The hills to the west of Rocciaguarda trembled under the weight of vengeance. In the distance, dust could be seen like a sickly veil over the horizon as the first companies of Ferralia crossed the valley. They came by the thousands – twelve thousand, the scouts said, although their faces became pale before the count was even finished.
At the head of the column came black standards, swaying with the dry wind, where a silver hammer and anvil gleamed like an omen of iron and blood. It was the coat of arms of Ferralia, the empire of smoke and forge, ready to fight amid ash and humiliation.
Among the ranks marched soldiers who had already seen Dante's rebels before. Men women with scars still healing, with brothers and sisters buried in the northern ravines, with sons and daughters left unburied in the last clash. Veterans of Lucien Darcos's pacification army, who had been defeated, but not broken. They marched beside young lads and girls with eyes inflamed by the rhetoric of retaliation. They had not come to conquer, but to reclaim – or so they had been told when they volunteered for the army.
The hooves of the horses left deep marks in the parched earth. The air smelled of burnt oil, blackened leather, and the old rust of reused armour. The drums beat a grim, almost funereal rhythm, as if anticipating the carnage to come. There were no songs on the lips of the infantry, only hoarse murmurs and the sound of steel clashing against steel.
Amid the sea of muskets and black standards, rose a vision no one in the fortress had expected to see – not so soon, not like this. At Lucien Darcos's side, the former executioner of Silvania and the scourge of Minierossa, there flew not only the hammer and anvil of the Ferralian armies… but the royal flag of the Iron Dominion itself.
A silver fortress, immense and impenetrable, over a black field engulfed in crimson flames – the symbol of House Ferroforte, lords of steel and forge, de facto kings of an empire that shackles all who dare question its power. It was a banner that, when raised on a battlefield, meant only one thing: Ferralia had come to show its strength.
Dante felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
– It's not just vengeance they're after – murmured Iago, his voice hoarse, – they've come to make an example of us.
Mounted beside Darcos, tall in the saddle like a statue of iron, rode Victor Ferroforte, heir to High Lord Magno Ferroforte, the very beating heart of the Dominion. His helm was smooth and unadorned, but it gleamed under the grey light like living silver. His cuirass looked as though it had been forged from plates melted in the furnaces of the Mother Forge itself, with runes of ancient power engraved at its centre. With each step of his warhorse, the earth seemed to tremble – not from weight, but from omen.
To his left, like a shadow from old legends, rode Draven Dragomir, Lord Commander of the unassailable fortress of Dragospire. The soldiers around him gave him space as if afraid of being scorched by a presence that radiated more death than life. His armour was black as pitch, adorned with metallic scales, and, on his back, he wore a long red cloak that seemed to flutter even without wind.
Beneath a solitary white flag, like an open wound amid the black field, Lucien Darcos and Victor Ferroforte crossed the ground in front of the besieged fortress, followed by a small but deadly escort – two soldiers of the Iron Cavalry, in sealed armour, faces hidden beneath expressionless helms, like statues forged in the very bowels of the Dominion.
On the parapet of the fortress, Dante Ferroso watched, eyes narrowed against the sun. The delegation stopped a few steps from the wall. Lucien raised his fist and, immediately, a herald shouted:
– By order of the Iron Dominion, Marshal Victor Ferroforte and General Lucien Darcos request to parley with Dante Ferroso, former Sergeant of the Dominion and traitor to it!
The walls echoed with a suspicious silence. Dante did not reply at once. He stepped closer to the parapet nearest the delegation slowly, with Iago at his side.
– Marshal Ferroforte – Dante began, his voice firm. – Your presence here is curious. We didn't know that Ferralia's royal heirs bothered to cross the realm for the people.
Victor did not smile. His face looked carved in granite.
– This fortress and the city of Minierossa are open wounds on the map of Ferralia – he replied. – And wounds infect everything around them.
Lucien intervened, his voice calm but laden with iron.
– This has gone on for five years, Dante. How many have died? How many villages were burned? How many children will grow up without parents because of a war you cannot win?
Dante raised his chin. The wind stirred his worn coat.
– And how many grew up enslaved under the yoke of the Ferroforte? How many mouths were silenced forever in the windowless mines and factories? Don't speak to me of suffering.
Victor crossed his arms.
– Isn't it the people we care about? For they are the ones who bleed, Dante. Your ideals do not fill bellies. Your rebellion is no longer noble, it is mere stubbornness.
Dante stared at him, and for a moment, there, between the echoes of the wall and the earth, it seemed that everything could collapse with a single poorly chosen word.
– The war will go on – Dante continued – as long as I breathe. As long as this spirit of defiance you call rebellion burns within us. You can kill me here, right now, and even so… the people will fight. This is not about me. It's about them. And they no longer fear facing you.
Victor took half a step forward with his horse, perhaps to reply – or perhaps to condemn. But he never got to speak.
Because in that instant, without warning, the world exploded.
Bang!
A single, dry crack rang out between the walls and the hills like a premature thunderclap. The sound reverberated through the ground, the stones, the chest of everyone present. And then, a second of utter silence. So utter that even the crows seemed to freeze in the air.
Victor Ferroforte's body shuddered. The gleaming cuirass at his abdomen crumpled like paper under the invisible pressure of the impact. A dark stain, almost black, began to spread over the metal, like wine spilled on silver. He didn't scream. He only looked down, incredulous, and then nearly fell from his saddle to the ground, had it not been for one of the guards grabbing him by the waist to stop his collapse.
Lucien cursed and the delegation returned to the army, and Dante… Dante stood motionless. As if the ground had opened beneath his feet.
He looked to the side and saw Iago. A flintlock musket still spewed smoke in his hands. His eyes – usually lively, almost mocking — were cold as dark stone.
– Why…? – asked Dante, his voice low, tense, like a rope on the verge of snapping. – For the love of all that is sacred, why did you do that, Iago?
Iago gave him a half-smile, one of those smiles that seem more scorn than anything else. He wiped the musket barrel with his dirty sleeve and shrugged.
– Because they were boring me – he said. – All that talk, those speeches full of pomp and pity. As if anything were going to change. You weren't going to surrender and they were going to attack anyway. It was just theatre, Dante. A farce with a white flag. I went straight to the final act.
– And do you think we've gained anything from this? – he asked, eyes blazing. – Do you think the people will applaud you for shooting someone in the back under a white flag?
– I didn't shoot him in the back, I shot him in the stomach – Iago replied, unflinching. – And it was better this way. At least now everyone knows our stance on surrender. No illusions. No false hopes.
Dante clenched his fists tightly, trying to contain his rage.
– You're digging a grave for all of us, Iago.
– Maybe… – he replied, unafraid. – But at least we'll die knowing there's one less Ferroforte.
Dante looked out at the fields beyond the walls. In the distance, formations were already moving, banners rising, like a storm taking shape. Victor Ferroforte might not see the next dawn… but his death would see the dawn of a new war fury.
– They're going to attack now – murmured Iago, with a mixture of veiled guilt and cold satisfaction.
– Bells! Drums! Weapons to hand! – roared Dante, and his voice swept through the inner courtyard like thunder. – Everyone to your posts! Riflemen on the battlements! They're coming without artillery! We still have a chance to repel them!
The fortress trembled with sudden commotion. Men and women ran through the inner yards, arming themselves with whatever they could. They woke the sleeping, shoved the hesitant. There was haste, but it was disciplined haste. Rocciaguarda had been expecting this hour. Everyone knew it would come. They just hadn't known it would be now.
Outside, the Ferralian army was forming columns with impressive speed. It was as if the war machine had only been held back by ropes until then, and Iago, with a single shot, had cut them all.
But it was not an ideal attack. The siege had barely begun. The heavy artillery was still coming along the western roads, heavy as sleeping monsters. Without it, Rocciaguarda's walls might still hold.
And, due to a lack of cannons, they would come with ladders.
Dante saw, in the distance, carpenters and soldiers carrying the long improvised wooden structures, some still with loose nails, some made with planks torn from carts. It was a desperate assault, but a determined one. An assault driven by rage.
– They're twelve thousand strong, but they've got to climb, and up here is where they die – Dante growled. – We'll give them lead. We'll give them oil. We'll give them steel.
The beat of rebel drums began on the walls. Drums made of old leather and worn hoops, but which spoke with a firm voice. The fortress stood – still alive, still theirs. And on the walls, the old campaign cannons were already being mounted to fire grapeshot at the first who dared come close.
Iago, now silent, watched Ferralia's infantry running up the hill with ladders on their shoulders, bayonets raised, shouting like unleashed beasts.
Dante glanced at him.
– I hope it was worth it, Iago, because you just traded negotiation for bones.
– It was always going to be this way – he replied. – I just happened to be the first to accept it.
The Ferralians came like a black tide, shouting. From the walls, the rebels shouted insults back promises of death and prayers into the wind. Dante ran from embrasure to embrasure, sword at his side, pointing out positions, correcting cannon angles. His face was hard as stone, with no time for fear.
– Wait! Wait… now!
The cannons fired with a dry thud, spitting grapeshot that cut down the first wave of climbers like scythes through a harvest of bodies. Soldiers flew from the ladders, bodies torn open, legs ripped off. One of the infantry captains fell with his head reduced to a red mist.
And still they climbed.
Rebel musketeers fired in volleys, reloading hastily, fingers burned from powder, cheeks black with smoke. Some rebels stood with bayonets fixed along the wall to meet those who dared reach the top.
Barrels of boiling oil were tipped with ropes, pouring over enemy heads, making skin crackle like damp firewood. The air filled with the sweet, sickening stench of burning flesh. Soldiers burned and screamed for mothers they would never see again.
Iago wielded a sword stolen from one of the raids and swung it violently at the first who tried to cross the parapet. One Ferralian man was struck full in the throat; the blade tore to the bone, and the body fell with a grotesque moan, dragging another down the ladder with it.
– Keep going! Don't fall back! Don't let them up! – Iago bellowed.
But the Ferralians, stubbornly, kept climbing.
The wall on the southern face trembled as three ladders were lodged at once. A group of soldiers in heavy armour, veterans from Darcos's pacification army, climbed the steps with iron discipline, as if Solarius himself pushed them. One leapt onto the parapet with a war cry and was immediately stabbed by three rebel bayonets.
Two defenders fell as well. No one left an invaded wall unscathed.
Dante, with his left hand bloodied, shoved a still-warm body with his boot and grabbed a fallen short sword. He cut a rope, and one of the ladders fell, taking seven soldiers with it, arms flailing in the void until the impact silenced them forever.
But for every ladder that fell, two more rose.
A rebel soldier lost his balance and was dragged down the wall, scraping against the parapets until he landed headfirst, crushed between ladders.
It rained, but not water. It rained lead, fire, blades and ash. And beneath that sky of death, Rocciaguarda held.
Minutes after the assault had begun – though it felt like an eternity – the ladders had fallen or burned, pushed back by hands, oil and fire. The field before the wall was now covered in broken wood, blackened armour, and bodies. Some groaned. Others did not. The dust settled slowly, and the screams that had cut the air like blades became hoarse, distant murmurs.
Lucien Darcos gave the signal to retreat: a single drawn-out trumpet, followed by three short notes. Ferralia's standards began to withdraw, slowly, as disciplined as everything that empire did – even bleeding.
The first ranks withdrew under cover from riflemen, carrying away the most important wounded. The dead would remain, as food for crows and a warning to the next ones who might attempt an assault. Even without their cannons, the Ferralian army had learned the lesson: Rocciaguarda would not fall in a single assault.
High on the wall, Dante wiped his forehead with a handkerchief stained red with blood and gunpowder. His eyes scanned the field as though still expecting more.
– You see? – said Iago, still panting, a sweaty grin on his lips. He had dried blood on his neck, but his eyes gleamed with triumph. – You see what we did? They came at us in fury… and left with half their troops under the ground. If I hadn't pulled the trigger, they'd still be sitting in their tents waiting for the siege artillery.
Dante turned to him slowly. There was a strange calm in his movements, like the sea before it breaks into waves.
– What did we win, Iago? – he asked. – Yes, they lost soldiers. But so did we. And we can't replace ours like they can.
Iago shrugged, passing his sword from one hand to the other.
– It's not about what we lost. The point is, if I hadn't done what I did, they wouldn't have attacked now. They would've waited for the heavy cannons. And then, Dante, then we'd be dead. This way, we burned their pride. And soldiers. A lot of soldiers.
Dante looked at the field once more. The crows had already descended.
– Yes – he said at last. – That's true… but it also means they now know what they're dealing with. Next time, they won't come in haste or in thirst for vengeance. They'll come prepared. And we… we'll bleed even more.
He turned to his sergeants and shouted:
– Double the watch! I want four eyes on each tower, day and night. No tired shifts or distractions. Ferralians may lose battles, but they don't make a habit of losing wars.
The men and women nodded. Orders were like bread in times of siege – simple, hard, necessary.
Iago was still smiling, but now more restrained.
– Are you angry with me?
– No – Dante replied. – I'm trying to count how many souls we lost… and whether the cost was worth what we gained. But no, not angry, just… watchful.
No further attack came that day. The sun disappeared behind the hills and Rocciaguarda entered the night, still standing, still belonging to the rebellion, which had won the first day of the siege.