The rain did not cleanse the camp.
Days passed, and still the ground reeked of iron and smoke, of sweat and encroaching rot.
The Francian host was gone, their banners trampled into the mud, their camp stripped bare.
Yet the memory of them lingered, thousands of corpses laid in rows like offerings to a god of war that demanded too much and gave back too little.
The legions of Romanus worked with unflinching efficiency.
Every morning, the horns sounded, and the weary soldiers rose to their tasks.
Mass graves were dug in neat, rectangular pits that scarred the countryside.
Men heaved bodies by the arms and legs, tossing them down in layers.
The sound of flesh striking mud became as regular as the clash of shields had been only days before.
Others stripped the fallen methodically.
Armor was pried off stiffened limbs, swords and shields stacked in towering piles.
