Dawn broke not with sunlight, but with smoke. A heavy, choking curtain of it rolled across the plains, muffling the world in a smoldering haze. Ash drifted like snow over the siege works, settling in the hair and beards of soldiers who had not slept. The Congreve rockets, exhausted from their night-long frenzy, had fallen silent for a precious hour — but the cannons had not.
Victor stood before a battery as the crews prepared the morning salvo. The guns were blackened, their barrels still warm from the night's final shots. His officers clustered around him — taciturn men with hollow cheeks and soot-stained coats, focused solely on the task ahead.
"Concerntrate fire on the western wall," Victor ordered. "The masonry is fractured. Two more hours and it will yield."
The gunners saluted sharply. Powder horns opened, rammers moved with practiced rhythm. A moment later, the battery spoke again—hundreds of cannons in perfect unison, the earth buckling beneath each thunderous blast.
Prince Alphonse arrived only minutes later, riding hard, his expression grim. Behind him, his Green Visconte soldiers followed in untidy knots, half-trudging, half-marching, muskets slung carelessly despite the danger.
"Victor," Alphonse said, sliding from his saddle. "The scouts confirm it. The bastion is crumbling. There are cracks big enough for a man to slip a hand through."
Victor nodded. "By midmorning, a breach will open."
Both men turned their eyes to Florenzia. The western wall, once proud and white-stoned, was a battered ruin now — its parapets collapsed, its guns silent, its banner hanging in scorched tatters. Each cannon shot drove deeper into the structure, sending fountains of shattered stone cascading down.
"Where are your line captains?" Victor asked, scanning the prince's approaching troops.
"Rousing the men," Alphonse replied, though he did not sound confident.
"Discipline will matter more than bravery today," Victor warned. "A breach draws chaos. Your regiments must act as one, or we lose control before we enter the city."
Alphonse opened his mouth to answer—but the ground shuddered fiercely beneath them. A deafening crack split the air like lightning.
The bastion exploded outward.
Stone blocks tumbled down in an avalanche. Dust surged skyward in a towering plume. From the ramparts, screams echoed as Florent defenders were thrown from their posts or buried beneath the collapse. A ragged gap—irregular, jagged, wide—tore open in the city's defenses like a wound.
Victor exhaled. "There is your breach."
Trumpets blared across the siege lines. Drums thundered. Officers sprinted to gather their men.
Alphonse's troops were in the vanguard and surged forward in a half-organized rush, tightening their belts, checking flints, shouting to their companions. But even from a distance, Victor could see the fractures—men drifting out of formation, captains repeating their orders three times before being obeyed, younger soldiers trembling with equal parts fear and excitement.
Victor's own battalions, by contrast, moved like water flowing through carved channels. Lines formed with mechanical precision. Musketeers fixed bayonets in a synchronized glimmer of steel. Grenadiers marched steadily behind artillery teams, dragging lighter field guns toward the breach.
As reinforcing troops drew closer, the noise was overwhelming — cracking stone, clashing weapons, shouted orders, cannons firing suppressive volleys to keep Florent muskets from mustering on the rubble.
The breach itself was nightmarish: a slope of broken stone and splintered timber, choked with dust and bodies, wide enough for two dozen men to charge abreast. Smoke billowed from burning buildings beyond, turning the gap into a tunnel of grey.
"Hold until the Luxenberg soldiers join us," a desperate Green Visconte Captain commanded. "We enter together."
But the Green Visconte line was still forming. Men pushed forward unevenly. One regiment surged ahead too quickly; another lagged. Captains shouted until they were hoarse.
"Close the gaps! Dress the line! You there—helmet on, musket at the ready!"
Another Green Visconte Captain's voice cracked but did not break.
Slowly, painfully, the disorder tightened. Lines straightened. Muskets levelled. Shakiness transformed into tense, hopeful resolve.
Victor watched with measured approval. Good. Not perfect. But good enough.
A final cannon blast struck the inner wall, sending masonry tumbling into the streets beyond. The gap widened once more, as though the city itself were exhaling its last.
When the Luxenberg reinforcement arrived, the army surged.
The first ranks ascended the broken stones. Musket balls ricocheted off pieces of rubble. A Grenadier toppled backwards, shot through the chest, but the line pressed on.
Alphonse's men charge through the breach with a ferocity born of pride—a roar rising from thousands of throats as they climbed the rubble.
The Florent defenders inside the breach fought desperately, firing from windows, alleys, and makeshift barricades. But the gap was too wide; their numbers too few; their commander too shell-shocked by the sudden collapse.
Steel clashed on steel. Smoke thickened. Screams echoed across the breach. More regiments pushed forward, scrambling over ruined stone into the city's burning western quarter.
Within minutes, banners appeared atop the broken wall — Victor's golden eagle first, then Alphonse's green manticore standard, trembling in the wind.
Florenzia had been breached.
The battle for the city had begun in earnest.
As the last ranks poured over the shattered wall, the world inside Florenzia erupted into a labyrinth of smoke, flame, and echoing gunfire. Narrow streets twisted between tall stone houses whose windows blazed orange with reflected firelight. Rooftops sagged under the weight of falling tiles. Powder smoke hung low, drifting like fog between the buildings and cloaking every movement in uncertainty.
Victor's battle-hardened troops advanced in tight formation, bayonets layered in a brutal, methodical geometry. Every few steps, one of his sergeants would bark a command—"Hold the street! Flank left! Grenadiers, forward!"—and the line would shift with crisp precision, pushing deeper toward the heart of the western quarter.
In front of them, Prince Alphonse's troops flooded through the breach in a tumultuous wave, shouting, stumbling, coughing on dust. They were brave—none could deny that—but bravery alone did not turn alleys into battlefields. They halted too long at intersections, spread too thin in the courtyards, and surged too quickly through streets that might have been traps.
Marshal Lefebvre, who was in command of the Luxenberg infantry, could only focus on his men. He had no time to worry about the undisciplined rabble of the Green Visconte Army.