The morning fog crept lazily up the stony slopes, cloaking the walls of Rocciaguarda like a damp sheet. From the top of a watchtower, Dante wrapped himself in a brown cloak, darkened by the smoke of a campaign now in its fifth year, and frowned as he looked out over the enemy camp. Leaning against a broken merlon, the former Ferralian sergeant saw it all with the eyes of a man who had buried too many comrades to trust in luck.
Below, the banners of the Iron Dominion swayed in the chill breeze. The ones embroidered in red and black fluttered like tongues of fire, ready to lick the stone. Lucien Darcos's army moved with a discipline that reminded him of black ants on a discarded carcass – methodical, relentless, dangerous. They carried timber, built ramps, drove in stakes. The engineers, clad in dark waistcoats and leather gloves, raised siege structures with such efficiency that it left no room for illusions: the siege would continue until the rebellion was crushed.
And yet, for now, the walls held.
Darcos's cannons – smaller pieces dragged laboriously by rear-guard horses – had thundered sporadically through the previous night, spitting iron against stone. But the calibre was weak. Each shot chipped at the masonry, made the parapets tremble, sent limestone dust and shards into the air... but had opened no breaches. Not yet. Not yet.
Dante ran a hand over his unshaven beard and thought about what would come when Ferralia's heavy artillery arrived. If it arrived. For now, they still had luck on their side. But if their luck turned, the third day could be the last. And luck was a blind whore – sometimes she lay with you, sometimes with your executioner.
Behind him, a crow cawed, perched on a piece of broken melon. A younger soldier would see that as an omen of death, Dante thought, but I'm no longer a young soldier, and I no longer believe in omens.
In Darcos's camp, the Ferralians dug with shovels, with mattocks, even with their bare hands if needed. The trenches they were carving wound slowly into the earth, advancing by night like the roots of some ancient evil crawling beneath the wall.
They had already begun to fill the flooded moats. They threw in wooden beams, broken stone, even the bodies of dead animals. Anything that might help create a dry path. Palisades rose behind them, guarding their flanks like iron ribs. And where once there had been open, uncertain ground, there was now a line of approach – well drawn, well protected – as if Darcos himself were sketching Rocciaguarda's death with ruler and compass.
Dante spat through clenched teeth.
– Sons of bitches are teaching a masterclass in war here – he muttered, not expecting an answer.
In truth, no one spoke much. The soldiers knew that every glance cast at the enemy camp was like staring into the mirror of their possible demise.
The royal banner of the Iron Dominion fluttered across the field, and beneath it the army divided into three distinct forces, now clearly visible as the dawn fog began to lift. One pushed from the west, another positioned itself to the south, and the third dug from the east with the precision of a watchmaker. A three-clawed siege, designed to skin Rocciaguarda from every side. The north needed no siege – the mountains there were impassable, both for Ferralians and rebels alike.
Dante was no fool. He knew what that meant: once the moats were filled, more ladders would come, more attacks from more sides. But if the heavy artillery arrived before Elias or Elizaveta, their resistance would last far less time.
For now, the fortress held. They still had the outer walls, thick and cracked, but standing. They also had the inner walls, where the artillery and marksmen could retreat if forced. And at the very centre, like a fist raised to the grey sky, the central tower – the last hope, the final bastion.
If we have to fall back to the tower... then it's only a matter of time before we're slaughtered.
He didn't say it aloud. Words like that were like broken bones – you knew they were there, but no one wanted to look at them for too long. If they had to fight from the tower, there'd be no escape or salvation. It would be death… or surrender. And Dante was not a man who surrendered. But he wasn't a fool either. Nor a martyr.
Another crow croaked from the other side of the wall. Dante glanced at it. Even the fucking crows know to wait for our deaths, he thought, without humour.
For a brief moment – perhaps less than it takes a spark to die in the wind – Dante stepped back from the wall and allowed himself to drift into his own thoughts, a rare thing for a man like him. He stood upon ancient, solid stone, but his spirit wandered far… not toward sweet memories, for those had died in the fields of Silvania, but to an open battlefield, where walls did not close in like a sealed coffin.
I've never felt this trapped. Not in Silvania. Not in the mines.
There had been a brutal freedom in the open campaigns – ambushing, flanking, retreating and striking again. Hunting, bleeding the enemy with a thousand cuts before driving a bayonet into their throat. That was how he liked to fight. Not like this, trapped between stone, heat, rain, and silence. Not like a rat waiting for the axe.
If he could, he'd gather his nearly five thousand rebels, march out through the north gate under cover of night, and attack Darcos's flanks, smashing the smaller detachments, tearing the serpent apart piece by piece until he reached the head and tore it off with his own hands. It was something Darcos wouldn't expect. Not from Dante's position, not through that treacherous path.
But those days no longer belonged to him. Now he was commander of a besieged fortress, leading men and women who, until just days ago, had never seen the nightmare that was war.
It was at that moment that Iago appeared at the top of the stairs, with his usual controlled urgency – neither too fast to cause alarm, nor slow enough to be dismissed. His boots left black footprints on the steps.
– Dante – he said, voice hoarse and direct, without flourish or reverence. – The cannons are ready.
Dante looked up.
– All of them?
– Almost. The three culverins on the South wall are double-loaded, as you asked. The artificers say the barrels are clean and greased. They want to know if it's time to spit fire.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the whistling wind whipping the black banners of Ferralia on the horizon.
Dante placed his hand on the damp stone of the battlement. He could feel the residual heat from the last musket shot nearby. The cold crept into his bones, but he didn't move. His body ached, but his eyes were fixed on the tangle of soldiers and siege works Darcos had erected below.
– Time to see if his defences can withstand iron and fire – he murmured, more to himself than to Iago.
Then he turned.
– Tell the artificers yes. But don't give them all the toys at once. Let's test the beast's teeth before we let it loose.
Iago nodded with a faint, almost cruel smile at the corner of his mouth. Then he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
Dante lingered a moment longer, watching the Ferralian trenches, the soldiers digging, the bodies slowly decomposing at the base of the walls.
Very soon, this silence will be shattered by thunder. I hope, I truly hope, you regret cornering us, Darcos.
The silence broke like glass beneath a hammer.
The cannons of Rocciaguarda roared in unison, unleashing a thunder that shook the walls, the stones, even the hearts of the men and women. Black smoke rose to the skies like furious serpents, and in the enemy camp, chaos spread at once. Dante leaned against the parapet and watched it all with a calm that bordered on the morbid – like a man watching the sea swallow a village already lost.
The howitzers' shells fell with the weight of ancient gods. One exploded beside a half-finished palisade, flinging wood, earth, and soldiers in pieces. Another struck a group of sappers who had dug too close to the eastern flank. The ground was stained deep red. Screams sliced through the air like blades, followed by shouted orders from sergeants trying to restore some order to the growing chaos.
Darcos's troops scattered like ants after fire. They sought trenches, dips in the ground – anything to protect them from the fury raining from the walls. Many left behind tools, ammunition, even comrades. Survival, in such moments, is no noble science. It is a bare, brutal instinct.
Dante remained still, his eyes fixed on the lines that had once advanced with confidence and now withered in confusion and fear. The smoke of the shots enveloped him, stinging his eyes and filling his lungs with the acrid scent of gunpowder – the smell that always heralded either life or death, nothing in between.
For a while, there was no counterattack. No march. No attempt to scale the walls. Rocciaguarda's artillery had imposed silence.
Dante knew what that meant: the Ferralians were not yet ready to attack. More importantly, Lucien Darcos knew it too.
The Ferralian general was not a man of blind passions or glorious impulses. He was a surgeon of war: methodical, patient, and cruel. He would not send his men against well-defended walls without being certain he could crush them. Every life lost was one less in the equation of victory.
And today… there would be no sums. Only waiting.
Dante began striding along the wall walk, his cloak trailing behind him like the shadow of an old crow. He found Iago by one of the gun ports, covered in soot, giving orders to a group of gunners whose faces looked like sculptures of coal and sweat.
Without ceremony, Dante placed a hand on his shoulder.
– Keep firing – he said. His voice was firm but low. Like a command from someone who need not repeat himself. – Until you think it's enough. Today is only a demonstration. We'll need ammunition for when they come in force.
Iago nodded silently, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
– We'll make them pay for every inch of ground they dare to want – he murmured, more to the artillery crew around him than to Dante.
Dante didn't reply. He simply turned back and descended the wall steps under the weight of a thousand deaths on his shoulders. Each step echoed like a funeral drum.
He crossed the corridors of the fortress like a shadow – weary soldiers stepped aside with a silent nod, some unsure whether they were looking at a commander or a ghost.
When he reached his quarters, he pushed the heavy door open with a creak of rust. The interior was dark, damp, the hearth cold, the blankets coated in dust and moisture. It was no commander's room – it was a cell with furniture. But it was his.
Slowly removing his cloak, boots and cuirass, Dante looked at the narrow bed, where the sheets were crumpled from sleepless nights. He lay down without lighting a candle or warming himself. He simply fell onto his back, eyes open, staring at the stones in the ceiling as if they might whisper secrets.
Five years… five years without a true night's rest. Since Minierossa, since the day I stopped being a sergeant with orders to follow and became a leader of ghosts and the condemned.
Dante's sleep – for the past five years – had been made of red flashes, of screams in the dark, of bones snapping to the rhythm of war drums. And beneath it all… the face of Darcos, still, cold, always waiting, like death itself.
But that morning… perhaps… perhaps weariness was stronger than fear.
He closed his eyes.
Outside, the cannons still roared, like monsters in fury guarding the last den. Each shot pushed dreams further away. Or perhaps brought them closer.
And Dante Ferroso, a man who had once been a soldier and was now a deserter, a rebel, and a commander, fell asleep like a wounded bird in a cold cage. For the first time in years, he slept without nightmares.