For three relentless weeks, the ground itself seemed to breathe under the weight of war. Every night, while the great batteries on the northern front roared against Roma's walls, General Bertrand's sappers crept forward beneath the earth—an invisible army moving by inches.
The bombardment never ceased. Daylight brought the thunder of Luxenberg's heavy guns, pounding the bastions until they groaned like living things. Smoke pooled in the valleys, drifting between olive trees and shattered villas. From the ramparts, the defenders could see little but the haze and hear the endless percussion—stone on iron, iron on stone. Yet beneath that chaos, Bertrand's men worked in near silence.
They dug by lantern light, stripped to their shirts, sweat and soil blackening every inch of skin. The air grew foul and heavy, the tunnels shored by trembling timbers that groaned under their own damp weight. Each night, a few more feet were gained—five, perhaps six—measured with a string and marked on Bertrand's maps in patient pencil strokes.
Above, the cannonade masked the faint tap of picks. Below, the sappers whispered prayers over the powder kegs stacked behind them. By the twentieth night, the tunnel mouths were less than a dozen paces from Roma's outer wall. The city still stood—but the earth beneath it had begun to listen.
It had been almost three weeks since the first shot was fired, and yet the bombardment had abruptly stopped.
For the first time in weeks, Roma woke to stillness—a silence so sharp it seemed to hum. Smoke hung over the northern ramparts in thin ribbons, rising from the spent guns. The defenders stared out in wary disbelief, afraid to ask what it meant.
Far below the surface, General Bertrand stooped in the half-dark of the lead tunnel, a lantern trembling in his gloved hand. The air smelled of damp lime and burnt powder. Behind him, his engineers crouched among barrels stacked like organ pipes, each one packed and tamped with care. He ran a hand along the rough wall, feeling the cold seep through the stone—just a few feet now between them and the city's foundations.
He looked to the captain beside him. "Light the slow match," Bertrand said quietly. "Then we go."
The fuse hissed to life, a whisper turning swiftly to a snarl. The men scrambled back down the tunnel, boots slapping through the mud.
Up above, Lorenzo Visconte stood on the palace balcony. He heard it before he saw it—a low, rising growl from the earth itself. Then the world convulsed.
The eastern wall did not crumble; it leapt. Masonry, fire, and men lifted into the air in a single, monstrous breath. The shockwave raced through the city like thunder trapped in stone. Dust swallowed the dawn, and when it cleared, a wound gaped where Roma's proud bastion had stood.
From the fields below, the Luxenberg drums began again—slow, deliberate, unstoppable. The siege was over. The storm was about to begin.
The smoke had not yet settled when the first horns sounded.
From the shattered eastern fieldworks, General Lasalle raised his sabre, its edge catching the sickly dawn. Around him, the ranks of the Luxenberg infantry surged forward—columns of dark blue and green moving through the churned earth, their boots sinking into ash and blood. The great breach yawned before them, still spitting dust and fragments of the fallen wall.
"Forward, for Luxenberg!" Lasalle's voice tore through the din, raw and triumphant. Behind him, the drummers struck the assault beat, and the mass of men advanced—steady, deliberate, like a tide reclaiming a shore.
Inside Roma, panic had no time to gather shape. Smoke poured through the breach, carrying the screams of the wounded and the crash of collapsing stone. Lorenzo Visconte stumbled down from the ramparts, his cloak grey with dust.
Messengers rushed past him with half-heard reports—the eastern gate gone, the bastion collapsed, the enemy in the lower quarter. He could hear the roar of muskets now, the blunt, human sound of close battle.
While the eastern front was in chaos, the northern and western fronts erupted with cannonfire. The defenders were poised with a difficult situation: Help the men combating the breaching forces, or man the walls and stop the other fronts from collapsing.
Lorenzo could only watch in disbelief, the wall of his glorious city had disappeared within an instant. All that remained was rubble and dust. He tried to shout orders from his vantage point, but the sound of cannon fire drained out his voice.
General Lasalle, true to his nature, was a whirlwind carving his way through Red Visconte soldiers. With him leading the vanguard, the Luxenberg and Green Visconte soldiers cut through all that stood in their way.
There was an emphasis on not harming civilians and keeping collateral damage to a minimum. The wall had managed to damage a dozen of building on the outskirts of the city, but thankfully there was no one in them as they were evacuated to the inner parts of the city.
The streets of Roma had become a labyrinth of smoke and echoes. Muskets cracked in narrow alleys, their flashes reflected in shattered windows; every corner seemed to breathe gunfire. The once-proud marble facades of patrician houses now wore veils of soot, their balconies broken, their statues faceless with dust.
General Lasalle advanced with the center column, his uniform darkened by grime, his sword drawn but almost forgotten in his hand. The assault had split into a dozen smaller wars—each doorway contested, each courtyard paid for in blood. His men fought like craftsmen: methodical, relentless, driving the defenders back street by street.
But Roma was not yielding easily. From behind overturned carts and barricaded shrines, Lorenzo's guards poured volleys into the advancing ranks. Bells still rang above the chaos, some tolling from habit, others struck deliberately by priests who would not abandon their posts. "For Roma!" the cries rose again and again, hoarse and breaking, drowned by the answering roar of cannon dragged into the squares.
For an inexperienced group of milita they were fighting valiantly. But all good things must come to an end, they were overrun. Their inexperience betrayed them, they could not withstand the fearsome enemies before them.
As more of their comrades perished around them, the garrison had no choice but to surrender to stop the further loss of life.