At dawn, the silence broke.
The drums of the legions thundered in rhythm, and the sky above the Francian capital darkened with the flight of arrows.
Thousands loosed in a single volley, a black storm hissing against the light of morning.
The defenders answered in kind, their shafts clattering off shields and helms, some finding flesh.
The air shrieked with wood and iron.
From the walls came cries — curses, prayers, death-shouts — but the line held.
Romanus shields locked, their archers stepping forward between the gaps to shoot, then retreating again behind the wall of iron.
The discipline of years of conquest met the desperate frenzy of a kingdom's last stand.
On the eastern front, the first catapult stones flew.
Great engines crouched like crouching beasts, their cords straining as engineers loosed them with shouts.
Stones the size of oxen smashed into the walls, sending chips of white masonry raining down.
