Faldini saw his first shieldsmen were already pushing through the broken gate. Some took shelter in the arch to try to open the second gate door and double the space. Others pressed into the mansion to establish their position, while shieldmen stood at their backs, warding crossbow fire from above. Only now, Pazira's second rank of crossbows had gained enough space to set up their own rank down the street behind a shield wall, and were peppering any defending crossbowman who raised his head.
Faldini scrambled over broken stone and shattered mortar. Then he was in through the gate, adding his own shoulder as the second gate began to swing, six men pushing with all their strength as more piled through behind. Ahead, he saw, it was all over-Pazira soldiers were pouring across the courtyard, into the mansion, up stairs and ladders up to the defensive wall where crossbowmen threw down their weapons and begged for mercy. Glass broke, pots crashed and, somewhere distant, the inevitable screams and cries of women-servants or ladies of the house, it made no difference to Faldini. They were between him and Sharptooth, and would yield, one way or the other.
On the rooftop of a neighbouring mansion, he could see crossbow-armed guards crouched and watching…damn fool cityfolk, he thought as he leaned on a wall removed his helm and wiped sweat from his brow. If they all stood together to defend the weak points, they'd make an impossible wall…but which patachi would order his own house abandoned to help defend a neighbour's? No, here they each defended their own house, and thus divided themselves into small groups that were excellently defended from other small groups, but not from the rampaging Army of Pazira. Worse, these were city-bred merchant scum without a trace of breeding, and no concept of honour or dignity-barely one house in five was actually fighting; most were just watching their neighbours getting slaughtered, and feeling glad it wasn't them. Petrodor had harboured fractious rivalries for so long they'd come to believe it a virtue. Now they discovered otherwise.
There were local men running into the courtyard now, hands over their heads, some bleeding from wounds, all terrified and expecting to die. Then women, mostly servants, then several ladies in gowns and fancy hair. Faldini refastened his helm.
“Captain! Captain!” He turned, and found Sergeant Drosi scrambling up the pile of masonry past the twisted gate. “Captain, one of the houses opened its gates and attacked! They had a white sheet over the wall, but they opened their gates anyway and hit our flank…”
“Which house!”
“The…the big one with the pillars!”
“They've all got fucking pillars man!”
“Come and see, Captain, the duke was leading the defence!”
“The duke?” Faldini spun and yelled at the nearest officer, “Prepare the next assault! I want the horses brought up, shield walls formed, and every man to have a drink and some food-we're going to need it!”
“Yes, sir!” came the reply, and Faldini was already off and running as best he could over the masonry and bodies. The duke had been a passable warrior in his day, but that day was long past. Oh, he understood strategy well enough, but there had never been a warrior's fire in his belly. It had been on Faldini's own insistence that the duke had not been leading the main force through the streets. He was a man of advancing years, Faldini had said, and his men would understand if he moved with the main body, not at the head.
The Duchess Varona had agreed vehemently. It was perhaps the only time in Faldini's memory that he and the duchess had agreed on anything.
He ran in pursuit of Sergeant Drosi, his weary legs struggling for pace on the cobbles. He passed Pazira soldiers running forward, some more tending wounded fallen in the recent assault, and dodged around a team bringing up the draught horses.
The road bent downhill and he could see the commotion-a big mansion on the inner bend, now visible, flames licking from its upper windows and men rushing across its courtyard. Faldini and the sergeant rushed into the rear guard-a chaos of wounded and dying, men dragging fallen comrades, and leaving others not in Pazira colours to bleed and scream where they lay.
Inside the wall, a Pazira crossbowman told his captain what had happened. “No warning,” he said, still searching the upper balconies and the rooftop for targets, “just a squeal of gates and a roar of men…they lay into the back of us, we lost maybe twenty before we could reform and get the shields up.” He wiped at a bloody nose. “We were moving downslope when the duke arrived with the middle reserve…he didn't even bother with the men attacking us, he went straight through the gates and in there.” A nod toward the mansion.
“Good man,” Faldini growled approvingly. Not a failure at strategy at all, his duke. These city soldiers would defend their properties first and foremost. Attacking their mansion would force them to pursue, straight back through the gates they'd come out of, and expose their backs to their enemy. “That was the end of them, then?”
“Only a handful got away, out of maybe a hundred. The duke's finishing the house.”
The crash and yells of battle resounded from somewhere within, but were dimmed by the gathering roar of the fire. Men on the garden were beginning to shout, waving at others to get clear before it all collapsed. Servants and ladies ran into the yard, clutching a few children. A small, yapping dog ran frantically about the patio, barking at soldiers, barking at flaming embers, barking at the world. A few Pazira soldiers appeared at ground-level windows and doors, but they appeared to be waiting, shouting within for comrades to follow, and quickly.
“Where the hells are they?” Faldini muttered as the flames leapt higher. Windows exploded with a shattering crash and debris fell to the ground.
Finally, Faldini spotted Pazira soldiers emerging. Several supported wounded, while others merely cleared the way. Then came a cluster, like a procession, holding a limp body on their shoulders. The fallen man's helm was missing, and thick, untidy grey hair spilled onto the shoulders of his men.
“Oh mercy no!” the crossbowman beside Faldini exclaimed. “Oh please gods!” The cry crossed the courtyard in a rush, soldiers ceasing whatever they were doing to stare and exclaim, and make holy signs to the deities.
The men of Pazira laid their duke on the patio, his head lolling, his eyes gazing sightlessly at the fire-strewn sky. Faldini walked forward, helm under his arm, staring down in disbelief. The duke's breastplate was covered with blood from a cut through the throat…though the cut itself was invisible beneath wads of soaked cloth his desperate men had applied as they sought to defy the facts of war and flesh and sharp steel.
Some men fell to their knees and sobbed. A lieutenant called for order and dignity, but his voice was quaking. Faldini wondered if there would have been such a reaction for him, had it been his own body lying there amidst the falling, burning rain. For the first time in his life, the certain knowledge of the answer troubled him.
“I did tell you they loved you more than me,” he murmured. More loudly, he said, “Can anybody tell me the name of the family who owns this property?”
“Telrani,” came a reply, from a grim and wizened old corporal. “This be the house of Family Telrani.”
“From this moment,” Faldini announced, “there shall be no more Family Telrani in Petrodor! Where you find a Telrani, kill him! Where you find a relative of a Telrani, kill him also! Burn their property, kill their women, I want them erased ! Sergeant Drosi!”
“Captain.”
“Kill these people.” He pointed to the huddled lords and ladies in the courtyard, watching their mansion burn. “Leave only the servants and children.”
“Yes, Captain.” Sergeant Drosi pulled his blade and went to see that done.
Children. Faldini spat. That much I grant to you, he thought silently in the direction of his fallen duke. Only you wouldn't have even killed the women, would you? Torovan was about family, first and always. Family stood together, and family died together. Old, eccentric, wealthy dreamers like Alexanda Rochel might have managed to forget that fact, but the lowborn likes of Faldini knew better. He'd see about the children another day. But not here, with his duke's body still warm.