The city of Minierossa had once been a prosperous industrial colony in the eyes of the Iron Dominion of Ferralia, with dark stone avenues aligned to the rhythm of the smelting towers. Now, however, it is a city transformed by war, resistance, and collective suffering. In it, people live under constant siege, but also in a state of reinvention. Its soul is of iron, but its heart beats like embers.
Ninety-three metres below ground, in the 'Heart of Stone' – the rebel command centre where Dante Ferroso and his lieutenants gather – the air is heavier than sleep itself. Dante hadn't slept that night, nor on the nights before. His granite-coloured eyes showed his fatigue to all. After five years in open rebellion, even his deep scars seemed more pronounced with each passing day.
He wore an old Ferralian military coat with no insignia, a memento from his time in the border wars against the Green League of Silvania, where he served as a sergeant in the 1760s. It was in those confrontations that he learned the tactics and discipline he would later apply to his revolt. Despite being regarded as the hero of Minierossa, he always refused to consider himself the rebellion's leader born of that place, for he fought for justice, not glory.
Regardless of the reason for fighting, one thing is certain: Dante Ferroso had become Ferralia's scourge. In this struggle, only the determined survive – those who do not wait for orders to act. Where once flew the flag of Valéria Minierossa, with its silver pickaxe crossed with a red flame, now rose black banners – symbols of rebellion, persisting for five years.
In response to this betrayal, the Iron Dominion had sent the infamous General Lucien Darcos – the Iron Talon of Ferralia.
Lucien Darcos is the very embodiment of Ferralian military discipline. Tall and lean, he maintains flawless posture even under heavy fire. A man of rules and punishments; cold, logical and ruthless. He believes order can only be achieved through absolute obedience. His view of war and society is mechanistic: soldiers are cogs, civilians are gears, and those who resist are rust.
He is both respected and feared by his troops, for he demands perfection and tolerates no failures. His campaigns are known for their brutal efficiency and for the exemplary cruelty of their reprisals against cities that dared to resist. In his mind, Minierossa had become a strategic mistake to be corrected... with fire and steel.
Dante was bent over maps and dispatches at the break of dawn when his three lieutenants entered the Heart of Stone.
– Commander – said Iago, the shortest of the three, – what troubles you?
Iago of the Cauldrons, muscular and agile like a feral cat, has the look of someone shaped by prison and survival. His skin is marked with scars, coal stains and tattoos of skulls, crossed pickaxes, and symbols only criminals would recognise. His nose had been broken more than once and his smile revealed two iron teeth he had implanted himself after a poorly timed explosion. His close-cropped hair is black as the tunnels he navigates without a torch, and his small, bright eyes seem to see everything, even in darkness – always restless, as if expecting betrayal at any moment.
He wears a torn Ferralian officer's coat, stolen during an ambush, and strapped to his belt are an array of small weapons: daggers, smoke bombs, and bottles of acid.
– It's not good news. Our spy intercepted a message from Lucien Darcos' headquarters, which reads as follows:
Letter from Darcos to the Supreme War Council of Ferralia
Campaign Quarters, Vale of Scorn
8th of Calorium, 1780
To the Supreme War Council of Ferralia,
Ferrumia
Gentlemen,
I write to you after the twenty-sixth day of blockade upon the city of Minierossa. The rains darken the vale, but not the purpose of this campaign.
The rebellion persists, like an infestation of rats hidden beneath the foundations of civilisation. Dante Ferroso – that feral bastard, disguised as a popular hero – has turned the stone labyrinth into a theatre of guerrilla and chaos. But do not mistake persistence for virtue. He is but a spark amid ashes we ourselves let cool for too long.
The city is weakened. We have severed three of its underground supply routes and intercepted two shipments from the Green League of Silvania – clear proof of Silvanian interference, as I have long warned. The Silvanians smile falsely as they feed the poison of rebellion. This will not go unanswered.
I formally request authorisation to implementProtocol Grey: to seal Minierossa's tunnels with fire and sulphur, rendering them uninhabitable for a generation. We will spare soldiers and send a clear message to any other hole from which this kind of insurrectionist thought may emerge.
I will end this scum, with or without official blessing, and victory shall be mine. Dante Ferroso will be but another name erased from History – by the tip of my talon.
With honour and with iron,
General Lucien Darcos
Division of Internal Pacification
Ferralia
– This is it, gentlemen – said Dante. – The enemy is at our gates and plans to bring a conclusive end to everything we've fought for these past years – he said, as his heart rose into his throat. – What do you suggest we do?
– We must strike them without mercy. If they plan to show us none, they shall receive none – said Mária, his most imposing lieutenant.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Mária Ruvina, better known as 'Hammer', on account of her war hammer, which she wields with reverence and wrath, was an imposing figure, resembling a living wall. Her skin is marked by forge heat, speckled with old burns and coated in soot that rarely leaves her face. Her arms resemble mine beams – robust, tense, and tattooed with rustic runes. Her hair, always tied back with a red cloth, is thick and black, streaked with white strands, showcasing the years spent among embers. Her rust-brown eyes seem to assess everything with pragmatic suspicion – as if every person were metal yet to be tested.
– With what, Hammer? – said Iago, indignant. – That's exactly what they want from us: open-field combat. Their cannons would wipe us out in minutes and there's little we could do. They control all the high ground of the Vale of Scorn and would see us the moment we step outside our walls.
– You can't seriously expect us to sit here like cornered prey, waiting for them to carry out their macabre plan! Didn't you hear the commander? They won't even grant us dignified deaths! I propose we strike now. We have the element of surprise, and they won't expect us to leave our cage and meet them.
Dante listened patiently to the suggestions of his hot-headed lieutenants, and noticed that his third right hand, Elias, stood in the corner of the room, thoughtful, as he always was when brewing some plan no one expected.
A thin man, with fine features and skin pale as aged paper, Elias Ventresca has the body of someone more surrounded by maps and records than weapons. He wears glasses with cracked lenses he repaired himself using copper wire, and hazel-brown hair that had begun to thin, though he kept it carefully parted down the middle. His face no longer smiled as it once had, and his sunken grey eyes, ever observant, were always calculating.
He always dressed with almost clerical precision, even underground: dark waistcoat with bone buttons, wrinkled linen shirt, and a small silver chain, attached to the journal where he recorded everything.
A man of soft tones, always with a cold and firm touch, like one delivering a verdict. Though scrawny, there was a presence in him that commanded silence – the kind of man who knows where the bodies are buried, or worse still, where the tax records are hidden.
– Elias, what are you thinking? – asked Dante, hoping for some solution to the stalemate in that room.
– ...No, no... it had to be... But... – Elias murmured aloud, with a touch of apprehension in his voice. – Uhm... Could it be?... It has to be... Here it is, gentlemen: There is no solution to the situation we're facing, so I must agree with Hammer.
– What??? – shouted Iago, anger rising in his voice. – Are you suicidal?
– Give me a moment to explain – said Elias, in a controlled tone. – Yes, it's a plan that makes no sense, and we'd be sending our men to certain death. But that death need not be in vain. We could send someone through the Paths of Lament and plead our case to our allies in Silvania. They've already been sending us weapons and supplies, and I know that, with a little persuasion, they might send a military force to relieve us here and strike back at the Ferralians.
– It's risky – said Dante, thoughtful, – but I see no better way to turn our precarious situation around. Iago, how many people do we have capable of bearing arms?
– About six hundred. We have at our disposal three hundred armed miners, roughly one hundred and fifty militiamen and deserters with prior military training, around a hundred underground operatives, and a small number of scouts and messengers. If it pleases you, I advise we place our operatives and scouts camouflaged on the rocky trails. It would be a commanding position over the battlefield. I'll lead them myself. I believe it gives us the best chance at victory against the superior Ferralian forces.
– And how many men does Darcos have at his disposal? – asked Dante.
– I don't want to alarm anyone in this room – said Iago, hesitantly, – but about twelve hundred, and they've got artillery on the high ground. My scouts also reported that the dreaded Iron Cavalry surrounds and protects their general – at least fifty men.
– Lucien Darcos will want to end our presence in the region if he sees us in the field. I doubt High Command would allow him to pass up such a golden opportunity. We'll position our troops here, to the north, and cover them as best we can in the ruins and trenches of the mining road. With luck, we'll nullify much of their artillery, and Darcos will be forced to come to us and give up the high ground. When they open fire, that will be your signal to strike the Ferralian forces.
Dante's voice held a trace of fear, but his lieutenants were expectant. They knew that even when cornered, their commander would find a way to get them out of the wolf's jaws. All they had to do was trust his process, and follow his orders as if their lives depended on them – which, in many cases, they had.
– Hammer, – he continued, now in a calmer, more controlled voice, – you'll lead the centre with me. To buy Elias and our men more time to position themselves, I'll go, under a flag of truce, to parley with the cripple, make him think we plan to come to some agreement and end this conflict. Any objections?
– No, Commander! – All the lieutenants bellowed with force.
It took several hours to set all the plans in motion and to leave their walls in force. They marched in the most orderly fashion they could, toward the chosen site of battle.
The Vale of Scorn burned. Not with flames, but with heat, dust, and a razor-sharp tension. The dry plains south of Minierossa had become a field of death and resistance, where cracked earth groaned beneath boots and the air pulsed with the anticipation of confrontation. The sun, merciless, hovered at its zenith like a burning eye – there was no breeze, no shade, only sweat and thirst.
The rebels' line, blackened by coal and past explosions, moved silently among the ruins of the old mining transport routes. The metal of their weapons seared to the touch, the barrels of water they carried evaporated in hours, and their clothes clung to their bodies with moisture. The improvised defences – overturned carts, slag towers and collapsed scaffolding – cracked in the heat, sparking occasional fires in the parched brush.
Dante advanced, guarded by three mounted militiamen, to the centre of the field, raising a white flag, hoping Darcos would buy them more time by coming to meet them. Fortunately, his stratagem worked, and he spotted the Ferralian general approaching on the horizon, displaying the same kind of flag, flanked by three members of the Iron Cavalry, the elite force of the Iron Dominion, used mainly to demoralise the enemy and execute shock charges to bring any confrontation to a decisive end.
– Good afternoon, General. How are you? – said Dante, arrogantly, with a disdainful smile on his face.
The eyes of General Lucien Darcos, steel blue, conveyed coldness and calculation. He would never admit it to Dante, but he admired him in a silent way, for he recognised in him a man who could be considered his equal, both in tenacity and in leadership.
His skin was pale, almost cerulean, marked by years of campaigning under harsh climates. His face was long and angular, with prominent cheekbones and a chin as rigid as granite. He bore a fine moustache, meticulously trimmed, and his hair, once blonde, had turned grey and was combed back with a precision that bordered on ritual.
He wore a ceremonial uniform, with partial armour of darkened steel, adorned with the silver insignia of Ferralia's double-headed eagle, and a long cloak, black on the outside and wine-red within. His left hand, lost in a previous campaign in the South, had been replaced by an iron prosthesis – an articulated claw that had earned him the nickname 'Iron Talon'. With it, he had raised banners... and slit throats.
– Have you come to surrender? If you do, I am inclined to show mercy to your men. The High Lord wants only you, either in chains or just from the neck up – the choice is yours.
– And I'd be most pleased to go... provided your 'High Lord' deigns to rectify the mistakes he made in 1774.
– I do not understand you.
– Don't play the fool. Have you already forgotten the forty-seven who died in the underground collapse? It was all your governor's fault, who neglected decades of abuse, inhumane shifts, toxic air, and several deadly accidents that could have been avoided had there been proper conditions in the mines. You didn't even deign to grant them proper funerals. There were children in that collapse! You don't even care about the children! Minierossa will never forget this insult!
– And you have forgotten the atrocities you committed. Do you think we will forget what you did on the fifteenth of Nivis, 1778? My men still have a name for what you did:The Night of Black Sweats! In the second winter month, you and your men released theashes of the deadupon mine. My soldiers were hallucinating and sweating uncontrollably – some died standing! And then, to rub salt in the wound, you dared to attack us under the cover of night, like a coward. All for what? For a few Minierosseran insects? Men worth nothing? You killed brave Ferralian soldiers, your own countrymen, all for a handful of deserters and rebels.
– And I'd do it again, if given the chance – he said, with a smile that spread across his face, dismissing any remaining possibility of complicity the conversation might have held.
– Enough! I shall waste no more time with traitors and talk of this nature. If you do not surrender, my men will bring me your head, and I shall send it to my liege in an ebony box, as proof that we have cast down, once and for all, your insipid black banners from the top of Minierossa.
– Don't trouble yourself. I shall find you on the battlefield, and you may try to part my head from my shoulders.
And with that, the attempt at parley between both sides was concluded. Only time would tell whether Dante had given Elias enough time to escape. Upon returning to his own, he noticed they were already in formation, ready to face what was to come.
Mária stood atop a command stone, her arms slick with sweat, hammer on her shoulder and a flintlock pistol at her waist, gazing toward the horizon with narrowed eyes. Her veins looked like ropes beneath her bronzed skin, and her hair, held back by her lucky red kerchief, was soaked. Her voice, hoarse but firm, cut through the silence:
– We do not fight for glory! We fight for every breath of free air we have left! – The rebels of Minierossa roared in approval, beating their chests with their hands, making such a disturbing noise that it caused the professional Ferralian soldiers to waver when faced with such courage.
Further ahead, in the rocky trails carved by explosions, Iago and his operatives and scouts lay in ambush, buried beneath camouflage nets dusted with iron powder and sand. Their traps, built with rudimentary devices, were set – hidden blades beneath stones, pots of oil boiling in the sun, and even bottled scorpions left in crevices to sow panic.
In the distance, hidden among a group of rebels disguised as porters, Elias prepared his escape. Dressed in faded accountant's clothes and carrying a light pack, he slid between the short shadows of scorched oaks, ready to cross the southern slopes. His destination: the secret border with Silvania, said to be guarded only by old pacts and few eyes.
On the opposite side of the valley, the Ferralian forces formed perfect lines, even under the oppressive heat. The sound of rhythmic drums rose through the hills. The enemy flags fluttered with movement: a silver hammer and anvil on a black field, with the Ferralian double-headed eagle's silver insignia watching over all from its peak.
Every step of the soldiers raised brown dust clouds that covered armour and banners with a veil of desolation. General Lucien Darcos, motionless on his horse, observed with an impassive face. A bead of sweat ran from his temple to the metal prosthesis that replaced his left hand – but he did not move.
When the first Ferralian charge launched down the hill, the plain trembled.
Rebel muskets opened fire from among the rocks, and improvised mines exploded with a roar, sending up flames that merged with the day's heat. Figures covered in soot emerged from the boulders and fired upon the Ferralian men, who found themselves surrounded on two sides. War cries and screams of pain mixed with the buzzing of insects and the crackling of sunbaked stones.
Time was everything, Dante thought.
Every minute won on the field allowed Elias to advance a few more steps towards his destination – and, perhaps, towards the salvation of the rebel cause.
The stench of sweat, gunpowder, and blood entered his nostrils like a hot nail. The early afternoon sun spat fire over the valley, and every breath tasted of ash. Dante Ferroso stood upon the rocky outcrop his men called 'the dragon's spine', watching the chaos unfold below.
His hands, scarred and sooty, held brass binoculars – remnants from a Ferralian patrol that had been struck down weeks prior. One eye remained on the lens; the other, squinting, trembled with the tension his body could no longer contain.
He saw his men retreating, inch by inch. Mária's hoarse and defiant shouts crossed paths with the dry blasts of homemade grenades Iago had scattered among the uniformed. But the line was breaking. Ferralia's force was like a river in flood: disciplined, merciless, unstoppable. Rebel bodies were seen dragged through the mud, black banners burnt, splinters of wood and iron flying with each explosion.
Dante lowered the binoculars. Sweat ran down his temples, mixed with dried blood from a recent cut on his forehead. The red scarf around his neck was soaked. He breathed deeply – once, twice – until his chest burned. Then he turned to the young messenger waiting behind him, face as white as lime:
– Has he gone?
– Yes, sir. Elias is on the Lamentation trails. He passed the forge marker twenty minutes ago.
Dante closed his eyes. A nearly imperceptible murmur escaped him:
– Blessed be, Mother of Stone...
His objective had been achieved: to hold the valley long enough for Elias to reach Silvania, carrying with him the names, the maps, and the evidence of Ferralian infamy. He knew many would not return, that perhaps he himself would be left there, buried among slag and coal – but he also knew that the truth, once revealed to the world, could be more destructive than a thousand cannons.
He raised his voice to those around him – miners armed with Silvanian muskets, hollow-eyed veterans, and a group of women wielding the weapons their husbands had used before perishing for the cause.
– If this is where we fall – he cried, – then let it be with our feet planted in the earth they took from us! Ferralia will remember us, and we shall be their nightmare forever!
And then, joined by men and women with their spirits high, he descended.
Dante Ferroso was not a man to command from afar. He advanced to the front line, where Mária raised her blackened hammer and bodies fell like wheat under a scythe. He joined her, musket at the ready and bayonet fixed, and cried out the name of the city that saw him born and now was being crushed:
– Minierossa!
The earth answered with the thunder of their charge.
The sun was beyond its zenith when the first shots of Ferralia's second charge echoed through the slopes. Ferralian muskets, lined up like death clocks, opened fire on those barricaded in the ruins of the mining road. Stones shattered like blades and the air became a whirlwind of dust and screams.
The rebels fought back as they knew best: with cunning, iron, and fury.
Iago coordinated ambushes among the boulders – false tunnels, trapdoors with improvised spears, and sacks of tar that, when thrown and ignited, created walls of smoke and panic. At times, the ground itself opened beneath the feet of Ferralian soldiers, who fell into pits dug in the previous weeks.
Further up, Mária advanced with her brigade. She was a block of muscle and fury, arms tattooed with forge marks. Her hammer – forged from the iron of the beams that had collapsed on her comrades and friends – cleared a path like a living battering ram. One blow felled a horse; two, made an entire infantry line retreat.
But Ferralia did not waver easily.
Portable cannons, newly developed by the House of War Mechanics of Ferrumia, were hastily brought in and positioned on the heights. The artillery began to pound both rebel and Ferralian positions – accidentally – with devastating fire. In an instant, the southern trench disappeared in a flash, taking twelve men and two women with it.
Dante, in the centre of the line, shouted orders, slammed his fist against the stone wall, and tried to maintain cohesion with words that mixed faith, rage, and exhaustion.
– If we retreat, we all die! If we stay, at least we buy time!
By mid-afternoon, everything condensed into a single moment: the Ferralians, regrouped, were preparing a final charge, descending the slope with bayonets fixed and drums sounding. The dust and smoke made everything unreal, as if the world were suspended between two heartbeats.
Dante ran to the front line. Mária was already bleeding from a wound in her thigh, but she kept fighting. Iago shouted that they couldn't hold any longer, that the right flank had been crushed.
Then the rebels played their final card.
They had kept half a dozen barrels of damp powder beneath an unstable rock face – a desperate trap. At Dante's signal, one of the miners dragged a burning torch and threw it with precision. The gorge exploded, collapsing the hillside and burying part of the Ferralian vanguard in rock and flame.
The blast threw Dante to the ground. The last thing he saw before fainting was the black flag of the rebellion falling... and someone raising it again, bloodied, standing, among the wreckage.
The sound faded slowly. Not like a crack, but like a dying sigh – the final breath of the wounded earth. The echoes of battle still rang among the cliffs, but there was no charge anymore. No more screams. Only the distant buzzing of flies and the crackling of burning dry bushes. The Valley of Scorn, once a battlefield, had become an open-air tomb.
Dante couldn't remember falling.
He tasted iron in his mouth, felt the heat of a burn on his shoulder, and something wet trickling down the left side of his face. Mária's hammer lay several metres away, lodged in the carcass of a Ferralian soldier. All around him, intertwined bodies – uniformed and miners alike – blended into a single, indistinct, silent mass.
He tried to move. A dull pain shot through his back. He was lying on his side, half-buried in black dust and dried blood. The sky above, once a searing blue, had taken on a coppery hue – the sun was setting, the shadows growing.
But Dante's mind still burned with flashes of the battle.
– Commander... – It was Iago, crawling through the rubble, or what was left of him. One arm was trapped beneath a beam and his face was caked in dirt, but his gaze was still fierce. One of his lads – a rather young one, with a scar across his neck – was crawling towards them, carrying an empty water flask and a bag of damp gunpowder. – We couldn't hold them... but they didn't advance either. They pulled back to the hill. They're fortifying...
Dante clenched his teeth. That wasn't victory, but it wasn't surrender either. It was a stalemate – an impasse forged in flesh and mud.
– And Mária? – Dante murmured.
Iago lowered his gaze. Silence.
That was answer enough.
Dante forced himself to sit up, his body protesting with every muscle he moved. He looked around: dozens of wounded, some still moaning, others already claimed by the earth. But there, in that hell, the black flag still stood, planted atop a mound of gravel and bones.
He knew what that meant: time. Elias might have made it. And if Elias reached Silvania, the war would change its face.
– Gather the living! – he ordered, his voice hoarse. – Bury our dead! Let Ferralia see: we are still standing!
He rose with Iago's help and, limping, began to make his way down the ravine. Behind him, the few rebels who remained slowly stood up, like ghosts rising from the dust.
Minierossa had not yet fallen.
Wounded, but not broken, Dante walked among the wreckage with his gaze fixed on the horizon, because as long as the iron was hot... there was still a fight to be fought.
Time was everything.