March 27th, 1701.
The air was thick with smoke. The ruins of Fort Saint-Louis stood as a broken skeleton against the morning light, its walls shattered, its banners burned. The battlefield was a graveyard of men and ambition.
Yet, Armand Roux still lived.
General André Masséna sat at the edge of the war tent, staring at the bloodstained bandages wrapped around his forearm. His wound throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the frustration boiling inside him.
He had come to end the rebellion.
He had come to kill Roux.
And yet, the Marshal had slipped through his fingers.
The battle should have been a victory. Roux's forces had been shattered, his stronghold obliterated, and his command structure crippled. It should have been over.
And yet, it wasn't.
Masséna clenched his jaw. He had failed.
Masséna sat in his command tent, his hands pressed against the table, the map of Pan-America spread before him. His officers stood around him in tense silence. None dared to speak first.
