in defeat. If this was a real battle, it would be the most casualties that the Austrians had suffered since 2,500 men were wiped out defending the Granadan Borders.

Luckily, this was merely an exercise. However, as the Lombardic defenders paid attention to the 2,000 men charging down their lines, they completely neglected their flanks, where Heimerich and his men had used the cover of hills to get within striking distance.

While the Lombardic defense forces rapidly cut down the ranks of the charging Austrians, Heimerich prepared his counter-attack. This mock battle was far from finished. Whether the Austrian Field Marshal Candidate would prove successful relied entirely on the next phase of his attack. Thus, in the fields outside Milan, the forces of the Kingdom of Austria, and the Kingdom of Lombardy, faced off against each other in order to determine whether a single man was fit to lead the Austrian Royal Guard.