The pillar of black smoke on the eastern horizon was a public declaration, a signal meant not just for Alessandro, but for the entire besieging army. Panic, the most corrosive of all military acids, began to spread through the Baron's camp.
It arrived in the form of three terrified, wounded men-at-arms, the first survivors of the caravan ambush. They stumbled into the command tent, their faces white with shock, babbling about an army pouring from the hills, a force of hundreds, maybe a thousand men, that had fallen upon them without warning.
The Baron of Monte San Giovanni, enraged that his secret war had been met with an open one, did not question the exaggerated numbers. His pride, already wounded by the failure of the first assault, was incensed. That this upstart falcon would dare to attack him, to strike at the rear of his own army, was an intolerable insult.
"They dare!" he roared, slamming a gauntleted fist on his campaign table. "They think to catch the lion in a peasant's snare!" He turned to his captains. "We will crush this pathetic ghost army ourselves. Take the knights and two hundred foot. We ride east at once. The rest of you," he snarled, gesturing to the hundred men left behind, "maintain the siege. Let no one in or out. When I return, I will hang this boy-lord from his own walls."
From the battlements of Castiglione, Alessandro watched with breathless anticipation as the Baron's great army split itself in two. A massive column, containing all the knights and the best of the men-at-arms, began to march east, away from the castle, chasing the phantom army Valerio had created. It was the fatal mistake Alessandro had been counting on. The lion had left its den to chase a shadow.
He let them march for a full hour, waiting until their column was a distant smudge on the horizon. Then, he turned to Centurion Marco, his voice cold and sharp as newly forged steel.
"The eye of the enemy is unlidded. It is time. Open the gate."
The command sent a jolt of fierce, terrifying energy through the defenders. The great wooden gates of Castiglione, which had been barred for days, groaned open. From within, the army of the Falcon charged.
It was not a wild, screaming mob. It was a single, sixty-five-man fist of disciplined fury. Alessandro himself led from the front, the Falcon banner held high by Enzo at his side. The forty men of the Falcon Guard formed a solid wedge, their shields locked, their spears bristling. Lord Orso and his twenty-five men, their fear burned away by the heat of the moment, followed close behind, their swords and axes ready.
The remaining besiegers, a skeleton crew of a hundred men left to watch the walls, were caught in a state of utter, unprepared shock. They had been watching their own army march away and had relaxed their guard, believing the true fight was happening elsewhere. They turned to see the castle gates wide open and an armored phalanx charging directly at them.
Panic erupted. The Falcon Guard smashed into the thin line of soldiers guarding the precious siege equipment with irresistible force. The guards, expecting to spend their day watching a wall, were overwhelmed in seconds. Alessandro's target was not the men; it was the machinery.
"To the catapult! Burn it!" he roared.
While the main force engaged the disorganized soldiers, teams carrying torches and oil rushed the great siege engine. They threw their incendiaries onto the wooden frame, and the complex machine that had tormented them for days was quickly engulfed in flames.
The battle for the camp was a chaotic rout. The Baron's remaining men, leaderless and attacked from an impossible direction, lost all cohesion. Lord Orso and his men, fighting with the desperate courage of those defending their own homes, fell upon them, exacting a heavy price for the days of fear they had endured.
Within twenty minutes, it was over. The siege of Castiglione was broken. The Baron's camp was a burning wreck, his catapult a pyre of smoking timber. The surviving besiegers had thrown down their weapons and fled into the hills.
Alessandro stood amidst the burning tents, his chest heaving, his sword dripping. His men let out a great, ragged cheer of victory. They had done the impossible. A force of sixty-five had defeated an army of over three hundred through sheer audacity and brilliant strategy.
But Alessandro knew the fight was not over. He looked to the east, where the Baron and his main force were still chasing shadows.
"They will learn of the deception soon enough," he said to Marco and a blood-splattered Lord Orso. "And when they do, they will turn back. Enraged. Humiliated."
He scanned the faces of his own tired, wounded, but victorious soldiers. He looked at the secure walls of Castiglione behind them. Then he looked at the open field before them, the field where the Baron's remaining two hundred and fifty men would soon return.
He had a choice. Retreat to the safety of the fortress to endure a new, more furious siege, or stand and fight on the ground he had just won, on his own terms.
The greatest battle for Castiglione was yet to be fought.