Date: 20-6-1561 WC
♦♦♦
The dawn was a haze of smoke.
Kaen stood atop the forward ridge, the chill of the early morning wind biting at his face. Below him, two kilometers away, the city still loomed: stone ramparts, crooked towers, banners whipping in the ash-touched air. A hopeless city, outmatched by the weapons Kaen had brought to its gates.
The first day they had only prepared. But today—today was no longer about testing or preparation. Today the war engines would speak in full.
"Ready the batteries," Kaen commanded. His voice carried cold iron, steady, unshaken.
Along the Bernardian-style siege lines, earthworks and sandbag revetments shielded the barrels of seventy cannons. Their crews stood by, boots and uniforms blackened with soot, palms blistered from handling steel and powder. The guns were not medieval bombards nor crude culverins like the defenders clung to. These were machines of a later, deadlier age, imported and reinforced by Bernardian doctrine.
