The twisting black iron walls of Aquilonia, so monstrous and threatening from afar, did not seem quite so looming now, Ioannes noted as he rode the length of his drawn-up battle lines. The walls were large, that was to be admitted, but they were not made of thick stone but sheets of hammered metal, and while it would be impossible to grapple over them it would not be so difficult to tear through.

He had chosen to set the rams to work where he gauged that the city's original gate should have been. That gate had fallen long ago, and a new one had been erected in turn from black iron on the other side of the city, but Ioannes judged that if they could break through the walls there the main street into the city should provide room to maintain his soldiers' ranks.

The siege had been a strange one, to be sure. For some weeks not a single sortie had emerged from the walls to challenge the invaders, and the gaunt-eyed scouts atop the towers did not seem particularly concerned. Eventually the rotting egg of the city had hatched, however, and hundreds of ill-armored and unskilled slave soldiers had emerged. Ioannes had commanded his sergeants to strike at the enemy commanders and let the rest break without pursuit. 

And the enemy armies had broken, that was to be sure. After the frontlines collapsed the rest had scattered every which way, as men in black armor atop black horses tried to maintain order. Crossbowmen and archers dealt with them, and Ioannes and his cavalry had swept in between the army and its city, leaving the fleeing soldiers to run in any other direction. They were not followed; Ioannes hoped, though he knew it foolish, that they might recover from whatever foulness engulfed the city in the wilds and come to rejoin civilization.

Such a battle had repeated over and over, with ever-increasing frequency, as Ioannes' rams and trebuchets came closer to punching a suitable hole into the city's walls. With each sortie the slaves seemed more desperate, though many refused to break -- in fear of what might happen if they were recaptured? -- and instead died on the spears or lances of the phalanxes of Acharnae. There had not been time even to bury the dead before the next wave emerged, and so they had been cleansed in great bonfires against the city's walls.

A messenger had arrived at Ioannes' camp in the dead of night, however, and informed him that the walls had been broken. The city had not yet noticed. As the moon shone bright above, Ioannes drew his remaining armies -- perhaps a fourth of them had been lost to battle or attrition -- into tight columns, with his cavalry at the head. They would ride ahead to surprise the enemy, and behind the main force would storm into the city and recapture it.

As was to be expected, the scouts in their towers noticed as Ioannes led a wedge of mounted lancers through a newly-made gap in the walls. The air filled with shouts and commands in some guttural ancient language, but it was not soon enough. The wedge tore through the bleary and half-assembled slave ranks like a knife through supple cloth as they raced ahead towards the city's inner sanctum.

Ioannes supposed that the center of the city must once have contained a great marble forum. Now, however, it was a fortress in and of itself, the only building inside of the city's walls that had been rebuilt. Where the roads leading up to it had been all sun-bleached, half-destroyed facades and pillars, this one shone darkly in the moonlight. Drawn up in front of it was a more worrying force -- a line of horsemen to meet their own, armored all in black iron plate that seemed the same material as the fortress itself. They lowered oiled lances and charged to meet Ioannes' wedge along the road.

The first few seconds were chaos, as lines met and horses wheeled. Ioannes' lance wedged itself deep into the gorget of some poor fool, and as he dropped it he unsheathed the orichalcum-lined blade of his forefathers. Around Ioannes the line had broken up into two dozen individual duels, and further back the main infantry had fallen upon the broken lines of the Aquilonians. 

Ioannes chose his target, raising his sword towards a man taller than most on a spotted destrier. The knight turned and met his gaze, and both charged. Horses wheeled around one another as both fighters landed blows on one another's shields and armor. The rest of the world fell away, and for a few moments all that existed was the sword in hand and the sword in his foe's hand and the song of steel. Ioannes parried the black knight's longsword aside with his superior blade, and buried his sword to the hilt in a chink in the man's pauldron. He was rewarded with a pained grunt and the sound of a sword clattering to the ground. Ioannes drew his blade back out and lodged it with a thrust deep into his enemy's visor. As he pulled it out once more for another swing, the knight toppled lifeless from his horse. 

By then the main battle lines had caught up with the cavalry, and the remaining black knights -- perhaps half of those who had originally rode from their stronghold -- fled for safety. Several were met with well-placed crossbow quarrels, and one was spilled from his horse as it collapsed dead to the ground. Ioannes' own had fared slightly better, though not by any great measure; many of his companions lay dead on the paved stones, and their horses milled aimlessly or sprawled over their corpses. 

The battle was not won, of course. As the gate of the stronghold was encircled, Ioannes and his remaining cavalry rode to the city's new gate and raised it for the rest of his army to enter. Another block of slave fodder marched from the inner sanctum, and were quickly slaughtered or shattered. 

The dawn had arrived when Ioannes' battering rams broke down the gate of the main fortress. With the first rays of morning light spilling over the ruins of a once-great city, he rode into the gaping maw of the city center.